Interview with Non-existent Government Advisor

Blogger: Occasionally this blog welcomes guest experts to discus the matters of the day. Today we welcome Professor Dave Dump. Professor Dump is widely respected as a leading expert on political theory and is much sought-after as a government political advisor. He is a newspaper columnist, podcaster, influencer and broadcaster. Professor Dump, welcome.

Professor: I'm not an influencer. I have some influence. There's a difference

Blogger: Professor Dump, we wanted to talk to you about Chancellor Rachel Reeve's screeching U-turn on winter fuel payments.

Professor: Yes.

Blogger: Yes what?

Professor: Yes, you can talk to me.

Blogger: I see. It's going to be like that is it?

Professor: Yes.

Blogger: So, what do you make of the U-turn.

Professor: It wasn't.

Blogger: It wasn't?

Professor: That's what I said.

Blogger: What do you think of the government's decision to change the threshold for winter fuel payments so that pensioners with an income of less than £35,000 receive it?

Professor: See, that wasn't so bad was it? First piece of political advice is to make sure you are not accidentally accepting the premise of a question when you answer it. It was not a screeching U-turn. It was a tweak. It was genius.

Blogger: Genius?

Professor: Indeed. For several reasons but chiefly because for the whole of its first year the government has had a big row, on its own terms, about an area of policy it is determined to get right. Furthermore it has been accused by the blue-top newspapers of moving too far to the right and so it can satisfy them by moving left. Genius.

Blogger: So, if the government are not portraying it as a screeching U-turn, what is it?

Professor: Very good question...

Blogger: Isn't that what people say when they need time to think?

Professor: No, that's 'I'm very glad you asked me that'. Thank you for giving me double time to think. What the government spokesperson will say in those circumstances is 'To be clear...' they inherited a mess and had to move really quickly to calm the markets before setting out on the agenda their huge majority - oops, I mean the public's overwhelming mandate - had given them.

Blogger: Isn't that just a fudge for 'We got it wrong'?

Professor: Anyone embarking on a project wants three things. High quality, speedy completion and cheap price.

Blogger: And...?

Professor: You can only ever have two. Which two do you want?

Blogger: So, to use your illustration, which two did the government choose?

Professor: None of them, but nobody noticed. They opted to make such a catastrophically stupid decision that everyone piled in and got distracted from all the other things they set about in their first year. Then, in apparent response to criticism but actually as a cunning plan, they moved the threshold up but probably a bit too far. It's a clever move to give it to almost everyone and then claim it back in taxation from those who exceed the threshold. If they make pensioners wealthier in the next three years then they can move it back down again, a little, in their penultimate budget. It would be good to keep opposition eyes on this, minor, problem and make it sound big. Many pensioners felt awkward getting a winter fuel allowance.

Blogger: Wow. You could make black sound white.

Professor: No problem. Have you seen the Nigerian national football team's away kit?

Blogger: That's irrelevant isn't it?

Professor: Oh yes. But broadcasters on live interviews hate silence and no-one will notice that quickly.

Blogger: So is there a political master-plan?

Professor: I believe so. It will be long-term and costly. People are talking about leaving the Labour Party one year after a landslide election victory that promised to make a difference in five years. Not only do people want high-quality, cheap and speedy; they will moan about whichever one they don't get even if they knew that would be the case from the beginning. Currently Labour is happy for people to say they're leaving because that is meaningless after 20% of a Parliament. They are hoping, and it's tough because long-term infrastructure projects take more than five years, but they are hoping that enough looks better for them to get re-elected. Also, what you would do if you were stupid and what you would do if your were a genius pretending to be stupid are the same thing.

Some of the big infrastructure projects will be well underway and any opposition will have to say if they will cancel them. If they cancel them they will leave trouble for the country's financial credibility. If they agree to keep them the people will consider it worth trying for the same lot again because they thought of the ideas in the first place.

They've gone for expensive and high quality.

Blogger: What could possibly go wrong?

Professor: Events, dear boy, events. Brexit was always proper stoopid not tactically deliberately stupid, but it was a bit unlucky to have to implement it during a plague and a war. What was stupid is that no-one realised, or said, that it was absolutely reliant on everything else staying the same, to have any chance of working. Nothing ever stays the same. This has been genius politics so far, and has dealt with the first crisis (riots) very well. It is handling the US crisis reasonably well. There will be a crisis that no-one has thought of yet. Then we'll see.

Blogger: Thank you very much Professor Dump. More guest interviewees when we can think of them.

Hairstyles and Attitudes

I had a hair cut in Stratford yesterday (thanks Indi, fine work as usual). This alerted TCMT that I would be in the vicinity of Lakeland, a shop where she used to work and which purveys several products which we never knew we needed until we got them but now can't live without. She gave me a list. I asked for a translation. It's not a fault it's a feature. TCMT2 will cross her Ts.

And so it came to pass that I entered the shop, having arrived fifteen minutes early for my haircut, calculating that I had enough time to buy the three listed things first.

I am familiar with the layout of Lakeland and claimed the kettle descaler bags and medium sized rubber gloves within seconds. The lens-cleaning wipes were harder to track down and, although it feels like an admission of defeat, I approached the counter and asked for help. A woman of about sixty, five foot three, bobbed grey hair and large glasses pointed to the boxes three feet from my right hand. I felt an idiot but TCMT later told me that they kept them on the counter because they are a best-seller.

Hold the description of the assistant in your head. It will be important later.

Lakeland try and have sales staff that match the customer demographic. If you imagine you are selling to a sixty year old woman you won't go far wrong. I'm sure they enjoy the men who come in and see it as a badge of honour to find the stuff like a treasure hunt rather than seek help. Maybe they run a sweepstake on how long it will be before we ask.

One customer profile is a grey haired, not-unattractive woman who gives off vibes of Baroness or Mrs Something-in-the-City. This woman is used to having staff and knows how to treat them. She will never search in the store for that might suggest an interest in the stock. No, she will walk through the door, adjust her dress for the new environment, and announce her presence by shouting 'clingfilm' or some such product. She will then wait for someone to jump. They'd better.

Apparently it is worth being nice to such people who may, on a whim, choose to buy air-fryers for all their family for Christmas.

Back to my story. Satisfied that I had all the products on my list and had correctly identified any necessary deals (two for one, buy one get one free and an email every day for life) I went back to the counter and brandished my purchases. There are normally questions about loyalty here but TCMT has the Lakeland card so I said no. I was spending about £15.

