Phew! That was a narrow escape.
The thought of Aberdeen being thrust into level three of the Covid Premier League in Scotland had my specs steaming up with apprehension.
Okay, I was wearing a mask at the time as I took the three steps from my table to the door of the cafe I was in when the news came through.
En route for the exit, I knocked over one of those see-through plastic partitions, designed to keep me free from the coughs and sneezes of the coughers and sneezers a yard or two away from my Americano.
“We’re keeping an eye on you,” somebody, probably Nicola Sturgeon, warned Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
“Any more outbreaks like the one – 30 cases – at the elderly rehabilitation ward at Woodend Hospital and it’ll be curtains.”
Hm! How did we get on to soft furnishings all of a sudden? I thought.
Apparently, ICT – the Inverness Caledonian Thistle team, I assume – are investigating. I apologise; that should read IPCT, the Infection Prevention and Control Team.
There were also 26 confirmed cases linked to Ward 109 at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, not forgetting the 87 positive cases linked to the Kepak McIntosh Donald food processing plant at Portlethen.
No wonder this part of the country was shown a yellow card as we teetered on the brink of the naughty step with real concerns that the north-east’s hospitality sector – “can we drink and eat inside or outside, or drink inside if we take in a fish supper?” – would collapse.
Dramatic? Perhaps, but we could have seen Union Street ending up more like the main thoroughfare it used to be rather than the kind of tented villages at major golf tournaments.
Mind you, had those gazebos been rendered booze-free, they would have been ideal for the city’s rough-sleepers. Just unfurl the gable-end flaps, stick in some socially-distanced camp beds and lay down the law; no hugging, singing or dancing, although snoring would be permitted.
It’s a proposal that might make it through Aberdeen City Council’s licensing board. A casting vote would be enough.
Douglas Lumsden, the council’s co-leader, was right to point out that Aberdeen had already suffered a “double hit” economically from coronavirus and the downturn in the oil and gas industry.
True, but he must have been sweating bricks before being told: “Right, last chance; another outbreak and you’ll move up – or is that down? – the league table and become the Cove Rangers of Covid.”
Meanwhile, mathematicians are still trying to work out what each of the Scottish Government’s levels mean. I hope they tell us.
Sturgeon failed to hit mark on big questions
Judging by her performance during her BBC interview with Andrew Marr, Nicola Sturgeon has lost her grip on reality.
As Marr, a superior political interrogator, filleted her on her oversight of the Covid crisis, particularly on the deaths among care home residents, she fumbled her way through an unconvincing answer.
She dodged the point that Scotland has the third-worst death rate from coronavirus in Europe and refused to accept the statistics which tell us the attainment gap between primary school children from poor backgrounds and those from better-off families had widened on her watch.
A day later, and just to rub salt into her wounds, Piers Morgan rattled her cage on Good Morning Britain with the question: “How could you want to be part of the EU, but not of the UK?”
Cue the kind of hesitancy voters do not like to see in their leaders.
All that, and we have yet to discuss the ailing Scottish economy and, come the revolution, what our currency would be in an independent Scotland.
Knowing that the UK Government will never sanction indyref 2, what we’re hearing from the first minister is PR sabre-rattling to satisfy her disciples.
The future for Scotland under this leader is, I fear, bleak, and her critics within her party have spotted the cracks in her armour.
Farewell to top comic and great man
Quiet and unassuming, but with a twinkle in his eye, Buff Hardie, who has died at the age of 89, was a comedy genius as a writer and performer with a penchant for slicing through seriousness and pomposity and rendering you helpless with laughter.
One-third of Scotland the What? he, Steve Robertson and George Donald instinctively knew what would tickle the funny bones of audiences throughout the land.
Buff’s comedic observations were exceptional; but better than that, he was a thoroughly decent man and part of the fabric of Aberdeen.
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