As we all
stagger out of Lockdown, trying to dodge the Indian Covid variant and no doubt
the next Great Plague too, our habits must adapt to our newly liberated world.
The reopening of pubs and restaurants is good news generally, but my tastes in
food and drink are a little antique and I am chary of abandoning social
distancing quite yet.
A return to conviviality
I was fascinated by the recent story of the
campaign to save Britain’s 40,000 pubs. It issued a clarion call for all
adults to increase their pub spending this year and each consume;
124 pints
of beer, or,
122 glasses
of wine, or, if teetotal
976 packets
of crisps, or
40 roast
dinners.
Most of us will at least attempt to do their
bounden duty to save our pubs and imbibe with enthusiasm!
The licensed trade campaign actually is not
setting very high consumption bars for the habitual drinker (230 or so days
left in 2021) – but “all adults” is another matter. I used to drink very
regularly and in quantities I reckoned normal, but our alarmist and timid NHS
would brand “excessive”. In my dotage, my capacity has tailed off, but I very
rarely have an alcohol-free day. Sadly, I now mainly drink at home so I am no
great gift to the licensed trade.
As I cautiously peer over the top of my Brexit
trench, I consider what wines I should drink. I am reluctant to buy French
(although they do produce excellent, if overpriced, stuff) and I can probably
do without Italian and German gargles. I may have to make do with Chilean or
Argentinian reds supplemented by Antipodean whites – English wine is potable
but expensive. I cannot renounce my warming
Spanish sherry, mainstay of my long and idle afternoons.
As for food, I cherish Scotch beef and Welsh
lamb, said to be endangered by a prospective free trade deal between the UK and
Australia, a substantial meat producer. I guess there is an element of special
pleading about this controversy and a deal will materially benefit both
countries. All deals are to be welcomed, especially with our Commonwealth
brothers, as we rebuild the contacts of Global Britain, no doubt in due course
with our European and American cousins too.
Once we escape from Lockdown, how do we amuse
ourselves? Large-scale spectator events, like football, cricket and rugby
matches, are not attractive to me (much better viewed on the telly) though an
English village cricket game, with tea and crumpets, would warm the cockles. I
watch far too much afternoon TV and brain-rot is an (non-)occupational hazard.
Worst of all, over three nights this week we have the Eurovision Song Contest,
long ago seized by the gays and the glitterati. This year it comes from liberal
Rotterdam and deadly dud songs, flamboyant flouncers and strobe lighting will
invade every house in the land. OMG – popular culture!
Fallen
Angel Tix of Norway enchants Eurovision
We idly dream of foreign holidays but that road
seems to be strewn with obstacles, quarantines, tests and red, amber and green
lists – not to mention bureaucratic confusion, the threat of variants and
different rules for different countries. The contradictory voices of “experts”
assail us, hopelessly entwining science with politics. The British weather has
been particularly unkind, pushing us to flee South and we yearn for the
Mediterranean sun or spacious America. At present the human price is too high,
what with profiteering airlines, dodgy local infection statistics and lengthy,
sweaty arrival queues at Heathrow.
I optimistically hope that these matters will
be sorted out in the next few months but our luck could easily be running thin
this year. More realistically, we may have to settle for 2 bracing weeks in
Skegness, a mystery bus tour to Wolverhampton and a plateful of tepid Cornish
pasties!
SMD
20.05.21
Text Copyright© Sidney Donald
2021
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