'If you get the app today you get 10% off' said the kindly woman. (Ten minutes to hair appointment now.) I succumbed.

I scanned a QR code (how rock and roll am I) and went through the process. It was surprisingly easy and I reached the last stage when a message proclaimed 'Your new card will appear here - it may take a few minutes.' (Seven minutes to hair appointment.)

I read the sentence back to the assistant who looked at me as if I was the sort of person who read things aloud in shops. I went on to explain that I needed to be next door in five minutes and could I proceed without the discount. Another gormless look.

A voice from behind me said 'Are you ready now?' I turned round. Sure enough the assistant who had been serving me had wandered off to do some other task while she waited for me and had been replaced behind the counter by another woman who was clearly different but would have matched the same description precisely. Neither may have been sixty. As you can gather I don't pay much attention. I'd been drinking with a friend for an hour once when he cracked and asked if I was going to ask him about his black eye. At that point I noticed it.

Wrongs righted with a 'What am I like' and assistant A returned and my new loyalty card appeared on my phone screen. I made some comment about being glad to get the discount when assistant B told me that it only applied to purchases over £30. I didn't speak but managed to incarnate all the disappointments of my current life (medical, financial, West Brom's run of results) into a single look and assistant A folded. I got the discount. I paid the bill. I arrived at my hair appointment on the dot.

Somehow the whole process reminded me of the church at Failand which, when I arrived in the team in 2006 had fifteen members average age 75. When I left sixteen years later having observed or taken several funerals for the congregation it had fifteen members average age 75. It was as if there was a deal that every 65 year old in the village had to join the church when an 85 year old died. 'Come on Mavis, your turn now.' It worked. Also, they paid their parish share. Or maybe the baroness paid all of it.

If you fit the description, apply for a job at Lakeland. It may be your turn. Today we discovered we had run out of Moth Off, or whatever it is called now. I may need to go back.

Come to think of it the second one may not have had glasses.  

Smart Stuff

We have a Google home-hub. You activate it by saying 'Hey Google'. Walking into the kitchen first thing, if you say 'Hey Google, Good Morning' it says 'Good Morning', tells you the time, the weather and then a joke. A terrible joke. Followed by the latest BBC News.

A coupe of years ago we relocated. Google still opened with 'The weather in Bristol is...' I responded with 'What's the weather in Evesham today?' Then Google told me. I carried on for a few days, wondering how long it would be before Google learned to change its ways. It didn't.

So I asked the hub to reset its home to Evesham but got 'I'm sorry, that can't be done on this device. Here's a joke etc...'

I persevered with this request for a few days then gave up. My lover purchased it and set it up so I can't access the account.

Here's the thing. Smart devices learn, right? So now we have this dialogue every morning:

Me: Hey Google Good Morning

Home-Hub: Good Morning. The weather in Bristol is cloudy with a high of 19 degrees. I'm sorry that can't be done on this device. Here's a joke to start your day...'

So, I've learned not to ask but Google has learned to tell me the answer anyway. I've started telling Google to do things which certainly can't be done on that device. This has been going on for over a year.

Maybe I'll ask the other smart devices for help. Siri, Alexa and Hello ID (yes, I can talk to my car but can't set the weather dial for Evesham). I need your help. If all else fails I'll check-in with the dishwasher. She's out at the moment.

Nobody expects...

Try to remember to expect the unexpected. I recall this, learned thoroughly in about 1991 or so. At St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street (quite a mouthful) there was a 6.30 Tuesday evening simple communion service. It attracted between 5 and 10 people, for most of whom it was the only service of the week. When it was my turn to cover the format was straightforward. We offered a 5 minute thought-for-the-day type sermon, based on one of the readings, often the Gospel. I confess that it didn't take a huge amount of preparation. At that stage in my ministry I was speaking on about 150 occasions a year and had become confident in my ability to assemble a coherent short talk at no notice.

This went well until six members of the Church of England's Liturgical Commission, meeting nearby for a working residential, pitched up unannounced. We used the readings from the previous weekend which had been Trinity Sunday. I think they might have heard better sermons on that subject over the years. They may well also have been presided over by someone more familiar with the seasonal alternatives. Maybe someone who cared.

I have tried to prepare for the unexpected ever since but must confess a wee bit of complacency might have sneaked in since retirement.

Last time I presided at Abbots Morton I had three in the congregation plus me. Humans that is. And two dogs so it was an eight all draw in legs. I was not expecting revival at Easter 2. Then, last Saturday night I received a message from the Rector:

'I am delighted to say that I have recruited two excellent readers for you...

'One is D who teaches people to do public speaking and the other is C who is a retired BBC Midlands Today journalist.'

Well that raised the stakes. I didn't cheat and over-prepare just because of the guests and I am confident in my delivery these days.

I had seven and one dog, which is pretty damn close to revival round these parts. Feedback was good. Both readings were done very well. The dog tried to bite me.

Football Headlines

I used to work with a colleague who, for a time, shared a surname with the England Football Manager. One of our joys, as kind-hearted and thoughtful colleagues, was to cut out particularly apposite newspaper headlines to adorn said colleague's desk. Let's call him Venables (it wasn't that one).

Disappointing nights provided the richest pickings:

VENABLES IN TROUBLE

INJURIES MOUNT UP FOR VENABLES

And my personal favourite:

VENABLES DOESN'T KNOW HIS BEST SIDE YET

You get the sort of thing. After several years in the job we had quite a scrapbook.

This thought came back to me at the weekend as I pondered the potential headlines a successful performance by Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus might elicit in the top-of-the-table clash with Manchester City on Easter Sunday.

We learned before kick off that City's John Stones was unavailable. What a joy it would have been to read:

JESUS TAKES ADVANTAGE OF MISSING STONES

Although the less-used bit of the name might have led to:

GABRIEL LEAVES A BIG MESSAGE

Maybe a few balls in from the wing could have prompted:

JESUS PUTS AWAY CROSSES

Or a mighty comeback:

JESUS LEADS GUNNERS BACK FROM THE DEAD

Or:

JESUS ALIVE TO BURY CITY

As it happened the only headlines were about a boring 0-0 draw. Which left my favourite footie headline of all time still unopposed. It concerned the night after the Mighty Celtic had been knocked out of the Scottish Cup by lowly Inverness Caledonian Thistle. The midnight duty sub-editor had either been saving this one for ages or it just came to them in a moment of genius:

SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC CELTIC ARE ATROCIOIUS

Marvellous

Lessons from Village Life

I've lived in a village for a year now. I'm getting the hang of it. My sister and her husband were coming for coffee so I took a wander up to the Farm Shop to buy a better class of biscuit. Not quite as bad as my friend who cleans under the floorboards before his mother visits but you know, standards. I went on a circular ramble starting with the Inconvenience Store (it's not their chosen name but it is how they make customers feel if we interrupt their phone calls) to get a paper.

