That was the year that wasn't - my albums of 2020

2020. Where do you begin? No amount of pop froth can compensate for these 12 months just gone, which began with disturbing news of a flu-like virus in China and ended in dystopian misery with mutant strains, the economy in tatters, and families denied the basic tradition of being together at Christmas. I’d like to say that music has been the soothing tincture that eased the stresses and strains of COVID-dodging over this last year, but so many aspects of consuming and enjoying it have been curtailed in the process, whether it was concert going or the simple pleasure of record shop browsing. Even Record Store Day was different, postponed twice and then manifested as three ‘drops’ in as many months that were closer in form to booking an Ocado slot at the beginning of lockdown than buying music. All this doesn’t, either, take into account the releases and tours that were cancelled or postponed. 

However, that gloomy assessment belies the fact that there was, as in any ‘normal’ year, plenty of new material to enjoy, a lot of it recorded defiantly, stoically, resourcefully in home studios and bedrooms, as virtual house arrest both focused creativity as well as a well-I-may-as-well-do-something work ethic. By the same token, as we took to engaging our families and colleagues alike via FaceTime, Zoom and Teams, musicians - denied live audiences - switched to home performances. Probably the ultimate example of this was the Global Citizen One World: Together At Home telethon in April, which even managed to pull together the Rolling Stones in their respective living rooms for a virtual gig which, given the technical complexities of playing instruments in time via Internet connections, worked surprisingly well. 

Invention was everywhere, as those at every strata of the pop music economy eked out livings through webcams, some effectively singing for their suppers via Facebook, like Peter Bruntnell gigging from his front room in Devon, while Duran Duran’s John Taylor and Pink Floyd alumn Guy Pratt gave masterclasses in bass playing via YouTube. Arguably, Tim Burgess won the zeitgeist stakes, as his Lockdown Listening Parties on Twitter became the must-join musical commune, in lieu of gatherings like Glastonbury. 

You could, however be easily fooled into thinking that 2020 was a year without light, but that wouldn’t be entirely right. Even with the relentless nature of home imprisonment, self-isolation, distancing, shielding, quarantine and all the other curtailments of social normality, music has been a constant. Rarely has there not been something new or re-released to grace the turntable or CD player, which means that there’s still plenty to pack into this year’s list of the best listens. So here goes:

Reissues

I’m opening with the heritage trail because there’s been no shortage of archived albums repackaged and reissued, especially with audiophile temptations like 180g vinyl and, increasingly, coloured vinyl to make them that much more alluring to magpies like me. Thus, Coldplay celebrated the 20th anniversary of still their best album, Parachutes, with a yellow (geddit?) edition. There were reissues of live recordings, too - one of my weaknesses - in particular, Peter Gabriel putting out four of his engrossing performance albums with new sonics and higher-definition vinyl, while Pink Floyd polished up their Delicate Sound Of Thunder double live album with additional tracks and a very noticeable upgrade to the audio. An honourable mention should be made, here, for The Blue Nile, who completed their programme of remastering and reissuing their four studio albums with 2004’s High, nicely tarted up and with four extra tracks. David Bowie posthumously commenced the process of releasing live albums from his underrated 1990s tours, demonstrating further what an untouchable music god he always was. I won’t dwell more here as January is shaping up to be Bowie Month on this blog. Likewise, the Rolling Stones’ deluxe edition of Goats Head Soup proved what a worthy follow-up to Exile On Main Street it was, despite forever being in its shadow. And the fact that one of the package options came with a double live album was an absolute bonus, albeit one which came with the now expected Stones premium. 

However, the accolade for Reissue Of The Year goes by a very long chalk to Tom Petty’s Wildflowers & All The Rest, a lovingly-curated collection that includes his “incomplete” Wildflowers album, the tracks he’d originally wanted to include as a double-disc release, live versions and acoustic home demos that are like listening to a whole new album in their own right (the All The Rest elements). Put together by Petty’s widow, daughters and various associates, it’s a heartwarming tribute as much as a platform to reassess one of rock’s most understated figures.

New albums

10 - Bob Dylan: Rough And Rowdy Ways

An unexpected entry in this year’s albums list for the simple fact that I’ve never been that much of a fan of His Bobness. That might sound like sacrilege to some, and incredulous to others, but somehow Dylan’s deification has always passed me by. So what brought me to the 79-year-old’s latest release was, largely, a classic case of FOMO. Acts in their late 70s - no matter what their provenance - are not expected to turn in anything other than novelties, especially when that provenance is, by reputation, some of the most influential records of the rock and pop era. But being the sucker that I am to mob mentality, the universal acclaim that Rough And Rowdy Ways met from the music press (and, readers, this is never always the byword for the right opinion) led me to an album that affectionately captured an America that may no longer exist, but to many of us, who still hold an affection for the place, think it does. Thus, Dylan has written a love letter to the music of his upbringing, with hints of jazz, a splash of blues and a heartland appeal captured by a lyrical depth that, I now realise, few beyond him have ever been capable of, let alone at this stage of their careers.

9 - The 1975: Notes On A Conditional Form

If my previous entry indicated my susceptibility to mob opinion, then The 1975's fourth album merely compounds my weakness for being gradually ground down into acceptance of something. In fact, in this list is a reflection of my changing domestic life in 2020, having moved in with my partner and her teenage daughters, and then being slowly drawn into their world. Thus, I’ve succumbed in recent months to Gogglebox (my God, the show we schedule our entire Fridays around, which has proven to be the perfect tonic to this year’s nonsense), MasterChef, Bakeoff and even Selling Sunset and Tiger King. And the 1975, a band one of the teens speaks of nothing else (though her Christmas vinyl list did include Led Zeppelin II and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. She has just turned 16…). Whether it’s from a form of Stockholm Syndrome or something else, the brainwashing has worked. And the nice thing is, The 1975 strike me as old heads on relatively new shoulders. By that I mean that they are, as their name suggests, rooted in rock tradition, but as Notes On A Conditional Form explains, capable of breadth and depth, progressiveness and polished production. Musically you’ll find nods to Americana sitting side-by-side with lush strings, textures of the kind you’ll find U2 producing at their finest along with soulful 80s pop.

8 - Elvis Costello: Hey Clockface

My musical journey has always felt intertwined with Costello’s: as one of the vanguards of the New Wave, he was part of my real time introduction to music, as I reached double figures in the late 1970s. The problem with him, however, has been keeping up. Hey Clockface is, by my count, his 33rd release, and another roll of the personnel dice, having released 2010’s National Ransom under his own name, 2013’s fine Wise Up Ghost was recorded with The Roots, and 2018’s equally enjoyable Look Now brought Costello back together with The Imposters, the band only one member shy of the original Attractions. This year’s solo effort was, much like the previous 32 albums, a melange of whatever styles took his fancy. Some might find it a little scattergun (Daily Telegraph critic Neil McCormick called it, lovingly, a “hot mess”), but that’s its charm. And, hey, you don’t have to like every Quality Street in the box. This apparent rambling free spirit may be down to Costello surviving cancer before embarking on a tour that was subsequently abandoned part-way through due to COVID, confining him to home studio sessions in Vancouver and work on material recorded before the lockdown in studios as disparate as Helsinki, Paris and New York. This might also suggest a restlessness of approaches, and it’s certainly fair to say that Hey Clockface leaps about, stylewise, with punk-like anger alongside Broadway swing, ambient swashes amid jazz, and several stops in between. This might sound dilettante, but it has never bothered those who appreciate Bowie, who to the very end collected disparate styles and musical fashions like a rag and bone man collects junk. One of the reasons it works with Costello is that, regardless of the genre they’re attached to, his lyrics provide the continuity. The same pen that produced such rich words as those on Oliver’s Army, Watching The Detectives and (I Don’t Want To) Go To Chelsea is still on spleen-venting form, with highlights like the partially-spoken Revolution #49, No Flag and even the delightful piano ballad Byline.

