The week before Christmas.

 The week before Christmas.

So here we are a week before Christmas. The world is still in turmoil and anguish. There is nowhere to go and nobody to see. At this rate we may forget who we are if only because our identity has taken a bit of a battering, society has lost its way completely and the people who inhabited that society are still in a state of shock and mortification. It is time to reflect on the year but you'd be a brave soul to give an honest appraisal of 2020 since a vast majority would rather move onto 2021 if only because the general consensus is that it was probably the annus horribilis that Her Majesty the Queen experienced a couple of years ago. 

To say that the year was just a frightful cataclysm would be an understatement. Since the middle of March it has been an unrelenting stinker. In fact, let's be honest it is the year we'd rather bury away in the back garden, never ever remember again and hope never shows its face to any of us. It could be described as one incessant post mortem or maybe one of those years when everything that could have gone hellishly wrong did so with a vengeance. 

In any other ordinary year we might have been recalling a couple of hurricanes, typhoons, floods and the usual assortment of global wars in remote corners of the world. We may have been reflecting on the stunning incompetence of world leaders, silly confrontations between those politicians who should have known better and petty quarrels over Europe. And that was just a start. We would almost certainly be complaining about or praising the weather depending on the time of the year. Just another year in many ways. 

How we'd have settled for ordinariness, straightforward normality, stability and just the knowledge that things were moving at the usual pace without any unsavoury events in between. There would have been a contentment and acceptance of the status quo, an acknowledgement of the existence of human nature without being troubled by anything negative, unnerving or abhorrent happening. But, as the year progressed, we became aware of the fact that everything we were hoping for would just be trampled on and trodden into the ground like dust. 

We are now gearing up for the festive period in the traditional fashion but anything that resembles a conventional Christmas is just a rumour.  This will be a complete departure from the norm, a radical change from previous years when things ran like clockwork. This year the celebrations will be so muted that you may have to turn up the volume and the things you might have been looking forward to as a given have now been stolen from your grasp because a worldwide pandemic just gripped the universe and shattered everything like broken glass. 

But now we have reached the stage where the very arrival of Christmas seems like a consolation prize rather than the magnificent end- of year scoff up and alcohol party we've grown to love or detest according to your view on the subject. Christmas will now be regarded as some vital morale booster rather than the customary celebration it should be. The year has been a dreadful accident and emergency case, agonising poignancy, heartfelt sympathy, utter desperation and deeply sentimental moments when everybody thanked the NHS with oceans of clapping and so much more. 

This Christmas will be almost unbearably different. Suddenly Britain has been cut up into different tiers, a description so grammatically bonkers and beyond the comprehension of us at any level, that it is hard to know what stringent measures are about to be implemented without our permission. Both Southern and Northern England have been chopped up into small pieces and then told that they must shut down once again for the duration. Surely not. This is so infuriatingly disruptive that we may be tempted to hibernate in a dark room for how-ever long this virus takes to reach its logical conclusion.

Meanwhile, we try to imagine life in the Donald Trump home and hearth. The ex- President of the United States has finally vanished off the face of planet Earth. Or has he? Has Trump been kidnapped by aliens, got completely lost on a golf course or is he still insistent that the recent election was a set up and fixed? Has Trump got a temporary job as Santa Claus or will he just refuse to hand out presents to his children because he simply felt like sulking and not coming out to play? So there. 

The suspicion is that when Trump does leave the White House the assembled forces of a Washington police force will be ready with a fetching pair of handcuffs. It is hard to know how what may lie in wait for Trump next because the last four years or so have been reminiscent of an episode from Coronation Street where Len Fairclough started a punch up in the Rovers Return and Elsie Tanner came face to face with Ena Sharples. All very violent and unseemly but very real. 

Back at 10 Downing Street the tree soars into the air, a towering presence and perhaps a symbolic reminder to us all that life must go on even though it may look as if it may have stopped altogether. Boris Johnson is still wrapping up his presents, rehearsing another collection of Latin verbs to surprise us all with and then making very profound statements about Brexit and Britain's rosy complexioned future without those European interfering busybodies.

