Sorry for lack of posts recently but has been a bad week in various ways, although ironically, and annoyingly, I have been pretty healthy really. But not feeling myself, one way and another, and that is an essential precondition of writing.
Have a whole lot of seedstock posts ready for germination but so far the seed is falling on barren ground (which reminds me, inevitably, as it will remind you, of Dorothy Parker’s pet bird who she named Onan). Will try to get my scattered seed, sorry, wits, together soon and get back into the Passing Parade. Which reminds me, and will remind one or two of my more senior readers, of yet another feature of times past, the picture theatre newsreel. This ran before the major film, and was the only chance we had, in those pre-tv days, of seeing actual moving talking images of, say Churchill, Eisenhower, Olympic Games, wars, and other events, albeit in Perth some days after the things happened, because it took a while to fly the films in (just as it would take, if the Sun blew up, 8 minutes for us to become aware of the explosion, in Perth if World War Three had begun in the 1950s we would not have known for several days that the world was over). So popular were these newsreels that there was a small theatre, the Mayfair, which ran only newsreels interspersed with short comedies, notably The Three Stooges (not inappropriately), on a continuous rotation. You could enter at any time, guided in the dark by an usher with a torch, and sit for an hour or so until the segment was on that you had first seen when you came in.
OK, now back to where we were when you first came in. Have been doing a very occasional twitter series about things that annoy me (yes, yes, it’s a long list) and I thought I would do a more extended one here that wouldn’t fit twitter.
Often when there is discussion about, say, a racist incident, where for example football fans scream racial abuse at a black player (as happened, once again, this week at the European Soccer championships); Or homophobia; Or misogyny up to and including violence against women; Or violence in the streets; Or criminal behaviour of some kind, the cry will go up from family, friends, lawyers, oh, he didn’t mean it, he is a really nice fellow, he was drunk. He was not himself, in short, because of Demon Drink.
Nonsense. I don’t do any of that stuff when I am drunk (I alternate between raucous, maudlin, and going to sleep on the sofa) and I don’t know anyone who does. Those who do are not behaving “out of character” but totally in character as the firewater releases inhibitions. You want an excuse for behaving badly? Alcohol isn’t it. Perhaps you could blame your parents?