On the way I catch up with a guy I know who is taking his dog for a walk. They were going slowly so I had to work out how I was going to greet them as I overtook. This is the sort of thing that bothers people who have dreadful social skills.

I know where the dog walker lives and so we chatted about the weather (forecast rubbish; local knowledge good) for the fifty yards before his turn off. I then made my apologies and picked speed up again towards the shop. He didn't turn off. 

At the shop I pulled the door which looks like a puller but you should push and getting it wrong makes a crash. I get it wrong about every third time. There is no helpful information written on the door. I said Good Morning to Mr Inconvenience, a man who seems to enjoy his customer's distress. I got my paper, spent twenty seconds working out how much washing liquid costs in a small village shop (extortionate, cheaper to drive to Waitrose) and then heard my dog-walking friend at the counter. I did what all social introverts would do and hid in the household products aisle until he had gone. Then I purchased my paper and asked:

Do you have any AA batteries?

(A pack of AA batteries is placed on the counter without word or gesture.)

I left the shop and adjusted my pace so as not to overtake dog-walker before he reached his road although I tried to get close enough to see what newspaper he had under his arm to aid future conversations. I always like saying 'You shouldn't believe everything you read in the Telegraph' to Telegraph readers who are invariably amazed I know what they read. Sadly, he had it rolled too tightly under his arm. It was broadsheet and not pink though. I think I know.

On to the Farm Shop for the biscuits. Also some mozzarella for tonight's supper dish. I quickly find the biscuits but the lovely K rescues me from running my eye down the cheese selection for a third time. She greets me by name and asks what I am looking for. This is how a convenience store should work.

I tell K that I haven't seen her for a while. Apparently she has changed her days to Tuesdays and Wednesdays so it must be Tuesday or Wednesday today. It's not something I need to know these days.

Turns out she had just taken all the mozzarella off the shelves because it was past its display by. I say I don't mind and she pops to get it. Turns out she, and the shop, would get in big trouble if a bolshy customer reported them for selling stock beyond its display by date so, even though she knows I am not bolshy (I'm not, don't listen to my friends), she insists on giving it to me for nothing. Maybe it makes up for all the times I have popped to the Farm Shop for some milk and come back with £20 worth of baked goods and cooked breakfast items. A man's gotta do.

I put some cash in the charity boxes to deal with my guilt. Also, I now see it is smoked mozzarella which is not what I want but by this time I cannot decline.

Later that evening I discover that smoked mozzarella risotto is delicious.

Village life. We have a system for reporting escaped livestock you know. You phone Tom.

A Funny Thing Happened on the A46

My neighbours had lost their cat, Ollie. I only know its name because they had leafleted us all asking us to look in our sheds.

Driving home the other morning I parked on the drive and noticed neighbour and daughter walking around with a cat on a lead.

'You got Ollie back then?'

'Yes.'

Ollie avoided eye contact. Probably shame.

Nobody knows where Ollie had been but he returned after a couple of days. We once lost a cat for four months until we saw her in the pub car park opposite, begging fried chicken and fish from the garden customers. She came home in the winter.

That's enough about cats for a piece that is about cars. Only one thing happens to cats on the A46.

So I was distracted by Ollie on a lead, the ultimate feline indignity. Not likely, I reckon, to endear him to his adopted family. Which is how I came to shut the car boot on the handle of a bag for life. Annoying. I pressed the key fob again and the boot unlocked and immediately locked again. The handle was doing something to the system.

My car is a VW T-Roc convertible. It has two doors only. The rear seats do tip forward to allow enough space to take a Christmas tree to the tip though. And where is the catch to release the rear seats? You're way ahead aren't you?

I guessed this must have happened before. And yes, there is a section in the manual on it.

Half way down the driver's door pillar is a rubber bung, covering a hole (see illustration). Usually these bungs are used to fill in a gap caused by 'features not available on this model'. But lo, not here. Removing the bung (screwdriver needed) revealed it was attached to two pieces of stout cord the pulling of which would 'release the rear seats'. I did and it did. Well, half did. The driver's side seat released. I checked that the manual said 'both' and it did. I pulled again on the cords, a bit firmer, but nothing happened. But there was a gap into the boot that someone familiar with caving might access. I did a bit of caving thirty years ago before 'bulge at L5 and L6' calmed my sporting career down a bit. Slowly and tentatively, iPhone torch in hand, I squirmed into the boot.

I found the catch to release the boot lid and then squirmed back to get the (screwdriver needed) again. This worked but it relocked as soon as I removed the screwdriver.

I resquirmed and asked a friend for help. OK, wife.

'What do you want me to do?'

'Open the car boot.'

'Sounds like there's a catch.' (Would have made a good punchline but we have a few sentences to go.)

'There is. I'll be in it.'

This time I went extra slowly and carefully, remembering the tools. And the boot was opened. And I got out with all the tools and the mangled bag. And my back is fine thanks for asking.

This story is told in case it ever helps.

You may have forgotten the title. The next day I was driving along the A46 when the rear passenger-side seat dropped forward.

How to Clean a Conservatory Roof

The conservatory roof was covered in moss and the window clearer wanted £100 to clean it. I speak fluent window cleaner and this translates as ‘I don’t want to do that’.

And so it came to pass that I spent a good chunk of last Saturday poking a long bamboo stick out of the bedroom window and then climbing a ladder to try from the other direction. Eventually the moss was clear but it needed washing down. From my new vantage point I met a new neighbour, whose garden backs onto ours. He offered a free and far reaching monologue on the abilities of the original owner of my house. That man apparently got a job lot of fence posts ‘off of the railway’ and then discovered there were no commercially available panels to fit the grooves but by then had concreted the posts in which is why the panels rattle in the wind. My new neighbour offered me a loan of his power washer.

As there wasn’t much cleaning to do now the moss was free I said I would take him up on his kind offer if the rain didn’t shift it. ‘That’ll be Monday’ said NN who has lived here thirty years and therefore knows about the rain’s plans.

