Everything that happened in just the first week of 2021

When the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve the majority of the planet would have breathed a collective sigh of relief and thought ‘thank goodness 2020 is over.’

What was largely perceived as the worst year ever, was in the history books and we could all look forward to health and prosperity in whatever the next 12 months had in store. However, it would appear that 2021 had different ideas in store for us all.

The first few days of this year already have us longing for the greener pastures of 2020 when Covid-19 was the only thing that many of us had to worry. Well, that’s still around and is causing more distress than before and then there is Donald Trump. Even when the man only has a few days left in office, he’s still finding more ways to be as outrageous as ever.

Those are just two examples of what has already been a completely unpredictable year and there is a lot more where that came from.

Brexit happened and some people were annoyed that they couldn’t do the things that they used to do inside the EU

Yes, the true cost of Brexit is becoming abundantly clear to everyone and the one’s that are feeling the true cost are apparently the people who voted for it. Take for instance this woman’s parent’s who voted leave, moved to Spain and then found out that they couldn’t watch Sky television anymore.

A similar thing happened to Premier League manager Sam Allardyce of West Bromwich Albion who had previously boasted about being a Brexiteer but didn’t realise it might effect the way that club’s buy players. Oh dear…

A man was dubbed ‘Bean Dad’ went viral after making his young daughter struggle for hours with a can opener

Just three days into the year and the internet had already crowned its most infamous celebrity of the year. Musician John Roderick accidentally went viral after sharing a gigantic Twitter thread about how had had made his hungry 9-year-old daughter struggle to open a can of beans for six hours. 

Twitter was not impressed with this and Roderick deleted his account shortly afterwards and has since apologised.

Trump asked official in Georgia to fix the election for him

Trump’s first big scandal of the year (yes, there are more than one) saw a leaked phone conversation with him and several others including Georgia’s Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger. In the hour long phone call Trump asked the officials to find 11, 780 votes that would swing the results in the state in his favour. This unbelievable demand by the president caused outrage but was also turned into a fun song from the musical Rent. You really do have to take the good with the bad in these situations.

The UK went into a third lockdown as a new strain of coronavirus spread rapidly

In another unprecedented u-turn the UK government was forced to put the country into another nationwide lockdown as a newer, far more contagious strain of coronavirus caused havoc resulting in record daily case numbers. Given everything that had happened in 2020, most people were used to it by now and could only react with jokes.

Ivanka Trump tagged Meat Loaf in a picture of her dad for no apparent reason

Sorry, we still don’t have any answer as to how this happened other than the president and the ‘Bat out of Hell’ singer had similar Twitter handles.

Republicans lost the Georgia run-off elections handing the Senate to the Democrats

After losing the presidential election, Republicans suffered another huge blow in the Georgia run-off election on 6th January as Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff triumphed over their opponents to hand the Senate to the Democrats for the first time since 2015. Everyone felt very sorry for former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Trump supporters attempt an coup by storming the Capitol Building

In one of the darkest days in US history, thousands of Trump supporters descended upon Washington DC and forcibly entered the Capitol Building where Senators were debating the electoral college results before certifying Joe Biden as the next president. The mob, which was armed with flags and weapons (including an explosive device), stole items from the building and managed to enter the chamber as well as Nancy Pelosi’s office. Five people died as a result of the violence. Hundreds of Republican’s condemned the violence but Trump was slow to act and eventually tried to distance himself from any blame. Perhaps the most shocking element of the entire event was the stark contrast of treatment of those involved in the riot, compared the peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in the summer.

Rudy Giuliani contacted the wrong Senator when trying to get them to delay Biden’s certification

On the same days as the riots, Rudy Giuliani (the year isn’t even a month old and of course Rudy has put his foot in it) attempted to contact Republican senator Tommy Tuberville to ask him to do whatever he could during the electoral college debate to delay proceedings. The only problem was that Trump’s lawyer managed to contact completely the wrong senator who then leaked the phone call.

Brexiteer group has to move to Ireland to keep their name

Leave.EU, the prominent Brexit group founded by Arron Banks and formerly associated with Nigel Farage, found themselves with egg on their faces when they discovered they could no longer use their .EU domain name outside of the European Union. Their only alternative was to rejoin the EU and move to Ireland. Oh, the irony.

Donald Trump is banned from Twitter

In maybe the one story that was long overdue, Twitter finally pulled the plug on Trump’s account in order too prevent any further incitement of violence. Trump was permanently banned from the platform and has also seen restrictions enforced upon him and anyone supporting his baseless claims of voter fraud or supporting violence. by Facebook, YouTube and Amazon, to name but a few. For many it was a chance to celebrate as the biggest villain of the last four years finally had one of his most powerful tools taken from him and yes, there were lots of jokes.

All of this happened in just one week and we sincerely hope that the rest of 2021 is a little calmer as we don’t think we handle another seven days like this again. Please? Anyone…

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