NFL London - Misinformation On the Rodgers-Tennant Scale

 I feel compelled to tell you about another scandalous access issue, this time in our nation’s capital on Sunday night (October 9).

Sunday was a fantastic day albeit with a slightly sad and annoying ending. We had tickets for the NFL game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Saturday was my 47th birthday (I know…thanks) and we had been in High Wycombe. Why would you go there on your birthday? Well, Emma’s mum and dad live there and it would break the back of the journey and give us a chance to go out for a few beers and something to eat. 

When we arrived at the Travelodge at Edmonton at around midday we thought we were too early to check in. Unperturbed by this I just asked if there was anywhere to store our luggage until we came back from the stadium. I was told there was not so we just left it in the car and headed off down towards the bus stop.

A 5 minute bus ride later we disembarked and headed for a great pub just 50 yards away from the stop called the Gilpin Bell. On the bus we met a couple of Los Angeles Chargers fans who claimed to have been at the Super Bowl a few years ago when the San Francisco 49ers met the Kansas City Chiefs. I’m a 49ers man myself so there was a high envy factor involved in this conversation. Emma didn’t get involved. She leaves talking to strangers to me. It is not quite clear how this couple scored tickets for one of the biggest sporting events in the world but you know what? The 49ers lost that game anyway. Small mercies and all that.

We had time at the Gilpin Bell for one and then on to investigate the Coach & Horses that Emma’s dad had told us about. He came here with a friend to watch Spurs play Fulham a few weeks ago. The Gilpin was much better, truth be told. Better access. You couldn’t actually get access to the indoor area of the Coach & Horses if you use a wheelchair so it is lucky that the weather was good and everybody was outside anyway. In there we met this Pittsburgh Steelers fan called Steve (he called me Steve too…why do people assume I’m a Steve? I’m no more a Steve than I am a Gillian). We later saw Steve on the big screen inside the stadium during the game.  He seemed to be enjoying himself in a way that is very American. Frantic waving, excited smiles, all that. He was enjoying himself more than say…Roy Keane… who just shook his head in disgust when he was caught on the roaming camera at one point during the game. 

It took a bit of time to get inside the stadium. Several Spurs staff members didn’t seem to know their way around their place of work. That happened to me in June but to be fair I’d had three months off during which time a complete refurbishment and restructure had taken place. I literally had to get the receptionist to show me to the office. Finally on this occasion we were saved by a passing employee who knew his job and were directed to the concourse. 

At the bar the guy serving didn’t really know what I meant when I said I couldn’t drink draught beer. I can’t drink draught beer at the moment because if I do my stomach will explode but it didn’t seem right to explain that to him in detail. The only other lager they had in bottles was non alcoholic so I settled on cans of Guinness during the game. 

Emma had draught lager but was not happy that the plastic glasses, which are filled from the bottom up, leaked from the bottom. Filling the glass from the bottom is alright for a gimmick the first time you see it, but when lager which costs about £7 a pint is being lost it veers into national disgrace territory.

Our view was pretty good, certainly compared to Old Trafford or the abomination that is Accrington Stanley. Where we were at Spurs it’s about the same height as my view at Saints but behind the sticks (or uprights in the NFL) rather than to one side. It was an enjoyable experience despite fans around us standing up a lot, constant interruptions from Sam Quek when the ball was dead and the fact that the Packers - that’s Emma’s team - managed to lose to the Giants. 

They went down 27-22 with the Fucking Liar Aaron Rodgers playing like a total drain. We call the Green Bay quarterback that after the David Tennant/Michael Sheen joke in Staged. If you haven’t seen it, do. A classic of the ‘This Was Clearly Made In Lockdown’ genre. Rodgers missed a game or two last year because he was unvaccinated having hinted earlier that he had been ‘immunised’. It’s all a bit Novak Djokovic but in America Aaron gets away with it because he’s deified like John Lennon or Elvis. Or Mal Meninga in Parr. 

We headed back to the Gilpin to watch the last half hour of Liverpool’s 3-2 loss at Arsenal and all of Everton’s 2-1 home defeat by Manchester United. Then we took in a bit of NFL Red Zone. For the initiated that is rolling highlights of all the games that go on at the same time on a Sunday rather than full live coverage of just one. The shirts mixed happily, united over an inexplicable love of NFL since the 1980s. Except the Cincinnati Bengals. Over the course of the day we saw every single NFL shirt on display by fans except for Bengals. 

I even saw some poor soul in an old Washington Redskins shirt. They are not even called that now. The name was deemed offensive so they changed it to Washington Commanders. Having boxed off racism, next year they hope to address their culture of sexism and harassment of their cheerleaders. One thing at a time. 

By the way I have no clue why nobody in that pub seemed to like the Bengals but it was slightly annoying not to see the full set of 32. If I could have done without one it would have been the newly named Commies. Or the Patriots. I’ve hated the Patriots since Trumpian Tom Brady turned up there about 20 years ago. 

It was back at the Travelodge that things got really shitty. There was a disabled woman in front of me who seemed to be failing in her attempts to secure an accessible room until she told the receptionist that she was with The Chase. I wasn’t worried at this point because I knew our room had been booked in July by Emma’s mum. I was asked if I was with The Chase too and, naively knowing what I know now, admitted that I was not. I should have told her I was Mark Fucking Labett. 

The woman won her argument and got her room. When it came to our turn we were not so lucky. We were told that their policy of over-booking meant that they were perfectly at liberty to give our accessible room away no matter when it had been booked. If I was a cynic I would say that the lady in front of me got hers because she was with The Chase. 

I am a cynic so I am saying that. The big quiz show can’t be seen to be leaving it’s disabled contestants out on the street. I don’t know when her show goes out but I hope she loses in humiliating circumstances. She’s probably a Low Offer Wanker anyway. Looks the sort.

We had to settle for a regular room which didn’t have a wide enough bathroom for my wheelchair. The alternative was another Travelodge in Enfield. Neither of us could drive as we had been drinking. They offered a taxi but we did not want to be in a totally different town and then have to come back for the car in the morning. The main rationale for this was a beer fuelled ‘why should we?’ but I haven’t regretted it in the cold light of day since. I ended up pissing in the bin. I’m not sorry about that either. They’re just lucky my stomach didn’t explode.