Somewhere on the premises of 10 Downing Street Johnson is searching for a glimmer of hope, a nugget of optimism amid the prevailing greyness. He may be hoping for clarity and confirmation or maybe just a bog-standard, everyday comb or brush, anything to declare peace on that tangled mop of blond hair. At the moment the said hair is at war with Johnson and after extensive negotiations with his barber and well-meaning friends, this could be the right time to get cracking on that beleagueared scalp. 

Anyway ladies and gentlemen. You'd like to be the first to wish you all a Merry Christmas even though it may just a week earlier than you were planning on doing so. Christmas 2020 will be alarmingly different in the history of civilisation. You're reminded of that famous scene in 'It's a Wonderful Life' where James Stewart runs down a street in the snow, longing to be with his wife and family and then discovering that nobody knows who he is anymore. It could be an apt metaphor for 2020 but nobody would believe you. But we will get there and we will make that connection so keep the faith and never give up.     

Anthony Joshua retains heavyweight crown and world champion

 Anthony Joshua retains heavyweight boxing crown. 

The gentle giant from Golders Green and Watford born Anthony Joshua once again united boxing's diverse, world heavyweight championship belts with a crunching, thundering knockout of his spirited and game Bulgarian opponent Kubrat Pulev. It had been coming for Pulev and he must have expected this deadly and violently concussive blow from the Joshua gloves because the man from Bulgaria was cowering and hiding away from the Londoner's savage artillery of punches that ended in the ninth round. 

And so Britain woke up yesterday to find itself with a worthy successor to the likes of Henry Cooper, Frank Bruno, Lennox Lewis, and now Joshua himself. The only difference, in this case, is that Joshua has finally claimed the world heavyweight belt for his own personal satisfaction. In a year of the chronic virus that has both ruined and scarred 2020, Joshua made us all sit up and feel good about ourselves. The capture of a major global boxing victory may seem distinctly unimpressive given the traumatic events that have made themselves painfully evident but at least we can still produce authentic sporting heroes. 

To all outward appearances Joshua is a pleasant and agreeable boxer, free of the arrogance and attitude that may have led to the downfall of his predecessors. We all know of course that Frank Bruno was just a lovable charmer who just wanted to be accepted for who he was rather than the way his critics would have liked him to be, growling and grumbling, threatening to turn off the lights of his challenger in the ring in two rounds. 

For Bruno boxing was quite heartless and unsympathetic. When the defeats came along like London buses Bruno began to lumber around like a wounded elephant, beaten senseless, disillusioned with everything around him and nursing a whole succession of black eyes, swollen lips and battered ribs. Towards the end of his career he became a shambling, downtrodden man reduced to the level of the celebrity pantomime character and a relentless figure of fun. Then it all went dramatically downhill and now Bruno lives only with his memories. 

In the case of Anthony Joshua, boxing is very much a matter of an evening in the office, getting it all over and done with as quickly as possible and back to the dressing room with the victor's belt around his waist. Joshua is a ruthless, powerful, pragmatic fighter who does everything efficiently and skilfully with little fuss. He boxes very cleverly, an educated and academic boxer who puts his combinations together with an almost learned command of boxing's semantics. 

On Saturday night at London's Wembley Arena, Joshua gave yet another reminder to Tyson Fury that heavyweight boxing needs another needle, acrimonious showdown, two boxers hell-bent on inflicting lasting damage on each other's egos. Fury was watching from afar and over the weekend confidently predicted that he would knock out Joshua and then into some small corner of outer space. The mutual loathing that boxers normally reserve for each other once again manifested itself in this dramatic and enthralling contest. 

From the very first round this was clearly going to be the case one of those very tactical games of boxing chess where neither fighter felt ever so inclined to commit themselves to the lightning-quick conclusion. Joshua was cool, careful, judicious and calculating, measuring, judging and assessing, a master craftsman of the ring, moving his Bulgarian opponent around like the proverbial pawn or bishop that looks for openings and then eventually finds the right angles. 

