A Wild Fling of Imagination...

A typical weekday evening. You arrive home from work, tired, and the wife brings in a mug of soothing coffee as you sink into the comfortable sofa, facing the television which is already tuned in for the day's news bulletin. Just as with us when the news is about to start. We always watch the news on the BBC, as neither of us cares about advert breaks in the middle of the broadcast. Then after the main bulletin ends, the regional news begins.

And it was during one of these regional broadcasts, during the airing of a live report when all of a sudden the report was interrupted and the anchorwoman, Sally Taylor, appeared on the screen for between five and ten seconds without her knowing about it. She was looking away from the camera and gazing seriously at something which seemed to have caught her attention. Could it have been a bug crawling up the wall or a nearby piece of furniture or equipment? Or a spider, remaining stationary at that spot throughout the whole duration of the programme, maybe even for the whole evening? Or perhaps finding a spelling error in her notes?

It was that kind of unintentional whoopsie which adds that little more enhancement to life, the ability to smile when all around there is no reason to smile, as each gloomy item is delivered one after another from the newsdesk. But this unintentional error made by the screen controller has set my imagination racing as I ask, "What goes on at the newsdesk during a report, especially a long one delivered by a major foreign correspondent?"

Back in the eighties and nineties, it was normal for two anchormen to sit behind the newsdesk before the BBC decided to slim down on its budget. It was the perfect set-up for my imagination to run riot. Say, for example, that the headline is about a significant Middle East incident which is threatening the already fragile peace agreement at that part of the world. And so we watch the reporter standing in the cold, speaking into the camera, when all of a sudden, we're back at the newsdesk. And as the foreign correspondent drones away at his report, the two anchormen are caught larking about, totally oblivious of being on-air. Here I can imagine the late Peter Sissons, back then a smartly-dressed anchorman in his fifties, blowing chewing gum bubbles or laughing raucously at his companion blowing up a balloon which suddenly pops, throwing the smartly-dressed colleague back startled, and upsetting the glass of water all over his own trouser leg, much to Sisson's delight.

But immediately afterwards I see no more of the tomfoolery, for the controller, realising his mistake and with much embarrassment and in fear of losing his job, instantly switches back to the report. After the report concludes, who would ever guess, by the serious look on Sisson's face as he begins to deliver the next news item, bits of thin rubber are scattered across the studio and a huge wet patch remains hidden under the desk?

But it would have been too late. Poor Alex, sitting there and wondering what was so funny as she watches me literally rolling on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. But along with the amusing thought, would have been my curiosity on how the rest of the nation would have reacted. But going by experience, the nation watching would have been divided into two main groups: the men, rolling in uncontrolled laughter, and their wives and girlfriends looking with astonishment and wondering when their opposite gender will ever learn to grow up. Surely, anyone angry or upset with such a scenario must be of a small minority.

But it's just this, the boy in the man, something I wrote about before.* A very healthy psychological trait which, I believe, distracts from the stresses and disappointments life can throw at us, the doom-and-gloom spouted at us evening after evening, accompanied with ever-climbing graphs and continual lockdowns. With the gyms, swimming pools and spa suites closed, along with theatres, cinemas, pubs, bars, coffee houses, cafes and restaurants all closed, along with non-essential shops, indeed, I need some fun distraction to get my mind off the reality - that I can go into a garden centre to buy a gnome but unable to replace my worn shoes or a much-needed shirt should the time come.

And as such, I can take a real-life experience of the South Today broadcasting error and use my imagination to create a scenario set on a breach of a private moment. But such must be genuine, a bad mistake made unintentionally by the screen controller and followed by apologies from the BBC and not a deliberate put-on as characterised by any comedy show.

I can buy this little fellow but not a pair of shoes.

And all these sorrows caused by the pandemic with the new variant of the virus, couldn't have come at the worse time of the year - the Christmas season - that time of year when my beloved suffers a low mood, and often I do too, the setting in of Seasonal Affected Disorder, or SAD, an affliction I have been suffering for many years already. In addition to all this, on New Year's Day, Facebook was covered by posters submitted by Brexiteers rejoicing in their victory against those like me who would have preferred to have remained in the EU. And so they jump in victory as if England had just won the World Cup.

And so I can thank God in a sense that we're under strict lockdowns - or else I would have witnessed street parties held by Brexiteers, with St George flags and Union Jacks, mixing in the crowd to watch the fireworks display across the river. And their mantra: We've won. You've lost. So get over it! - and such chanted even by professed Christians and church-goers too, as they celebrate with the wicked, making this whole palaver into one mighty miracle that I hadn't ditched the faith and embraced atheism, as it looks to me, the latter doesn't seem to be going around chanting such slogans while they're denouncing the Bible to embrace Darwinism.

And such high hopes of a vaccine against this dreadful virus is diluted by news of supply shortages and tangles of red tape and bureaucracy. And so I now read that the most vulnerable of patients who had already received their first dose of the vaccine and were promised the second dose just three weeks later are now told that they must wait up to three months before they get the second jab. And I feel like tearing my hair out as I read that the making of the same vaccine in India was so efficient that their roll-out should proceed with ease. And that is a country with one of the highest population density in the world.

Thus, I can easily imagine a team of men wearing a suit and tie getting their sums disastrously wrong, and forcing our Government to change their minds over this vaccine roll-out. And the man in a suit - the archetypical Englishman whose high education, business success and resulting wealth and high social status make him the ideal icon for Brexiteers to aspire on a national level out of sheer pride, self-effort and determination. And so anyone who wished to have remained as an EU member is looked down upon with that awful, arrogant and patronising spirit which has no truck with the love, mercy and the grace of God, yet still embraced by some Christians.

Indeed, one offset is that we have left the EU with a last-minute deal which, I hope, will temper the potential dockside congestion caused by the new tariffs and paperwork which is now required for exporting and importing goods to and from the EU. And so the world turns, life must go on. As for me, any moaning done over Brexit must stop, indeed, by moaning, I cannot add a single cubit to my life, I must die exactly when appointed by God. Instead, I can pray that both Alex and I will be protected from infection.

And we can do more. That is the taking of a combined Vitamins C and D3 supplement which also include zinc, selenium and copper. Several respectable doctors on the Internet advocate the taking of Vitamin D3 as an additional supplement which they say is beneficial in keeping infection in check (but not as a cure) for all who live in the colder latitudes during the winter months. Although there may be others who disagree, personally, I feel that nothing is lost by taking them.

And so we stand and smile at the world, our faith firmly rooted in Christ, the Rock of our salvation. Okay, so it's mentally and emotionally healthy to allow the imagination to run riot, so to speak, of the incredible stupidity of formally-dressed newscasters making complete idiots of themselves when they thought nobody was watching them. Yet I know full well that this is just fantasy, with as much realism as watching Superman on the Big Screen. I enjoyed watching Superman on the Big Screen back in 1977 or 1978, but that does not mean scanning the sky every five minutes afterwards, but the movie did inspire a trip to the USA a short time later.

But as Alex and I have already agreed, it's not about the boy-in-the-man, nor Brexit or the pandemic. The whole idea of our existence is about being reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. And so, despite our present circumstances, by God's grace and tender mercy, we will march on, not allowing anything to put us down but to turn to God for help and reassurance whenever we need to.

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*For my original blog about the boy-in-the-man, click here.