Next stop Sssssalford ... the Manchester bus passenger who used a snake as a face mask

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/16/snake-manchester-bus-passenger-face-mask-python

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No one batted an eyelid at the man with a python wrapped around his head

Name: Unlikely face masks.

Age: The one in the photo could be 10, 20, maybe even 30. It looks pretty big, but they can get bigger still – depending on the species, of course.

I thought this was about face masks. It is, but one particular face covering, spotted in Greater Manchester this week, was a snake …

Snake! Where? On a bus, travelling between Swinton and Manchester city centre.

Snakes on a Bus! Like Snakes on a Plane on a budget. What kind of snake? Possibly some kind of a python.

Alive though, and being used as a face mask? Correct. A man boarded the bus with the reptile wrapped around his neck and the lower part of his face.

It must have been terrifying for the other passengers. On the contrary. “No one batted an eyelid,” one of them said.

Manchester is so cool. Unless they were terrified – frozen with fear. No, this fellow passenger, who didn’t want to be named, said it didn’t seem to bother anyone and that she found it “really funny”.

Massive snake, hahaha. Presumably live snakes can be used again and again, so there’s less environmental impact. Win-win, press the button, ding-ding, next stop Sssssssalford. No, wait, there is a problem. A python isn’t a legitimate face covering.

Says who? Says a spokesperson for Transport for Greater Manchester. “Government guidance clearly states that this needn’t be a surgical mask, and that passengers can make their own or wear something suitable, such as a scarf or bandana.”

So far so good, but I get the feeling there’s more to come. “While there is a small degree of interpretation that can be applied to this, we do not believe it extends to the use of snakeskin - especially when still attached to the snake.”

Boo, boring Transport for Manchester. It’s a bit of fun, and a change from some of the novelty face coverings we saw when PPE was so hard to come by – the helmets, saucepan lids, Plague Doctor masks, coffee filters etc. Maybe, but actually a live snake isn’t a great mask. It can move away from the face; as it is clear from some of the pictures, this one did. And the man wasn’t wearing an actual, traditional, non-serpentine face mask underneath.

Not “no masks” tweeter Ian Brown, was it? Maybe. Or Noel Gallagher singing Slide Away, hahaha. What is it about famous Mancs and masks? Anyway, that’s another story.

Do say: “Thank you driver, we’ll just slither home from here then, shall we?

Don’t say: “The snakes on the bus go hiss hiss hiss, hiss hiss hiss, hiss hiss hiss ...”