Notes on Last Week’s Post

I wrote a post last week that set out quite a few opinions of mine. I wasn’t really looking to spark debate or responses, I was looking to unload and then move on. However a dear friend of mine (Grips) offered a small rebuff and so I thought I would expound on those things that we didn’t quite agree on. I want to qualify that I welcome responses and a bit of back and forth and I look forward to more in the future. We need to talk to each other about our differences and try to understand where we’re all coming from and not just sticking a flag in the ground on one side and never moving from it.

Grips believed that there are some good elements of the royal family. I would agree with this in a small way, but mostly I disagree. The royal family perpetuate a class system based on hierarchy and just because they were lucky enough to be born to that family they receive vast amounts of privilege and wealth. They are not ordained by any deity, they are not better than anyone else, they are just as messy and fucked up as us all and the family unit has covered up or tried to hide wrong doing. It cannot continue as it currently is. It needs to be more transparent as an organisation and much smaller. However on the plus side, they do bring in the tourists, they provide the UK with a symbol which is not political to rally around and provide the UK with a lot of soft power. There aren’t many people that can go to the USA, drag the orange wotsit around the room, make jokes as his expense and get away with it. It was a master class of diplomacy and reminding everyone else in the USA what they are meant to give a shit about.

Grips agreed with my sentiment on organised religion, but believed there was merit in faith. I agree wholeheartedly with this. Seriously, fuck all organised religion. They are systems created to suck power and wealth to a select few people and keep everyone else in their place. Fuck that. However to have faith in something higher is a beautiful thing. To subscribe to a moral code, to abide by that code and to offer forgiveness to those who stray from that code is a beautiful thing. I was brought up in a Christian church as I went to Boys Brigade when I was young. Along with my parents, it offered me a code of how to live my life in a manner which is collaboratively and sympathetic to my fellow human beings, offering my help and support when I can and treating others in a decent manner.

And last but by no means least, Grips nearly used percentages wrong. So this is the easiest of the three. Simply:

• Fuck everyone that uses percentages wrong. No you cannot be 110% agreed with something because that’s not how that works you wally. You can literally only be 100% agreed with something or less than that. It doesn’t go above that in anything so stop fucking saying it.

Right, now that I’ve calmed down from percentage based fun I can end this post. I’m writing it from the Eurostar as Emily and I are off on holiday to Bruges. And I will reiterate, if you want to discuss, you know where I am.