Kakistocracy XXIX:Ambushed By Cake.

"He was ambushed by a cake" - Conor Burns, Conservative MP for Bournemouth West

Ambushed (or, indeed, ambuscaded as Jacob Rees-Mogg unhelpfully explained on Newsnight) by a cake! Have you ever heard such bollocks? The suggestion appears to be that the cake itself was responsible. As if it had its own free will and there was no human intervention whatsoever. Not least by the person who it was presented to, the person whose birthday it was, the person whose office/home the event took place in, and the person who set the rules strictly insisting there could be no social gatherings, let alone parties, whatsoever during lockdown.

Johnson loyalists, like Rees Mogg and Nadine Dorries who both know full well that should he go their cabinet careers are over, continue to try and con the public into thinking this is all some insignificant matter and that the cake is the important detail. It's not. It's the breaking of the law, it's the undermining of a vital public health message during the worst pandemic of our lives, and, more than anything else, it's the continual fucking lying about it.

The roman numerals on these Kakistocracy blogs are now getting too high for my liking - and such is the corruption, dishonesty, and just downright shitbaggery of this government I could easily have written ten times as many. TADS walks aside, this is now the longest series of blogs I have ever written. When Johnson finally fucking goes I will stop this series. That's a promise*

But the thing he is. He's still not gone. He's still, absolutely remarkably and to the eternal shame of both the Tory party and the United Kingdom as a nation, in power. The 'pork pie putsch' of Tory MP for Rutland and Melton Alicia Kearns (named not for Johnson's penchant for porkies but because her constituency includes Melton Mowbray, famed for its pork pies) didn't achieve much and nor did renowned former Brexit secretary David Davis, in the Commons - at PMQs, begging Johnson to "in the name of God, go".

Davis was quoting Leo Amery's demand to Neville Chamberlain step down in 1940, less than a year into World War II. Chamberlain, eventually, had no choice but to go. Even though that must have rankled with the PM, a notorious Churchill fan boy, it seems Johnson is less likely to budge. It's worth bearing in mind, however, that Leo Amery himself had nicked the quote from Oliver Cromwell and we all know how that turned out.  

Despite supposedly having written a biography of Churchill, Johnson claimed not to recognise a quote that proved pivotal to Churchill becoming PM. Hmmm. While some like Davis have been fulsome in their condemnation and lickspittles like Rees Mogg and Dorries have backed the crooked liar to the hilt, others have been less equivocal in their support. Chancellor Rishi Sunak, and current favourite to take over from Johnson, simply rose from his chair and walked out of the interview when asked if he supported his boss.

These people are supposed to be his friends. Or whatever passes as friends in a Tory world where every relationship is both transactional and dependent on performance. Nobody thinks Dominic Cummings is Johnson's friend. At least not any more. But it's worth noting the severity of his recent criticism of Johnson who he called a "total fuckwit" who was obsessed with Big Ben's bongs and studying maps to see where he could have monuments built in his honour.

Like some kind of dictator. It's hardly a surprise that Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South simply walked out of the Tory party and crossed the floor to join Labour. It seems that Johnson's latest lie on 'partygate', his fourth change of alibi so far - this time he claimed he didn't know the rules (which would make him an even bigger moron that even his harshest critics claim) despite being the person who set them and appearing on television regularly to announce them, was the straw that broke the camel's back for Wakeford.

What took him so long? I don't know much about Wakeford but the fact he backed Boris Johnson in the first place, and sent a WhatsApp message calling the Labour party a "bunch of cunts", suggests he may not be a good fit for the Labour party. I get that to win Labour need to win over Tory voters but Tory MPs? I'm not so sure about that. I imagine many Labour voters and Labour party members can't be happy with this Tory walking into party ahead of them and it reflects badly on Keir Starmer that the man who backed some kind of northern Back Boris campaign can fit so easily into the Labour party less than three years later. I'm glad he walked out on Boris Johnson though. I hope more will.

Perhaps more relevant when considering how low Johnson and his supporters would stoop to hold on to power is that Wakeford spoke about being threatened with blackmail (in the form of smears) if he didn't support Johnson. He's not the only one who's reported such behaviour and it's something I've noticed with liars in the past in my personal life. When they stop getting away with their lies they start to turn quite nasty.

Which Johnson always was (ask Stuart Collier). Although presumably not when celebrating his birthday but you know what it's like when they turn fifty-six. It's so nice to see their little faces light up.