For the first five rounds Joshua, technically correct but circumspect, kept flicking those muscular arms out rather like a viper poking out its tongue. The glove was like an instrument, weighing up the opportunities to attack at close quarters and then picking the right moment to deliver the killer blows. The recurring image of the whole fight is of the white Joshua glove hovering in the air, choosing the moments with a very worldly shrewdness and a maturity that could only be admired.

Then by the sixth round Joshua was jockeying Pulev and slowly pushing his man into a corner he couldn't escape from. The Bulgarian smirked and smiled at Pulev as if convinced that everything Joshua had thrown at him hadn't connected and the man was making a fool of himself. Gradually though Joshua was exerting a menacing authority on the contest, a brutish barbarian of a fighter experienced in all of boxing's finer arts. Now it was that Pulev began to run out of steam and the bolshie defiance was ebbing away. 

Deep into the eighth round, Joshua unleashed the fatal ammunition, an upper cutting masterclass that left Pulev wobbling precariously on his feet. The punches came thick and fast, with Joshua breaking through his opponents guard with low, slicing, slashing, swinging fists that ground down the Bulgarian's resistance. 

By the ninth round Pulev was quite literally out for the count, a desperate, bleeding, bloodied fighter with very little left to give. The uppercuts were raining in relentless torrents, tentative rights and lefts that sucked the air out of  Joshua's brave bruiser. Then another barrage of punches to Pulev's head destabilised him before it looked as if it was about to explode at any moment. In a swift bombardment of furious hooks and lethal upper cuts Joshua had got his man where he needed to be. 

Finally with the ninth round closing in, Joshua isolated his man and threw the hardest and most ferocious knockout punch that any boxer has ever delivered. The Joshua glove lashed out decisively and poor Pulev was laid flat out on the ground where he eventually stayed. It was a pulverising, frightening punch that the late Muhammad Ali would have assured us may well have been heard on the other side of the world. Down went Pulev like a mighty oak tree that had finally toppled to the ground by a huge gust of wind. 

So Joshua is still the heavyweight champion of the world in some, if not all of boxing's many divisions and Tyson Fury waits in the wings. Boxing, rather like other sports, has shown a classy resilience at a time when sport may have been forgiven for feeling very sorry for itself. We shower the Watford born heavyweight with deserved praise. We will also recognise that this was another triumphant night for British boxing. 

Christmas is just around the corner- Boris and Donald are planning a knees up.

 Christmas is just around the corner- Boris and Donald are planning a knees up. 

So here we are just under a fortnight to go before the big day and the leaders of the Western world are planning one of the loudest. brashest, noisiest Christmas parties of all time. In the Johnson and Trump household the scissors are out, the paper mache and glue ready to hand, balloons and streamers not that far away and all the familiar festive paraphernalia. Then they'll look lovingly at their respective Christmas trees, juggling with baubles. glitter, fairies, stars and then the customary festive presents. You're all invited. 

It is now a year since both Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom corner and Donald Trump in the United States of America corner found themselves busy putting the final touches to their preparations for the Christmas holidays. Boris, for his part, was still preening himself after a spectacular General Election victory, a landslide triumph so resounding that Labour's Jeremy Corbyn must have thought he'd hit a wall, stepped on a landmine or been hit over the head a thousand times by a blue mallet. This General Election malarkey is a piece of cake or so Boris must have felt at the time. 

But then Johnson, comfortably installed as Prime Minister, eased his way through January and February, hoping quite clearly that nothing untoward would happen to him on the way into 10 Downing Street. Indeed it was plain sailing but then he crashed into March and we all what happened next. Oh dear, the most improbable accident of all time. In fact he quite literally ended up in hospital suffering from the virus he'd just witnessed in his rear-view mirror. So we covered our eyes in horror and winced with shock. 

Thankfully the year is now rapidly approaching its end and the Trump- Johnson household can finally shake off their burdensome troubles and concentrate on the Christmas beano, partying and boogying until deep into the small hours of Boxing Day. They'll be climbing awkwardly onto ladders, draping lanterns across their dining rooms, giggling, chuckling, lamenting and cursing in varying measures and ways. Both have been at the centre of the public's attention for ages and both must be hoping that this year doesn't repeat itself next year. 