7 - Kylie Minogue: DISCO

When I revealed, in a post about The Crown, that I was raving about DISCO (and, as memory recalls, even the new single from Steps), those around me started wondering if I was feeling all that well. After all, Kylie is, was and always has been pure pop, from her Stock Aitken Waterman arrival as the category’s tiniest princess (she is short - I once came close to treading on her in a nightclub, before realising the towering figure of Michael Hutchence glaring over me…) to the present day. She has never strayed far from the glitterball, and with this album she doesn’t so much embrace disco as cling to the sparkling orb like Miley Cyrus astride that wrecking ball. And, yes, it’s unashamed. Cast yourself (or, if you’re too young, your mind’s eye) back to a mid-70s episode of Top Of The Pops, and performances of Stayin’ Alive, Love Train, Never Can Say Goodbye or Disco Inferno, and you’ve landed yourself in the heart of what it says on the tin. Yes, it’s clichéd, but who cares? It’s done with authentic revelry and an earnest celebration - make that the emphasis - of the disco genre, which always was a lot more than the lazy trope trio of “flares, chest wigs and gold medallions”, and more about the combination of intricate jazz-funk rhythms blended with soul music and good times. So you’ll find all of that here. Why? Because Kylie, like most others in this list, wanted to enjoy themselves in lockdown. Just like Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Kitchen Disco, another online hit this year, Kylie embraced the mini disco revival of late by channelling it in her home studio. “It’s difficult even for me to explain,” she said when the album came out. “But even grown-ups need some pure pop fun.” And, so, on DISCO’s 12 songs she hammers home the point with track after track of flagrant, boob tube-wearing, hot pants-clad, blister-inducing heels worth of disco fever. If I said there wasn’t a standout like Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, I’d sound penurious, because they’re all good. Not that good, but not far from, and when you add them all up, you end up with a smile on your face, the likes of which have been in short supply this year. Even if you never move from your favourite armchair to listen to DISCO, let alone actually cutting a rug to it, it’s a pure, unadulterated joy.

6 - Paloma Faith: Infinite Things

Right, so what I was saying just now about Kylie - well, in your face fashion! I’ve had the same epiphany with Paloma Faith. And, I hear what you’re saying, I shouldn’t. Well, I am. In fact I’ve never had much quarrel before with Will Hodgkinson, the Marc Bolan-lookalike rock critic of The Times, who recently branded Faith’s Infinite Things “the same old boring Radio 2 fare”. On this, he’s just plain wrong. While it would never be judged in the same league of critical acclaim as Pet Sounds, Hunky Dory or What’s Going On, Faith's uplifting, infectious pop is a room-filling delight from start to finish. What’s even more remarkable is that it is another product of lockdown, Faith having taught herself how to engineer the record from home, working remotely with a variety of producers and co-songwriters including Ed Harcourt. My gateway to the album came via the promotional route: a big and brassy performance of Gold on Jonathan Ross’s chat show back in November that was infectious enough to pre-order the record for…er…’my other half’, and we, sorry, she wasn’t disappointed when we cranked up the entire thing one Sunday morning. There’s a point I’m trying to make here: musical taste is mostly bollocks. Just because you don’t, personally, like something, doesn’t make it bad. I’ve never been a fan of hip-hop, and won’t be so dumb as to make patronising remarks about it, but that doesn’t make it artistically bad. Especially if hip-hop’s your thing. But I digress. Here, across a dizzying combination of writers and producers, Faith has sat as the spider in a web of her own, pulling together ballsy songs which convey some of her own, noted personal dilemmas through a canvas of genuine soul. Clearly, her vocals are the shining beacon throughout, but the rest - the writing and the arrangement - are never bit part players. “Radio 2 fare” it may be, but it’s an album of radio-friendly tracks that you would have little issue with making the soundtrack of your day…especially if you spend it on the inside looking out at the gloomy goings on in British streets over the last year.

5 - Paul McCartney: McCartney III

There’s a danger that McCartney - like Dylan, a year older - gets on a list like this by legend default. Macca has, it should be said, produced some dodgy songs in his post-Fab career, but this should be read as individual tracks rather than entire albums. Even We All Stand Together has its whimsical value. The trouble is usually venerated acts of the classic rock era still trying to be cool (and the less said of McCartney this week being photographed sporting a 'man bun', the better). McCartney is, it must be said, somewhat beyond criticism, given his contribution to arguably the greatest pop band that ever was. But not even being a Beatle gets you a free pass. Thus, the common argument is that none of The Beatles had a 100% record as solo artists, not even John Lennon, though George Harrison came closest. And as for Ringo…well, bless him. But back to Sir Thumbs Aloft. If you’ve not been keeping up, McCartney III is clearly not his third solo album, but an attempt to reconnect with the simplicity of his 1970 post-Beatles debut (McCartney - recently re-released) and 1980’s McCartney II, which followed his split from Wings. Though III isn’t the result of any similar departure, it shares with both numerical predecessors the arch application of McCartney’s trademark songwriting ease. It’s the craft that sets him apart from just about anyone else in the last 60 years, an accolade that boggles the mind when you think about it. And then the fact that, at 78, he’s still restless enough in “Rockdown” (as the cover sticker reads) to go into his home studio and, by himself and playing every instrument, record an album as mostly good as III is, further testament to that unbelievable talent. I say “mostly” as it has its iffy moments, but to dwell on those would be mean-spirited when the overall product is such a load of Macca fun. And even if he was recording just for his own pleasure, there’s nothing self indulgent. In fact, the indulgence is all ours, as we revel in songs as good as Seize The Day, Deep Down and The Kiss Of Venus. There is also Deep Deep Feeling which, in six decades of writing, is as nailed-on McCartney as you could hope to find without being derivative of anything you’ve heard before. McCartney has never shied away from his silly side, his aforementioned collaboration with The Frog Chorus being the strongest case in point, but even when he’s at his most whimsical - and ever so slightly cheesily so - there is a purity to his writing and delivery of that writing that manifests itself so perfectly in terms of melody, rhythm and engagement. And McCartney III has it all.

4 - Paul Weller: On Sunset

Speaking of Pauls, Mr. Weller. While you might question my sanity for placing him in the same bracket at Kylie or Paloma Faith, in a year that needed the feelgood factor, On Sunset shipped it by the truckload. Weller’s 15th solo studio album continued an output that has averaged one every two or three years since his 1992 self-titled solo debut. Much, I suspect has to do with a restless spirit that appears to charge Weller’s creativity, and also leads to trying something else each time. On Sunset marks another change of course, veering from the folky vibe of 2018's True Meanings, to a decidedly sunny, open-topped outing. Again, unwittingly perfect for the time. It’s an excursion into the blue skies and easy living of 1970s Los Angeles: effortlessly cool, intriguing by turns, melodically pleasing and incongruously soulful for an album crafted in deepest Surrey. While Weller guarded that this wasn’t his “West Coast record”, an affection for California comes readily through, from the woozy funk of the seven-minute opener, Mirror Ball, with its nods to the Isleys' Summer Breeze. It’s there in the wistful thoughts of Old Father Tyme and other stabs of nostalgia. On Sunset even draws on the organ talents of former fellow Style Councillor Mick Talbot, who appears on Baptiste and Village. Earth Beat, while we’re at it, swings like the Council’s Speak Like A Child, with the giddiness of pristine ’80s pop wrapped in modern sonics. Nor is Weller afraid of casting a wide net into his pool of historic reference, calling on Slade’s Jim Lea to provide a rakish violin to Equanimity, one of several Beatley tracks which include the acoustic guitar-driven melancholic beauty, Rockets. It might be tempting to think that On Sunset points to the 62-year-old Weller winding down his career, but with Album 16 already on the sketch pad, he’s showing no signs of a 28-year solo career ending any time soon. Even if, for me, On Sunset is an absolute career high. Maybe, even his best to date.

