This isn’t the day for phoney sympathy

OVER THE past couple of weeks I’ve received emails from the BBC History Magazine and from the flower delivery company Bloom And Wild. Basically they say the same thing. This was the History Magazine’s wording: “Father’s Day is coming up and we understand it can be a sensitive and difficult time for some. With that in mind, we’re letting you know you can choose to opt out of Father’s Day themed emails this year.”

What fresh hell is this? I read both emails a couple of times with a sense of disbelief at how far an organisation will bend over backwards in order to avoid giving the slightest, inadvertent offence.

If you’re worried about upsetting someone with a mention of Father’s Day then why send an email mentioning Father’s Day which invites them to opt out of getting yet more emails mentioning Father’s Day?

Why? Just to signal how wonderful you are, that’s why.

Of course Father’s Day itself is (like Halloween and high school proms) a confected celebration borrowed from America.

It’s hardly lodged deep in our cultural heart though we now pretend it is.

But over the years both Father’s Day and Mother’s Day have become massive merchandising and marketing opportunities to the extent it’s hard to tell where real feeling ends and naked commercialism begins.

Both emails annoyed me intensely (even though the BBC History Magazine is very interesting and Bloom And Wild send nice flowers). In fact I was so irritated that I

POOR OLD Len Goodman made a Jubilee gaffe because he told Kirsty Young and John Torode that his grandma used to call Coronation Chicken (devised to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation) “foreign muck” because of the curry powder. This led to some bleating about diversity on social media and – how ridiculous is this? – an apology from the BBC. Who were they apologising too? The chicken? Mind you, Princess Margaret wasn’t even that polite. Once when presented with a dish of it she said:

“This looks like sick.” spent a little time trying to work out why that should be. For a start, there was the “we understand” phrase that made me seethe. So concerned, so compassionate and so emphatically phoney.

OK, I can just about appreciate that someone whose dad had died recently might find a “Father’s Day themed email” a little poignant.

But in the course of a single day most of us receive many emails from faceless organisations and pay little attention to them beyond hitting the delete button.

Surely someone mourning a father isn’t going to take a vacuous “Father’s Day themed email” personally? I’ll always miss my own dear father, but I find that I can take Father’s Day in my stride.

In my view these oily emails are all part of a cynical pretence. It’s the pretence

by companies and organisations that they are our best buddies and are concerned about our feelings, which is patently untrue. It’s like all those cute messages on packaging to persuade you how green and caring your yogurt is.

Oh for the brisker, business-like days when companies merely advertised their product and tried to turn an honest profit, without feeling the need to offer a

counselling service as well.