A man of principle and integrity can never be wrong…
The scene: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and two of his most loyal media cheerleaders meet up in a café to discuss their party’s latest position on Brexit and the single market. Waitress: And what can I get you three gentlemen to drink?
Jeremy Corbyn: I’ll have a cup of tea, please.
Corbynista 1: love tea.
Corbynista 2: I didn’t like tea at first, but I’m right behind it now. Corbynista 1: Tea is the drink of the people. Ordinary people. Real people. Corbynista 2: Unlike coffee. Corbynista 1: I hate coffee. Corbynista 2: The only people still drinking coffee in 2017 are out-oftouch, bubble-dwelling centrists in SW1.
Corbynista 1: It’s about time they woke up, got over it, and realised that the rest of the country has moved on. We have. Why can’t they?
[to waitress]: Sorry about this. Could I change my order? I actually quite fancy a latte. Corbynista 1: Brilliant choice. Coffee. I love coffee.
Corbynista 2: I didn’t like coffee at first, but I’m right behind it now. Corbynista 1: Coffee is the drink of Brilliant choice. Tea. I the young. The drink of the future. Quite frankly, it’s the only drink in this country giving young people hope. Corbynista 2: Unlike tea. Corbynista 1: I hate tea.
Corbynista 2: The only people still drinking tea in 2017 are imperialist, backward-looking Little Englanders, daydreaming about the Raj. Corbynista 1: It’s about time they woke up, got over it, and realised that the rest of the country has moved on. We have. Why can’t they?
The waitress returns and sets down their drinks.
[to waitress]: Sorry, there seems to have been some kind of mistake. This is coffee. I’m sure I ordered tea. Waitress: But you changed your mind, sir. You asked for tea first, but then you told me you wanted – Corbynista 1: Are you calling Jeremy Corbyn a liar? Corbynista 2: Of course Jeremy ordered tea! Jeremy loves tea. And he hates coffee. We all hate coffee. That’s been our clear position all along. Corbynista 1: How dare you smear Jeremy like this. A man of principle and integrity – and you come over to his table, spreading lies from Murdoch’s gutter press about his taste in beverages.
Corbynista 2: It’s sickening. After everything Jeremy’s done for people like you, this is how you repay him. Corbynista 1: He’s spent his life fighting for women’s rights, you ungrateful cow.
Corbynista 2: Honestly, I don’t know why he bothers.
[to waitress]: Please, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. I like coffee.
Corbynista 1: Terrific coffee, this. Delicious. Corbynista 2: Cheers, love!
I’ve just read How Not to Be a Boy, a new memoir by Robert Webb. It’s partly about his upbringing, and partly about his thoughts on masculinity. I enjoyed it a lot: it’s funny, poignant, revealing. But the bit I keep thinking about isn’t to do with gender. It’s to do with shyness.
Webb says that as a child he was acutely shy. Since he’s now a television star, who won Let’s Dance for Comic Relief by performing Flashdance in a leotard before an audience of millions on BBC One, that may sound unlikely. But in fact most famous performers were shy children. Shyness didn’t hinder them. Ultimately, I suspect, it’s what made them.
This is because shyness gives them a misfit’s powers of observation. People who are at ease with others, who are always in the swing of things socially, tend not to develop these powers, or at least not to the same extent. They’re busy enjoying themselves.
Why do shy children always have their nose in a book? It’s not necessarily because they’re brainier than popular children. It’s because books are a refuge for the introverted. They allow you to learn about life, without having to participate in it. To learn about people, without having to talk to them.
If your children are outgoing, friendly and popular, congratulations. They’ll never be famous, that’s all.
Warner Bros has announced plans to make a new film of Lord of the Flies, but with the boys replaced by girls. Naturally, there’s been quite an outcry.
“An all-women remake of Lord of the Flies makes no sense because the plot of that book wouldn’t happen with all women,” protested one feminist writer.
“The thing about Lord of the Flies is that it’s about systemic male violence,” said another.
I agree. There’s no way girls are capable of the cruelty and viciousness displayed by the boys in the book. As every feminist knows, girls are gentle, nurturing and feminine. Only boys are rough.
That’s why you could never do a female remake of Tina Fey’s brilliant high-school comedy, Mean Boys.
Fey couldn’t have written a film about a group of girls mercilessly bullying the weak and unattractive to enhance their own social status. No one would have believed it.
It would be like rewriting Macbeth so that, instead of the protagonist’s wife being the voice of reason who pleads with him to see the error of his ways, she were some power-crazed domineering psychopath urging him to commit regicide. Or rewriting
101 Dalmatians so that, rather than a warm-hearted philanthropist with an eccentrically large number of pets, Cruella de Vil were a ruthless tyrant who murders dogs for their fur.
The truth is, if a group of adolescent schoolgirls were stranded on an island, without adult supervision, they would immediately form a stable and compassionate society based on lengthy heart-to-hearts, mutual shoe appreciation and exchanging recipes for cupcakes.
To say anything else is deeply sexist.