Bill Harvey: The impossible dream

The other day, I dreamed that I was fed up with being dictated to.

Shimmery dream-like vision… why should I wear a face mask on the way to work? After all, I had heard Gillian Keegan, the current care minister, say on TV the previous night that masks were ‘in danger of becoming a sign of virtue.’ Ignore the fact that they protect others. This was certainly true on the Tube to work, with only about a fifth of people still wearing masks, despite rules making them compulsory on the Underground. Their defiance to ‘go back to normal’ was quite obvious. And I am not going to wear a mask at work either. I work with a lovely bunch of people, so I know I will be safe, my colleague’s ‘convivial spirit’ saving me from infection. And why not go a step further still? Why should I wash my hands before clinic just because somebody thinks this will stop me spreading an infection about? And the same goes for vaccines… shimmery vision.