Turned away again, this time from a restaurant where I have been eating regularly for the past twelve years.

The manager was insisting that I wear a mask to walk from the door to my table, I explained that I was exempt which, according to the government is all it takes. Not at this place though.

He said that I needed to carry a card that says I am exempt, like the badge of the subnormal. I am not sure what these people think is involved in getting one of these things, you download one for nothing, print it out and carry it in your wallet. It is not official in any way and carries no more weight than my word, and yet they will accept it as some kind of proof of my hidden disability.

On previous occasions I have kept my cool and explained, sometimes smiling, that this is not necessary, but today that was not how it was going to play out.

For the first time in ages I was going out with my kids and with their mother. I have been living apart from them for ten months now, pursuing some strange path that even I do not understand, and for some reason I decided today that it would be nice to go to this place that we have all been to many times. To be met by this person, who on many previous occasions had met me with a big smile, wearing a surgical mask and sporting a surly attitude, had a feeling of unreality.

My wife produced the exemption card that I had downloaded from some website and he was happy to admit her and the kids but not me. This was when I started to lose it, I said that the government guidelines stated that no one had to carry a card, that it was optional, that it was against the law to refuse entry to someone exempt based on protected characteristics, but he would not listen. I actually shouted at him and may have called him a cunt, bear in mind that I was hungry and had driven some distance to eat there, his reaction suggested that this was exactly what he had wanted to achieve. By some miracle of self control I did not hit him, I just punched the door on the way out and continued my rant outside. I kicked the chinese rickshaw that stands outside the place, causing some consternation among the shoppers passing by.

But I don’t care, I will never wear a mask and I will never carry a disability card. It is my choice not to wear a mask, and I am covered by the description on the government’s website: where putting on, wearing or removing a face covering will cause you severe distress. Submitting to any of the rules issued by this illegal government would cause me severe distress, and although I understand it makes people see me as a mental defective of some kind, that causes me no distress at all.

We went to another place where they know me and where they do not insist on being complete wankers, I have never been asked to wear a mask there, and we have had long chats throughout this ridiculous situation about what the government is up to. We sat down and ate a delicious meal with only the usual family friction to upset us.

I am adjusting to this, not seamlessly or smoothly, but I am becoming inured to not going out so much. It is no hardship to not patronise places that treat me like this. If humanity ever resumes its place, and we get to treat each other as something more than potential plague carriers, it’s cunts like that who’ll be first up against the wall.