You Know What They Say About Brevity…

I was wondering when they would get around to this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032960/PM-attacks-BBC-riot-coverage-Stop-making-excuses-looters-says-Cameron.html

Worth the license fee ten times over and almost makes up for the Jonathan Ross debacle.

This is what Our Esteemed Leader has to say: ”We all do stupid things when we are young’.

Indeed. I couldn’t agree more. One thing I didn’t do though was regard smashing up expensive restaurants as a rite of passage.

I’ve no doubt we’ll soon get a missive from The Greatest Doctor In The Entire Universe explaining why there is no moral equivalence between lower class feral brats rioting and upper class feral brats rioting.

Addendum: Criminal damage is criminal damage. And it’s against the law. Could members of the Bullingdon Club still be prosecuted for their actions?

Now that would be interesting.

Intergenerational Warfare

We have an ageing population. This means that it has become fashionable to hate the young.

And Meanwhile…

Our favourite former NHS psychiatrist tells us why there is no moral equivalence between the actions of rioters in the recent civil unrest and ‘pre-2008 bankers’:

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/eon0815td.html

There is another significant difference: no one in his right mind would use the actions of the ‘pre-2008’ bankers as a basis upon which to denounce an entire generation.

A la:

‘They have somehow managed not to notice what has long been apparent to anyone who has taken a short walk with his eyes open down any frequented British street: that a considerable proportion of the country’s young population (a proportion that is declining) is ugly, aggressive, vicious, badly educated, uncouth and criminally inclined.

Unfortunately, while it is totally lacking in self-respect, it is full of self-esteem: that is to say, it believes itself entitled to a high standard of living, and other things, without any effort on its own part.’

http://tinyurl.com/3o5votp

Rage, Rage, Rage

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night, Dylan Thomas

Nobby is stoical.  He is stubborn and he can sometimes be downright awkward but he is my friend, my companion.  An unusual friendship perhaps for he his ninety two and I am in my early thirties.  I am not friends with Nobby because he is old and frail and dependent upon me for everyday care.  I am not his carer.  I am his friend. And I am not his friend because I pity him.  He is still lucid and fully in control. Some might say he is too independent for his own good.  Nobby is endlessly fascinating.  He has a bottomless pit of stories to tell.   His boyhood in the ‘thirties. His wartime experiences.  The hardship he experienced after the war.

The elderly have something to offer too.  They are living, breathing, walking history. In a society obsessed with youth it is easy to forget this. People make assumptions about the elderly.  They are ‘past it’. They have lived their lives and have no more to give.  We are wasting what could be a valuable resource and we may one day come to regret it.  Because the way in which we treat the elderly now sets a precedent for the way we will be treated in the future.  And if the way the elderly are treated now is anything to go by we should be afraid. Very afraid.  And there are two certainties in life: you either die or you grow old.  Remember that.

Topical too. Who woulda thunk it?