It’s inconsiderate people doing stupid things like this that has really annoyed me throughout this last year.
I have tried to be sensible right through since last March and have generally followed the rules even when I haven’t agreed with them. What we desperately need now is to get through these next few weeks and have an end to this lockdown. Many aspects of this lockdown have been completely over the top and has wrecked lives and the economy, but doing things like this will not help things to get back to normal any sooner.
Whilst this example is a little extreme, I wouldn’t say this sort of thing is that unusual.
It’s a reality that there’s mixing going on in workplaces, and a lot of people who have been at work right through this will take the view that if they’re essentially expected to mix at work with few mitigations extant in practice, then why shouldn’t they have the odd crumb of enjoyment for their troubles? I can certainly think of some leaving “events” which have happened in my neck of the woods - there’s certainly been been more than the fair share of retirements over the last year.
Given how many examples there’s been at my place of people passing away not massively long after retirement, quite honestly people aren’t going to be prevented from giving respected colleagues a decent last day. Another example of where the neurotic brigade need to rejoin the real world, instead of allowing life to be halted by the likes of Ferguson.
Having said all that, the Marylebone example does seem a little OTT.
The trouble is this sort of disregard for the rules tends to lead to stricter rules... which then penalise the law-abiding when the non-law-abiding will keep breaking them. That's not very succinctly put but you and I end up paying for others' misdemeanours.
As a matter of interest, it’s funny how the term “the rules” has slipped into common use. There’s no such thing as “the rules”. What we have are laws and guidance, the former mandatory the latter advisory. Indeed given the way the usual parliamentary scrutiny has tended to be subverted, any respect one might normally have for laws I find is somewhat degraded in practice. Another worry for the future, just like the way certain police forces are trashing respect they previously enjoyed.
“The rules” makes me think either of something like school rules, which is no way to garner support from a population (even if harking back to Eton is the best Boris can come up with), or perhaps a Maoist concept one might expect to find in a state like China.
