Kakistocracy VI:How The Grinch Saved Christmas.

"The Grinch loved Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now, please don't ask why. No-one quite knows the reason. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small".

It's six days now until many of us celebrate a Christmas like no other we've ever celebrated. There will be no big Xmas meals with colleagues and friends and there will be no boozy nights down the pub (for most of the country, those parts still in tiers two and one can enjoy them as long as they include a Scotch egg) but there will be a five day window in which three different households can mix together.

The decision to cancel Christmas is not one any Prime Minister would want to take but a Prime Minister who has already presided over the globe's sixth highest Covid death toll (Italy have briefly pulled ahead of us in that grisly league but their strictly enforced and widely observed national Christmas lockdown should ensure we soon retake them) and has sewn confusion, division, and hatred in the country he's supposed to be in charge of?

Well, what do you think? Instead of ordering an unpopular lockdown (populists don't get where they are by making unpopular decisions) he has, instead, suggested we use good old fashioned common sense when visiting relations and try not to spread the virus. Which surely almost everybody was doing anyway and what they intended to continue doing?

A plea for common sense to the citizens of a country that voted for Brexit and returned Boris Johnson to Number Ten with an eighty seat majority! If enough British people had common sense these events wouldn't have happened. Regarding Christmas, I appreciate the confusion but with 489 extra Covid deaths yesterday (and a yearly total, so far, of 66,541) I'd have erred on the side of caution.

With Rishi Sunak extending the furlough scheme until April, it doesn't sound like the few brighter minds in this administration think this virus is going away anytime soon despite the wonderful news of people receiving the Pfizer vaccine and the Oxford vaccine looking very likely to be given a green light in the next few weeks.

Confusion was inevitable in such unusual circumstances but this government thrives on confusion. The tier system is patently not working in preventing the spread of the virus (pubs and restaurants closed makes sense but why are gyms, schools, and shops open? Why is professional sport being played?) but it is working very well in shifting the blame from the government to the people. 

It's doing a great job of getting us to argue with each other. Either behind the back gossip ("you'll never guess how many people Lisa's having round for Christmas?"), online bitching ("look at these morons. You'd think the virus had gone away"), or the outright hostility of people shouting at each other for breaches or perceived breaches of Covid etiquette.

I choose the word 'etiquette' because it's no longer about rules and, to be honest, it hasn't been for a very long time. There are certain things you're not allowed to do but, mostly, the police and the authorities will turn a blind eye and, anyway, what if you really want to do those things? You can't simply not do something you really want to do? 

Whether it's having a birthday party in a Notting Hill restaurant when you're supposed to be self-isolating (Rita Ora), going on a restaurant crawl (Kay Burley), or driving to Barnard Castle with your child in the back of your car to test your eyesight. Which I'm sure I heard about somebody doing.

While endless Tory cruelties are enacted (Jacob Rees-Mogg admonishing UNICEF for feeding children that were going without food due to his own governement's policies is a predictably nasty example) and Brexit uncertainty goes down to the wire (while all the time informing the populace we should get ready for Brexit - we will do when you tell us what it is) I'm not going to do their dirty work for them.

I'm not going to call out friends or family members who are making different decisions about the festive season to me. I'm just going to do what I think is right and leave others to make their own decisions. All the blame, for me, will lay at the foot of a government who have encouraged people not to trust experts, not to believe facts, and to break the law when and if it suits them.

Normally on Xmas Eve I take the train from London to Basingstoke and then get a bus, or a lift, to Tadley where I spend the Christmas period (normally until the 27th) with my parents. On Christmas Day I'll go round my brother and sister-in-law's house (she does a great veggie Xmas dinner) and celebrate with them, my parents, and my nephews Daniel and Alex.

 

On Boxing Day I'll usually meet with Shep and Adam in The Fox and Hounds in Tadley. The likes of Ian, Mike, and Tina have joined us on multiple occasions over the years and, until his untimely passing last year, Bugsy was a regular fixture at Foxing Day.

They sometimes got messy. This year the only thing that will get messy is my flat (which, to most people's eyes, already is - perhaps I'll tidy it). On Xmas Eve my journey will take me in the opposite direction. From Tadley to Basingstoke to London. Where I will spend Christmas, for the first time ever in my life, completely alone.

Don't feel sorry for me. I'm quite happy about it. I've always wanted to try it one year and this accursed Covid year seems like the perfect opportunity. I could stay in Tadley with my brother and his family, the invite is an open and eternal one it seems, but my parents have already decided to self-isolate (Dad is 80 on 2nd January and is, presumably, near the front of the queue for the vaccine, Mum's not far behind, why take precautions all year and then risk it when the end may be in sight?) and that, in part, spurred my decision to do so.

At least I'll avoid any uncomfortable discussions about Brexit and Boris Johnson and being away from Tadley should mean I won't get to hear such old fashioned racist epithets as chink, wop, jigaboo, paki, and nigger. All of which I've heard casually bandied around in the last few weeks I've spent working back in the area.

It reminds me, in absolute certainty, why I moved away and why I intend to never move back. I like being in a multicultural city with curious, artistic, creative people and I like being part of a global, or European, mindset and many in Tadley, and similar places, don't share that feeling or hold that belief. Sadly.

So, as I wrote in my most recent Kakistocracy blog, Christmas this year will be spent at home, listening to music, watching television, having a beer or three (San Miguel has been the biggest riser in sales in Britain this year and I'm hoping I'm not personally responsible for that - I have bought rather a lot of it) and maybe a bottle of wine as a special treat (I've hardly touched the stuff this year), eating some nice comforting food, and maybe having a Zoom or two.

It's no sacrifice for me whatsoever to do that but even if it was a sacrifice it'd be one I'd make without complaining. Those that are meeting in groups of two or three households this Christmas, I wish them the compliments of the season. Those that are not, I extend the exact same courtesy. I don't want to spend Christmas arguing although, depressingly, I think that's exactly what this government want us to do this year.

"Welcome, welcome, fahoo ramus. Welcome, welcome, dahoo damus. Christmas Day is in our grasp so long as we have hands to clasp".