Things are getting pretty weird around here, only 4 days in and my daughter is asking to come to work with me. “Anything’s going to be better than sitting in the house all day” Which is exactly the reason I do what I do. Keeping the job personal and with a touch of the mystique is what continues to project an air of the exotic and the unknown in my working life. One day I’ll come clean and let everyone know what I’ve been doing all these years emerging from the garage in a giant platinum bee shaped spaceship capable of burrowing into the centre of the earth.

So to take my 16 year old daughter to work, was a glimpse for her into the looking glass, the eye of the tornado. And a chance I might add to spend some of my money in the ever dwindling open shops which will take my cash. Lovely day, we got on, we never argued and had a few laughs, turns out she uses her phone in the car as well as in bed and at the dinner table and on the bog and in the bath and at the cinema and on and on. How shit must quarantine be if she wants to come to work with me? And as seen in the title, only day 4 and looking into the virus, I should imagine you can times that figure by at least 30 before any sort of normality might return (that is 120 days, 4 months).

Arriving back this afternoon after a spot of French Cricket and some football in the garden, I overhear Femi-M (my daughter), telling Mrs T, “How can Dad be stressed doing what he was doing today in his job is beyond me” Cheeky cow, usually I do have stressful days, as we all do, but theres a limit to what and how much of my work you can do from the car, if I told you, you wouldn’t believe it; its verging on the insane. I can’t wait what they’ve got lined up for us tomorrow, putting things in boxes and then taking them out?

Primeminister has well and truly stopped us running about all over the place putting the UK in Lockdown, which probably should have happened a week ago, hindsight, etc and possibly keeping an eye on what other countries like Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea have been doing to contain the menace. On the globe of the virus, it seems that North Korea has no recorded cases or deaths, I doubt we will ever know what’s going on there, i bet its horrendous, like Pol Pot’s Cambodia, which brings me rather macabrely back to the Year Zero title of this section of my blog. I’ll try humour in the future. So with us in lockdown, unable to drive out, unable to walk the dog with friends, the Ministry will be temporarily run by a skeleton staff; which is me, and Benny. So do keep your eyes peeled for tales of antisocial isolation, the trees my only friends.

Admin: The what’s app group will be operational, so if possible to conduct ministerial matters at home they you must do so, remembering to stay 2 metres from your dog, and to keep teeth damp during the whole process.  Tune in tomorrow for more exciting news.