Today Sue Gray finally published her long awaited report into all these parties and some of the highlights include the below lines:- 

"Against the backdrop of the pandemic, when the government was asking citizens to accept far-reaching restrictions on their lives, some of the behaviour surrounding these gatherings is difficult to justify"

"At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time"

"The excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time. Steps must be taken to ensure that every government department has a clear and robust policy in place covering the consumption of alcohol in the workplace"

Will this make any difference to Johnson? Probably not. He's blustered and bullshitted his way out of many tight corners before and he's likely to do so again. How it leaves his reputation within his party and in the country is a different matter and what it does to the standing of the UK globally is truly devastating.

Some of the pages of Gray's report were left blank and this appears to be a result of Cressida Dick and the Metropolitan Police, belatedly - and after saying they had no intention of investigating these crimes, getting involved. Johnson didn't have Dick sacked when she should have been and she's returned the favour by doing her very best to scupper Sue Gray's report. What a crave up. A Dick and a Johnson. No wonder we're all fucked.

When the SNP leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford - having seen Gray's findings, called Johnson a liar he was told to leave parliament by the speaker Lindsay Hoyle which just goes to show that lying is rewarded in British government but telling the truth is punished. The government like to make out that if they weren't distracted by all this talk of parties they'd be able to focus on the upcoming, and long signposted, cost of living crisis and the Russian threat to invade Ukraine but somehow I doubt they'd be focused on these things even if that was the case.

History shows they'd either be too busy partying, too pissed, or too fixated on creating pointless arguments about flags, national anthems, or 'woke' comedians to actually address genuine issues that affect people's lives and livelihoods. Even when they do they have a funny way of doing it. Johnson may have dismissed as 'total rhubarb' the idea that he authorised the airlift of cats and dogs out of Kabul while leaving those who worked for, and with, the UK government at the mercy of the Taliban but does anyone really believe a single word that comes out of Johnson's mouth?

I also doubt they'd have addressed the issue of Islamophobia within the Tory Party which has, yet again, risen its ugly head with Nusrat Ghani, the Tory MP for Wealden in East Sussex, coming forward to say she was dismissed as a transport minister in 2020 because her 'Muslimness' had become an issue with other party members.

It would have been nice if she had done the decent and honourable thing and left the party in disgust and that's true of so many who by remaining in position are tacitly, or actively, backing Johnson and his lies, his corruption, and his sleaze. Good on Tracey Emin for demanding her art is removed from 10 Downing Street, at least until Johnson is replaced.

That provides with a link, an admittedly rather lame one, to round up what I've been up to, personally, since I last wrote one of these. My excuse to prove I don't spend ALL my time raging at this shitshow of a government. I've not been to see any of Emin's work but I did attend exhibitions by Hokusai (British Museum), Frans Hals (the Wallace Collection), Helene Binet (RA), and John Constable (also RA) as well as one, at RIBA, marking the centenary of the foundation of London's largest housing estate, Becontree.

I went to a Skeptics talk on friction (online) and I wandered to the new, and rather splendid, Catford Mews cinema and back to see both Belfast and Nightmare Alley as well as popping out for a few drinks in Dalston with Simon. I've chatted with Mum, Dad, Adam, Vicki, and Ben on the phone and I've bumped into Dewi on the tube and Gareth, with Etienne asleep in his buggy, near the shops at Honor Oak Park. Chris rang me up from beneath the palm trees in Bolivia and twisted my arm as regards heading down to Hastings to see The Swansea Sound in his pub, The Piper.

Which will happen next month and will, hopefully, be a highlight of the month but what would be even better would be to see Boris Johnson removed from power and forced to face criminal proceedings for the criminal acts he has committed and overseen. He's done the wrong thing for so long now, and continually failed upwards, he probably has no idea what the right thing even looks like anymore. The same could be said for his supporters but not for the rest of us. Those of us who agonise over our behaviour and strive to be good people.

So what is the right thing to do now? Well, we all know that. Even Boris Johnson and his supporters do. That is for him, for the first time in his life, to do the decent thing and resign. Where that leaves us as a nation is quite unsure but it won't be as bad as allowing this criminal to stay in position. If it's a simple moral question - which I think it is - the solution is easy. In fact, it's a piece of cake.

*If he's replaced by someone else awful like Gove or Liz Truss I'll probably start another series.

