They think COVID’s all over. It isn’t now.

I have to confess that I have made the best of the end, at least for now, of ‘lockdown’. Today, we were able to do a few things we weren’t able to do before and I did some of them.

First, I had a haircut. Now I know this is not exactly the rock and roll lifestyle and at my age I am not going to impress anyone with my, er, sultry good looks. But I felt an absolute mess with my hair wandering about in a series of different directions.

Happily, my local barbershop is about 60 yards from my house and it’s easy enough to get an appointment. I booked mine weeks ago and have been literally counting the days. 40 minutes or so later and I was done. The barbershop was spotlessly clean, barbers were observing mask-wearing rules, one older customer didn’t realise his nose was connected to his mouth and wore his mask at half-mast. In my experience, older people are dreadful when it comes to mask-wearing.

My next experience was when paying for my petrol at Sainsburys. Until today, people were socially distancing in the station shop, but not today. There must have been eight people in a small area. If I wasn’t fully Pfizer’d up, I’d have been worried.

A brief break and then to the Cribbs Causeway shopping mall where I felt the need to buy some new trainers. The friendly assistant in Skechers told me the centre had been “rammed” earlier on but it was quiet when I was there. I ventured up to HMV where I invested some cash in music (by the Wu Tang Klan and Django Reinhardt, if you must know) and again it was quiet-ish and safe. But there was one big difference: people were completely ignoring the direction arrows.

The last time I visited, people who were ignoring the arrows were in the minority. Not today. It was anarchy. People aren’t looking at the arrows. They think COVID’s all over. If it’s like this everywhere, it isn’t now.

Predictably, Sports Direct was a hideous experience. Far too busy, no social distancing, mask-wearing not universal (and that was just the staff) and unventilated. If anyone can tell me how going to an outdoor sporting event is unsafe but this is, well they can’t because it isn’t.

Conclusion? People really have concluded that things are getting back to normal. Boris Johnson’s relentless – I would call it reckless – optimism has resonated with a weary population who simply can’t take any more of lockdown. Johnson calls the end of restrictions irreversible. He could be right. Maybe enough people have been vaccinated, maybe these lockdowns have worked, maybe we can relax? I’m not so sure.

I think there’s a long way to go with COVID. If Johnson has to eat his words and shut everything down again, I think he will have a hell of a job on his hands enforcing another lockdown.