Subjects I discarded tonight.

Long Covid, editors, fashions in modern poetry, customers and introspection. I’ve done them all recently, or they aren’t interesting, or both.

Similarly, the fact that I had a telephone conversation with Rheumatology this morning, or that ASDA delivered 100% of the grocery order tonight, aren’t exactly riveting, though the 100% accurate delivery is quite unusual.

I then got onto the subject of the Royal Family and things took a turn for the worse. I am surprisingly anti-Royal for a man who likes history and tradition.

My dad was one of the sailors who lined the route of the Coronation Procession in 1953, as he was stationed at Chatham, which is just down the road from London. That is the only time a member of my family has been near the Queen. We don’t tend to move in the same circles.

To say that I have been finding writing easier over the last few weeks I am making heavy weather of this post, having deleted more words than I have allowed to stand.

The report on the lockdown parties at Number 10 is out. People are talking about it, some are even outraged. However, being outraged is actually a career option in this age of easy communication and low personal standards. people are, it seems, outraged that their loved ones were dying whilst the staff at Number 10 had parties.

As you know, my father died of Covid. I was annoyed at the restrictions at his funeral, particularly in light of the way the Government loosened the restrictions on football at about that time. I was only allowed to gather in a small group of close family and we weren’t allowed to sing. Football fans were allowed to gather in pubs and shout in the faces of complete strangers. To me, that was a lot worse than a few drinks at Number 10, yet still falls short of outrage. The history of Covid has been a history of inconsistency and though I think there was poor judgement I’m not sure a few drinks at Number 10 had much effect on the course of the pandemic.