LONDON, U.K. -- Boris Johnson has gone from near death to new dad in three weeks. And he fooled us all.
I had just been reading about how Britons are in the doldrums—worried, frustrated and bored—when up popped the news that Johnson’s fiancée, Carrie Symonds, had given birth to a son.
It was not a secret that she was pregnant. The surprise was the timing. Indeed, after we heard that Boris caught the virus, the country began to worry next about the health of mother and baby.
All is good. Downing Street announced the father was present for the birth.
So, now the prime minister has another reason to be thankful for Britain’s National Health Service, and might feel motivated to raise their budget. One NHS hospital team saved his life—another delivered his child.
It happened with a certain level of intrigue. Downing Street announced that Boris would not be in the House of Commons this morning for Prime Minister’s Questions, the first since his near-death illness.
Notice that I keep flashing back to his brush with mortality? It adds a touch of drama to one’s normal lockdown monotony.
Anyway, Boris’ absence from the House lead to instant speculation that he’d suffered a COVID-19 relapse, and wasn’t well enough to attend.
It was a classic bait and switch. Or as a Guardian journalist sheepishly pointed out: “Downing Street played us all quite brilliantly.”
Okay, with that bit of happy excitement over, can we please get back to Samuel Pepys? Ever so briefly.
Pepys worried about his mental health in the middle of the Great Plague, the way many in this country worry about theirs 355 years later. The parallels are remarkable.
Today, it’s anxiety and depression—then, it was “melancholy,” brought on by an excess of black bile.
Pepys wrote of his efforts to stay cheerful, only to be dragged down by news of friends dying. His doctor, for example, which was not a hopeful turn of events.
“I put off the thoughts of sadness as much as I can,” he confided to his diary, admitting to “great apprehensions of melancholy.”
Before the pandemic hit, a poll here showed 50 per cent of people felt perfectly happy with life. That has now dropped to 26 per cent. I’m amazed it’s that high.
In the early days of the lockdown, as life slowed down, people were still feeling calm and hopeful. All those millions of us who vowed to take up jogging or learn a new skill. Or start on the Dog Lover’s Jigsaw Puzzle.
What a difference six weeks of forced confinement makes.
A collection of lockdown diaries in the U.K.—a modern day project inspired by Pepys—reveals confessions of worry, frustration and ennui. The novelty of baking bread has worn off.
Too bad the novelty hasn’t worn off with all the joggers crowding her majesty’s royal parks. And too bad they haven’t all learned to keep their distance.
That’s okay because we have Sammy the good dog to enforce the two-metre rule with his lead fully extended. He seems to understand his duty.
And if that doesn’t work, we have a newly acquired, and fearsome hockey stick, a P88, 40 Flex, with Mid-Kick Technology.
A great Canadian solution.
Made in China.
