The other side of Covid.

[Suff]

If you look at it from the cynical side, it's all a crock anyway except for the vaccines.

On Thursday we will fly from Limoges airport to East Midlands. I'm getting BOMBARDED every day by Scumair with words like MUST and WILL and full of RED TEXT telling dire consequences of lack of travel or being expelled from the plane.

That we have to arrive at the small regional airport a MINIMUM of 2.5 hours before the plane is due to leave and that we MUST wear our masks at all times in the terminal, at all times in the departure lounge, at ALL times on the plane and ALL THE WAY TO THE EXIT OF THE AIRPORT. That we MUST NOT queue at the desk for either priority or normal boarding.

Actually if we go to the café and sit down with a drink at the airport we can sit without our mask on, inside or outside, from when we have completed check in to when we step through security on the very last call. When we get on the plane, yes, we'll have to wear a mask ALL the time. Unless, of course, we order a drink and/or a meal. Then, magically, a mask is no longer needed to protect you because you have to be able to consume your very expensive dink or meal.

Either a mask is needed or it is not, especially in the closed environment with recirculated air of an aircraft. If it is needed then a drink and a meal should not be offered.

It is all a crock and a confidence game and wherever you touch the borders of reality it becomes very clear.

Then you have the arrival. After being bombarded with CAPITAL LETTERS and BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS and RED BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. That being said, when we arrive in East Midland airport, mandatory becomes "recommend and expect". It is no longer the law and even EMA says "strongly recommends the wearing of face coverings at all times in the terminal building". Not mandatory, not evicted if not, just strongly recommend".

I'm living with someone who is going through a personal hell to deal with wearing a mask around a huge group of strangers and the closer you look at the whole stack of ordure, the more farcical it becomes.

Tomorrow we take our PCR tests. Our Day 2 kits have already arrived, complete with Ryanair fiver off for the princely sum of £43 each. We will engage in this comedy so we can get to where we are going. But we shall never lose sight of the fact that this whole performance has more sound than substance.