In the morning we complained to the manager who backed up her staff. This confirmed to us that it is impossible for anyone to guarantee themselves a room at Edmonton Travelodge even if they book three months in advance. That’s one thing if you are able bodied - you still have a great chance of getting one of the 80 rooms in the establishment. It is quite another if you are disabled in which case your chances of getting one of the three accessible rooms are pretty thin. 

Worse still, the manager had seen me at midday when I asked her about storing the luggage. She neglected to inform me that I could check in then although she must have known I intended to stay there. They have an early check-in service costing £10. That’s basically a tax on disability but I would have probably paid it had the overbooking policy been explained to me then. It was not on any of the correspondence for which they ‘could only apologise’. I’m still not apologising for the bin.

Furthermore, the girl on reception had told me that there were no other disabled toilets in the hotel other than those in the accessible rooms. This was misinformation on the Rodgers-Tennant Scale. We found one on our way out. Using it would have meant having to come downstairs for a wee - possibly in the middle of the night - but that would have been preferable to pissing in the bin. Ah well…it’s their bin and only I and the 12 people who read this will ever know.

All of this is a bit of a shame because it’s in a fantastic spot to get to what is probably the best stadium in the country. Including Crusader Park in Thatto Heath. I really want to go back either for the NFL or if - like this year - the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final ever finds itself back there. 

Maybe there’ll be a Premier Inn within reach. The only problem I’ve ever had with them is Lenny Henry.

Leeds Rhinos v Saints - Preview

Well, hello again. It’s been a while. So long in fact that the first entry on these pages in 2022 focuses on Saints’ BetFred Super League Round 7 visit to Headingley to take on Leeds Rhinos.

These sides have had wildly contrasting starts to the season. Saints sit top of the early table having lost only one of their opening six league games. They are the competition’s leading points scorers with 176 at an average of 29.3 per game, while no team in the top flight have conceded fewer than the 50 given up so far by Kristian Woolf’s men (8.3 points per game). 

Compare that to the 10th placed Rhinos who have given up 141 points in their six outings so far at an average of 23.5 per game. Only Toulouse, Castleford and Salford have conceded more points so far this season. No Super League team has posted fewer than Leeds’ 90 points across the first six rounds. That’s just 15 points per game.

If the stats look bad for Leeds then perhaps their main hope can be found in the still significant absences in the Saints 21-man squad. The champions are still without Will Hopoate, Matty Lees and Sione Mata’utia through injury. Regan Grace made his first appearance of the season in last week’s 46-4 Challenge Cup win at Whitehaven but misses out again here after leaving the action early at the LEL Arena. All of which means that Sam Royle and Jon Bennison keep their places in the initial selection as does prop Dan Norman. The former London Bronco has waited an age for his first team opportunities since making the move north at the start of 2021 but has now scored tries in his last two outings. 

What will not encourage Leeds so much is the return of Alex Walmsley. The England international has not featured since a 28-2 win over Warrington on March 11 but looks set for a return in this one. That’s especially bad news for Leeds when you consider that the 31 year-old has averaged 229.5 metres in his last two appearances against the Rhinos. In the final game of the 2021 regular season Walmsley shredded Leeds for 275 metres. He followed that up with 184 when the teams met for a place at Old Trafford three weeks later. If he’s fully fit Walmsley is a certain starter leaving  Norman, Agnatius Paasi, Kyle Amor and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook to compete for the starting berth which ordinarily belongs to Lees.

Also set for a return having been rested last week is Morgan Knowles. It is no exaggeration to say that Saints are a different animal defensively with both Walmsley and Knowles on the field. Knowles should get the nod to start ahead of Jake Wingfield who deputised at Whitehaven. With Mata’utia out there may be another starting opportunity for former Manly Sea Eagle Curtis Sironen. The Australian former City Origin representative has managed only four appearances for his new club so far and will be hoping for a run in the side to help build some form. His omission so far has largely been down to the excellent strides made by Joe Batchelor. The former York man has nailed down a regular starting spot this year after initially struggling to establish himself. Sironen has it all on to keep hold of a starting shirt at Batchelor’s expense when the previously in-form Mata’utia returns to fitness.

Which brings us to the hooking role. We’re all set for a special occasion for a very special number nine. James Roby looks certain to make his 500th appearance for the club whether that is from the start or from the bench behind Joey Lussick. Only three other Saints have reached that milestone. Kel Coslett (531), Eric Chisnall (523) and Billy Benyon (514) are the men ahead of Roby on Saints all-time appearance list. He could still surpass one or two of them by the end of what is expected to be his final season in the red vee. 

Full disclosure - I’ve always been Team Cunningham in the great debate between Saints two all-time great hookers. Cunningham was an absolute freak of a player in his youth who seemed impossible to tackle with his speed off the mark and his powerful high knee lift running style. I’d argue that he played against better teams too, with the salary cap having by now spread talent around the league and so driven down standards among the very best teams. But that is not to take anything away from the brilliance of Roby who - like Cunningham - can do it all offensively and defensively, has an inexhaustible energy and is a fine leader and tactician. Roby deserves all the accolades and plaudits that will come his way when he retires - even his own statue. For now he remains a key piece of the Saints puzzle and will be fresh having only played a short cameo at Whitehaven last weekend.

Without Hopoate and Grace the back line should have a similar look to it as it had prior to Grace’s brief return last week. Josh Simm should come back into the right wing spot from where he has scored four tries already this season. On the opposite side will be the now veteran Tommy Makinson. His switch to Saints’ busier attacking flank has helped him notch eight tries of his own this term. Yet even when he is not scoring tries Makinson’s qualities as a kick returner, metre-maker, defender and all around inspiration need no further elaboration. 

Mark Percival might have expected to be partnered in the centres more regularly by Hopoate but the Tongan’s struggles with fitness have offered former Rhino Konrad Hurrell the chance to show that he can still do it in the three-quarters. Hurrell appears to have a renewed enthusiasm for his rugby under his national coach. That has helped turn Simm into a winger and has meant that Saints haven’t felt the blow of losing Hopoate for so many games too harshly. I will again put my cards on the table and admit to being riddled with scepticism when Woolf brought Hurrell over from Headingley but to this point the former Gold Coast Titan is proving his worth.  

In the creative department Jack Welsby is settling into Lachlan Coote’s old fullback role, while Jonny Lomax and Lewis Dodd are establishing a great halfback partnership which justifies the decision to allow Theo Fages to join Huddersfield more with each passing week. 