3 - Tim Bowness: Late Night Laments

By the end of August, we had started to feel freedom again. The sulphurous months since March were over, and we could get out and enjoy life again, albeit while still wearing a facemark. Some of us even got away for a change of scene, in our case, the Isle of Wight, a relatively short hop down the A3 and across the Solent. Up until that point my daily vista had been mostly the view out of our living room window, which isn’t much - mostly hedge. A week’s holiday, with sun and without need for a passport was both fortunate and much needed. Further balm arrived in August in the form of Late Night Laments, Tim Bowness’s collection of nine songs evoking the intimacy - the claustrophobia, even - of late night, atmospheric music consumption via headphones. In the process, Bowness - one of the UK’s most respected singer-songwriters, even if not that well known - delivered an album of timely reflection. While written before The Thing became a thing, it bore some prescience to the events that unfolded as the spring wore on. Bowness even worried that some of the themes it covered, such as hate crime, generational division and social exclusion, wouldn’t be relevant in the midst of the pandemic, but at its release, he realised just how Late Night Laments tapped into the dystopian gloom. That, though, doesn’t make it gloomily dystopian, however. But it is an album of reflective, stripped back consideration, written from the perspective of an individual, late at night, enclosed in a living room, listening to noirish music of the kind John Barry did so well for the Bond and Harry Palmer films. With contributions from Porcupine Tree’s Colin Edwin and Richard Barbieri, as well as production work by Bowness’s good friend and long-term collaborator Steven Wilson, Late Night Laments taps into my own love of textured, less raucous music, drawing valid parallels with the brooding of The Blue Nile, Talk Talk and even Prefab Sprout. Significantly, for me, it recalls the wooziness of One World, one of my favourite John Martyn albums, and its eight-minute Small Hours, which had hitherto been my go-to source for late night listening. With this new work by Bowness, I found a successor.

2 - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Letter To You

Another album recorded just in time is one made as they used to be - effectively as a live performance and over five days. Letter To You came together at the end of 2019 at The Boss’s Colts Neck ranch, a twenty-minute drive the Jersey Shore so steeped in Springsteen mythology, and reunited him with the E Street Band for their first collaboration since 2014’s High Hopes. That’s not a particularly wide gap, but then such is Springsteen’s industry that it was his fourth release in eight years, having made the wonderful Western Stars as a solo artist, along with writing his Born To Run autobiography, and the unexpectedly extended Springsteen On Broadway residency that ran for five shows a week from October 2017 until December 2018. That Letter To You was completed in a week might suggest a man in a hurry but, unlike the 14 complicated months he took to make the Born To Run album in 1975, this one came with ease. Perhaps because it was one that he didn’t overthink. Instead, with a combination of new songs and a few that had been left on the shelf for decades, Springsteen and his trusted posse rattled through the album’s 12 songs. The immediacy of them, too, is not necessarily the record’s appeal: while dealing with personal themes like ageing, the album addresses itself with the joy and liveliness that is so much part of any Springsteen live show. There’s a contentment to the 71-year-old’s songs, but also celebration, such as the brassy Ghosts and its acknowledgement of the simple pleasures of being in the company of the E Street Band itself. Even when addressing mortality on I’ll See You In My Dreams, there is an uplift to even a song about friends who’ve passed on, lifted even further by a stirring guitar solo. Some have argued that Letter To You is Springsteen’s best album. That for me is like picking a favourite child, but it’s certainly up there. And it is certainly at the very top of all the music that has brightened up this shitshow of a year.

2020 Album Of The Year - Doves: The Universal Want

Of the events that stood out in 2019, the one that stood out the most was seeing Doves headline the Teenage Cancer Trust show at the Royal Albert Hall. While it didn’t hint at a new album from the Cheshire trio, it certainly whetted the appetite, a desire sated more than a year later when, after an 11-year recording hiatus, brothers Jez and Andy Williams and vocalist Jimi Goodwin released The Universal Want. Now, absence does make the heart grow fonder, it’s true, but then a gap will only increase expectation levels and, so, the risk of disappointment. Thankfully, nothing would be the case. The Universal Want was just the Doves album I wanted, building brilliantly on its predecessors - Lost Souls, The Last Broadcast, Some Cities and Kingdom Of Rust. All contained a compelling cocktail of industrial energy, club roots and even jazz, coated in a somewhat northern bleakness, much the result of Goodwin’s languorous vocals, Andy Williams’ crisp rhythms and his brother’s jangling, reverb-dripping guitars. The Universal Want, recorded following freewheeling writing sessions in the Peak District, and healthily infused with new avenues of exploration developed during the band’s extended break, is, according to the trio, a “shapeshifting album”, tapping into influences as disparate as Bowie and 1970s soul. With more years under their belts, Goodwin and the Williams bring reflection to the deal, looking back wistfully over the acid house era with the title track, personal tragedies on Broken Eyes, and time’s own passage on Cathedrals Of The Mind. But rather than presenting a bleak picture, there’s a libertarian freshness from the outset, with opener Carousels, and its allusions to seaside amusements and a more innocent time, underpinned by a sampled loop of the late Nigerian drummer Tony Allen. Indeed, Allen’s rhythms provided something of a starting point for the album itself with the Afrobeat-flavoured Mother Silverlake amongst the first songs to emerge from the jams up on t'moors. I Will Not Hide - not the statement on the band’s absence that it might suggest - adds a brightness, with an uplifting poppiness, a carefree simplicity and a notable absence of the guitars of previous Doves songs, and more sonic experimentation in its canvas as a whole. Thinking back for this post, I realised that there are probably few other bands whose albums I’ve listened to as often and as comprehensively as Doves’. Remarkable, really, when you consider they’d only released four until this year. Not wishing to dwell on it, but let’s face it, 2020 has been ugly, and one we’re all happy to see the last of. I have plenty to feel happily rid of. But this album, like so much else over the last 12 months unexpected at their outset, has been a glorious highlight. And my undisputed Album Of The Year.

Wingless birds

Picture: Emirates

If there is one thing that I have mixed feelings for as a result of the pandemic, it’s that it has severely curtailed travel. There are reminders everywhere: friends posting pictures from parts of the world not in lockdown and Facebook's own ever-helpful reminder facility of fun times gone by. The other day we got a glimpse on television of Palma in Mallorca, the last time either of us were on foreign soil or travelled anywhere by plane. And that was October 2019.

I can’t complain, though. By the time I left my previous job, a month before that trip, I’d taken 52 flights in as many weeks, a ridiculous and unsustainable amount of air travel. As my various frequent flier memberships attest, I’ve experienced my fair share of work and leisure travel over the last three decades, not least of which the 17 years I lived abroad. During that time, too, I got to fly on most types of airliner, nerdishly satisfying my childhood planespotting hobby from the inside out. Even during that last 12 months of intense air travel for work, I never failed to get a little excited boarding a Boeing 747, or one of the brand-spanking new Airbus A350s, and was in a constant dilemma over whether it truly is better to travel than to arrive.

