Ok, so here’s the new, new, NEW rules. Lockdown ends on 2nd December and that IS ENTRENCHED IN LAW!!! And you’ll know Lockdown’s over because 4 shops will open. One in Newcastle, two in Birmingham and one in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Pubs and restaurants will open once more, at midnight, then those in Tier 3 zones (to be announced) will have to close again immediately. Tier ‘3’ has now been upgraded to ‘TOTAL LOCKDOWN!!!!’, status. Tier 2 is much harsher than in the ‘old days’ (October). And Tier 1 is ‘almost normal’. But new normal, so all shops and pubs remain closed and people are banned from… everything. Most importantly, tennis can resume. Which is so significant that the rest of the rubbish becomes totally irrelevant.

And then comes Christmas. During which time, no rules will exist whatsoever. People will gather in vast numbers, hug, embrace and even, apparently, have sex! Parties will gather, 17 of them round a dining table made for 6, observing social distancing. Obviously, no sharing of food. So you’ll need 17 really small, individual turkeys. If I was a pigeon I’d be seriously worried. You can only watch the Queen’s Speech from the garden. And this year, she’ll know. She can see you.

There’s a new book out. In France. Where else? It’s called ‘I hate Men’. So I read it. Then realised that I can’t actually speak French. But enjoyed it anyway. And it works because I hate men too now. You simply have to after reading how awful we all are. Bastards, the lot of us. All that privilege, all that patriarchy, its appalling.

But much as the current students at Edinburgh University aren’t and never have been complicit in the slave trade, even though the university is shamed by it, current men are… just men. We never chose to be men and other than very few, we put up with our lot and try to live as good a life as our testicles permit. And we are all products of our upbringing. Where ‘rules’ and norms become absorbed without thought. And by the time we can think about them, we’re ‘corrupted’ by parents who were indoctrinated in a less enlightened time.

The world is changing. Generation by generation. Apparently in some countries women are allowed to vote! Though according to Trump, in America so can dead people and others who’ve never lived there. And glass ceilings are coming down. Finland now has a virtually women-only government. Their prime minister is a serious babe. Oops. Alas these things take time. I’m not to blame for the world being inherently patriarchal and I’d slap any female who says otherwise. But I’m trying.

True equality can only be reached when women’s football is as good as men’s.

Yours enlightendly,

A xxx