An attempt to explain:
Newcomers do not merely “coexist” alongside you. They form political coalitions. They vote.
Norms, too, compete. There will be rules around queuing, as in England. And as the English are finding out, people either queue or they don’t. You can’t have a situation where the people who queue coexist alongside the people who don’t.
Including a brief guide to vocal fry; a man who collects food wrappers, circa 1981; and the diamond knuckle dusters you’ve always wanted.
All this and more.
Before we go further, it’s perhaps worth pondering how the conceit of “emotional labour” is typically deployed by a certain type of woman. Say, the kind who complains, in print and at great length, about the “emotional labour” of hiring a servant to clean her multiple bathrooms. Or writing a shopping list. Or brushing her daughter’s hair.
The kind of woman who would moan about the chore of choosing a holiday that her husband is paying for. And for whom explaining to her husband the concept of “emotional labour” is itself bemoaned as “emotional labour.” The final indignity.
Auto glass repair businesses suffer as Oakland break-ins decline.
Also, catalytic converter thefts are down. Double whammy!
Including enfattened films; an intriguing ad location; an in-car navigation system circa 1931; and a visual guide to chili peppers.
All this and more.
In which, Ms Lily Kaplan bravely mouths the conceits of her peers and educators.
And so, not knowing or caring, Ms Kaplan felt entitled to smear a local business, for likes and online clout, with a pre-emptively “unfriendly review,” in which she somehow associates the selling of tacos and carrot cake with “racism, misogyny and paedophilia,” and while describing the opening of a restaurant by two white men as representing “centuries of patriarchy,” and “such a bummer.”
Yes, a series in which the entire breadth of conceivable political thought – as imagined by the Guardian‘s intellectual powerhouse Zoe Williams – is given an airing. And where left-leaning teachers, left-leaning writers and left-leaning university administrators discuss just how awful and stupid those non-leftwing people are, and whether Net Zero is super-imperative or just really, really important.
A series in which totally random Guardian readers – sorry, totally random members of the public – encounter “the opposite point of view,” while chewing on kale and butternut squash. Except that they both vote Green and are named Tamsin and Matilda.
I’m reading the Guardian to spare you the pain.
On attempts by Flemish state TV to hide unsavoury migrant attitudes:
The seemingly routine attempt to deceive does rather invalidate the ostensible core function of this publicly funded organisation. It throws everything they do into question. How could one possibly trust them? It quite literally wipes out their credibility as a broadcaster. And by extension, any claim to public funding or favoured status.
In a saner world, it would be the end of them.
I say ostensible function because it’s not altogether obvious – to say the least – how one could reconcile some supposed broadcaster’s mission to convey the facts, and to bring into being an informed citizenry, with doing everything possible to prevent precisely that.
But remember, dear citizen, we must pretend even harder.
Including a cleaning of creases; wrestling in libraries; a mop-related drama; and scenes of horse yoga.
It’s the facial theatre – the ‘eww’ face – the seeming incredulity that an obvious variable should be considered as an obvious variable. A thing one might need to address in order to solve the problem being discussed. As if considering such things – even suggesting that one might consider them – were beyond the pale, somehow scandalous or beneath rebuttal.
I’ve seen this same facial theatre many times, not least among left-leaning women who’ve been appointed to positions for which they are clearly ill-suited. An observation that would itself most likely result in the ‘eww’ face.
It seems very much related to niceness, or some desire for the appearance of niceness. As if niceness, so conceived, should be the sole measure of rightness. And so, any suggestion that one might have to consider a course of action at odds with that niceness is met with theatrical disbelief, as if one had belched very loudly during a wedding ceremony.
Including an inadequate parachute; omnidirectional robots; a biting of testicles; and a breakthrough for bespectacled headbangers.
Fintan O’Toole, literary editor of the Irish Times, calls for a “national arts strike” to extort further cash from the taxpayer. “The public has to be reminded that it really does care,” says he. And until more wallets land on the bonfire of publicly funded art, the nation’s creative titans should “close the arts centres” and “hold no poetry readings.”
Or some holiday resort:
Because, says Mr Gold, our pronoun-stipulating essayist, a sense of connection with one’s home, one’s territory, one’s ancestry and how one came to be, is “utterly arbitrary.” A thing of no importance, unworthy of consideration. Says he, or he/him, “The only sensible form of government is one-world government.”
You see, becoming even less important, even smaller in relation to the steering of the ship, one of billions instead of millions, is a good thing, it turns out. And that irrelevance is sensible, a thing to which the rest of us should apparently aspire. Star Trek, I fear, has much to answer for.
A glimpse into the mind of the scrupulously progressive.
Including 3D-printed hair; apian secretions; some hospital liveliness; and a love machine warming up.
Bluesky is, it has to be said, a strange, unhappy place. One where everything, but everything, is fraught, problematic and seething with complication. Including grilled cheese sandwiches and the paranormal.
Including a misstep to remember; why pigeons don’t rule the Earth; a revealing of nipples; and A Trip to the Planets, circa 1963.
All this and more.
Because, hey, cooking is hard:
An exchange of views ensues. In which, Ms Taylor Lorenz, an “online culture journalist,” struggles with causality. Including the seemingly difficult concept that a heavy reliance on delivered takeaway, and the mindset that implies, may have some bearing on how little cash one has left at the end of the month.
You see, preparing a simple meal, even a packed lunch, is a physical impossibility for those deemed downtrodden.
The author of the quoted piece, Mr Sophie Molly, aka Sophie Sparkles, aka Euan Weddell, is, you’ll be shocked to hear, one of those weird, cross-dressing men. The ones that women and girls should welcome into their toilets and changing rooms. His activities include boasting of demanding needless bra fittings from lingerie department shop assistants, and sharing photos of himself wearing only a ball gag and improvised nipple-clamps.
So, hey, nothing to worry about, ladies.
On changing rooms, cross-dressing, and the marking of territory.