So this Covid Christmas is all about contradictions. Government says we may get together (up to three households), but advises that we shouldn’t. After our few days’ “freedom”, it’s clear we shall be locked down more tightly than ever: Northern Ireland already knows that. My former colleagues in education are at screaming point: having been forced to stay open under threat of legal action from the Department for Education, now they’ll spend much of Christmas preparing volunteer-run testing programmes, getting parental permissions and all that – er, but won’t open fully in January anyway. Still that’s life under Covid, at least as the UK does it. Only one thing for it: a very silly satirical song for a Christmas beyond satire, on video above and in text below. And I wish you all a happy distanced Covid Christmas Day!
So, after all these Covid fears (one thing I’ve got to ask)
The time for family Christmas nears (you won’t forget your mask?).
I think it’s going to end in tiers, but here’s the hardest task:
Can’t even slip out for some beers, for something from a cask.
Now just a trip to the pub’ll get you into deep trouble
If you left your own bubbly in the tiniest way.
But if you kneel down and beg you might just get a Scotch egg
And so I wish you all a happy distanced Covid Christmas Day!
So here’s my take on PPE (er, have you had a test?):
“There’s not enough”: that was the plea (just go back home and rest).
I phoned in to the powers that be, said my firm could supply:
A contract for my mates and me, and no one asked us why!
That nasty journalists’ spin is to imply that it’s sinister
That me and the minister were pals at school:
Accusing us of chumocracy is sheer rank hypocrisy.
Even in a democracy you’ve got to bend the rules.
So, if you live in a city, heed Professor Chris Whitty
And ignore all that Priti and Matt Hancock might say.
And to regain your balance why not ask Patrick Vallance?
And I wish you all a happy distanced Covid Christmas Day!
Now we’ve begin to feel the pinch (ooh! That’s a nasty cough):
And no one wants to be the Grinch who says that Christmas is off.
The moment government gives an inch, its cronies take a mile:
Those tycoons know it is a cinch to make a dodgy pile.
We get our over-priced ventilators from shady speculators
Fooling the regulators, making a killing:
While like bees round a honey-pot they grab all that money.
But it’s really not funny, now we’ve got to foot the bill.
It’s staring us in the face that Dido’s new Track and Trace app
Isn’t up to the pace for which we thought we’d paid:
And when everything’s barmy, then we call in the army:
And I wish you all a happy distanced Covid Christmas Day!
Now, listening to this song you’ll think I’ve lost my sense of taste:
“Just leave it there,” you’ll say. “I’ve got a turkey to baste.”
Maybe it doesn’t matter how much tax-payers’ cash they waste:
The moral of this tale must surely be more speed, less haste.
We’ve now begun vaccinating, but I find it frustrating:
Government’s procrastinating got us in this mess.
Meanwhile, I’m socially distanced: in the face of resistance
I defend my insistence that the safe approach is best.
And find some ways to be thrifty. Mind, they’ll have to be nifty:
We’re in debt till 2050. It’s a lot to pay!
But, if your eyes are giving hassle, take a trip to Barnard Castle:
And I wish you all a happy distanced Covid Christmas Day!
