NOT A PHONEY WAR
Check out the playlist I made for the occasion:
This last weekend for me has been reminiscent of an earlier time in history. I have read many accounts of the so-called ‘phoney war’ which occurred in Britain just after the beginning of the Second World War. Apparently everybody wandered around in the sunshine and nothing really happened for a few months. They’d been told clearly that they were at war but they hadn’t seen enough hard evidence on their home front to make them behave in an appropriate manner.
There seems to have been a similar reaction in many countries to the beginning of the Covid crisis. In the same way as people at the end of the 1930s could not conceive of another world war only 20 years on from the previous one, the Internet driven 21st-century populations are quite ready to believe that the pandemic is just another Internet exaggeration. Simply more lies, propaganda and untruths. Unfortunately this is the real thing.
We in Britain have been much derided for an apparent slow reaction to the unavoidable. While I think it might have been a good idea for the government to enforce a more rigorous lockdown earlier, I have a certain admiration for the consideration of peoples’ mental health as well as their risk of contracting a potential killer disease.
Most people rely so much on routine, structure and freedom of space. I’m pretty lucky because I’ve always had to structure my own daily routine and work. It will obviously take folk a while to get used to restrictions of movement and complete responsibility for the assignation of their time. No country in the world is ready for this. It’s a real situation which hopefully brings out the best in people. It’s definitely not a phoney war!!
Stay healthy my friends. JW.