Alternate Title*

I felt the need to get out of the house on Sunday. My body was crying out for some exercise and whilst I’d carried out a fair amount of long-overdue pruning the previous day, the requirement to properly stretch my legs, combined with a change of scenery, prompted me to take a walk down into the centre of Tonbridge.

Unlike Saturday when the sun had been shining, Sunday was rather dull and overcast, with a distinct chill in the air, but it was still dry, so after agreeing to pick up some shopping for Mrs PBT’s, off I went.

Now with pubs, bars and restaurants all closed, there was nowhere tempting for me to partake in some liquid refreshment, and as I wrote in a previous post, it very much feels like this mean-spirited government have sucked all the fun and joy out of life.  I’d joked, whilst leaving the house, about finding somewhere to sit and enjoy a drink. I meant a coffee, but Mrs PBT’s thought I was referring to a beer - no chance of that, I'm afraid!

If proof were needed of my desire for something a little different and out of the ordinary, I took a slight detour to see whether the gas-main replacement work, disrupting my usual route to work, had finished yet. 

Boy I know how to live, but the work that was supposed to have been completed within a forthright, now looks likely to drag on for several more weeks, at least. No doubt the utility company will blame the delay on Covid-19; after all it’s blamed for everything else that goes wrong, but I continued on my journey, mulling over the lack of traffic and the virtual absence of people out and about.

As I approached our local Waitrose supermarket, it became obvious that many of the missing cars were parked up there, and that was where many of the people were as well. I had planned on calling in to pick up some beer, as even though I’m awash with the stuff at home, I’m always on the lookout for something new that takes my fancy, or a bargain.  A combination of both is the ideal scenario, but it doesn’t often work out that way.

Put off by the crowds I envisaged thronging the aisles of Waitrose (I’d had enough of that the previous day at Tesco, in Sevenoaks), I walked across to the river, before reaching the High Street and making my way across  what is know locally as the “Big Bridge.”

Before doing so, I noticed people queuing up outside KFC, for their southern-fried chicken fix. What a sorry state we’ve become, as apart from home delivery services such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber, standing inline outside a takeaway is the only option left for those unwilling or unable to rustle up a meal at home.  The same applied to anyone, like me, fancying a coffee – as mentioned earlier.

We’ll come onto the takeaway coffee thing shortly, but first I continued up the High Street, passed posh-nosh restaurant Verdigris, to the Organic Village Market. Formerly the Tailor-Made Wine Library, this multi-faceted emporium has established itself as a place to pick up some interesting beers, as well as a go-to store for fresh organic produce, much of it locally sourced.

I stepped inside, and it didn’t disappoint. On the contrary, there were several shelves, plus a number of fridges all loaded with a variety of hard to get beers. There were probably too many German wheat beers for my liking, but there were some other gems from the Fatherland, including Paulaner and Hofbräu from Munich, plus a beer from Rothaus (not the Pils, unfortunately).

Local brewers, Westerham also featured prominently, but the beers that caught my eye, were a selection from Curious Brew and Samuel Smith. I only purchased three bottles in the end, because that was all that would fit in my small rucksack, but as the late Errol Brown and Hot Chocolate sang, “Everyone’s a Winner.”

So, we have Curious Porter 5.2%, a London-style porter from Curious Brew, Dragon Stout 7.5%,  a strong classic Jamaican stout from the West Indies, and finally Organic Strawberry Fruit Beer 5.1%, marketed under the Sam Smith’s name, but brewed at the former Melbourn Bros Brewery, in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

The latter, in particular, is a rare find, as are Sam Smith’s other beers, of which I noticed Pure Brewed Lager and Pale Ale; but no Yorkshire Stingo, alas. A previous visit unearthed Alt Schlenkerla Märzen; the classic Rauchbier from Bamberg, but sadly none was available on Sunday. It was still a good haul, and I shall be making further visits during the coming two months of enforced Tier 3 lockdown that the county is being forced to endure - thank-you Medway and Sheppey!

After the beer purchases, a takeaway coffee was in order, and here I was spoilt for choice. There was too much of a queue outside TOFS (Tonbridge Old Fire Station), and whilst Verdigris’ canopied seating area, overlooking the Medway looked tempting, in the end I opted for a flat white from the Ye Olde Chequers.

