My Secondary School was a bus ride away from my home, and I can remember that the schoolboy cost of a ticket (one-way) was 1½d or 1.5 pennies or three ha’pence or just over half of one modern new penny. The cost now seems derisory, and it wasn’t a great deal even then, but it was worth collecting by a real, live ticket conductor and there was always a chance (remote but real) of your ticket being demanded to be seen by a ticket inspector.
As my bus travelling was at peak time, ticket conductors were not always keen to visit the seething zoos on the top deck and were sometimes somewhat cursory in their collecting of the three ha’pences for the fares.
At the bottom of the stairs there was, attached to the metal structure of the bus, a little locked ‘honesty box’ where uncollected fares could be placed.
I have to admit that I scorned to be called a thief for three ha’pence, and always put my penny ha’penny into the box. Indeed, there were times that, unless I was asked for the fare directly, I kept the money in my hot little hand until I could place it in the honesty box.
I now realize that my actions had little to do with honesty and more with what is now called ‘virtue signalling’ where the public act of honesty outweighs the quality of honesty. I was doing the right thing, but I wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing, and therefore parading my honesty rather than merely (as I saw it) being honest.
This juvenile act of selfish pride came back to me when considering the Pandemic.
Last night I went to the Liceu for the ballet (of which more anon) and, as I was walking down the crowded Ramblas from the excruciatingly expensive car parking, crunching my exquisitely painful knees, I was forced to consider the disparity between older folk who were almost invariably wearing masks and those people aged about 25 and younger who weren’t.
The rules (ha!) for what you can and can’t or what you are supposed to and not supposed to do have always been somewhat fluid (no matter how they were presented by the authorities), and I think (who knows?) that the wearing of masks outside is now permitted, but they should still be worn in crowded outdoor situations (I think). I would consider the most famous street in Barcelona, Las Ramblas, packed as it always is with tourists and natives, to be a crowded public place under the meaning of the rules. Well, they (the youngsters) weren’t masked, and they were not observing social distancing.
I have had my flu jab and my Covid booster, so I can consider myself fairly well protected – but I always wear my mask, I am positively Pilateian (the word may not exist, but we need some sort of expressive adjective, though the adverb may be too clumsy to use) in my compulsive hand washing, and I keep my distance. Why can’t others?
But this zeal for protection extends itself to my locker in the pool. In our pool you can hire a locker and have it as your personal storage space on a permanent basis. Not only does it mean that you can store some of the essentials on site and not have to carry them to the pool each day, but also you can be assured of its not being used by anyone else and therefore you can be assured of its cleanliness as well.
However, after I have changed, I clean the outside door and the interior of my locker with the disinfectant provided by the centre, using sheets from one of those giant rolls of absorbent paper also provided. I have my own spray of disinfectant that I keep in my locker, and I spray and clean the pegs and the sitting area of bench that I have used.
We are constantly told that Covid is transmitted through the air and that the chances of transmission via surfaces is limited. Limited by not non-existent. I am aware when I am cleaning that I am doing something that virtually everyone else ignores. Most people regard the wearing of a mask (which the centre demands in all inside areas, except the showers) as sufficient. And perhaps they are right, and I am just virtue signalling again, revisiting the childhood pride of ‘honest’ bus riding.
Having said that, I do feel some degree safer after my cleaning and I enjoy that sort of selflessness that comes with knowing that at least the bits that I used are now clean for others.
I think that the simple reality is that any amount of virtue signalling is to be encouraged when you are dealing with a pandemic that has killed millions and incapacitated millions more. I will continue to clean!
The review of my Liceu evening can wait for another time!
