Wash basket politics
IS DEMOCRACY in crisis in Britain? We're entitled to ask as the election campaign progresses. We've had Prime Minister Gordon Brown going on a television programme where he is asked all kinds of searching things about his personal and family life – his joys and his sadnesses, none of them to do with his office – and it seems Tory leader David Cameron is about to do the same thing.
And now the party leaders' wives are being drawn in. Liberal-Democrat leader Nick Clegg seems to be still holding out, but Mrs Brown and Mrs Cameron have already blabbed all on TV – Gordon and David are both of them terribly untidy and they tend to drop their underwear and dirty clothes on the bedroom floor.
Horrors! Can this be true? Does any man behave in this way? And why is Mrs Clegg so reticent? Does Nick actually put on odd socks on occasion?
While such issues float in the air, is there any hope of the Brits addressing the admittedly secondary matters of war in Afghanistan and the global financial crisis?
And is all this an instance of a ticking over of Plato's transitions between the systems of government, beginning with tyranny then working down to democracy then mob rule? If the prime minister's underpants are a legitimate subject for public television, are we not already there?
In that case, who is the tyrant in the wings? Margaret Thatcher is surely past it. Prince Charles?
No, Charles is too much the nice guy, too comfy with the people. I can already see the BBC slipping in an interview with the Duchess of Cornwall on the topic of HRH's Y-fronts - the Prince of Wales Feathers embroidered and the motto: "Ich Dien"? Somebody else. A real toughie is needed.
Maybe we should have paid more attention to JZ's visit. When you hear about Julius Malema, Lord Protector of England, remember where you read it first. This would be the ultimate deployment. And his underpants are his own business. Not like Gordon's and David's.
Home and school
A GRANDMOTHER sends in some lines she says capture the way she, her children and her grandchildren were educated. She gives thanks for that. "Cry, The Beloved Country!" she adds.
I dreamt I stood in a studio
And watched two sculptures there.
The clay they used was a young child
And they fashioned it's values with care.
One was a teacher, the tools he used
Were books and music and art,
And one a parent with guided hand
And a gentle loving heart.
Day after day the teacher toiled
With touch that was deft and sure
While the parent laboured by his side
And polished and smoothed it o'er.
And when at last their task was done
They were proud of what they had wrought
For the things they had moulded into the child
Could neither be sold nor bought.
And each agreed he would have failed
If he had worked alone
For behind the parent stood the school
And behind the teacher the home.
These lines surely deserve repeating on the wall of every classroom. And on the wall of every community hall or wherever it is that school governing bodies and parent/teacher associations meet. Plus on the wall of every office used by teacher unions and professional associations.
That way we might have a chance of getting education back on track.
Suspense builder
WE HAVE a lot of politically correct euphemisms, these days. You know: "visually challenged" instead of blind; "over-endowed with bulk" instead of fat; "altitudinally challenged individual" instead of dwarf.
How refreshing to discover the definition of a stutter as not a speech impediment but an advantage - the starting of a word with a drum roll. The stutter is in fact a "suspense builder", according to this American source, and an accomplishment in conversation.
S-s-s-s-s-s-s-snakes alive! This was the favourite expression of a relative who went through World War II with the nickname "Bren".
Listening to him was real suspense.
Tailpiece
THE SIGN on the gate reads: "Beware of the budgie!"
A passer-by can't resist ringing the bell to find out more. "How can a budgie harm me?"
"Usually it can't," says the householder. "But this one whistles up the rottweiler."
Last word
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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