The Martin’s Bakery bacon with mushroom barmcake’s ingredient label was clear: 36% bacon. Just over a third. Tasty and clear. A dab of H.P. (Houses of Parliament) brown sauce helped enhance the crispy bacon contents.

As the Conservative government strips and cuts away at public services, the N.H.S. (National Health Service), transport, everything remaining in the public domain. We now enter an age where 34% content in order to have a tasty bacon butty is closer to 1%. May contain bacon. May have been influenced by bacon. Produced in an environment that may have been contaminated by bacon. The bacon is community and social. The last ebbs and flows of bacon are sliding away.

With Shaun and Christina in tow, and tickets courtesy of Mum and Paul, we headed over to the Sale Waterside on a chilly Tuesday night. The heated theatre setting with a cup of hot Vimto was cosy. Mark Thomas, political comedian and activist stepped on stage and ushered out the odd expletive and an abundance of knowledge. His agenda, as grim as the U.K.’s economy reached off the stage and headbutted the audience. A jolly song by an F.C. Utd. of Manchester fan livened up the mood and allowed the audience some warmth amongst the tales of politics and Mark Thomas’s witty motherly adventures. A touch of Hamlet accompanied Mark in the form of some stepladders.

Of course we could all blame David Cameron for fiddling with a pig, or Boris Johnson for glibly allowing the U.K. to unfold from Europe, or the one after for being replaced by Rishi Sunak, who now has the hot seat until someone dislodged his wallet of power and shield of riches. Twelve years since the Tories took No. 10 and the Prime Minister job, they’re still blaming 13 years of Labour, which ended in 2010. Covid-19 aside, Brexit and greed has really his hit the U.K. hard. Although, if you believe the Tories, it’s all about migration. You can’t do that! You’re bacon all the rules!