It’s all going a bit weird
When I went out for my one per day exercise walk yesterday I was both surprised and dismayed by what I came across – and that’s allowing for the fact that it was early afternoon, possibly a peak time for others to be doing similar.
To be blunt it was as if I’d been asleep for a month, there was no crisis, and it was a late May Bank Holiday weekend.
Tens of thousands of people out and about as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
Either that, or my area of London had completely lost its marbles and was defying every edict ever issued by the Government.
I was genuinely shocked.
Hundreds of families taking in the air, groups of twenty-plus laughing and chatting together in the public areas as if they’d succumbed to collective madness, streams of vehicles and cyclists flashing by (even traffic jams and tail-backs) – cyclists in groups of anything from twos or threes to pelotons of anything from 12 to 20 in number.
To be fair, by 6.00pm things were much quieter but it had still been a bit of an eye-opener.
Separately, I was struck by one of the advertisements in a television commercial break I endured whilst watching a programme.
It featured the plight of deprived kids living in an African country who were reduced to drinking contaminated water: the pitch to viewers was that, for a commitment of just £2 per month, we could provide them with instant and endless supplies of beautiful, clear, non-contaminated spring water …
It was a reminder that “there’s always someone somewhere worse off than you” and it brought to mind some of the inconsistencies, difficulties and dilemmas of the coronavirus crisis.
The Western World is big on ‘democracy’ and our time-honoured absolute freedoms and rights. But now, during our current circumstances, just about every man jack and interest group that ever existed is begging for assistance from the Government or squealing “Don’t forget about us”.
Yesterday on the BBC television morning show there were representatives from the National Trust and some wildlife protection group pleading for funds to tide them over because nobody was visiting their facilities or grounds at the moment.
Other causes jamming the airwaves were those of “domestic abuse” (apparently instances are up by 30% compared to some previous time), the plight of the self-employed and/or small businesses whose proprietors don’t take salaries but pay themselves dividends and therefore don’t qualify for financial support because they don’t have ‘fair representations’ of their salaries reflected in the help schemes devised so far, and the news that those from BAME backgrounds and deprived areas are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus.
Will somebody (i.e. the Government) do something about these please?
There are always going to be inequalities in any nation, any society, any world. There are also always going to be petty criminals, fraudsters, drugs gangs, hardened anti-social miscreants and people who cheat any system designed to reduce or ameliorate hardships of every kind by ‘playing the system’.
There are even whole industries (a slightly strange term to use) comprised of charities and others campaigning on behalf of innumerable minorities or groups “less fortunate than ourselves” on the basis that they are denied proper equality or recognition in our uncaring 21st Century world.
Part of the irony of this situation is that – the better off ‘normality’ is for any given society – the greater the anguish that campaigners can muster about their pet causes, and indeed the greater the number and range of groups or disadvantaged that get identified as needing help becomes.
And thus, when ‘normality’ careers off the rails and the very systems and linchpins of a well-off society get overturned, thrown up in the air, or even decimated by things beyond its control, everyone panics, not least those who have been campaigning about its inequalities and failings.
The whole pack of cards seems to drop to the floor.
I’m loathe to suggest that only a free and well-off nation can afford the “luxury” of hand-wringing and indulging in ‘mea culpa’ sessions about how badly its disadvantaged are being treated and/or left behind.
However, it was only a few months ago that one of the biggest issues occupying the British media was the complicated one of transgender rights, with (as one example) arguments going on as to whether a male waking up one morning and deciding that he was female should be allowed to use the girls’ toilets in schools – or even whether there should be gender-specific public toilets at all.
We’re not hearing much about that topic at the moment, are we?
We’ve got more important things to concentrate upon.
