Forty Four Days of Being Closed - The Best and the Worst

It is a continuing source of wonder that the human race can respond in so many different ways to the same set of circumstances. If ever a situation has demonstrated that we are creatures with free will it is this crisis. Perhaps it's the fact that all the news in centred on just one topic that makes these distinctions so diverse.

So this morning there's a story that people were caught hiding in cupboards when police visited a pub in Sheffield where some serious drinking had been going on. Clearly the pub was meant to be closed. People had decided to go out and mix together despite the lockdown regulations. The fact that made it all the more disappointing was that this was the second time that the same pub had been raided. It's likely that the licence for the premises will be revoked. Let's hope that happens.

Then a little further afield the businessman Elon Musk has called for an end to lockdown in the US because it is harming the profits of his company. "Free America Now" he tweets from the safety of his mansion. In a country with the highest number of deaths on the planet, where there's a lack of health care for those who are poor, where the divides between the social strata have never been so great. Clearly some more electric cars are more important than people's lives.

BUT... Today is also the one hundredth birthday of Captain Tom Moore who will today be elevated to the honorary title of Colonel. He has received 140,000 cards to mark the day including obviously one from the Queen, has become the oldest person to have a number one record in the charts and raised the tidy sum of £30 million for the NHS. He has inspired art works and tributes from across the world. One man who decided to do what he could to stand against the virus and for the forces of good that are fighting against it.

It can seem that we are surrounded by doom and gloom, that the end of this in between existence will never come. Yet in the midst of this we all still have choices to make. Whose example will we follow? It's very easy to slide into a negative frame of mind that only sees the refuse floating in the gutter of life. In times of trouble we all need a hero to focus on. Who'd have thought that for our nation it would be a war veteran with a walking frame. But then who'd have thought that a carpenter from Nazareth would have made the impact that he did? Let's be sure to follow the right path as we make our way through these disorientating days.