Go On Then. Google ‘Grumble’
I’m a most unusual oldster. Not in terms of talent or success - have always been a failure even at being a failure - but because I’m always happy. The usual septuagenarian stance is to rehearse more miseries in a day than pop pills.
What’s the reason for my cheerful mood? Simply that there are now so many more things I can grumble about in church and society than there were in the past. No need to make myself miserable by wondering what I can complain about, when there are even more irritants swarming around today than there are ‘pop celebs’ in an Honours List.
Take television. Once there was only BBC, and therefore a limit to the grumbles you could launch. Now there are far more channels than hairs on Russell Brand’s head - and you’ll find Stephen Fry pontificating on every one of them. Endless opportunities for me having a moan compared to the old days when TV was as rationed as food.
Therefore I’m happy that TV gives us so much to criticise. I can even get a grumble from the fact that you have to use your own electricity, and spill the tea on your own armchair, as you settle down to watch-Benidorm, the only modern documentary worth viewing. When I was a lad our family bunked into the radio & TV department of the local emporium and watched TV in the comfort of armchairs we couldn’t afford at home. They even screened Non-League football then, and not just Premiership pap.
TV leads me to technology. What a glut of grumbles you can have now there’s so much more of it. Popes as well as PMs tweeting. Even more Church websites than Welby ‘wise words’ on banking. All our parents could grumble about was if the youngsters next door were crying along too noisily with Johnny Ray as they played a 78 on the Dansette. Nowadays we ‘oldies’ are the ones crying if we’re cannoned into by a youth too absorbed with a ‘mobie’ to see where she’s going. Or when we’re reduced to tears by the ridicule provoked if we’re not ‘silver surfers’. Those are ‘oldies’ who know a Google from an App, and that iPad isn’t an abbreviation for Incontinence Pad.
Perhaps there are ‘lessons to be learned’ Yet learning the lessons would involve the Government setting up yet another quango. The only redeeming feature of our quangocracy is that guessing which quango hides behind which acronym saves me spending time wrestling hopelessly with cryptic crosswords. That’s another good reason to be happy.
My happiness at noting the proliferation of grum- ble-worthy quangos is further increased by grumbling that, as Anglican congregations continue to decline - Justin’s favoured ‘prayer in a pub’ congregations and Cathedral services apart (same folk?) - the number of Church quangos producing jargon-filled reports grows. Resort to jargon springs from the abandonment of The Book of Common Prayer. That perfect guide to clear, concise language.
Language. That gives me another grumble. Plough through to the end of a leaflet from the local council, hospital or other public body and you are likely to be met with being asked if you require the material in languages other than English (or Welsh if it’s a Principality-printed pamphlet). The choice ranges from Azerbaijani to Xhosa. How on earth could you have read through to that plea if you needed an interpreter to begin reading the leaflet?
Food for thought? Food - another grumble. In many areas Balti has replaced Boiled Beef and Carrots on the menu. More Pizza Parlours than pubs. Try and find an old-fashioned English Tea Room. Tikka Masala advertised rather than Tripe and Onions.
Tripe? Takes us back to TV. The dreadful menu ranging from ‘Strictly’ to ‘Berry’. Now I’m showing that, after all, I am a typical ‘oldie’, repeating myself. Repeats. That’s all you get on today’s Tele. Grumble. Grumble. Happy Days! Oh no. That sounds like yet another TV repeat.