I’m a regular reader of the Guardian online as it’s the only British-based ‘newspaper’ that I have any faith will provide me with relatively unbiased news. But I was appalled this morning to discover a headline which read, “How often should you wash your gym kit?”
Now, admittedly, it was in the ‘Lifestyle’ section and not up there with the major headlines – those eternal headbangers featuring Donald Trump and Boris Johnson – though Johnson might well benefit from a lecture in personal hygiene given the state of him here…
…but really, is it necessary for Guardian readers to be informed on the state of their underwear, for basically that’s all gym kit is? Surely, the rule is international, passed down from generation to generation since time immemorial:
IF YOU WEAR IT, WASH IT! IF YOU DON’T, YOU’RE DISGUSTING!
When I returned home from school, sweaty sports shirt and shorts crammed into my schoolbag along with dirty plimsolls (they weren’t called ‘trainers’ in those days) and the night’s homework, my mother would wrinkle her nose, drag the offending items out between finger and thumb, and have the dolly tub ready steaming, disinfected, and washing powered to receive them. After a good soak, followed by ten minutes heavy pummeling, they’d be out, rinsed, mangled, and hung out to dry within the hour. (If you don’t know what a dolly tub is, Google it!)
Today’s parents have it easy. Just chuck ’em in the washer, transfer to the dryer, and they’re done while mother watches Coronation Street on the telly.
So why is it necessary for the Guardian to print instructions on personal hygiene for today’s generation?
Try walking around Asda, or Sainsburys, or any other busy supermarket on a Saturday afternoon, and you’ll discover the answer.
Perhaps their next ‘Lifestyle’ article should be a treatise on underarm care and the use of deodorants.
Posting is light at present. I’ve had to rush to the UK as my 104-year-old father has suffered a bad fall and is in hospital at Colwyn Bay in North Wales. No broken bones, but serious cuts and bruises and of course a massive shock to his already frail body.
He has lived alone for the last twenty years and is fiercely independent, but failing eyesight and unsteady legs caused him to fall heavily in his kitchen while reaching for biscuits in a top cupboard.
He is insistent he will return to his home soon, but we must wait and see.
It is hoped Sparrow Chat will resume posting soon.
(Sorry for the errors, now corrected, it was sent in a rush from my phone!)
Have you ever stopped to wonder why so many Trump-esque figures are dominating the world political scene these days? With Trump himself appearing to have a fairly free hand in ruining the United States, Britain has recently acquired the Trump lookalike, Boris Johnson, himself equally hellbent on destroying his own country.
Then, of course, there are the other dictatorial-type leaders or would-be’s, Bolsanaro of Brazil, Salvini of Italy, Orbán of Hungary, and others presently too numerous to mention, but all voted into office via so-called ‘democratic’ systems. Nor does this unsavoury group consist solely of men. Australia has perhaps more so-called ‘populist’ politicians than any other nation. One who stands out from the rest is Pauline Hanson. An ex-fish and chip shop owner, Hanson fronts One Nation, a populist far right-wing party dedicated to drastic anti-immigration policies and spawning hatred of both foreigners and native Australians.
Writing in the Guardian today, Richard Seymour, succinctly encapsulates that aspect of the human consciousness which allows these Trump-esque figures to flourish. What is it about ourselves as human beings that makes these dangerous, power-hungry, individuals so alluring, persuading us to vote them into power, when logic dictates more amenable choices?
According to Seymour,it is our, “…dark appetite for adventure…” that draws us to these people. He uses the example of one British pseudo-politician, Nigel Farage, a man who has never held a UK parliamentary seat, but who is seen to hold the power to alter political history purely by the support he can engender from those who see him as the next Messiah of British politics.
Farage is often called a populist. The main sense in which this is true is that he is not afraid of the dark side of public feeling, whether it is the collective hate of outsiders or the whoosh of excitement as the currency slides, parliament slowly implodes and chaos beckons. To the contrary, he is keenly attuned to the prejudices of middle England, its anguished resentment and its yearning for adventure. He advocates for it and fuses it to his project of creative destruction. It was, after all, Farage and his allies who spotted[…]that people unruffled by European fisheries or subsidy rules would harken to the language of race war. It wasn’t enough just to link the EU to immigration. An atmosphere of national crisis, of “invasion”, of a “breaking point”, had to be invoked, and linked to folk memories of the second world war, Dunkirk and the blitz. 1
If we care to admit it to ourselves, we all possess to a greater or lesser extent, a dark side of our consciousness that longs for the adventure of chaos and disaster. We’ve been fed such desires throughout our lives, via radio and television, cinema, and of late by the even more potent tools of the internet and social media.
We love disasters, we’re fed them every day as entertainment. Admit to that self-righteous thrill when you read of the latest mass shooting in America (‘their attitude to guns is crazy, it serves them right’), the slight sense of disappointment if Hurricane Dorian misses Florida (‘who likes Florida anyway?’), or the secret hope that Brexit no-deal will happen and Britain will sink into the Atlantic under the devastating effects of economic and political chaos (‘serves them right for voting to leave’).
It’s not that we’re immune to the dreadful suffering of victims and their families from any of these disasters, we’ve simply been brainwashed into demanding more and more entertainment, in any form, to alleviate the intense boredom of our humdrum lives.
It’s this ‘dark side’ of ourselves that leads us to vote Trump-esque characters into political office on the basis that they’re simply more entertaining. Take another look at the image above of Nigel Farage descending the steps of a church, like Nero adorning the Roman Senate. He’s only lacking the laurel wreath on his head. Note the adoration in the faces of the gathering.
If you study the faces of the multitudes at Nuremberg during one of Hitler’s mass rallies, you’ll see the exact same expressions:
Nuremberg 1933
Hitler promised them the world and blamed the Jews for their woes. It’s a favourite of dictators to blame others. Foreigners, or those of different religious doctrines, are usually the first in line for the firing squad. Trump utilises similar dark visions of immigrants as rapists, murderers, and drug dealers; Farage and Johnson attack Muslims and foreigners stealing jobs from the British people. It’s a ‘them or us’ philosophy that dredges the very depths of the human psyche and drags up the worst of our darker fears, coupled with an equally dark desire for change and adventure.
All of this is condensed and intensified by our addiction to social media. We were told it would link us together but the reality is it drives us apart, brings out the worst of our tribalistic instincts, and destroys our sense of sociability.
American adults spend more than 11 hours per day watching, reading, listening to or simply interacting with media, according to a new study by market-research group Nielsen. That’s up from nine hours, 32 minutes just four years ago.2
All of which makes us rich fodder for those who would anoint us disciples of their self-centred and power-crazed ideologies.
