David Behrens

Perhaps you remember the chaos at your local surgery when the computer system that handles your appointments and medical records crashed. It was days before any semblance of normality returned and while the techies scratched their heads, your chances of seeing an actual medic disappeared into the distance.

I’m not one to gossip but have you heard what everyone’s saying? In a sentence like that, the word ‘but’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It’s nearly always a warning that the second half of the statement will directly contradict the first. We’ve seen that a lot this week.

Fame is a powerful drug. Many crave it, some who have it wish they could give it back – and a few people who aren’t famous at all make the mistake of thinking they are. One such nonentity asked an officer at Hull Prison this week if they wanted his autograph. “I’m famous,” he apparently said. “I’m all over social media.”

WHOSE side is the new government on? Certainly not the side of pensioners. Or working people who have to take the train to get there. That’s a big chunk of society to have alienated so soon; no wonder 52 per cent of us think the nation is heading in the wrong direction.

They’re recording the new series of Strictly Come Dancing next Wednesday in the BBC studios at Elstree. But the moves on the dance floor won’t hold a candle to those at the industrial tribunal that will surely follow.

I would like to think that if I’d met John Lennon at the height of Beatlemania I would have come away with at least a story to tell my grandchildren. But they do say that if you remember the Sixties you weren’t really there.

The air was thick with hypocrisy the day the Lord Mayor of Bradford dedicated a room in the city library to the memory of Andrea Dunbar. While she lived, the council would just as soon have run her out of town.

They do a nice line in gaming chairs at Argos. For 99 quid you can have one with neon lights and loudspeakers built in. There are no legs or wheels; it just rocks on the floor and wears out the carpet, and when you settle into it you look like Val Doonican in a disco.

Some people get so caught up in their own world that they fail to see themselves as the rest of the world sees them. Duke of Sussex Syndrome, you might say. There have been quite a few on parade this week.

Tuesday’s headlines told their own story. “Met officer cleared of murder after shooting unarmed driver in head,” screamed the front page of The Guardian. It didn’t say so in as many words but we knew what they meant: the police had killed an innocent man and got away with it.