The 'New Normal' never left we just stopped noticing
FIVE summers ago Britain appeared to have side-stepped into a dystopian sci-fi novel. Bus stops flashed warnings for walkers to keep two metres apart and people had to dowse their hands in Dettol before entering the pub. It was a sobering reminder that almost every aspect of daily life can be upended by something we'd long assumed could no longer shake civilisation. Yet plagues and quarantine - the very stuff of 14th century folios - were among us once again. From the earliest days of the pandemic, there was a desperate desire to know when things would be back to normal. Tabloids would scream for an orderly timetable to take us away from the chaos, shrill as a child in the back of a car crying "are we nearly there yet?" Press releases promising the reopening of bowling alleys or easing of rules around socialising often offered false hope, only for the virus and restrictions to rapidly return. And then finally with jabs in our arms we were hurried on past the horror of mo...