To the Barbers

Having delivered myself of the post below, I did what I always do at times of national crisis: I went to have a haircut and see what my barbers made of it all.
I think it's safe to say that they – a pair of brothers of Greek-Cypriot origin and robustly reactionary views – are not unduly concerned about the impending pandemic. They seem to regard it as but the latest in the long succession of public idiocies they have witnessed in their forty-plus years of barbering, and would prefer it if attention was directed to more pressing concerns, such as violent crime (and the proliferation of speed cameras, which they regard as engines of extortion). The brothers take a dim view of the idiots who are panic buying and stripping the supermarket shelves, and suspect (as they usually do) that someone is making money out of all this – and it's certainly not barbers.