the isolation diaries - week ten

When I was a boy, the BBC aired a program each afternoon called Jackanory.

The concept was simple: a celebrity would read us a story.  A ripping yarn, a gripping tale or a sheer fantasy.

On Monday of this week I had to check to make sure they hadn't brought it back without me knowing.

As I sat and watched and listened to senior government advisor Dominic Cummings explain the reasons behind his breaking the country's lockdown rules back in March, I honestly thought this piece of fiction was an entertaining fable and not actually a serious attempt to convince people he was a straight up kinda guy.

He left his home in London to relocate some 260 miles to the north east to secure care for his four year old son should he and his wife fall victim to coronavirus.  The explanation for his actions that followed was what I can only describe as sheer fantasy; a scripted fantasy at that, which poor Dominic had to return to when a question might mean him deviating from what he and the government had concocted.

I'm not going to go over what he said again - that's been done to death.  And I don't want to be responsible for your jaw breaking when it hits the floor.

And to be honest, if that was the best they could come up with then it's no wonder this country is in such an utter state with the highest death toll from Covid19 in Europe.

I typed "absolutely unbelievable concocted fantasy" into Google and this came up

This whole debacle stinks.  It stinks of double standards.  It stinks of elitism.  It stinks of an attitude that I am better than you and above the law.

This whole government stinks.  Though with a lazy, disinterested utter buffoon "in charge" that's hardly surprising is it?

At the end of Cummings's press conference I was at least satisfied that the BBC had not actually brought back one of my favourite programmes.  There was no way that his story would have been deemed believable enough even for a small child to fall for.