14 March 2021

What a wacky week! The weather’s been almost completely awful – Tuesday was a half-decent day with some blue sky and sunshine but the rest of the week has been dire. Lashings and lashings of rain and gale force winds which have sounded, at times, as if the roof was being ripped off and deposited in a neighbouring county.

The other “wackiness” of the week has been the unrelenting media attention given to that interview. As if there weren’t any other serious issues which needed examination. The interview was clearly the most important news event of the century and occupied fully 50% of the BBC evening news on Monday.

Clearly, I am out of touch because my overriding thought is, “Who the f**k cares?” For the Royals it clearly is an important issue – according to some sections of the media, it’s the worst Royal crisis in 85 years (going back to the abdication).

Perhaps it’s just me but I would have thought that the police wishing to interview one’s middle son for suspected child sex abuse might be an even worse crisis than this but what do I know?

I do know that the Royal family is an anachronistic and (arguably) useless institution, and it beggars belief that this family spat would dominate the news headlines for almost the whole week. As someone on Twitter suggested, “Let’s have another Royal interview only this time between Prince Andrew and the police.”

Of course, the newspapers immediately and universally declared that the media in the UK is not in the least bit racist which prompted someone to post a graphic suggesting, perhaps, the opposite.

£69 million a year represents very good value, I’m sure.

Seems like I’m guilty of doing precisely what I am ranting about – devoting half my time to the Royals and their familial disagreements.

And so, on to more important things.

Jessie and Annabelle both went back to school on Monday for the first time this year. (You will remember that our incompetent Prime Minister opened schools for one day in January so that the kids could share all their Christmas infections with each other but neither Jessie nor Annabelle went back on that day). So, Monday was the first time they were able to be back in school and meet up with their friends.

Both were really excited (not surprisingly) and, so far, so good. It will be interesting to see the impact in two weeks’ time.

The World-Beating © Test and Trace programme continues to attract some attention. A Parliamentary committee concluded that

There is no evidence to show that the government’s £22bn test-and-trace programme to combat Covid-19 in England contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels.

In a report which examined the rush to invest in the scheme, the cross-party public accounts committee has challenged ministers to justify the “staggering investment of taxpayers’ money” and criticised the use of private consultants who are paid up to £6,624 a day.

Private Eye had an informative graphic highlighting the “success” of the Test and Trace system in combatting coronavirus over the past year.

Still, it’s good to know that our World Beating © Death Rate is still the highest in the world:

And finally, some good news – sports fans are much healthier and happier than generally imagined, according to a report in the Washington Post. At last I can tell Penelope that my reclining on the sofa watching sports is a good thing. With all the sports I watch and enjoy, think how healthy and happy I must be!

And while we are on the subject of sports, I’ve been exploring the world on the exercise bike and have run across some great bike rides. I’m looking forward to doing this one sometime this week.

And finally, finally, it’s Mothering Sunday in the UK today so Happy Mothering Sunday to all the mothers amongst our widespread readership.

Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, keep isolating as much as you can, wear a facemask when you go out and keep your distance. And keep safe.

Lots of love to you all,

Greg

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.