From Boris Johnson’s flailing government to wrinkle-fighting bras, we’re living in a state of endless confusion

I’ve spent the past week in a state of confusion, I think we all have. In fact, come to think of it, for the past few years the entire country seems to have been blundering around, ricocheting off the walls, tripping over the furniture, talking rubbish and making a hash of everything.

Last week, Boris Johnson tried to pretend to a man who collared him in a hospital corridor that his accompanying camera crew didn’t exist, only they obviously did because the whole incident was seen on our screens. Meanwhile, David Cameron got muddled on Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield’s This Morning and ended up saying he “shat” when he first saw the big red “Vote Leave” bus. He meant that he “shouted” but they all dissolved into sofa giggles anyway, because what else can you do?

My own usual feelings of discombobulation were further exacerbated by a series of small personal upsets that left me floundering helplessly. It began with a picture on the internet of a bra/harness contraption that promised to alleviate a wrinkly cleavage. But hold on, cleavage is a wrinkle. In fact, it’s one big wrinkle, and if you alleviate it, then what have you got?

Advertised on Amazon as “an anti-wrinkle chest/breast pillow pad bra”, the device looked like a large incontinence thong had been strung between the cups of a normal bra which, apparently, if worn through the night helps to reduce and prevent the devastating effects of “side sleeping”. Hmm, what are men going to do about their devastating testicle wrinkles then? Are they going to start sleeping with a ball hammock tucked between their legs?

Anyway, not long after I’d witnessed the “bra pillow” spectacle my WiFi crashed out. I think it had seen a terrible thing and couldn’t cope anymore. Obviously, at this point I did what any sane person would do. I hid under the duvet and counted to a million, because that normally helps. Only this time it didn’t and eventually after giving myself an anti-hysteria slap I ended up on the EE helpline talking to a very nice young man called Ethan.

Ethan suggested I stick a pin into a minute hole at the bottom of my router, only I couldn’t find a pin so I used a diamante brooch and did as I was told, after all, we were dealing with technology and if someone who knows what they’re talking about tells you to stand on one leg and whistle “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”, then that’s what you do. Had Ethan told me to wear a bra pillow, I would have done so.

Sadly, the pin trick didn’t work, I could feel the tears pricking, but Ethan held me steady. “It’s actually a fault at the exchange,’’ he told me soothingly, “They’re working on it and it will be fixed by the end of the day.” Ethan’s mother should be very proud of him, he acted like a responsible adult, he was clear and calm and didn’t leave his post. Listen, he could have put me on hold and I could still be listening to “Opus Number One” (the world’s most common phone hold music) three weeks later, but no, by 6pm I had my WiFi back, and it felt like being reborn.

Technology has us all clamped firmly between its monster thighs and it’s a love-hate thing, especially for those of us who haven’t a clue how it works and whose first reaction when faced with a digital form to fill in via an online “portal” is to go to the lavatory for a very long time.

And I know it’s not just me, my twitter timeline came out in sympathy to my technical woes this week with one woman admitting that in an attempt to switch off the child-locks in the back of the car, she had got stuck in the back of the car herself and had to scramble over into the front in order to escape the vehicle.

The trouble with life at the moment is that none of us mere mortals really know how to fix anything and there aren’t enough experts around who can. If I can’t get my wireless headphones to swap from my phone to my iPad so that I can watch Interior Design Challenge on a train, then how are we going to sort out the really big messes, the life and death stuff? There aren’t enough Ethans: we are drastically short of s*** sorters.

What we have instead are a load of blithering idiots – and I know this for a fact because I’m one of them. No one has the faintest clue as to what on earth to do next. Johnson has the same look in his eyes as I have when people start talking about Bluetooth options. He’s baffled, we’re all baffled, if only we could stick a pin in the bottom of the country and simply restore the whole thing to its original factory settings. But sadly that’s not possible and instead we are stuck forever going round in circles and feeling increasingly sick of it all.