‘This is a real kick in the fundamentals for folk who think that bottling things up is manly and that one shouldn’t be going around pouring out one’s heart to anything more than a bottle of Scotch.’
Royal emotions? Vegan paint? Fish suppers? I don’t have time for this ... my dangly bits are shrinking
THE world is changing. I know that’s what you expect. All the same, you kind of hope sometimes that at least some things might remain reliable. Not so.
Take the royal family. Aye, thaim. There was a time when you could rely on thaim to uphold traditional values and be a bit fuddy-duddy. No more, it seems, at least among the younger ones.
In a shock announcement, Prince William, known in the popular prints as “Wills” – I’m guessing some kind of abbreviation – spoke out against the “stiff upper lip” mentality of previous generations which, he said, was the cause of today’s mushrooming of mental health problems. The only blessing was that he didn’t refer to the latter as mental health opportunities. Addressing the World Economic Conspiracy Forum in yonder Davos, the “future king” (it says here; who knew?) said the bottling up of emotions and declining to speak about personal problems had sent his forebears doolally.
But, he claimed, an unlikely cavalry sitting astride bipolar donkeys had come shuffling over the hill in the shape of millennials, the snowflake generation with the wobbly lips and the tendency to burst into tears when they are offended, which they always are, and by everything.
This is a real kick in the fundamentals for folk who think that bottling things up is manly and that one shouldn’t be going around pouring out one’s heart to anything more than a bottle of Scotch. That is to say, me.
All this comes on the back of Meghan turning her husband Prince Harry (short for Harold, you’d think – but no, he’s a Henry) into a meditating Buddhist who feels a momentary pang of regret when, bravely, he overcomes and kills the mighty grouse.
Meghan is arguably pregnant and has reportedly ordered the incipient wean’s nursery to be decorated with “vegan-friendly” paint. Note the inverted commas, which is an old newspaper trick when we print things that might not be true.
But it is at least the case that the paint is eco-friendly and hasn’t been tested on animals. Hang on, do they test paint on animals? Do people in white coats cover them in paint and wait to see if they keel over or develop an irritating cough?
The paint is supposed to enhance memory and stimulate creativity so I’d be tempted to dip my heid in it – if it wasn’t so pricey. Still, it has made me wonder if my pound shop offal-based satin finish hasn’t been affecting my moods recently. Not that it’s anything to do with you. Keeping that bottled up tae.
Of course, it isn’t just the royals that are changing. Modish vegans and meat-maddened traditionalists have been slogging it out in yonder Cornwall over a new meat-free pasty. Publicans in Kelso have developed a haggis-flavoured gin.
And top scientists in America have warned that eating traditional fish suppers will take years off your life. The small print says that, like everything else nowadays, they’re only concerned about women (men are becoming the Scotland of genders; on international affairs, second referendums etc, it’s “Not you, Scotland”; and, on health and life generally, it’s “Not you, men”).
I didn’t know women ate fish suppers. Is that one of thae feminist things? In my experience, they usually go for half a pizza. And they won’t let you eat pickled eggs after that last experience when the duvet was blown clean off the bed.
Amid all this change – they used to tell us that fish suppers, like butter, lard and fags, were good for us – the expression “stop the world, I want to get off” springs to mind. But even my limited understanding of science tells me the world never stops. It keeps on rolling along, crushing us under the weight of its fads and “progress”.
Get on with it, we don’t have long
THE other thing we seem powerless to stop is ageing. There was a bit of a fad recently for immortality but that seems to have died a death. The next best thing is gerontology, which looks at ways of extending our lifespans, or at least our “healthspans”, according to Sue Armstrong, author of Borrowed Time: The Science Of How And Why We Age, published this week.
I like her expression about matching the recent addition of
“years to life” with more “life to years”. There’s not much point in hingin’ oan till 100 if ye cannae dae anything.
The key is to get a grip of your dangly bits. These are called telomeres and they hang on to the end of your chromosomes, ken? The longer they are the better. And we can keep them long by dealing with “senescent cells”. That’s as best as I understand it. Don’t write in if it’s bilge. Life’s too short.
Researchers, says Armstrong, are trying to control these cells, with the aim of altering the “natural” process of ageing. The problem is that these scientists aren’t working fast enough. They take lunch breaks and everything.
They are taking their time. And time, let me remind you, waits for no woman.
Attack of the cookie monster
CONGRATULATIONS to fabulously funny spoof news website The Daily Mash for its version of these ridiculous affirmations about cookies and data that you must declare now every time you read something online. Instead of the usual “I accept” or “Continue to site”, it just asks you to click “Whatever”.
It’s the mot juste, ken? These affirmations were supposed to help protect our privacy, but they’re just a nuisance.
For a while, I laboriously went through the further option of ticking “no” to all the data gathering, but with my telomeres not getting any longer, eventually I just went back to ticking “accept”.
Whereupon another message obscures the page, thanking me for “submitting your data choices”, and no sooner have I got rid of that than another message drops down inviting me to subscribe to a newsletter.
In the name of the wee man, will you just let us read the ruddy page? It was never like this before the world changed.