STONE COLD HAVEN

It’s always difficult to tell which is the more stressful or humiliating – the fact that your hubby has been watching dirty old hard core porn, and probably playing with his tojjer, while you’re away working hard for the bacon, or the fact that the drama of him being a naughty boy is played out on a national and possibly international stage.

I must admit, I’m not a fan of Jacqui Smith, the UK Home Secretary, but even a stone cold approach to some issues in life doesn’t stop me from empathizing with her, regardless of the spectacular stupidity of this matter. Deep down she must be wondering what the fuck hit her as she looks in the mirror and tries to contemplate whether to castrate her husband for the public humiliation, or whether to cry because of the heartbreak.

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Trick question: What do Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Nicolae Ceausescu, Gordon Brown, George Bush, Robert Mugabe and who else….Hmmm let me see…the military junta in Burma, the military junta who ruled Argentina in the 70s and Pol Pot have in common.

Answer: For differing reasons, they have all been responsible for some of the world’s biggest and most severe violations of civil liberties of the poor old folks that they proclaim to lead or have led.

George Orwell (if he could), must have a smug and uncanny smile on his face that has that characteristic “I told you bastards so” look. Look at any plot in his 1984 master piece and you get this queasy feeling that George was definitely onto something that will scare the living daylights out of any self respecting individual who values their privacy.

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There are fewer things in the world more cynical than a bunch of…let’s say, pin stripe suited men sitting in a board room (without any women present of course –,well, tell a lie, except for Mildred in the corner taking minutes or Deidra the tea lady who pops in once in a while to top up the biscuits and make sure the tea pot is fresh) discussing solutions about how to fight gender discrimination in the work place.

Or maybe, a conference about “The Kenya we want” that is fronted by the old school establishment of unsavoury, incompetent and outright dodgy characters who have had over 40 years to provide the Kenya folks needed in the first place but failed spectacularly. (Speaking of which – what was the point in holding a conference when the answer to the question of “What Kenyans want?” is succinctly captured in breathtaking precision in the Kenyan national anthem).

Anyway, it was interesting to note that once again, there was a “high profile” (this word is as abused as the word normal coz’ clearly, it’s a relative state of affairs) conference bringing together the good and the great who classify themselves as world experts on poverty alleviation and eradication.

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I could have sworn it was only the other day that thousands of tree hugging, Guardian reading, bike riding, fair trade consuming mercenaries for the cause of mother nature got together in Portugal. It can’t have been that long ago (I’m talking a matter of weeks or at the extreme, a few months).

The reason why this is pricking my stone cold conscience is that I distinctly remember the environmental doomsayers breathing fire and brimstone down our throats that if we don’t do something about the environment pronto, the world is inevitably going to suffer the worst death of its kind (speaking of which – I’d like someone to validate this claim with a plausible comparison of any other kind of bad death of human kind).

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It seems like ages since I was last blogging….but just to assure a few folks who asked, my hiatus was perfectly legal and I haven’t been a guest of Her Majesty the queen for a small misdemeanour or something like that.

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