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Dearest Gentle Reader,
This Author has spent the past seven days at her escritoire, barely pausing for breath, and she confesses the experience has left her simultaneously exhausted and wickedly entertained. For if there is a single thread running through this week’s affairs, it is this: those charged with keeping order have proven, with spectacular consistency, wholly unequal to the task.
It began on Sunday last, when Prisons Full, Pulpits Empty, and a Very Ambitious Shadow Minister Eyeing the Capital set the week’s tone with cells at capacity and a politician already campaigning two years too early. By Monday’s Reckoning, schoolrooms were emptying of their teachers whilst gaols filled with their charges – a neat reversal that no satirist could have improved upon. Tuesday brought a laundry room with custodial aspirations and a First Minister who has warmly embraced change in principle, if not yet in practice.
Wednesday delivered genuine grief alongside the grotesque, as a convicted Mayor and a gilt crisis of twenty-eight years competed for one’s horror. Thursday furnished an inflatable vessel, a medieval tapestry, and 658 employers who lost their workers’ wages down the sofa. Friday produced an army that cannot afford its own ammunition, while Saturday gave us balaclavas, bullets, and a birthday serenade requiring nothing of the birthday queen. Sunday concluded matters with a politician emphatically not listening to half a million pounds’ worth of conversation.
The pattern, Gentle Reader, is unmistakable. Authority this week was variously masked, underfunded, asleep at its post, or simply elsewhere. This Author recommends a stiff cordial and a locked door. She will, naturally, keep watch for you.
Yours in perpetual, affectionate astonishment,
This Author