I confess that all this Cummings and goings has become more than a little tedious. It reminds me of an often hilarious novel that I studied for ‘A’ Level, “The Diary of a Nobody”, the memoirs of Charles Pooter, that featured his friends Mr Cumming and Mr Gowing and their largely frivolous interactions. I haven’t actually delved into its entertaining pages since closing the volume post-exams, so fifty years on I am struggling to remember much about it, but the whole sorry saga of Dom’s Durham Debacle might persuade me to revisit the Diary.
This isn’t a political blog, but I can’t resist having my own two penny worth on the current ludicrous shenanigans blighting this once great country. It seems clear that Boris’s sidekick Dom, did indeed break the lockdown rules of which he was a mastermind, or at least a co-conspirator. He was a silly boy knowing that he is not an “ordinary citizen”, but a man who has apparently lived by the sword and created a fair few enemies in the process. Worse, he has Boris’s total trust, indeed it seems the PM is incapable of wiping his nose without first asking for Dom’s advice as to whether to blow or wipe and if the former, how hard. Had Mr Cummings, once his transgression came to light, immediately held up his hands, mea culpa, conceded his lack of wisdom and offered to make a healthy contribution to an NHS charity he might, just might have survived. He might yet anyway, but the ensuing brouhaha would appear to be doing Boris and Co a huge amount of damage. By trying to weasel his way out of it with lame and pathetic excuses he is making himself and a lot of senior ministers who are trying to justify his survival, look shady and unworthy. As I have tried to tell son Oliver for years, everyone makes mistakes and does bad things. Much worse though is to deny one’s involvement. Be a man, (oh dear, I’m probably not allowed to say that now? Be a “person”?….doesn’t have quite the same ring!) hold up your hands and take whatever’s coming to you, it’ll be a lot better in the long run and people will respect you for it.
The other side of this though is the horrible media tirade, the bulk of whom seem to be intent on maiming our elected Prime Minister, when it’s clear that everyone involved needs to get on with running the Country during an incredibly difficult time. Constantly quoting “Outraged from Tunbridge Wells” and “Scandalised from Newport Pagnell” achieves nothing. If people now feel it’s ok to break the rules because Dom did, then they are the sort of idiots who would have broken the rules anyway. Sadly, it looks as though there are a lot of those, watching the way people are behaving now.
Callie the whippet is an extremely intelligent dog, as dogs go. I think I might have a chat with her later and see what she thinks. As I write this on a very sunny patio, she is currently involved in an ultimately fruitless, but impressively athletic chase around the garden, hoping to exterminate the squirrel that constantly taunts her as it flies from branch to branch. It reminds me a little of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and his attempts to become fully aerobatic. Callie already has an impressive leap, scaling a six foot wall with relative ease, but she needs much greater cat-like qualities before Stevie the Squirrel will become dogfood. Perhaps she’ll give me a moment or two of her time when we wander along the seafront later, although chasing seagulls consumes much of her time there; another exercise in frustration. If the truth be told, Lockdown has been heavenly for her. To have the whole family around 24/7 is doggy bliss.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 