‘Social distance shaming’ is getting nasty

The Queen said in her address to the nation that what’ll get us through the lockdown and its ramifications will be our traditional British good humour. I’m not certain. Tempers are beginning to fray — and as we are looking at another week, minimum, of house imprisonment, I predict disaster. It is getting quite tense out there.

A day or so ago my wife and I, peaceable elderly folk, were bumbling along the promenade, here on the south coast. A jogger went past, shouting at us: ‘Effing morons!’ On his way back past us, he again said: ‘Effing morons! Take exercise!’ Had I a gun, I’d honestly have shot his head off.

Joggers are always vile anyway, and the ones wearing face masks are the worst. But what’s emerging, across the country, is rudeness, sarcasm and outright rebukes, all in the name of what I’ve heard termed ‘social distance shaming’.

If you stop to speak to a friend in the street, despite keeping a large distance between the pair of you, a busybody will start shouting.