Opinion

Mary Kelly: We're going to have to learn to live in this post-pandemic world - even if the Boris Bridge to Scotland isn't in it

Covid has changed everything from eating out to sunbathing - we're going to have to get used to it. Picture by Steve Parsons/PA Wire
Covid has changed everything from eating out to sunbathing - we're going to have to get used to it. Picture by Steve Parsons/PA Wire Covid has changed everything from eating out to sunbathing - we're going to have to get used to it. Picture by Steve Parsons/PA Wire

"EXPERIENCE, travel, these are as education in themselves," said the classical Greek writer, Euripides. In the post-Covid world, it is certainly an education.

I thought I had everything sorted ahead of my short trip to Spain: vaccination certificate, locator form for entry to the country, all printed out in case my phone died in transit. Also a pre-booked test kit for two days after I arrived home. Another £43 (with a fiver's airline discount).

All I needed was a Covid test in Spain after two days. That turned into a problem when I discovered the private clinics in our town closed for the weekend. So a day two test on Saturday meant a train journey to Benidorm for an instant result.

The business was run by an entrepreneurial Dutch family who had spotted a solid opportunity in last-minute tests for unwitting tourists needing a negative test before flying home. Another 45 Euro - the cost of the flight home.

Sorted. Negative. Phew. But at the airport gate on Monday evening I discovered my fatal mistake. "Where is your locator form for return to the UK," demanded the airline official.

With the word 'plonker' flashing in lights above my head as other passengers smugly filed past me, I had to try to obtain one online, on my phone, as the minutes ticked by.

In a total pigsweat, my fingers turned to large sausages, as I attempted to type in my postcode and passport number. The groundstaff woman took pity and grabbed the phone off me as her colleagues shouted over at her that we had only five minutes.

I didn't let on I understood Spanish so that I could hear if they were swearing at my stupidity. But they managed professional detachment, albeit with increasingly shrill tones.

With minutes to spare, I made it onto the plane, wishing the mask would cover my entire head.

I'll know the next time. But I hope by then, some of this ludicrous bureaucracy will have gone or foreign travel will lose much of its appeal.

Pharmaceutical companies providing these Covid tests for travelling are obviously doing well out of this situation, but unless you've got shares in them, it's not benefitting anyone else.

Covid has already changed the world. In Spain, despite temperatures of 30 degrees and more, many people were wearing masks in the streets and there was 100 per cent mask compliance inside supermarkets and on public transport.

That's laudable, but some rules are odd though. At my brother's apartment block, sunbathing was not allowed around the swimming pool area 'because of Covid'.

Though I've also heard some pretty daft ones at home too. There's an Indian restaurant near us where they have banned poppadoms and jugs of tap water 'because of Covid'.

It defies logic. And when you think about it, isn't it amazing how the Covid virus knows you've taken your mask off on the plane to eat or drink, so doesn't strike when you're spending money, but is ready to catch you when you move from your seat. It works that way in cafes and bars also.

We've got to learn to live with this new post-pandemic world. But it's got to make sense if people are going to buy into it and follow the rules.

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GOSH, what a surprise. The Boris wheeze for a tunnel linking Northern Ireland to Scotland won't go ahead after all.

Despite it being derided as a "unionist umbilical cord" and one of the PM's "fantasy" projects, like the flower-filled Garden Bridge over the Thames which came to nothing, Johnson's former adviser Guto Harri insisted he was "serious" about a bridge or a tunnel, which he saw as strengthening the Union.

No surprise then, that it was backed enthusiastically by the DUP, who have a history of being suckered by the lying Old Etonian.

Anxious to overcome the annoying geography that separates us from the 'mainland', they ignored the reasoned arguments from engineers about impossible logistics and put it in their election manifesto.

Sammy Wilson even said Johnson's support for the project would go some way towards building back the trust he lost over Brexit.

The planned bridge over the Thames cost £53 million, of which £43 million came from the taxpayer, according to Transport for London. Not one brick was laid.

Then there were the second hand water cannons he bought from Germany which were unusable and had to be sold as scrap at a net loss of more than £300,000.

Would you buy a second hand car off this man? The DUP probably would.