Bizzie Rascal?:The Responder.

"I want to be a good bobby. I want to do good things. I want to be normal" - Chris Carson.

That's what he tells his therapist, at least, and, for the most part, it seems to be the case. But Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) is a man on the edge. He's a man in trouble. His mother, June (Rita Tushingham), is in a nursing home and it's costing him more money than he earns and he's been demoted at work and now works nightshifts dealing with drunks, domestic abuse cases, paedophile accusations, and dead bodies in tower blocks.

It's hardly a surprise he's in therapy. He appears to have a loving wife, Kate (MyAnna Buring), and an adoring, and adorable, child, Tilly (Romi Hyland-Rylands), but a hole in the bathroom door, about fist height, first seen as Carson brushes his teeth tells us a different story about his home life.

The Responder (BBC1/iPlayer, directed by Tim Mielants, Philip Barantini, and Fien Troch and written, quite clearly from raw personal experience, by former Liverpool copper Tony Schumacher) tells the story, unflinchingly, of how Carson tries to exorcise his demons and become a better person while, at the same time, trying to keep the night-time streets of Liverpool safe.

One exchange with his mother is particularly telling. "Everyone matters", June tells her son after he expresses doubt about the usefulness of his work. "They don't, mam, not really", a beaten down and world weary Carson sighs in return. But when the chance comes for Carson to genuinely do some good in his life, instead of - as he has it - playing whack-a-mole, will he be able to rise to the occasion?

Will he be allowed to. His unorthodox approach to coppering (threatening to throw dogs from balconies and stealing cigarettes from corpses) has made him more than few enemies and when he's teamed with the young and idealistic police officer Rachel Hargreaves (Adelayo Adedayo) they immediately begin to clash heads over not just his methods but his morality - and his mental state.

Not that everything's rosy in Rachel's garden either. Her boyfriend Steve (Philip Barantini) is, from the off, clearly a wrong 'un and seems likely to continue to cause her problems. He's not the only one acting suspiciously. Why is Carson's former colleague Ray Mullen (Warren Brown) hanging around Kate so much? On the surface he appears to be investigating Carson internally but his methods are no less unorthodox than those of his quarry.

Dr Diane Gallagher (Christine Tremarco) is another who's not who she appears to be either. Her bedside manner is not particularly comforting and her husband Greg (James Nelson-Joyce) appears a difficult man to warm to. Even Carson's therapist Lynne (Elizabeth Berrington) is stressed, overworked, and seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Which makes for a charged atmosphere all round. But when local 'baghead' and rough sleeper Casey (Emily Fairn) steals a holdall full of cocaine from dealer Carl Sweeney (Ian Hart in a quite ludicrous wig), Carson can't help but be drawn in. Not least because him and Sweeney have history. History that has somehow resulted in Carson running favours for Sweeney alongside his police work.

A conflict of priorities for sure but then Carson's life, and The Responder, is all about conflict of priorities. From the split second decisions Carson must make that will play out, down the years, in both his career and his family life to the attempts by Sweeney to retrieve his drugs and on to those of Casey and her hapless sidekick, the dim but well meaning small time crook Marco (Josh Finan), to sell those same drugs and make a better life for themselves.

You're never totally sure what anybody's motivation is. Is Carson corrupt, is he cracking up, or he is a paragon of moral virtue in a world that's gone completely mad? Is he, perhaps, all three. Sweeney may be a drug dealer who's often flanked by the vicious goons Barry (Mark Womack) and Ian (Philip Shaun McGuinness) but he's also a family man who dotes on his wife Jodie (Faye McKeever) and child Lexie (Lois Cringle) and drives a sensible looking Audi.

Untangling all of this makes for a compelling, if not as tense as some had warned me and perhaps not the five star review that Lucy Mangan dished out for The Guardian, watch and though The Responder tackles themes all too common in recent TV dramas (homelessness, drugs, mental health, and, as ever, toxic masculinity) it does so in new, and mostly believable, ways.

Which clearly leaves The Responder in danger of being too bleak a watch. Occasional shots of urban foxes and garden gnomes do little to mitigate against that but the gallows humour you'd expect to find in such scenarios does. There's a drunk driving vicar whose trousers fall down, a girl hiding in a bin from the Sheriff of Nottingham, and when Casey makes the unfeasibly self-aware comment "I'm a smackhead. Thinking shit through's not our strong point" it's difficult to suppress a snigger.

