Bit of a Brad boy
Jim Bond, via email
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Michael, via email
THIS week’s moving and uplifting 75th anniversary D-Day commemorations will hopefully have reminded us how truly brave, magnificent and unique the human spirit is. They will, fingers crossed, have made it dawn upon us in these most superficial and selfish of times, that bravery, comradeship, pride, respect, a sense of duty, and the love of one’s country and the people who inhabit it, is what makes us rounded human beings.
Sadly, though, at times it IS pretty much a horrible world that we live in. A world that is dominated by the superficiality of social media. An aspirational, ultimately empty value world that now rides on wanting what someone else on social media has got. Glamorous holidays – I can’t afford that, I must be a loser. Perfect bodies – why am I so fat and ugly? They’re going to VETERANS The best of human spirit
the biggest party in town? Why haven’t I been invited? I’m looking older – gimme some filler now! It’s a barren, superficial, meaningless road trip to hell.
It’s a world where in order to entice new recruits the Army is appealing for “snowflakes, selfie addicts, class clowns, phone zombies, and me, me, millennials” to join its ranks.
What would the D-Day veterans make of that, I wonder? Kids who’d rather stick with a games console than stand side by side, proud and ready for duty.
Who can blame them, though, when what happens on social media is more important than what happens in the moment in real life? And real life is scary. I mean, a lying buffoon cum serial philanderer – you know who I’m talking about (begins
While we’re on the subject of »
D-Day spirit, hats off to the truly indomitable five-year-old HarmonieRose Allen, a true heroine who has fought her own battle with meningitis since contracting the disease aged
11 months. with B) as a prospective prime minister? A fellow odious liar and stab-in-the-back merchant – you know who I mean (initials MG) – also with his shifty eyes on the PM’s job?
Never has the UK been a more moral-free zone. Never – wars aside – has there been more insecurity, worry and anxiety. Often caused by fear of missing out, by not having a perfect Instagrammable body, or holiday or handbag, and being criticised by nasty online strangers.
It’s such utter superficial, otherworldly nonsense. And it is killing people.
On Wednesday, a verdict of suicide was recorded by the coroner at the inquest into the death of gorgeous 26year-old former semiprofessional footballer and Love Island star Mike Thalassitis. Thrust into the limelight and subjected to judgment based on looks, personality and the general superficiality of today’s Insta society, two years later he was found hanging in a North London park.
His fellow contestant and friend, Montana Brown, 23, said after the inquest: “I think everyone should be nicer, a little bit kinder.”
Shouldn’t they just? A bit more in the spirit of the D-Day heroes…
Sadly at times it IS a horrible world we live in, dominated by social media
Hollywood everyman actor Bradley Cooper’s nice-guy reputation bags him some of the best roles around. And he IS a nice guy, according to the director I met who worked with him during his West End stage debut in The Elephant Man back in the summer of 2015.
Apparently he always had a kind word for everyone and was “just one of the boys”. He also bought gifts for the whole team when the production finished. What a guy!
Just as well, then, that his inability to hold a relationship down – his latest split, from actress Irina Shayk came this week – suggests there’s also a bit of bad boy lurking within, thus saving him from that tricky territory of being a bit TOO good to be true.