Be a Lert

I’ve caught myself actually holding my breath thinking about the announcement the Prime Minister plans to make at 7pm this evening. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

It is tempting to criticise a government and think that you would do it so much better if you were in charge. Mostly, I would caution against that because we don’t know, do we? There’s so much we don’t know but I think the announcement of an announcement has been a terrible idea.

For a start, it’s just really undemocratic. These are difficult times that will affect each section of the population differently. A local MP will be able to argue the case for their area; that’s what we elect them for.

It is also dangerous for big decisions to be made by small closed groups because of a psychological phenomenon called Groupthink. This is where the group thinks as one and therefore stops noticing any flaws in their plan. This is how they failed to intercept the attack on Pearl Harbour or let the Challenger Disaster happen.

It puts the press in an unenviable position too. Johnson and Gove know how journalists work; they know who to leak to and what to let them have. They know that we, the public, will be desperate for details and be lapping up any snippet of information they let them have. Even if it’s wrong, it’s a way that they can test public opinion on their ideas, whilst simultaneously destroying our trust in the press.

We are being treated like children. The government says, “We’ve got something that we need you to do. We aren’t going to tell you what it is yet because we can’t trust you. We’ll let you know in a week when you’ve had time to get used to the idea.” It’s like when you warn your toddlers that it will be bedtime in two hours. I keep seeing comparisons with the New Zealand and Scottish ministers, where they speak to their country as if they are talking to adults. Well, maybe not adults because you probably wouldn’t have to explain the tooth fairy to proper grown ups but at least intelligent children.

One of the problems of this approach is that if they don’t trust us then it makes us far less likely to trust them.

Anyway, it has been a week since it was announced that there’d be an announcement. It’s Sunday and the papers have their snippets of leaked information, from various sources (some accurate, some lucky guesses and some just wrong). I’ve looked at some of the headlines and decided that as I can’t hold my breath any longer I would just write Boris’ speech for him now.

“Never in the field of human alpine tunnels have we encountered anything quite so difficult. What we, as a government, have asked you to do has been a challenge. We have asked you to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives and you, my friends, have risen to these labyrinthine demands in spectacular fashion. You have been prodigious in your efforts to stay at home but we, as the Conservative Party, have become cognisant that you are a bunch of otiose pheasant pluckers who are languishing like pigs in ...
The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has been extremely generous in putting together a package of measures but it is time to bring that to a close, which is why we are changing the message. 
We set out our five tests that had to be met before we eased lockdown to fire up the engines of our vast economy. The powerhouse demands fuel: coal, nuclear, sunlight. So, today, I am going to set out the roadmap for coming days and months ahead. 
Of the five tests, reproduction, is my chief concern. Willy Johnson is doing very well, thank you. The R rate needs to be as low as possible but like Hercules, cleaning the stables, this is an Augean task. 
We have to be certain that any relaxation we make to the restrictions doesn’t risk a second rise, as any up-stir could impact on reproduction. 
Therefore, from Monday, we are changing the message. We have changed the warning lightbulb from red to green and now our country needs lerts.
Perfectly clear: go to the Isle of White, download the app and be a Lert!”

Now we know, we can breathe for the rest of the day but I will be there at 7, trying to work out what a Lert is.

Routine

By now, many of us are beginning to develop new routines. It’s the routines that can keep you feeling safe; tiny little things that you can control distracting you from those you can’t. Writing a blog became part of my routine a while ago. I wrote it during the night or the early hours when I couldn’t sleep. Bizarrely, when the whole world went crazy, I started to sleep better. It was if my brain relaxed and said, “See, the world is randomly unsafe. Now everyone knows it.”  I felt that I couldn’t stop writing, though. To not write through this part of History seemed negligent, so I made a commitment to a daily blog while this is happening. It’s the first thing I do when I wake up.

Today, I didn’t want to write. I was hoping to write something happy, or funny; to write about birds or      the pink super moon we are expecting but instead the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has been moved to intensive care. This is a huge moment in history. This virus doesn’t have a good prognosis once it starts to attack the lungs and so the nation is collectively holding their breath, which is the last thing we should be doing. Breathe everyone! Even people who have an ideological hatred of his policies are having to admit that this is not what they wanted.  We are thinking about his family: his children, siblings, Dad and pregnant girlfriend. We put ourselves in their shoes because we understand what it feels like to be family. We fear for our country. We worry about the medical staff who, already under intense pressure, will be feeling that they mustn’t let this one die.