This column priding itself on at least the appearance of balance we need to talk about Leeds. At the start of the season during the 13 Pro-Am season preview shows I was repeatedly firm in my conviction that Leeds would be much better this year and that they should be competing for at least a top four spot. I still look at their squad and wonder why it is not happening for them. The biggest disappointment for them has to be the performance of their new halfback combination of Blake Austin and Aidan Sezer. The two were once deemed good enough to form an NRL partnership with Canberra Raiders so should really be lording it over most of the opposition in Super League. Yet though he starred for Huddersfield when fit Sezer in particular has flitted between flustered, inept and disinterested so far in a Rhinos shirt. Meanwhile Austin’s Powers appear to be waning. Perhaps Daryl Powell does know something about this game after all. 

It has all added up to a miserable season so far for Leeds, culminating in a solitary win over Wakefield Trinity and the mutual consenting of coach Richard Agar through the exit door. Pseudo psychologist Jamie Jones-Buchanan is in interim charge at present while Gary Hetherington combs Australia for the right man to take the club forward. If he finds him then all is not lost. It is still early enough in the season for a squad containing the likes of Jack Walker, Harry Newman, Ash Handley, Mikolaj Oledzki, Matt Prior, Kruise Leeming, James Bentley and Zane Tetevano to clamber back into playoff contention. But the turnaround needs to happen soon. A visit from the champions of the last three seasons must be about as welcome as Chris Rock at the Alopecia Society. 

For now Jones-Buchanan still has his share of injuries and absentees to worry about. Brad Dwyer picked up a ban after he was sin-binned for tripping in last week’s Challenge Cup hammering by Castleford, while Tetevano will serve the last of his two-match suspension here also. Newman, Ritchie Myler and Tom Holroyd are all still missing as well as winger David Fusitu’a. His return has been delayed for a few more weeks by minor surgery on his knee. 

So is there enough quality available to the Rhinos to see them challenge Saints? Handley is the real deal on the wing and is set to make his 150th appearance for the club. The front row is solid in the form of Oledzki, Prior and Leeming although not having Dwyer available to inject into the action at the opportune moment could lessen Leeds’ threat from dummy half. James Bentley’s main challenge will be to keep his marbles in place against his former team-mates long enough to stay on the field. Rhyse Martin is a dependable presence in the back row and an excellent goal-kicker.

Yet it all still seems to come back to that faltering halfback partnership. Can it click into gear against the best side in the competition, with key pieces around it still missing and with morale about as low as it can go? You’d have to say probably not, which is why I expect Saints to run out comfortable winners, Leeds are probably in a false position which I expect to improve if Hetherington gets his coach finding mission right. Saints on the other hand are not in a false position. They will get home by at least 18.

Squads;  

Leeds Rhinos;

1 Jack Walker 4 Liam Sutcliffe 5 Ash Handley 6 Blake Austin 7 Aidan Sezer 8 Mikolaj Oledzki 9 Kruise Leeming 10 Matt Prior 11 James Bentley 12 Rhyse Martin 15 Alex Mellor 17 Cameron Smith 19 Bodene Thompson 20 Tom Briscoe 21 Morgan Gannon 23 Jack 24 Jarrod O’Connor 25 James Donaldson 27 Muizz Mustapha 28 Max Simpson 29 Liam Tindall

St Helens;

1, Jack Welsby, 2, Tommy Makinson, 4. Mark Percival, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Lewis Dodd, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 12. Joe Batchelor, 13. Morgan Knowles, 14. Joey Lussick, 15. LMS, 16. Curtis Sironen, 17. Agnatius Paasi, 18. Kyle Amor, 19. Jake Wingfield, 21. Josh Simm, 22. Ben Davies, 23. Konrad Hurrell, 24. Dan Norman, 26. Sam Royle, 27. Jon Bennison.

Referee:  James Child

Guest House Paradiso

So I’m in hospital then. The Royal Liverpool to be specific.

It must have been some time around 2017 when a nephrologist called Matthew first mentioned the idea of a pre-emptive kidney transplant. Pre-empting dialysis that is. It’s pretty insane that I’ve managed to avoid dialysis in the five years since then. In that respect I’m very fortunate even though I don’t feel it right now, sitting here in a room that they clearly haven’t prepared for human inhabitance. There are holes in the wall as if somebody has fired a gun at it. There is a dialysis machine next to my bed, whirring away and taking up space. I’m not connected to it but despite repeated attempts to get them to move it, it remains. What part of ‘I’m not on dialysis’ do they not understand? But I’m here and I’m lucky to be.

This should have happened in the first half of 2020. Unfortunately Covid put paid to that. We were just waiting for theatre space when everything got locked down. Since then the restrictions have led to more and more delays. There was also a period when we couldn’t even think about it when we lost my dad. All of this would have been just too much for either me or my mum at that time. My mum is my donor. She’s in a different room just across the way. She was in here with me and Emma but she’s had to leave. She couldn’t put up with my anger when within five minutes of our arrival a rubbish nurse tried and failed to take blood from me. She did manage to bruise me so that’s something. Another nurse has just been in to have another go and she did it straight away. Taking blood that is, not bruising me. They have successfully taken blood on the 472 occasions I have visited the blood room recently. It’s remarkably easy. 

There is a window open in my room. On the 9th floor. It wasn’t fully open, just a bit loose and flappy, until the nurse who has just taken my blood just tried to properly close it. Well, you can’t be good at everything. She told me that they use a spoon to lock it. She left 15 minutes ago to get a spoon but she hasn’t been seen since. 

It’s a shitty room but unlike my mum’s it is my own room. It even has it’s own toilet which will be handy for sparing me the indignity of having to share those facilities when my incision reduces my mobility to that of Han Solo when he gets captured by the Empire in The Empire Strikes Back. On the toilet door is a sign that rather rudely and unnecessarily asks ‘is your poo loose?’. It also has a sign above that says ‘snacks available on request’. These two things seem somehow incompatible, like they don’t belong in the same space. 

The surgeon has been to see me. There were two of them actually, but I’ve only ever met one of them. He examined my pelvis again. For someone who doesn’t think my biffy shape will be a problem he seems slightly hung up on it. He seemed happy with what he found. He’s just about the only person in here that I trust. He went on to explain the plan for tomorrow in great detail, what drugs I’m going to be on and why. His confidence is a comfort. One of very few in this Hell hole. I asked him how long I’m likely to be stuck here in Guest House Paradiso (I didn’t call it that). He explained that the main barrier to patients going home is that a new kidney makes you pass too much water or something like that. So I can go home when I’m pissing normally. He didn’t put a figure on it.

