Well, it was inevitable, I suppose.

Not only have we Fosbury-flopped into a rights-less chasm, but the CSE Grade III philosophy salon has been issuing guidance for the interpretation of the Government guidance and the Coronavirus Act.

It’s provided the perfect platform for the nation’s professional underlings to take their lives out of first gear, appropriate the corona-chaos, and feel alive.

Firstly, we have the police officers who are setting up roadblocks (yes, groan) and offering all sorts of magical explanations for the law that might just as well have popped out of a Christmas cracker. But take the time to helpfully point the intransigent plod who tugs you in the direction of some salient rationale, and that’ll be £60 and a load of attitude. Do Not Pass Go, and you may even be treated to a guided tour of your own car and a treasure hunt for further fixed penalties.

And then we have the retailers who are claiming they can serve only key workers or provide only essential items.

Well, I can sell you the toilet roll, but you’re going to have to put the Easter eggs back.

You couldn’t make it up. Only a moron would fail to grasp that once a store is on the allowed list, they can sell whatever to whomever. Any product to any customer.

Now it is of course possible that some of those in supervisory positions are simply terminally dense and handing out bum steers to the troops like gig flyers. Far from boosting the war effort and evoking the Blitz spirit, they’re re-creating a playground performance of occupied Europe. It won’t kill us, but it is gnawing at the fabric of our morale and increasing resistance. Let’s hope that some adults enter the room pronto.

And of course, no 21st Century social drama is complete without a communal bandwagon lemming jump. A collective grasp at appropriation where the personally unfulfilled will leap cluelessly into the circumstances of a crisis in order to chisel out a modicum of self-realisation.

The ground rules for this type of tomfoolery are plug-and-play basic.

The greater the gravity, the greater the authority to act, and the greater the confidence in acting. It’s a glaring green light for buffoonery, and there’s a Brucie Bonus with government guidelines and laws that can be substituted for any rationale that they would neither understand nor have the mental capacity to form.

It’s the same motivating factors that lead people to join in with all the #clapfornhs nonsense – although #clapforboris might have had a more credible ring to it.

Now, a dig at the NHS glorification fest is not going to be a popular perspective but allow me to explain. It’ll likely attract a straw man argument about defending the NHS, but this is not a comment on our health professionals. They’re excellent. But why not just buy a bottle or some flowers for one that you know. Or pay for their coffee? Maybe a gift voucher?

Well, we all know why that doesn’t cut it.

If you make a personal and sincere gesture, the recipient will be grateful, but you won’t appropriate their worthiness. It’s not enough to flick out a gesture – you have to be seen by others to be supportive. The equation is simple: if someone is worthy of congratulation for their probity, and I show unqualified support, then I must be similarly worthy. It’s an open invitation for others to put me into the same bracket. Everything and everybody become conflated.

All the clappers are stepping out because other people are doing it, regardless of their own beliefs. People didn’t just spring up independently and start clapping.

They can see the value in it for themselves.

It’s herd mentality, pure and simple. And if I’m part of the group, I won’t be attacked myself for whatever reason. They’re actually applauding each other and applauding themselves.

You could call me cynical, but the real cynicism derives from the performing seals who are only ever in it for the fish.

In years to come, some of those involved will look back on the videos of themselves all happy-clappy and cringe into the darkest recesses of their puffa jackets.

Mind-blowing too how a swift perusal of social media channels unmasks innumerable critics of virtue-signalling as the happiest and clappiest on the NHS glory bandwagon. Not to mention those who frequently berate the award of MBEs and OBEs and other gongs to recipients who have ‘simply done their jobs’.

Seems like they need to phone 111 for assistance with their irony deficiency.