Picture: British Airways

My first flight on the Airbus A380 ‘superjumbo’ came on my birthday in 2011. My friend was playing a gig in New York, and being 11/11/11, I thought I’d treat myself to a birthday weekend away. Turning up at the gate at Paris Charles de Gaulle, I was confronted by the bulbous prow of the 380 - a plane I’d previously only seen from the ground at the Farnborough Airshow. With the 747 the first jumbo I’d ever flown on, on my first ever trip to the US, it was genuinely exciting to be boarding only the second type of passenger plane of that size to enter mainstream airline service. To satisfy my own geekdom, the giant double-decker had innovations such as cameras in the tail and underside that allowed you to see where you were going on the seatback screens, a feature I found addictive as we taxied to the departure runway and, before you knew it, this lumbering giant lifted off, gracefully and physics-defyingly, with hardly any sense of acceleration. I hardly watched anything else on that screen for the duration of the flight, even if the vista was mostly cloud.

I would go on to travel several more times on the A380, with Air France again, British Airways and Emirates, to places like Miami, Los Angeles and Dubai, each flight as comfortable and uncomplicated as any I’d ever had. Which is why I’m genuinely sad to see that the type is already for the knacker’s yard. 

Just as COVID-19 has brought about the end of the delightful 747, most recently for BA and Virgin Atlantic, who retired theirs this year, the pandemic has hit the airlines’ fleets of other big jets, with the A380 faring worst. 

More than 90% of the four-engined planes have been grounded since the coronavirus curtailed international air travel, and it now seems like many will never take off again. Research by aviation data specialists Cirium suggests that 380s - along with older A340s and some Boeing 777s - are being retired “sooner than expected”. 

Even though the 380 was only introduced in 2005, and most airliners remain in mainstream service for up to 30 years, it has always proven to be a challenging aircraft to fill. In some configurations it can seat up to 800 passengers, although no airline has actually taken up that option. The biggest problem for the A380 - even before the pandemic struck - is that gas-guzzling four-engined aircraft have become unfashionable, especially with long-distance travel now covered, perfectly safely, by super-fuel-efficient twinjets like the Boeing 787 DreamLiner and A350. 

Picture: Emirates

Still, though, airlines invested in them, most notably Emirates who married the plane to their strategy of making Dubai its global operations hub. The airline even put great store behind attracting premium customers, with enhanced first and business class cabins that included better in-flight WiFi than that on the economy deck, and even suites with their own showers.

As of today, the airline has 112 of the type in service, almost half the total built, but has effectively brought the aircraft’s production to an end by announcing that it would not be taking up the final 11 of its 123-plane order. The last 380 will roll off the Airbus production line next year. According to Cirium’s 2020 Airline Insights Review, as of this month, only 21 A380s were in service, with some 219 in storage, some indefinitely while others might end up being covered into freighters. Air France - with whom I made my 380 debut - has already withdrawn its fleet permanently, with Lufthansa and others planning for a near future without them. 

There are two key factors at work here: firstly, the 380 has been a victim of its own short history. By the time Airbus got it off the ground, industrial advances in more fuel-efficient airframe and engine technologies were already producing new marques that were instantly appealing to cost-conscious airline CFOs. The 380, like the 747, quickly became an icon, and much loved by those who flew on it (and who flew it). But it was something of an anachronism, even by the time it first took off. Sadly, its withdrawal so soon after COVID brought about the demise of the 747, has become inevitable. 

The second factor is, clearly, a pandemic that has decimated air travel. Some predictions suggest that it won’t be until the middle of this decade before the industry returns to anything like it was before the virus broke out. As we saw in the wake of SARS and 9/11, air travel will return, once the majority of passengers feel it safe to do so (though that hasn’t stopped others…), but it raises the question as to how it will return. 

All I know is that we can’t stay cooped up forever, and this time of year - with TV ads for holidays and the Sunday supplements doing their best to tempt you to places you could go, the desire to get on a plane and go somewhere will only grow stronger. It’s just unlikely that you’ll be doing it on one of the most distinctive and comfortable airliners I’ve ever flown on. #sadface

Picture: British Airways

Christmas cheer, Chelsea-style

Picture: Reuters

A look, this morning, at the Premier League table and there is a chasm of just seven points separating Liverpool at the summit from plucky Southampton in ninth and at the bottom of a mini-league on 25 points. The main point here being that everyone seems to be circling around each other at the moment, and despite Liverpool’s ominous position at the top (well, ominous until Sam Allardyce came along yesterday), the fact that Manchesters United and City are back in the running, along with Leicester and Everton are indications that, surprisingly for the Christmas period - slap bang in the centre of the middle third of the season already - it’s anyone’s guess who’ll end up in a Top Four finish come May, or June, or October, or whenever this season actually ends.

Read the back pages and on any given day someone will write about any one of about six or even seven teams being title contenders. Or, to put it another way, have a good run and, apparently, you’re putting together a tilt. Even Manchester United, implausibly now up to fourth. So where does that leave Chelsea? Saturday’s match at the Emirates was one of the most lethargic performances I’ve seen from Frank Lampard’s side since he took charge, and really it shouldn’t have been. Premier League footballers are too professional to go nuts on the Christmas indulgence, so the apparent legginess couldn’t have been caused by overdoing the port and cheese (which would be my ready excuse for anything over the last 72 hours). So, quite why they allowed an Arsenal, stripped of many of their regular starters through illness, and coming to the game on the back of a truly abject run that raised very real questions about Mikel Arteta’s future, to monster them in such a decisive fashion is baffling. And troubling.

Let’s face it, Christmas is a lousy time for football. In normal times, the fans aren’t up for Boxing Day fixtures - especially the ridiculous 12.30 kick-offs that television scheduling insists on - and the pile-up of games has a noticeably diminished return as the period progresses. Frankly I’m usually grateful to get past New Year and onto the FA Cup Third Round. But that doesn’t excuse Chelsea’s dismal performance on Saturday that left them lying seventh (now eighth, at time of writing) and with an ugly looking record of three defeats out of their last five matches, all of them away. Lampard will have plenty to think about before making his team selection for tonight’s home fixture against Aston Villa but, then, he presumably had some weighing up to do against Arsenal. 

On Saturday, performances seemed to drop off a cliff before our vary eyes. “It wasn’t good enough,” said the Chelsea coach afterwards, adding that he was angry about the missed opportunity to go second. “You get what you deserve,” he ruminated. “Lazy,” was the other part of his assessment. “Lazy to give away a free-kick that [Xhaka] puts in the top corner,” he railed to Sky Sports, “and I'm very, very disappointed in the way we approached the first half, because some things in football are basics. It's not tactics or systems, it is 'do you want to run, back your teammate out and sprint'? Or do you want to jog and say 'maybe I don't have to run,' and we took that decision instead of the right one.”

One can imagine the atmosphere on board the Chelsea team bus back from Islington to Cobham was as chilly as the blustery evening had been in anticipation of Storm Bella blowing in. Lampard’s frustration was understandable, and while it’s usual for know-it-alls to say that a coach needs to take as much blame for a bad defeat as his players, on this occasion, it was clear how much his players were lacking. Timo Werner continued his frustrating run of games without anything meaningful in front of goal; Tammy Abraham continued to demonstrate what a dedicated forward he is, but without the goals to show for it, save for that one consolation (which was subject to scrutiny after the linesman ridiculously ruled offside due to a hair on the striker’s knee being slightly too close to goal than regulations allow). Still, though, Olivier Giroud sat it out in quiet frustration in the stands, a picture of seemingly stoic acceptance, despite knowing how he would have liked to get on and play against his former club. 