The latter is probably the oldest and certainly one of the most attractive pub in Tonbridge, but it was their ingenuity in turning one of the front doors into a makeshift serving hatch. With no queue, and my coffee retailing at £2.00, the Chequers got my business, and after purchase I sat on a bench by the bus stops enjoying an excellent flat white.  

I could see people on opposite bank of river, doing the same thing – a real sorry state of affairs. I asked myself is this what we have become as a nation, oppressed and cajoled by a government fixated on a single issue, crashing the economy in a vain attempt to suppress a virus that is asymptomatic for most of the population and a mortality rate of around 1 %.

Despite these thoughts, I still enjoyed my foray into Tonbridge, the coffee I drank in the shadow of its ancient castle walls, and the joy behind the beers I stumbled upon, so unexpectedly at Organic Village Market. I also clocked up 10,000 steps over the course of my walk, so who said there wasn’t a silver lining to every cloud? 

* Alternate Title. "What have we become?" or "Every cloud has a sliver lining." Or, this 1967 classic from the Monkees.

So what can a poor boy do?

There’s been more than enough written already about Doris’s ill-conceived and half-cocked Tier system, which supposedly a way out of lockdown, whilst being stricter than the main event itself. I’m not going to add to my contributions to the pile, apart from saying I wasn’t at all surprised to see the Garden of England being dumped into the highest level, at Tier 3.

It goes without saying that local pub, bar and restaurant owners have my deepest sympathy. I feel their pain, but unfortunately there’s precious little I can do about it. CAMRA is encouraging people to express their disquiet by writing to their local MP; but most of them have already made their feelings of dis-satisfaction  known to the government.

Despite their obvious concerns about the damaging effect on local businesses, Doris has made it quite clear he’s not listening, and certainly not budging. For better or worse, he’s thrown his weight behind those po-faced, doom and gloom merchants, Profs Whitty and Vallance. Whitty looks as though he's about to burst into tears at any moment, and as for the so-called SAGE group, why are politicians so obsessed with acronyms? Perhaps it's a hangover from WWII, the conflict that Brexit-backing, Tory politicians in particular, are fixated on?

So, with nowhere to go and nothing much to do, what can a poor boy going do to while away the time? Mick Jagger had the “same old rock n’ roll band” in mind when he asked that question, but I’ve got the joys of writing and updating this blog to keep me amused and out of mischief. I’ve also got more than enough work, in a professional capacity, to last me until well into next year, and potentially beyond.

Hibernation might not be too bad an idea at the moment – sleeping all through the cold dark winter months, and then waking up when spring and the much-awaited vaccine arrive, but as winter is not all bad, why sleep away more of your life than you need to?

There are still walks in the countryside to be had, even though those of us stuck in Tier 3 won’t have a nice rural pub to stop off at, en route. On that score,  and unless the weather is particularly bad, I've been sticking with my regular lunchtime walks, notching up between 6,500 & 7,000 steps most days. Not quite the recommended 10,000, but far better than nothing at all.

I’ve also got plenty of jobs I need to do out in the garden; boring jobs admittedly, such as pruning and raking up the remaining fallen leaves, but they are still tasks performed out in a healthy, outdoor fresh air environment. So, put it this way; I am unlikely to get bored, even though I am missing the company of friends and even strangers. 

The work environment has been good for company and conversation; something that does make me feel for those faced with the isolation that comes from having to work from home. What might have seemed like a good idea at the start of the pandemic, has turned into something of a nightmare 10 months on.

The enforced closure of pubs, has meant that the bonhomie that goes with “a pint amongst friends,"  is something denied to us at the moment, so one of the best ways we can support and help local pubs stay afloat, is to give our business to those outlets offering takeout’s – beer, or food, it all helps. The same applies to breweries, and this is an area I’ve contributed to several times since the start of this nonsense.

Larkin’s Brewery are now one of the oldest of Kent’s established small breweries; having celebrated 35 years in the business. Their Larkin’s Farm home is a short hop from where I work, so Thursday morning, I gave them a call and ordered a 5-litre mini keg of their excellent Porter.

I drove over at lunchtime to collect it, and at the time of writing it’s sitting in my summerhouse dropping bright and gaining in condition. I’ve had a few of these mini kegs before, and apart from perhaps polypins, feel they represent one of the best ways of keeping draught ale, fresh and in tip-top condition. I had one of porter, last Christmas and got stuck into an equally enjoyable keg of the brewery’s Best Bitter, a month of so into lockdown.

Larkin’s have a reputation for well-conditioned beers, which are just as they should be presented and just how I like them, so I am looking forward to pouring myself an attractive and foaming pint of porter shortly.

So, as we wait for this nonsense to be over, why not check out which of your local pubs or breweries are offering takeout’s and give them your support. That way you can help ensure their presence when this whole wretched business has come to an end.

 

Beer in the news

As promised in my last post, here’s a roundup of three beer-related stories that have caught my eye over the course of the week. We’ll start with the bad one, and get that out of the way, before reviewing the two good news stories, so that we finish on a positive note.

The bad news story is not totally unexpected. The current pandemic has obviously played a part in it, but many would argue that all the virus has done is precipitate a long-overdue reset within the niche it relates to.

The story, which features in Beer Insider, concerns a forecasted fall in the number of breweries in London. Even prior to the pandemic, there were serious concerns expressed about serious over-capacity within the capital’s brewing industry. Now, following a survey of members of the London Brewers’ Alliance (LBA), only 60% of the group’s 105 members are confident of remaining in business, once the crisis is over.

If correct, this would take membership numbers back to 65, a figure last seen in 2014. Such a fall in numbers indicates a serious correction in brewery numbers; a situation that many industry observers had been predicting for some time.  The pre-pandemic view was that such overcapacity had been unsustainable for some time, so Covid-19 has merely brought the situation to a head.

Whilst this is obviously bad news for the businesses concerned, and to some extent consumers, such a cull could benefit the surviving breweries, by removing some of the pressure caused by overcapacity within the industry. Given the enormous choice of beers available, many drinkers are unlikely to notice the non-availability of certain brands; unless that particular beer was a personal favourite, or they had some emotional connection to it. This story is well worth keeping an eye on, but for the full picture, along with some interesting statistics about the rise, and expected fall in breweries operating in London, head over to Beer Insider by clicking the link.

The second story is a much more positive one and concerns an injection of capital into the revived Hofmeister lager brand. I’ve covered the successful re-vamp of Hofmeister before, reporting on how two British drinks entrepreneurs, bought the brand from Heineken, who were Hofmeister’s last owners before the beer was withdrawn from the market in 2004.

The pair, Spencer Chambers and Richard Longhurst, took the beer back to its supposed Bavarian roots, by approaching a small traditional brewer, based in that region of Germany to produce a premium lager that they could be proud of. Fourth generation Bavarian brewery, Schweiger, came up with a 5% Helles bier, brewed in keeping with the German Reinheitsgebot, beer-purity law, that has been received with universal acclaim.

I won’t cover the whole story, but it’s worth considering that whilst the original Hofmeister was the fourth biggest beer brand in Britain, for a period in the late 1980’s – early 1990’s, it was a high-volume, low abv, mainstream lager, produce in the UK. Its success was down to some quite clever, but gimmicky advertising centred around the “George the Bear,” character who it was claimed, came from the forests of Bavaria.

Although the revamped beer has picked up a stack of awards, sales growth has been slow, restricted by the limited investment capability of the entrepreneurs responsible for the relaunch. This is where the two new investors, both with backgrounds within the brewing industry, come in. Kim Francis was recently managing director of pub group EI, whilst Euan Venters was managing director of Greene King’s brewing and brands until 2013.

The pair plan to grow the brand over the next four years, starting in London and the South East. Their aim is for Hofmeister to be on sale in around 1,300 of the top specialist retail and on-trade outlets, with sales of around £10 million. This is good news for drinkers such as me, who really enjoy the revamped Hofmeister, but struggle finding outlets that stock it. You can read more about the investor’s plans, along with the history behind the Hofmeister brand, here.

