POSTCARD FROM POLAND. End. The. Lockdown. NOW!

I’ve just run for an hour and a half in the woods.

It took me over an hour get that bloody song: “Come on Eileen” out of my head. To make it worse, I found “COVID 19 … oh, COVID 19 … ” replacing the title. 

And after that – finally – my mind fell upon thoughts sufficiently negative to interest me.

This Chinese Flu.

‘But you can’t call it that!’ I hear you exclaim. ‘What about political correctness?’

Well, to hell with political correctness.

It began in China, either in a laboratory, or through weirdoes eating live bats … or dead bats, or whatever sort of bats they ate.

Fact … end of … this is indisputable.

And I feel sorry for the poor Spanish, because the Spanish Flu was attributed to them, and their only culpability was to have a much higher death toll than anyone else.

Now, I need to warn you – although you’ve probably worked this out already – this monologue – this rant – is going to offend the easily offended. So if that applies to you, I suggest you to back to watching negative, speculative non-news on the BBC, right now. You know, stuff like “How The World Could Change After COVID-19”.

So here I am on my run, and I have this thought – if I put the slogans, “Stay home – save lives” or “protect the HNS” on my social media channels, how many more books would I sell? And the answer to that, I’m guessing, would be precisely zero … zilch.

So … if I post what I actually think and believe … and the same thoughts that are going through many people’s minds – don’t tell me that they’re not – would I sell more books because people would appreciate my honesty, and not some thinly-veiled saccharin-coated regurgitation of what has long since become dogma? I don’t know, but I’m going to do it anyway.

So let me cut to the point:

End. The. Lockdown. Right now … just end it.

Before the economy of every civilized country is totally pulped.

Let’s have a look at some statistics: What’s the population of the world? Seven and a half billion, give or take. And how many people, globally, have died from this Chinese Flu so far? 250,000 … give or take.

Do the maths.

That equates to 0.00003 percent of the world’s population. Look, if half the population of the world was wiped out, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?

It would solve a lot of problems. Provided that no one you liked was on the wrong side of the cut.

Let’s start with the Chinese: that’s one point four billion gone in a puff of smoke – poof.

Adios amigos.

And another thing:  I’m fed up of the trivialization of the word “hero”.

Let me tell you what a hero is.

A hero is a passerby who rushes into a burning building to rescue a dog … or maybe even a baby.

A hero is someone who stands up to bullies; someone who comes across a gang of feral little shits about to knife some innocent kid – whose only fault is to be wearing glasses – and says, ‘you know what … I’m not going to cross the road, I’m not going to pretend I didn’t see anything and walk right by. I’m going to try to help that kid, even though I understand I might end up with a knife in my guts.’

A hero is a Polish airman who volunteers to join the RAF … who has to withstand racial abuse, snobbery, and getting the crap shot out of him by the Hun, when he could have stayed at home and got pissed on vodka every night.

And this is what a hero is not.

A hero is not someone who has signed up for a job, knowing in advance all the risks and what might happen, and then suddenly and unexpectedly it all goes to shit.

A hero is not a squaddie who signed up for square-bashing, three decent meals a day, and cheap fags, only to find himself in Afghanistan, with Abdul planting IEDs under his arse. He is doing the job he signed up for and gets paid to do.

And, I know that this is absolutely taboo, but neither are nurses.

Right now, no one has the balls to call an ambulance or to turn up at a hospital, even with a heart attack, in case they catch the Chinese Flu.

So all the nurses are either busy saving lives in the COVID wards or sitting on their arses eating cakes and chocolates left by those who survived it.

Now, I’m not saving that nurses aren’t doing a great job … and I’d probably admit that some squaddies are worth the Queen’s shillings, but let’s not kid ourselves that they are heroes. If we feel the need to praise them for doing a tough job conscientiously in difficult circumstances, let’s call them “professional”.

So these are my new slogans: “Let’s get Britain back to work”! “Get off your fat arse and save our economy.” That’ll do to start with … I think these get the message across loud and clear.

Trouble is, at first it was almost impossible to get people to stay at home, and now they’ve got used to getting paid for being as productive as The Royale Family, where’s the motivation to get off the sofa?

So why is this? It’s called behaviorism. Put simply – the study of human behavior.

It now becomes the “new normal” to look for any excuse not to go back to work.

The sun’s shining and life has become good. The furthest they need to move is between the shitter, the bedroom and the living room.

They go to the supermarket twice a week, stocking up on things they’ve already panic bought, then sit on the couch saying, ‘you know what? This isn’t so bad really, hmmm? And I think that travelling to work on public transport is still too risky, so I’m not going to go back until everyone says it’s safe to do so.’

Well listen, dumbschmucsk … by the time you get back to work the NHbloodyS won’t exist any more because there will be on taxes to fund it.

Which brings me on to flying.

When this Chinese Flu has disappeared, here’s what I think should happen.

Ban budget airlines.

Let’s make flying expensive and exclusive once again.

I’ve listened to a few work dodgers being interviewed and saying how much they don’t miss foreign holidays; how they’ll be happy to have ‘stay at home’ holidays from now on.

And those who like to nuance their comments with the suggestion that they are up to speed with all the buzzwords, call it a “staycation” – pass the puke bucket, please.

Well that’s music to my bloody ears.

Let’s out price the hen parties and the stag trips.

Let’s make foreign travel so expensive that the piles of Brit vomit I have to dodge on my morning Marbella run will disappear.

Forever.

My message: “Stay at home – just stay at bloody home”.

And I like the idea of social distancing on planes.

Heck, I’d even pay double not to have some fat, drooling microwaved Panini eating Coke-swilling slob sitting next to me.  

Okay, there’s a lot more I could say but I’ll finish with a plea for sanity.

This is a pandemic – I’m not denying this.

But probably ninety percent of everyone who’s died from it would have died soon anyway.

And – seriously – I’m sorry if you’ve lost a loved one you’d rather not have lost.

But let’s get this thing into some kind of perspective.

It’s not the bloody end of the world.

It’s not going to change our behaviours (perhaps unfortunately).

And the world’s economy WILL bounce back, but only if we stop this bloody madness before there’s no economy left to bounce back.

Think about it.