Hello. Two minutes after ten is the time. I hope you're well. It's a sort of weird period,

this, isn't it? Another kind of limbo, I think, is the word. I refer, of course, to the sort of

spiritual state of being between heaven and hell, or earth and eternity rather than the popular

dance that involves trying to get under a very low bar. But there is also, I suppose,

a case for arguing that we're in a period of limbo, as in trying to get our carcasses below a very low

bar. None of us are entirely clear on where the bar is. But common sense, apparently,

is what you need to tell you the speed and the attitude you should adopt when running towards

the bar.

Let's park that analogy now, otherwise things are going to get really, really confused.

We're in a period of limbo by which I mean we don't know what the new variant is really like.

Okay.

I think that's the most important thing to talk about at the top of the show today, because it is a holding period.

This is why I want to talk about analogies. I want to try to find the best and most easily digestible way of understanding where we are.

Because one of the many problems with telling people to use their common sense, I think roughly the first time Boris Johnson talked about using common sense.

A couple of days later, people were jumping off Dirdle Door down near Lulworth Coes in Dorset.

I mean, literally risking life and limb at the seaside.

And then, of course, the camera pans out onto the beach itself.

And people are sitting so close to

each other they could probably have shared a strawberry mivie without noticing and and so common sense

they usually find someone some perfectly well-meaning uh but but fellow with a with a with a business

like a plumbing business or an electrician's business and he says it's really easy to understand what common sense is. And as long as you don't ask him really to explain what he's basing

his decisions on in the context of actual science and what have you, it makes a great front page in the

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