The final story is another positive one and is the news that the Roscoe Head pub in Liverpool has been bought by its long-serving licensee; a move that will secure its future. Pub connoisseurs will be aware that the Roscoe Head is one of only five pubs to have appeared in every edition of CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide, and the only one in the north of England.

This unspoilt, multi-room pub offers good beer, good conversation and a warm welcome, but despite these obvious attributes, the Roscoe Head has been under threat of alteration, or even closure, by the pub company that owned it. Now, in a surprise move, they have agreed to sell the freehold to licensee, Carol Ross, who has been at the helm since 1997, after taking over the reins from her mother.

Photo - courtesy of WhatPub

Carol has spent the past 10 years fighting to secure the pub’s future, and now her hard work and determination have finally paid off. I haven’t been to the Roscoe Head, despite several visits to Liverpool, but I plan to rectify this situation, once the pandemic is out of the way.

In the meantime, you can read more about the Roscoe Head, and Carol’s struggle with the big company, by clicking on the link to local blogger, Neville Grundy’s excellent ReARM site, here.

 

 

Looking to the heavens for inspiration

I’ve been suffering a real bout of “writer’s block” these past few days after my last post about the second lockdown, and while I accept, I got a little carried away moaning about the powers that be, I meant what I said about the current situation being all work and no play.

Normally there are things to look forward, such as meeting up with friends for a few drinks, a day out spent wandering around an interesting town, a walk to an unspoilt country pub or a short break away, at home or abroad. These are all off the menu, at the moment, although the second option is still possible but even then, I don’t know what restrictions have been placed on travel within one’s own country.

With pubs, restaurants and even cafés closed, opportunities for food and drink are minimal, placing further restrictions on what should be an enjoyable day out. It’s as if HMG and their tame “scientific advisors” have sucked the fun and all the joy out of life! Small wonder that I’ve taken solace in work.

It seems as if I’m not the only one suffering a bout of “lockdown blues” as I’ve noticed a drop off in the output from several other bloggers. There are always exceptions of course, and prolific blogger, Retired Martin continues to entertain us with his tales of pubs up and down the country, interspersed with observations about pub life and the many towns he visits, but few of us possess the same stamina as him.

I was heartened to see a post appear yesterday from Catalan writer and beer enthusiast, Joan Villar-i-Martí.  I first met Joan, who writes his Birraire-Beer Blog under the name of Joan Birraire, at the 2014 Beer Blogger & Writer’s Conference in Dublin. We met up briefly in Brussels the following year, for the same event, when Joan invited me to attend the 2016 Barcelona Beer Festival.

Joan is one of the festival's principal organisers, and I have to say the Barcelona event was one of the best and most laid-back beer festivals I have attended, and as well as enjoying the festival, I had plenty of time to explore the Catalan capital itself. The weather was kind, even in mid-March, and although many of the locals were wrapped up in jackets and scarfs, for a visitor from England, the climate was positively balmy.

The undoubted highlight of my sightseeing in Barcelona, was a pre-booked visit to the Sagrada Familia, the unfinished masterpiece of  renowned Catalan Modernist architect, Antoni Gaudi. Although not a religious person, I couldn’t help feeling both awed and inspired by this magnificent, but still unfinished basilica. Building work is continuing apace, with the aim of completing the structure in 2026; the centenary of Gaudi’s death.

As 2026 will mark 10 years since my visit to the church, I made a vow that I would return that year, to see the completed Sagrada Familia for myself. I will take Mrs PBT’s with me, even though she is not a huge fan of architecture, as her only view of Gaudi’s church was from the upper deck of an open top, sight-seeing bus, some 15 months previously.

Returning to Joan’s blog for a moment, like many of us he was feeling the effects of a sustained lockdown, that was considerably harsher in Spain, than here in the UK. The good news is that Joan is feeling inspired once more and will be throwing himself into a number of literary projects he has been holding back on for years.

So, taking my cue from my Catalan friend, I too am going to crack on with various writing projects of my own. I’ll be kicking off, back on the blog with an article I wrote last year, but never posted. I’ve also come across a couple of interesting beer related stories that I’d like to share with you.