Update. The transplant co-ordinator, Anne, has just been in to lock the open window. She did not use a spoon. Nor did she remove the whirring dialysis machine, however. She told me that it can’t be moved because it is ‘on a clean’. Essentially, the Royal is a place where equipment has to undergo noisy maintenance within the private room of a patient about to undergo life changing surgery. Next time you’re encouraged to go out on your doorstep to clap or bash your frying pan in appreciation of the NHS do so by all means. But don’t forget also to never vote Tory as long as you live. The state of this hospital is their legacy. The only good thing about this hospital room is that when the clouds part I can see Anfield out of the window. 

I realise you may not all appreciate the value in that. 

   

This Is What Happens When The Disabled Go Out After Sunset

I went to Wembley at the weekend. It was mostly amazing. The weather was glorious, Saints won and for an encore there was some great musical entertainment at BOXPARK. The capital letters are their’s by the way. They are quite fitting as BOXPARK is a venue at which shouting is encouraged. 

But there is always something, isn’t there? Something which puts a dampener on the experience and leaves you feeling like if you were considered an afterthought it would be an elevation from where you are currently. Let me explain the background to the ensuing farce. Emma and I stayed in High Wycombe on Friday and Saturday night. Emma’s mum and dad live there so it was a chance for us to meet up with them and then make the short train journey to Wembley on Saturday morning. Emma hasn’t seen them much during the pandemic, maybe once. I hadn’t seen them for several months before the first lockdown. 

On Saturday morning there were other Saints fans at the platform at High Wycombe station. Clearly travelling to London from High Wycombe is not so unusual, particularly on Challenge Cup final day. Yet for us it ended up feeling like we had tried to get back home from the moon on the back of a scooter. 

Things seemed fine before the game. We bought return tickets and received all the right assistance to board the train. The fact that people with my level of mobility still need assistance to get on a train in 2021 is a bloody outrage but I was prepared to grin and bear it to get to Wembley to watch my team play. Saints win a lot. They have now won the Challenge Cup eight times in my lifetime and have also added another eight Super League titles in that time. But before Saturday they hadn’t won at Wembley since 2008. That is 13 years. Who knows where any of us will be in 13 years? I don’t take their success for granted so if they get to Wembley I want to do everything I can to be there.

Another obstacle to that aim was overcome when we were met at Wembley Stadium station by another ramp-wielding assistant. It’s important to make a distinction here. Wembley has two stations. Wembley Stadium and Wembley Park. The vagaries of the transport system mean that the overground train from High Wycombe only goes to Wembley Stadium station. Had we been able to travel on the underground to Wembley Park - as we did when Saints lost at Wembley in 2019 and we stayed in London - I would have been able to get on and off the train without assistance. Whoever upgraded the London Underground system - presumably before the Paralympics in 2012 - understands what is meant by wheelchair access. 

Instead after a successful disembarking we were stopped by a staff member at absolute pains to explain to us exactly what we needed to do to get back on the train to High Wycombe later. Go over the bridge, take the lift, security will help you. She even spoke to someone on her radio to make sure that the lift was working that day. I mean why would it be? There were only 45,000 people trying to get to Wembley after all. The lift was confirmed as operational and so that was that. All we had to do was make sure we didn’t miss the last train, which as it turned out was not until around 10.50pm.

We left BOXPARK about 9.30. We knew there were around three or four trains to High Wycombe after 10.00 but we also knew that we are never the best at navigation in unfamiliar surroundings, especially after drinking since midday. We needed to give ourselves plenty of time. Predictably there was a fair amount of self-inflicted stress as we wandered around not really knowing for sure that we were going the right way. But we found Wembley Stadium station in what we thought was plenty of time. It must have been about 9.45-9.50. We found the lift we had been told about at the start of the day pretty easily. But - and you’re probably ahead of me if you have read MOAFH before - it was not working. Not only was it not working, nor was the telecom system used to call for assistance on either the lift or the ticket machine. 

There were no staff around. We didn’t really know what to do. I’ve never slept on a railway station platform before but it was starting to look like a possibility. I did almost end up roughing it in Cardiff after the 2004 Challenge Cup final. I ended up paying more than £100 to stay in the only hotel that my cousin and I could find that had room for us. At their prices it’s easy to see why. But that was our fault because we drunkenly but quite deliberately missed our mini bus back to St Helens. This was different. We’d seemingly been left high and dry by shite advice and for having the temerity to stay on for a few drinks after the game.

Emma went down the stairs to the platform to see if she could find anyone who might resemble staff who might help us. For several minutes I could see her in conversation with the driver of a train which had just stopped. It didn’t seem to be going well considering how long it was taking. When she came back she told me that the train driver had phoned somebody to arrange for a taxi to take us back to High Wycombe. In essence what they were saying is that it is not possible for a wheelchair user to get on a train from our national stadium to High Wycombe or anywhere else after dark. Which makes perfect sense because as we all know disabled people couldn’t possibly need to go anywhere after sunset. Even if I had been able to get on to the platform the only person who would have been able to assist me on to the train would have been the train driver. In my experience their willingness to unlock a small ramp and plonk it on the platform up to the train is a bit hit and miss. If I had been on my own I would have been on the platform for the night, no doubt. 

I was irked by this as you might imagine, but slightly relieved that it now looked like we would at least get back ok. Yet it got worse before it got better. Emma received a message to say that a taxi had been booked and that we should be met on Preston Road, which is the road on which Wembley Stadium station stands. We were not sure which side of the station was Preston Road but we reckoned they’d find us. Emma then spoke to a driver. She explained where we were and where we were going and why. He agreed to everything and we had an update to inform us he was one minute away. Moments later we received another update telling us that our driver was EIGHT minutes away! How had this happened? Had we made some sort of leap back in time? We never got an explanation. I suspect the driver - having listened to Emma’s explanation - just cancelled us. Couldn’t be arsed. Disabled people are just too much trouble, aren’t they?

Ten minutes or so passed during which I was convinced we wouldn’t find any driver willing to help us and that the one who had been eight minutes away would soon update us with news that he had been urgently called away to Glasgow. It was longer than eight minutes but thankfully the next driver was a good deal more civilised and did his job. His fare was around £100 and I hope he got every penny of it from Chiltern Railways. Sadly, even if they had to pay it I get the feeling that they would rather do that occasionally than pay whatever it would cost to make train travel accessible. Or even to just staff the bloody station at night. 

