Over these past few months I have been looking back down the darkened valley of my life and it has not been a pleasant sight. It is a shallow ravine. Where there are deeper pools they are mostly filled with bitterness & regret. I am left with an over-whelming sense of pointlessness. This view has often been obscured by alcohol and short-term distractions, but the more time I have had to brood on the picture, the less I like what I see and in the recent past I have had far too much time on my hands to contemplate such a thin, transparent object…

Which only goes to prove the dangers of sobriety & friendless society. The exigencies bat-flu has thrust upon us all have not been on the whole pleasant, judging by the toxicity of social media and the inexplicable failure of any group of professionals to get to grips with the situation. The Dunkirk Spirit so beloved of my fellow countrymen who get most of their sense of history from Commando war comics and The Victor, seems to be sadly lacking in any quarter.

We have descended into a mire of finger-pointing and blame culture while the professionals we normally rely on to drag us out of the muck only seem to be pushing us further in.

I cannot put into words how sad & dissapointed I am at the current political leadership’s failure to grasp even the basics of Government. I know the gene pool up the political end of evolution has never been that deep, and they have always been self-serving nest featherers with a nice line in looking down their noses at the great unwashed except when they needed their votes, but there was always at least an acknowledgement of the rules of fair governance and a rough direction to their meanderings that we could understand, if not agree with.

But now our elected leaders openly break their own rules, publicly get caught with their hands in the cookie jars and don’t have the least pretence of an idea of what they are doing or why. And they seem to be almost proud of their corruption & ineptitude knowing we can’t touch them for it because spin doctoring and misinformation has taken the place of common sense and the rule of law throughout the land.

As a Nation we have rendered ourselves powerless to stop them by our own failure to reach any kind of accord on what we should do about any issue. We have surrendered our right to Democracy because in a Democratic society the people have to vote FOR something and we now only vote AGAINST the things we think we loathe, or are naturally prejudiced against or don’t understand for one reason or another.

How the mighty have fallen. Or maybe we weren’t so mighty in the first place. We look back at an Empire we think was a shining beacon of British achievement, but was in fact largely built on human suffering, blood and greed and corruption and all the baser human instincts. It was covered over with a veneer of liberal values and Christian ethnics, but not too far below the surface there was the mass forceful subjection of millions to create the wealth and power for a privileged few.

And I’m pretty sure those ‘Great Britons’ would have spat in the eye and dug in the heel on most of the British people who today gain their pride in their Country from those far off old despots who wouldn’t have crossed the street to p*ss on them if they were on fire.

I think about how the Brexit voting, St George flag wearing man in the street looks back with shining eyes on a map coloured pink, and think about how different those eyes would look in the forlorn hope of a malaria infected army.

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant man has had his brief moments of glory, but the ‘Great Britions’ who spun the myths that sent them to their deaths to ensure the map stayed pink, took all the credit and the Gold and left nothing for their fellow Countrymen except a sense of entitlement and the myth of White Superiority, which their ancestors down to this day are stuck with and can’t move away from.

It’s not a pink World anymore as we are about to discover to our horrible cost. I hope Bojo has a fiddle so he has something to do while the Country burns to the ground around him! I bet he can’t play it properly anyway!

The grub street hacks have gone into a predictable bate about Bojo’s new escape plan – or what there is of it – and the whole issue descends into yet another cat fight that doesn’t look at all pretty to the watching masses.

But I can’t help thinking all this political chaos is on our own heads. In peace time we allow our leaders to behave badly and just shrug our shoulders and say ‘noblese doesn’t bloody oblige’ and accept they behave like children when teacher is out of the room.

Even when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, we let them enforce their own rules so that everything is drowned in a sea of endless paperwork and unfathomable delay until the worst offenders are given a slap on the wrist and told to go and put their snouts in some other trough.

And all we do is read the gory details, let our blood boil for a while, compose some pithy comment for the twiterati if we are so inclined, and get on with our day. Leaving the clowns in charge of the circus and our fate in their hands!

