Including a makeover via robot; bird-and-mammal-identifying smart binoculars; some transgender head-tilting; a tongue-operated trackpad; and the perils of dining on squid.
The ‘S’ Word
Attention, heterosexuals. The word ‘straight’ has been deemed oppressive. Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.
Oddments For The Weekend
Including things incoming; a king of the jungle; an all-terrain wheelchair; dressing in layers; and some level-ten pretentious guilt.
Just Like Us, Only More Oppressed
If you’ve watched the reality series Cops or Live PD, pathological selfishness is very much a staple, a defining attribute of the assorted misfits and predators. I remember one lengthy pursuit of thieves who’d robbed a store at gunpoint, terrorised its owner, and then fled the scene in a stolen car, and whose bid to escape did costly damage to other people’s property, and caused other road users to veer and crash, resulting in serious injury.
When finally apprehended, the thieves, themselves unharmed, were entirely unconcerned by the horror and destruction left in their wake, or the fact that it was all but miraculous that no-one had been killed. Instead, they were loudly indignant, as if they were the victims of the drama, heatedly objecting to the discomfort of handcuffs, and demanding to know why their phones had been confiscated. While, within earshot, injured children were being rushed to hospital.
Scenes like the above, of which there were many, may explain why progressives disliked the series, dismissing it as “copaganda”… I suspect the actual objection is not so much, as claimed, that the series portrayed the police in a sanitised or flattering light, as the officers were rarely the focus of the viewer’s attention.
The stars of each episode, if that’s the right word, were usually the lawbreakers. They, not the police, held the attention. They were generally the ones driving events, whether those events were alarming or farcical. And so, the series offered a glimpse into the mindset of the criminals – the recurring patterns of malevolence and selfishness – in their own words and by watching their own actions.
And obviously, we can’t have that. It makes pretentious sympathy much more difficult to muster.
On crime, criminals, and progressive unrealism.
The Accessorising Didn’t Quite Do It
Man thinks his purse makes him a woman.
And so, you must accept and affirm his rejection of himself.
Oddments For The Weekend
Including a display of flexibility; the legend of Bum Farto; a misfit with airhorn fantasies; a chance to feel your age; and a not entirely affirming approximation of a penis.
And It Will Be On The Test
No, don’t run away. She wants to tell you about herself.
The Thrill Of Word-Policing
Apparently, the word collision is, for Dr Madrid, much too brutal and masculine when referring to the convergence of two galaxies, and the subsequent merging of the supermassive black holes at their centres – an event that will entail the sling-shotting of countless stars and their orbiting planets, and which may release energy equivalent to around 100 million supernova explosions, and to subsequently be detectable halfway across the universe.
Come, let’s pay a visit to the publication laughingly referred to as Scientific American.
Oddments For The Weekend
Including a promptly validated judgement; hawk versus kitten; lion relocation; recovered Kodachromes of New York in the Fifties; and ice-cream scoop insertions and other medical emergencies.
A Mystery For Our Times
Guardian columnist mystified by men not wearing skirts.
The Year Reheated
Or, “Twelve months of our betters being pretentious, neurotic, and perverse.”
A small taste:
Among the mighty titans encountered in November was a radical young lady named Margot, a “nutrition counsellor” who is “root-cause and system focussed,” and whose profound thoughts included “What do we eat during the revolution?” It turns out that you can’t agitate the proletariat without a solid meal plan. While her comrades “break capitalism” and “abolish” prison, Margot envisions herself “coaching people in how to eat from a revolutionary and resistance standpoint.” A task that involves instructing the little people on how to dry pepper seeds and how to wash foraged bin scraps in vinegar in order to remove any trace of those capitalist pesticides. The revolution, since you ask, will be fuelled by cashew milk and vegan pseudo-cheese. Because as capitalism is toppled, and amid the riots and burning cars, there will, it seems, be space for neurotic niche cuisine. Assuming, that is, that the proletariat are tempted by the prospect of economic ruin, roaming gangs of liberated rapists, and evenings spent washing other people’s bin contents.
G-String Blues
Oddments For The Weekend
Including the designated drivers of yesteryear; where dimples are highly valued; how progressives destroy empathy; a scone pronunciation map; and when your new neighbour wants you to know that he’s a self-satisfied dick.
Competence Is A Luxury We Can No Longer Permit
Are you Canadian and feeling unwell? Fear not, I bring thrilling news.
Oddments For The Weekend
Including some “public disorder” in Wales; the periodic table of tools; a solution to truancy; very political parents and children’s mental health; and a possible explanation for why cyclists are unloved.
Maybe If We Stood Further Back
“I wanted to make a work… about Britain for the British public.”
Our betters make art, get fat cheque.
Wooing And Titillation, The Transgender Way
Don’t All Rush At Once
Do you know of any “artists and visionaries,” or people “good at spreadsheets”? Because there may be a job going, come the revolution.
Oddments For The Weekend
Including scenes of utter toolery; a thing that isn’t rocket science; a brief history of can openers; a matter of some urgency; and when immobilising ambulances is just radical larks, baby.
Mashed Potatoes And Gravy
An educational lecture by Professor James O’Flannery.