Slightly tangential post this, but in light of the revelation that even 10 Downing Street wasn't following their own rules, I've decided after enduring 2 years of this nonsense to publish my top 10 most ridiculous UK covid rules. Many of the rules that we have been faced with have seemed on the face of it to be logical and sensible and I won't be debating now whether they actually were. Instead I'm giving you a greatest hits of the most hairbrained regulations seen in the UK over the last 2 years. Here we go!
10. The Inadvertant Picnic
You can sit on a park bench but if you drink some coffee while there you are technically having a picnic and committing a criminal offence. As we all know, Coronaviruses are attracted to the earthy aroma of good coffee, turning the unsuspecting drinker into an instant potential superspreader event.
9. Vertical Drinking
Pubs were, rightly or wrongly, thought to be areas of high transmission. Don't worry though, the geniuses in parliament had this covered. Face masks. But how do I wear a face mask and have a drink? Easy. You don't. But only when you're sitting down. All medical experts agree that the virus is only infectious at altitudes between 4'6" and 6'6", known by virologists to be Covid's "Goldilocks Zone". So feel free to carry on as if none of this was happening as long as you sit down, but remember to do your bit for society and put a mask on when you go to the bogs.
8. Eat Out To Help Out
For centuries, charlatans and con artists all over the world have been pushing the insane idea that being physically fit and eating a healthy diet will, by some miraculous and as yet undocumented process, improve your chances if you contract some sort of disease. In order to put a stop to this dangerous disinformation, the government wisely chose to ban all forms of organised sports, close gyms and offer us half price McDonalds. Thank goodness common sense prevailed.
7. Closing Playgrounds
Of course early on in the pandemic the sensible decision to close playgrounds was taken, ensuring that children became overweight and so properly insulated against the disease. Thankfully councils used heavy duty measures including laminated A4 signs and small amounts of red or yellow tape from B and Q which completely eliminated the possibility of selfish antivaxxers gaining entry to what were now effectively fortresses.
6. Removing Swings From Playgrounds
Unfortunately at some point the insane decision was taken to reopen the playgrounds but in the end common sense prevailed with councils removing every second swing, showing that our safety was still the number one priority.
5. Working From Home Unless Your Job Was "Essential"
Many people have for years been under the impression that all work was essential because it paid for such things as food to eat, clothes to wear and houses to live in but luckily officials reminded us that in fact these were all luxuries that we could do without. This allowed middle class people to hide safely from covid whilst an army of working class people manned a fleet of Amazon vans and braved the body lined streets to bring them the earbuds and espresso machines they so desperately needed.
4. Keyworker Exemptions
As Boris Johnson has so effectively demonstrated, no rules should have to apply to everyone and so keyworkers were exempt from many of these. It was never clearly defined what a keyworker is which both allowed us all to self identify as keyworkers and also gave us the opportunity to go on Facebook and talk about how important we were as keyworkers and how selfish people who we thought probably weren't keyworkers had been by doing the same stuff we were. Take that covid.
3. Vaccine Mandates
All literature ever produced on the subject of ethics agrees that consent is completely irrelevant when you want somebody to do something and whether or not somebody has chosen to undertake a medical procedure is absolutely always everybody's business. That's why it was imperative that the maniacs who didn't get an injection were segregated from society, refused entry to all venues, especially cinemas for some reason, and sacked immediately from their jobs. It has been proven time and time again by sensible and caring administrations such as Apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany that segregation works and has no major downsides.
2. You Can Socialise in Groups of 6
Just imagine if there were 7 of you. It doesn't bear thinking about.
1. You Can Have A Beer if You Are Also Having A Substantial Meal
This rule is the most sensible and obvious solution to the problem of drinking during a pandemic because as "the science" has established, covid may be deadly but it's not rude and won't interrupt you if you are eating something substantial. But what exactly constitutes a substantial meal? I imagine that England rugby star Courtney Lawes eats a Full English every 40 minutes and still feels peckish where as Cara Delevigne happily subsists on vape smoke and a Cadbury's Creme Egg once a fortnight. Lucky for us the government sent Michael Gove to clarify this conundrum. Gove explained that a scotch egg could constitute a substantial meal if you weren't particularly hungry that day although he himself wouldn't be satisfied by a meal as small as that and even on days when he was less hungry would probably require two scotch eggs at the very least. If you were in doubt that a scotch egg would be sufficient you could always order it with chips and have that traditional English pub favourite that we all know and love "scotch egg and chips" but in the unlikely event that the pub doesn't serve that combination a cornish pasty could do the trick as that is basically a beef stew wrapped in pastry. Obviously not all pasties are made equal and if your pasty is like the one's they make in the West Cornwall Pasty Company then you're in the clear but if it's more like an Asda smart price one then they might have been stingy with the filling, leaving you in breach of the regulations. In order to put this issue to bed once and for all the government advised;
"Whatever you order with your beer, best to err on the side of caution and get chips with it. But don't just get chips. Unless the portions are pretty big. Or there's melted cheese on them."
Thanks for clarifying.
Honourable Mention
One Way Systems
Everyone knows that you can only catch a virus if you're facing it, so how do we make sure that doesn't happen? Well here's the clever part. "The science" has shown that covid is hard-wired to follow clearly displayed signage and so as long as we ensure that everybody is travelling in the same direction at all times, then then virus will follow suit. As we know, only whales and dolphins breathe through holes in their backs, so us humans are safe from covid as it has no way to enter our systems.
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