Blank page. Where to start? To think my life was once easy … Not only do I have no idea what day it is but I am frozen solid! April 5th. I remember sunbathing in the garden in April, back when people didn’t go shopping with their ‘manufactured’ dogs. That needs an exclamation mark but it’s an addiction I’m trying to break. Anyway, as I observe the pavements of St Andrews, the throngs are passing by, every second person with a cockapoo, a chiweenie (don’t ask) or, put it this way, anything with ‘poo’ in it! Why? Just why? Surrounded by beautiful beaches, why walk a dog round the pavements on a lead? Suppose if one person does it, everybody has to. Welcome to 2025 …
I sometimes ask myself if I could possibly write my one thousand plus words devoid of complaint? The answer is rhetorical. I am my father’s daughter after all and I can only imagine what he would have to say about the world today. One thing, it would be voiced with sarcasm, something I miss – and crave; one reason for my fixation with Hugh Grant. I’m sure he wouldn’t dream of owning a cockapoo or some ridiculous toy ‘dog’, and I can guarantee he wouldn’t be seen dead walking around the pavements of London with it, either! Whoops, succumbed.
Where can one find one’s fix of sarcasm now in this hideously woke world? Graham Norton, I suppose. Ricky Gervais, definitely. Judi Dench. Spot the common thread? Intelligence, firstly – and character; the talent and confidence to be original; to have an opinion and voice it. Granted, under Keir ‘Jong Un’s government, one is likely to find oneself in an exercise yard for one’s ‘sins’ but … I was told the other day that St Andrews University has the reputation of being one of the most woke in the UK. Help! The infiltration is surely complete – as the whirring sound of yet another of those electric cars parking outside can be heard. Desperate to qualify that with some suitably derogatory comment but, seriously, who chooses to buy an electric car? For the benefit of the environment? Today, perhaps. No, scrub that. Most are status symbols; the latest thing. Short-sighted, surely, for who would buy a second-hand car powered by a second-hand battery? More important, what happens to all these defunct batteries, ironically anything but bio-degradable?! Then, there’s the matter of the universal charging of said batteries … Live in a flat or a terraced house? Long journey requiring more than one lengthy charge? Aside from the added, wasted time, there is also the problem of availability of chargers. However, such ‘trivialities’ pale into insignificance in the wake of the fire risk presented by lithium-ion batteries! Prone to over-heating, any ensuing fire is well-nigh impossible to put out. Perfect! A few little problems with the electric car, then.
Oh, well, we have ten more years until 2035 when the zero-emission vehicle becomes mandatory. Assuming the world has not imploded by then or – equally plausible – the human has been supplanted by the robot version of its own making, there isn’t a chance in hell that the electric car will still be around, let alone mandatory; and, moreover, the planet will be considerably worse off in its bid to dispose of the ludicrous, ill-thought invention. In the meantime, the brainwashing gathers pace, buoyed by the ease of uptake. Target audience? The believers; read, the ignorant, the apathetic … those programmed to be sheep.
I try; believe me, I try. Where is the positivity? I don’t mean mine, I mean in the world. As my regular reader knows, I have strong opinions on the reasons for our demise, at its core, the loss of family; our very foundation. One must only look to our counterparts in the wild; the animal kingdom. Lions and their pride, chimpanzees, zebras … groups. Families. It is the elephant, however, from whom we could learn the most: highly intelligent, sentient animals, the family is everything. The matriarch at its head, the herd is predominantly comprised of females and their calves, old and young. Females stay with their mothers for life, while males leave – or are ‘encouraged’ to do so – on reaching adulthood, usually between ten and twelve years old. Social animals, they look after each other, care for their young, bury their dead, shed real tears of grief, and pain … and they are wise; oh, so wise. Privileged to have watched elephant in the wild – Samburu, Kenya, most memorably – there can be no more humbling, or calming experience. Wisdom exudes from the eyes of these gentle giants and we are eternally small in their wake … My point? If her family was no more, what would become of the lone elephant? All social structure would crumble; all security gone. What then? The domino effect would be catastrophic for family is the mainstay of the elephant; ours, too. Or, it was.
Now, as our every move becomes increasingly monitored and our movements surreptitiously curtailed, the cost of living is all but prohibitive. As our individual worlds shrink and isolation pervades, the weak succumb, preferring ignorance to reality. Not so, the more astute, for whom denial is not an option. There is no escaping the creeping ombre; the enveloping darkness, ever more depressing for the seeing. The question is, where to run? A question which occupies much of my time – and my mind. Who would have thought?
People. Like my father before me, in general, never a fan. Like my father before me, too, their study is, at once, equally enlightening – and depressing. Watch them pass by in their uniform of leggings and joggers, many with multi-coloured hair, accompanied by the obligatory toy dog; most devouring some calorific ‘delicacy’ guaranteed to increase the pounds and decrease the days! Seemingly, happy enough, it is their complacency which irks. As the world, beyond, self-combusts, they are unaware, thinking only of theirs – their very own Albert Square. Dis-connected. Worse, disinterested. Selfish, self-obsessed or just plain vacuous? In my book, all three! ‘Brain dead’? Same thing? If the cap fits … It is the apathy I cannot bear, though; which I find so depressing. Surrounded by the bland, I crave stimulation; the intelligent, the humorous, those of character, those of opinion … those of an inquiring mind, interested in the bigger picture; one which is horribly real and is fast affecting us all. Sufficiently dulled, however, most don’t care. Accept and comply. Follow. Do as everyone else. Programmed to receive … I repeat, to think that, once upon a time, we thought the Daleks were scary … My God, the Daleks make most of today’s sheep appear as switched on as a cardboard cut-out! Yes, it’s people. What has happened to people? When did they give up on everything? Manners, morals, standards? Life?
For those of us who feel like visitors to another planet, it’s like drowning, slowly, in an over-crowded spa – and don’t start me on spas! Responsible for the demise of so many once elegant hotels. Money. Oh, that it could buy class.
‘When red-headed people are above a certain social grade, their hair is auburn.’ Mark Twain
Mark Twain. Never bland. ‘My kinda guy’!
This is Trish, signing off.