What Chelsea lacked in the forward line-up, they didn’t exactly make up for in their midfield and wide players. Even if Callum Hudson-Odoi, brought on at the break, injected some vim into the play, it was a rare uptick by anyone in blue. Jorginho’s latest missed penalty seemed to sum up the team’s performance - another one of his hop-skip-jump efforts that lacked any power and was promptly stopped by Leno. Really, it shouldn’t even be a case of sending him back to the training pitch to practice. He should never take another for the club again. 

Arsenal’s goals were well taken, but as good as they were, Chelsea were also at fault for all three: a needless penalty given away by Reece James, a cheap free kick conceded by the usually dependable N’Golo Kanté, and then Bukayo Saka’s bizarre cross that somehow redirected itself and into the goal, like a cruise missile dynamically changing course at the last minute and down a different chimney to the one its handlers had intended. With the exception, perhaps, of Christian Pulisic and Mason Mount’s ever-present industry (although even they were off their usual pace), none of the team Lampard put out against Arsenal did much to draw praise. It wasn’t that they were bad, per se, it’s just that they were just so ineffective. Yes, lethargic. Which means that the selection tonight against a vibrant Villa - who sit one place above Chelsea on goal difference, but with two games in hand - will be crucial. Because if Chelsea’s supposed best 11 can put in such a dismal shift against an Arsenal we thought were there for the taking, the second string certainly won’t fare so well.

Inevitably, though, questions are being asked again about Lampard’s own future. Lying eighth in a tight title race is not what Roman Abramovich bankrolled a £250 million summer spending spree for. The pressure is on the 42-year-old manager do better in his second season than the fourth place and a cup final finish from his first. Christmas is a lousy period to assess a football team, with the fixture logjam - worsened by the pandemic - making life hard for any team. Lampard faces the challenge that they are already four points off where they were after 15 games last season, with too many in-form teams above Chelsea who could pull away further. He’s clearly also dealing with some fitness issues in his squad. Ben Chillwell made such a miraculous recovery after exiting the home West Ham fixture after seven minutes with an ankle problem, that his teammates called him ‘Lazarus’. He definitely wasn’t sharp enough against Arsenal, as could be said of his neighbour in the backline, Thiago Silva. And elsewhere along the defence, Reece James looked like he wasn’t firing on all cylinders, either. But, then, Lampard has options. Club captain César Azpilicueta is still one of the best right-backs in the business, even if he's lost his starting place to James. To add to this, Lampard's religious adherence to 4-3-3 is starting to highlight a lack of flexibility that means he labours with Werner in his left-of-centre forward position.

“They have gone from looking one of the paciest, quickest sides in the Premier League, to one of the most pedestrian,” former Chelsea midfielder Craig Burley said on ESPN, noting that such a dip in form is the sort of thing the capricious Abramovich, takes note of - whether the head coach is a club legend or not. “I’m not suggesting Abramovich is going to sack him in the next couple of weeks,” Burley added, “but there is one thing they need to remember – top four. If they don’t get in the top four, he’s probably done.”

Picture: Facebook/Chelsea FC

An ominous thought to end on, and although one bad game at Christmas doesn’t make a disaster, three defeats in as many trips away is the stuff of form issues. The next few weeks of league and cup fixtures are not going to be helped by individual players at Lampard’s disposal not pulling their weight, either due to confidence or fitness, factors that can be helped by the coaching staff. 

Where I do have some sympathy is that, as with every year it seems, the Christmas fixtures are relentless. While Lampard can’t complain about the recovery time between last Monday's game at home against West Ham and Saturday’s at Arsenal, he’s got a point about his beleaguered squad having to go again tonight. 

“I'm not trying to be clever,” he said last week. “It's an important point for us, because there are other teams that are challenging at the top of the league that play two games in three days. Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool play two games in three days. It's counter-productive for the quality of the Premier League, it's a risk for players if they are going to play both games at top-end elite sport, everybody knows that.” And he added that Aston Villa also wanted an extra day’s grace, but both clubs were overruled, he says, by the Premier League and by the broadcasters. “I know in conjunction with each other, this was bounced around, it got decided that we play twice in 48 hours, when other teams that are challenging at the top of the league play twice in three days. I don't see how it's a fair playing field, I think it's wrong.” 

It’s a refrain we hear every Christmas from every club and every manager. And from a fan’s perspective, the games themselves are never quite the attractions the broadcasters hope they’ll be. But it’s Lampard's job, come what may, to manage his squad through the period, maximising those in form, resting those who clearly need it - mentally as much as physically - and taking a punt on players who deserve their chance. Hudson-Odoi comes to mind, and Billy Gilmour. And, perhaps, Giroud, could do with more use.

The festive fixtures congestion argument will cut little ice with Lampard's bosses. Maybe not now, but certainly when the end-of-season review comes around. Lampard knows he’s not in charge by some default of having been the club’s highest scoring player of all time. When he signed the contract to become manager, that legacy was confined to the trophy room. What happens between tonight and season’s end is partly in his hands. I wish him well: as much as I can’t fault Abramovich for what he’s done for my club, his readiness to dispense with managers before they have had the chance to establish themselves has at times been predictably ugly. With the exception of one or two - the divisive Rafa Benitez and the frustrating Maurizio Sarri come instantly to mind - some stability and heritage creation would also have been nice. Lampard deserves no more favours than any of his predecessors, though fan loyalty is justified. But that also requires a reciprocal match in terms of team performance. And on that, he still has some distance to carry.

Prepare to enter the Christmas cheese coma

Picture: Alex James Co

For reasons I won’t bore you with, my diet this Christmas has had to be substantially modified from the traditional gorging on things that, I’ve been told, will lead to an unfortunate outcome. But the one thing I’ve not given up (or been told to…yet) is cheese. In fact, one of the last functions performed before battening down the hatches and being confined to our Tier 4 bunker this week was to carry out the annual gathering-in of pricey festive cheeses. Which, I readily accept, is probably the most middle class thing I’ll ever commit to the blogosphere.

So, while some of you prepare to binge on cake, crisps and Quality Street, I’ll be giving my nine months of calorie-controlled abstention the slip and dive into the fifty quid’s worth of exotic queso we picked up on the final port of call of Crimbo preparations yesterday. That haul includes an Italian Robiola, a pricey brick of Parmesan (not for grating over spagbol - eating it on its own is a delight), Roquefort and Comté. Given that - at time of shopping - a no-deal Brexit was steaming towards us like an asteroid on collision course, so in rehearsal for next Christmas’s cheese board, exclusively sourced from these islands, we also picked up a Lancashire Black Bomb, Caerphilly and an Oakwood smoked cheddar from Dorset. Whatever the outcome of Boris's final EU negotiations, we can be rest assured that there’s plenty of British cheese to fill the void left by being priced out of Port Salut and Edam, let alone a cheeky Camembert de Normandie. 

In fact, the UK produces more than 700 cheeses, from the geographically familiar Cheddar, Cheshire and Wensleydale to the Christmas-traditional Stilton, and even a local interpretation of that ultra fromage français, Brie. While cheesemaking is most strongly associated with our European cousins, it's a tradition dating back to the Stone Age in this country, according to cheesemonger Ned Palmer, whose paperback A Cheesemonger's History Of The British Isles has been the surprise bestseller in this year’s Christmas book sales.