None of which is to say that The Responder is a comedy. It definitely isn't. But in real life people say, and do, funny things and The Responder, quite clearly, shows us real life. Real life from some of the darkest corners of society and real life from some of the darkest corners of the human mind. It was an interesting place to visit but to live there, like Chris Carson, it's hard to see how it wouldn't completely grind you down. 

 

Science, Friction:A Journey Below The Surface?

My first Skeptics in the Pub - Online of 2022 was an unusual one. I mean, many of them are. But this one was unusual in a different way. The subject matter seemed particularly niche yet it really wasn't. Surfaces, friction, stickiness. They're all quite important things. Things that are vital to everyday life. But how much time do we spend thinking about them?

In my case - very little. But in the case of Laurie Winkless, the physicist and author of Sticky:The Secret Science of Surfaces, ever such a lot. In fact, Laurie went as far as saying that friction, specifically, was her favourite topic (don't worry there was plenty of crude laughter in the chat boxes, the Skeptic community likes a smutty joke as much as any other) so she seem overjoyed to be up at 8am (Laurie's Irish but is now based in New Zealand so my Thursday night was her Friday morning) to give an enthusiastic talk, hosted by a very enthusiastic Brian Eggo from the Glasgow branch of the Skeptics, called Science Friction:How Surface Interactions Shaped The World.

Laurie's book touches (see what I did there?) on subjects ranging from adhesives and paints to hydrodynamics and ice and on to earthquakes, geckos, and Formula One racing (the tyres and brakes being of particular interest) but for her Skeptics talk she didn't want to simply rehash what's in the book but talk a little about our human relationship with 'surfaces'.

As with so many stories, we began with ancient rock art. The sort often found on cave walls. On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi there is cave art dating back forty-four thousand years (and there is still work being done to decide if Neanderthal cave art in Spain is over sixty thousand years old) which just goes to show that we have been interacting with surfaces for a very very long time.

This cave art gives us a fascinating glimpse into our ancestors and what they cared about (hunting buffalo primarily, it seems) but beyond the initial act of making impressions on surfaces to create primitive art there is also the question of how we move, both ourselves and objects - specifically ones too large to carry, across various surfaces.

During the twelfth dynasty, the ancient Egyptian governor Djehutihotep commanded so much power and hoarded such wealth that he was buried in a tomb worthy of a pharaoh. Inside his tomb is a famous mural, the 'colossus on a sledge', that shows Djehutihotep in statute form (a statue over 22ft high) being transported by 'workers' (probably slaves). Look at the dude stood near Djehutihotep's foot at the front of the sledge.

He's pouring some kind of liquid in front of the sledge's path. It was long believed that this was part of some kind of ceremonial act but, far more likely, the liquid is some kind of lubricant that is being used to ease the egotistical governor's statue across the desert sand of Egypt. Laurie then took us down what for me proved something of a cul-de-sac (it was too complicated for me, basically) in which she talked about, and showed us a few graphs to demonstrate, how there's an optimal level of water to apply sand to ensure movement.

It can't be too little - but it can't be too much either. I can't say I fully grasped the science bits about pascals and coefficients of friction but I, at least, got the general idea. It wasn't just in the twelfth dynasty of ancient Egypt that lubricants to ease movement were developing. Elsewhere in the world other products were developed from natural soaps, animal fats, and olive oil byproducts.

These were added to boat rudders and the axles of chariot wheels, things that needed to move as quickly and smoothly as possible. By the time of the industrial revolution, many individual mill owners had their own special 'recipes' for creating their own lubricants.

In 1872, Elijah McCoy, a Canadian born inventor of African American descent who took US citizenship, invented and patented an automatic railway locomotive lubrication which meant that trains didn't have to keep stopping to have grease manually applied. This, of course, led to much quicker train journeys and, ultimately, to the railways becoming the dominant transport form of the era.

A much underappreciated individual, Mr McCoy, it seems. I should learn more about him. Needless to say, development of lubricants (I'm sure I have never typed that word so many times) didn't stop there and today we have all manner of new lubricants used not only for assisting motion but as corrosion barriers and thermosyncs.

Whatever they are! Some of these modern lubricants don't even come in the standard form of gloopy liquids but instead we now use solid material like graphite and molybdenum disulfide. The mere mention of molybdenum disulfide again took me into a sphere in which I know, or understand, very little. Thankfully, Laurie Winkless realised not everyone would be as clued up as her on this subject and whenever it got too deeply into the science pulled the talk back with something a layman such as I could grasp.

