Our politicians need to get out more. There's a scene in the movie Darkest Hour where Sir Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman), agonising over demands to make peace with Hitler, goes for a ride on the tube to listen to the views of the public.
They want him to fight the tyrant. A passenger recites with him those great lines by Macauley: "Then how can man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods."
The tube ride never happened, of course. Still. Not a dry eye in the house.
What the scene is there to illustrate is that Churchill was able to see beyond the advice of Westminster insiders, to read the mood of the people and, as leaders should, to take control.
And at least the public were clear about what his strategy was.
We could be doing with another Churchill now.
The year 2020 will go down as one in which logic and common sense went out the window.
Political leaders all across the UK and Ireland have twisted and turned, bombarded us with rules and guidelines so complex they're often harder to make sense of than the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Generally, they've turned pandemic control into their own party-political crusade.
Nichola Sturgeon has made it about Scottish Independence. Michelle O'Neill and Mary Lou McDonald have made it about Irish unity. They've also made a mockery of it - brazenly flouting the rules at the Storey funeral. Arlene has made it all our fault. Covid statistics are down to stupid people like you and I just trying to get on with our lives.
She's also made it about the Union with Great Britain - never mind that, thanks to Brexit, which she supported, there's now a border in the Irish Sea.
Little Napoleon Macron has made it about teaching Brexiteering Britain a lesson. Ban the truckers!
Boris has made an utter dog's dinner of it. His guidelines on daily life now have more sub-sections than the Maastricht Treaty.
In the Republic, common sense has literally taken flight. They banned planes from GB, but then decided to airlift citizens back... by plane.
If politicians were to get out a bit more they would see and hear what the general public really think of them.
Locally, I would recommend a taxi. No one is more forthcoming on the assessment of political performance than your average Belfast taxi driver.
I don't think I've ever heard so much anger expressed about Stormont - their incompetence, their failure to work together and their inability to rise above tribalism for the greater good.
You hear it, too, in the bus queues. And the queues for the shops.
"Why are they doing this? It makes no sense."
Have our politicians never been for a drink in a bar? They seem to think that, without the stabilising influence of a meal from the bar's own kitchen, we, the customers, will all run buck mad spraying Covid germs around like a garden sprinkler in turbo mode.
They show complete contempt for all those hardworking, responsible, honourable bar-owners and workers, who've bent over backwards, sideways and through Perspex panels to make their businesses Covid-compliant.
But then, as Sir Van Morrison has astutely tweeted, "Those who are shutting down our economy haven't missed a pay check... "
The year 2021 now looms, with the traditional bleakery of January augmented by weeks of harsh lockdown.
How much more can people take of this? Do politicians really grasp the public's very real sense of distress?
No respite, no end in sight, no leadership - as we face our further Darkest Hour.
The Tiger King sums up 2020 for me
I feel for the schoolchildren. Not just the class of Covid, but the children who, God help them, will one day have to study this era in history class.
Coronavirus. Brexit. Try getting your head around all that.
Other highlights of this eventful year included the defeat of Trump and Megxit. And even social history will convince them we were all bonkers. Most memorable television series of the year? The Tiger King. Joe Exotic. Carole Baskin. A cast of wild animals and human loons: 2020 in a nutshell.
It’s hard to be upbeat about next year
By nature, I'm a bit of a Pollyanna. In any situation, I always tend to see the bright side. Sometimes, even when there isn't one.
As 2020 trundles to its tortuous close and 2021 doesn't look to be offering an end to the Covid misery, I'm trying very hard to keep it upbeat.
A few months down the line, hopefully, we'll look back on these days with a sigh of relief that all that's behind us.
I really am wishing for a Happy New Year. But I can't help remembering I was also hoping for that this time last year.
Man of the Year has to be the 23-year-old Marcus Rashford, who broke the mould of virtue-signalling celeb and actually did something constructive for poor children and their families with his magnificent battle to have free school meal provision extended over the holiday/lockdown period. Genuinely humble, determined, intelligent and thoughtful, he's a role model sport can be proud of. Not just a football star of today, perhaps even a political leader of the future?
