These are the days of José and Priti. All I can think about is survival

Monday

There was a time whenever I felt ill, I would diagnose myself with something fatal. I once managed to spoil an entire Christmas by insisting I had mad cow disease – an episode that ended with admission to a mental hospital. (Thereby proving my point, I thought.) Curiously, now I’m of an age when any symptoms are more likely to be serious, I find my hypochondria has morphed into hypochondria by proxy. It may yet be another form of projection or denial – life skills, I call them – but I spend more time worrying about others dying than I do about myself pegging out.

My current obsession is our dog. Herbie is now eight years old, which means that statistically he probably only has between four and six years left. Traditionally dog years have been measured as seven human years, making Herbie still (just) younger than me. But scientists at the University of California havecome up with a more accurate formula for determining a dog’s age based on the rate molecules are added to its DNA.

Using this model of multiplying the natural logarithm of a dog’s age by 16 and adding 31 (you’ll have to take this on trust as the maths is beyond me), Herbie was apparently the equivalent of 30 in human years by the age of one. By the age of four, he was into his early 50s and is now well into his mid 60s. The only plus side to this, according to the graph, is that the rate of ageing in dogs slows significantly the older they get. Should Herbie make it to 14 in human years, he will still only be just over 70. Which makes me wonder why dogs don’t actually live a great deal longer.

I also can’t help feeling that I may actually be on an inverse ageing curve to my dog. For years, I still vaguely felt as if I was in my 40s even when I was in my 50s. Now time seems to have raced past and I feel like I have caught up with my real age of 63. The trick is – like Herbie – to try and get time to stand still from now on.

Tuesday

For the ITV leaders’ debate, the media were parked in a side studio with a giant TV screen at one end from which we could follow the Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn exchanges taking place just a few metres away next door. The debate itself proved to be something of a non-event. The lasting memory was the contemptuous laughter from the audience directed at both politicians. The real fun kicked in once the programme was over and both Labour and the Tories wheeled out members of the cabinet and shadow cabinet into the spin room to try to convince everyone that their man had won.

To be honest, they might as well have got it over and done with long before the debate had started. They’d have said much the same thing and they could have all gone out to dinner. I am beginning to wonder, though, if someone at Conservative campaign headquarters doesn’t have it in for the Tory chairman, James Cleverly. James isn’t the sharpest mind in the cabinet – and we’re including Liz Truss, Priti Patel and Matt Hancock in this – yet he is always sent out to be ripped apart by Emily Maitlis on Newsnight. Next time James, just say no. You’ll feel a lot better about yourself.

Wednesday

Ten minutes before the start of the election debates I got a message that Spurs had sacked their manager, Mauricio Pochettino. The news did not come as a total surprise as Tottenham have been fairly rubbish all season – something I have found vaguely reassuring as there is nothing worse than going to a game with a sense of hope. But I did have a feeling of loss. Pochettino has been by far the best manager the club has had in decades. But Poch’s departure was nothing compared to the announcement that Jose Mourinho was to replace him. It’s as if Spurs have gone out of their way to piss off every fan. Even though we haven’t won anything other than a League Cup this century, we always considered ourselves lucky not to have been managed by Mourinho, whose negative style of football and hatred of young players was the opposite of everything we held dear.

It seems odd for Tottenham to have declared that the club’s hand was forced because “the dressing-room had become toxic” only to appoint a manager with a track record of leaving every club a far more toxic place than he found it. Mourinho says he wants to spread the love and that he is a reformed character. But apparently he also said that to Manchester United before he helped tip them into a downward spiral.

I guess I may eventually warm to Mourinho if we win something – blood being thicker than water and all that – but right now I’d have settled for relegation under Poch. Weirdly, I still count the season Spurs spent in the second division in the late 70s as among my happiest footballing memories. At least then there was a nobility – a purity – to the suffering. The thought of Mourinho makes me feel a little grubby.

Thursday

I’m not sure how Prince Andrew could ever have imagined his Newsnight interview was going to end well for him, but it couldn’t have been timed better for the arrival of the third series of The Crown. Series 16 promises to be a cracker. My wife and I pulled several late nights binge-watching the first two series, but so far we have felt oddly disengaged with the new one and are only two episodes in. The production values are still as high as ever but the dialogue just feels a bit clunky and Olivia Colman, an actor whom I adore, feels slightly miscast as the Queen. There’s just too much mischief going on under the surface. Still, hopefully things will pick up soon. Prince Andrew was rather less helpful for the Lib Dems. At the very moment they were holding their manifesto launch, the prince announced he was withdrawing from public life. Thereby ensuring they got very little news coverage. Though that might have been for the best, as the launch was somewhat underwhelming. It took place in a club in Camden market where my then 17-year-old’s son’s band played their first gig to an audience of about 20. It also turned out to be one of their last gigs. Jo Swinson gave a 15-minutes speech in which she said she didn’t think she was going to be prime minister after all, and left the stage as a wind machine blew strips of silver foil into one corner of the room. This is rapidly becoming the weirdest election I have ever covered.

Friday

It never occurred to me at the time that one day I might look back at some politicians, such as Jim Callaghan, Roy Jenkins, Michael Heseltine and John Major, with a sense of regret at their departure. Hell, right now I’d settle for William Hague and Gordon Brown. But I would be astonished if many of the current frontbench teams of both parties, with the possible exception of Keir Starmer, will be missed. If we’ve reached a point in 10 or 20 years’ time when 2019 is remembered as a golden age of British politicians, then truly the country will be on its knees. In Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn we have leaders whose defining feature is that most people don’t really trust them. And they look like colossi compared with some of those around them. What has the UK done to deserve Patel as home secretary? A woman who was fired by Theresa May for running her own foreign policy, wants to bring back hanging, and apparently believes that poverty is no concern of government. Or Jacob Rees-Mogg who has been locked in a cupboard at CCHQ after saying Grenfell residents were too stupid to save themselves. Still, I am more relaxed about the chaos than I was a week or so ago. Mainly because I have managed to stockpile another stash of medication, so there is less chance of me ending up in a catatonic state, unable to get out of bed for three months. What happens at the end of February if the NHS still has its reported drug shortages is a problem for later. Right now I’m concentrating on surviving a day at a time.

Digested week: One is not amused.

John Crace’s new book, Decline and Fail: Read in Case of Political Apocalypse, is published by Guardian Faber. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.