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Very glad to see the government encouraging dancers (and presumably actors) to retrain as cyber. Which I assume is to make themselves into sex robots. My dreams are about to be realised. Thanks to Dom Cummings (which coincidentally is also the name for the drip tray that will be needed to be cleaned after each encounter).
Clear out the Dom, sex robot cleaner.
Although there was good news today for many venues which received substantial sums from the government, others that are considered not to be of cultural significance have been left out. Inexplicably one of these was the Frog and Bucket in Manchester which I think would feature in most comedians’ top five important venues in the UK. Obviously thanks to the snooker kickstarter we have some rather more modest sums of money to give out to clubs that didn’t make the list, but we will have to do much more if we want to save the places and businesses that matter to us. I hope that everyone who can afford to will make a point of sparing some cash for places and charities that matter to them. I’d really like to see the businesses that have flourished in the pandemic donate some of their profits to those that have not been able to open. I don’t think seeing this as a war against the virus is helpful, but I do think we could see our own response as being equivalent to a war effort, where profits and personal motives are put aside for the greater good. We will all be paying more tax, I am sure, in the next few years, but Ian Amazon doesn’t pay much of that and has got a few billion more this year due to people having more stuff posted to him. Might be nice for people in that sort of position to chuck the odd million of so where it is needed.
But we can all do a little bit. I’ve got through the year OK and I am looking for ways to make small differences here and there - and it’s not about virtue signalling or whatever the internet trolls who regard any human kindness with suspicion, but because selfishly, for example, I want comedy clubs to continue. Or my favourite shop to still be there this time next year. Or my favourite charities to be able to carry on their good work. What selfish people don’t seem to get is that this sort of stuff is actually in your self interest anyway.
They can’t even be selfish properly.
Anyway, whatever reason you might want to do something positive during all this - even if it is just because you want to signal to the world how virtuous you are (at least that’s selfishness that does some good, rather than proudly proclaiming yourself to have no virtue and your selfishness actually impacting on yourself - the person you are supposed to care about, you selfish idiot) - try and do something positive. Look out for you and yours too, of course. Believe me, I am doing that. I have already enough toilet rolls and frozen veg to see me through the first fortnight of the hard Brexit/covid January explosion. Though it might not be enough toilet roll, depending on what explodes.
I guess all I am saying is that this isn’t as bad as World War II and we’re still allowed to make a living, if we can. But a little bit of selfish charity might actually benefit us all.
Me1 vs Me2 snooker inadvertently switched back to the audio only model tonight when the match camera froze, but the commentary still worked, so you can enjoy it as a podcast or on YouTube as soon as it goes up on Tuesday.
With all these mistakes and gremlins in the works, looks like I need to retrain for cyber myself.