Thanks Joan, but first I need to catch up on my beauty sleep. Until tomorrow………………………

The frustration of lockdown No. 2 - all work and no play

Just after 5pm yesterday evening (Friday), I said goodnight to a colleague, who was the sole worker remaining in the upstairs offices. A few members of production planning were still beavering away downstairs, but the bulk of the workforce had finished for the week.

I wished my colleague a pleasant weekend, and he reciprocated, asking whether I had anything planned? My reply was the same as the previous week, that with pubs and restaurants closed, and travel prohibited, there was very little that one can plan for.

He nodded in agreement, but then replied that despite these restrictions it doesn’t seem much of a lockdown; unlike back in April and May. He was of course right. Business is booming at our company at the moment, with an order book that is full to overflowing, and a production department that is struggling to keep up with demand.

We discussed this briefly, both agreeing that the roads are busier and more crowded than ever. The same applies to supermarkets and other stores that have been allowed to remain open; the only difference being the vast majority of shoppers and shopworkers are wearing masks.

The traffic situation has been exasperated by schools and colleges remaining open; the morning school run being a major source of congestion on already over-crowded roads. (The same probably applies to the afternoon school pick-up, but I am at work when this occurs).

For those bothered about such things, schools are without doubt a major hotspot for spreading Corona virus, unlike pubs, restaurants and hotels (the latter being closed to all but essential travellers during Johnson’s latest round of government-sponsored gesture politics), but once again it is the hospitality sector that has been singled out for an extra helping of misery by the nanny state.

I said to my colleague that whilst we our sector is largely unaffected by lockdown-two, for those individuals working in, or running businesses associated with hospitality, this current round of restrictions is only too real. Despite handouts from the taxpayer, businesses and livelihoods are being ruined, and for what purpose?

With no end in sight, despite a promised review of the situation before the restrictions lapse under law, on 2^nd December, the entire hospitality sector remains fearful of its future. Ministers have been dropping hints that the restrictions might have to be extended, and the Prime Numpty himself seems focussed more on what he might graciously allow the population to do over the Christmas period. This is very big of him, because what right have any government ever had to tell people what they can or can’t do in their own homes; especially
in respect of meeting up with family and friends?

Regrettably, the smart money seems to be on extending the lockdown in respect of pubs, restaurants and hotels, in exchange for “allowing” families to meet up with their loved ones over Christmas. How on earth have we come to a situation where we accept such draconian measures? Unfortunately, a narcissistic egotist like Johnson, who craves attention and is desperate to be loved, is not going to go down as some modern-day Ebeneezer Scrooge, and definitely not as the "Grinch who stole Christmas,"  which means he will strike a bargain with the scientists (even though their data will again be flawed and out of date), and sacrifice the pubs in order to "save" Christmas.

So those of us expecting a return to some sort of  normality in December, are likely to be severely disappointed, and to a sector that makes the large share of its profits over the festive season, the prospect of yet more redundancies,  bankruptcies and business failures, all due to a misguided and discredited policy that even the World Health Organisation has dismissed as doomed to failure.

This brings me back to the conversation with my colleague. We both agreed that it is all work and no play at present, and possibly for some time to come if Johnson and his po-faced scientific advisors have their way. People need to relax and enjoy themselves – let off steam even, especially after working hard. If you can't enjoy your hard-earned cash, then what can you do with it? There's only so much you can save for a rainy day, and remember you can't take it with you, when you depart this mortal coil. 

All work and no play in the end, makes people frustrated, resentful and even angry. Johnson and his bunch of clowns, along with all the other “do-gooders” bleating like sheep for lockdown restrictions to be increased rather than relaxed, would do well to remember this. You can only push people so far, and with anti-lockdown protests increasing across the globe, Doris had better bank on getting that vaccine rolled out pretty quick, before things start turning very ugly indeed.

Finally, I haven’t mentioned the other clusterf*uck heading our way on 1^st January, when we foolishly leave the EU single market and customs union. Time-consuming border checks will now be imposed on all goods coming in and out of the country and Kent will end up as a giant lorry park!

That’s for another day, but I would be rather worried if I was Doris Johnson. The moral here is be very careful of what you wish for, especially if those dreams include becoming Prime Minister.

