People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day. Today, so far, has been a great day: I woke up in the morning, got out of bed, and went to the bathroom, in that order!
While cooking my porridge, I listened to the news: more demonstrations about trans-gender women competing in women's sports. Remember that 'Not the Nine O’Clock News' sketch where Pamela Stephenson shocks everyone by agreeing with Mel Smith's plans for yob control – that the only solution was to 'cut off their goolies'? What a great idea!
There is so much else to demonstrate about (or against): communism, socialism, capitalism, Nazism, Fascism. Why, I'd even join them if they were demonstrating against rheumatism. We've tried democracy and clearly it hasn't worked. So let's give dictatorship a go. After all, Mussolini made those Italian trains run on time, Stalin really put Siberia on the map and Hitler did wonders for the documentary film channel.
Today are the State Elections and we can vote for either Dominic Tweedledee or Chris Tweedledum. Listening to their campaign speeches, I've concluded that LOL stands for 'Lots of lies'. It is claimed that a country gets the politicians it deserves. I'm struggling to identify just what it is we have done to be so undeserving. I did my postal voting weeks ago because what I thought of them couldn't be said out aloud.
(Of course, you have to be eighteen years old to be allowed to vote which is surprising since even a four-year-old can now already decide in kindergarten what sex he or she (or it) wants to be. Now that all of them have achieved marriage rights, they face the same moral quandary we did: should they have sex before marriage?)
Even Oxfam no longer just wants to save children; they now want to save our language as well by putting out a 92-page bizarre 'inclusive' language guide to their staff which warns against 'colonial' phrases such as 'headquarters', suggests 'local' may be offensive and says 'people' could be patriarchal. All the familiar rubbish is trotted out: 'parent' is preferable to 'mother' or 'father', and 'people who become pregnant' should be used instead of 'expectant mothers'. The introduction apologises for being written in and about the English language, saying: 'We recognise that this guide has its origin in English, the language of a colonising nation. We acknowledge the Anglo-supremacy of the sector as part of its coloniality.' [Sadly ‘coloniality’ is a real word — it's in the Oxford, recorded from 1862.] This absurd introduction goes on: 'This guide aims to support people who have to work and communicate in the English language as part of this colonial legacy. However, we recognise that the dominance of English is one of the key issues that must be addressed in order to decolonise our ways of working and shift power.' What will they do? Use sign language? I have just the sign for them!
(And now that 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' has been replaced with 'Baa Baa Little Sheep', I presume I have become the little sheep of the family. Still, it is refreshing to note that in the politically correct society we have created, we can still refer to a black hole in a financial context although I'd be happy to call it anything as long as I get out of it. As for changing the name of little Titty in Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" to a more politically correct Tatty, may I suggest that at a time when nouns and verbs are so often muddled together, it's become quite urgent to also give Roger the ship's boy a change of name.)
It's still early morning at "Riverbend". Padma has gone into the Bay to help a friend run a charity stall in the shopping centre, and I can look forward to a peaceful day. May there be many more days like this!