All we needed were a couple of buckets of water to wash the debris down the roof and into the gutter. From my ladder vantage point I directed TCMT in the bathroom as to which panels needed rinsing and we had some success.

I need to digress for a moment here. TCMT and I have been married for sapphire years and together for 49. I know that she speaks mainly emotion and I speak if absolutely necessary and with some precision. I can have a spontaneous emotional discussion but I try to anticipate it and prepare. She, for her part, knows I like and use clear instructions. So what happened next is my fault. She had been pouring the water slowly, carefully and gently up to this point so my instruction, pointing to a bit we had missed, to ’Chuck some over there’ was meant to be about direction not power.

Instantly a whole bucketful of water was thoroughly chucked where I was pointing but, due to some science, that would not be the end of its journey. I was up a ladder directing operations and in a microsecond calculated that:

• I was about to be soaked
• I could avoid this by moving but that could only be down and fast and I might break a bit

I did what any sensible person would have done in the circumstances and shut my mouth. Two microseconds later my mouth was the only bit of me that did not contain water.

I repeat that this was entirely my own fault for being a cute systematising male. Oh, ‘acute’ is it? Sorry.

What is unforgivable is that the bucket wielder then began to laugh. Somewhat sympathetically and apologetically but uncontrollably nevertheless. The roof looks lovely. It is Monday and not currently raining.

Delivery Slots

Forgive me accessing my inner Tim Dowling but this happened.

We bought a sofa bed. Quick tip. If you want a sofa bed demonstration in a furniture department and there are no partners (oops, what a giveaway) around to help, try doing it yourself, badly, and pretty soon you will be surrounded by advice.

We managed to purchase a product that was in stock, so delivery was agreed for next Wednesday which meant today.

'They'll text you the day before to give you a two hour window.'

Yesterday that text arrived and the two hour window was 7.00 a.m. - 9.00 a.m. The text also said they would message again when half an hour away.

'What shall we do?' asked Mrs Dowling (see how it works).

Now I know what the answer to this question is. If it had happened that I had been home alone to receive the delivery I would have set an alarm for 6.45 a.m., popped on some clothes, made a coffee and had a look at my phone to see if they had been in touch yet.

However anticipating that, as ever, there are two ways to answer a question such as this, my wife's way and the wrong way, I provided this answer aloud:

'You set your alarm and then bring me a coffee in bed.'

She looked a little sad for no reason but no more was said.

This morning I heard Mrs D get out of bed (but not her alarm) and a short time later a cup of coffee was indeed placed at my bedside. I popped to the loo (noting that the heating had not yet come on), came back to bed, had a sip of coffee and checked the time. 6.16 a.m. This, we note, is 14 minutes earlier than the earliest possible half hour notice text. I went back to snoozing.

At (I calculate) 6.31 a.m. a voice on the landing disturbs my slumber to say the delivery will be at 7.00 a.m. I go back to snoozing.

At 6.45 a.m. I find myself fully awake so turn on the light and grab something to read while finishing my lukewarm coffee.

I am collecting outrageous quotes from HTSI (The Financial Times' weekly guide to spending lots of money) and find this, 'If you want to achieve your dreams you have to hustle.' Suppose your dream is to be nice to as many people as possible?

At 6.59 a.m. I hear a van arrive in our quiet cul-de-sac. I get out of bed and put on some joggers and a t-shirt, insert my teeth and smooth my hair over.

At 7.00 a.m. there is a knock on the door. I wander downstairs and answer it (there is no sign of Mrs D). A man with a large box asks where I want it?

'Would upstairs be OK?' I ask.

'Sure', he says, far too cheerily for 7.01 a.m.

Mrs D joins us during the second box (of three). She whispers that she was in the loo (at precisely, precisely mind, the time they said they would be here).

I am now writing an amusing anecdote having wished five friends a happy birthday, prepared and eaten my breakfast, sorted out the washing, and read HTSI, Feast and the Church Times. I've even had an internal dialogue about Oxford commas. Not happy with the result.

I have never heard the sound of a sofa bed being assembled upstairs but I'm taking a wild guess. I am pressing P for publish whilst still within the two hour delivery slot.

Losing It

In the mid 1990s I was helping to set up a stand at an exhibition and the hall had no heating on. So I went to a 24/7 Tesco megastore in Manchester and bought a fleece. I recall asking  my colleague, Clive, what sort of person shopped at Tesco at midnight and he looked at me and said 'You'.

I came very close to losing it the other day. It wouldn't have been the fault of the checkout assistant at Pets at Home but it was in front of him.

Those of you who know me will probably now be wondering what sort of pet I have. I don't. I simply wanted to recharge the garden bird feeders. There is no local independent pet shop like Aaron's in Nailsea here, so I had to go to the out of town retail park world where Pets at Home lives.

I found what I needed and took it to the counter. Assistant looked at me and asked 'Do you have a loyalty card?' I kept it together and managed to say 'No'. What I wanted to say was 'Do I look like the sort of person who has a f***ing Pets at Home loyalty card?' Offered a 10% discount on my peanuts, suet balls and sunflower hearts if I signed up then and there, I agreed to get one. 

He asked me a number of questions including 'What sort of pet(s) do you have?'

'None' was not an answer the computer could stomach. He put 'bird'.

I now have a Pets at Home app. It's a VIP card and is accessed, I kid you not, through a Pawtal. And if I want a good deal on, cages, mirrors and perches it's only a click away. Just in case I forget, I get weekly emails reminding me of this plus invites to join Vets4Pets or Companion Care.

What sort of person has a Pets at Home loyalty card and app? The same sort of person who buys a fleece at an out of town hypermarket at midnight. Me. Loser.

There were no birds visiting our new garden. I've counted seven species so far. Redemption. Not quite Falling Down territory.

Lessons from Ironmongery

I have been quiet on the blogging front recently. Many of you know that I retired in January. Circumstances have conspired to leave us renting our old home until a much-delayed new one is ready. Looks like September now.

The good bit of this is that our older son, who came back to live with us last year, has a little more time to find a new home in Bristol. And the rush to downsize and get packed and moved whilst winding down and handing on my job has been much more relaxed. Whatever your position on the map of faith most kind people would agree that 37 years as a clergyman might have been a bit gruelling. I have now been retired for longer than any period of sabbatical or study leave I have ever had so my psyche is beginning to realise that it doesn't have to go back to work on Monday.

