Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Spring Matters.

I gather a Chinese supermodel has been hauled over the coals for referring to the Chinese New Year as the Lunar New Year on some social networking facility. She’s being accused of pandering to other Asian nations and turning her back on her heritage.

It seems we’re living in the Age of Walking on Eggshells, a time when everybody in the public eye has to be so, so careful with everything they say for fear that somebody somewhere will pick up a single word out of place and hurl house bricks at them. And the word doesn’t even have to be out of place. ‘The Lunar New Year’ is not only a perfectly legitimate expression, it also has the advantage of encouraging inclusivity.

It needs to stop because there’s a danger that a lot of serious angles on important issues will become lost in the gloopy stew of irrational political correctness. But, of course, it won’t stop because the human animal is just too dumb to make it stop.

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Meanwhile, I saw some periwinkles blooming at the bottom of my lane today. I don’t ever remember seeing periwinkles blooming in February before. And a young wild rabbit has taken to visiting my garden at dusk, there to hop happily about and nibble things it can’t find in the field next door. I used to get wild rabbits in my garden a lot at one time, but I haven’t seen them for several years and thought they’d all gone. I wonder whether wild rabbits are a good omen.

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And there’s been no word on either the latest scan or my prospective operation, so I still don’t know whether I’ll be spending the spring recuperating or packing my trunk for the one way trip to the terminus.

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