For instance, what happens if we don't want to minimise friction but to maximise it? Early wheels were made of wood and the basic tyres they had consisted of not much more than a thin strip of leather that would act, essentially, as a sacrificial layer of protection to the wheel. If not for long.

The black rubber tyres we all know and love (or is it just me?) today came much later. Rubber had been harvested in Mesoamerican communities (in present day Colombia) for centuries but it wasn't until the eighteenth century invention of vulcanisation, adding sulphur to rubber, resulted in more rigid and durable rubber being available that an early form of modern tyre came into being.

These new tyres were used on the first ever cars and though new cars use tyres made from fossil fuel based polymers the technology is, more or less, the same. Rubber generates friction as the tyre rolls along the surface when it deforms to take in the bumps in the road and then, slowly, reverts to its original shape. Sometimes during motor sport events you'll see rubber marks left on the track. This helps in that when the cars pass over it again the meeting of rubber (on the tyres) and rubber (on the track) creates even more friction and, thus, even more speed.

But it wears down the tyres faster so that's why, in F1 for example, we have so many pit stops. Why pit stops have become such an integral part of the sport. I used to love Formula One (and even attended the Italian GP back in 2017) but I find it quite boring now (truth be told, it often sent me to sleep if I watched more than the highlights) and the farce which allowed Max Verstappen to become world champion at the expense of the deserved winner Lewis Hamilton last year has put me off the sport even more.

So let's not linger on Formula One and instead, as Laurie Winkless did, move quickly to violins, earthquakes, and ice. The three topics which formed the coda of her talk. Violins are played by dragging the hairs of the bow across the instrument's string to create vibrations in the form of sound but, unbeknown to me but common knowledge to all catgut violators no doubt, rosin is also used to keep that movement swift and fluid.

Rosin, also called colophony or Greek pitch, is a resin obtained from pines and is used to maintain the violin strings so that the bow hairs do not meet with too much resistance. I'm not really sure how the talk jumped so quickly to earthquakes but as we were running out of time these final sections were a little rushed.

Geologists had known for a long time that tectonic plates caused huge stresses that after decades, centuries, or even longer would fracture rocks and cause earthquakes but, later, 'stress drops' were measured by scientists and it was discovered that frictional sliding along fault places caused periods of slip that would last just a few seconds, or in the case of very severe earthquakes - minutes, but were enough to do lots of damage to the Earth's surface and the human built environment that now dominates it.

Ice presents a less severe problem than earthquakes but nevertheless can be difficult to navigate. Why is ice slippery? The temptation is to say, simply, "because it is" but that's not the way of science. We know we deal with it by wearing grippy footwear, or in extremely cold parts of the world like Canada, using snow chains on tyres and that's because we know, instinctively, that we need to increase friction when moving on ice.

That much I understand but when Laurie Winkless described the scientific make up of ice and how that makes it slippery it made me realise just how much I was lacking in science know-how. I talk a good game when it comes to science, and I bow down to scientists when it comes to all sorts of subjects from vaccines to biology, but I struggle to understand it.

That's one of the reasons I attend these talks and I'm glad I do. Because I learn stuff. Normally with these blogs I try and pass that knowledge on to you but in this one I feel I've not really managed to do that. Or at least not much. Instead, hopefully, I've shared my sense of wonder about just how much there is still to learn. Even about the everyday things that surround us.

I applaud Skeptics in the Pub, Laurie Winkless, and Brian Eggo (and his incredible wallpaper and tankard) for providing me with yet another opportunity to realise that. Any evening that ends with a Q&A session tha takes in Teflon, spaceships, Wetherspoons carpets (which a wag in the audience suggested were the stickiest things in the world), Nazi experiments on geckos, and a crocheted model of Prince can't be all bad.

If I didn't understand everything I did learn at least one important lesson. If an absolutely giant treadmill was built and an aeroplane placed on it, no matter what speed the treadmill was able to move at the plane would still not take off. That seems a fairly decent analogy for me trying to understand scientific concepts that absolutely do take off.. Even when I don't fly with all of them. I did, at least, point to the huge flying metal birds and marvel at them. Anyone up for joining a cargo cult?

Unfinished Business:Rules Of The Game.

"She wants to save the world. Not profit from its demise" - Sam Thompson on Maya Benshaw.