Back in the autumn, when we still imagined we would be getting out in the New Year, we went round the house looking at our possessions, especially the larger ones. Stuff had to go, as the contents of a five bedroomed vicarage prepared to be poured into a three bedroomed home.

Figure 1

We used a three-colour traffic-light label system:

Green = like it or need it, take it with us

Red = hate it or don't need it, dispose

Amber = can't decide yet

If you like my four box diagrams, which I developed during my time as a professional trainer and find usually help explain almost everything, then I have designed one (Figure 1).

Thing is, I was amazed by how little of our stuff I actually liked. All our new wooden storage-type furniture could go as far as I was concerned. Likewise  the dining room table and chairs. It is functional, plain and middle-aged. As indeed was I, once. We have a nice big leather sofa which will fit in our new lounge and a few other pleasant and comfy chairs. The chair my Dad used to sit in at the end of my family dining room is with us. I've known it since 1955. It doesn't match anything but it means something.

We agreed about keeping any books we  loved, would recommend or re-read. My vinyl and musical instruments were a deal-breaker. We are all being ruthless with our wardrobes and one or two pieces (not mine) are doing well on E-bay. Free-to-Collect Nailsea has been a way our functional stuff can help others.

Figure 2

Liz used to work for a homeware retailer called Cargo. Lots of our functional furniture came from there, discounted because it was end of line or damaged. Their stuff was a godsend when our combined incomes were struggling to furnish a big Vicarage. We will hand it on, as we will the fifty sets of crockery and cutlery we don't really need any more.

But the best deal we ever did with Cargo was the counter units. Back in the day, Cargo took over a rather traditional ironmongers called J. W. Carpenter. These shops had wonderful, made-for-purpose pine counters. Cargo chose to replace them with sleek modern plastic and stainless steel jobbies and the old units were flogged off. We offered £100 for four. And they have lived with us for over 20 years since.

Figure 3

The one covered in filing trays and a printer (Figure 2) is in my being-dismantled office. It was once my stationery cupboard and its surface where I put things that I needed to take with me next. Tip to clergy retiring. If you are not moving at once, try and change the vibe of the room that used to be your office/study.

The next one (Figure 3) became the TV stand. It also houses birthday and Christmas wrapping paper. On the right hand end (by the yellow cushion) are two protruding nails at an angle. They used to hold the counter supply of paper bags. We left them there. I love that they have history from before they met us. All the drawers are a bit wonky but move smoothly, polished by the retail transactions they witnessed. 

'Can I have a pound of number 8 woodscrews Mr Carpenter?'

It is not beyond the bounds of probability that one of the drawers once contained candles and a customer asked for four.

Figure 4

All the doors are held shut by slightly different catches; they were probably an afterthought.

The third one holds a random collection of OS maps, DVDs, photographs and instruction manuals. It sits in a room that was once a little lounge (we called it a snug) which was great when only two of us lived here and one was running a meeting in the bigger lounge. That room has now become a place where things are sorted before leaving. My piano is a bit nomadic in our house. It's currently there too.

And the fourth, the biggest, sits at the end of the conservatory (so it is a bit sun-drenched) and houses the aforementioned 50 sets of crockery and cutlery.

Figure 5

Regular guests at our house for food-based events would often start laying the table without being asked. I love that level of hospitality where guests become family.

These are all coming with us if possible, or we will make arrangements to keep them in the family somehow. 

It's strange what possessions mean. Do your things tell any stories? Money has bought us very little which we truly value. Circumstances, memories and people however have been generous.

Why do I keep waking up with a red label on my forehead?

Two Types of People

There are many ways in which the world divides into two types of people. My most recent observation of the phenomenon is the difference between those who are aware of their surroundings and those who are not. You can find the latter type blocking two aisles simultaneously in the supermarket with a trolley whilst they search for something. Avoiding inconvenience to others is simply not on their agenda. Such a person will not register someone coming in the other direction until after they have looked at the view/tied their shoelace/finished their conversation.

One of the ways we now learn that the world does not consist of two types of people is in gender terms. We now understand the old male/female distinctions as being inadequate. There is spectrum, not a division. That said the world does divide into those who are prepared to grapple with the necessary learning and change in order to understand and try to use pronouns properly and those who stick with the old ways.

The danger, if that is the right word, is to identify all these two-nesses as right and wrong. That way lies divide and rule, the top line of the would-be dictator's play book. In this world anyone who says 'Hang on a moment, what about this minority who will suffer when you do that' is dismissed as woke. Or wokey-woke, the insult of choice now being used by the raving right round here. I felt the enemies of the loony left needed a name. And of course there are two kinds of people. Those who feel that woke is an insult and those who would gladly pick it up and wear it as a crown (that thought ⓒ West Wing Season 7 - presidential debate episode).

Our current UK Government is made up of two types of people - those who thought Brexit would be a good idea and those who didn't but were prepared to ignore that for a cabinet post. They are now discovering that more is needed from a government than to allow themselves to be used by Russia to destabilise Europe.

Me or you? Us or them? Maybe the world divides into two types of people - those who like dividing the world into two types of people and those who do not. Perhaps we should all be a bit slower to run to one side or the other.

Can't Find My...

Archiving some papers, I found this bit of prosetry for a bygone age when diaries had a physical presence:

I can't find my diary

I have a busy day ahead of me which I can recall. I can get things together for the first meeting but...

I can't find my diary

I retrace my steps to when I last had it. The lounge. Last night. Behind the sofa? Check. No.

I put out the Bibles for the small group which meets here at 10.00 a.m. People arrive. I make coffee. We study. I'm not really into it because...

I can't find my diary

Throughout the day I turn up on time, do what I have to do, but...

I can't find my diary

'I can't find my diary' fills all the gaps and some things that are not gaps until there is a gap big enough for me to search physically. I have been searching mentally all day. Now I have time to find my diary, a thing which is designed to save me time.

Keeping a good diary takes 5% of your time. Losing it takes all of your time.

Updating my CV - Week 9

I have a few people I am in contact with who act as my weather-vane for stupid. That is to say, when I am slightly worried that I may be making the wrong decision, I ask them what they think and do the opposite. These people, wrong about everything, are incredibly useful until they are either accidentally right or discover that that is how they are being used.

Over the last few months I am convinced that the world's events have become a stupidometer. Something unusual happens and the utterly wrong views and decisions get on parade. Twitter and 24/7 news have given them a platform.

If you've seen the image of a man sleeping on a plane using his face mask to cover his eyes you've seen a stupidometer at work.

