If you’re not going out having a beer in the sun, you’re probably at home tutting really loudly about those who do
I went to Soho in central London last weekend, which was nicer than usual. My regular mooching about town – which I did just describe in full here but read it back and thought (about myself, about my own life), “No, that sounds too pretentious” and so deleted – was laced with this extra frisson of energy. There was sunshine and a sense of joyfulness in the streets. People were laughing out loud and drinking together and cheersing. It felt exhilarating: like colour was creeping back into the world. From a distance, I noticed a professional photographer taking crowd photos, presumably so newspapers could shame people for legally having fun. Cool, I thought. Very good and cool.
It’s a weird moment in the lockdown cycles, here: we’re allowed to do things, again, but with “doing things” comes a fresh new round of “being scolded for doing things”, and with “being scolded for doing things” comes this meta-scolding where you’re not allowed to express that you don’t like being scolded for doing things because that, in itself, is scolding. (Two online headlines: “Londoners swarm Soho on the first Saturday after lockdown eased” and “Police struggle to control crowds after Covid hospitality rules relaxed”.)
Related: ‘We’ve never been so busy’: England’s beer gardens on their first week since reopening
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