What we need is a whole new order of chosen men and women and some sensible rules for them to govern with. What we get is public inertia with no known cure. And I suspect until we do something about our incompetent leaders – or at least the loaded system they operate under – then a cure for our current problems, especially the bat-flu, may never be found.

The head clown himself comes on the idiot box at the appointed hour and announces we shall be released. But not yet and not by much and not sure how, but we can go about our business a bit more – but not too far and only a few and we should try not to catch bat flu while we are about it.

Drunk the whole issue was just about bearable, but sober… I am past despairing over the whole thing, because everything is simply living down to my low expectations.

I was brought up in a Tory household, under a Tory heaven, in a Tory World of solid middle class values that said the blue prefects would look after us, keep the faith, abide by the rules, and make sure there was a bit of extra jam on our bread come Christmas. The World would always be grateful there was a Conservative Great Britain to give it a steer.

But I remember watching my father’s complete disillusionment set in slowly, gradually over a number of years… Suez, the end of the Empire, Profumo, Harold Wilson – for which the old goat blamed the blue brass – the failure of the economy, the rise of the Unions, the 1960’s, the 1970’s, Punk rock – the list never ended.

My father watched it all with mounting horror and blamed the leaders of his own set because there was no one else he respected enough to carry the can. And on that journey his pride in himself and his country slipped into cynicism and contempt for his leaders who lived not just in another country, but on another planet, where nothing he valued seemed to matter as his World turned to dust. His faith in his tribe broken, he died a political agnostic and deeply bitter at what the blue custodians had done to his country.

And I have made the same journey. Margaret Thatcher – the leaderene of blessed memory – arrested the slide in my lack of belief for a while, mainly because I did so well out of her bourgeois financial tendencies. But my father’s example left me to see straight through the politicians rhetoric and into their black hearts and I wouldn’t give any of them the time of day – whatever side of the house they sit.

I know – given my own professional graces – this is a case of the pot calling the kettle sable – but in my lean defence I have never gone around making promises to the masses I have no intention of keeping or writ my incompetence and greed on such a large canvas that everyone can see my inadequecies for what they are. In spite of which the mob still vote for these clowns because in the end they don’t have a choice and they want the lesser of two evils. Democracy my arse. Choosing between a sh*t and a p*ss is not going to improve anyone’s life, just deal with a necessary short term problem.

So watching Bojo bumble through his half-thought out ideas, like a first-year who hasn’t done his homework, just reinforces my lack of faith in the whole issue.

I wish I could hear something, anything that makes me think somebody, somewhere has the brains and the courage to take this on. But however hard you scour the halls of the mighty you wouldn’t come up with enough brain cells to power a frog.

So we might as well all go back to work, reopen the souks and bazaars and unleash the confined from their cells, because quite frankly it’s better than waiting around for the Circus Clowns to kill us all and bankrupt the country in the process.

I went to my wardrobe today. Not a visit I have made regularly in recent memory under the current circumstances. Pitt-Quickly – my ex-cohort of blessed times – had convened a virtual meeting of the City Oiks for his own purposes and I wanted to clad myself in an old Twerpps nearly 100% Liberian cotton shirt in remembrance of times long gone.

When I examined the contents I was horrified to discover that most of my clothes have gone the same way as mother’s antimacassars…. namely they had disappeared under the Mitzification of my whole life and all my goods and chattels.

Outraged I summoned my persecutor and demanded an explanation. Mitzi just shrugged and said:

“I make masks…”

Masks? Masks! What kind of depths of depravity was she sinking too in order to keep her sordid business afloat? I demanded more by way of detail and in response she threw open the spare bedroom door and ushered me inside…

That put the wind up me I can tell you. I have been ravenously curious about the goings on in her den of vice, but I have long ago learnt that most of life’s mysteries are better left unexplored and I suspected Mitzi’s virtual activities would be one such somnolent canine that should be left unpoked.

But at her urging I put my best foot forward, or rather I shuffled nervously into my former playroom and the sight that met my eyes won’t go away however hard I try.

