The news is still all bad, unless you’re a penguin!

A big part of my Sunday morning ritual used to be watching The Andrew Marr Show as I eat the big breakfast lovingly cooked and brought to me in bed by Mrs Jones.

Since coronavirus it’s just too depressing to watch so instead I get my news from the morning newspaper – and what a full English of outrage it contained today.

Here are a just selection of headlines:

• Goggles recalled after 16m fail safety checks
• Laboratory issues force Government to send virus tests to US
• Unions ‘are sabotaging’ online lessons for children
• Royal Albert Hall faces battle to survive
• Train capacity will be sliced by 90 per cent
• Changes to behaviour ‘could be permanent’
• Doctors warn of anaesthetic drugs shortage
• Patients both young and old ‘sacrificed to save the NHS’
• Government urged to remove care home powers from councils

And that’s just from the first 10 pages.

Amidst this litany of cock up and catastrophe are two stories that stand out as truly outrageous.

Why in heaven’s name are teachers’ unions blocking children’s online lockdown learning?

This pandemic has shown there to be so much wrong with this country it’s difficult to know where to begin.  I’d leave the country if a) I was allowed and b) I could find somewhere to go that was demonstrably better!

To cheer us all up tucked away in a couple of columns on the bottom corner of page 7 was a summary of ‘The Good News’.  This included the story: ‘Five new penguins which belong to the rare Humboldt species have hatched at Chester Zoo’.  Yay!

This all on the morning when we’re expecting at least some relaxation of the lockdown.  Boris is broadcasting to the nation this evening about what next in the coronavirus fight.

Amidst all that’s be trailed so far the most exciting news is that our local tip is due to open on Monday, May 18^th.   That should just about get me through the next seven days!