Not for nothing are we known as the “People of the Book”.
In the beginning was the word (as someone said in the sequel), and the word was law. When Moses descended from the mountain with the Torah, that wasn’t a matter for debate.
History does not record if the corporate manufacturing interests known as “Big Idol” suggested you could, you now, roll back a tad on the whole “you shall have no other gods” thing and whether, just maybe, this entire mishigas of laws could be downgraded to “guidance”.
Which is where we are now with the business of masks.
Laws are as easy to use as a light switch; it’s either off or on, right or wrong, and for the past few months the edict was very simple. You had to cover up on public transport and in shops.
All of which has been a bit of a faff but eventually we did learn to remember to take the things with us wherever we go.
It might be the bedraggled blue nappy for some unearthly reason favoured by our prime minister or, better still, the sleek, smug N95 option.
Meanwhile fashionistas have inventively found ways to gaily sport the brightest colours across a few square inches of printed cloth.
So much for those who love to shop at Liberty. Libertarians, on the other hand, have taken exception to the attack on their freedom.
But then anyone who’s ever struggled through the half-baked adolescent excrescence that is Atlas Shrugged knows we can happily discount the rantings of the Ayn Rand fanboy brigade.
Doctors, huh, with their crazy advice, trying to save lives and stop the transmission of a still poorly understood and fast-changing infectious disease. You can’t trust ‘em.
You’ll remember that there was another time earlier in the pandemic when we switched over from masks being mandatory to advisory, and what a study in human behaviour that was, as more and more bare faces popped up, first as a trickle and then as a flood. The moment I saw even “Waitrose mum” pushing her trolley along the aisles with no mask on I feared it was all over.
I’m hoping against hope it won’t be quite the same this time around as the law changes changed again yesterday and it's left up to us.
Yes, the vaccines, but - tarnation - those experts with their so-called science haven’t changed their tune as to what's best.
Most of all we have to think about the vulnerable and the patients who feel abandoned by the change in the official regulations.
Wear a mask at the shops or on the train and you’re not only following doctor’s orders but also helping to reduce the anxiety of many of those around you.
That’s a mitzvah if ever I saw one.
“But what of the beauty of the human face the world will be denied!” goes up the cry.
Here’s a suggestion: Gal Gadot, Chris Hemsworth - you are hereby exempted. The rest of us uglies can follow the rules.