But jolly Boris, a hilarious and sometimes absurd figure straight from the realms of an old Dan Dare comic, will be bounding across his home, dashing away now to a vitally important Brexit summit in Brussels, running back into the kitchen, flopping into a sofa bedecked with tinsel and paper, gasping for breath before leafing through an old copy of Private Eye just to see whether he's featured in it or not. Then he'll trudge wearily upstairs, fumble around in his wardrobe for his yearly Santa Claus pullover, pull out his Old Etonian jacket and pretend he's still playing real tennis with his former fellow students.

Downstairs his girlfriend Carrie will be rummaging through the chest of drawers for the laptop whose contents Boris unforgivably ruined shortly before he became Prime Minister. We all know what major international incident took place next. Carrie, suitably incensed with her partner, engaged in a spot of argy-bargy, an altercation that ended up with words exchanged and wine being wiped from the said laptop. 

Then Boris and his new family will partake in a small glass of mulled wine, reminisce on old photos, read passages from Boris's award-winning literary piece de resistance and then take a lingering look at his Winston Churchill biography. Boris is now a classical self -parody; still scruffy, dishevelled, bumbling, buffoonish at times in the most endearing way, honourable and well-intentioned when the occasion suits him, putting his foot in it and then saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

The new series of Spitting Image portrays a man with a sheaf of wheat on his head, dribbling out sentences that seemed to tumble out of his mouth in a gushing cascade of incoherence. Then he'll remember where he is and what he's supposed to be doing. He'll acknowledge the assistance of the chief medical and scientific officers to whom he thus far has been totally answerable. He'll stick a paper hat on his head on Christmas Day, tuck ravenously into the turkey and trimmings and then dig out the new comb he'd just been presented with earlier on in the day. 

Meanwhile at the White House in Washington DC, one Donald Trump and that extraordinary family of his will be gathering around their tree in a frozen state of disbelief.  Trump will still remind you of an erupting volcano, red in the face, shaking, privately grieving, gritting his teeth, frothing at the mouth with yet more righteous indignation, saying that this can't be fair over and over again. Trump is now beyond control, fighting the urge to throw anything across the living room and smashing a mirror. The reality is now sinking in and Trump is still sounding out lawyers. It beggars belief. 

And yet when he sits down shortly and reasons with himself he'll find that he's no longer President of the United States and that's not going to be a good feeling. So he'll pour himself a Budweiser, munch bitterly on a whole succession of hot dogs and burgers dripping with ketchup and then mope. He'll pull a Christmas cracker, watch a boxset of baseball classics and will come to terms with his vastly inflated ego. He may be accused of being a waste of space and inadequacy by some but not others. 

So there you have the domestic idyll of the Trump and Johnson homestead. Both will be wishing seasons greetings to one and all. But both recognise that for one at least this is the end of the road for him while the other may have to endure a much longer and harder rehabilitation. Donald Trump will still be hogging the headlines with now ludicrous plans to set up his own TV channel and Boris Johnson may be counting the days down to the end of this year. Still. it's Christmas everybody. Well almost. Here's a word for all Prime Ministers and now former American presidents. Cheer up it may never happen although it may seem as if it already has. Life is indeed beautiful. 

It's Chanukah everybody.

It's Chanukah everybody. 

Yippee folks. There's something to celebrate, something to cling onto by way of consolation and maybe the start of something completely new. You may have heard about the first piece of excellent news in recent days and if you haven't heard about the glad tidings then you must have cut yourself off from all contact with the outside world. The vaccine for Covid19 is now being unveiled and across the length and breadth of Britain, help is on its way. A 90-year- old Irish lady was the first to be administered with that seemingly elusive vaccine and everything is on an upward trajectory. Who would have thought it possible? 

But today we also welcome the arrival of the Jewish cholesterol fest Chanukah, the festival of lights, a symbolic reminder to all Jews across the world that you can eat doughnuts and latkes(potato cakes) with complete impunity regardless of what people may be telling you. Forget for a while the dietary disadvantages of gobbling down the kind of foods designed to pile on the stones and do nothing for your waistline. 

