Following on from the Polylanna blog last week, which was in turn a response to claims of
an especially dour run of posts, I am again going to offer perky positives. This
week I’ll provide my dear bleaders with a one day emergency guide to surviving
reality with your sanity intact.
Turning away from the need and mess is not edifying or
moral behaviour. If we can’t help we have a duty to ‘know’. But I’m working on a
papal dispensation for what will be just one day of respite where the lucky
ones (those not trying to cross the Med in a sieve, survive a corrupt
dictatorship, feed a starving family or endure environmental disaster) but
wracked with guilt and helplessness, can plug out for 12 hours. So, for
example, in this country you may wish to switch off from the Tories' full on attack on the low
waged. If you live in America I would say try not to think about just how many
people of unstable mind are, right now, armed with sufficient weaponry to give
an entire town a really bad day. If you care about the planet try not to focus
on the increasing backlash from Nature as we scorch the earth and so on and so
forth. And here is a guide on how to spend that day.
Firstly, if you’ve not already given up on the box at
least turn it off. There is no point having it on but avoiding the news because
the alternatives are morons on game shows, programmes about high maintenance
gardens and poor quality freak shows masquerading as reality TV. And in this
country, despite it being 2015, black representation in the publically funded
broadcast channel has actually significantly decreased rather than increased.
So just turn it off.
If you have £2 to spare go to the co-op (or
equivalent outside the UK) and buy their own brand cheesecake. It’s not as good
as homemade but it’s pretty nice and a real budget treat. And frankly – though
the food industry is working so hard to hasten our untimely and unpleasant demise
- more than just about any other global force – this aint the time for a tofu
salad.
Then get yourself a DVD collection of old Columbo
episodes or if you are more modern than me download them. I can highly
recommend Candidate for Crime, Prescription for Murder, Suitable for Framing. The importance of
this choice is that you can spend a couple of hours fantasising that the
application of logic, decency and hard work will always triumph over
corruption, egotism, narcissism and criminality. Plus you get GREAT dialogue,
fully drawn characters and subtle humour.
Paint the walls of your house orange and brown and
wear a flowered kaftan and pretend it’s the 1970s because although it was not a
good era for music, fashion, sexism, racism and there were lots of paedophiles
operating with impunity in our institutions, at least back then we were still
in a position to save the planet.
I wouldn’t recommend trying to become self
sufficient in a day or even in a hurry. I started with an apple tree. The pesky
squirrels got most of them, the magpies pecked a couple (I didn’t even know
magpies ate apples) and the wind just blew the last one down. Although I rescued
it from the slugs it wouldn’t keep us fed through the breakdown of law and
order, crop failure and Armageddon.
I do suggest that you keep a copy of Anna Karenina to hand and just glance at
it during the day off and bear in mind that if martial law is declared and you
can’t leave your house, there is a book that can be read and re-read and
re-re-read.
And lastly, if you live in the UK, move to Scotland.
Oh! I already did that, though it did take longer than a day...