Palmer reveals that cheese may have been part of the British diet for 6,000 years, when our pre-agricultural ancestors were still hunter-gatherers, mostly living off fish and fruit. Palmer believes that cheese came to these islands via neolithic explorers who found cheese being made - as a means of preserving goat milk - on the continental mainland. As a result, its existence in Britain might even pre-date Stonehenge by a millennium, ironic, given how those slabs, presumably built as an altar, would make for an excellent cheese board for the various types that come from the surrounding fields of Wiltshire (fun fact: the phrase “like chalk and cheese” originated in the county). At first, ancient Britons experienced what we’d now call lactose intolerance to this creamy new substance from abroad, but the human metabolism adapted - over a thousand years or so - to all forms of dairy. Early cheesemakers honed their craft (no pun intended), and across Europe as a whole, both hard and soft cheeses began to evolve and diversify. Hard cheeses, in particular, became migratory, especially when the habit of moulding them into wheels allowed them to be literally rolled from town to town. At some point in English history, someone in Gloucestershire discovered they could be rolled down a hill competitively for lols. 

Fast forward to Roman times, and Palmer reveals that the invaders are quite likely to have brought their own cheesemaking skills to this part of the empire, which should require a substantial rewrite of that scene in Life Of Brian about what they did for us. We can, Palmer surmises, add ripened stinky cheese to better sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health. However, he also says that cheese in the UK didn’t really get going until the Anglo-Saxons were in charge, when it was even used in a medicinal capacity for treating everything from chest infections to sore feet.

Fast forward again to the 21st century, and we’ve been eating more locally made cheese in the UK than ever before. In the early days of the first lockdown we consumed as much as 23% more cheese than in the same period last year, according to market research company Kantar. But with this came a downside, as the closure of pubs and restaurants led to as much as a 90% decline in trade sales of artisanal cheeses, threatening the future of small, independent manufacturers who’d been hitherto enjoying a boom. British craft cheeses have been returning over the last 40 years, with more recent champions including former Blur bassist Alex James, who runs a burgeoning business from his Oxfordshire farm (with such rock and roll-influenced delights as 'Blue Monday No.7' and 'Grunge No.5'). 

Picture: Alex James Co

The Specialist Cheesemakers Association estimates that there are more than 200 artisan manufacturers in the UK, many applying traditional, smallholding techniques, to produce their own interpretations of classics as well as new varieties. However, it also warns that the pandemic may lead to many of these manufacturers going out of business, with the traditional skills they employ being lost forever in the process. Perhaps cheese itself can spearhead the fightback against the dreaded lurgy. In July, Dutch researchers revealed that patients admitted to intensive care at a hospital in Nijmegen were deficient in Vitamin K, which is found in spinach, eggs and some types of cheese. Given that COVID-19 causes blood clotting and the degradation of elasticity in the lungs, the vitamin has been found to be key to producing proteins that regulate clotting and can protect against lung disease. Not every cheese, though, can offer these benefits, but the cheese industry is inevitably keen to point out the other health benefits of their product, not the least of which being a source of protein and calcium. 

That, then, is my prompt to dive in and indulge. Cholesterol and blocked sinuses be dammed. We’ve got a fridge full of cheese and, with most other festive treats now on my verboten list, I’m going to indulge tomorrow afternoon, with a cheeky glass of port, and worry about the consequences on Boxing Day. Once a year, right?

Seen anything good on TV lately?

Picture: Disney/Lucasfilm

If there’s one thing we need now more than ever it’s escapism, though it's a matter of opinion as to whether we need the distractive interpretation of that phrase, or simply actual escape. But over the last few weeks, unexpected relief - for me, at least - has been available in the form of The Mandalorian on Disney+. This, for the uninitiated, is a live action Star Wars spinoff series, part of Disney’s ever-expanding universe of properties based on George Lucas’s original cinematic story arc. Now, I’m no sci-fi fanboy, and Bond aside, am fairly immune to Hollywood franchises. Star Wars might, though, be the exception, seeing as my history with the Skywalker saga goes back to that very first film when it opened at Christmas 1977, when I was ten. Even now, I can vividly remember my first experience of ‘surround sound’, as the Imperial cruiser contrived to appear from behind me at the Kingston Granada, its rumbling engines sounding long before the apparently vast model moved into sight. 

When The Mandalorian commenced on Disney’s streaming service last year, I was curious but not in any immediate rush to see it. Since Disney’s acquisition of the Star Wars brand, they’ve been busy commercialising it with spinoff films like Rogue One and Solo, to varying degrees of appeal. Not being a big fan of animation, either, I’d passed by the earlier animated series, like The Clone Wars, largely because I wasn’t all that interested in the Lucas ‘universe’. The Mandalorian, I was told, was different, so I dipped in. It’s premise was that of a ‘space Western’, built around the central character of a Mandalorian bounty hunter (occasionally referred to by his name Din Djarin, or, simply, ‘Mando’, and played by Pedro Pascal), an enigmatic loner somewhat styled after Clint Eastwood in The Man With No Name. In Season 1, he is hired by the mysterious ‘Client’ (wonderfully portrayed by German auteur Werner Herzog) to retrieve a ‘package’ on behalf of an unrevealed third party. This package turns out to be ‘The Child’, a tiny, impossibly cute infant-like creature that resembles Yoda from the main Star Wars canon. As Mando successfully collects the child, and sets out on bringing him to The Client, they begin to form something of a father-son bond, while battling numerous challenges - and with the little creature revealing a nascent affinity for mystical powers. At this stage, it was very much cowboys and Indians in space, but the second season, which concluded last Friday, has evolved with far greater connectivity to the mythology that Lucas first mapped out in the early 1970s.

Picture: Disney/Lucasfilm

I dipped in and out of the first season of The Mandalorian, not because it was bad (and certainly not because it was as tedious as the Star Trek: Picard spinoff on Amazon Prime), but because it was just a tad slow-burning. Mind you, you could say that about the first series of Breaking Bad, and look at how that ended up. But with The Mandalorian’s second season dropping in November, I gave it another go and became hooked. Showrunners Jon Favreau and uber-knowledgeable Star Wars nerd sidekick Dave Filoni have created the perfect form of escape, indeed producing a modern Western that, yes, sits in the Star Wars universe with all the sci-fi mystique that comes with the territory, but not resorting to the impenetrable psuedo-science that so many sci-fi shows can be guilty of. 

The added intrigue - and therefore the core attraction - is how they’ve moved The Mandalorian closer to the cinematic canon. That original film (now referred to as Episode IV: A New Hope) was, itself, a kind of homage to the Saturday morning movies Lucas enjoyed as a child, with its sword fights, princesses, Battle of Britain dogfights and even parallels to The Wizard of Oz. The Mandalorian has proven to be so much more than laser battles and a cast of odd-looking aliens (apparently co-existing in a fictional galaxy that just happens to share many similarities to our very real one, including humans…) with Season 2 knowingly peppered with characters and even physical settings familiar to anyone who has watched the parent films over the last four decades. Some references you’d miss without an encyclopaedic photographic knowledge of the canon, but some have been genuinely huge, and immensely entertaining as a result. 

