The UK government appeared to be suffering from a nasty bout of verbal diarrhoea as it tried to express itself amid high hopes for a coronavirus vaccine.
Boris Johnson’s prose was at its most purple as the prime minister attempted to contextualise pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s announcement that there had been a breakthrough in clinical trials.
At the daily briefing on Monday, the PM was flanked by England’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who was slightly more successful in his use of analogy, simile and metaphor.
It began with Johnson speaking of the “distant bugle of the scientific cavalry”, before he warned: “I can tell you that tonight that toot of the bugle is louder, but it’s still some way off.
“We absolutely cannot rely on this news as a solution. The biggest mistake we could make now would be to slacken our resolve at a critical moment.”
But he wasn’t finished there.
The prime minister later added he was “buoyantly optimistic”, but that people should not see the development as “a home run, a slam dunk, a shot to the back of the net, yet”.
And Van-Tam, suggesting it was not yet known how the Pfizer vaccine would affect transmission of the virus, picked up the ball and ran with it (sorry).
The Boston United season ticket holder said: “So this is like… getting to the end of the playoff final, it’s gone to penalties, the first player goes up and scores a goal.
“You haven’t won the cup yet, but what it does is, it tells you that the goalkeeper can be beaten.”
Van-Tam received better reviews.
The man dubbed “JVT” by colleagues and fans went for another classic.
He said: “We don’t know yet when we can get back to normal. We are in the second wave and I don’t see how the vaccine will make any difference to the wave we’re in. We’ve seen a swallow but this is very much not a summer. Please don’t relax.”
Oh, British army brigadier Joe Fossey was there too. We think.
And with the bit between his teeth, Van-Tam went again.
He said: “This to me is like a train journey. It’s wet, it’s windy, it’s horrible. And two miles down the tracks two lights appear and it’s the train and it’s a long way off and we’re at that point at the moment. That’s the efficacy result.
“Then we hope the train slows down safely to get into the station, that’s the safety data, and then the train stops.
“And at that point the doors don’t open. The guard has to make sure it’s safe to open the doors. That’s the MHRA, that’s the regulator.
“And when the doors open, I hope there’s not an unholy scramble for the seats. The JCVI has very clearly said which people need the seats most and they are the ones who should get on the train first.”
Well, that cleared that up.