ONE after the other, like the world’s most rubbish game of dominoes, the Queen and Justin Bieber came tumbling down with Covid.
These two cultural icons (yes really: the Royal Family account has 10.5million Instagram followers, the Canadian child 221million) showed this cruel virus isn’t done with us just yet.
Nonetheless, yesterday Boris Johnson announced the end of all remaining Covid restrictions in England, encouraging us to treat this mercurial beast as we would, say, the flu.
And it’s come not a moment too soon. Finally the PM is behaving like the libertarian he swore blind he was. Self-isolation, social distancing and mask-wearing indoors will become terms from another age.
One day, those little blue facial coverings will sit alongside the Natural History Museum’s blue whale skeleton.
Naturally Labour, who have flip-flopped continually since March 2020, moaned and groaned.
They think it’s too early to end self-isolation, and demanded that Boris publish scientific evidence before sending us all out into the covid wilds.
And Twitter was awash with apparent epidemiologists, all authoritatively declaring that this was yet another grave error by the Conservatives.
Within minutes the hashtag “covidsnotover” was trending, and people were sharing horror statistics of varying veracity.
Obviously Tsar Sturgeon, who would happily banish all Scots, Harry Potter-esque, beneath the cupboard stairs for all eternity, slammed Boris’s “inexcusable negligence” over plans to scrap free testing.
Currently the tests cost us £2billion a month. Just think what that money could be used for (paperwork, cheese and wine parties, Peloton memberships for civil servants).
But in all seriousness, we’ve already lost two years of our lives. Now is the time to prioritise hospital waiting times.
To start hacking away at the backlog of forsaken cancer sufferers.
And to put plans into motion about how this Government will tackle the incoming mental health epidemic, particularly amongst school kids — those who have lost precious years of childhood development.
Vaccines are at the heart of all of this. And it’s thanks to a small group of incredible, selfless, pioneering scientists that life is returning to our cities, pubs and bars and high streets.
“Caution”, though, is the watchword. I wouldn’t now go out and start licking my granny’s face (not least because she’s been dead 15 years).
We need to exert caution. The elderly, those with underlying health risks, the morbidly overweight — we must be mindful around these groups, just as they too need to exercise restraint — as frustrating as this must be.
Life will return to some form of normality, but we mustn’t blow it at the final hurdle. After sacrificing so much, it would be madness to become complacent.
Back to the Prince of Pop. Justin Bieber is 27, the Queen, 95 — their illnesses are a stark reminder that Covid can strike anyone at any age.
Whereas the pop star cancelled one of his shows, our beyond brilliant monarch insisted that her show must go on.
Despite having some “cold-like symptoms”, a statement confirmed that she has spent the past couple of days performing “light duties”.
The Queen knew exactly what she was doing when she signed off this pronouncement.
At the terrifying height of the pandemic, in April 2020, it was to her that we turned. In a rare televised address to the nation, she called for “unity and endeavour”.
Twenty-two months on, the Queen is yet again leading by example. We owe it to her to keep calm and carry on.
Early tests vital
SARAH Harding died from breast cancer aged just 39.
Six years earlier the brilliant and vivacious Girls Aloud star admitted that she feared being diagnosed with the disease because it “runs in my family”.
Sarah was too young for routine testing.
Under current NHS guidelines, women aren’t eligible until they turn 50.
Surely if there’s a hereditary risk mammograms should be introduced sooner.
If they were, maybe, just maybe, the singer would still be with us today.
Loose TikTalk
EIGHTY years ago it was all “loose lips sinking ships”, “careless talk costing lives” and “Be like Dad, keep Mum!”.
Today it’s Tik Tok that’ll bring us all down.
Russian security chiefs have launched an advertising campaign urging troops not to use social media networks over concerns that they’ll blow state military secrets.
As little-willied Putin draws ever closer to Ukraine, the Russian military published posters of a soldier saying “Nyet” – “No” – as he is passed a phone with the TikTok app logo on it.
Imagine losing World War Three over Snapchat.
Net loss for City
LAST summer, Man City repeatedly tried to poach Harry Kane, only to be deterred by Spurs’ (pretty steep) £160million asking price.
Following Harry’s heroics against City on Saturday, the title race is once again wide open.
Should Liverpool win the league come May – and the hundreds of millions in deals, prize money and sponsorship that follows – £160million will seem cheap at half the price.
Kell(y) Brook
FAIR play to FHM’s Sexiest Woman of the Year, 2005. Alas, no.
Turns out it was Kell Brook, not glamour model Kelly, who convincingly overcame the former light-welterweight world champ, Amir Khan, over the weekend.
But as one boxing commentator remarked: “Kell Brook, the bare-chested warrior chieftain, unblemished.”
Again, not an entirely dissimilar description.
Hugh are so wrong
HARD to see how Boris will survive this…
Last week Hugh Grant showed his support for an anti-Boris Johnson march taking place in London, organised by “anti-fascist, grassroots” group Take Back Democracy.
He shared a Tweet by one of the group’s activists which read: “Never have I seen more businesses going bust, more people in poverty, such a great divide between rich and poor, or such corruption in our government. It has to change, and it starts Saturday.”
Hugh, who played the best Prime Minister this country’s ever seen in Love Actually, shared the post alongside a pointing finger and call-to-arms fist emoji.
Turns out the say-so of a whingeing Hollywood actor doesn’t hold all that much sway with the great British public.
Instead, about 14 miserable, cagoule-wearing, brolly-clutching protesters turned up. (And, needless to say Hollywood Hugh wasn’t one of them).
