the isolation diaries - week nine

This is beginning to drag along now isn't it?

I'm going progressively more stir-crazy as I'm stuck staring at the same walls and fence (yes, I know I'm lucky that I have a garden but...).

And I'm getting progressively more annoyed at the lack of quality in this country's leadership.  Our PM finds it necessary to dodge the daily press briefings, instead sending along a procession of what look like spoilt sixth formers - people clearly out of their depth if their attempts to answer (or dodge answering to be more precise) any questions asked of them.

The same goes for the press.  They ask the same old questions every day.  They just dress them up differently.  The most pertinent and searching questions come from members of the public (we're allowed two each day), and it's honestly uncomfortable watching third rate politicians giving wishy-washy answers.

Matt Hancock.  I don't know whether to shout at the TV or put him over my knee and smack his bottom.

I blame this seeming downturn in the ability of our politicians and our press in the erosion of our education system over the past 20 years or so.  Universities often complain that they need to spend a student's first year teaching them stuff they should already have known from school but don't and it's beginning to show.

Our incumbent politicians in the main benefited from the finest paid education this country has to offer.  So I can only assume that they are just rather dull.  

And bar the odd one, our scientists seem to toe the political party line these days rather than imparting what should be impartial news and advice.  This struck home on the day that a decision was made to no longer compare the death rate in the UK with that in other countries.  We'd seen this daily comparison for 7 weeks until it suddenly stopped.

The politicians, and shamefully the scientists too, explained that we'd found a more accurate way of counting deaths and this was why the daily comparison had stopped.  Nothing to do with the fact that it coincided with the day that the UK became the worst country in Europe for deaths from coronavirus of course.

Shameful.

On a personal note, I managed to complete the build of my 1980s road bike.  If you're interested then you can find a video of the build here: