Oh dear, winter is rapidly approaching
and with it that dreaded two letter device designed to suck out our brains and
replace them with lemon-curd. This autumn, as I plug in the half-yearly
redundant TV, I notice it running an update, bringing yet more new channels to
its existing list of garbage that supposedly masquerades as intelligent
viewing. Not that I have taken the effort to count them, but I reckon we now
have well over 100 stations to chose from, but still more keep arriving. What
could they possibly fill these with that could be anything different than the
ones already there? Surely not more celebrity master-bakers? Or maybe Britain
has pointless talent? Possibly some more ecomentalists grandly designing homes
from corrugated tin and matchsticks? No? Ladies and Gentlemen, feast your eyes
on a brand new series on ITV3 entitled: The
History of Wallpaper! You are joking, right? On it, so the narrative says,
Professor Steve Boring from the University of Beige Corduroy tells us all about
wallpaper from the 16th century to the modern day, in hour long
segments designed to send us to sleep faster that chloroform. Please, please
get the flock off our screens (pun intended) before we all die of monotony
poisoning.
Having had a slight brush with HM
customs lately, I find myself having to complete a long and complicated form to
back-up my overseas habitation while still maintaining my British status. Except
on it, right there on line one, I already have an identity crisis, as I am
asked my gender from the following list. Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Mx. Excuse me? What
is Mx, you ask? Well, apparently it is a new politically correct term for those
who no longer wish to be labelled with a gender at all. Think of it as
somewhere in that pillow space between man and woman. Is there such a gender as
‘no gender’? Or is it ‘both’ genders, which sure as hell would be confusing
when buying trousers! I wrote MALE in caps, just to be sure. It reminded me of the Blackadder sketch when
Baldric announces that his father was a nun. ‘No he wasn’t, Baldric,’ says
Blackadder. ‘Yes he was, sir, because whenever he was asked his occupation, he
always said ‘None’! ....Oh, well, please yourself!
Once again this month I have to
have a pop at Mr O’Leary, that rather greedy owner of Ryanair. A poor old lady sitting
next to me recently on a flight, ordered the following from the menu. ‘Buy
any fresh sandwich and add chips for only £2.00 – save 50p.’ When the
Mx duly arrived with her order, she held out her two quid, only to be told that
the price was £9.50. Rather flustered, she fumbled in her purse and handed over
a crinkled tenner, until I nobly intervened. ‘Hang on’, says I.’ It clearly
states that the ‘meal deal’ is priced at two pounds sterling?’ No sir, you just
read it wrong, the two pound was just for the addition of the chips. On further
investigation, nowhere on the shiny menu was the real sandwich price listed.
This surely must be illegal. But then, so is charging £7 per flight to pay by
credit card when it is the only option available. Is this hood really
above the law?
Meanwhile, on the other side of
the law, here’s something you don’t hear me say, ‘the French Government, I
salute you’. This has come about after reading of a new law, which passed
narrowly through its corridors last month, in the banning of Mini-miss competitions.
For the uninitiated, these are beauty contests which involve girls as young as seven
years old parading in make-up and high heels, to be judged on their looks, and
often portrayed on tabloid TV stations. Maybe, for once, Les Francais can lead
the way into other countries, particularly Britain and the US, doing away with
this despicable practice altogether. If only they would ban Johnny Halliday
records, our lives would be almost bearable!
Finally, I have to applaud the
regression of progress within the British Government, particularly the Indian
High Commission in London, who have reverted back from computers to the good
old-fashioned typewriter. So concerned that
all their words and documents are being bugged by Americans on anti-terrorism witch-hunts,
the Embassy suspects that all its PC terminals are being monitored by Big
Brother, and thus are turning back the clock 50 years to the old metal keyboard
and tippex. Allegedly, they have also reinstalled an abacus in every office, inter-office
communication is now via baked-bean can and string, along with a flock of mail-delivering
pigeons that can only communicate in Hindi.
