I will show you fear in a handful of dust T S Elliot, The Wasteland
The news that the Prime Minister had been admitted to Intensive Care feels like a game changer. Any lingering doubts about the seriousness of the situation have vaporised. “It’s just a kind of ‘flu”, “It will be over in weeks not months” and so on. Such comments are no more.
Mrs Jones (aka Special K) put it very well a couple of nights ago with a pert little question. We were sitting in companionable silence, the fire blazing cheerfully in the hearth. I was humming along to Meatloaf on the Bose. My Life’s Joy was tying off a bundle of pine needles prior to weaving them into the base of breadbasket she is making. It is part of a nest of three. A five year project that has generated considerable excitement on Pinterest.
“Should we be panicking?” she asked suddenly left of field. Although questions from my partner rarely come right of field. I am not sure she knows there is a right of field.
I was reassuring. “Under Control in China….Soon be past the peak…..Health Services coping splendidly”. And so on.
But now two days later I find myself reconsidering. Perhaps panic is in order.
Boris in Intensive Care? Tubed and silently wheezing, Bozza? Man of many parts: Boris the Jolly, Bombastic Boris, Boris the Bluffer, Boris the Bad who had to apologise to the city of Liverpool and then to the city of Portsmouth (“city of drugs, obsesity and underachievement”). Boris the Biographer (Churchill).
The man who made it from best Chairman of “Have I Got News for You” to the nation’s highest political office. Bombproof Boris: now laid low by Mother Nature’s Very Bad Joke.
By the way I did tell you I like using Initial Capital Letters didn’t I? I think it goes back to A. A. Milne and his Bear of Very Little Brain. Nanny always read it to me before my nightly spanking (“Gets the circulation going young master and ensures a good night’s sleep!”. Bless her. They do not make them like that any more).
Anyway back to Boris. Our thoughts are with him and his family. Whatever your political colours or longheld beliefs about Boris, this is a time to rally round and bring our collective thoughts and hopes (I am an atheist) to bear on his speedy recovery.
I suspect we need someone like Boris at the helm, even if it is not him who is really making the decisions (perhaps especially if..). Boris knows how to make a rallying call. He has the gift of the gab. I have no idea about the sinisterly named Mr Raab.
So should we panic?
Yes! Why not! Let us all, wherever we are, have a bloody good global panic. A pandemic panic. A panic to expunge our fear of…panic. From your balconies, tower blocks, brickbuilt terraces let’s all have one massive collective panic.
But duration is everything. There is no science here. No expert can tell you exactly how long to panic for. Too short and you do not vent the toxins. Too long and it trips into mania and WE ARE ALL DOOMED.
So I respectfully suggest 19 seconds, a nice, roundish, end of adolesence, dawn of youthful hope sort of number.
Ready…..now!