Night owls

The government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided recently that all restaurants and pubs should close at 10.00pm, as a containing measure for the current pandemic. Critics suggest that the effect of this arbitrary closing hour is to force everyone on to the streets at the same time.

It is not often in this current, strange world that the Idle Skiers are night owls, but last night we ventured into the West End for dinner with a friend. A very pleasant time was had by all, but sure enough, at 9.59pm we were decanted on to Pall Mall along with everyone else and the rush for buses, taxis and tubes began.

Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge were as busy as ever and the traffic crawled along as if it were the rush hour of old. In March and April, London began to resemble a ghost town, so it is probably a good thing that people are out and about again. They were all Londoners though and tourists are a rare sighting. The big hotels lining our route home seemed eerily empty still.