As a nation we were once rightly recognised for our sense of humour, tolerance and our ability to forgive.
But in these modern times when political correctness is deemed more important than common sense, these characteristics are slowly being beaten out of us by a minute band of protagonists who must spend every waking hour gagging for the chance to criticise anyone who does not conform to their narrow minded view and miserable existence.
Peter Alliss is probably the greatest commentator who ever existed and is quite capable of painting in words a brilliant picture on a blank canvass. Hence his remark that “the wife of the eventual winner of the Open Golf at St Andrews could well be thinking she was in line for a new kitchen” was a quite superb piece of off the cuff journalism, no doubt enjoyed by millions of viewers, but ultimately highjacked by a handful of bored thumb twiddlers who really don’t know how to occupy their waking hours. If that remark was sexist then most of the English speaking world had better keep their mouths shut. Management would have throttled me decades ago! Pathetic, too, that the BBC felt the need to apologise.
The recent TV debates by the four candidates for the Labour leadership have been likened to “four bald men fighting over a comb.” This sums up in seven words the paucity of talent and lack of charisma of those who have been chosen to try to lead the Socialists back from the brink of extinction. Given my hair is falling out at quite a rate should I be taking exception to this bit of Tory propaganda and join the Monster Raving Looney Party? I really don’t know but please ask Len McCluskey, who has obviously got all the answers – let’s all go on strike and save the economy.
Our present government has proposed that the minimum wage be put up to just over £9 per hour. Not a bad idea that, as I have just worked out that the average livestock farmer will soon be earning £58,968 a year, less tax of course. This still doesn’t seem quite enough though, when the average tube driver is earning £50,000 for a 35 hour week with 47 days holiday per year, just for pushing a lever forward and minutes later pulling it back again. My simple maths equates their basic pay to £33.53 per hour and even now they are being encouraged to strike because it has been proposed that the underground be open for more hours per day to cater for the late night revellers. I imagine that this would enable more drivers to be employed on already bloated salaries. Do we really need union barons any more or are they merely in existence to remind the self employed just how downtrodden we are?
Children have been in formal education for at least two hundred years. Yet it amazes me that in these enlightened times there does not seem to be consensus on the best way to give our kids the chance of surviving and thriving in the twenty first century. I have it on the highest authority (her indoors) that from an early age children in the state system are taught via the national curriculum which dictates throughout the school year what is presented to the students hour by hour. By all accounts, the pupils are bored to tears because without doubt the teachers are bored to tears as well. Management has always maintained that you could keep any classroom of six year olds spellbound all day by taking into class a dead pigeon from which many topics could be discussed – nature, art, maths, family life, aviation, the food chain and so on. Although I am not a great example of the benefit of any education system I can confirm that despite being in boarding school from the age of four to 16, I emerged like a moth from a chrysalis, with O levels in English, Maths and Latin. What really miffs me though is that in those dark days of schooling in the fifties, nobody taught me how to put a condom on a banana. I left school thinking that a girl was someone you held the door open for.
While admiring much of what the Tory administration has achieved, it makes me shudder when you realise how much money is spent on overseas aid and just how much of it is wasted by the recipients on projects totally unconnected with the objective of our largesse. Mosquito nets provided by the British taxpayer to fight malaria are being used in many African countries to make wedding dresses, chicken runs, fishing nets and traps for white ants, yet still the deadly disease proliferates. The global fund to fight malaria claims to have distributed 548 million insecticide coated nets in recent years, yet there are still annually 584,000 deaths from malaria.
It is quite obvious that we send vast quantities of cash and goods to third world countries which have no intention of using this generous gift in the spirit in which it was given. Would it not be better to send to these various countries the requisite expertise to monitor and direct how and where such aid is spent. Just think – it could give employment to thousands of out of work people in this country who are well equipped to work in a hot climate but are unable to get a job on London Underground, which is not only a closed shop but also a gravy train.
How edifying to witness the saga of Lord Sewel who has just been caught with his trousers down and a white substance up his nose. His response has been to relinquish his position immediately and hope that this action will diminish the damage caused to the reputation of the House of Lords.
Given that the upper house has little or no reputation now that any Tom, Dick or Harry with a brown nose can get elected, this isn’t quite enough. He should be made to stand outside the House of Lords in full regalia and write 100 times “Once I was anonymous but now I am an infamous, ineffectual little prat,” and in time he may come to learn the meaning of the words embarrassment and self-humiliation.
P.S. For those who think that I am both racist and sexist, please write in the first instance to Whingeing Wood – c/o The Tiger Inn at Stowting.
P.P.S. What are we doing letting French lorries into this country – the Frogs are a load of leftist miscreants and make me hopping mad.