If you've seen a party of people embracing in a sewage stream on a hot day during a plague you've seen a stupidometer at work.

If you've heard a Special Adviser to the Prime Minister suggest the normality of driving 30 miles to test his eyesight was good enough to drive, you've seen someone who knew how stupid his audience was.

If you've heard wealthy white people saying that white privilege is not a thing, systematic racism is not a thing and 'white lives matter' is an appropriate response to BLM then you've had front row seats in the stupid show.

Obviously we all have our favourite failings. Chris Grayling, a man who really should '...pay mill-owner for permission to come to work' (Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen) failed to get elected chair of a committee where his appointment had been fixed, and announced.

Parties of stupid burned down the very 5G masts that had provided them with the conspiracy theory that 5G masts caused Covid19. What next? No idea, our phone signal is rubbish round here now.

Presidential Adviser Kellyanne Conway poured scorn on those who had not dealt with Covid1-18 'It's not Covid1' she said. If you think she had a point you are registering on the stupidometer.

Following the toppling of slave-trader Colston's Monument in Bristol a group, described by a woman as 'proper Bristol men', stood around the cenotaph 'protecting' it for a day or two. One of these white, middle-aged guys sported a German WW2 helmet. What statue is on top of the Bristol cenotaph? Good question. There isn't one, but little details such as that don't derail the stupid train.

In Nuneaton a group protected the memorial to the birth of George Eliot. Perhaps they could articulate their reasoning but certainly the links of the writer born Mary Ann Evans to slave-trading and racism are not widely discussed as she expressed sympathy with the north in the American Civil War and was still a lass when The Reform Bill was passed.

It's not always clear what the right decision is in all circumstances. The widely operational stupidometer will certainly help you eliminate some wrong ones. Unless you're stupid. Then you won't notice.

Updating my CV - Week 7

Time has continued slipping, slipping, slipping into the future and my seventh update comes at about week eleven of lock-down. Has there been fun? It's slim pickings (wasn't he a county singer?) round here.

I believe I have done all the possible 40 minute walks starting and finishing at my house. I am seriously considering publishing a very niche book. Maybe if I over-indulge the humour element it might find a market beyond BS48. Long shot, I know.

Get your timing right and you can see people sitting in the street watching a film projected on the side of a house, round here. What did we used to do for entertainment before they invented invent-your-own entertainment? Chuck stones at cats I expect. Give it a try. I aim to miss but I've had a couple of failures.

And what of modifying our behaviour more generally? Possibly the best way currently to behave is to see what the government advises and do the opposite.

Having had it announced that a few more freedoms were being introduced from last Monday we watched in amazement as thousands of people, two days before the introduction, rather unintelligently headed for beauty spots and sat too close together. It is difficult to decide if our country's population genuinely missed the comforting touch of sunburn or whether they had all found a rather simpler way to dispose of their rubbish than queuing for the tip. Either way some of them fell off cliffs in the process and the rest had to huddle closer to make space for the air ambulance to land. You could make it up but would expect your plot to be rejected as too obvious. My worry is that the British Government seem to be the only people round here who don't realise quite how stupid the British people are, given half the chance.

Mind you, the British people seem to be the only people round here who don't realise how stupid the British government is so maybe we deserve each other.

Having announced that people who could work from home should continue to do so the Leader of the House of Commons (a West County yokel MP from round here) announced that it was not possible for 'full-blooded democracy' to function properly on Zoom and therefore MPs would no longer be allowed to contribute, or vote, remotely. Having devised a voting/queuing system that intelligent monkeys randomly pressing ideas buttons would still have rejected as unworkable, we watched as this 'system' deposited several hundred MPs at the foot of an escalator behind a locked door in an ever-increasing crush. Now they are all at home waiting for the results of a COVID19 test on the Business Secretary (anyone remember the name? thought not) who developed a sniffle and a sweaty head at the dispatch box. Never in the history of human democracy did so many people hope a colleague had hay fever.

And yet we watch the other side of the Atlantic where millions of poor African Americans have been staying at home and giving their lives for their country. 'This needs careful attention', said the Minneapolis police department 'What shall we do?' I think we know what they decided and I refer you back to the roomful of decision-making primates.

I think, in more ways than one, this series of articles has come over to the dark side.

Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Half-Blooded Democracy will be in major cinemas as soon as we can find an investor.

Updating my CV - Week 6

Good day everyone and welcome to my almost weekly dip into the shallower waters of the current tragedy. No diving or you'll bang your head on the bottom.

If you had asked us to take a wild guess about what liberal chattering Twitter would be liberally chattering about at this precise stage of human history I wonder what odds you would have got on sourdough being so high in the charts? Look at the shape of my baking eh? Incidentally, local chums, there is swb flour at Budgens. Stop. Stop. Finish reading first. Too late.

I am also enjoying investigating landscape art and cute animals therefore not cats.

I have done six hours of duty on a Church of England chaplaincy listening helpline. No-one has called. TCMT offers 'Do they know it's you on duty?' Fair point; well made.

Our family Zoom has become a regular Sunday afternoon at 3pm appointment. Junior said 'We talk to each other more than we used to.' His girlfriend wandered on to the set with an enormous strimmer. Well that beard ain't gonna trim itself. They have also bought a pond-liner and a water butt. Senior said 'Isn't that what you say when you pass a lady in the street?' We seem to be getting less woke with every passing day.

Six months ago our trips to Birmingham to visit elderly relatives were becoming so regular that it looked as if our agreed contract mileage on our car was going to be too low. One bereavement and one lock-down later and we're no longer renegotiating. April mileage (target 1,000 or less) was 68 and each was for some sort of local delivery. 'Every cloud', as David Brent put it so sensitively.

Old joke tells of the soldier who wrote to his girlfriend every day for two years whilst he was overseas without leave. When he got back he found she'd married the postman. We seem to have struck up a relationship with a paperboy and various delivery drivers. Few of the parcels are for me. I guess you'd describe this body as low maintenance. Something needs to happen to the hair soon but I am interested as to whether it still has the slight curl that I found so annoying in the 1970s and fixed with a Keeganesque bodyperm in the 1980s and short hair from 92 onwards.

