I think the sun might be getting lower to the horizon. I'm not sure. It's just that every day I sit here, working away, and sometimes more recently, I have to wear a hat because the sun is just too bright.
It's fascinating watching the seasons change at home. Normally there are a few days of the year when I have to change the blind at work because the sun reflects from the adjacent office block and blares into my screen. Other than that, we're there in an air-conditioned environment all year round, slowly ploughing through the seasons. Here at home, it's much more obvious.
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The rules are about to change again. We can feel it in the air. While the government dither and the scientists get twitchy, between the lines, the second wave is looking inevitable, and with it (though hopefully not) another lockdown. It's all so tedious, isn't it? Where does it lead us? More fear, more doubt, more uncertainty. And unfortunately, more politics.
Remember the days when politics just happened in the background? We raised an eyebrow at a dull Prime Minsiter's Questions, or the latest scuffle between cabinet ministers. Occasionally there'd be a big headline, or a national crisis, but on the whole, everything ticked over very quietly while the suits sorted out the fine-tuning in Westminster.
In the last five years though, and not just here in this country, it feels like there's been a sea-change. A succession of huge events have pushed politics into the forefront of all of our consciousness, and thanks to: a suited wotsit on an escalator (2015); a divisive vote on Europe (2016); a series of poll-blasting general elections, and a global pandemic (2020), our 'people-in-suits-what-run-stuff' are centre-stage, exhausted, blamed, and furious, every single day.
I'm not saying we should let them off the hook, the poor dears. We should do the exact opposite. What I'm saying is that I miss the old days when politics seemed a bit plainer sailing.
It's occurred to me too, that there might be a function of age too. I'm seeing things through different lenses these days, and I'm not 25 - politics would probably have seemed more relevant regardless of the shifting times. And maybe I should have been more worried about the Afghan incursion, the Iraq War, the Credit Crunch, the expenses scandal?
What's more, if I really think about it, these days I seem to be connected to hardly anyone under the age of 30 on social media. Instagram's my best gage for youth (I have a few young followers), but flipchartbook (where most of the political bunfights happen) shows me connected to an ocean of people I'm (slightly nervous about) describing as 'middle-aged'. I'll bet there are multiple reasons why young people prefer to give it, and us a miss.
So it's possible that the explosion of 24-hour available information, the world-changing things that have happened to us, the prevalance of social media, and the perpetual brooding fury in our society have oozed out to give us wall-to-wall politics.
More fear, more doubt, more uncertainty. I think we all know it; we all see the sun shift around the sky and blare through our windows. We all need to know that someone will help us feel less of those things: less fear, less doubt, less uncertainty. Who's out there giving those things? Where are they to be found?
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