So, having promised us five days for Christmas Boris had to face reality and reduce it to only one. A better leader would have seen and acted on this earlier and more drastically but surely we knew what were getting when we voted for him. However, he did manage to scrape us into an agreement with the EU and now we have to find out what it means.

At the factory, still working the two shifts we all had a break from Christmas Eve to Monday 4^th and as I write this, none of us became infected as a result of Boris’s weakness. In my case, family ties worldwide were strengthened by growing competence at Zooming and I spent extended periods on the sofa with the log burner in front of hours of television and box-sets. I did none of my action list during the break and justified it in terms of my personal well-being and sharing time with my long-suffering spouse who, unlike me, is forced to spend time alone at home during the shut-downs when she would prefer to socialise with her friends. This pandemic has brought home to me how different we are in this respect and that I should be more considerate.

I don’t suppose we will soon forget the events of Wednesday 6^th January in Washington. I watched the CNN reporting in a state of simultaneous amazement and puzzlement.

I was amazed to be witnessing what I was told was insurrection incited by the President of the United States. A large number of white people, many of whom were carrying backpacks and Trump flags, seemed to be clustering on and around the steps to the Capital building with a remarkably disorganised and ineffective police resistance. The CNN coverage seemed to endlessly recycle pictures of a confrontation between the crowd and some very well armoured policemen as well as the breaking and entering of some windows in the building. The commentary was earnest and appalled at the sacrilege underway but strangely the people in view seemed to be unlike rioters in conflict with security forces and much more like tourists wandering into forbidden places and wishing to record the event for their grandchildren. The Police seemed to be lacking any urgency or command and totally in contrast to the behaviour earlier in the year in the face of BLM protest. Why was this?

My puzzlement extended beyond this contrast to wonder if the Police tactics had been designed in a most un-American way to minimise any deaths amongst the invaders so as to avoid inflaming the situation and creating any martyrs to the cause. Was there collusion between the two forces? Was the conspiracy wider than the President and his brainwashed acolytes?

There were some deaths on both sides. There have been some arrests too, so far only sixty or seventy, and the ostensible objective of the invasion, the interference in the process for the confirmation of the President Elect was thwarted. In the event, the President Elect made a rousing speech and the President a strangely clockwork one and one outcome was that the President was banned from Twitter. This was itself puzzling. On the one hand a reasonable response to the President’s use of the medium for incitement and on the other an affront to the first amendment. My reaction was surprise that the most urgent and immediate response to the President’s malfeasance came not from the Government but from an un-elected commercial body. My boyhood friend Jeremy, who is now retired from journalism and lives in Atlanta says the story is far wider and deeper than Trump the mascot, so I guess that Mr Biden will have a hard time as peacemaker.

Meanwhile, what is the situation back at the factory? We realised in December that although we are surviving, a little ahead of budget, and keeping mostly on target with our orders we need to make a significant change to our production management if we are to thrive and rise to another level. We also need to reinforce our Covid security measures as the vaccinations won’t be changing the game before the Summer. There are 80,000 Covid deaths on the slate already and the new Covid mutation will infect many more before the vaccines can bring the pandemic under control. Apparently the UK Covid death-rate is the worst in the world at the moment.

The principal task this year will be to improve our leadership fundamentals: planning, direction, communication and control. If we can do this, install increased capacity for our new orders and cope with the consequences of Brexit we might achieve our objectives despite the crazy environment that surrounds us at home and abroad. Let’s focus!