Some years ago, I wrote a blog about John Diamond (Nigella Lawson’s former husband who died of throat cancer).
In his book ‘C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too’ he discusses the theory of gradual disclosure.
I have used this philosophy and story time and time and time again in teaching and within my work but I’ve now seen it laid bare through the politics of the pandemic.
When Boris announced on Saturday evening the second national lockdown, I could see from a mile away that all the information was not being delivered.
Later that night the chairman of the Wellcome foundation announced that if this was not successful schools may have to close and the following morning Michael Gove went round the Sunday political hoardings (where all the news actually comes out each week) just to explain to everybody that if things weren’t better by the 2nd December it would run on for longer.
There were times through the summer where it looked very bright and where I suspected the virus was burning out (this often happens to the respiratory viruses), it also looked as though it was becoming less virulent and also that we might (for a while at least) get away with returning back to some sort of normal society.
That’s clearly not going to be the case at present.
Winter is going to be long and difficult and unpredictable and stressful and messy.
It’s going to be like that for those of us who are trying to make it work, for those of us who’ve decided not to make it work it’s not going to be like that at all.
In amongst the moans and the cries and the stress and the tears of the weekend as the second national lockdown was announced, there will be some people who will click their heels together and think they’re winning.
There is no doubt there are some in my profession who are taking the NHS dollar and doing much (less) than perhaps they should.
I have reports from colleagues in the medical sector that have similar things happening from General Medical Practices.
If you’re in the privileged position where money is dropping into your bank account every month regardless of what you’re doing; you can think for a while that this will be the normal and you can enjoy yourself while it lasts.
Much the same as the people who are collecting their pensions at the moment aged 55 who expect that this will be the same when they are 85 are deluded, I would suggest that perhaps my colleagues are deluded too.
We’re just about to throw more billions at an extended furlough scheme and lose more billions on the tax coming through the door that would perhaps offset that furlough scheme. We have perhaps staved off a huge wave of redundancy for 4 or 8 weeks but only for that long.
The recession isn’t here yet because we’re building a wall of arrogance to suggest that we can push it back and that we can push the virus away from our front doors and push the recession away too.
At the start of the pandemic’s effects on the UK in April this year our situation as a business was quite unique and quite stressed and I invented the concept of AFCPM (absolute fixed costs per month).
If I were you and you had the time to spare (and you should find it) I would make sure you were fully aware of what those were because I’m not entirely sure that we’ve even started with this yet.
Blog Post Number - 2541
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