Nicer Kinder World?

 I wasn’t wrong. It was worth watching the computers. Yesterday’s government coronavirus dashboard took forever to release the data. I kept refreshing the screen. Nothing. My daughter read a message from one of her group chats out loud.

“Heads up. There’s a delay in updating  coronavirus data for anyone that needs to know. .Handing over to owls to keep an eye out. Wendy.”

I have no idea what much of this means but I said, “Can you tell Wendy that your mum says thanks?”

She thought that would be a strange message to send to the whole of the company but I was genuinely grateful to be able to stop refreshing my screen every two minutes, thinking it was me. In this new, nicer kinder world that we are supposedly living in it seems polite to thank people who have genuinely helped you.

Later in the evening I decided to have one more look and on the second refresh new data appeared at just after 10. The number of positive cases had nearly doubled. This would be extremely concerning if it wasn’t for the note at the top of the screen and a drop in daily deaths.

The message said, “Due to a technical issue, which has now been resolved, there has been a delay in publishing a number of COVID-19 cases to the dashboard in England. This means the total reported over the coming days will include some additional cases from the period between 24 September and 1 October, increasing the number of cases reported.”

I wasn’t the only one watching this and I saw that Robert Peston was confused and concerned on Twitter. Obviously, Peston doesn’t know about the computer senility problem. He is calling for an investigation into Test and Trace. There must be someone to blame for this mystery.

In our new, nicer kinder world, there has to be a person we can shout at. 

I’ve been very disappointed with this nicer kinder world. 

There are people openly wishing for the death of the American President. It makes me feel quite sick. I had to check myself because I did, briefly, think it would be more interesting if he died. We know what happens when a leader gets it and recovers: they go back to being the same idiot they were before but a death - that would be a new story. Then I remembered that a nice kind person wouldn’t wish a death on anyone. As we get wrapped up in our own difficulties it’s too easy to forget how happy we were that lockdown brought a nicer kinder world.

This morning I feel a little grumpy and am wondering if the dog has the right idea.

 

To go back to bed and pretend there’s a nicer kinder world out there or to go out and look for it? That’s today’s dilemma.