Ground Control to Major John

All Brexiteers are racists and narrow-minded bigots, blind to the catastrophe that leaving the European Union will bring. Incapable of listening to reason they will drag the country in concrete boots to the cliff’s edge and hurl it off into the abyss. They will willingly pull up the drawbridge and have no further participation in the world, reducing The United Kingdom to an agrarian, subsistence economy in which electricity and the Internet will be legends of old and the prospect of travel beyond these shores unthinkable.

Medicines will quickly run out and starvation will blight all communities outside the M25. Those inside will survive by cannibalism and soon the rotting corpses will pile up, foul the water supply and herald the return of the black death, cholera, smallpox and perpetual plagues of boils and suppurating sores. We will all die slowly, horribly, grinding our teeth in xenophobic hatred even as we draw our last, wheezy, shallow, asthmatic breaths.

I think that was the gist of John Major’s speech; it’s hard to be precise because his carefully chosen words were so nuanced, so subtle, so... oh, what’s the word? My feeble lexicon fails me. Basically, though, we’re all too thick to understand and even if we could grasp what he says we would be unable to act on it, so wedded are we to the cause of self-harm. He says we need to offer ‘a little more charm, and a lot less cheap rhetoric’. Oh look, said the pot...

But thanks, Big John, for so condescendingly summarising the contempt in which the high and mighty of the establishment hold us. You may not have noticed – you are far too nuanced and subtle – but this is no small part a major contributory reason for voting out. The more we are berated by the likes of John Major, Tony Blair and the miserable worm, Michael Heseltine, the more our conviction that independence is the right way is strengthened.

For those of us over a certain age it is unthinkable that a British former Prime Minister could even think to castigate a desire for freedom; have they no sense of history? If it had been made clear to the public what membership would eventually come to mean we would never have joined, but no, this was kept from us even when we began to suspect it. That’s when the insults began; we were narrow-minded bigots if we thought to voice doubts about the irreparable changes that were happening.

Major's legacy...

Once, a British leader would seek to emphasise how we were of one nation, of one mind and remind us of Britain’s pivotal place in the world. Now they attempt to scupper our future prospects by pouring cold water on our instinct for self-determination and in the process they claim statesmanship, gravitas and superior morals. But nobody is listening; It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Maybe Major thinks he will be remembered for his principled stance and believed his intervention will save us from ourselves. I have a feeling that when it is over, all he will be remembered for is shagging Edwina Currie.

Perfect

According to Genesis: ‘God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky [and] over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image [and] said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” On the seventh day he rested from all his work.’

Maybe if he hadn’t been such a workshy gadfly, god could have spent a bit more time on his least perfect creation, the one supposedly made in his image. Because, frankly, as a species we’re a bit shit. Or did man not copy down the lord’s words verbatim? Are we, or are we not made in the image of the perfect, omnipotent being? Or is this just yet another example of a boo-boo made by those who actually believe all this; yet more flawed thinking by the ‘prove god doesn’t exist’ cadre?

Maybe a better approach to persuading those who have heard the inner voice to return to Planet Earth is the argument; okay, say he does exist, but look around you. He’s made a right fuck up of all this; why would you want to even believe in him, let alone worship him? And.. what? He’s saying “Kill them all”? Why, that’s perfectly rational. Has he a reason? Oh, I see, just kill the ones who don’t believe in him? And the logic of all this is rational... how?

Most of us live with our imperfections and manage to cope with the disappointments that sentience brings. Every other species seems to manage by simply getting on with their limited scope of activity; eat, sleep, procreate and repeat. Imagine a sheep that didn’t like grass; imagine a seal that didn’t like fish. But humans are never satisfied and our quest for meaning makes us dream up stories to sate our curiosity and where that doesn’t do the trick we take things apart to see how they work... and when we still don’t know, we create more gods so we have somebody to blame.

The god of Twitter must have been facepalming like crazy as one made in lazy-god’s image had an almighty meltdown over the weekend. We all know how Twitter works. Lily Allen especially, knows how Twitter works, but once again she broke it to such an extent that it made the national news. Of course, in the modern era we don’t always have to take things apart to fix them; sometimes they just need a reset. Maybe we should turn Lily Allen off and then back on again. On second thoughts, scrap that last bit.

