He’s done it again. The man has no sense. Well he had a bit, he declined an interview with Piers Morgan who just wants to boost his already considerable ego by trying to score points off any government minister. Unfortunately Hancock instead gave interviews to other journalists. And gave his own views on the details Boris gave out for the gradual relaxing of restrictions. Apart from a couple of flippant comments he got himself embroiled in the subject of grandparents having contact with their grandchildren in relation to looking after them if both parents were back at work. A tricky point that he would have done well to have not got into but no in he dived. He stated it was OK for children to go to child minders but not their grandparents. Why? Because grandparents could be at risk because of their age so it would be irresponsible to meet their grandchildren. Stupid man.

One assumes therefore that he was assuming all grandparents are over 70 – I think not. But anyway look at the facts. Firstly there is very little evidence of any children catching this virus and even less evidence of children passing it on to anyone. Next if anyone is in the most vulnerable group they are supposed to completely isolate so obviously they cannot look after children, or anyone else. Then relatively fit over 70’s are supposed to keep contacts to a minimum. Consequently they are very unlikely to have caught the virus and have anything to pass on to children who seem very unlikely to catch it in any case. Next in the very, very unlikely case of children passing the virus on to grandparents the grandparents are not meeting anybody else so nobody to pass it on to, so no sudden epidemic. Lastly we are not yet a complete police state so if a fit 70 year old wished to take that minute risk with their own grandchildren that would be their choice. Nobody is suggesting they be ordered to do so!

Of course there is a problem here if the rules are to be rigidly applied but as with most rules common sense variations are applied to specific instances and hopefully that will be the case here. But instead of being diplomatic saying something along the lines that perhaps this is a particular situation that could be looked at Hancock jumps in with heavy boots and says no you cannot see your grandchildren at all, they must go to the childminder (at a cost of course). Every time he opens his mouth he puts his foot in it. Surely there must be some other job he can do.

Forget him! Reading about all the reincarnations of wartime food that people seemed determined to serve up to their families as part of the VE Day celebrations made me think back. By the way there was no Woolton Pie or the like served here thank you very much. However reading about some of the masochistic antics did take me back to that ghastly memory of school meals in the 1950’s. NOTE Historical fact. Immediately after the end of the war rations were reduced and food actually got worse.

With horror, memories come back to me of school meals of the era. Overcooked, mainly tasteless and with a lot of vegetables well past their sell by date of which stewed cabbage was a narrow winner. One particular pudding that was served up was rice pudding. In the concentration camp I was directed to this dish of delight appeared weekly but in one of two forms. The first was a puddle of thin slightly off white liquid in which grains of rice could be found floating, the liquid being I think powdered milk mixed with the previous days washing up water. The alternative version came as a very solid lump. This second version did at least have the merit of providing an interesting game to make up for other deficiencies. As we sat at large tables, six a side, all players with their spoon carefully patted their lump down it a sort of thick pancake shape. Then at the command everyone turned their plate upside down with the rice pudding still adhering to the plate. All participants then held their plates very still until the force of gravity meant that the loser’s pudding fell off the plate in a blob onto the table. The winners then turned their plates back up the right way with rice pudding still attached. Occasionally some people actually ate their offering. As is usual with games there was one genius who never ever was the loser – how his rice pudding always stayed firmly attached was a trade secret he refused to divulge. One table did decide upon a variation or improvement to the game. In their case they decreed that the sole winner would be the last person to lose their pudding onto the table. Retribution followed this version which led to its abandonment. Oh Joy!