Naturally I complained. Firstly on Twitter but Emma has also emailed them. Guess what? It’s our fault. Wembley Stadium station is not a staffed station except when there is an event on. And that is only due to the safety issues created by having so many people attending. So essentially accessibility is not an issue as far as they are concerned and this is fine because apparently this information is available on their website. This information is not available on Google Maps but even if it were, there is no justification for just not being arsed to provide access, and for not explaining this when we arrived. It is effectively banning disabled people from travelling. If a train company banned any other minority group would it be ok as long as that information was available on their website? 

We’ll be staying in London next time. Even if it is in 13 years time. On this evidence and given how far there is to go the chances of overground rail travel being fully accessible by 2034 are somewhere between slim and none.

Vaxxed Up

Some of you will have seen my Facebook update about receiving the first dose of the vaccine. If you have - or even if you haven’t - you may be interested in finding out a bit more about the process. It won’t change your mind if you’re an anti-vaxxer. The kind of person who worries about what might be in it while simultaneously gorging on pigs’ dangly bits from Greggs. But if one undecided or apprehensive person reads on and feels a little more comfortable as a result then it will have done some good. I can’t describe how important it is that as many of us as possible go and get vaccinated when the opportunity arises. Ten months of on-off lockdowns do not constitute an exit strategy.

Like many across the city region I had mine at the rugby league ground that dare not speak its absurd vape-shifting name. Saints RLFC in old money. I was met by a car park attendant who instructed me to park up and then go to the entrance five minutes before my appointment time. This isn’t enforced particularly but I don’t see anybody trying to get in early or making any attempt to form or join anything resembling a queue. That’s either because it’s January and consequently absolutely bone-chillingly cold or because everybody is genuinely terrified to get within two metres of another human being from a different address.  

At seven minutes before my appointment time I stop listening to Darren Gough warbling on about Frank Lampard’s sacking at Chelsea as if he’s a football expert and not a retired cricketer and pretend ballroom dancer and make my move. I added two minutes on for getting my chair out of the car. That process doesn’t happen as quickly at 45 years of age as it did at 25 touring around the UK masquerading as an athlete. Especially when you have the energy levels that 18% kidney function bestows upon you. Lockdowns reduce opportunities to practice even further. Mercifully, I was not offered any help by any of the octogenarians present. You’d think that kind of offer wouldn’t happen with social distancing in place but somebody did it when I went for my blood tests at the Royal a couple of weeks ago. If we’re looking for reasons why Covid has got out of control then watching these people go about their daily lives might be instructive. If they are willing to offer unnecessary physical contact to a stranger pushing a wheelchair over Prescot Street then what other kinds of contact that is currently frowned upon are they engaged in? Makes you think.

As I approached the large tent-like walkway that has been erected just outside the main entrance I am asked whether I’d booked through my GP or the NHS. This is the first and only real bump in the road throughout the whole experience. The answer is both in a way. I got a text from The Spinney which is my local GP surgery but it was just a link to an NHS booking site. The reason they ask is because there are separate queues to join for either GP or NHS bookings. They then contradict that by telling me it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m not so sure. I didn’t check but I wouldn’t be surprised if in this tier-loving version of Tory Britain the other queue led straight to a private jet which takes you to a hot, sunny island which has handled Covid a whole lot better than the UK has. There are plenty to choose from. Probably cost you though...

They asked me to sanitise my hands then showed me through to a large room with rows of tables and chairs. My first impression was that it reminded me of the Blue Peter bring and buy sales we used to have in the school hall at Hamblett. Bring and buy sales were what they did in the 1980s instead of educating the disabled which was considered largely a waste of time. I’ve obviously been to college and university in more enlightened times since then but my knowledge of Shakespeare and the literary classics has never recovered. 

The room was on the ground floor, so not the conference rooms they use for the forums I have been to when pretending to be a writer (like now?) and a broadcaster with my mates from the 13 Pro-Am podcast. I was then asked to wait and I made the mistake of taking my coat off. I thought someone was going to come to me but the drill is that you go to them when someone is free to vaccinate you. Coat back on, which takes an embarrassingly longer amount of time than it would under less pressure. There are other people waiting. It’s not a queue exactly. They only let in as many people as they can fit into a line of chairs spaced suspiciously less than two metres apart. So it’s more of a row but with an order, like waiting for a pizza from Geno’s on a Saturday.

At the vaccination table there were two people to assist. An Asian man and a white woman. They asked for personal info - name, date of birth, address and postcode, whether I have any allergies or blood disorders, favourite Shakespeare play (no, not really). I was then asked to take my jumper off (I’ve already removed my coat again at this point) and the man starts wiping my upper arm in preparation. I’m expecting it to feel like a blood test but it’s less than that. It’s less of a scratch than that and it takes less time because they’re not trying to find one of my camouflaged, dried up veins. If the vampires ever capture me in some kind of gothic apocalyptic scenario they’ll throw me aside because I am a bloodless individual.

And just like that it’s done. I asked about side effects and the man was very non-committal.  He handed me an information sheet and a card with a number on it. He told me I’ll get another appointment in 12 weeks. I’ve had the Pfizer vaccine and he told me not to worry about side effects. He said the info sheet would tell me what to do if I have any. It kind of does. It tells me the numbers on who gets side effects and what they’re likely to be but it doesn’t tell me whether I’ll get Covid-like symptoms. He doesn’t either.  I’m assuming that wouldn’t be a normal reaction. 

Being one of those melodramatic fools, neurotic to the bone that Green Day used to sing about I have spent large parts of tonight (24 hours on from the jab) wondering if I have a bit of a sore throat coming on. I don’t think I do. I’m not a medical expert but I don’t think that things like that come and go according to how much time you spend thinking about them. The information does mention chills and headaches but I’ve had no hint of anything like that. I thought I might considering the number of nursing students I have spoken to this week at work who have reported feeling unwell after their vaccine. Then I remember my own uni days during which I would have explained that I had malaria, small pox and the plague itself before I’d turn up for a shorthand session. That’s come back to bite me. The only thing I have to report so far is a bit of a sore arm. Like a bruise, nothing drastic. Better than Covid.

