If they didn’t have their looks… – At Home

It surely can be difficult hanging onto the positives when the world is in this kinda shape. I ran a test last week and I can now say with a certain accuracy that it costs me £10 a day travelling to and from work. The only upside in that equation is that I’m only in the office two days a week. But imagine I was in the office five days a span. That would be fifty buckaroos a week and (let me get the abacus out here), £200 a month!

“Sure, you’re laughing when you can work from home three days a week,” you might say. But alas, it’s a double-edged sword.

Working from home means using my own electricity and my own heating and, as we have all come to discover recently, neither commodity is exactly falling out of the sky for free. I have yet to run that test but if I were to discover it’s costing me £11 a day for lecky and heat, I’ll be back in the office quicker that you can say, “thermal underwear” – and with a pound to spare for sundries.

It’s not much craic though is it, counting the pennies because the cost of everything has gone through the roof. Fuel, interest rates, pasta – dare I say it, but it’s almost as if the people in charge of running the show here aren’t the genii they made themselves out to be. Take the DUP for example – a fine looking bunch of models if ever there was one.

“So, let me get this straight, Jeffrey,” I’d tell that fella with the new leader haircut. “Society is in free-fall and you’re not willing to form an Executive because you’re not happy with the Protocol? Is that right? And isn’t it right that you campaigned for Brexit in the first place? Wasn’t that stance a bit short-sighted given that a majority wanted to remain and particularly now, given the problems we’re facing as a result of mitigation against the after-effects of Brexit? Wasn’t that stance akin to chimpanzees campaigning for deforestation? Shouldn’t you be more worried about how people are putting food on their plates and heating their homes? You couldn’t care less? I thought as much.”

Take the Home Secretary as another example – Priti Patel is as fine looking a gargoyle as ever there was one.

“So let me get this straight, Priti – if that is your real name,” I’d tell the permanent sneer. “Society is in free-fall and you’re more concerned with flying seven people half away around the world because their shop-soiled appearance offends you? Is that right? And isn’t it right that this Rwandan thing is just a smokescreen anyway, to shift the collective gaze away from all the failings of your congenitally useless cronies in government. Isn’t it right that the NHS is on its knees and that your Tory buddies had the worst record in Europe regarding Covid and that you, yourself are actually a circus clown without the make-up.”

Personally, I couldn’t give a monkeys about protocols or the DUP’s congenital short-sightedness, or Priti Patel’s blatant racism. Call me selfish, but I’m more worried about a society where the cost of living is spiralling out of control and where the people at the wheel are more concerned about imperialist agendas or xenophobic tendencies than looking after those they are charged with protecting.

Of all the ills we are experiencing now, it’s worth remembering that they are a all product of / they are not being handled by, the Tories and the DUP. As a friend of mine would say, if they didn’t have their looks they’d have nothing.

It surely can be difficult hanging onto the positives when the world is in this kinda shape but hey, look on the bright side: At least you’re not failing at running a country.

Anyway, if you’ve still enough in the meter to watch TV, you could do a lot worse than this lot.

Back in Time for Birmingham (Monday at 8pm on BBC2)…

The Sharma family put themselves in the historical hot seat. They relive 50 years of British Asian history, all told through the story of one vibrant, ever-changing city.

Alternatively, Glastonbury 2022 (Friday at 9pm on BBC2)…

Jo Whiley, Lauren Laverne and Clara Amfo are live at Worthy Farm as the sun sets on the first full day of Glastonbury Festival.

They introduce performances from the likes of Wet Leg, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Wolf Alice, and TLC.

Jack Saunders will be hanging out at the Pyramid Stage, where North Shields’ finest, Sam Fender will be making his Glastonbury debut. Plus, a look at the meteoric rise that has brought 20-year-old pop icon Billie Eilish to headline the Glastonbury Pyramid Stage.

And lastly, Snowflake Mountain starts on Netflix from Wednesday…

A bunch of clueless kidults are put through their paces at a wilderness survival retreat to try and kickstart them into standing on their own two feet.