It makes us question our mortality.

“Stay safe,” we write on emails, knowing that that’s not possible. Then we get angry and look for someone to blame. Trust me, blame won’t help you in the long run. It’s not the fault of the man who sat in a park in the sunshine or whoever decided we needed 5G. Eventually, we will all have to accept that this novel virus is just some random piece of shit that is part of life’s rich shittiness.

So, I will be hoping, praying, practising my breathing (because it might help if I get it and does help to keep things in perspective. ) And will be standing outside to appreciate the clear sky, lack of pollution a super big pink moon.

Badger, Badger Badgers, Badgers, Badger

Boris Johnson visited our town today.  It was a vanity trip.  You couldn't find a place that is more overwhelmingly Leave. The MP is, the posters in windows suggest that the majority of the population are and so he wasn't in danger of converting anyone.  It was just a breakfast trip to stand in a picturesque place and have a pint of beer for breakfast surrounded by people who think he's wonderful. You can't deny that he's working hard at being liked; he was in Yorkshire for a lunchtime pint but part of his popularity is that he's a very strange man.

I can't look at him without thinking of badgers.  I'm not sure why.  It might be to do with the cartoon Bodger and Badger.  Was Badger called Boris Badger? No? Oh well, I seem to have made that up. Maybe it's because in the yawning photos of Mr Johnson he looks a bit like a badger, or because he answered, "Badger, badger, badgers, badgers, badger," on Have I Got News for You.

The school I work in has animal names for the classes and I was sitting with the French teacher in the staffroom, while she was making labels for the class doors in French.  Our French teacher is French but she has been here long enough to have lost some of her vocabulary but not her accent. She struggled a little with Octopus, wondering if she was just calling them calamari but she couldn't remember the word for badger.  She googled it, blushed, giggled and said, "Oh no.  It can't be."
"Is it a swear word?" I asked, sensing her mood (I'm clever like that)
"Well, yes, sort of. It's not polite.  We would say that about someone who isn't very ..." she tapped her temple, "you know."

So you might say, 'Boris Johnson c'est un blairau'?
Maybe I'm a natural french speaker and that's where my association comes from.

Roll your sleeves up

Can someone please buy the Conservative government some short sleeved shirts?

George Osborne, David Cameron and Boris Johnson have all been using the phrase, "roll up your sleeves and get the job done." It's odd, really because you never see any of them with their sleeves rolled up.  Not that any of them would do a job that requires actual sleeve rolling.  They are much more likely to galmi (get a little man in - I suspect this is a word peculiar to our family). Even when Boris cleaned for the Queen he had a long sleeved shirt on under his t-shirt.

The Prime Minister and the man that coverts his job are both old Etonians and I kept thinking that their uniform would have prohibited sleeve rolling. 

Yesterday, I visited my daughter, who lives in Slough and she took us for a walk through Eton to Windsor.   It was my first visit to Eton and I was shocked by how other-worldly it felt.  I'm not saying I didn't like it.  What's not to like about a street that contains an antiquarian book shop, nice restaurants, a deli and a shop that specialises in collectible boxes? Except the parents in their large cars; Mothers with impossibly skinny legs wrapped in jeans that cost more than I earn a month, Distracted Dads who ask their boys questions like, "How did your oral with Boffy go?" and sisters who stare at their sibling's unchecked eating with simmering resentment. There were single boys in Victorian wedding costume and groups of boys in sports gear and none of them had their sleeves rolled up or any of their arms showing.  My daughter said that she had noticed that the boys in frock coats and white bow ties were always alone and thought it was odd because every teenage boy she had met up until this point in her life preferred to hunt in packs. Even the boys in the restaurants with proper linen and silver cutlery had their arms covered.  Long sleeved Hacket Rugby shirts, Thom Browne cashmere sweaters (with the stripes on the arm) and long sleeved blue shirts over jeans were everywhere. 

These perfect boys who grow up to do brilliant things can't be real can they? There's a touch of the Midwich Cuckoos about the place.  What if, on enrolling at Eton the real boys are swapped for alien or robotic replacements and the evidence can be seen on their forearm?

I think that explains everything.