Peter Rhodes on taking a tumble, face-mask embarrassment and the future for Nitty Norah

Here's a grim reminder of how infectious this Covid-19 virus still is. David Hunter, a professor of epidemiology, says: “One man may have infected more than 90 clubgoers in South Korea, and one member of a choir in Washington State may have infected 52 out of 61 fellow chorists at a single rehearsal.”

I wonder if this pandemic will mean the end of that legendary school visitor, Nitty Norah the Bug Explorer. Head lice spread when children get too close. If the kids dutifully stay two metres apart it could mean no more lice and no more Norah.

While researching the above item I discovered that a drug called Ivermectin, used in the treatment of head lice, has already been used experimentally in treating Covid-19. Mind you, is there any drug in the entire British Pharmacopoeia that isn't being tried out?

Does anyone understand why wearing face masks on public transport doesn't become compulsory until next week? Of course, there's nothing to prevent anyone from wearing one right away but sometimes we Brits need to be ordered. We are a self-conscious nation, rather embarrassed to be seen taking the first step. A face mask? Darling, I'd rather be seen dead...

I suggested a few days ago that MPs had been slow to criticise Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP caught breaking lockdown rules to see her lover, because some of them have “their own guilty little lockdown secrets.” Now we discover that the Tory MP for the Isle of Wight, Bob Seely, inadvertently found himself at a barbecue. He says: “I apologise because, on balance, I called this wrong.” But again, there's no hue and cry from other MPs. Makes you wonder what else is waiting in the wings.

When you are young, you fall. When you are older, you have a fall, a form of words which reflects the seriousness of disagreeing with gravity in your dotage. I have just had my first old-man fall. I went a right purler which is one of those words that everybody understands but nobody knows where it comes from. “Etymology uncertain,” says the dictionary regarding “purler.” More certain is the cause of this fall. One moment I was upright, the next my feet vanished and I was rolling around in the dust. It seems I caught my foot on the exposed root of a beech tree. Tennyson called it the “serpent rooted beech” which describes the tree's appearance but also hints at low-down snake-like treachery. I adder fall.

Four months into lockdown, the boffins have come up with a breakthrough to transform our lives. Food experts at M&S have unveiled a strawberry-flavoured clotted cream. At last, we are assured, this substance will end the ancient Devon / Cornwall divide over whether to put the jam or the cream on the scone first. Oh, let joy be unconstrained. When people talk about “life getting back to normal,” is this what they have in mind?