FOR months, we’ve all been told the New Year will be a bright new dawn and everything will start to get better.
Right. So are you reading this in the pub with your mates?
Is the virus on the run?
Are you having some tasty British cod this evening, washed down with some proper English wine?
Are the police herding those benefit cheats at the end of your road into a windowless van?
Has the stockmarket soared to new heights?
Are the streets full of happy, smiling people singing I Vow To Thee My Country?
No.
I hate to say this, but 2021 will make 2020 look like a walk in the park.
I do not see the lockdown ending for weeks or maybe even months.
And through winter I cannot even begin to imagine what that will do to us.
It was one thing being locked up in the spring, when the sun shone and it was warm.
FORCED HIBERNATION
It’s quite another to be in forced hibernation when the temperature never gets above 1C.
And the sky makes you think you’re living in a Tupperware box.
I’ve been locked away for two weeks now and already I’ve drawn up plans to buy a 3D printer so I can make a gun.
Many are pinning their hopes on the vaccines, but I believe they will only provide protection for a very short period of time.
I also think Brexit will cause problems we haven’t even thought about yet.
And I believe the damage to our economy as we continue to fight an unwinnable war will be catastrophic.
Will there be any light relief?
Well, ever since Boxing Day, travel companies have been carpet-bombing the commercial breaks with holiday destination ideas.
But the truth is, you won’t be going anywhere this summer.
The endless threat of new travel restrictions will make it too risky.
And you won’t be able to afford it anyway.
Not after you lose your job.
Which you will.
SOUL DESTROYING
You’ll be forced to sit at home watching TV, which will be soul-destroying, as you watched all you wanted to watch last year.
And nothing new has been made.
Doubtless you’re being encouraged to give up drinking and get fit for January.
But is that what you want?
To break off from trying to home-school the mobile phone-holders you call your kids, so you can drink water and do push-ups?
Just thinking about that makes me want to take up heroin.
We were told in the first lockdown that some quiet time once in a while does us good.
That we will be refreshed if we occasionally sit in silence and concentrate on being “in the moment”.
But when I sit in silence on my own, all I can ever think is that I would rather be “in the pub”.
But that’s not going to happen any time soon.
We won’t be seeing our friends.
We won’t be seeing the sun.
And while we will be able to enjoy some British cod, we’ll know it was caught by a French trawlerman.
Comedy of sci-fi errors
WE read this week about a British boffin called Clifford Johnson who’s employed by Hollywood production companies to make sure the science in science-fiction films isn’t complete rubbish.
He’s the man who makes sure algebra written on a blackboard in the back of shot makes sense and that the material used to make Thor’s hammer is a theoretical possibility.
Well, now I have a job for him.
When a spaceship is under attack in any space-based action movie, the screens always say the same thing: “SYSTEMS FAILING”.
And I always think, “What systems?”
And how can they be fixed, especially as the screen which Star Trek’s Mr Sulu needs to do that is being used to tell him they’re failing.
Electric avenue
A YOUNG man who took his e-scooter for a ride through Hyde Park in London on Boxing Day has been done for drink driving and having no insurance.
Happy Christmas to you too, officer.
