…and other pandemic positives.
There are not many positive things to be said about
the pandemic. Least of all in the UK where it was and is being handled so very
badly but there are some.
After years of health practitioners begging the
government to challenge the food lobby about unhealthy food – suddenly the
obesity epidemic that has been with us for decades is a priority for Boris
Johnny-cum-lately.
With our dim-blimp PM boasting about shaking hands
with covid patients in March – presumably trying to channel Princess Dianna (!)
in her approach to breaking taboos about AIDS – he got it – as usual -
COMPLETELY WRONG but is now cautioning about preventing further outbreaks. Leading from behind.
One wonders whether the imposition of a 2 week quarantine
on holiday makers returning from Spain is in fact a retaliation for them
complaining about Brits on holiday there behaving like Brits on holiday – but
we’ll see on that one as yet more companies teeter on the brink of collapse.
But as his mantra of build/ build/ build already
sounds emptier than his marriage promises – and the urge to get people out
eating in restaurants and return to buying masses of shit they don’t need with
money they don’t have fails to significantly materialise – there is positive
sign that some folk have taken an extremely positive lesson from covid 19.
On Friday afternoon I went for a walk through my
local park. I was lucky enough to be the lead writer on a project a couple of
years back linked to its renovation. It is now largely complete and on Friday
it was not just full, it was bursting at the seams.
It was as full as I remember parks being in the
1960s when – on a Saturday and Sunday afternoons – rather than parents dragging kids around shopping
malls training them to be mindless consumers - they would go to the park.
This is a snippet from my epic environmental story
poem Casey & the Surfmen. This extract is from the end of part II when those who are arguing for more concrete and consumerism
suggest that there is no return to a time when folk did not get their
entertainment from buying huge quantities of crap they don’t need with money
they don’t have and accuse the environmental campaigners of lack of reality
Surely
everyone can see (they said)
We
need more shops and malls
Where
will the youngsters go
To
meet up with their pals
Where
will all the shoppers get their bags and bags of stuff
The
kind of things of which you just never have enough
We
need more concrete car parks and extensive motorways
Wishful
thinking will not return us to those long gone dreamy days
When
people walked
You’re
living in the dark
If
you think
Kids
just want
To
go
To
The
Park
If the only thing that has come out of the horrors
of Covid in the UK is that instead of heading to retail outlets stuffed with
produce made by the exploited masses of the planet - as a form of entertainment
– families go, instead, to the park, I for one will say loud and clear that
something good has come out of this whole mess.
Casey & the Surfmen (paperback)