Bless You!

There’s a daft joke, relying on a homophone, that I trot out from time to time. It goes: “I am happily acquainted with twenty-five letters of the alphabet... I just don’t know why.” Boom-boom. I’m sure with a little re-wording it could be adapted to draw attention to the plight of another letter, because today there is a great chance that a whole generation will grow up being entirely unfamiliar with the complexities of you.

One of the vocal affectations which separates north from south in spoken English is the pronunciation of this tricky letter. In the north it is hard and uncompromising, in the south its sound is often closer to a distorted ‘A’. Try saying bus; do you say U as in cushion [ʊ], or U as cup [ʌ]? This particular north/south divide is thought to date back around three hundred years and like the short or long A in grass, path and bath is an instant identifier of geographic origins.

As a teenager at university I came into contact with people who spoke as I had only previously heard on the television and perceived the soft bigotry of the confident southerner towards the lumbering backward northerner; in telly land, northern accents although by no means rare were nonetheless treated as a comical curiosity and often signalled, shall we say, a somewhat less incisive intellect. How you sounded your vowels, it seemed, might be the key to fitting in.

For New Zealanders this isn’t a problem; I have heard it said they only have the one, but that’s not true. I’ve definitely heard at least two. Mind you their antipodean neighbours do their best to compensate by cramming three or four into the single word ‘no’. And should the dying refrain from the theme song of Melbourne’s most famous show be fed into a sonic analyser I’m confident you’ll discover at least four vowel sounds in ‘friends’. They just don’t care, do they?

But over here it’s a minefield. One day, trying to sound sophisticated I walked [spoke] right into the classic trap; a bird in the hand is worth two in the, er, bʌsh. Everybody stopped talking and turned to look at me. The sky darkened, the room temperature dropped a few degrees and I swear a frost started to creep across the window pane. I thought I was to be banished from the Junior Common Room, except it wasn’t that posh a university.

Now, of course, such words present no problem at all, the uncertainty of how to pronounce words like bʊsh and bʊk are solved by the ubiquitous cop-out of using the anodyne ‘er’ rather than making the effort to get it right. Even on the BBC, former guardians of linguistic precision, I regularly hear discussion of ‘berks’ on ‘A Good Read’ and ‘bershes’ to be trimmed on ‘Gardeners’ Question Time. (I confess, I listen to Radio 4 a lot.) I suggest you all bookmark howjsay and use it whenever you feel the need to ‘go Kiwi’ and resort to a universal, neither-here-nor-there, nondescript, beige grunt instead of making the effort.

And while I’m about it, who made the decision to drop the longer sound of ‘the’ when preceding a vowel? ‘Thee’ apple, ‘the’ boat; it’s not so hard is it? Now, off you go and have a lovely Sunday. Read a book, trim your bush and have a nice cup of tea.

The Old Flame

So, as most of us expected, the dodgy Paul Nuttall easily snatched defeat from the erstwhile jaws of victory in the Stoke by-election and once again, nobody cares what happens in that benighted former industrial region. Nuttall, like so many in politics, has a view of reality – and of himself – which is at odds with what those who have to live with political decisions see. The other explanation is, of course, that as a Scouser he'd do anything to avoid having  job.

This week journalist Ian Dunt, who makes habit of seizing upon the wrong end of the zeitgeist wrote about Brexit in his usual alarmist way. Trotting out the usual guff about how very stupid the majority of voters are he paints a vision of a doomed Britain, post immigration without ever considering the possibility that he may be wrong. Delusions of self-importance and omniscience have a habit of tripping up such seers; you never, for instance, see two economists agreeing with a prognosis yet they’ll claim to have foreseen the apocalypse... after it happens.

Then there is the curious case of Trevor Phillips, who has undergone something of a partial-sighted epiphany of late as he lambasts the race relations industry for its former zeal and cack-handedness. Having spent many years at the forefront of the burgeoning hurt industry, fuelling the fires of malcontent, now that they have roared into lusty life he adopts a haughty told you so attitude. Except, no, Trevor, we told you so. Political correctness has gone mad, he writes. No, it was sectioned long ago, and pretending you weren’t part of what made it crazy is disingenuous to an extent that may itself be a form of insanity.

