Daft Old Duffer returns. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I don’t understand why everyone these days gets so fussed over someone cursing someone.
The prime example of course is the one presently boring the pants off us. All of whom have far more important matters to worry about.
Plebgate
I am referring, of course, to the altercation – the trifling, silly, overblown tiff between a Minister of the Crown intent on riding his bike where he willed, and a copper who was – let’s face it – just being thoroughly bloody-minded.
It was the copper’s job to open the way for any vehicle important enough to pass through. Vehicles that almost invariably conveyed Government personnel.
And it was therefore perfectly natural for the Minister concerned to assume the gates would be opened for him even though his vehicle was a bike instead of a car.
And it would have been a matter of no import for the copper – standing there with nothing much to do except feel important, to comply.
Not important enough?
After all, suppose it had been a bicycle mounted David Cameron who required passage?
So, it was a case of ‘I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care how important you think you are, I’m in charge here and don’t you forget it!”
And so the Minister swore at him. As would I, and you.
Equal rights to cuss
I have no time at all for wealthy louts who presume that as a fact of nature they have the right to tell the rest of us how to live our lives. But surely even public school twits have the God-given right to swear a bit when they get frustrated.
As for the word that gave the most offence – Why did it?
Are we all even sure what it means? Personally I translate it from the Ancient Greek as ‘working-class person’, which is no more than an accurate description of my status in life. And I can’t regard that as offensive.
It became offensive of course simply because it was plainly meant that way. Just as an anteduluvian Englishman might employ ‘old boy’ as a term of affection, whereas a Yankee copper addressing a black youth as ‘boy’ is clearly being deliberately nasty.
A sense of perspective
Yet coppers are of course well used to being described in terms much worse. Much more Anglo-Saxon. As are traffic wardens, car park attendant and lollipop ladies who step out a bit too smartly.
It may all be very unpleasant. But it is all very natural as well. And for a Government Minister, or a copper, or anyone else to lose their job, be fined, or in any other way punished for it, is simply ludicrous.
Baking mysteries
The bread I eat is claimed to be ‘baked in store’ or ‘locally sourced’ or somesuch.
Whatever, it tastes infinitely better than the mass produced sog otherwise available.
So nice in fact that I often eat a slice spread with butter alone (Well, olive spread actually on account I’m still trying to find the slim, svelte me that’s hidden somewhere under the flab).
On impulse just recently I picked up a batch of bread rolls in addition to my loaf. They were obviously produced from the same bread formula and baked in the same ovens at the same time.
Yet they tasted even better than a slice from the loaf.
Why?
Solve that one and you may have the key to much that is puzzling in human nature.