The last thing I’m asked to do is go over to another row of chairs and wait 15 minutes before leaving. Again there is a questionable interpretation of two metres between them so if you are having your vaccine at Saints keep your mask on and don’t start any conversations about last night’s telly. Nobody enforces the waiting time. Nobody releases you. You just time yourself and go. In theory you could just get straight off but I didn’t. It was Monday night. There wasn’t much to do and I’d recorded House Of Games so there was no fire.

All in all it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. The people there are doing great work and it is not often you can say that St Helens is involved in something which will genuinely change our lives for the better. I feel privileged and fortunate to have been involved, particularly since the government did not consider me clinically vulnerable until last week. My surgeon disagrees based on our last conversation in November, but I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to get the vaccine once it arrived. 

We all need to go and get jabbed the first chance we get. It really is the only way out of Joe Wicks exercise videos and back to the pub.

Have You Got A Spare?

You know my political opinion on our current predicament but here’s a quick recap so we can move on. 

Transmission is probably more to do with schools than pubs so we close pubs and keep schools open. People die of causes other than Covid as a direct consequence of lockdown policies, but so many people die of Covid that you’re not allowed to mention deaths by any other cause. They just don’t happen if they’re not tallied daily on the TV news or in the newspapers. 

There’s an effective vaccine but not enough of it to protect the number of people required to bring back some semblance of normality. So we get tier 4 restrictions, which like their predecessor in tier 3 are lockdown rebranded in an effort to combat lockdown fatigue. People are wavering. After nine months of restrictions they’ve had enough. So along with the rebrand there’s the timely release of news that there are not one but two new strains of the virus. At least one of these new strains spreads faster than the original, which was already spreading so fast that it kept us from our work places, hobbies and anything that even looks like a social life.

I think we’re up to speed on that now, so let’s come at this from a different angle. After all, this is a column about disability as opposed to politics. Let me try and shed some light on what it’s like to be a disabled person in the Covid-19 pandemic. Or to be this disabled person, in any case.

The first assumption people make about me is that I am or have been shielding. I am sure many disabled people are shielding.  I know one or two who are but I’m not one of them. It’s an easy if slightly lazy assumption to make, like imagining that I live on benefits instead of working or that I’m on first name terms with that woman who used to be in Silent Witness.

When restrictions were first imposed in March I was one of the first in our office to go and work from home. That was because the government released a list of conditions which they thought might make you more vulnerable to the very worst effects of Covid. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) was one of those conditions. CKD makes it sound a bit like an after shave. Like something you’d pay for or buy for someone else as a gift. I hate ungratefulness but I’d be largely disappointed if somebody bought me CKD for Christmas. I’ve already got it, anyway. If there’s anything more awkward than receiving a shit Christmas present it’s receiving a shit Christmas present that you’ve already got. 

At the point when I started working from home there was no advice about shielding for anyone. When it became a thing a week or so later I did not receive a text or a letter advising me to shield. I have discussed this with both my nephrologist and my transplant surgeon and neither feels I am particularly vulnerable. If I’d had my transplant before all this kicked off then I would have been advised to shield. After the surgery I will be on medication which suppresses the immune system so that my body does not reject the new kidney. If the piss-pots running this country haven’t found a way out of this by then I will be required to shield. That is unless I receive the vaccine which according to the speculative gizmo that is the online vaccine calculator will be March or April. Let’s call it September, then. But until my surgery, since I don’t have an immune disorder or a respiratory condition I’m as free as the next man. Which is not very free at all as it turns out.  

Like many people, disabled or not, my freedom extends to the fact that I can go to the shop for essentials like food, and to the pharmacy to pick up the 363 medications required at my stage of CKD. One one such sunlit jaunt recently I was shouted after by someone walking behind me. She clearly didn’t know my name (much like the rest of the population who think I’m Phil, Paul, Lee or that woman who used to be in Silent Witness) so I didn’t know she was talking to me at first. It was only when I turned to cross the road that I realised she was trying to get my attention.

“Ey mate...have you got a spare one of them?’ 

That’s how they talk sometimes in Thatto Heath. Common nouns are viewed as a luxury. Either that or she just couldn’t bring herself to refer to my wheelchair. Maybe if she had to she would whisper that one word like Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough used to on that inane sketch they used to do where they dressed as gossiping women. The only way I knew that the woman was referring to my wheelchair is that when she asked again she looked down at it and nodded.

The answer was no.  I do not have a spare wheelchair. When I relayed this information she looked genuinely shocked, as if I’d told her that test and trace was now working. What sort of disabled person was I if I didn’t have a spare wheelchair? What if that the one I have breaks? It’s a fair question, isn’t it? And it reminds me of something my dad used to say if we asked him for something unrealistic as kids:

‘Oh aye...we’ll get two in case one breaks’

It was meant to be a sarcastic way of saying no but I didn’t think that approach would be appropriate in this situation. Not everybody gets sarcasm and I didn’t want to get her hopes up. She didn’t even do nouns. There was bugger all chance that she would get my inherited sarcasm. So I just said no. I don’t have a spare wheelchair and if the one I have breaks then an incredibly sweaty man comes around to fix it, realises he hasn’t got ‘the parts’ and then comes back and fixes it.

I did try to help the woman with some advice on how I got my wheelchair but it turns out she was after a quick fix. The time it would have taken to go through the correct channels at wheelchair services in the NHS were not going to cut it. That’s if they are still organising the provision of wheelchairs during Covid.  So all ends up I didn’t solve her problem.  The chair was not for her, but for some unspecified relative who somehow needed but didn’t have a wheelchair of their own. Now who was the disorganised disabled person? I might not have had a spare wheelchair but I had at least managed to organise one! 

Even if I’d had a spare wheelchair what are the chances of it being of the required size and dimensions to cater for her unspecified relative?   Non-wheelchair users don’t always think about these things. A wheelchair is a wheelchair to some. They’d think about that a bit more if they had to use someone else’s legs for a spell. Her plan made Operation Moonshot look like a sure thing.

She didn’t press the matter, and one of the advantages of using a wheelchair is that you can escape from people fairly quickly in a downhill direction on Elephant Lane unless they break into a run. The only people in Thatto Heath who regularly run are eight year-olds scampering after the ice cream van before it pulls away so I was able to get away..