There on mother’s old Singer Sewing table was a pile of all my best clothes – suits, shirts, coats and trousers all in a big heap, and all completley cut to shreds.

‘What have you done?’ I asked slowly, picking up what was left of my ‘Snots of Jermyn Street’ blazer.

‘I make masks…’ she repeated, picking up a blue serge face mask, for the NHS. You know Pee-pee…’

‘PPE…’ I whispered. The enormity of it all wouldn’t quite sink in to my startled head. I had to spell it out.

‘SO you have cut up all my clothes to make face masks for the NHS?’

She nodded enthusiastically. ‘I make 250 in 2 days. It bloody hard I can tell you…’

‘But I thought you were in here working – you know – making sexy for the punters. When did you start doing this?’

‘When everyone giving it away for free… no money in sex, no more. I make masks – sell to NHS. Make money, buy new clothes.’

I could just see the NHS procurement team falling over themselves to buy some dubious face coverings made of Saville Row cloth by an itinerant sex worker on a sewing machine built when the Romans came to Britain.

A thousand things flew around in my head – none of them helpful – but one question levered itself out of the general confusion.

‘Why didn’t you ask me first?’

‘You were asleep and you don’t wear these things anyway – only moths use them. I make masks, make money, buy you something more modern – more your age…’

I suddenly felt very tired.

So all those strange noises coming from here weren’t those of Mitzi giving her all to the insatiable virtual punters, but the sounds of light industry as she worked her fingers to the bone turning a lifetime’s City wardrobe into unsaleable and unusable accessories for a group of people who needed more than barathea between them and the deadliest plague since the black death.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mitzi just looked somewhat crestfallen at my lack of enthusiasm for her enterprise.

‘Never mind’, I said after a sudden feeling of compassion spread unexpectedly over my mood, ‘If the NHS won’t buy them maybe Ann Summers will put in an offer…’

What Ann Summers might do with them was anbody’s guess…

VE day has come and gone, depressingly – from my point of view – as I couldn’t mark the occassion with a celebratory tincture owing to my still broken liver.

I am however up and about with the help of Mother’s old sword stick and I was able to hobble to the window and watch the neighbours do a bit of tepid social distance cavorting to the strains of Auntie Vera summoning up images of blue skies, white cliffs and dog-fights over the channel in the time honoured fashion.

To my surprise I see Mitzi has hung some odd shaped red, white and blue bunting over the bay front. It turns out she had dyed old bras in some arcane way and strung them together to cheer things up. If she leaves them there we won’t need to put any additional scaffolding over the windows when they next need painting.

For once I feel sorry for our Westminster prefects. This anniversary was meant to be a time when – as a country – we could try and unite a bit after Brexit and dilute the bad taste in the mouth we’ve all felt over recent times. To hark back to another era of great adversity and capture a bit of the war winning spirit from 1945, that could maybe help us now look forward with a bit more optimism and hope, in a time of great challenge and change through the uncertainty that lies ahead.

Instead the bat plague has put the kibosh on any chance of coming together in memories of times past and the only reason Brexit is off the front pages is because the blight is more frightening. Timing is everything…

Still if I was Bojo and his circus troop I wouldn’t want to draw too many parallels with 1945. The first thing the British public did after getting over the shock of WW2 was to come to their senses and boot the Tories out of power! Happier times!

Judging by the unholy noises emanating from the spare room, behind its closed and sealed door, Mitzi is upping her game on the virtual sex front. I genuinely can’t imagine what is going on in there in front of her interweb voyeurs, but if the sounds are anything to go by the throttling of large furry animals is the very least of it.

Mitzi eventually surfaces from her sessions looking tired and drawn. I make the consummate professional a consoling cup of tea – now that I am a bit more mobile, slowly recovering from my hospital ordeal – and ask her hopefully if she wants to talk about her situation. But she doesn’t and after my tea and sympathy she takes a short nap before sliding back into the spare room for another exhausting session.

I can tell you it’s not all fun and fluffers for most people in the sex industry – it’s apparently quite hard work!

