Sunday 20^th December, 2020 1945

Or rather, in Chinese academia these days, Tuesday. And tomorrow will be the second Monday in two days followed by the second Tuesday in two days. How is an old man supposed to keep up with all this?

This particular old man awoke this morning with a rather painful right knee and worse, shooting pains that prevented any attempt at simply going back to sleep. It's not so bad now (as so often happens after a bit of exercise) so hopefully tomorrow I won't really feel it because of course it is a real Monday for my “date” with Jason.

I'm not sure if we will be going for that Christmas day drink though. He hasn't emailed me to get the address of the bar. The hell of it is, I am not that bothered, I will be quite happy to just stay at home – my partying days seem to have largely deserted me. Accidental or impromptu ones aside, I honestly can't seem to work up enthusiasm any more. Last Christmas was different, I was catering for a load of people, eating bugger all myself but enjoying watching others tucking into the fruits of my labour. I am glad however that this year the most I may (or may not) have to do is take a taxi to a bar.

But of course I read the news this morning that Santa is now in Tier 4 in my part of the UK. And there's a vaccine.

From start to whenever it finishes and observing from afar it is mystifying how it could have been handled so badly. You're crazy for not running away from China they said to me when it broke out. Not so crazy now though, eh? As far as I know there is no mutant strain here either – although maybe Trump will try to blame that on China as well before he is evicted in a month.

I would say that I feel sorry for any of my readers whose Christmas has been ruined but also point out most don't observe it properly any more. How many go to church these days? It's now an excuse for a couple of days off, overeating and drinking to excess!

And hell, here they cancelled Chinese new year the DAY BEFORE! For the Chinese that's far bigger than Christmas to us. But stone me, they did it.

The most powerful force in the world right now is not POTUS, ISIS or Putin. It is something countries are allowing to destroy their businesses and economies.