It is this one, almost throwaway, comment that perhaps best encapsulates what is at the heart of the problem with both Fly Dynamic, the fictional sportswear company that provides the setting for writer Ruth Fowler and director Jennifer Sheridan's new drama Rules of the Game (BBC1/iPlayer), and with the corporate world of capitalism more generally.

The Ayn Randian idea that profit and self-advancement are the only worthwhile goals in life. The Thatcherite belief that there is no such thing as society. These ideas are failing us mentally, physically, and even economically. But, at Fly Dynamic, they are only part of the problem.The company, despite its clean glass and steel offices and its gender neutral bathrooms, is mired in old school chauvinism, toxic masculinity, and a culture of bullying.

The series begins with a death at the workplace. The victim, unidentified to the viewers, has fallen from the second floor but did they jump or were they pushed? COO Sam Thompson (Maxine Peake) is the one who finds the body and she is the one who narrates the entire story, in a series of flashbacks, to DI Eve Preston (Susan Wokoma).

The story she tells is a long and complicated one which, of course, throws up plenty of dark secrets and plenty of people who would have a reason for committing a murder. It begins with the arrival of a new HR director, Maya Benshaw (Rakhee Thakrar), at Fly Dynamic and it widens to take in the owners of that company, their families, their employees, and the families of their employees.

Fly Dynamic had been started by the now deceased, and unseen, Harry Jenkins. His wife Anita (Alison Steadman on fine form) is the matriarch that has replaced the patriarch but the day to day running is done by their sons. The business like Owen (Ben Batt) and the more feckless, yet seemingly more personable, Gareth (Kieran Bew).

The simmering sibling rivalry between Owen and Gareth is echoed in the relationship between their wives. Owen's wife Vanessa (Zoe Tapper), or Ness, is overly confident, sexed up, and tactless to the point of cruelty. Gareth's wife, Carys (Katherine Pearce), is polite, frustrated, and suffers with a lack of confidence.

Living in a small community, which a cursory Google reveals to be Frodsham in Cheshire, where everyone knows each other's names, and each other's business, doesn't help. What happens at 'cheese club' doesn't always stay in cheese club.

Owen, Gareth, and Sam (who has been with the company so long, and risen so high, she is almost considered family) pride themselves on the fact that Fly Dynamic have an exceptionally low staff turnover but Maya doesn't necessarily see this as a good thing and looks to change the work culture by bringing in yoga sessions and free ice cream days.

Maya's suspicions are first aroused by the presence of one distinctly unhappy employee. Tess (Callie Cooke) is not just unhappy at work, she's deeply unhappy in general. She drinks heavily, she's sleeping with a junior staff member - Khalil (Mohammed Mansaray), and she constantly creates problems for the company.

Yet she is insistent that, at a time when the company is looking to go public, they will never get rid of her because she knows too much. Much of her unhappiness seems to stem from the moment her friend, and fellow employee, Amy (Amy Leeson) died in mysterious circumstances following what appears to be a typical boozy night out for Fan Dynamic.

Not only does Amy's death remain unresolved, it remains almost taboo to discuss it. There is, quite clearly, some very wrong, and very dark, history in this family firm. Why did the former HR guy, Hugh (Rory Keenan), leave in such haste? What has happened between Owen and Gareth to create such tension? Why doesn't Sam's daughter, Gemma (Megan Parkinson), get any answers when she asks who her father is? 

When Maya starts to look too deeply into some of these questions she makes enemies and ends up getting her car keyed. It's not that Maya's life is picture perfect in the first place. Behind the motivational tapes and yoga, she's taking Xanax and living alone with her hairless cat Audrey. She has a restraining order against her coercive ex-husband Luke (Tom Forbes) yet her well meaning, but misguided, mum (Sudha Bhuchar) keeps opening the door to Luke to re-enter her life.

It all adds up to an addictive drama that takes in themes of alcoholism, drug abuse, toxicity, menopause, capitalism, women's safety in the work place and in wider society, consent, and, perhaps most of all, closure.

As a vaping, grey marl clad, Sam tells her story to no nonsense DI Preston she moves from aggressive to defensive to matter of fact. Rules of the Game, the drama, provides a similar emotional rollercoaster ride. At times it feels a little far fetched but this journey into the world of corporate sleaze is one that can be thoroughly enjoyed via the safety of your television screen. It's not a world you'd want to live in.