In their 1980 hit That’s Entertainment, the Jam sang: “Opening the windows and breathing in petrol. An amateur band in a nearby yard, watching the tele and thinking about your holidays…that’s entertainment.”

Fast forward 40 plus years to a Covid time and Weller’s vision of the future now looks like a welcome change. Recently, it’s highly unlikely that any of us have heard an amateur band, with most musicians having entered the knacker’s yard as there’s nowhere to perfect their stagecraft. We have all spent days and weeks watching telly. And all we can do is dream of holidays. An escape, a change from the monotony of the ‘new normal’ as we again dip our toes into the pool of social activity. I went for my first drinking session in what seems a lifetime recently and ready to rumble as much as age will allow me these days. I completely forgot my drinking buddy was under a matrimonial curfew as he made his excuses at 8.30pm and left me all dressed up with nowhere to go in a freezing cold beer garden where pandemic paranoia was rife and enjoyment was lacking.

And so we search for entertainment. Football, having killed the gift horse over the past 12 months or so through relentless ramming of initiatives down people’s throats, has shot itself in both feet. It was always the case that us fans just wanted to be entertained: to spout some vitriol from the terraces and - win, lose or draw - as the bare minimum, we just demanded a little bang for our buck. Instead, the once beautiful game was brought back solely to stop the Premier League from having to refund squillions to Sky as we have had rhetoric, with political intent, rammed down our throats by the media companies and clubs pre, during and post-match. I cannot name one game that has been thoroughly entertaining since Covid reared its head. I can’t recall a match up with any semblance of atmosphere or that did not have meaningless soundbites or mantras from the hosts that change nothing but irritate the heck out of those who just want to hunker down for 90 minutes after a long day’s work and not be subjected to ‘re-education’ messages at every turn.

Maybe you want to relax at the theatre? Recently in the Spectator, Lloyd Evans laid out the fare that awaits you should you wish to smell the greasepaint. Gone are feelgood shows about boys undertaking activity that was not deemed masculine in tough as nails mining communities, or young animals who find salvation when all is seemingly lost. In their place are wall to wall ‘thought provoking’ pieces based around the new core subjects of mental health, race and gender identity. Now, most of us are pro-change with each of those subject matters, yet the time and the place is not all the time and in every place. We get the message (it’s hard not to!) and constant reiteration does little but turn off those whoare now tired of the relentless 24/7 mantras.

If you are like me, then you have been turned off and will not even ‘entertain’ such folly. If I want to be force fed, I will commit a crime and go on hunger strike, but that will be my call. And yes, we have a choice, of sorts: to not visit the show, but often the messages are sprung upon you, Comic Relief style. As an escape, I plan to cuddle a warm girl and smell stale perfume (consensually, of course!), before feeding ducks in the park as I wished I were far away - now, that’s entertainment.