Hello Ho Ho Ho, and welcome to episode 184 of the Standard Issue Pod Scene. I'm Mickey

Noonan, and yeah, I know I used that greeting on the latest outside the box, but I'm a big

believer in recycling. And anyway, it's our last podcast before Christmas, so I'm trying to get

into the festive spirit. And yeah, once again, this has been made tricky to put it mildly. As I

record this, the need for more Covid measures looms large over the holidays. Currently, it looks

like Christmas is unlikely to face any Covid curbs, but some sort of circuit breaker might kick in

on December 28th. No one knows, but we can be comforted by the knowledge that Boris Johnson won't

hesitate to hesitate when it comes to bringing in any sort of restrictions. It's hard, isn't it? Our

individual efforts to maintain good pandemic manners and protocols can appear pretty pointless when

they're dwarfed by epic systemic failings by the showering power whose contempt for the electorate

for us gets clearer every fucking day, as they make the rules, but clearly do not follow them.

There's also the worry that people are bored and tired and sad, and not really up for being

lonely again these holidays and have witnessed the utter contempt of those in charge, meaning

compliance to any new restrictions will be low, and Twitter certainly has opinions on this. I know

who to think it, but as the lower numbers doing their Christmas shopping at the weekend showed,

lots of people are imposing their own restrictions already, with many isolating before they travel,

or canceling plans altogether. It's not really a surprise that a lot of the country is ahead of

the government on this, but to quote WAM once bitten twice shy, and to paraphrase WAM three

times, but in really fucking shy, but our individual efforts are so so important. Anyway, not sure

if this helps, but I'm just listening to Paul McCartney's pipes of P seven times on the trot,

and my mood is more optimistic. It is one of my favourite Christmas songs, along with fairy tale

of New York, I mean obviously, oh holy night, and when a child is born, purely for the

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