Some gentle easing of the lock-down took place on Sunday but as it was described in three different ways over a twenty four hour period (leaks to press, PM broadcast, PM statement to the House of Commons) the government will be able to claim 'it worked' or 'you didn't listen to us' with equal gusto. The House of Commons are planning to start meeting properly soon to 'set a good example' (Jacob Rees-Mogg). Since a fundamental principle of all this is of people working from home if they possibly can I suspect they are setting a good example of being as confused as we are supposed to be. The headline slogan is 'Stay alert'. To understand this government's announcements you need to be more alert than I am capable of. You need the alert dial up to 11.

I'm planning to be mainly at home and dozing. That should do it. Until next week.

Updating my CV - Week 5

Once again I feel that, despite my best intentions to offer an amusing left-field approach to a pandemic, I need to retire as a satirist due to unfair competition from real life. I've pinched that quote before.

First televangelist Kenneth Copeland (anyone else think the surgeon did him no favours with those eyes?) blew the wind of God at the virus. Then somebody got hold of that audio and remixed it. Not heard it yet? Click here.

Then The Supreme Leader of the United States of America dropped enough hints that drinking bleach would cure COVID 19 to hospitalise 30 stoopid people. Meanwhile the camera panned to his medical adviser in the room and you can actually see, live on TV, the first recorded instance of someone's will to live leaving their body.

So we will content ourselves this week with an analysis of the goings-on in Tilley Mansions. I have explained before that TCMT and I can only work together if we clearly decide who will be in charge of each area of our life and the other person simply obeys. There is a clause 2 to this, which is that TCMT, not finding herself gainfully employed may, at any time of her choosing, decide that she is in charge of anything. Thus this conversation, based around the re-organisation of what I used to call 'my kitchen'. That is not arrogant or anything. For the last twenty five years or so I have been in charge of food production and distribution and all I ask is that TCMT provides me with a decent evening meal once a fortnight to give me a break. It could be argued that none of the rest of this piece is true. In fact it will be. Trust me.

I found her sorting out a cupboard. This never ends well.

Me: Why are the caraway seeds, the poppy seeds and the sesame seeds out on the work surface?
TCMT: They should be in the herb and spice cupboard so I'm moving them.
Me; No they shouldn't, they only get used for bread-making so I keep them in the baking cupboard with the flour and the yeast.
TCMT: That doesn't make sense
Me: (Not dropping to the 'nothing makes sense to you' level) It works for me.
TCMT: When did you last make bread?
Me: A while ago, all the more reason to have the ingredients where I remember when I get back to it.
TCMT: (Deadly silence and death look)
Me: If I put them in the door of the spice cupboard will that be OK?

I know I give in too easily but the sex is good and I enjoy that fortnightly meal.

I gained what I laughingly call my revenge when I gently enquired if she had seen the piece of paper I keep in the drawer by the tele with a list of where we've got to in various box sets and TV series. She segued from no (how dare you accuse me), through maybe (I wonder if that was what I wrote on during the quiz0 to 'Here it is' having found it in her study paper-recycling box. We pause for a moment to wonder why several other bins and recycling opportunities were passed on the journey to her study, but only a moment as whys and wherefores do not live near here. Anyway, I got my list back and also one of the discarded biros which 'doesn't work'. It works.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, the re-organised baking cupboard (three shelves) has annexed the jam and pickles cupboard and has its eyes on the pasta/rice shelf. Also, my big pasta pan has gone, replaced by a slow cooker we haven't used yet.

TCMT: 'It's in the garage, do you want it?'
Me: No, but I wanted to know where it had gone.
TCMT: Why?
Me: It saves anguish when you eventually need it.
TCMT: (Deadly silence and another look, one I have never really pinned down)

I wouldn't be so brash as to suggest this is an insight into my failure to understand women. I am trying to understand one woman, a task now occupying a fifth decade.

In a couple of hours we may have another conversation:

TCMT: Your writing about the kitchen tidying isn't fair.
Me: Then write your own version. You'll have to learn to use some other keys apart from exclamation marks.
TCMT: Stop trying to change my style.
Me: (Deadly silence and desperate attempt not to look smug, which fails)

Updating my CV - Week 4

One of the questions I have taken with me through my career in ministry is this, 'What would happen if we did nothing?' So many issues are presented to the clergy as needing an urgent decision. It is good if you have the ability to spot those cases where doing nothing is an option. I call it specific and strategic indecision. Not laziness. Oh no. A very specific choice of the 'no action required' option. We all like to feel that problems come to us because we are recognised as someone who can solve them. It is humility, not hand-washing, that chooses not to choose. Not everything gets worse if you leave it alone. You'd be amazed how many things fix themselves.

There is a classic story in this genre here. It's the Mystery of the Great Ayton Dinner Plates.

I have one pastoral issue which I have been leaving alone for nearly two years now and, to quote a former colleague, 'While there's death there's hope.' There is a real possibility that this problem will go away. People of Trendlewood Church reading this - it's not any of you.

Now why did I start with that? Because I feel the whole of the current state of ministry in lock-down is grappling with 'What should I do today?' And I am tempted to answer 'What would happen if I did nothing?' It would be interesting, although I have currently stopped short of this, to do nothing and see what ends up being demanded of me.

We spend a lot of our lives answering the question 'Who are you?' It is tempting to reply with a description of what we do. Knee-jerk activism. I went through a period of answering with 'carbon-based life-form living on the third planet from a sun'. Mainly it pissed people off.

Friend of mine took a sabbatical. Told me he was going to concentrate on being rather then doing. Then he listed all the things he was going to do in order to be a better being.

I quite like being. I have a things-to-do list because I have a job and a mind that is usually occupied on some much deeper project than that which I am supposed to be doing. And, as a great administrator I once worked with said 'What's the point of having to remember something if you've got a things-to-do list'? Quite. But these last few weeks have seen me being more of a human being than a human doing and I like a lot of that.

So, how we all being? As I look around the neighbourhood, cars are cleaner, lawns are tidier, streets are quieter, the skies are empty. We've done loads. Meanwhile death and disaster may or may not have an appointment.

There is an old zen story. It goes like this:

A man was being chased towards the edge of a cliff by a wild animal. He fell and grabbed a vine which took his weight. As he dangled two mice, one white and one black, came out of holes in the rock and began to nibble the vine through. Reaching over he saw a wild strawberry plant, in fruit. He picked one and ate. How sweet it tasted.

So my friends. How are the strawberries?

Updating my CV - Week 3

So, week three of the lock-down and we begin to see things as they really are. Most people are nice. Some are not. Some are hypocrites and, as Marina Hyde so wisely put it in The Guardian, all of this is the fault of elite footballers. A thousand people a day dying is not because of government incompetence but because Raheem Sterling earns too much. You knew that.

