Wearing a mask is good manners

Early on in lockdown, I was picking up my daily paper and was confronted by someone who had contrived his own face mask with polythene bags and masking tape. He seemed blissfully unselfconscious, despite looking as if he was off to a Hannibal Lecter-themed fancy-dress party; I shared a superior snigger with the newsagent and decided I would have no truck with masks. But as time went on I had a change of heart; I do all the shopping in our household (a quirk of our domestic arrangements) and it began to dawn on me that many of my fellow citizens had been scared half to death by the pandemic and viewed every close encounter with a fellow shopper as potentially fatal. Not to mention the check-out ladies; at a time when the media was bingeing on the PPE shortages, there they were, exposed to the breath of the passing throng.