Chanukah also represents a chapter from Biblical times when doughnuts were just yummy indulgences that were delectably sweet and besides who cared about the calories or the expanding midriff? The simple fact of the matter is that Chanukah is great fun, a chance for kids and adults to park their inhibitions where nobody can find them and just get on with the business of eating, drinking and dancing Israeli dances. 

How we've reached out for this day in the middle of the all-enveloping darkness because, quite frankly, some of us are at the end of our tether, gnashing our teeth with frustration and going out of our minds. Well, not quite but it seems as if the coronavirus is slowly playing tricks with our minds. There are points during the day when the gradual decrease in infections and new cases feels as if all our birthdays have come at the same time. Then we hear about the catastrophic rise in the number of deaths. 

So it is that the Jewish population tries to ignore the apocalypse that just keeps hammering away at our subconscious and think of doughnuts, sweets and kids running around their schools in fancy dress completely oblivious to the cautionary warnings and ever-present gloom. They'll still be wary and cautious, still suspicious of the inherent dangers that still lurk like a glowering shadow in a haunted castle late at night. 

However, this is no time to dwell on the last 12 months because, quite frankly, if we did that, we may be tempted to just fall into the deepest depression. The lack of physical interaction with family, colleagues and friends has combined to drive us to the edge of madness. Yet just for a week the whole of the Jewish population will be abandoning itself to dizzy, giddy delirium, barely concealed elation, happiness on a monumental scale and then spinning our dreidels(spinning tops).

In a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, religious festivals and holidays can often be lost in the crazy, helter-skelter speed of modern life. We tend to overlook or just take for granted the temporary breaks in the year, the subtle differences in the changing moods of the year. For almost 365 days of the year we commit ourselves to self improvement, education, self advancement, learning new skills, going to work, coming home from work and doing the same thing day after day after day. 

This year the sheer frightening momentum of the way in which we might have been living our lives up until now has been severely and tragically disrupted by a global pandemic that none of us can get our heads around. Suddenly that repetitive merry go round, Groundhog Day routine has been brought to a juddering halt. We wake up to the latest viral developments and close our eyes because our minds have now been conditioned to fear and that must have a devastating impact on us because for roughly 100 years we have never seen anything quite like this. 

Still, it gives proud Jews such as myself undiluted pleasure in flagging up this joyful period of escapism from the toil and drudgery, this jolly knees up, this Jewish revelry, our wonderful holiday. We'll be chanting and singing once again at the top of our voices, hugging each other perhaps reluctantly owing to wretched circumstances, smiling endlessly and swallowing the jam from our doughnuts as if we were the children we used to be. 

And finally we'll be lighting the menorah, the Chanukah candles which flare into life shortly before Christmas. We'll be singing the traditional blessings and prayers, acknowledging our acquaintances, parents, grandparents and the whole family collective. Today marks the beginning of a yearly ritual of sweetness and light, of being grateful for everything we've got and doughnut scoffing. So to all of my wonderfully loving, supportive family and friends may we all have a fantastic Chanukah and, shortly, Christmas. 

Peter Alliss dies

 Peter Alliss dies.

For almost 60 years Peter Alliss was the voice of golf. After retiring from the sport he so clearly loved, Alliss was entrusted with the responsibility of commentating on the sport for the BBC. It was a task he carried out with both a rich distinction and unfailing attention to detail. Both radio and TV commentators have come and gone but Alliss was steadfast, loyal to the cause and warmly complimentary about every aspect of a game that enthralled its followers and enthusiasts before retiring to the clubhouse at the end of the day for a vintage drop of wine from the finest vineyards. 

 Alliss's educated and informative views on the players he'd been privileged enough to see over the years and wry observations he'd made throughout the day were a treat to the ear and eye. He gave us a thorough insight into the lucrative world of those top, highly ranked golfers who trod their weary way around some of the most magnificently manicured courses, horticultural works of art that always looked picturesque regardless of the time of the year. 