The key thing to remember through all this is that it is not wrong to be a hyprocrite. It is wrong to get caught. Nobody apologises for telling us not to visit our second homes in any circumstances and then visiting their own second home. No-one apologises for visiting their mother on Mothering Sunday even if they've just told the whole country not to do that and then done it themselves. And no-one phones the BBC and says 'I had a couple of sex workers round last night please forgive me' during a lock down. They apologise after they have been outed. The hypocrisy is not being sorry until you're caught.

Since my own loved ones and I are not currently ill my main sacrifice is to stay at home in a nice house. I'm reading more. I'm playing my piano more. I'm curating, rather than leading, worship. It is the week I left the Tim Vine Joke Appreciation Group on Facebook because so few of the members had the first clue how a Tim Vine joke works. Or they posted unoriginal ones without credit.

A few years ago I had a column in a church newspaper. It was meant to be vaguely amusing and the Editor praised my light touch until he sacked me and gave the gig to Catherine Fox. Whilst I was writing it someone I worked with came up to me and told me the 'joke' about Bill Stickers being prosecuted. He genuinely thought I should write about it. It helped me realise how the humourless worked. Many of them are Tim Vine fans. They think it's easy. (Once saw Milton Jones demolish a heckler with 'It's not as easy as it looks is it?') The same sort of people write 'poems' for family funerals. Ones that don't rhyme, scan or use English as I understand it. Reading them out appropriately is one of the hardest things I ever have to do. I only ever got the giggles once at a funeral, when I pushed the button to cremate Grace Burns, but eulogistic poetry has led to some close calls.

Life. Not as easy as it looks. Death also.

The while this week, TCMT is volunteering at the food-bank. You guessed it. There was a store-room in town that needed procedures and merchandising and she won't rest until the whole world is done. Really. If you ever shop with her you may experience her tidying up someone's else till area whilst waiting to be served. If you do it with confidence nobody questions you. It does get her out of the house three mornings a week which just about provides me with sanity space, and there is a fringe benefit. Things are dropped in to the food-bank that have use-by dates or are not wanted. We have picked up two huge tins of choppd toms (2.5k each) and a decent supply of duck eggs.  I know. Nailsea eh?

Yesterday morning's exercise walk took longer than usual because of the number of distance-respecting pastoral conversations we got involved in. During the week I use headphones, get up a bit of pace and keep my head down. If I was allowed two walks a day I'd do a pastoral one and a hamstring-stretching one. Just before lock-down I was on a therapy programme at the gym for a tweaked hammy. Never done one before so I have no experience at recuperation. After a week's holiday with plenty of walking I went back to the gym and set the treadmill to my usual warm-up jog. In my week away the machine had been recalibrated to MPH not KPH and I started off far too fast. Twang.

So it's gentle ambling with an occasional jog again. But no stopping. Back at home the landing has become the place for exercise. TCMT does her yoga and pilates classes online there and I'm joining up with some online gym stuff this week too.

What did you do during the war Dad?

I stretched on the landing son; government orders.

I've been compiling a list of people who are having a good lock-down. The two members of the family involved in music production and distribution are working hard from home, sales up. I have to wait ten days for my new jigsaw orders (there's no end to my personal hardship) - sales are up. And my friend who has a medical supplies business, despite being generous to all, has seen 20% year-on-year growth. It's pretty clear that the technology businesses behind Zoom!, Houseparty and the like are doing OK. Why did my fellow Area Deans and I ever drive 45 minutes each way to meet at Saltford? In fact why did face-to-face meetings ever happen? Sometimes you need to see someone's expression clearly when you ask them a question, I guess. Sometimes.

Today is Easter Bank Holiday Monday. Normally the post-Easter day for going wibble. Ain't no wibbling happening here though. Just gentle waiting.

Hope you're all well.

Updating my CV

In a fevered social media exchange last week (no, not literally) a friend suggested it would raise the morale of some people (approximately five I reckon) if I shared a Christmas-style family update every week. I apologise that it was a red rag to a load of bull so settle down for instalment one.

Should I die during the course of this current outbreak of plague then this may be awkward but awkward never stopped me before. Should someone you love die then this will probably seem a little insensitive but insensitive never, you know. Should you die then maybe it will be a relief to ponder, as you exit this current mortality, that I have failed to entertain you for the last time.

I take as my inspiration P.J.O'Rourke, the only US Republican who ever makes me laugh. His book All the Trouble in the World - the lighter side of famine, destruction, pestilence and death remains a benchmark of black humour. That said Donald Trump was a joke too far for him and he voted, with a peg on his nose, for Hilary Clinton. Read this book to appreciate what that involved.

The last week has been a little strange. Frankly if God had a bet on Manchester City for the Premiership then he's a bad loser. Also, if he's the know-all some of us think he is, then it's disappointing he forgot to tell us to buy Andrex shares.

Seven days ago I was worried that TCMT was travelling to Bath on the train every day. That said it is even more worrying that her work place has now closed and she is at home all day because:

1. My working day involves many periods during which, to the untrained eye, it looks if I am not working.

2. She talks to herself a lot and me sometimes but I tend to ignore it all.

TCMT: You'll miss me when I'm gone
Mr Sensitive: Nah, I'll turn on the radio in the other room and ignore that

3. Most frighteningly, she has a clear and strategic plan for how to spend the time well. I expect to be remerchandised shortly.

But, to the crux, We have all now been required to be socially isolated and physically distant. Welcome to my perfect world. I have always been terribly clumsy at physical greetings, precious about my personal space and happiest alone. Join me. Oh, you can't. So sad.

It has been interesting watching the clergy who were so dismissive of social media when I tried to introduce them to it now live-streaming themselves on Facebook. That said I have also gone up the techno learning curve fast enough to need to rope up first and the sentence 'We had a great Mothering Sunday family Zoom' would have made no sense in February.

People are watching this stuff with one eye on retweeting the cock-ups. Bear in mind, my friends, that the most-viewed video sermon from last weekend was the guy who set himself on fire with a candle. Exactly. Gospel 0 Conflagration 1.

We're not necessarily all going to die but it will be a close call and, based on my minimal knowledge of mathematics, the USA is completely stuffed. Why do the Germans have fewer fatalities from coronavirus than other countries with similar infection rates? Well my wild guess is that they read the instructions.

If you want me I'll be at home. Go away.