Unlike the Government brains trust who seem to be living the life of Riley: ignoring their own rules, contradicting each other, avoiding saying anything helpful and no doubt getting bucket loads of public gelt into the bargain.

It is a golden age for swots as the owlish Ferguson is unsurprisingly told by PC Plod he won’t be fined for his extramural gaff – no doubt because he is immune from mortal consequences as an apostle in the Holy troop. It’s probably just as well… he would only have put the penalty on expenses in any event.

47 days of solitary confinement give or take time off at the NHS’s pleasure. I thought we would be out after a couple of weeks so I could resume my old life of depleting Pomeroy’s wine cellar and dodging the repo man.

The National state of affairs is still hard for this bear with a small brain to fully grasp. Is it doing any good keeping us all cooped up? Are we any further forward in stemming the tide of English dead? Everywhere I look everyone has everything to say about the situation – and how we get out of it – but no one seems to know anything. Least of all the people we put in charge of the situation. Where are the real leaders when we need them? Boris is too busy getting his latest squeeze up the duff, catching bat flu and falling over his own trousers to give any quality time to the current circumstances.

So it’s all been put in the hands of uni swots who – if they are anything like the number crunchers of my old City acquaintance – don’t even know what time the pubs open.

This has all been horribly highlighted by the owl in chief Neil Ferguson, who has taken time off from putting the decimal point in the wrong place to give somebody else’s wife the what for in contravention of his own effin’ rules! Don’t do as I say… do what I think I can get away with…

Watching our leaders at work is like seeing a troop of incompetent circus clowns f**k up their own act. And still they insist we think of them as World beating performers we can trust with our lives and livelihoods!

But we get the leaders we deserve – so well done us.

Talking of which, Mitzi has been in a sullen mood for the last couple of days. It appears she now has a lot more competition on the virtual sex front, as bored couples are filming their Ugandan activities and posting the results on the interweb FOC for cheap-skating thrill-seekers to view on endless repeat. It all sounds rather intriguing, but Mitzi won’t let me near the screen to verify any of this.

She is outraged that the competition is threatening her own enterprise and she is waxing somewhat lyical – in multiple languages – about what the courting couples can do with their sex films – which I gather is anything apart from post them free on TicToc.

So Mitzi is either going to have to up her game or lower her prices and I’m not sure what any of this means to yours truly. But if I am being perfectly honest – I can’t wait to find out!

While our mop-topped leader adds another off-spring to the roster of nippers he can’t remember the names of… A very old soldier with a ‘can-do’ attitude has achieved more with his walking frame and a bit of gumption than all the lizards in Whitehall put together. Whatever practical accomplishments Colonel Tom has achieved (and 32 large ones for the NHS is no small beer) bears no comparison to the fact that he has provided something that for once the country can agree on and unite over… which is more than the Westminister politburo has achieved since the great flood.

Even the reptiles in Grub Street can’t raise a dissenting voice over the Colonel’s achievements and just for a moment there is a little bit of hope and wonder in the air that maybe we are not all waiting for a bunch of idiots to lead us to the wrong exit, while this kind of indomitable human spirit still exists. Not only in the embodiment of the newly promoted Colonel, but also the good folk on the front-lines all over the planet who keep on, keeping on. Makes me proud to be a human being for once – and I can’t say that everyday.

And then that childish lout Donald Trump tells everyone in the middle of a prayer meeting to drink bleach! And I am now thinking goodbye hope, farewell optimism we are – inevitably – after all doomed!

Cushions are not the only changes Mitzi has wrought on my life. Some of my more entrenched possessions are gradually noticeable by their absence. Mother’s antimacassars have gone, leaving odd colour staining on the backs and sides of the G-Plan furniture. When questioned about my heirlooms Mitzi just shrugs in her Euro-indifferent way and says they are too old and dirty. Her look makes me think she might be talking about more than the furniture covers so I let it pass.