Alliss was the quiet one, the courteous one, the gentlemanly one, a consummate professional to his driving wrists from the first hole, a man who respected the feats of the greats, lionised the legends with thousands of kind words and then told his BBC audience that Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Bernhard Langer, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Seve Ballesteros had been such a pleasure to watch. Truth to be told Alliss adored the brilliance and character of those players who always played to the gallery. 

Throughout the 1960s and beyond, Alliss and the great Henry Longhurst combined to whisper their way discreetly around the fairways and bunkers of most golf courses around the world. As the leaders of the British Open walked through the rough of those broad, sweeping acres, the voices of Alliss and Longhurst would lower their tonsils deliberately if only to convey the intensity and drama of the moment. But then Allliss would take us on a metaphorical journey into the land of language and grammar. 

As the 18th hole loomed on the last day of the British Open, Alliss would give us a highly articulate opinion of his very personal overview of the game. He would tell us about the strength of a blustery wind, the boats on the horizon, the cormorants swooping and dancing across a cloudy, summery day at St Andrews. He would giggle and chuckle at the players latest fashion statements, comment amusingly on their choice of socks and then laugh at the gaggle of fans who were trudging around the course with a beautifully coloured umbrella. 

Because Alliss was cool and composed, a deeply analytical figure whose whispering voice and understated delivery with a microphone fitted the mood of the nation on all occasions. You felt sure that here was a man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of his sport, a vast array of facts and figures at his disposal and then launch into a homage about every sportsman or woman he'd ever seen. 

And then we came to the greens of the 18th hole and Alliss would embrace the occasion as if it were a royal coronation or wedding. The words were measured and sweet, simple but appropriate. There was a quirkiness about some of his descriptions that was nothing less than memorable. He would chuckle again whole-heartedly at the shortcomings of the local transport network, the Canadian geese who refused to listen to warnings from the marshals dotted around the fairways and then swore that he'd never seen such sublime golf in his life. 

You find yourselves thinking quite what Alliss would have thought of the great American author Mark Twain's less than flattering reference to golf being a good walk spoiled. How dare Twain make wounding and derogatory remarks about the one sport which required extraordinary levels of skill, concentration and the application of a shrewd, calculating mind. He would have been offended if you'd suggested to him that golf was boring, dull and about as interesting as watching paint dry. 

And so it is that we mourn the passing of Peter Alliss, a golfing connoisseur, a man who admired professionalism at every level of sport as well as his game of golf. There was a hint of sarcasm and facetiousness about his commentaries but that could only be considered as part of his charm offensive. There were the sharp criticisms and burbling witticisms, the humorous touches and then an almost offhand word or two reserved for the money-grabbing mercenaries who were threatening to kill off golf. 

But Alliss was a fastidious perfectionist. He was still teaching and coaching the next generation of golfers, still showing the youngsters how to address the ball from the driving green, the position of the hips and shoulders in relation to the ball, the manner in which body and head should always be held at all times and then the decisive swing with that smooth follow-through. He would never look for perfection for such qualities were elusive but this once Ryder Cup player knew all about the game's wrinkles and finer points.

Now that most of the gorgeous sports broadcasting voices have now sadly passed, we may come to look back on the career of Peter Alliss as one of the finest of all time. Cricket gave us the literary exquisiteness of John Arlott and Brian Johnson, football, the knowledgeable excellence of Barry Davies and John Motson while tennis was graced by the softly soothing tones of Dan Maskell but Peter Alliss cared about his sport passionately, marvelled at its dramatic unpredictability and never lost interest in its mesmeric fascination. We shall miss Peter Alliss because he was the one who always seemed to have the right word at the right time. The world of golf will never see or hear his like again.    

Back in the land of Brexit.

 Back in the land of Brexit. 

Oh no! It's time to jump onto those fairground dodgems once again. Just as we thought we hadn't seen the back of the subject, it's back again. It used to dominate the news agenda and it's that moment in the year when we should all welcome back that other old news chestnut. Don't you get the feeling that we've been here before? Are we going around in circles or are we destined to play musical chairs with the public's feelings? We keep bumping into that same old, repetitive news agenda and if it isn't one thing, it's quite clearly another. It's deja vu with a vengeance. 

