How can Christmas and New Year and all that stressful stuff be just over, Dry January be just starting (for some) and already we’ve got to the first Friday 13 of the year?
Unlucky for some, undoubtedly, if starting as one means to go on is anything to go by.
Someone, somewhere, is surely trying to tell us something, if only that, whatever it was that we did in a previous life, we should have enjoyed the bejaysus out of it because, boy, are we going to be paying for it now.
And that’s before we get to next Friday and the new world order all becomes unavoidably official. At least in America – and we all know that when America sneezes, Britain catches cold.
I’m just hoping that mainlining Lemsip mojitos and hot toddies while simultaneously sticking my fingers in my ears and intoning: “LA, LA, LA!” at the top of my formerly opera-trained voice might just put off the evil day for a little longer.
That’s the day when I am forced to come to terms with the fact that our lives are going to be dominated by a man for whom facts are unrecognisable, undesirable, largely unfamiliar and there to be shouted down when it suits him.
Somebody take his mobile phone away, please.
Trumpery
Given the fact (sorry to keep mentioning that weasel word) that his main political rival’s campaign was effectively derailed in its latter stages by the FBI’s carefully timed announcement that she “might” have questions to answer regarding public probity but that: “Oops, no she doesn’t after all,” I would imagine the irony of the timing of the revelations of a so-called dossier of interesting Trumpery round the corner from the Kremlin will not be lost even on a man for whom economy with the actualite is probably his strongest link to matters of economy.
Needless to say, we are hearing cries of “fake news” invented by “opponents of ours – sick people”; trumped-up charges, you might say and it is, by its nature, going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to prove anything about Russian collusion/influence/ potential blackmail fodder, to any level that will satisfy post-truth public opinion.
And we all know, here in this country above all, exactly where “sexed-up dossiers” get you.
I really hope Donald Trump does right by those Americans desperate enough in their everyday life and in their fears for the future to vote him into office.
I also hope, should he go down that particular yellow brick road, that he is allowed to do right by them by those in the other, parallel, corridors of power in the USA – those who largely put the kybosh on many things Barack Obama, although far from perfect or able to live up to expectations, tried to do for his fellow citizens over the last eight years.
Of course, when the President elect becomes POTUS next Friday, that begs the question of what his predecessor plans to do with all that lovely free time available to the ex-leader of the free world.
I judge from his departure speech earlier this week that, while Mr Obama is no longer in the hot seat, he is not planning to put himself too far out in the cold any time soon.
What would Barack Obama do? I think we might just be told on a fairly regular basis.
And then there’s Michelle.
Having already ruled herself out of any future race for the White House – and what a poisoned chalice for the spouse of any past president that has turned out to be – her considerable energy and ability will no doubt be welcomed with open arms in many spheres.
I imagine, however, in spite of her widely praised sense of style, that she will not be following in the dainty footsteps of her British counterpart and launching her own fashion line, like the lovely SamCam, whose nickname made her sound like one of those intrusive surveillance devices used to entrap the unwary in foreign hotel rooms –allegedly.
Downing Street dust
I bet Mrs C was only too delighted to shake the dust of Downing Street off her elegant Jimmy Choos once David had mucked up the referendum campaign and get to grips with seams, button bands and skirt lengths in the creation of a soon-to-be-available collection of “wearable” frocks that most of us (I can’t think why) can’t afford.
No irony – or ironing, come to that – there for a former political wife.
Of course, it is extremely difficult for people (usually women, it must be said), who marry those who go on to make a huge, if not always positive, public impression.
They are tainted by association ever after and they are damned if they do try to do something off their own bat and damned if they don’t.
But let’s face it, if the last few months has taught us nothing else, it has reminded us that, whoever they claim they’re rooting for, the rich and well connected tend to get on in this world.
Wa’ tae hell! as they say in these parts. And for most of the rest of us, in a handcart.