What’s going on … and some laudable efficiency

Having – as announced on this august organ – begun my new fitness campaign on Monday, yesterday I did my third seven-mile walk in four days and this return to regular exercise, combined with a slight change to my dietary regime, has already appeared to help me lose four pounds in weight.

However, that is not the subject of my post today.

Having set off yesterday upon my normal route I had tuned into the Adrian Chiles’ late morning show on Radio Five Live where his panel of three “talking heads” – all politicians, one each from the Scottish Tories, Labour and the SNP – were addressing the vexed issues of the day.

The headline ones were allegedly firstly, the cuts to the armed forces recently announced and secondly, Boris’s off-the-cuff remark on Wednesday to some Parliamentary Committee that perhaps one item of potential use going forward might be a form of “vaccination passport”, the possession of which (for example) could be the difference between gaining access to the inside of a pub or not … at the discretion or whim, Boris seemed to be suggesting, of each individual mine host.

Now. I don’t have any difficulty with the right of any individual to refuse to have a vaccination – or indeed, if they have had one, to any individual declining to take advantage of a “vaccination passport” scheme, if one was ever introduced.

On the other hand, I also don’t have a problem with the notion that – where people in certain walks of life have refused to have a vaccination jab and the authorities decide (for the greater good) that it should be a precondition of working in that job that everyone must have had one (and those same people don’t change their minds) then they can hardly complain if the inevitable outcome is the loss of their job.

Furthermore, if ‘vaccination passports” are introduced and possession of one becomes a pre-condition of being allowed inside a pub, I don’t think anyone can complain if they’re excluded because they refuse on principle to obtain a “vaccination passport”.

Yes, it’s their right not to have one … but it’s also someone else’s right to not let you into their pub if you haven’t got one (not least because it might signal that you’re not only a danger to yourself but also to other people).

An interesting side issue of Boris floating his “vaccination passport” idea – dismissed by two of Adrian Chiles’s panel guests yesterday as “simply a gimmick” designed to deflect attention away from controversies like the Government’s new strategies on firstly, illegal immigrants crossing the Channel to “seek haven in the UK” despite having to travel the length of the European continent to get here and secondly, the renewal of its draconian “lockdown rules” until the autumn – was the reaction of those publicans who suddenly began queueing up to appear on the media to criticise it as “unworkable”, “ridiculous” and “liable to place pub staff in serious danger of being assaulted by fed up members of the public”.

I’m afraid my response to these moaning minnies is that they need to “wake up and smell the coffee” and indeed preferably “get a life”.

Seemingly oblivious to the clear present and future mortal dangers of the fact that mass gatherings of human beings in places where social distancing is difficult or impossible to maintain, for the past ten months they’ve delighted in continuously bleating from the rooftops to anyone who will listen and/or give them a platform to complain about the Government’s failure to allow them to open their businesses immediately “as per normal” (as that used to be in the good old pre-Covid-19 days).

Now, as Boris suggests a way by which – in line with the advice of those providing medical expertise to the Government – pubs might open to the extent that they can consistent with simultaneous avoiding the spectre of spreading (or super-spreading) further outbreaks of the virus, they’re back on telly and radio belly-aching that it’s all too difficult and/or impractical.

Given the UK’s current estimated total of 126,000 dead and counting, I simply ask those in authority in our great hospitality sector the question “Do they want to jolly well re-open, or not?”

Anyway.

Yesterday, by the time I had given my metaphorical “short, sharp shock” to the UK pub sector, I found myself walking through the streets of a famous borough in south-west London.

It was at this point I passed the entrance to a large local government building set back from the road. Beside it was a large “Covid-19 Testing Centre” sign, accompanied by another, smaller, sign saying “Walk-in tests, apply here”.

I considered the latter for about ten seconds or so and then decided to investigate.

I approached a gentleman in a yellow high-viz jacket and asked if  – as apparently advertised – I could just walk in off the street and have a test. His answer was affirmative. I was waved through to a reception area where I gave my personal details including phone number and email address.

The whole set-up had been spectacularly well-organised with easy-to-follow signs and helpful staff everywhere. I was given what in my estimation almost passed for VIP status and so asked the young black guy taking my details how busy they’d been so far this day.

He replied “Not busy at all – you’re our first attendee in about an hour”.

From there straight to one of twenty booths where a friendly and efficient young female took me through the process of taking a “swab” test (which I already knew because I’ve volunteered for two official surveys and done several).

In less than four minutes I had done my test and, following the yellow arrows on the floor and walls, was on my way out of the side of the building and round onto the high street again.

And you know what?

As I departed I was given a rectangular “registration card” and told that if I hadn’t received my test result by 9.00am this morning, I should ring or get in touch via their listed website to chase it.

I will not need to. I took my above-described test at 11.25am yesterday … and (my smartphone tells me) by 12.02pm I had already received a text from the NHS advising that I had tested negative.

Now that’s what I call an efficient service.