I can’t tell if my missing oddments are disposed of or filed. Cupboards have been rearranged and unfamiliar objects have surfaced. I am not sure who they belong too. Some may have been in the back of the cupboard from mother’s time as chief occupant of the premises, but other gewgaws are probably Mitzi in origin. I can’t believe a silver phallus with ‘Employee of the Month – Congratulations you’ve done it more than anyone else in June’ comes from mater’s list of recognized triumphs.

And there is a strange smell in the air that is not Mitzi’s perfume. It turns out to be furniture polish and clean linen. The old familiar atmosphere of dried gin and fag smoke seems a distant memory of childhood now. I am definitely being invaded but I have no idea what to do about it. Pleas for a temporary halt to the process of Mitzification are dismissed with a ‘we’ll see’ and a shrug and given my invalided state I am in no position to fight back.

I know now how the Czechs felt when the Russian tanks rolled into Wenceslas Square in ’68. I remember being at prep school at the time and when told the Czech’s were being wiped out I panicked because I thought my tuck money wasn’t coming through from father that term. I’ve always been a self-centered bastard in that respect. 10 million people were being crushed under the Russian boot and I was worried about getting 3 months supply of Spangles!

But this is all insignificant compared to the invasion going on in the old folks homes across the Country as the blight seeks out the old, infirm and their helpers. Mother holed up in one a year or so hence as she rightly concluded I didn’t have the wherewithal to attend to her increasingly geriatric needs. The upside is no more midnight trips to stand guard outside the privy or having to liquidize all her hardtack at mealtimes, the downside is that what’s left of my inheritance is going to the ‘bide-a-wee home for retired all-in wrestlers’.

I was reasonably sanguine about the trade-off until the bat-flu started stalking the corridors. My mother maybe the living embodiment of all my life’s humiliations but she is still my Old Girl and I would hate for anything untoward to happen to her, at least until I’ve checked she hasn’t left the family silver – or what’s left of it – to the grapplers widows and mites fund.

I spoke to the house manager who seemed decidely nervous about the whole thing – which didn’t lift my spirits one bit. It seems the ruling prefects have largely cast the geriatric vote to the wind by diverting all the phrophylatics they do have to the carers getting most media attention. As far as the authorities are concerned God’s waiting rooms are on their own – which I think is a bloody nerve given it’s mostly the inmates who put Brexit through the pipe and returned Bojo to the summit in his hour of need. Talk about thanks for your vote – now eff off…

So mother is at the mercy of chance and whatever precautions the carers can manage. And it’s not as if I can wander down there and have a last pink Gin with her before the final curse decends under the current confinement.

But maybe that’s just as well. She might ask me where the antimacassars have gone. And like our current ruling class, I don’t have the first clue…

Bojo is back from death’s door and ready to lead us into a new dawn… That would be slightly more comforting if the blond oaf hadn’t got himself mugged by the lurgy in the first place. Although I suppose expecting Boris to follow his own advice and social distance is like asking an alley cat to spend the night in!

But it turns out they are all at it… The Scottish saw-bones in charge of plague defenses up North has been hopping off to her holiday home in the mist and got caught by the local McPlod of all people. Skulking off to a Scottish beach hut in April and getting caught doing it raises more questions than I care to think about… We really are in the grip of a mediocre bunch of prefects…

On the home front – I can hardly call my country Camelot home anymore. While I was out at the National Health’s pleasure, Mitzi has transformed the gaff into a pink palace. I now have cushions! CUSHIONS! Where the Greek temptress got these from I have no idea, I thought the local proprietors are only supposed to flog essential gear like cheese and wine? Are cushions fundamental supplies? I have no idea. I am not even sure what they are for given my bachelor lifestyle. I always assumed – if I thought about them at all – that they would come with marriage. How I feel about premarital soft furnishings I am not entirely sure, but it makes me uneasy.

When I raised the subject with herself, she just said not to worry, her accountant had told her they were a business expense and tax deductible. While I applaud her business acumen I am not sure I am comfortable with the implied up-shift in our domestic arrangements this kind of frippery implies…