Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. - Ferris Bueller
We're back! This time our weekly roundups will be completely free of coronavirus related information - so if that's what you're here for, you should look elsewhere. After all, most media outlets are covering it 24/7 anyway, so the last thing you need is me depressing you further - frankly, just writing about it would depress me too.
In a week that Storm Darcy brought snow and freezing temperatures to much of the UK, we were kept entertained by the now infamous scene from a Handforth Parish Council meeting:
Moment of The Week
Surely a contender for moment of the whole pandemic?
In other news, the Duchess of Sussex won her court case this week against the Mail on Sunday for publishing a private letter which she sent to her father, Thomas Markle. Declaring "we have all won", Meghan claimed victory in both parts of the privacy lawsuit - she really is the People's Princess.
Also on home turf, the decline of the high street continued with the sale of Dorothy Perkins, Burton, and Wallis to online retailer Boohoo, completing the breakup of Sir Philip Green's Arcadia group after they sold Topman, Topshop, and Miss Selfridge to ASOS last week. None of the stores will reopen, as the shift to online retail marches on.
The government promised an extra £3.5 billion to remove unsafe cladding, following criticism about the poor response to the Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people in 2017. Despite buildings with unsafe cladding being permitted by the government, it is now shifting the cost onto home-owners who have unknowingly bought unsafe, and now unsellable homes. Any owner below 18 metres will have cover the cost of replacing the cladding, which the government is generously offering to give out long-term loans for, saddling people with lifelong debt instead of immediate bankruptcy. The lack of empathy is astounding.
Across the pond, headlines were dominated by the second impeachment trial of Home Alone 2 cameo star Donald J. Trump. Despite the Senate voting 57-43 against the former steak salesman, he was acquitted of inciting violence as the two-thirds threshold required for prosecution was not met. In perhaps the least surprising news of the week, most Republican Senators voted to save their own skins and get re-elected in pro-Trump states rather than stand up against terrorism and violence. Who would have thought.
Competition time now! Think you can capture enough carbon over the next four years to save humanity from an impending climate crisis? You could win a whopping $100 million courtesy of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk if your method is proven to reverse the effects of two centuries worth of planet-destroying. Good luck everyone...
Over in Mother Russia, protests continued about the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, after he was detained following his return to the country from Germany, where he was being treated after being poisoned with Novichok by the Kremlin. Something tells me Supreme Leader Putin doesn't fancy Mr Navalny much?
On the sports pitch, England's cricketers won the first test against India by 227 runs in Chennai after a superb all-round performance, including a double hundred from Joe Root and a dominant fourth-innings bowling effort from Jack Leach. The second test, which started yesterday, does not seem to be going quite as well, as India look to level the series 1-1.
Finally, in what was unquestionably the most shocking collaboration of the year so far, Heinz and Weetabix put out this monstrosity on Twitter, sparking anger and dismay from many:
Do they not realise how tough the last year has been for all of us? The pure malice, the sadistic cruelty of subjecting our eyes to this horror. How have we, as a species, descended this far...
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