- Coronavirus: viral anarchy spreads across the UK
The bells haven't sounded with the last pint, as in the past, but the previous warning from the UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, just before the pubs opened this Saturday, after three months of "dry law" in England : "You can go to bars, but if you break the law, you will end up behind bars."
Something similar said the director of public health, Simon Stevens, before the fears of an ethyl disorder in the "super-Saturday": "The last thing that doctors and nurses want at the moment is to see hospitals overwhelmed with drunkards."
Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself had to make a call to order - "Don't spoil it!" - since the common sense of his countrymen has been conspicuous by his absence during the chaos of the de-escalation: The Secretary of the Interior Priti Patel, has picked up the witness this Saturday and has warned the British not to risk the progress with "irresponsible behavior."
This time, the government has had the typically English weather on its side : invariable cloudiness, the best antidote to that sudden insanity that seizes the inhabitants of the British Isles when the thermometer rises above 30 degrees, as happened last week. with the invasion of the beaches and the street "rave parties".
In more sensible Dublin, pubs opened since Monday to give time to make the necessary adjustments, before the avalanche of drinkers arrived. In London, the starting gun was at 6 am in the middle of the weekend, due to the stubbornness of the Government and despite a warning from the police.
Closed shutters in Camden
"We are as prepared as New Year's Day," said Inspector Richard Berns , who made a rigorous first round in Camden, leading the so-called "Frontline Presence Team". "It is impossible to predict what will happen," Berns acknowledged at about noon on Saturday. "There are people who are surely wanting to 'hit' the pub after three months, but many are going to take it cautiously and possibly wait. People are still afraid."
To Berns' relative surprise, almost half of Camden's pubs were still closed at that time. Some decided to delay opening to Sunday to avoid the first wave of "punters" (clients), others implemented draconian measures (such as the need to register in advance) that pushed back the parish.
At the entrance to 'The World's End' , which is advertised as "probably the biggest pub in the world", a huge poster tries to dissuade anyone who has had a fever in the last hours, or who has lost their senses of taste or smell. The usual doorman searches you with the eyes, and to enter you have to apply the disinfectant on your hands and walk almost on tiptoe, before the incessant ballet of waitresses passing the cloth to the bars and tables every 15 minutes.
Despite the social distancing, the echo of the conversations that inevitably revolve around the pandemic soon arrives at us. Irishman Sean Byrne regrets with fuss about "how badly all governments have done it and especially Boris, who tried to leave us without pubs and without holidays".
His English interlocutor, a certain Henry, of about forty years, had to come out in defense of his "premier": "Tell me a Government that has done well, in any case New Zealand, which is in the ass of the world .. I tell you one thing: it will come to everyone, look at Portugal now. We are going to thank you for being here, although the truth is that there is not much to offer. "
About 15 people, no more, are distributed in the early hours of Saturday afternoon by the long ten neat rooms of the pub "The End of the World", where it is difficult to get rid of that feeling by throwing away the apocalyptic . Things start to brighten at lunchtime, with the lively presence of the first group of young people, forced to divide into two (no more than six per table) and follow the signs marked on the floor ...
"Zero tolerance for drunkards"
"This is a bit surreal, really," says Liz Rawson, 28, who worked at a tattoo shop on Camden Road and is coming to measure up on her old neighborhood. "I think we will reach a point where all this will jump through the air: the masks, the social distancing, the ban on live music ... I have several musician friends and they are starving. The rest of us are going to kill with boredom. We will have to learn to live with this virus and those who come. "
The same regret has been released on the pages of the 'Camden Journal' Henry Colon, owner of 'The Dublin Castle': "We cannot hire bands, they won't even let us put the jukebox ... This is going to be a ruin for everyone: from January 'dry' to October 'sober' . Who wants to go back to the pub? "
In the 'Lockside' pub, next to the canal, there begins to be something similar to an atmosphere in the afternoon, thanks to the human tide that goes to the reopening of the celebrated markets . "We started with the music being very low and with the inevitable nuisance of distancing, but we hope that little by little things will relax and that Camden nights will return to what they were", adventure manager Nichola Petrou.
Fears of a "pubamargeddon" (the apocalypse of pubs) were ebbing throughout this Saturday, with no notable news of disruption of public order. The government left the decision to "sign" their clients to the owners of the pubs, fearing possible outbreaks . They were relentless at Swiss Cottage's 'North Star' and didn't let anyone in who hadn't pre-registered on their website. Owner Natasha Purdom had to deter more than one who tried to break the rules: "We are going to have zero tolerance for drunkards."
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