The
perfect analogy for 21st century living?
The
idea occurred to me as I pootled along a lane near my house (‘pootle’ is my
current fave word). Decorating the bushes along a pleasant, leafy stretch were
some of the usual blue, grey and sometimes lilac, scented plastic bags that dog
walkers use. They collect up the doggie crap in them when people are looking
before they hang them on the bushes or chuck them into the hedgerows when the
coast is clear. It is so utterly ridiculous; so marvellously, hideously
preposterously, ludicrously THE WAY WE LIVE. They just begged to be something
more than mini memorials to indolence, shit shrines to selfishness, little
reminders of only-I-matter, hints of the way the 21st century mind
operates, it was inspiring.
Some of the ripe faecal matter oozed a bit
where the bags had been punctured or torn with the weight of their contents. A
sickly aroma of chemical fragrance, mixed with the horrid innards, wafted in
the warm breeze as I passed, effectively choking the smell of late summer,
grass and leaves – even car fumes, which would have been welcome under the
circumstances.
We are
the bushes and passive hedgerows (some, like me, a little thorny) just being, as more and more doggy doo doo
bags with their false floral smells are hung upon us until we become dragged
down by barely contained, thinly disguised ugly truths.
Jingoistic
racism is shit in a scented plastic bag of headline grabbing statements about
immigration, juxtaposed with a call to patriotism.
Jolly
laddish humour denigrating women in your bog standard comedy den is the shite
of misogyny carried in the perfumed plastic parcel marked ‘irony’.
The
Olympics was a dome of shite of scandalous resource-wasting, bringing wealth and
prestige to an inner circle, wrapped in the colossal fragranced misty clingfilm
of the-national-good.
The
outcry against foreign aid is spite and greed on a level so extraordinary the
shite requires a double layer of sweet smelling artifice. In this case the
scent is provided by the lie about concern for our own public services as if
there is some link. In fact our NHS is crippled under the burden of PFIs, poor
management and targets and not by foreign aid. It is undermined by being
manipulated by a disconnected elite who live and breathe private sector and
privilege.
The
demand for fracking as an answer to high energy prices and shortages is so
wrong headed as to be surreal. The profiteers are chucking the prettily wrapped
turds about so randomly you’d think no one ever noticed that availability of
energy sources never actually saw prices dropping for consumers.
Equally,
those still bellyaching about GM crops as a saviour of the poor and starving
never noticed that the poor don’t get fed even when there is enough of
everything on the planet. Both the frackin frackers and the gormless GM-ers
need extra large bags for their particular crap. Maybe they could have bin bags
soaked in Chanel No.5?
And so
it goes on. You see just what a fabulous analogy it is? Most analogies break
down / degrade (unlike plastic bags) but this one works in so many ways. It is
the analogy that keeps on giving, it deserves a medal.
Try it. If it doesn’t work you will get your money back
(not).
Choice
in public services is the perfumed bag containing the shitty truth which is
that those with the sharpest elbows can scramble for the increasingly limited
availability of properly operating and funded services.
A zero
hours contract is the aromatic legal packaging containing the shit of
exploitation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The
country is filling up with gaily coloured perfumed bags bulging with nasty
toxic shit. When the bags all split the stench is going to be horrendous.