But none of us are immune to a touch of self-delusion and it doesn’t take a lot to flatter us into seeing a version of ourselves at variance with the evidence. But not me; I have my feet on the ground, which, curiously, reminds me of a conversation I had yesterday. I received a phone call from a gorgeous ex-girlfriend who got in touch, out-of-the-blue, to see if I was still around and to catch up. We lost track of time, chatting about the wild, romantic days we used to enjoy together. I couldn't believe my good fortune when she - a former glamour model - asked if I'd be interested in meeting up and rekindling a bit of that old magic.

Well I was a little taken aback. “I don't know if I could keep pace with you now”, I said,

“I'm a bit older and a bit greyer and my hair is a lot thinner than when you last saw me. Plus these days, I don't really have the energy I used to have.” She just giggled and with a flirty tone said she was sure I would ‘rise to the challenge’. She always had a way of arousing my interest and with that encouragement I have to admit I was up for it.

But I like to think I have a certain robust honesty and more than a little self-doubt. So I went along with the idea, but made sure to prepare her for the encounter. “Just so long as you don't mind a waistline that's a few inches wider than the old days” I said, “not to mention my total lack of muscle tone. “ I continued, half expecting her to put the phone down on me, “Everything is sagging, my teeth are a bit yellow now... and I am developing the jowls of a bulldog. I look like that Churchill on the insurance ads!”

She just laughed that familiar, tinkly laugh and told me to stop being so silly. There was life, she suggested, in the old dog yet. She teased me a little, saying that tubby, grey haired, 'mature' men were cute. I could picture her, twirling a lock of hair around her index finger. And then, in a breathy whisper she purred down the line that you never forget how to ride a bike and she was sure I would still be a great lover. I have to say, I was ready to close the deal. “Anyway,” she giggled, "I've put on a few pounds myself!”

So I told her to sod off.

Saint's Day

The canonisation of Saint Jo Cox appears to be complete. Not content with St Andrew’s Day, St David’s Day and the splendidly screwy St Paddy’s Day a new national day has been declared by people so determined to harvest every scrap of political capital they can wring from the increasingly frayed damp rag that is Brendan Cox’s public grief. They are proposing street parties to celebrate the diversity that she so heartily welcomed. I’ve heard of rubbing the right’s nose in it but isn’t this rather shoving everybody’s schnozz full of bullshit and sticking two fingers up to all who voted the other way?

Wait a minute though; street parties? Celebration? What is there to celebrate? Her side lost and badly so, because she represented much that has gone wrong in the west in recent decades. If anything Jo Cox Day should be adopted, Guy Fawkes-style, as a symbol of all we rejected. If she were alive today she would be vocal in resistance to the notion of making St George’s Day a public holiday in England, a recognition which some have campaigned for years to bring about. Jo Cox was no saint.

In fact, before her unnecessary – although some might say timely – murder (for, let’s not pretend it wasn’t a genuine horror) she was relatively unknown outside the Labour activist circle. Their brand of vibrant, multicultural insanity was part of what we voted to reject and even the national outrage at the event did not sway the ballot no matter how hard it was milked and how much we were publicly denounced for supposedly enabling her killer. Her real significance was minor and this prolonging of the agony is last gasp opportunism for those who refuse to face reality.

Although I, like many others, was not particularly moved by the death of Diana, Princess of Wales the country practically lost its mind when she died. The national and very public outpouring of genuine grief was marked by a profound absence of stoic British dignity and a descent into a maudlin fascination with other people’s private loss. But even after that sea of floral tributes, that public display of hurt, the demand for answers and the profound if short-lived slump in support for the Queen, which Blair and cronies exploited with ill-concealed glee, there is still no formal annual remembrance, even though she had the decency to pop her clogs on a Bank Holiday.

Compare and contrast...

Call me callous, but long after the strident attempts to revive a memory most of us have already filed under ‘who cares’ there is one event which will be a real cause for continued and genuine celebration. Forget calls for Diana Day, Stephen Lawrence Day, Madeleine McCann Day and Doris Day. Instead, if you really want to stir up sentiment, if you really want to rub some people’s noses in it and if you want to annually remind people of the national insanity we narrowly avoided, if you really want an annual celebration in June, then raise a glass to Brexit Day.