Allegorical

Here we are at the junction. The way ahead is blocked; it has been blocked for some time. Actually it’s not really blocked so much as rejected. We had a vote and decided we didn’t want to go to bloody Wolverhampton anyway; whose original idea was that? Seriously, when we started to plan our little away-day nobody thought that the road would lead us to one of the most deprived backwaters of the country. Plus, we spent a fortune thinking we were hiring a luxury air conditioned super-coach but here we are in this rattly, draughty minibus, the cab filling up with fumes as we idle at the crossroads.

Staying put isn’t an option – the lights will soon change, there are cars queueing behind and if we don’t make a decision the situation could get ugly. Not to mention we could all die of carbon monoxide poisoning. So come on, which way? Half the bus wants to go left, down an apparently pleasant road but one which peters out, becomes a gravel track and ends up with us bogged down in a muddy field, eating each other to survive. The other half of them are hankering for the wide open dual carriageway which leads almost anywhere.

The options are many, but it means more decisions and some people are so fed up with the whole thing that they’d almost rather carry straight on to bloody Wolverhampton and death by more-of-the-same. “At least we know what Wolverhampton has to offer.” they plead, but you can see they’re not entirely convinced. They know that the open road is an unexplored vastness with all sorts of possibilities but reject it in favour of dull, dull conformity. “We don’t know what we’d be voting for.” they argue; an argument that falls on deaf ears because seven to six we want to go left or right. Maybe we should toss a coin?

No, wait, we already did that... ages ago; so long ago it’s as if everybody forgot.  The coin said turn right, so why are we now arguing that toss? Surely, rather than repeating the whole tossing business we should just get on with implementing the decision? Now what’s happening? Oh, right the cross lights are changing, passing traffic is stopping and all the cars stacked up behind us are waiting to see what we do. Into gear, clutch out, slowly creep forwa... bugger, stalled. As the horns begin to blare we struggle to re-start and, too late, the lights are back on red.

Get on with it

Trump is president, whatever you feel about him. He is determined to push ahead. Theresa May is the only Prime Minister we have; whether that will last for much longer is up in the air. The elections are over, the referendum coin was tossed long ago. The presidential seat is occupied. But we can all be winners if, instead of arguing destructively over why we shouldn’t have chosen what we chose, we accept the way the coin fell and just get on with it. Sometimes, proceeding with a hasty plan is better than no plan at all; and it is always better to work together instead of stabbing each other in the back.