The actions of these two drivers to me summed up the attitude of far too many people in the UK at the moment. In both cases, had they followed the rules, shown a degree of respect to pedestrians and behaved like decent human beings, their journey would have probably been five or ten seconds longer. If these two incidents were an isolated coincidence, it probably wouldn't be worthy of comment, but sadly this year has been full of people behaving in a horrible manner. Someone who I thought to be a family friend behaved in the most appalling fashion. I was shocked beyond belief at how events transpired. I don't really want to go into it here, but lets just say our Xmas card list is a bit shorter this year. I'd almost forgotten the whole thing, however I had an unfortunate reminder of it this week. It seems some people are so self obsessed that they simply cannot recognise that some behaviours are beyond the pale.
My wife witnessed another example a couple of weeks ago. She was in the post office in Mill Hill and a man had turned up to collect a parcel. The staff, following procedures, asked him for ID. He replied with a tirade of abuse "You know me, I am always in here, I don't need to produce ID". When they replied that they had to follow the rules, he became abusive and started swearing at them. Clare was right behind them and was visibly shaken.
As for social media, especially X (formerly Twitter), the levels of bile and abuse launched by Trolls is something to behold. Elon Musk has monetised accounts who pay and get large amounts of clicks. Their algorythms direct these to unsuspecting viewers, via the 'For You' stream. I seem to be inundated with short, shaky clips of people beating each other up. This is the last thing I want to see. I immediately block such rubbish, but that hasn't stemmed the constant flow of such horrible nonsense. Is it any surprise that people are getting angrier, when we get force fed such crap by social media companies.
I was chatting yesterday to John Burgess, Barnet Unison branch secretary about the political situation in the UK. John was noting that with the rise of Reform, both Labour and the Conservatives are lurching to the right. I always enjoy chatting to John, but our conversation yesterday was completely depressing. After we finished speaking, I reflected on Johns comments. For the more right wing people in the UK, the two iconic Prime Ministers were Churchill and Thatcher. When you compare them to the current crop of politicians on the right, the first thing to note is that neither used to rant and bluster. You may completely disagree with both, but they were highly intelligent and could make a rational argument for their policies. Both had their views and didn't bend to public opinion. It seems to me that the current crop are always looking for a bandwagon to nail their flag to. It may deliver short term electoral gain, but I suspect that ultimately they will all end up skewered by their own lack of morals.
Many on the right look back to the post war decade as a golden era. The warm beer and people playing cricket on Village Greens (before they were bulldozed and had flats built on them). They seem to forget that we built the NHS and social housing, people didn't walk on the grass, if there was a sign saying so and we followed the rules. There was no need for 'Woke' because by and large, people were polite. But it is also worth remembering that singe mothers had their children stolen from them, hotels had songs saying "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs" and if you came from a working class family, your chances of going to University were almost zero.
Earlier in the week, when I started thinking about what I'd write this blog about, I thought it would probably be about the election of Pope Leo XIV. I don't know if it is just me, but I really couldn't be bothered to do any research, meaning I had nothing to say. When Stalin was running the USSR, he once derided the Pope, asking "how many divisions does he have". The new Pope has to deal with a fellow American, Donald Trump and a despot in Vladimir Putin. Can you imagine spending all of your life working as a Priest/Bishop/Cardinal and you make it to Pope and these are the people who you have to deal with. As for the new Pope, unless he demonstrates in short order that he will be the Pope who sorts out the abusers in the Church for once and all, I personally will think he lacks the real moral authority to do the job.
Having said all of the above, I am lucky. I have a great family, I don't worry where my next dinner is coming from and I can take solace in music, which I have to admit is going pretty well at the moment. It is a trobled world. We have to take solace where we can.
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