- I think standards are slipping
- You find things rather challenging these days
- She is completely set in her ways
I am finding this world increasingly alienating. (Blair, Bush, Iraq, tailgaters, processed foods, processed musak, processed thinking, global warming, multinational corporations, international terrorism…) …
…slap me now before I get hysterical in public.
The question is, how much worse actually is it? Certainly, global warming is new, or does it just seems more likely? However, I strongly suspect that the reason I find the world nastier and scarier is because I am older, grumpier, more cynical and more easily spooked by things like Bush and Blair, liar Blair, it’s not fair, don’t you care? Nukes in Korea. Here and there. Iraq, terrorism, suicide bombers, suicide bombers with nukes, nuclear war no thanks, Chechnya, Georgia, Dubbya, Dubbya Bush, Wubbleyou Bush. Wubbleyou. Wibble you. Wibble.
Sorry.
I was fortunate to be born in a particularly pretty, particularly safe, particularly peaceful part of the UK. It was rural. Rural as in farms and villages and schools with 24 pupils. A smooth and rural prosperity. Roses above the door. Terrorists. Bombers. Afghanistan. More torture now than in the time of Saddam Hussain. More torture. More torture. Guantanamo, mo, mo, yo, yo. Yo! Blair!
These days two bedroom cottages are over quarter of a mil sterling, (that’s Mr Sterling to you and me), the pubs are restaurants, the post-offices are closed and the buses aren’t. Anything. The buses aren’t anything at all. They don’t exist. Exist. Exit. No exit. Extinct. Extinction. Sixth extinction. Specicide. Specious arguments. Extinctions. Extinction. Exit. No exit.
The place is full of television presenters, these days. It’s Surrey or Berkshire. It has no integrity and no soul. It’s suburbia for fex sake.
I moved away a couple of years ago, and though I blip back every now and again, I spent three nights there last week for the first time since I left. Never go back. No way back. Everything changes. No way back. No through road. No way out. No way forward. No oil. NO OIL. No way. No votes. Not enough votes. Steal an election. Steal a country. Hey, steal a country, why don’t you. Steal two. Steal three. Here, have mine. We don’t have it any more. Not since it was given away. A million in the street said ‘not in our name’. Not in our name. We’re sorry. Don’t kill us. Even though we’re killing you. It isn’t fai-ai-ai-ai-air.
I had been wistful about leaving, but I’m not now. The pubs aren’t pubs they are restaurants. There is nowhere for farm-workers to go wet their throat with a pint on the way home, because there are no pubs, and precious few farm-workers for that matter. The houses they were born in cost twenty years’ wages. But that’s ok. It’s all part of the global economy. International banking. International farming. Kenyan beans. Indonesian rice. Isreali avocados. Chilean grapes. Texan oil. Multinational corporations. Multinational manufacturing. Sweatshops. Five-for-a-tenner. Sweatshops. Slave labour. Slavery. Slaves. Gangmasters. Cockles and mussles alive alive o. Cocklers at Morcambe have drowned a drowned-oh. It’s ok – they’re illegals.
But is it me? Is this no madder than the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile crisis? Have we exchanged fear of tuberculosis, cholera and an early, painful, unnecessary death for fear of Tony Blair, Condoleeza and an early, painful, unnecessary death?
I’m glad I’ve moved to where houses are just ridiculously expensive, where my neighbours aren’t TV presenters. models, actresses and media whores, even if it is not dark here at night any more.
But is it me? Is it just that I’m older, or is the world nastier?
Whatever it is, I really HATE tailgaters.
