The ‘new normal‘ requires new social etiquette. Here are just some of the things I now find myself doing:

Covid Leaning – When sitting in a cafe and someone walks near to you you tend to turn your head and lean away from the person whether wearing a mask or not;

Mask Stare/Dirty Look – This is when someone is somewhere that requires a mask and they don’t have a mask on. I must admit in the past I have told people to obey the law but that is muscle memory from a previous life. Now I just tut, stare and give a dirty look – like most other people;

Exposed Nose – this is another version of Mask Stare and it happens when some has a mask on but they don’t cover their nose.

I’m sure there are many more that over time, and I think this is really is the new normal, I will develop many other. Sp apart from this new etiquette what else have I been up to? Well, I’m sorry to say it has been a week of burying myself in textbooks, PhD thesis and archaeological reports. This time I’ve been trying to get my head around Iron Age Oppidum – a very niche pursuit!

The result of this research is that the use of the term Oppidum is a complete mess and doesn’t really help to understand the late Iron Age in Britain. I am putting together a paper for myself to bring together what I have discovered. The purpose of this is twofold: Firstly it consolidates what I have found out and secondly it highlights what I don’t know. This then allows to consider whether I need to dig any deeper.

One final thing. WordPress has changed the interface used to create posts and it is driving me nuts. I am sure that over time I’ll get used to the blessed thing but until reach that new level of karma I’ll moan about the bloody thing. Perhaps I should develop a new etiquette for that – the WordPress Shout!