The world seems to have lost its way.

The world seems to have lost its way.

Oh for a world that has seemingly lost its way, but also its sober perspective, its moral compass and now finds itself in an utter mess, a shambles, its sense of all proportion now completely off any emotional and psychological radar. There is a sense that if we continue to behave and react to world events in the way we seem to be doing then some of the more trenchant critics and cynics will insist that we are just architects of our own downfall, authors of our destiny.

The weekend's riots, ructions and demonstrations in both America and London are stark reminders of what happens when, given half the chance, a society simply disintegrates, crumbling to the ground, imploding and exploding at the first opportunity that comes its way. The streets of Minneapolis and London were awash with enraged, exasperated, empowered people who have now taken the law into their hands and remain convinced that their voices are just being blatantly ignored.

At some point in the last couple of days civil disorder turned into a fiery anarchy, and a dreadful breakdown in communication. There was a vitriolic hatred towards both the police and those who believe that racial conflict is something that's been with us for far too long. The breaking point has now been reached and this is the time to vent their frustrations, their long held grievances and now there is little in the way of a rational discussion to sort everything out.

But how to explain the incident yesterday in Bristol. Amid the heated tempers there were also explosive clashes, flags and banners displaying messages of defiance, infuriated disgust and vehement disenchantment. In other words they weren't very happy bunnies, blasting out their slogans of fairness and racial equality. It could have been any demonstration that has ever taken place in London's West End but yesterday you began to question the necessity of a big, old boisterous march when so much else of far greater significance was still being addressed.

We have now got to the stage when the minds and senses of London's noisiest campaigners are being warped by things that are seemingly out of  their control. Yesterday the irate hordes swarmed across the capital city like bees around a honey pot. They bellowed and bawled, brawled and battled with what they may feel like the perceived enemy. They walked together as one, ran against the very people who were perpetrating the most vicious crimes and were then arrested because they were just being too argumentative.

Perhaps in their saner moments we may all just calm down eventually if only because we may run out of steam. The toppling of a statue in Bristol raised so many pulses and blood pressures that even now on reflection, some of us are still scratching our heads. How did a slavery figure from ancient past come to be recognised as a genuine threat to considered and sensible thinking?

To those of us who would like the current news topics to maintain some semblance of relevance to the more pressing issues of the day. Lockdown has now cut the whole year into completely indigestible pieces, a hotch potch of vague and new fangled phrases, muddled misunderstandings and just utter baloney at times. In fact there have been times when you'd have been forgiven for thinking that the language of the day was more Latin than the Queen's English.

For the last three months we have been subjected to a mass of contradictions, a cumbersome jumble of same old statements of the obvious and a constant stream of promises that didn't seem to be going anywhere. Day after day we were initially told to stay at home because if we had, we'd infect the whole planet and kill off the whole planet. Then we were told that we could go out eventually but only to get loaves of bread and pints of milk at the local supermarket since they were still open.

Then by the same token we were warned not to go out to exercise - i..e. walk up to the top of the road or take the dog for a walk because that was just plain bad and almost treasonable. You were forbidden to do anything for whatever reason but then gently coaxed out of your home when the government considered that now was the right time to feed the ducks and see your grandchildren.

The next pronouncement made it abundantly clear that you would not be allowed to sit on park benches but could stand in different parts of the country. You could remain together in the home you were already in but then warned that you couldn't travel any further than the next town or suburb in case they were virulently viral and ultimately transmitted the lethal Covid 19. Everything was all about geography, location, distance, miles and measurements, inches and centimetres. You'd have been forgiven for thinking that although you'd left school many decades ago, you were still there in spirit.

But now it seems we are edging towards that classical day when s street parties and bunting will shortly become the order of the day and the local mayor or mayoress will declare Britain a celebration zone. The schools are now partially open, people are grouping around in parks, the kids are happy and relieved and shortly those non essential shops selling toys, clothes, furniture and electrical items will be encouraged to fling open their doors for financial transactions.

It does seem that on June 15 the department stores and shops in the West End will be allowed to tentatively creak open their rusty doors, the hallowed portals of commerce and money a very viable proposition. It was all very intriguing and perhaps lacking joined up thinking. We will have access to an approximation of the normal world but not to believe that everything in the garden is rosy. You can have half the cake but not the other. Go figure.

For instance you can forget about a long, cool refreshing sup of ale or beer in your local pub because that's on hold until sometime in July. So there now remains a vast cross section of Britain whose desperate thirsts for alcohol will not be slaked until long after Midsummer's Day. So where does that leave us? Can we finally have our haircut at our local hairdressers or barbers although fortunately some of us have already had their haircut?

The truth of course that we can't converge on our local Pret A Manger, Costa or Nero for a criminally expensive latte, coffee or moccha because they just get impossibly crowded at the best of times. So that's a non starter. You can't devour a burger or pizza because these fast food parlours are too dangerous for words. And you can't go to the cinema because that would constitute a major criminal offence and besides James Bond and Daniel Craig can wait until later on this year. Now where did that bucket of popcorn go? Ah yes it's over there.