Brendan O’Connor
Cutting Edge is back: the host tells us what annoys him in life
People being eliminated
If you are in public life and you say something wrong or did something wrong in the past you are now eliminated. There is generally no way back. Not sure how that helps anything. Would it not be more helpful to see people learn from their mistakes and do something positive to redeem themselves? But there is no redemption any more. I think we might learn a bit more from these things if we allowed people to redeem themselves. Also, we are all going to mess up at some stage so be careful about the exacting standards you demand of others.
Organised fun
I hate it. Once there is organised fun I am out of there. I feel fun should be organic. Everything from the 12 pubs of Christmas to Valentine’s Day to a boat trip with drinks included on holidays to anything where I am told how to enjoy myself, I can’t do it. People who say things like “this is going to be fun” or “lots of fun promised” are usually, paradoxically, the least fun people ever.
Men and it not being a time for them to talk
I can’t see how telling men this is a time for them to listen and not talk is helping anything. And if you suggest that it’s not a good idea to shut up one half of the population, some woman will say to you ‘now you know how it’s been for us all these years.’ So that’s how we are going to show that the treatment of women was wrong, by treating men badly too? I don’t blame women for being angry. The patriarchy has held women back for generations and we need to fix that. But let the men talk. We might say stupid stuff, but we might all learn something as well. Silence is never the answer.
Everyone is militant now
The cyclists seem to be militant, the vegans are too. It seems for anyone to be right anymore, they need to be super-right and everyone else needs to be wrong and the people who are right need to be angry about it. I’m more like, chill out, let’s talk and persuade each other of our point of view and maybe we meet somewhere in the middle or maybe, heaven forbid we agree to differ. But everyone now needs everyone else to be wrong in order for them to be right, and everything is a big massive conflict. It’s exhausting.
Too much self-help and wellness
I like a bit of self-improvement, but I just can’t keep up any more. Every day there are new books arriving into the office about the 12 things I must do now or someone is telling me about some new tome I have to get on audio-book. It’s all usually the same old ding-dong anyway, culled from a bit of Buddhism and a bit of hippie and a bit of Christianity. Not that you want to be telling the self-help crowd that. They’d die if they thought it was anything to do with Christianity. They are deeply spiritual people, they will tell you, but not religious. But they seem to think Buddhism is OK. Just don’t mention the monks in Myanmar. I’ve boiled self-improvement down to a few simple things now. Meditate, exercise, get out in the air, try and be useful and make some bit of a contribution. I’m working on the usefulness bit, but I’ll get there.
Plastic surgery
Again, I am baffled. This used to be something that certain people got and everyone else would be baffled by it, but it’s getting more and more common. And we all have to pretend we don’t notice. And to me they all look slightly odd but similar. They are no longer themselves. I feel bad for them. How bad must they feel inside to do this? I should stress that I don’t mean people who need plastic surgery. I mean people who decide to go off one day and get their face totally changed into a kind of puffy shark look. I’m not shaming anyone because I’m mentioning no names here. But I can’t understand it. Watch now I’ll be getting it myself next year.
Social media virtue signalling
I’m still a bit baffled by social media. Don’t get it. From what people tell me, the main purpose of it seems to be for people to show off what great people they are. If someone is having a hard time, a normal person will ring them or text them or take them for a walk and say, ‘You know, obviously if there’s anything I can do let me know,’ and maybe gently let the person talk. But the new thing seems to be that you emote all over social media in front of loads of other people, ‘Oh babes you poor thing. Is there anything I can do? Anything, just tell me!’ and so on. It’s daft and so fake. Why not just shut up and do something helpful?
The cyclists seem to be militant, the vegans are too. It seems for anyone to be right anymore, they need to be super-right and everyone else needs to be wrong