A new world shall arise from the old

I DON’T want to be one of those people who complain about the behaviour of others during the coronavirus. Everyone has a story to tell, and my brief one simply involves a visit to the supermarket.

This is a nerve-wracking experience now, less frequent than it used to be and hedged in with so many rules that you fear breaking merely through forgetfulness or habit. So you approach the entrance, saying to yourself: “Remember to do this and not to do that. Don’t get into a fight. Don’t pick your nose.”

And then you get in and find a young woman blocking the narrow entrance aisle so nobody can get past, while she texts something. At last, after causing a back-up at the door, she finally finishes and, ignoring the wipes and free gloves, goes over to the fruit and veg, where she starts picking up various peppers with her hands, testing them before putting them back. Unbelievable.

I mention it partly to tell you a story about something even more unbelievable that I saw in a supermarket back in BV (Before Virus). This middle-aged woman was doing the same as the young pepper-woman, only with bakery rolls. She picked up several and felt them for consistency. Then, when she had made her selection, she used the provided tongs to put them in her bag.

Somewhere in her brain she must have acknowledged that you were supposed to use the tongs, but she hadn’t computed that these were provided to stop you handling the products. They were just ... one of these things. They were a matter of etiquette, like the peculiar array of culinary implements that posh people provide for various different dishes.

Well, now they’re telling us that etiquette is going to change forever AV (After Virus). As regards tongs, they’ll be used for all sorts of shopping and you’ll be urged to bring your own. Sounds like a plan, even though you can fair mangle a Danish pastry with them sometimes.

There’s also that moment when you fear you’re going to drop your item. Imagine the embarrassment that would cause now. You’d be surrounded by security guards with tasers, as alarms shrieked and crime scene tape was placed round the floored bakery product.

Other new social rules include excellent news about the discouraging of kissing and hugging outside family members or a “bubble” of close friends. Oh joy. If only it could be extended to include family friends and friends. Imagine a ban on cheek-kissing. Life would be so much better.

In future, pedestrians will be urged to walk on the right side of the pavement, which I think is already the case with London escalators. But, on the escalators, that’s to allow busy, important people to overtake.

You know that people will just do the same on the pavements as they already do on the roads when you leave a decent distance between you and the car in front, and the impatient maddies overtake into it and fill up the space.

So much for humans. Animals will also be affected by the new rules. Cats will be kept indoors, meaning the gardens of neighbours won’t be so full of excreta and mangled songbirds.

Back to humans, and another revolutionary suggestion is that muzak could be turned off in shops so that people didn’t have to move closer to each other to hear what they’re saying.

You’ve got to admit this is all rather grand. It’s just a shame that it took something so calamitous and horrible as the coronavirus to bring it about.

Busy keeping busy

WHENCE this mania for exercise? Folk who’ve never lifted a finger before are now waddling aboot in the parks and public spaces. They have taken the Government’s advice about “once a day” as instruction rather than restriction.

Indeed, experts are now warning the lieges about overdoing it and injuring themselves. I nearly did that myself when, bereft of my weekly gym visit, I rescued a whole load of equipment from the garden shed and the attic, and nearly broke my back trying to assemble it.

I must say though that, once it was up and running, and I had a wee go on it, I felt marvellous afterwards. Endorphins and whatnot whizzed round my heid and I said to myself: “I must do this more often.”

Never done it again since. The stuff just sits there in the spare bedroom, or man-cave, along with all the guitars I can’t play and woodworking and DIY tools that I can’t work.

Instead, I have concentrated on exercising my mind, catching up with a load of reading of actual books. This form of exercise, conducted in a seating position, has been really good for my glutes.

I mean my butt getting much bigger is a good thing, right?

Five things we learned this week

1 King James I of Scotland climbed down his toilet in a doomed attempt to escape assassins. Not a cludgie as we know it – tricky getting down one of these – but a cesspit, down which he found himself without a paddle.

2 Every cloud etc. Coronavirus could be good for yellow rattle, knapweed, wood calamint and scabious. Council verges going uncut has benefited wild flowers but also bees, butterflies, birds, bats and bugs. Mind you, they sound like a right load of b’s.

3 Things look more cloudy for beer. Millions of pints are going to waste with coronavirus keeping pubs closed. Some beers only last six weeks in pubs. Mind you, that’s five weeks and six days more than they do in our house.

4 A rare bottle of whisky could fetch £1.6 million in an online auction tomorrow. The Macallan 1926 is described as the “holy grail” of whisky. Wouldn’t have stopped my dear old dad adding a splash of lemonade to it.

5 Brazilian researchers have found that cats, like dogs, suffer separation anxiety when their owners are away. They don’t take it lying down or whine about it, though, like their canine compadres. They micturate in the kitchen sink, vases, beds and clothing.