The Hairy Bikers could do better job running country

I had most of those symptoms just before

Christmas, which resulted I’m me taking two days off work. Ended up being bed ridden for four days and then struggled back into work for the last two working days. For me to take time off work for illness it has to be pretty serious. Took weeks to recover, already had the flu jab so now wondering if that’s what I had.

Ali MacGraw, actress, 81; Jimmy Cliff, singer, 72; Barry Sonnenfeld, film director, 67; David Gower, broadcaster and former cricketer, 63; Phillip Schofield (pictured), TV presenter, 58; Chris Evans, DJ/TV presenter, 54; Hannah Spearritt (pictured), actress and former singer (S Club 7),

NOW that we have to stay at home watching television I am astonished by the number of grotesques that appear on our screens.

I am all for difference and welcome it but there are those who appear almost daily and demonstrate little or no talent or ability.

I mean it seems that Gregg Wallace appears in any foodrelated programmes and yet apart from the ability to dislocate his jaw and eat improbably large mouthfuls, possesses no obvious talent.

Dick Strawbridge and his wife seem to have an interesting life but I really don’t care whether they open their chateau.

The two Geordie cooks seem harmless enough but enjoy amazing travel opportunities.

Then there is the short overweight chap who Dominic Cummings allows to think runs the country.

You know the one? He can’t comb his hair properly, the one who went on holiday while the Covid-19 outbreak was beginning in China. Instead of anticipating the probability of a pandemic he apparently went off to Mustique, paid for by someone who initially denied doing so.

He is on TV a lot at the moment waiving his arms around and making ‘piffle, poffle’ sounds.

You know him?

He will say, “Let’s get Brexit done” at odd moments. Indeed despite the catastrophic impact of the virus on the world economy, he is willing to impose even more trauma on the country by refusing to contemplate postponing our departure from the EU at the end of the year.

He has a little friend called Matty Hancock who always tries to look serious. He is Health Secretary in a government that famously underfunded the NHS to such an extent that there are staff and equipment shortages that affect its ability to cope in these serious times.

You will remember he read out, in his best serious voice, his cunning plan to save the country that involved basically doing nothing!

Indeed it was only after the WHO and other EU countries urged the UK to take more serious measures that he and his overweight friend “suggested” and advised that we didn’t go to the pub!

What a shower! Perhaps the greatest grotesque is that the last two occupy the most important positions in government at the moment.

Perhaps we would do better

with the Hairy Bikers in charge!

‘No health risk’ to chlorinated chickens

IT would appear that a ‘project fear’ merchant has come out of land-of-nod hibernation to observe an honest fact that hasn’t gone down well.

They then go on to dispel a recently-written fact by myself regarding edible chicken, which in itself dispelled a negative safety myth.

I simply conveyed a view presented in 2005 by the European Food Safety Authority which concluded there was not a health risk if persons consumed chlorine-washed chicken: “exposure to chlorite residues arising from treated poultry carcasses would be of no safety concern”.

They might do well to contact the EFSA to challenge its findings, instead of attempting to overlay factual supposition with supposititious ramblings.