Picture: Disney/Lucasfilm

Which brings me to the Season 2 finale - and prepare yourself for a MASSIVE spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it. Over the course of the previous seven episodes, the show had flirted with the canonic plot lines: for a start, The Client’s client was revealed to be Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito - you’ll know him as Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul’s principle baddie Gus Fring), who is obviously a no-gooder as he’s called “Moff” (some sort of title of badness from the old evil Empire), dresses a bit like Darth Vader, has access to his own Imperial space ships and a rather snazzy light sabre, and makes plenty of proto-panto villain statements. It also transpires that the reason he wants The Child - now revealed to be called ‘Grogu’ - is that he possesses a nursery talent for The Force, which Gideon sets out to tap into in order to draw out the Dark Side and kick things off all over again, a not too subtle reminder that Nazi-ism didn’t die in that Berlin bunker in 1945. 

For context, the events of The Mandalorian are set five years after Return Of The Jedi, with Gideon a remnant of the old evil Empire that was supposedly destroyed in the final chapter of the original trilogy (and, as we know from the final three, returns a couple of space decades later…). The next cryptic reference was the re-introduction of the bounty hunter Boba Fett, a pivotal figure (and, plotwise, divisive) from the original films who supposedly met a grisly end in Jedi. At the end of the Season 2 finale it was revealed that Fett would return in something called The Book Of Boba Fett, which has subsequently been revealed to be one of 11 new Star Wars spinoff projects being prepared for Disney+.

But the gobsmack of all gobsmacks came in the form of a hooded figure arriving in the nick of time to save Mando and his chums from a platoon of ultra-ruthless droid Stormtroopers, wielding a green light sabre in, apparently, an enigmatically leather gloved hand. No, not Alvin Stardust (though his would be an excellent Star Wars character name) but Luke Skywalker. Luke bloody Skywalker!!!  Though a digital replication of Mark Hamill’s character from The Return Of The Jedi (which was made 37 years ago), such is the technology now that it was indistinguishable from the real thing. Hamill - who cutely reacted to his cameo by tweeting with a deadpan "Seen anything good on TV lately?" - provided the voice.

Picture: Twitter/@HamillHimself

Skywalker’s appearance in the finale was as satisfying as it was arc-completing. We see him rescue Grogu from Gideon’s intentions, and take him off to a place of safety (though aficionados have suggested that 'Baby Yoda' has a grim future, as we discover in The Last Jedi when Kylo Ren goes mad and wipes out any remaining Jedi he can find. I hope you’re keeping up). There is a moment of genuine emotional heft as Mando reluctantly hands over the infant (who is around my current age in human years) to the Jedi, in a brilliantly played out scene between Pascal and the cute little green Christmas-sales-bonanza-for-Disney puppet. But it sealed the point that, cynical and snearing as people can be towards sci-fi and the fans who obsess over every detail, a show could be every bit as entertaining and engaging as anything regarded by culture snobs as more worthy.

For that, Favreau must be given huge credit, as well as Filoni and the impressive array of directors, including Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard’s daughter. As The Galleries accompanying series of behind-the-scenes documentaries reveals, Favreau and his team have had a vast array of creative and technical resources at their disposal to make The Mandalorian as sumptuous a series of short shows every bit as elaborate as the cinematic Star Wars productions. George Lucas’s original film was pre-dated by his creation of Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects shop that still serves the Star Wars factory (and many other film and TV productions) with state-of-the-art techniques that, frankly, boggle the mind when seen in application. But unlike some of the newer Star Wars films, Favreau explains that the special effects are only part of the blend with live action, actors and real sets, a palette that adds to the enjoyment of The Mandalorian, and elevates it above being just another yarn. Given these assets now at Disney’s disposal, too, the benchmark has been set high for the aforementioned slew of spin-offs, including the Fett series, to be executive produced by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni and acclaimed cult director Robert Rodriguez, and released next December. The others from Lucasfilm will include Ahsoka, featuring Katee Sackhoff’s Mandalorian Jedi character of the same name; Rangers Of The New Republic, another Mandalorian spin-off; the Rogue One offshoot Andor; and Obi-Wan Kenobi, a standalone series in which Ewan McGregor will reprise his role from the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Picture: Disney/Lucasfilm

Taking the bigger picture, there’s every reason to fear a corporation like Disney taking over a franchise like Star Wars in this way. The arch fans will settle for nothing less than extreme quality control, while parents will simply fear their bank accounts being drained by all the merchandising. Being a streaming service with, clearly, enormous resources, Disney+ can probably do anything they want to, but if the new series are anything like The Mandalorian, and the attention to detail, story development, scripting and its place in the Star Wars universe that Favreau & Co have applied, even the most neutral viewer will find something to capture their interest, as Lucas’s original film did for me 43 years ago.

It is what it is…I suppose…

It has just occurred to me - and quite why only now - that 2020 has been the most ridiculous soap opera ever. All we’ve lacked is the dead Bobby Ewing miraculously revived and taking a shower. We began this arch annus horribilis still scratching our heads as to how a comedy politician could have become prime minister, assembling a cabinet of apparent toadies hell-bent on “getting Brexit done” above all other priorities, as if one of Batman’s various nemeses had been installed and gathered together a cast of cartoon super villains to see out their agenda.

However, when the pandemic unfolded (or, in other words, we caught what the rest of the world had been getting since January and February), we entered into the new distraction with stoic uniformity. In an unusually warm, blue-skied spring, we stood on our doorsteps on a Thursday at 8pm, applauding essential workers in the ever-lightening evenings. We endured the first lockdown because it was the right thing to do and, if you were lucky enough to have a garden, “working from home” from a lawn chair with a cooling refreshment at your side wasn’t exactly a hardship. Some of us, however, had to shield or at least remain inside, denied any human contact due to a clinical vulnerability that even the scientists didn’t, then, fully understand, while hospitals started to fill up. But, still, we endured it. Then summer entered the final straight of August, and if we were able, we took off to Cornwall, or the Lakes, or anywhere where, again with agreeable weather, we could at least enjoy the placebo effect of taking a holiday somewhere.

However, 2020’s scriptwriters are of a fiendish creed. Just as we think Den and Angie are getting on again, the former turns up at the Queen Vic with divorce papers on December 25th. “Happy Christmas, Ange!”. Effectively, that’s what Boris Johnson did yesterday. Just three days before he’d been mocking Sir Keir Starmer’s seemingly grinchish call for Christmas to be cancelled, only for the prime minister to do it himself, anyway. I think only Liverpool won the Lack Of Christmas Spirit award by a higher margin, spanking Crystal Palace 7-0 yesterday. Those writing that script are having devilish fun. One minute it’s all talk of vaccines and “sunlit uplands”, and Boris is invoking Churchill [again] with his Dame Vera Lynn rhetoric, the next, we’re all contemplating what to do with the mountain of excess food bought for a lunch that will now be spent by small bubbles (and without the squeak, too). Not even 24’s Jack Bauer faced as many ridiculous changes of circumstance.

I’m not going to even pretend to have better knowledge of this virus than the experts. And I’m certainly not going to second-guess the wisdom of those bunkered in 10 Downing Street 24/7 trying to figure it all out. But there’s something fundamentally wrong. It’s called expectation management. I’ve learned, in my 32-year professional PR career, that managing your stakeholders’ expectations is the key. It’s not about keeping people happy, either. Just better informed and better prepared. Even in crisis situations, where situational fluidity is the enemy, you prepare for it. Or at least give the perception of doing so. Right now, the British government is giving the impression of being unprepared for anything. At risk of being simplistic, the feeling we all get is that the medical experts and scientists say one thing, and Bozza takes the populist view for fear of ruining everything. And, yet, in not taking unpleasant decisions soon enough, he’s done exactly that. How many people were still out shopping yesterday, believing that there were still a few more days until Christmas, only to get the newsflash on their phones that 16.4 million people in London, the south-east and eastern England would now be banned from mixing indoors for at least the next two weeks, as of a minute past midnight this morning? All this because of a ‘mutant variant’ of the coronavirus, VUI-2020/12/01 which, it is claimed, was first identified as long ago as September, and which has proven to be 70% more infectious than previous strains, even though it did not appear to cause higher death rates or be any more resistant to vaccines.