I reached the sanctuary of the shop, where all I had to deal with were the ‘shouldn’t you be shielding?’ glances of the other customers while I was deciding which doughnuts to buy. Essentials. So there you have it, a snapshot of what it is like to be this disabled person during the pandemic. It turns out that it is still not a given that you can avoid unwanted, bizarre attention even when everybody else is supposed to be staying in.

Locking Down The Debate On Covid Regulations

You might expect another spectacular u-turn from Boris Johnson and his turgid band of haunted goons to be met with anger and derision, and you’d be right. The way he brushes his hair (or doesn’t) is enough to infuriate most of us.  Not that anything he does stops even his opponents from referring to him as ‘Boris’ as if he’s their mate and not some entitled, over-promoted journalist who can’t count high enough to tell you with any accuracy how many children he has. But it is his policy making and inability to handle the current crisis that have regularly sparked the most criticism and anger. And justifiably so. The man is a tedious, vacuous imposter playing out his Churchill fantasies.

This latest u-turn is perhaps the most spectacular, which is quite something when you consider that he was recently forced to change his mind about his policy of trying to starve children. A footballer made him do that, which is ironic given that the same people who call Johnson ‘Boris’ are also quite likely to view footballers as greedy playboys who are destroying civilisation one tweet at a time.  

Anger has cranked up as a consequence of Johnson somehow raising his already prodigious u-turn game.  He told everyone just a couple of days ago that the rules around social distancing would be relaxed for five days over Christmas, only to announce today that not only would they tighten again but that for many they would be more severe than they has been before. The planned five-day window of relaxed measures is now reduced to one for those of us lucky enough to live in tiers 1 and 2. For London and the South East, moved from tier 2 to tier 3 only three days ago, Johnson has invented tier 4. Tier 4 is a baron wasteland in which Christmas is pretty much cancelled except for the shit bits like the Mrs Brown’s Boys special. No mixing with other households and if you happen to have made plans to travel to or from that area to see family then you are now forbidden from doing that too.

Plenty to get angry about there then, as complex and often expensive plans are being cancelled as I write. Yet it is the timing of the change of policy which has outraged the lockdown ultras and not necessarily the measures themselves. They have been calling for the Christmas relaxations to be scrapped ever since they were first dreamed up. That doesn’t seem too out there as a concept. I’m still with them at this point. Perhaps increasing the number of households allowed to mix just because of the date on the calendar doesn’t feel like the most logical step. Covid doesn’t know it’s Christmas. That’s a fact. Bob Geldof wouldn’t even have to ask. 

But the most enthusiastic lockdown advocates don’t just want the Christmas plan scrapped. They want a full lockdown.  Apparently we haven’t had one yet which is why we need one now.  The relish with which some of them have been calling for this is something to behold. All they want for Christmas is for legislation to force them to stay at home. That’s a sentiment which wouldn’t work quite as well in a Mariah Carey song. But it’s what they want. Desperately. If they have to open another pair of socks on Christmas Day when what they really want is to be able to look forward to working in their pants and another series of Gethin Jones on Morning Live there is going to be trouble. 

I can understand why they feel we need a lockdown but I struggle with the strange notion that we haven’t had a lockdown already, which is the tale that the real champions of lockdown are peddling. The idea that we are in this situation because people were not placed under total house arrest since March is mildly offensive given what everyone has been through. I failed maths at school three times but by my reckoning we are about to enter the third lockdown in the last nine stinking, noxious months. I should have had a kidney transplant in the first half of the year and by the end of it my family and I were being prevented from visiting my dad in hospital except on days when he was considered critically ill. By the time he passed away we had already been brought in to see him three times - braced for the worst each time - having been told we had to stay away on the days that he was well enough to enjoy the company. 

So the issue here is not that we don’t have a problem with Covid or that we don’t have to significantly reduce the numbers of infections and hospitalisations. The issue is that Covid is far from the only problem and that tackling it with the blunt instrument of lockdown is merely a pausing mechanism - a sticking plaster which throws up all kinds of other issues that in many cases are as bad or worse. Absolutely no attention whatsoever is being paid to the very real human cost of lockdown. 

Debate on this issue is shut down before it begins. Failure to support a policy of endless harmful lockdowns is of course viewed by the far left as some kind of poisonous Ian Duncan Smithery. For an encore I’ll no doubt be out in the streets (when it’s safe) protesting against the award of my own disability benefits. Yet for all we’ve been through because of lockdown I might still support it if I thought it was going to bring about an end to the pandemic. Every time I hear someone say that we should stay in so that we’ll be back to normal sooner I want to vomit and commit random acts of violence upon their person. We have been sold this lie by Johnson and his imbecile colleagues too many times. It’s got nothing to do with getting us back to normal sooner. Its only achievable aim is to temporarily reduce hospital admissions so that we don’t run out of ICU capacity should it be needed. That might be a very real danger but If the u-turners running the country hadn’t spent the last 10 years deliberately under-funding the NHS then the threat of that might be greatly reduced. 

The government can’t take responsibility for that so they need to find a way to get the few remaining dissenters to believe in lockdown and to keep those who back it on board for longer.  Enter the ‘new strain’ of Covid which is apparently even more infectious than the one which is so infectious it has demanded people hide from it for most of 2020. It has an infectiousness spectrum similar to that of the speedometer settings on the spaceship in Spaceballs. Ludicrous infectious and ‘are you nuts?’ infectious. If it is more infectious than the original strain then you must be able to pass it on just by looking at someone from outside your own household. No wonder people are worried. 

The new strain doubtless exists, but it has done since September and there is no evidence either that its effects are any worse than the original or that it won’t respond to the vaccine. Wheeling it out now because you’ve got to find a way to pull off an about face on Christmas regulations without sparking a riot (also bad for Covid) is just the kind of docile shithousery you’d expect from the most incompetent leadership since David Cameron decided to ask xenophobes about our membership of a major trading block.

The joyous reception which greeted news of the Covid vaccine feels like a very long time ago now. Yet it remains our only hope of a return to normality. In the meantime measures will be tightened and then loosened more often than Johnson’s trousers. People will die, many of them from Covid despite the measures and the best efforts of medical staff. But many will die also because they missed their cancer screening, because their transplant was delayed or because nine months of restrictions with no end in sight pushed their fragile mental health over the edge. 

Just don’t expect to see a running daily tally of those casualties on Sky News. 

