Author: Max Frances
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The Mask Raid
So, in a wholly unexpected development, the PM Boris Johnson has been carted off where he was subsequently inducted – not into the EU Hall of Fame – but into hospital intensive care. This has exacerbated the seemingly unabated coronapanic – we at least have to pretend that we need somebody to lead on the…
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Don’t Go for the Juggler
There’s been a notable shift on coronawaffle: originally, the virus itself was used to distract attention from the lamentable shitshow of Brexit and domestic political incapability. Now, the government’s management of the response to coronavirus needs a distraction tool of its own. Or a ventilator – if there’s a spare one available. Step forward Matt…
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#Keirin
With the election of Sir Keir Starmer as the new Leader of the Labour Party, I saw the hashtag #keirin trending in Twitter. It rang a bell, so I refreshed my memory. In cycling, Keirin is an event of Japanese origin where a host of riders circle a track on fixed-gear bicycles with no brakes,…
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Deflection Reflection
Yesterday, while pondering on the ongoing coronadebacle and how we got to where we are, I recalled Hitler’s Enabling Law (Ermächtigungsgesetz) of 1933 which carried a formal title of Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich). It’s the kind of historical snippet that is never…
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Venture Catalysts
Day God-knows-what in the Big Brother House and who’s going to retrieve the samurai sword from our intestines after our economic hari kari? Don’t hold your breath. If there’s light at the end of the tunnel, it’s probably some minister with a torch looking for another absurd policy. It’s the most joined-up we’ve been for…
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Take a Step Back, Please…
Well. After a few days of headless-chicken coppering in the new corona state, constabularies around the country have taken a momentous step. They’re actually going to read the 350-page Coronavirus Act in order to understand exactly what the law says. Or at least their Legal Directors are. It beggars belief that they weren’t all over…
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Irony Deficiency
Well, it was inevitable, I suppose. Not only have we Fosbury-flopped into a rights-less chasm, but the CSE Grade III philosophy salon has been issuing guidance for the interpretation of the Government guidance and the Coronavirus Act. It’s provided the perfect platform for the nation’s professional underlings to take their lives out of first gear,…
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Hyper Bottom Us
Get bitten by a dog, and disconcerting canine contemplation will hound your train of thought until your ticket gets punched. Work, friends, your next meal, or a new haircut – it all gets swept into oblivion as your focus narrows to a perpetual left-right, right-left, up-down, down-up scan of your immediate environment and an obsessively…
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I Am a Free Man
Now that freedom of movement has been curtailed, we’re now at the mercy not of the law but of the police who will be enforcing it. Freedom of movement has never been so popular in the UK, which must be prompting some guffaws in Brussels. Well, it would if the virus hadn’t already pulled their…
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Man Over-Bored
As I’ve mentioned already, it won’t be the virus that kills you. It will be the circus that has gone woomph around us. And there is no shortage of clowns. We do nevertheless appear to be favouring collapsing economies over collapsing cars. It’s boring me rigid now. All those asshats posting messages on LinkedIn or…
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