“When the virus changes its method of attack, we must change our method of defence,” Boris intoned from No.10 yesterday. “And as your prime minister, I sincerely believe there is no alternative open to me.” This from the man who, on Wednesday during Prime Minister’s Questions, made the comment to Starmer:  ”I wish he had the guts to just say what he really wants to do, which is to cancel the plans people have made and to cancel Christmas.” And, yet, that’s exactly what Johnson did yesterday. It’s not, either, the first U-turn he’s made like this. 

The narrative from the outset is that everyone is learning as they go, which is fair enough. To tap into Boris’s Churchill fantasies, we’re not in the same kind of conflict as an actual war. In 1940, Britain had the combination of resilience, the Royal Air Force, radar and an intelligence network - all the apparatus of conventional war - to keep the enemy at bay. Today, it’s the combined excellence of a medical, scientific and pharmaceutical community, in principle in concert with politicians and a civil service that should be able to draw on the best strategic and tactical wisdom to make informed decisions. Which makes you wonder why, when VUI-20/12/01 has been known about for weeks (and only last weekend was ringing very real alarm bells within the Department of Health & Social Care and, in particular, on Matt Hancock’s desk), it took a full week of everyone doing their Christmas preparations (as well as a House of Commons ding-dong which Boris chose, as per usual, to treat with typical flippancy), before the tough decision was made to bugger up Christmas for almost 30% of the English population, and severely restrict millions more?

I get it that the script for 2020 has been peppered with devilish twists and turns. I see councils - like Bromley’s - having to issue three different tiering instructions in the space of 10 days. I get the science: hospitals in London and the south-east are already filling up, and the entire premise for lockdown in the first place - protect the NHS from being overwhelmed - is getting close to prophecy becoming real, and it may well be that Boris has made the only decision he could have done. We’ll cope - we always do: we’ll change our plans, and we’ll put up with eating Pot Noodles on Christmas Day because it was too late to get an Ocado delivery in and Tesco Express round the corner had nothing better. And, yes, we’ll bunker at home watching crap TV, revelling in a Blitz spirit of “it is what is”. But that won’t help my near-91-year-old mother, whose Christmas is going to be a pretty basic affair (even if her stoicism, honed during her own very real wartime evacuation as a ten-year-old, is probably more robust than anyone else in the family). Because, with a little more expectation management, we could have planned ahead, rather than wait for the curtain to be brought down halfway through the performance. 

They think it’s all over. Well it still isn’t

Picture: AstraZeneca

Given that our current prime minister sees himself as Winston Churchill-incarnate, there’s a temptation to look upon yesterday’s 'V-Day' rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in the terms of the wartime leader’s famous quote in the autumn of 1942, when the tide of the Second World War appeared to turn: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Boris and Matt Hancock, his perpetually perky propagandist health minister, might be seeing those “sunlit uplands” hoving closer into view, but - and sorry to rain on their parade - there is still a long road out of the pandemic. Fantastic as it is that yesterday saw the first vaccinations administered, and that by Christmas the NHS should have had four million doses available, but infection rates remain stubborn. Yesterday’s government figures recorded over 12,000 new national COVID-19 cases, almost 1,500 new hospital admissions and 616 new deaths - the equivalent of three Boeing 737s crashing catastrophically with all on board. Sorry to bring the mood music down.

Even if the excitement about the vaccine is entirely understandable - people are desperate for some semblance of normality - normality is clearly not on the agenda yet. Speaking today at a joint meeting of the House of Commons Science & Technology and Health & Social Care committees, England’s chief science officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, said: “The biggest risk we face now is that people think it’s all over. It isn't all over. We have a very important light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re a long way off. It’s not the time to relax things. If that happens we will have a big surge." His partner in crime, England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, added that, in general, the British public had responded well to the restrictions on life since March. “The altruism of the British public cannot be understated,” he said. “Because of that, many, many people have been saved.” But, he noted, some people will get bored of the restrictions.

That seems to be evident here in Tier 2 London, where there is a very real risk that a rise in virus cases in two-thirds of the capital’s boroughs could put it into Tier 3, just as the Christmas shopping season reaches its frenzy. One former Public Health England regional director, told The Guardian today that a decision on moving London up to Tier 3 was needed within the next 48 hours, otherwise it faced a “terrible situation”, with rising deaths ahead of Christmas. According to the Evening Standard eight east London boroughs have recorded more than 200 new cases a week per 100,000 of population in the week to last Thursday. Worryingly, my borough, Kingston-upon-Thames, has the ninth-highest infection rates in London, recording 202.8 per 100,000.

Graphic: The Times

My experience of being out and about in London in recent days is that most people are still observing the rules on social distancing and mask wearing, but it is still only ‘most’ people. On the Tube on Friday there were people openly ignoring the rules on masks. Likewise, in a department store we were in at the weekend. It’s not often that I’ll agree with a Conservative MP, but I’ll make an exception for Nickie Aiken, the MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, who told the Evening Standard: “Every single person who breaks the rules adds to the chances of [London] going into Tier 3. We have got to work together as one city to ensure our cafes, restaurants, shops and other businesses survive and also to protect lives.”

Ah, cafes and restaurants. Of all the commercial activities that have struggled the most during the pandemic’s economic haemorrhage, they remain the one statue of normality that we cling to, to the extent - and I speak from bitter experience - we’re prepared to turn blue-lipped to sit, COVID-compliantly, outside pubs. But even this break for freedom comes at a price. How many people, out of desperation to have a pint while sticking to the rules, are ordering a “substantial meal” (such as…er…a Scotch egg…) which they then leave untouched? 

It’s something that a Sheffield barman has, to his absolute credit, made a stand on. Last weekend, Will Dalrymple, tweeted pictures of wasted meals that had been abandoned by his pub’s customers who had “only wanted two Morettis each”. Pubs in Tier 2 can only remain open if they effectively operate as restaurants, offering something more than a packet of Pork Scratchings. Dalrymple complained in several tweets how people had ordered sandwiches, side salads and bowls of chips which ended up in the bin. He said that he saw the rationale behind the rules, but also saw the position they put pub staff in. While the practice of ordering food and not eating it wouldn’t harm a pub’s finances, the moral position about wasting food is just as serious: “With everything in the news about people relying on food banks and free school meals, this is utterly obscene,” he added. ”If you're desperate to go to/support a pub, go when you're hungry.” 

Picture: Twitter/@WJDalrymple

Depressingly, Dalrymple’s tweets drew out the trolls keen to point out that people are just looking for escape. “I completely understand people's frustration at the rules,” he wrote. “I'm as grateful for and welcoming to customers as I ever was. “However, hospitality workers have no choice but to enforce the rules. All these tweets are asking for is for co-operation.” 

What doesn’t help is the lack of clarity on what constitutes a substantial meal. Various government ministers have fudged the issue, while some pubs have even tried to circumnavigate the rules by agreeing to host local takeaways or, simply, boiling a kettle and serving up a Pot Noodle. The point here is that there needs to be a happy balance. Freedom - as we knew it before March - will return, but not for some time.