 

A different aproach to the pandemic?

I’m sure I can’t be the only beer-writer at the moment, sat in front of a computer, with a mind that’s totally devoid of ideas of what to write about; and this is after only 12 days of Doris’s second lockdown. But with pubs, bars and restaurants closed until at least 3^rd December, there’s nowhere to go, even for a quiet drink, and certainly no chance of meeting up with friends or even other family members.

There’s also no guarantee that the current round of restrictions will have the effect the statisticians, or epidemiologists or number-crunching mathematical modellers predict, or the end game that "expert" advisors like Valance, Witty or Johnson’s latest pet scientist "Jay-Vee-Tee" are seeking. It could all have been so very different. 

The normal thing to stop a contagious disease from spreading, is to remove sick people from the population, by confining them, either in a hospital, or at home. Quarantine the unhealthy in order to protect the healthy would be the normal and sensible thing to do and is what has happened during past pandemics.

Unfortunately, with this particular plague, governments the world over have turned normal practice on its head by restricting the freedoms and movement of healthy people by incarcerating them, in their own homes. This seems a perverse and totally illogical way of preventing a disease from spreading, particularly when it’s an illness which, in the vast majority of cases, produces only mild symptoms or even none at all.

No-one appears to be questioning this irrational approach, and people in general seem only too happy to comply with government edicts which extend to telling them who they can and who they can’t have in their own homes. So how have governments manage to exercise such control over their populations?

Fear, backed up by disproportionate punishment, are the main weapons in their arsenal. Frighten the population out of their wits with tales of a creeping and insidious “deadly” pandemic that takes no prisoners, and if that doesn’t work levy savage and draconian fines, that are out of all proportion to the “crime” allegedly committed.

As an example, the police have been granted powers to issue “on the spot fines” of up to £10,000; an absurd financial penalty, that is way in excess of what a magistrate could impose, and equivalent to fines that could only be handed down in a crown court, in front of a judge and jury. These are measures that the world’s most despotic rulers and dictators must have only dreamed about, until Covid-19 appeared on the street of their towns and cities. Talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut!

It would have made far more sense to shield the vulnerable, whilst at the same time temporarily removing the sick by quarantining them, allowing the healthy to go about their daily lives unfettered and unhindered by petty rules and regulations. It would also have prevented the damaging and destructive shutdown of large sectors of the global economy. 

I appreciate that I might be over-simplifying matters, given that people can be totally asymptomatic, but still capable of infecting others with Coronavirus, but that is why it makes sense to shield the vulnerable, rather than locking up the entire population. We should also be aware that this IS a pandemic and unfortunately pandemics kill people; sometimes in large numbers. Of course we should do all we can to mitigate the effects of this particular one, but given the relatively low mortality rate of Covid-19, shutting down the entire global economy is not the way to do this.

An approach based on common sense, doesn’t suit the government control freaks and their allies, who hide behind the guise of public health, whilst asking us to sacrifice our rights and our liberties for the "Common good.” Where have we heard those type of slogans before?  Stalin’s “Five Year Plan,” Mao’s “Great Leap Forward, or Pol Pot's genocidal "Year Zero" policy?

None of this bodes well for a post-Covid world, and having taken our freedoms, rights and liberties from us, in such a rushed and shameful fashion, governments are unlikely to want to return them in a hurry.  Regulations preventing people from meeting up with members of their own family are unheard of, even in wartime, as is the closing of pubs and restaurants.

The shifty-eyed bunch of tricksters, spivs and charlatans running the country are in their element, and in no rush to relax the unprecedented grip they hold over our daily lives. Meanwhile the economy continues to suffer along with people’s mental health and the general well-being of society as a whole.

There must surely come a time when people turn around and say, “enough is enough.” I’m not advocating breaking the law over these restrictions; although I am saying we all need to continue questioning government policy and ask are these measures really in our interest? 

Furthermore,  are they just a question of governments the world over, flexing their muscles under the guise of public health, when all they are really doing is cracking down on the rights, freedoms and liberties that we in the western world have enjoyed for generations. 

