Sutton comedy star ready to celebrate pub day

I am getting ready for my first pub visit.

I have my contactless payment card, my hand gel and I have stopped washing – that should keep people at least two metres away.

We have been told to drink responsibly, which is always easier said than done.

Drinking can be an act that makes you less responsible as you do it.

I have never got more responsible as the night has gone on and I’ve never woken up the next morning to find that, in a drunken haze, I joined the local neighbourhood watch scheme.

We have to be careful or we might end up like Leicester, and no-one wants that.

It’s the first place in the UK to be subject to a local lockdown.

While we’re enjoying a nice pint, the people of Leicester will be trapped at home once more.

Local lockdowns are strange because they have an edge.

There will be a place where one street is in lockdown but the next street along is free.

We could see a situation where you could find it easier to travel back from Spain than nip round to your neighbours.

On that topic, I am not sure I believe what the Government says about removing quarantine from some countries.

When I had my first job in a factory the old guys working there pulled the classic prank on me.

They sent to me the stores to get a glass hammer, a left-handed screwdriver and a bubble for a spirit level.

I was young and foolish and I fell for it and felt so silly afterwards.

So when the Government starts talking about ‘air bridges’ I’m not falling for that one.

The big worry is that people in a local lockdown will travel to other towns to go to pubs and restaurants.

And Nottinghamshire is one place the Leicester escapees might try to visit.

As we’re enjoying a drink on the weekend, we should keep an eye out – you might see someone trying to do our accent.

If they use ‘duck’ in the wrong way or if they don’t know that ‘sen’ means ‘self’, dob them in.

If they don’t know that going ‘om’ is what you do at the end of the night and isn’t anything to do with meditating, call the police.

That must be what they mean when they tell us to drink responsibly.

Steve N Allen is a broadcaster and comedian who was raised in Sutton-in-Ashfield.