Beatrix Potter followed Peter Rabbit with Squirrel Nutkin, Benjamin Bunny and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.

My local cinema is following Peter Rabbit with Peter Rabbit 2.

Peter "wisecracks like Bugs Bunny," says a review in The NY Times. I think that's a comment on one of the films, not the original story.

Original. Now there's a word.

This is what the breakdown of law and order feels like.

Man attacks woman. Woman reports crime. System fails to do anything - but does want details of the woman's sexual history.

We legislate for equality; we have feminism; there's #MeToo among other lessons of history.

The breakdown of law and order isn't a sudden riot, any more than a global pandemic is suddenly zombies on the streets.

Seems to me that no matter what we do, we can't stop the system failing. The legal system isn't capable of handling rape cases effectively, even in today's climate of opinion. The overall system isn't saving us from anything.

Re: the pandemic. We've switched to the word "variant" from "mutation" because it's softer. We don't want to offend India, so it's the "Delta" variant we're facing now.

Re: climate change. "The G7 nations have agreed to step up action on climate change" (BBC News, 4 days ago), thereby adding an "agreement" to all the "targets" of - wait, how long ago?

Re: Rape. In two years, some courts in England and Wales will be allowed to switch on the evidence-recording equipment that all courts already have installed.

Oh, and courts will be encouraged to focus on the suspect's behaviour rather than the victim's. "Ah, but she was wearing a short skirt" will cease to be the issue; "He's been attacking women for years" will matter more. I can remember that being an issue a century ago.

What happens next? My guess is, more of the same but with added media releases to say that lessons have been learned. Then more of the same.

Then, eventually, not the collapse of the system but the decline into irrelevance of the system. They're all useless. We have to look after ourselves.

Any worthwhile social movement has to start from the understanding that people can't be led. Nor consistently inspired. Neither conviction nor idealism can be shared from one head to the next, let alone from one head to a crowd.

You can lead some of the people to the barricades, for some of their time. But you can't keep them there, nor direct where they go next. Leaders fall; regimes collapse; bills fall due; milk boils over; babies cry; dogs bark; caravans move on; all the while, ideals are eroded by the day-to-day pragmatism of living.

Abstract agreements are no basis for action. Yes, things "should" be different, and more importantly, could be different. But there is no automatic right to have them made different, nor to impose difference.

There is no mind so closed as a mind that believes itself open. And liberal. And benign.