Time for something completely different…so let’s put the boot in at the European elections
Thursday's elections are an opportunity to show we're mad as hell about Brexit
IF you have a spare couple of minutes today, type “Peter Finch mad as hell” in to YouTube and watch the actor’s iconic scene from the 1976 movie Network.
Playing newscaster Howard Beale, he suffers an on-air meltdown about the state of the nation then rants at viewers sitting passively in their living rooms: “I want you to get up, go to your windows, stick your head out and shout, ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more’.”
Fast forward 43 years and, alternatively, 17.4million of us can show “them” — aka those in power — that we’re mad as hell about Brexit (or, rather, the lack of it) and we’re not going to take it any more.
Thursday’s European elections give us the invaluable opportunity to deliver what’s known as a “kick vote” — in other words, the chance to aim a metaphorical boot at our mainstream politicians without it having an adverse effect on the future of this country.
A postal voter, my size six (and a half, as you ask) boot has already been dispatched via a cross in the box marked “Brexit Party”.
Not because I hold a candle for the one-trick pony that is Nigel Farage, though I do feel that history will regard him as one of the most effective politicians of our time.
This was my chance to show how angry I am
No, because this was my chance to show how angry I am that the result of a democratic referendum which saw the biggest ever turnout of voters in the UK has been repeatedly kicked in to the long grass by a Remain-leaning Parliament. Shame on them.
Critics say Farage has no policies other than implementing Brexit and they’re probably right — but so what? For the millions of disaffected British voters, that’s not what Thursday’s election (that wouldn’t even be happening here if Brexit had been delivered) is about.
Besides, Corbyn, May, Cable et al can announce as many impressive policies as they wish.
They could even retrieve “EdStone” (remember that) from the flowerbeds at The Ivy’s Chelsea restaurant and use the other side to carve out their vision for “a Greater Britain” blah blah blah.
NO ONE'S LISTENING ANY MORE
But let’s face it, give or take a few noble exceptions, who now believes a word any mainstream politician says?
It’s been reported that the Prime Minister is planning to announce a raft of new policy proposals, presumably to reassure us that she’s a leader.
Forget it, Theresa. No one’s listening any more.
Despite the grand EU project visibly starting to unravel in other member countries, you blinked first in negotiations and consequently have presided over the UK’s biggest betrayal of democracy in modern times.
Who now believes a word any mainstream politician says?
Put on your rambling boots and go for a nice long walk in to the sunset. We wish you well.
In the meantime, the rest of us have an important job to do in tomorrow’s polling booths.
When that Monty Python-esque giant foot descends to pop the Westminster bubble, it will be glorious to behold and, hopefully, show the next generation of leaders — whatever their political persuasion — that not only is people power still alive, it’s enthusiastically kicking.
- BURNING question: Is there a mainstream, prime-time drama that doesn’t have Keeley Hawes or Suranne Jones in it?
- THATCHER reportedly hated her “Iron Lady” nickname. Still, better than the “Maybot” moniker of our current, distinctly aluminium PM.
Jabs? Do not be a chicken
MY youngest didn’t catch chicken pox until she was 13, and it was brutal.
She was covered in hundreds of angry blisters, needed two weeks off school and was left with a permanent scar on her forehead where the mothership of the virus had resided.
One glance at the actors currently starring on our HD TV screens will confirm that she’s not alone.
So when I later discovered there was a vaccine that could have prevented all the angst, I felt I had failed as a parent by not knowing this vital piece of information.
The chicken pox vaccine has been part of routine childhood vaccinations in the US since 1998, but not in the UK.
Now all that may change with news that government scientists are “considering” a national campaign to vaccinate all babies against this disease. What’s to consider?
America and Australia have programmes that prove it’s safe and effective – thereby ensuring no kids have to go through what my daughter endured.
So bring it on. And in the meantime, if your child hasn’t yet had chicken pox, I’d think very seriously about finding the £70 to get it done privately.
Inequality addressed
IN the “mother’s occupation” section of son Archie’s birth certificate, Meghan Markle put “Princess of the United Kingdom”. She’s lucky she was even asked.
When my oldest daughter was born in 1992, the father’s section asked for name, place of birth and occupation.
The mother’s part didn’t bother with the last bit – the insinuation being that either we didn’t work or what we did for a living was regarded as irrelevant.
I was so irritated by it that I instructed the registrar to squeeze in the word “journalist” next to my name.
So I’m glad to see that this inequality has now been addressed.
A fight for my toffees
EVERY Christmas, a staple of Moore Towers is a tin of Quality Street that barely makes it through to Boxing Day before being devoured . . . with the exception of the ghastly strawberry and orange cremes.
We’re a toffee family, you see, and I have several replacement fillings to prove it.
Yet when I posted this photo on Instagram at New Year, along with the caption: “Am so desperate for chocolate I’m considering one of the ‘cremes’ no one ever wants,” it prompted hundreds of comments from all you fans of the squishy ones. Weirdos.
To make matters worse, maker Nestle has just announced that the toffee deluxe will be axed for good, replaced by some ghastly “chocolate caramel brownie” nonsense.
No, no, NO. I might even start a petition.
In the meantime, send me your unwanted toffees. Just don’t tell my dentist.
Leave the past in the past
ACTRESS Sarah Miles – famous for, among other things, drinking her own wee – has been talking about her long-running affair with Sir Laurence Olivier.
She says that during a recent clear-out she found a bundle of his love letters but “wouldn’t want them published because he was writing about how unhappy he was with Joanie towards the end . . . And I wouldn’t want to upset her.”
Funny way of showing it.
Joanie – now Dame Joan Plowright – was married to “Larry” for 29 years until his death in 1989, and they had three children together.
She will be 90 this year and deserves better than having her husband’s on-off mistress dragging out ancient dirty laundry while pretending to actually care about upsetting her.
Getting wild
THE “intimacy coordinator” employed to ensure that the lesbian sex scenes in BBC drama Gentleman Jack were authentic says she uses animal sounds to convey what’s needed.
“Give me a panting dog, ‘Huh, huh, huh’. Next, a wild cat, ‘Eeh, oowah’ now.
"Then finally, the barking wails of a seal.”
Cripes. Like an annoying laugh that simply can’t be changed, the noise someone makes at climax can make or break relationships.
An old friend once ended a liaison because, in the throes of ecstasy, her lover emitted a noise akin to a small marsupial with a wounded paw.
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Blame it on Brexit
BREXIT has been blamed for everything from a housing slump (try less punitive stamp duty – that’ll do the trick) to the prospect of extinct Mars bars.
Now the family of UK Eurovision entry Michael Rice say it’s the reason he came last out of 26 acts.
But on this occasion there is every chance they’re right.
Michael, from Hartlepool, didn’t have a good enough song to win, but his was far from being the worst performance.
When you get fewer points than a pair of seemingly suicidal Smurfs (Slovenia) or a man vomiting in to a microphone (Iceland) then EU know it’s a fix.
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