Here we are in the tight grip of a global pandemic and suddenly things are slowly lurching back to your friend and mine- Brexit. Before the global virus that left a trail of carnage behind it struck in March, Britain was wrestling with the hottest political potato since whenever the last one was. Brexit was that hugely complicated annoyance that kept battering our ear-drums remorselessly even though we hadn't asked it to. For the best part of three years we were caught up in the horns of a dilemma. In fact it became the most intolerable dilemma of all time. A right pain in the neck otherwise. 

When former Prime Minister David Cameron consulted Britain and her noble inhabitants on the issue of the European Union and Britain's contentious connection to Europe, the answer came straight back at him. We went to vote on our political involvement in Europe and whether we should make a complete break with influential powers to be in Brussels. 

The response was, at the time emphatic. It was time to withdraw from that stuffy, bureaucratic organisation that dictated every decision Britain had made hitherto. All the laws that had been made since the misty days of Edward Heath's Common Market would now be placed in jeopardy. How dare those crusty mandarins in Brussels tell us what to do? Who are they to lay down the law on important matters of state when the overall impression is that they're just interfering busybodies? Brexit though has come to our rescue on a white charger horse when it looked as though we were about to topple off that galloping steed. 

Today we discover that Michel Barnier and company are once again breathing hot air and threatening to strangle us if we refuse to get on with the whole tiresome process. We now have to negotiate the final hurdles, stick or twist for the umpteenth time and decide whether to write our signature on the final document. It's hard to tell what may be going on in those sullen corridors of Brussels. There isn't a great deal to smile about in the Belgian capital because nobody seems to know where we are going with this one. 

You get the impression that all the dots and crosses will be joined up coherently but poor old Boris Johnson must feel like that rope they used in Tug of War competitions, up to his eyes and ears with official soundbites from his EU companions and then looking on with horror at the fluctuating figures from Covid 19 debriefings. Who on earth would be a Prime Minister? So Johnson will just get on with it because that's what he's paid to do. Johnson is torn emotionally and trapped physically. 

He is damned if he does and vice versa since this is the latest default position at Westminster Towers. But what on earth to do with the utterly objectionable Brexit, the one subject that almost drove us around the bend but failed because we wouldn't allow it to? Still we are confronted by legal jargon, messy minutiae and all sorts of minor details that could blow up in our face. 

After the withdrawal from the EU had been confirmed we were then on some monumental assault course of new problems, things that had to be ironed out. Would the Irish sort out their borders, would we ever compete in the Eurovision Song Contest, would we still maintain some semblance of trading harmony with Europe even though, if truth to be told, we couldn't stand the sight of them? So clear off Brussels because we want our sovereignty and identity back. 

But here we are weeks away from Christmas and Brexit is still a daft expression made up on the back of an old postcard. Politically Britain is still at the bottom of some dusty document of a European letter that was never really opened up or even read. But come New Year's Eve we'll be out of the building, off into our brave new world, ready to conquer new frontiers, engaging with Far East consortiums and reputable companies with big ideas. We'll be signing up deals with those already prosperous markets in Hong Kong and Malaysia, rubbing shoulders with Japan and exotic islands with swaying palm trees. 

And yet here we are still clenching our teeth, gnashing our fingernails  and trying hard to keep a straight face. The chances are that things will work out for the best and come next February and just before next Easter, all of this maddening maelstrom could be history. It is to be hoped that come February, March and most certainly April we'll all be gathering around Trafalgar Square and singing Auld Lang Syne months after the night we should have been belting it out. 

But Brexit is still darkening our corridors if only because it probably feels as if it's lost and would love to be guided in the right direction. So folks be prepared for another set of conferences relating to Brexit where all manner of confusing conundrums and imponderables will be discussed. There has never been any point when nothing will ever be resolved and we'll be in the same quandary again come January. It's all mixed up, this bombardment of statistics, figures, facts, tiers, stages, categories, will they won't they, anticipation followed by another round of indecision. It's enough to drive you completely crazy.    

