The humidity is incredible this morning, the lower path blocked off, the plan to head to the Buddha shrine postponed. The clouds breaking apart, blue sky and fierce sunlight, today I managed to remember and umbrella but forgot to bring a hat. Kind of typical. By the summit it looks as if I've swum up, t-shirt sodden, water bottle already half drunk, not a day for the slightly higher hills. But it's a day to walk, to think, gather thoughts into some kind of order, ideally not carrying the hangover of last night's debacle. Beyond the summit there's a gathering of blue magpies, rising from the valley, disappearing into the trees, expertly avoiding any possibility of being captured by the lens. One day...

Back in town, fires burning in braziers once again, the sky darkening, the sharp shadows of midday replaced by the embrace of damp air, the first drops of rain, and then the clouds begin to appear, swarm from the south, bright with the promise of another downpour. On the plus side, I do have an umbrella today, although it's always better to allow enough rain to attach itself to you to cover up the sweat, a social strategy which is yet to find any adherents...

And then, later, waiting, watching the blank screen, not certain why I'm watching, why an “unelected bureaucrat” is being allowed to address the nation and, let's be honest, the world. It's trailed beyond the event horizon of the black hole now, where surreal projections are radiated by the spin of, to quote the unnamed civil servant, “these truth twisters.”

Of course it's late to begin, the final checking of the fabrications, last minute corrections to the draft, making sure the string quartet has their sheet music, heart strings must be tugged, in London zoo a crocodile being tortured until enough tears have been shed for the duration of the public appearance. Twenty five minutes late now, maybe the crocodile had the same levels of empathy as the main characters of this charade. What's the rationale of this, to attempt to dig de Piffle Paffle out of the hole he's dug himself; to portray himself as a victim, emphasise the childcare aspect, disembowel the Downing Street cat in real time and throw it upon the table?

Once again it's a spread of verbal manure. These excuses, it's like being back in the classroom and having a child try to talk himself out of the shit that he's got himself into this time. And, almost immediately, the victim card is played. Box ticked. The child card played. Tick. “My London home had become a target.” Tick. It's as if he's painting himself as St Dom the martyr, a character written in haste by a second rate playwright; a farce reeking of artifice, coming across as a self justifying fiction drafted to weave the various strands of the breaking story into something which could, almost, explain his actions. Almost.. All he's done is confirmed the rumours, his justifications are fatuous. It's complex he tells us, notwithstanding the same complexity which has befallen thousands of others. As they fled neither were confirmed as infected, his wife showed no symptoms of the virus nor, it seems, have they been tested for antibodies. Is it really enough justification that they had thought that it was possible they could be infected?

“People like me who make the rules should be accountable for their actions.” The irony meter is off the scale as he blames the media for the story which his actions and the governmental cover up have seeded. Unable to apologise, to accept that he's done anything wrong. Breaking the governmental code upon the behaviour of Spads while he's at it. “I informed the PM but neither of us can remember the details of that conversation. We spoke about it the week after it happened, but I can't remember when.” It''s amazing at which points these gaps in memory appear, "I was fine to drive but I can't remember whether or not I stopped upon the way back." Selective amnesia seeming, once again, to be such a useful, precise, and surprisingly prevalent condition within the ruling classes.


And so to bed thinking, that, the only way you could possibly believe that this pile of crap justifies his actions is if you really want or need to....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNQi0BPQP9w