A merica has gone properly mad. When I read that the world’s richest dog is selling his mansion in Miami for $32 million I thought, “maybe there’s life in the American dream yet” – but events in Wisconsin suggest otherwise. On Aug 23 2020, local police shot a black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back, leaving him paralysed below the waist.

Protests broke out. Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old white kid in a different state (albeit just 30 minutes away by car), turned up with his buddies to defend property, armed with an assault-style rifle. In the course of what became a riot, he shot two men dead and left a third injured. Last week, a jury found him not guilty on all counts.

By the rules of the culture war, I’m supposed to pick a side, but both seem detached from reality. Rittenhouse wasn’t needed that night (the police were out in force) and to turn up to a riot with a military-style gun (which he wasn’t old enough to buy but was legally allowed to carry) was dangerously irresponsible; no doubt protesters thought he posed a threat. It’s hard to imagine how he could kill two people and not do time for at least something. Harder still to imagine a black boy being shown such leniency.

But here’s the thing: there was no direct racial angle to this case. The American media tried to make it all about race, with such success that several foreign media outlets reported that Rittenhouse had shot “three black men”. He didn’t. They were white. One of them, a convicted sex offender, was using the “n” word and asking people to shoot him. Though his girlfriend believed he had taken his meds that morning, she noted that he couldn’t fill his prescriptions because the protests forced the nearest pharmacy to close.

Normally, I abhor televised trials, but the benefit of following this one was that the viewer could compare and contrast how the media presented the case vs what was happening in the courtroom. The judge was soft on Rittenhouse, said the pundits; probably a Trump supporter because his ring tone was “God Bless the USA”.

In fact, Judge Schroder is known generally for being pro-defendant and his objections to the prosecution were procedural – indeed conservative viewers got a crash course in how underhanded and inept US prosecutors can be. The case weakened significantly when one witness admitted that Rittenhouse shot him after he had pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse, while video clearly showed one of the dead men hitting Rittenhouse with a skateboard. By a strict interpretation of self-defence, the jury had no choice but to acquit – yet even after a court cleared the boy, liberals were still calling him a “murderer” and even a “white supremacist”, an allegation for which there is simply no evidence.

Joe Biden, who is also accused of calling Rittenhouse racist in a campaign ad, said he stood by the jury verdict but was “angry” about it, which gets to the heart of what’s going so wrong. It should be possible to disagree over politics but respect the process: now, if you dislike an election result, you cry fraud, and if you resent a verdict, you accuse the entire judicial system of racism. Narrative trumps facts. The liberals’ story is that America is a fascist regime; riots are a symptom of injustice that, on some level, citizens must accept; and the real law-and- order issue isn’t the people causing criminal damage in a poor part of town but the spectre of a white militia that is simultaneously terrifying and comical.

Another popular myth, repeated by a congresswoman on TV, is that Rittenhouse was given a lift to the riot by his mother. Trace it back. Politicians shouldn’t have exploited this case. Rittenhouse should have stayed home that night. The cops shouldn’t have shot Jacob Blake. Blake, who was wanted for sexual assault, trespass and disorderly conduct, should have got his life together. There’s a spiral of error, sin and stupidity on show that defies narratives of Left and Right.

It has become impossible to hire a handyman

I fear the dog story might be fake news, too. The line reported by countless outlets is that Gunther VI, a German shepherd, inherited his Tuscan-style property in Florida from an endowment first established by Princess Karlotta Liebenstein, a human being, in 1992. The New York Post, however, reports that the story is nonsense, invented to attract interest in a reality TV show. I tell this to Bertie, my own dog, in hope of lowering his expectations.

Bert is the sole heir to a two-bed flat in Kent with damp and bookshelves that are falling off the walls. I employed a builder to fix the place up but he never got round to it. That was in February. Last week, two separate joiners came over to look at the shelves but, as of writing, neither has even sent me a quote.

No one seems to need or want work in this county, which means I face the grim prospect of doing this stuff myself. I have already tried to hang three pictures in a row: not one is in alignment with the other and the furniture is covered in plaster. It would be easier to burn the property down and collect the insurance.

Upon the arrival of a new desk, Bert made such a fuss of the delivery man that he followed him into the street and attempted to leave with him in his van. This was humiliating, but I guess he feels I’m not providing the lifestyle he deserves.