One Years Reign

Lockdown. Day 217. Actually, I do not know if that’s correct. I lost all count everything this time round. The good thing is that today I have had a soggy morning. After doing my exercises, ten kilometres on the bike and physio exercises with my rubber bands, I’ve taken to a scented bath for an hour. A large cup of coffee and my thoughts. I can’t even take the morning paper in there with me. It’s too full of the real world.

It’s just one of those days when I have lost the will to live. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had work throughout the lockdown unlike many of my peers and colleagues, but it hasn’t made it any easier. In our business, they say you should never appear in a sequel. Let’s face it. “Lockdown 1” was a global hit. The Blitz spirit, the touching scenes of everyone on their balconies and in their gardens, clapping and banging saucepans for the brave boys and girls of the NHS. The orderly queues at the supermarkets Lidl notwithstanding. That was the lockdown to be in. Rousing, patriotic, a feel good “We are all in it together” lockdown. It worked so very well until near the end of the story when some twat called Dominic rendered the whole endeavour worthless.

The cheer that goes up today across the world as Trump gets on a plane and flies away from government will surely only be a little larger than the one which erupted around the British Isles when sad little Cummings tripped over the Downing Street doorstep with his cardboard box, no doubt bearing his spare pairs of spectacles for driving. But he got away with it. He destroyed the nation’s trust in government, and he’s still somewhere being paid a fortune by various funds. He’s probably still being paid by the government if truth be told, but then that’s something we lost when Cummings got involved. The truth.

My trust in our government has never been so low. I’ve spoken before of their incompetence. The first U-turn within hours of the New Year starting doing nothing to build any faith in them.

“I believe he’s doing everything to the best of his abilities.” said father of many Boris regarding the cock-ups of one Gavin Williamson. That’s the sort of ringing endorsement we’d all like, isn’t it? Being greeted at the stage door after spilling our blood and guts across the stage for three hours as Hamlet. “I think you did it as well as you could, darling.”

Of course, the only reason Williamson is there is that when questions arise about the government’s mismanagement of the last ten months and we need answers, he’s one of the first in the firing line for skinning as a scapegoat.

Another goat waiting to be put out of his misery went out and bought a large box of discounted pink ties on day one of the whole farrago just to make sure that we could distinguish him from a beige wall. Matt Hancock has become most people’s bête noire in this whole sorry episode. Beaming with ruddy-cheeked false confidence, the nervous look of your daughter’s unsuitable boyfriend waiting for approval. I have associated him with more fuck-ups than your average incompetent Tory MP. That’s what worries me about the vaccination programme.

It is, some say, the best thing the government has done so far. “We are well ahead of the French.” A Williamson type endorsement if ever I heard one. But it’s true. We have vaccinated lots of people. The irritating rumours in the background as to lack of supply shouldn’t worry us. Matt Hancock wouldn’t have done anything silly, would he? When he logged onto the Vaccines R Us website to order the hundred million doses we will almost definitely need, he wouldn’t have been so stupid as to leave everything in the virtual checkout basket, would he? We’ve got the stuff. Haven’t we?

Matt was busy telling the country where he is going on holiday the other day. “Cornwall. I shall go to Cornwall” he announced. Cornwall’s hotel and bed-and-breakfast owners let out an irritated sigh. Hancock hasn’t revealed whether he’ll be borrowing a sumptuous holiday home overlooking the Tamar from one of the little bunch of mates he’s given contracts to, but the implicit influence of his holiday restaurant reference was surely “I wouldn’t book anywhere abroad if I were you.”

Actually, I have. I’ve booked two weeks somewhere rather exotic for next Christmas to celebrate a special anniversary with my other half. I’m told we may need proof of two vaccinations in order to enter the country. I’m not sure how you get the proof. Do they give you a little badge like they did when we had measles and mumps vaccines at school? A little sticker for your lapel saying, “I’ve had a prick from the government.” It could mean you’ve had a visit from Hancock or Williamson, but people will need proof that we have vaccinated them.

The vaccine hasn’t reached whole towns yet. Sandwich in Kent has seen nothing, and for a small place made up of people twice the retirement age, that’s a little worrying. No vaccines for the Sandwichian’s, and no chance of visiting the Netherlands in a lorry driver’s lunchbox either.

And will the one shot be enough? It won’t get us admission to where we want to go on holiday. Allegedly the one shot idea is that of a Mr Tony Blair. What government would decide to cut down their vaccine injection program on the advice of someone whose legacy is the Iraq war and Gordon Brown? No doubt Tony and Cherie are swanning around Belgravia in gold trimmed hazmat suits. As ever, in touch with their socialist roots.

I wasn’t really in Lockdown Two. Not that you’d notice. Like my work in The Crown 2. I endured the squalor of a Premier Inn in North London in order to do filming and fill the coffers. I greeted Lockdown Three with a joy hitherto untold. The third film in any franchise is often a reinvigoration of the plotline. Surely the fact that everybody was giving up their Christmas to isolate together would mean that we could knock this on the head. This wasn’t the case.

And now, with the lockdown not having been as effective as they would like it to have been, the government seems to have taken to putting on the frighteners. Project fear all over again. I am frightened. I admit it. George Alagiah doesn’t need to visit a hospital every night at 6 PM on BBC1 for me to feel worried about what’s going on. The BBC has forsaken news for fear mongering. Perhaps this is to keep in with the government. A government intent on cutting off the balls of the BBC.

The sad thing is that the people most likely to be watching Mr Alagiah are the people who are already staying indoors. The police asked a group of people partying in Basingstoke “Don’t you know there’s a global pandemic on” and the reply was “No. We don’t watch the news.” The BBC’s excesses pushed me over to ITV and I’m preferring it.

ITV News is punchier, the lighting is brighter, people don’t stand up aimlessly in the middle of the studio, and it all just seems cheaper and more cheerful. Perhaps we should give ITV the franchise for Lockdown 4 for. Rylan could appear first thing in the morning and hand out some supermarkets slots for Ocado. Then a panel of women who we don’t know who they are could chat through lunch about imaginative ways to utilise a courgette and during the afternoon we could have a nationwide game show called “Snitch on your neighbour.” Hosted by someone who aspires to be a national treasure but hasn’t quite got there yet. Stephen Mulhern comes to mind.

All this looks good for ITV. Except that last night when ITV should have been calming us all with Inspector Barnaby and Sgt Troy investigating a mysterious influenza outbreak in the county of Midsomer (Ah, the plot thins, inspector) they kept us entertained with “Outbreak: The Virus That Shook The World.” A documentary that left viewers horrified explaining how the pandemic could have been prevented and why it may happen all over again. Come on, ITV, we don’t need to watch this.

We’re in it.

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