Oh whoopee. The breakthrough moment has finally arrived.

Oh whoopee. The breakthrough moment has finally arrived. 

Oh sweet joy! It's that wow moment we've all been waiting for. Patience is a virtue and patience has been rewarded but before we get too excited this could be time to err on the side of caution. But ladies and gentlemen you can finally begin to see the sun-dappled uplands, flourishing woodlands, the lark on the branch hopping delicately between one beech tree to another, finches and, quite possibly, robins cooing sweetly and affectionately as a cyclist trudges athletically along poetic country lanes. And then we discover that the world has, quite definitely, turned a corner. A vaccine for Covid 19 is on its way. And it's next week. 

Yes folks. it's true. They're not joking you know. They mean it. This is D-Day. The momentous announcement has been made and they're not making this one up. After months of agonising, at times hellish trauma, soul-baring, clapping on a Thursday evening for almost an indefinite period of time, endless Downing Street briefings from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, much hand wringing and sanitising, cleaning hands ad infinitum, spraying, steaming and questioning the inexplicable, we are finally at the moment when everything changes and changes dramatically. The wait is over. The viral war is almost over. 

That clearing in the deep and tangled forest is now much more visible than it was, let us say, four months ago. Quite how we've got through this viral minefield is anybody's guess but the final obstacles are about to overcome with the arrival of a vaccine that will be comprehensively set in motion within the next couple of months. We always knew, by the law of averages, that something would turn up because Charles Dickens knew what he was talking about and besides how much longer could a crippling disease take hold and create havoc?

So here we are. Pfizer/BioNTech is the name of the vaccine and how some of us would love to go up to this vaccine and give it the biggest hug of all time.  Now this is the kind of good news we could all get used to very quickly. It almost seemed that any hint of a vaccine on the medical market could have been just wishful thinking and simply just a set of test tubes languishing in a science laboratory. It would take years they said and research into any new development would quite probably take another decade to become the genuine article. 

But here in Britain the nation basks in the knowledge that once again it can enjoy the untrammelled freedom it thought had just been restored to them a couple of months ago. And yet we were about to discover that a second lockdown would take us several hundred steps backwards. Suddenly, we were divided up into tiers which suggested to the neutral observer that we were experiencing different degrees of illness and affliction. Oh how complicated had life become for all of us. 

Fear not though. Today feels though good, auspicious, pivotal and seminal. It feels as though we've reached the most intriguing part of a historical novel and then discovered that we had to turn off the light to go to sleep because it was far too late and we'd never get up in the morning. We'd got through the bleak and disastrous chapters of the book with its emphasis on death and darkness before making the glorious discovery that things are about to end very happily ever after. 

So it is that today all those essential shops are back open again and we are all desperately hoping that they won't be required to close again because it could be fatal if things do go against them. Then there are the pubs and restaurants who, in their contrasting ways, are probably getting heartily fed up and sick of all this disruption, flux and inconvenience. Look at all the millions we're missing and the customers must be gasping for a drink or wolfing down a meal with family and friends. It doesn't have to be this way or so it would seem. 

We are now weeks away from Christmas and the party season should be underway by now. The revellers are tuning up their karaoke voices, donning their distinctive hats, demanding that the bar staff fill up huge trays of booze for them and then drinking as much as they can before the end of the year. In theory, the office party season should be revving up and ready to go but owing to most unfortunate circumstances the kissing under the mistletoe next to those old filing cabinets may have to be postponed until a later date. Sadly though this doesn't sound the most realistic or viable of propositions so perhaps we'll just have to resign ourselves to a glass of orange juice in the privacy of our homes.

But the pubs will now be thirsting with anticipation and some of us remain extremely dubious about the appropriateness of something that feels as if it could lead to another outbreak of Covid 19. How to explain the logic of heaving pubs full of people within a confined space? Given the sensitive turning point of where we are at the moment surely the re-opening of pubs has to be shelved until such time as safety and security can be ensured. Still, we must place our unwavering faith in Boris Johnson and his jovial Old Etonians. Let the lagers flow.