You know the type: those uncomprehending half-wits who decide that
you’re being unreasonably glum and it’s their duty to cheer you up. And so they
grin excessively and inanely; they chivvy you with petty imprecations; they
unwittingly pile misery onto your melancholy; and when you finally snap and
become very stern with them, they call you a miserable bastard and walk away in
disgust.
Worst of all are those people who tickle children. I remember
it well. They thought tickling me would bring me out of myself, would cheer me
up. Well, it did bring me out of myself, but it didn’t cheer me up. It caused
me to scream bloody blue murder at them and try to tear their freggin’ fingers off!
Eventually they would give up, presumably concluding that Jeffrey is a very
strange child. It’s my earliest recollection of realising what an abject pile
of shite an awful lot of adult humans are.
(I love the fact that Word doesn’t recognise the word ‘shite.’
It’s a good word, and probably of Irish origin. ‘Gobshite’ has a different
slant, but that’s a good word too. So should I add them to the dictionary? Don’t
think so. I think I’d prefer that they remain a little subversive.)
* * *
And on the subject of adult humans being an abject pile of
shite (wiggle wiggle) I was reminded yesterday of something my daughter said
around ten years ago. She claimed that child sex abuse is rampant in the hidden
underbelly of British society, and she would be very careful about what sort of
institutional activities she would allow her children to engage with. She came
by this knowledge from her own experience of an inner city school, and from
what she’d picked up from the word on the street. People told her she was just
being paranoid, as people do.
Yesterday, the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, made an
announcement. She said it was becoming evident that child sex abuse is endemic
in the British Establishment, and that the hundreds of allegations currently
being investigated by the probes into historic abuse will prove to be only the
tip of an iceberg.
I somehow doubt that only the British Establishment is so
afflicted. Why would it be? But at least our law enforcement agencies are all
part of a homogeneous body controlled by one government department. I wonder
whether national probes into historic abuse would be practicable under a
federal system. It could be the saving of some very guilty people.
* * *
To conclude on a happy note: One of the great pleasures in
life is to sit by an open fire on a dark winter’s night with a cryptic
crossword.
1 Across: Look to what’s
inside in order to feel satisfied. (7)
Got it?
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