Monday

As the Brexit, climate crisis, Trump (of the American and British varieties) hits just keep coming, my friends and I find ourselves turning increasingly to an unexpected form of self-medication. Not booze or Valium – we long ago maxed out on those – but to television. By far the most popular audiovisual drug of choice, including my own, is Brooklyn Nine-Nine; seven seasons of hilarity about a ragtag bundle of misfits in an unglamorous precinct dedicated to each other and their job to rid the borough of crime while delivering jokes at a rate that puts even most US comedies to shame.

It’s an ensemble show and there’s a character for everyone. Chaotic friends place the dying embers of their hope for humanity at stoic-to-the-point-of-roboticism Captain Holt’s feet (also those in search of a father figure, but I don’t like to point this out to them), while doormats (I mean nice people) cling to Gina and her refusal to deviate from the pursuit of an entirely Gina-centric life. Personally I am devoted to Jake, his puppyish enthusiasm, his liveliness and fleetness of non-toxic banter which all bespeak a profound purity of soul. Beyond that, I turn ritualistically to his world on Netflix every night mostly for its grace – for the sight of a group of people working together in harmony and creating something even greater than the sum of its parts. This is my god now. The precinct is eternal while the real world goes to hell around us.

Tuesday

It emerges that the Royal Mint produced no 1p or 2p coins last year, for the first time since 1972 and 1984 respectively. A ripple of concern spread through the nation. What were we going to throw in our handbags now? How were we going to supplement embarrassingly small tips thrown unseen but definitely heard into jars by tills? What were grandmas going to use to teach their grandchildren the rudiments of poker without bankrupting the family?

These may yet prove to be the least of our worries. Among those of a more pessimistic bent, suspicions that somewhere deep in the bowels of Westminster a press release was being composed urging people not to read anything into this cupric caesura. “We definitely don’t need the copper for export purposes or making weapons, especially not for suppressing riots in the streets in four months’ time, and we totally definitely do not expect to be using pound coins for pennies by Christmas, no way. British trouser pockets go from strength to strength, says the PM!”

Optimists dismissed concerns. They are reminded that they haven’t been right yet.

Wednesday

Twitter’s attention – followed by online news outlets equally desperate for a fillip of happiness – was captured by the success of Seamus Blackley (one of the inventors of the Xbox, an amateur Egyptologist and hobby baker) in making a loaf of sourdough bread from yeast samples woken from their 4,500-year microbial slumber in the crevices of pots from the land of the pharaohs. Even better, he ate the bread and didn’t die. It may have unleashed an ancient curse, but honestly, at this point would we even notice?

Meanwhile, closer to home, a Viking pub was discovered in the Orkneys and a footbridge between the two halves of Tintagel Castle, mirroring the land bridge that connected the mainland to the island 500 years ago, was opened. Increasing evidence, then, at least to my parched and starving heart, that time is a flat circle and King Arthur’s return – now that we have suitably homaged his birthplace – is imminent. It’s a weight off, I can tell you.

Thursday

It’s just possible, of course, that I am mistaken. It’s possible there is no knightly saviour about to emerge from the mist and rescue us all from our follies and misdeeds. So, I have decided to hedge my bets and really lean in to reality instead. I am encouraged in this new approach to life as it is actually lived by Paddy Power’s issuing of a list of the odds of various staples being rationed at some point in 2019. Fuel’s at 4/1, milk 11/1, coffee, butter and beef are at 20/1 and bread – unless you’re Seamus Blackley, maybe – is at 16/1.

No word on Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Valium, though wine and gin are at 33 and 50/1 respectively. But do you know what? It’s fine. It’s really fine. I’ve no fight left in me. Maybe the footbridge between the fact-storing bit of my brain and its anxiety centres has collapsed, or maybe the ancient Egyptian curse Seamus unleashed is one of gently creeping apathy, but – let it come. Let it all come. Brexit is essentially a war between reason and faith, so we’ll treat it as one; rationing, making do and mending, Blitz spirit, all that. One day there’ll be bluebirds and a re-established trade route over the white cliffs of Dover again.

Friday

Ignore me. I’m a parent and no parent is in a fit enough mental or physical state to be considered a functioning member of society by this stage of the summer holidays. They began 40 years ago, in mid-July, and there are yet eight more decades to run. Like every other breeder, I am broken on the wheel of these outmoded breaks, originally intended to free your little scrotes to help with the village harvest and secure the family fortunes through the winter. Now they do the exact opposite, draining the family coffers and every other resource, leaving you the rest of the year to try to repair the damage and restock.

It’s an absurdity. I can practically see everything my child has learned over the last 10 months leaking out of his ears. I’ve listened to more intricate detail about Empires and Puzzles than I thought possible to endure. I’ve parked him in front of any available screen for as long as he wants but even he gets bored in the end and then we have to play cards, Pictionary or – God effing help me – imaginative games. “Harry Potter and the Large Gin and Tonic isn’t a good one, Mummy.” “What about Magnus Chase Sits at His Laptop and Works Through the Body of a 45-Year-Old Non-Norse Woman?” “No.” So now, if you will excuse me, I have to secure safe passage for a variety of Lego men across the Sitting Room Rug Swamp of Doom.

Arthur? Get a shift on.

See no sense, hear no sense, speak no sense:

The future is here! The future is … slightly rubbish: