Día de la Libertad.

Freedom day in the UK but thankfully nothing changes here. It seems we have our share of Brit idiots though. At the nearby supermarket the following scene unfolded: a middle aged woman wearing an inadequately positioned mask unloaded the shop’s entire stock of cans of specialty cider onto the till area, ignoring the polite greeting of the fully masked cashier, and equally refusing to acknowledge the lady’s kindly packing the said items into bags for her. Nothing unusual there - this scene is enacted daily across the island, which makes it extra important for us to exchange a few kind words with any store worker doing a thankless but vital job. Obviously the customer thought this was not a human being at all (being not English) but just part of the process of acquiring sickly sweet cans of alcohol. At this point the woman’s daughter, maskless, attempted to enter the store with two coughing and sneezing small children in a buggy. Before she got a step past the “masks must be worn, hand sanitiser used” signs, tellingly only in English, the till operator politely called out, in perfect English, “I’m sorry, you’re not allowed in without a mask”. The young woman huffed incredulously but backed out. Without a word, the older woman completed her purchases (no thank you of course) and joined the daughter in the shop doorway, where she loudly and pointedly exclaimed “it’s supposed to be f**king freedom day!” In a chavvy Essex accent. I wonder how many cuss words her grandkids have picked up already? Also does she think that fool Johnson* has the power to liberate the whole world on this momentous day? I despair...

*footnote: The slang term "johnson" to mean penis is attested by 1863.