Since writing the article I've noticed a news clip stating that police forces are to suspend the £10k fines. This sounds like a small, welcome and long overdue outbreak of common sense!

Coping with life during lockdown No. 2

We’re now a week into the second national lockdown, at least for those of us who live in England, but unless you’re a stakeholder or worker in the hospitality trade, an ardent pub-goer, someone who enjoys eating out, a person connected with the entertainment business (performer of venue owner), or someone living on their own who is missing the company and support of friends and family, the current shutdown doesn’t seem to be affecting anywhere near the number of people that the first self-incarceration did.

Before going any further, sincere apologies to any individuals or groups I have missed in this assessment, as whilst it’s sometimes easy to generalise, that is not the intention of this post. Perhaps it’s a stoic acceptance of what’s going on at the moment, or perhaps I’m just fortunate in my choice of work and the position I have reached in life, but luckily, I have been relatively unaffected this time around.

My workplace has remained open, and after the disastrous slump in orders at the start of the pandemic, things are looking much healthier. The welcome increase in sales has allowed us to un-furlough our entire workforce, and whilst those office-based staff who can work from home are continuing to do so, the bulk of our team are back on site.  The comprehensive, Covid-19 risk assessment we have carried out, and the measures we have put in place, allows staff to work separated from one another as much as possible, and this combined with enhanced levels of cleaning, means we can operate in a safe and secure environment.

From my point of view, being able to carry on working, virtually right from the start, has been a godsend, and more than anything else has helped to keep me sane. Just having different people to talk to, share a joke or a piece of news with, makes all the difference and makes one realise the importance of being around other people and just what social animals us humans are.

Even the really mundane stuff seems to have much more of a purpose, than it did prior to the pandemic and helps bring home the importance of the workplace, the value of camaraderie between colleagues and the importance of our relationship, not just with each other, but with our customers and suppliers. The fact that we’re all in this together is important, and whilst I don’t want to come over all Churchillian, I’m equally certain that many others will be feeling the same way.

Of course, not everyone is quite as fortunate, and even closer to home there are family members, including Mrs PBT’s, who are longing for a return to some form of normality, so they can just go out, socialise again and start enjoying life once more. 

 

The hardware chain where son Matthew works, has remained opened this time around, and he’s been doing a spot of commuting over the past couple of days. This is a result of being seconded to the group’s Bexleyheath store. So, there’s been a journey by train into London Bridge in the mornings, and then a train back out to the aforementioned town. He reported that whilst the trains weren’t exactly empty on the journey into London, there was still enough room to maintain an adequate distance from fellow travellers. Passengers certainly weren’t crammed in like sardines, as was often the case pre-pandemic.

Following on from that, here are a few more general observations regarding the second lockdown. Traffic levels remain high, especially during the morning peak period. This is hardly surprising, given that schools and colleges remain open. During the day though, the roads appear much quieter; something I have noticed during my daily lunchtime walks. I put this down to pubs and other local attractions (stately homes), being forced to close, and with nowhere for the well-heeled, retiree to visit, the "posh pub lunch" brigade is, of necessity, staying at home.

Work on local construction projects, continues apace, seemingly unaffected by any closedown, but footfall in towns does seem to have diminished. The same applies to supermarkets; either that, or I have been lucky with the times I’ve chosen to shop.

Despite these mixed messages, the impact on pubs and restaurants must be severe, and after seeing trade pick up over the summer and early autumn, being forced to shut must be particularly galling, especially when you consider all the measures they put in place in order to make their premises as safe and risk free as possible.

It’s too early yet to know whether the lockdown has had an effect on reducing transmission rates, but one thing is for certain there's been some real exaggerations, and bending of the truth coming from scientists and government advisors, who should have known better. It was bad enough for Valance to have turned up with a bunch of out of date graphs at Johnson’s bizarre, Halloween press-conference, but for officials to now admit that their grim forecasts of 4,000 Covid-related deaths a day, were grossly exaggerated.

They have now settled on a figure of 600 per day, and this is still a worse case scenario. Unfortunately, the 4,000 a day figure was what forced the government to introduce the second lockdown, and spooked (an appropriate term for Halloween), Johnson into holding his hastily convened, and twice postponed press-conference.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?