Things can only get better/worse (delete as appropriate)

I (and a few million others) am suffering a bit of a spiritual down-turn about the way things are going right now. I knew it was going to be at least a year of rubbish, but I didn't realise quite the extent to which our endurance would be tested.

I found myself yearning for a bit of banter with other humans at the pub yesterday, but this is becoming next to impossible. All the bar staff now have to wear masks and there is no sitting at the bar itself allowed any more. I sat at a table on my own and was eventually joined by someone who only goes to the place to read newspapers in silence as he drinks coffee. Most regulars have stopped going there for obvious reasons. It made me realise the truth of what I have been maintaining for years - that I don't go to the pub to drink, I go there to socialise.

Then there is the current state of U.S. politics. Before anyone tries to tell me that it is none of my business and I should not get involved, I will say that it is the world's business. If the best that the Democrats can come up with to fight Trump is Joe Biden, then things have reached a very sorry state. If the best they can do to hoodwink the electorate is to push him as a Trojan Horse, then that shows the universal lack of respect for any politician who is not a billionaire.

This morning I listened to a protester calmly talking about how the ancient woodland he is camped in is being cut down to make way for HS2, and you could actually hear the chainsaws in action as he spoke. Boris Johnson is making the most out of Parliament being decimated by his own rules about Covid, even though neither he nor any of his ministers actually understand them. 

Only now have they realised that there is going to be an acute shortage of basic skills when we finally cut the ties with Europe, and that they will have to import them from other countries if our standard of living is going to look anything like it was before Covid. Unbelievably, they have included musicians on the list of people to be prioritised for visas. Musicians! What does this say to all our own musicians who have been put out of their jobs overnight with no prospect of paid work for the foreseeable future? 

They are about to make trespass a criminal offence and the excuse for this is to stop rogue travellers from cutting down trees (!) and leaving tons of rubbish on private land for others to clear up at their own expense.

The truth is that the police have always had the power to evict and arrest people causing criminal damage and illegally camping on any land, but they are too scared to approach these self-styled outlaws. Soon, any rambler who strays off an ill-defined footpath could find themselves with a criminal record which will last for the rest of their lives, with all the social disadvantages that come with the conviction.

I would like to think that they have just not thought this legislation through, but the scary thing is that I believe they have thought it through in great detail.

Any decent government would strive to make things better for people who are already suffering such intense misery as we are now, but we have no decent government and no prospect of one for years to come.