Back To Bedlam

We are not quite back where we started, but almost. Despite having had seven months to develop an effective test and trace system the government wants us to believe that it has no choice but to put us back into a pretty severe form of lockdown. Merseyside, and more specifically the Liverpool city region which includes St Helens, appears to be just about the only place in England which has today been subjected to the very strictest restrictions under the government’s facile three-tiered ‘traffic light’ system. As the only region in tier 3 our pubs, gyms, casinos, sport & leisure facilities and betting shops will be forced to close from this Wednesday (October 14) for a period of at least four weeks.

The government has spent the last few weeks blaming the public for the rise in Covid-19 infections which it says justify stricter measures. This ignores that it fully reopened schools in early September before a few weeks later declaring that students could and should prepare to return to or start university. With the £9,000 per head that this raises in tuition fees now safe it then decided that any students who had moved away from their home towns to study (as most do) would not be able to return home this side of Christmas. Despite many feeling confined to their university digs the government pressed on with its agenda that the public, and in particular students, were causing a spike.

And yet it is not the education sector which is subject to any tightening of restrictions. The blame has shifted again. Universities will stay open which is fabulous news since it means I still have to work. Schools will stay open. To combat the spikes noticeable since the start of the new academic year the government has decided to implement restrictions on the hospitality sector. Pubs, in essence. Backed by its army of useful idiots on social media tweeting their videos of crowds gathering on city centre streets, the government has seemingly convinced local leaders in Merseyside that some actual scientific evidence that the spike is down to pub-goers will not be necessary. 

Never mind that many of the videos doing the rounds were the result of the government’s own idiotic decision to introduce a 10.00pm curfew at pubs across the country a couple of weeks ago. This ensured that all pub-goers would be chucked out on to the streets at the same time, potentially causing crowds outside and taking us back to the not so glorious days of unseemly scraps over taxis and places in the kebab queue. The argument that shutting pubs an hour earlier means people get less drunk and are therefore more likely to comply with social distancing measures has been offered. This seems fanciful. In the first place most people inclined to go to pubs with a 10.00pm curfew just go out an hour earlier to compensate. In the second place it’s an argument that accepts that scenes like those seen on social media videos are the norm, and that pubs are either not trying or not succeeding in enforcing social distancing measures.

My own experience of this theory is that it is absolute and utter arse-wash. I have just been to Durham for a few days for my birthday. It was outstanding, than you for asking. Durham is the scene of Dominic Cummings’ now notorious eye-test drive and so perhaps a little synonymous with Covid-related problems. Yet the people running pubs there are doing an outstanding job of making sure that all of the government guidelines are adhered to. You don’t get through the front door without a mask or proof of an exemption, and you have to keep the mask on until you are at your table, making sure to put it back on if you leave your table which you only do in order to use the facilities. It is table service only so no queues at the bar, and you check in to the pub using QR codes either on the pubs’ own app or on the NHS test and trace version. This allows you to be notified should you come into contact with somebody who is infected. 

And despite the berserk 10.00 curfew there were no crowds outside either. Numbers inside the pubs are limited to however many can be accommodated at socially distanced tables. Several people were turned away on Saturday. Those people do not - staggering as it may seem to the lockdown ultras who have been wishing this Fresh Hell on us for weeks - hang about outside for a bit of a drunken sing-song or to protest at the injustice of reduced pub capacities. They accept it and move on with their lives leaving the rest of us to continue with a quiet, perfectly safe and social evening.

Part of the reason that government has been able to foist this shit show back upon us is not only compliance from political leaders like Joe Anderson and Steve Rotheram but also from the public. Social media has been awash with posts from those who are just desperate to go back to the good old days of March when going out meant half an hour in the park or a trip to Tesco. There is no appetite it seems within our community for learning to live with the virus. We must always live in fear of it and any alternative ideas are dismissed as dangerous Covid denial. I’m not a Covid denier. I can read a newspaper and digest a TV news bulletin. I understand how many people have died from it and that potentially nobody is really 100% safe while it is in the community. But if our only defence against Covid-19 is a form of lockdown then I would question whether we are truly alive anyway. Those arguing that lockdown reduces infection numbers are right. It does. No shit Sherlock, as they say. But it is no way to live and is just a pause in any case. Where is the exit strategy? This government told us in March that we would ‘turn the tide’ against this virus in 12 weeks. Now look at us, forbidden once again from having a life outside of work for who knows how long and gratefully applauding the decision as we shut ourselves away again. Fucking pathetic.

A lot has been said (then largely ignored) about the non-Covid death toll during these measures. When it does finally end how many people will have died because they didn’t have access to the treatments they need for other serious conditions? I am already a victim of lockdown. When Britain shut up shop in March I was just waiting for theatre space for a kidney transplant. All transplants were suspended in April until July, during which time my kidneys - being about as compliant as a ‘reveller’ on a politically motivated social media video - decided to kick up a gear to a point where my level of function was considered too high for a transplant. 

On the face of it an increase in kidney function might be considered a good thing and while I don’t place myself among the absolute most unfortunate of those with treatments delayed by lockdown I can assure you that live kidney donations are not something which can be put off indefinitely. The sooner, the better to give everyone involved the best opportunity to recover as quickly as possible. I am expecting a call from the surgeon tomorrow (October 13) with an update on my situation but let’s not be too open-mouthed with shock when he decides that my currently non-essential surgery can wait. All of which leaves me in an intolerable limbo, something which I have been living with since the summer of 2017 and which I tend to vent to the renal psychologist once a month rather than on these pages.  

There seems little doubt that there is a direct link between Boris Johnson’s long-held and rather infamous dislike for Liverpool and the targeting of Merseyside today. Or at least between Boris Johnson and the fact that most areas in the south with their Tory MPs are currently under the lightest restrictions in tier 1. It hardly seems worth having the debate about Johnson and Liverpool ever since his vile comments about the people and their perceived victimhood. That’s a trope which is shamefully trotted out to to score cheap points only by the desperate in online disagreements about something as trivial as football. You would think a man who considers himself worthy of the highest office in the land would be above it. Apparently not. He’s the source of it and this is just another example of that prejudice. What is more surprising and therefore disappointing is that people like Anderson and Rotheram have not done enough to challenge it. By contrast leaders in the Manchester region led by Andy Burnham have threatened legal action if these draconian measures are introduced without proper scientific evidence. The result of that is that those areas remain in tier 2 and pubs stay open. Life is far from normal there, but they have some semblance of normality and more importantly of hope. 

Hope. Remember that? It’s been a while. It will apparently be a good while longer.