The season of goodwill?

Do you have the time

to listen to me whine

About nothing and everything all at once

I am one of those

Melodramatic fools...

It's a new year and I've gone back to keeping my resolution from decades ago (not to make any more new year resolutions, of course, haha). But on reflection maybe I should try to chill out a bit...

The signs aren't good, though. As we went into our second covid era Christmas a number of things were irritating me. "What's new?" you might say. Fair cop, I get grumpier as I get older. But there's so much provocation...

First there was the headline about firms calling for certainty in the run up to Christmas as the government hedged its bets. "Are you asking to be shut down?" I thought, "it's the only way you'll get certainty!" I'm not without sympathy for the hospitality industry, having to decide on orders for food supplies etc, but they clearly think someone has a crystal ball that works.  Seems they haven't they noticed that Boris Johnson hasn't got one. Though so far he's done ok in crossing his fingers about Omicron. We're not out of the wood yet but the light restrictions strategy currently looks like a good call.

I'm even more irritated by the way some football managers give us the annual whinge about the Christmas fixture list. It's mainly the continental imports of course, who are used to a mid-season break. Well we like our Christmas and New year fixtures, with the rush of league games followed by the 3rd round of the F.A. Cup, just as it is, thank you for asking. If you don't like it go home and manage in Germany, Jurgen.

Herr Klopp usually complains about the "Premier League" but of course the league is just its member clubs. Most of them, quite probably including his own on the quiet, like the income that goes with the 20 team league and its seasonal fixture rush. To be fair, Klopp's concern has always been about player welfare from the point of view of injuries and burn out. But then he doesn't have the largest squad, is more dependent on his star players than rivals Manchester City and his team play a higher energy style.

But this year the whinges have been strengthened by managers seeking postponements because of  covid isolation. Most prominent has been Thomas Tuchel of Chelsea after his club was told to play its fixture at Wolves. He claimed it wasn't "safe", predicted more positive tests in his squad after they'd had to "sit in the bus and have dinners and just stay together like nothing happened".  Wow, where to start dissecting that torrent of bilge?

Well, Thomas, with all Chelsea's resources you could have kept the players well separated by hiring a fleet of buses. One for each player if necessary. The squad could have eaten socially distanced in the concourse areas of the stadium after the fans had gone.  But aren't they mixing at training? And aren't those of them with school age children more likely to catch it at home? And, of course, while we know 16% of Premier League players are unvaccinated, we don't know how many Chelsea players that applies to. Tuchel has made it clear that he is vaccinated but, unlike Klopp, says its not up to him to advise his players. He made the point that they have had positive tests amongst their vaccinated players. Yes, we know you can still catch it, Thomas. But given the age and fitness of your players they are extremely unlikely to become seriously ill. So it's not a safety issue from a covid point of view. He went on to say his players were at risk of getting more injuries if they had to play fixtures with a depleted squad. Chelsea have one of the largest squads and largest academies, so he won't get much sympathy there either. Tuchel just wants to have his best players available, as he knows he probably only has this season and maybe next to win the Premier League before Roman Abramovich rolls the managerial dice again.

The Premier League has made clear that teams only need 14 fit players, including a goalkeeper, to fulfill a fixture. I support this stance. Though it would be tough if a team had no centre backs or forwards. Everton played their game at Chelsea before Christmas with at least ten first team squad players unavailable. Everton have been forced, by their small squad size, to fill up their bench with academy players and, often, a third goalkeeper in recent weeks, though they've had two fixtures postponed since. Even the namby pampy Gruaniad had no sympathy for Tuchel's arguments.** So just get on with it, Thomas.

Antonio Conte complained that the Premier League meeting with managers was like talking to a wall. See above, Tony, talk to your Chairman. Who probably sides with the majority while telling you otherwise.

The league was wise in rebuffing calls for a circuit breaker. Newspaper headlines about fixture "chaos" were typically ridiculous: a few games off is not chaos. The League would also have had in mind that  catching up at the end of the season from a general shut down now would be problematic, with next season due to start early because of the World Cup in Qatar in November (don't get me started on that decision...). We know what chaos would look like - an unplanned winter break, followed by a ot of postponements due to bad weather and this season almost running into next. How exhausted would your players be then, Jurgen and co? Oh and just to complicate things television coverage of the fixtures immediately after Christmas had been sold to Amazon. I'm sure the league didn't fancy renegotiating that and having to pay money back, as Amazon would have been unimpressed with the fixtures being delivered piece meal between now and the end of the season. Anyway, no-one else was going for a circuit breaker, so why should football?

The next thing made me feel depressed rather than irritated. Mrs H reported that her dental hygienist had volunteered to give people covid booster jabs. When they spoke she had done an 8 hour shift until midnight the previous evening, after a full day's normal work. No, that's not the depressing bit. Of the 14 "lanes" that could have been open only three were. All three volunteers doing injections were from the private sector, zilch from the public sector. Several hadn't turned up. No doubt individually they had good reasons. But come on!

That is a spot sample of course and I'm as partial as anyone to selective use of statistics. But when a national newspaper, pressing the case for no more restrictions, prints the following on the 4th of January***, I get really cross:

"In fact, the number of people dying with the virus is down 70 per cent, with 42 deaths reported in Britain yesterday compared to 143 on December 27."

In that context, "yesterday" was Monday 3 January, the New Year Bank Holiday. It's beyond belief that our 7 day NHS can't count dead bodies on a Sunday, let alone a bank holiday, with "catch up" days occurring almost randomly. As 10 deaths were reported on Christmas Day, 3 on Boxing Day, 143 on 27th and 19 on the 28th it's clear that the 27th was a catch up day, so a misleading baseline day. Similarly as 154 deaths were reported on 1 January, there was no report on 2 January (the party was still going presumably) 42 on the 3rd, 130 on 4th, 343 on 5th and 231 on the 6th it's clear the 3rd was an equally misleading day to choose. This is why the media shouldn't even quote the daily stats. The seven day rolling average on the two days Prof Karol Sikora chose (presumably deliberately) were 107 on 27 December and 126 on 3 January. For obvious reasons I'd never choose an NHS Monday as my baseline data but, on those numbers I'd say the death rate had gone up by 18% not down by 70%.

Sikora is a prof of medicine at the private, not for profit University of Buckingham which scores quite low in the league tables (89th equal out of 131 in the Times and 123rd in the Complete University Guide). Though it proudly proclaims to be 6th for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey and 1st for free speech in a poll by Spiked magazine. Which was set up by many of the contributors from Living Marxism when it closed after losing a libel case to ITN. It's current edition has an item on the "demonisation of Novak Djokovich"  and a podcast titled "Lockdown is the revenge of the elites".

The University of Buckingham and Spiked magazine make very strange bedfellows. This is all so far beyond parody that I think I've calmed down now.

The song lyric quoted at the top is of course from the brilliant Basket Case by Green Day, the most English sounding of the so called American punk bands when they woke up a decade and a half behind us. The very poppy end of punk, more new wave really. When I sang the first lines yesterday out loud (Do you have the time / to listen to me whine) Mrs H retorted "Do I have the effing choice?" Fair point. 

Happy New Year!

* Tuchel's whinge can be seen and heard at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59719428

** https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/dec/21/thomas-tuchel-falls-short-in-stance-on-chelsea-and-covid-vaccines

*** Only fear will stop Britain from putting the virus behind us now, Prof Karol Sikora, Daily Mail 4 January 2022