Wednesday 14 September 2016

It’s Just Not British

What caught my eye yesterday was the you-couldn’t-make-it-up story about one Louise Raw who was angered by a pie. Yep, a pie. It seems pie are no longer just squared, they are also racist. Think about this for a moment; racist pie. What next, misogynist mousse, sexist soufflé? It can surely only be a matter of hours before it is all blamed on Brexit and the referendum results overturned, the Gregorian calendar returned to Julian and all the brown people relocated in their mud huts. Then and only then will the outrage brigade be satisfied. What am I saying; they will never be satisfied.

It’s only the frivolity of this idiotic offence-seeking that has taken the edge off the worst thing to happen to Britain in a generation. Yes, Bake Off is fucking off to Channel 4, minus its most important ingredients – Mel & Sue. Okay, I admit I’ve never watched it but ‘er indoors is actually incapable of functioning without it, as are millions of others. It can only be a matter of time before reports of various fragile conditions being triggered begin to overwhelm the emergency services. “Hello, ma’am, police here. What seems to be the problem? Not rising, you say? We’ll despatch an armed biscotti unit immediately.”

I’ve almost finished reading Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling, his affectionate follow up to Notes From a Small Island and even Bill, while still clearly in love with the dear old thing, knows that she’s lost the plot. The mostly calm, understated, stoic and tolerant land of just forty years ago has become a rabid, frothing extremist; a placard-wielding, social justice tribal warrior with the intellect of a slug, the energy of a slug and the charisma of... you get the picture. Vibrancy is one of those attractively-sounding attributes that turns out to just means noise. See also, multiculturalism

We British used to be fascinatingly dull on the surface with all the fervour buttoned up and hidden away; maybe this is how we were able to sneak up on history and ambush it so often. As small boys we were being trained for empire and those woggles, toggles and tabs in our Baden Powell socks hid a determination to succeed. Hell, we even openly carried knives, without any public outrage, so that come what may we were always prepared. No stick left un-whittled. But put all that enthusiasm on the surface and we’re no better than Johnny Foreigner, with all their public displays of emotion.

Remember, Remember Empire Day, the 24th of May

And today they are sticking the knife in David Cameron, a perfectly honourable man with honest intentions and a sense of humour, to boot. What happened to quietly and methodically eradicating all traces of your predecessor without drawing too much attention to it all? Nah, you can stuff your progress and your vibrancy where the sun never sets. Let’s resurrect Empire Day... because it is something to be proud of. Slice of pie, anybody?

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