Across the UK, many are having difficulty believing that what’s currently happening is real.
There’s a worldwide pandemic that we still haven’t seen the last of. There’s a war in Ukraine, which Putin started just to show how macho he is and prove he can’t possibly be gay, he just likes having photos taken with his top off. And to prove how sane he is, he’s also literally ‘gas-lighting’ Europe, by turning the gas off and on, probably cackling maniacally as he does so.
This year, an unprepared and un-air-conditioned UK has sweated through two 40˚C heatwaves, forcing us to realise that climate change isn’t something that only happens in David Attenborough documentaries.
We’ve endured ultimate omnishambles Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, consoling ourselves that surely, he was just a nightmare which couldn’t last. Then we woke up to the unbelievable reality of Liz Truss as PM, a woman whose brain has less power than a Poundland battery. Her one saving grace is that she can at least dress herself properly and use a hairbrush, unlike her predecessor who lumbered through his premiership looking like a roll of old loft insulation that had fallen out of a skip and been p*ssed on by foxes.
And now the Queen is dead. You don’t have to be a royalist to feel a sense of unreality and shock that she’s gone. Although most of us never met her, she was a constant presence throughout our lives. We saw her face every day on money and postage stamps. She was part of every Christmas, like the turkey dinner and family arguments. Now we have King Charles III as our monarch - a man who talks to plants, sells overpriced biscuits and thinks there is such a thing as 'left-over wine', which can be used to fuel a car. From now on, he’ll stutter and mumble on our TV screens every Christmas Day, and his face will be on the money – although with his ears and nose it’s hard to see how they’ll get it to fit, whichever way he faces.
As winter approaches, rocketing inflation means many will be unable to eat regularly or heat their homes, and even those who can afford to keep the lights on will be unable to because of power cuts. As we huddle together over a candle, surviving on food bank handouts, we must tell ourselves that surely this is just a fever dream, and we’ll wake up soon. Everything will be alright. This is Britain, after all.
