And so it goes on.

 And so it goes on. 

We may be at the beginning of a New Year but little changes. The dark cloak of viral illness, oppressive restriction and utter dejection falls over the world with every prospect of yet more misery, discomfort and, now an almost imminent lockdown. We keep asking the same questions, holding the familiar discussions until deep into the night and by the time we hit the pillow tonight our minds will be burdened by the same, old aching frustrations, the same echoes from a recent past reverberating in our head and then the general state of doom-laden malaise.

It could be described as insufferable but even then, this is open to debate. We've trodden this rutted concrete pavement for so long now that the blisters are now turning into verrucas. For ages now we have almost become conditioned to our own fate without ever believing for one moment that we could reach rock bottom, the nadir of our lives, close to what may seem like the end of the world. Over 75,000 people in Britain have now died as a result of Covid 19 and the writing on the wall still makes for grim reading. 

Tonight the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will once again make another bleak address to the nation, full of stark and harsh pragmatism mixed in with a deeply unappetising after taste and messages that serve no other purpose than appearing to be statements of the obvious. It can't be denied. We are now in this for the long haul and this could rumble on indefinitely. There is no clear time-frame and by the time you drop off tonight Britain will feel like the most dangerous war zone for reasons that have now become painfully evident. 

Today the children of Britain were supposed to be renewing acquaintance with their education fully aware at the same time that their friends wouldn't be allowed to come anywhere near them. Schools are once again closed and the kids are struggling to understand the enormity of this crisis. They were told that all of that fulfilling academia and painstaking study would never again be disrupted by a global pandemic for quite a while. And then there was the bombshell from nowhere. The kids would have to endure the worst, grimacing and then slumping in front of their TV or smartphones with a look of brooding melancholy. Oh no, not again surely.

Now more than ever the children of the future will have to take it on the chin, realising immediately that the vital end-of -term exams they'd been preparing for diligently were once again threatened with extinction, never to be retrieved from the rubbish tip, their career prospects seemingly in ruins. Who would be parents in today's utterly traumatised society? What on earth are they to make of a world where their precious offspring have now been subjected to an interminable state of anguish and agonising stagnation? This will end at some point but nobody seems to know when.

And so it is that the announcement from 10 Downing Street came to pass very briefly and succinctly because brevity is the best medicine even though you may not want to hear it. The nation is now in  a much longer lockdown than was ever thought possible. Some are almost inconsolable because they've had enough and even the goldfish is beginning to wonder why the human race is behaving so strangely.

It's time to take a deep breath until at least the middle of February since that is the shortest month of the year and besides March reminds of us spring and those heartwarming tulips. There has to be a conclusion though. It's just taking slightly longer than we thought it would. Keep drinking the Nescafe and imbibing caffeine folks. It has to be good for you.