Sticks and stones
I guess the argument against “political correctness” is that if you let people verbally abuse powerless groups in society they might be less likely to physically abuse them. Have I got that right?
Bon mots
Sports mad
You should always know enough about sport to conduct a two minute conversation with a sports lover. But no more.
Oh, all right, just a peek, now and then
When you are born you should be presented with a 70-year-diary, every day already filled in, a bright red ribbon tied around the cover. Then, as you work your way through life, you could constantly check where you were up to and what lay ahead. Or perhaps it would be best to leave it closed,
Oh, all right, just a peek, now and then Read More »
Progress
When I was young milk, bread, groceries, newspapers were all delivered to the house every day. Now I have to go miles to a supermarket.
Dead Sea
Old age finds you sailing the Sargasso, through scattered “In Memoriam’ notices littering the surface like seaweed.
Count down
In old age, save me from counting down towards death from cancer, one spoon of morphine at a time, in an aged total care facility.
Cross words
In old age, save me from counting down towards death, one crossword at a time, in an old people’s home.
We have an announcement to make
A cancer diagnosis isn’t an “intimation of mortality”. Instead it announces, with the blast of trumpets, the roar of jet engines, the explosion of dynamite, that your life has changed in a big way, and that your mortality is no longer a given.
We have an announcement to make Read More »
Lest we forget
An argument often made these days about long-lasting and unwinnable wars is that “we owe it to the dead” to keep fighting forever and never lose otherwise their sacrifice was in vain. Nonsense of course – just a recipe for never-ending wars because you just keep adding more and more dead. I wonder if the