Introducing: Samson the Lemming

Heat warps the human being. It can buckles them, slows their step. Halts their ability to sleep. It shortens their fuse to only trigger finger fast reactions and causes a strange sort of cannibalistic pack mentality. Take the British, for the example. A country swarming with people who act as babbling thermometers. They wander into shops or homes or offices and declare ‘isn’t it hot?’ or ‘blimey, it’s freezing in here’. They check the weather reports like they’ve been handed the lottery results. These are people who, once gun ownership is made legal here, will spend their lunchtimes patrolling their offices and hunting down anyone who dared to fiddle with the air conditioning without first seeking their bloated, withholding say so.

Most of the Brits, or most of seventy odd percent of them who were alive a few years ago (depending on who you take your news from), once voted to keep people away from their island. Yet, during a global pandemic, they’ve begun flooding to the coast the moment the Sun comes out. Why is that? Could it be desperate bid for escape, perhaps? Or maybe they’ve gone to stand watch over their precious white cliffs, believing they can hold back the tide of germs and foreigners with a moat assembled from mostly their waste and filth?

We’re an inscrutable pack at the best of times. True, we might endlessly tweet about the news, share petitions on our feeds and hunt down the online presence of any presenter or expert who deeply offends us simply by their existence, but we also manage to keep our reasons close to our flabby chests for the majority of the time. We mutter more than we yell. England has its own church. Inside it, you’ll find a perfect example of this muted sense of battle hardened pride. Ancient buildings, full of sleepy people, all of them saying the word halleluiah like an amateur ventriloquist dummy; teeth together, lips apart.

For months, this country decided the best way to keep its people safe was to hold them in their homes for as much as possible. Considering the government announcing these decisions, it was hard not to be a little surprised. The rich, plucked vultures who’ve made themselves very comfortable at the top of Great (ish) Britain had never seemed the sort to worry about the people they see past their tinted car windows before. Here, though, they tried. Some more than others. They came up with schemes to keep people afloat financially. They got up in front of cameras daily and did their level best to look intelligent for at least fifteen minutes. One of them bragged about shaking hands with everyone he met and then fell to the plague for a little bit. Then everyone congratulated the human jelly baby for managing to produce a child. Realistically, I suppose we should’ve been more focused on congratulating the child. After all, they were already smarter than at least one of their parents.

Lockdown only held until the temperatures changed. After that, the police were sent out to round up some of the kamikaze tourists that our nation had unleashed onto its roads. The locals who lived near beaches watched in horror as a tidal wave came at them from the wrong direction and, around the world, the newsreaders all grinned and rubbed their greasy hands together; they could finally turn the spotlight somewhere else. Public opinion, flung hard at the walls and bars of social media, called for change. People wanted out, legally. We, as a country, will always vote to leave. To borrow from a man who used to paint on his moustache, we don’t want to be in any club that wants us as a member; and that includes our own household, apparently.

Maybe it was these lemming herds that began to change government policy, it’s hard to be sure. England has always been ruled by the twin winds of vanity and greed. The weathervane on the top of the Houses of Parliament must’ve fallen off years ago. Or perhaps it couldn’t take it any longer. Maybe it simply decided to end it all and performed a swan dive into the Thames. A river that is determined to only stay clean in small pockets, out in the middle of the riptides, where no one can reach it.

Now we’re told to stay alert, to stay healthy, to eat out. The pubs reopened, although they might have to close again in order for the children to go back to school. Whether it’s the teachers or the children who are currently hiding in the bar, the news reports refuse to say.

The latest twenty four, buzzword decree has people racing to attempt a stay-cation. A vacation that does not involve staying where you are. Meaning is literally burning away, or has been beaten to death against the wallpapered walls of our homes. The hairdressers and salons reopened and found themselves treated like rock stars and saints by the masses. Cinema owners are throwing themselves to their knees in front of their Tenet posters and praying their lord and saviour is named Nolan. Shop workers are finding themselves back behind their counters, whether they like it or not, with visors over their faces and aprons tied over their uniforms like bargain basement Kevlar, waiting for a flood of people who won’t appear until the inevitable rain drives them back in doors. They’ll no doubt stampede in, complaining about the rain and declaring all bad weather is a conspiracy created by the liberal media or sent here from Brussels. Maybe someone will convince them to spend their autumn Thursday evenings clapping for summer to come back.

In other places, there are deeper problems finally being exposed to the bright light of popular consciousness. People are marching as best they can through the plague lands and the police and the press. They’re protesting murders committed behind the cover of a badge and voting and hoping that the people pulling the puppet strings won’t decide to deploy yet another loophole to keep their sweaty megaphone at the big podium.

From where I sit, fairly safe and incredibly aware of the fact that I look a lot like the pink skinned, overweight and (most suspiciously of all) male trouble pundits who’re stirring all these bubbling pots, it’s hard to not start counting the days until winter. Then all the barbecues will be packed away, the bass notes of stereos will retreat back indoors or hide behind closed car windows and eighty percent of the holidays people felt entitled to will have been left in the dust or spent harassing the people who like alongside the scenic routes. The beaches will be frostbitten and clean. The motorways will be full of lorries carrying wrapping paper and plastic trees. It sounds like paradise from here, in the hot seat.

Only, of course, winter will brings its own problems. Science keeps telling us that the cold weather is going to give birth to a whole new spike of sickness and there will be elections to show us just which flavour of old and male will be driving the American juggernaut headfirst into 2021.

I suppose the best bet is to hope all the anger on my Twitter feed is right. Maybe masks are a conspiracy waiting to be exposed. Maybe China isn’t a Bond villain. Maybe there are no germs on Mars and the red streets are paved with Tesla batteries. Maybe winter is nothing but a myth made up by the bleeding heart liberals to stop people going out to watch Nativity plays in their children’s schools. Maybe the Labour party was a mass hallucination we all experienced during that summer when no one could decide if they liked Blur or Oasis. First things first, though, I better get a haircut.