From Festive Season to Silly Season

We’ve barely had time to recover from our Christmas hangovers or to start breaking our New Year resolutions, and the silly season has started. Less than a week into 2026 and our lords, masters, foreign countries and corporations have already given us a taste of what is to come for the rest of the year.

National lack of trust

On 1 January news broke about 71-year-old Andy Jones whose appalling behaviour led to his voluntary work with the National Trust being terminated. Andy’s crime was repeatedly to point out to the powers that be at the National Trust that their spelling left a lot to be desired, and that their affinity with accuracy was weak, at best. In official documents and on their webpage, they made many spelling and factual errors. His reward for offering such a free service to the Trust, over and above his voluntary work, was to be dismissed.

Here at TNC we have been provided with a copy of the letter of dismissal sent to Andy; it reads as follows:

Deer Mr Jone

We has receeved yoor lettir and list of spilling misteaks and errirs on our webpaige and othir docyoumints. We did not lyke yoor toan of voyce and fownd yoor lettir ofensife. Theirfore we has no choyce but to termanate yoor contrack.

Yoors sinceerily

Etc.

Hare-brained triggers

Also, on 1 January came the news that ITV had issued a trigger warning regarding the musical film Grease. Was this to do with drugs, sex or violence? Nope, it was in reference to ‘teenage misbehaviour’.

Once again, here at TNC, we have been leaked a document containing ITV’s further plans for trigger warnings on some popular films:

Singin’ in the Rain – features umbrellas

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark – depicts archaeology

The Sound of Music – features nuns

Brief Encounter – depicts tea drinking

Mary Poppins – possible blackface (chimney sweep)

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory – excessive consumption of chocolate

James Bond films – where do we start?

The Italian Job – features cars (and the abuse of doors)

Chickenshit

Following the rip-roaring success of the Covid-19 vaccines, but with income dropping as we leave the ‘pandemic’ behind us, Big Pharma has come up with another vaccine that nobody needs, a new vaccine for chickenpox (Editor: should that not be Cpox?). So deadly is chickenpox that in the 1990s – before a chickenpox vaccine became available (did anyone know there was one?) – it used to rip through the population of the United States, killing around 150 people annually. That represents 0.00006% of the population or less than one person per million.

Lest we seem unsympathetic to those whose loved ones, probably children, have succumbed to chickenpox, deaths are almost all related to people who were already compromised. Chickenpox poses next to no risk to healthy people, yet Health Secretary Wes Streeting is rolling out this new vaccine, hoping to make chickenpox a thing of the past, and exhorting people to ignore the sceptics. Those would probably be the sceptics who turned out to be correct about the harms of the Covid-19 vaccines.

We will arrest you on the beaches

If you saw someone about to embark on a journey which could endanger their life or, more to the point, those they were forcing to go with them, and in the process of which they were also going to do something illegal, you might try to stop them. That is exactly what some men from the UK have been doing, on the beaches of France. They have been trying to stop illegal migrants from making Channel crossings on rubber dinghies.

These men deserve medals for their efforts. But, according to reports on 3 January, the French police are threatening to arrest them – for doing the very job they should be doing themselves. We’ve paid the French millions of pounds to help them stop the migrants leaving their country (the best part of a billion quid in fact), and we pay them for those deported back to France – which they left due to the failure of the French to stop them leaving in the first place. Now British people are volunteering to help them, and this is how they show their gratitude. Les mots fail me.

The King’s bollocks

Never mind, amongst all this pessimism there is something to look forward to. Last year it was announced that King Charles would be participating in an Amazon documentary on nature and the planet. Now we have a sneak preview, as shared on 2 January. The King will be calling for an ‘eco-revolution’. It is probably safe to assume this will be an eco-revolution that will involve the lives of his subjects becoming more miserable, whilst leaving him and his extended family unaffected.

Mind you, he would be very proud of our efforts here in my hometown of Hull where, ‘continuing to tackle climate change’, at the end of 2025 it was announced all public buildings in the city will be fitted with rooftop solar panels. The list of benefits is legion, including the fact that this will deliver a carbon saving of around 220 tonnes annually (to provide some scale, that’s equivalent to about 40 elephants) and £180k annual energy savings while generating £1.5m of social economic value. I think that means £1.5m of our council tax will be spent on the project. If that is so, there will be no financial savings for over eight years; a boondoggle if ever there was one. Three sites will also receive £350,000 of Mayoral Renewables Funding, which sounds like another way of throwing good money after bad. Great to see that our money is being well spent. Meantime, the climate continues to change.

 

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

 

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