Why Young People Are Grouchy!

bored

After years of research, I’ve discovered why young people are grouchy all the time.  It’s pretty simple, really.  They’re bored out of their skulls.  The problem is, despite the entire 21st century lying at their feet like a cornucopia of earthly delights, they have so many politically correct rules of engagement that they’re scared to touch it.  Let me explain.

They can’t play games or even watch them.  There is a myth that young people like board games, but I think this is just spin (“lie” is such a hard word.)  Think about it!  Games are, by definition, competition, and when you have competition you have winners and – OMG – losers.  This is the Anti-Christ of the 21st century.  If an activity isn’t win/win, it just doesn’t happen.

They can’t watch television — except The Handmaid’s Tale.  The trigger warnings in Game of Thrones alone would fill an encyclopedia (that’s Google for old people.)  Even the blandest of the bland, the antique sitcom, Friends — a program so inoffensive it can’t even be called vanilla (that suggests way too much flavour) is a minefield of politically incorrect thought.  Nope, TV is out!

They can’t go to the zoo.  Animals in captivity?  That’s just crazy talk.

They can’t go to a museum.  If the single statue of some dead guy is offensive, a whole building full of history could cause apoplectic shock.

They can’t read books published before 1980.  In a time when To Kill a Mockingbird has been censored, Huck Finn rewritten and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Screw banned, we’re not many days away from politically correct mobs ransacking libraries and burning the books in the streets.  Sad as it may seem, Fahrenheit 451 isn’t fiction anymore; it’s a training manual.  So reading is a no-no!

They can’t go to the movies.  Here is an industry that has, on several occasions, confessed that it is a whitewashing, cultural appropriating, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-Latino, anti-Asian, anti-Muslim monopoly, controlled by misogynistic old white men.  What’s left?  Michael Moore’s “Ain’t It Awful?” documentaries — and even the politically correct are fed up with that guy.

They can’t dine out unless the restaurant grows its own organic food in a hydroponic biosphere in the back garden.  Even quinoa and avocados, the meat and potatoes of contemporary life, are suspect.  The carbon footprint that brings ancient grains and Aztec fruit to the modern table is just too deep to be tolerated.

And, of course, the super biggie:

They can’t flirt.  Don’t even go there!

And that, boys and girls, is why young people are so 24/7 bitchy!

November 11th, 2018

cross

Next Sunday at 11 A.M., the Western World will collectively hold its breath for a silent moment in a frail attempt to remember a war that human memory has now forgotten.  It’s been 100 years since the guns went quiet at the end of The War to End all Wars, and there are no veterans left.  No one who heard the guns, smelled the blood, tasted the fear or touched the dying.  They are all gone, and it’s up to us and those who come after us to remember them.  Not for their deeds or their politics — but simply because they lived and endured in a time that we must never, ever, ever repeat.

So, once again, I have a very simple story.

One hot summer day when I was a young man, I paused in front of the World War I cenotaph in Hedley British Columbia.  It’s a single grey obelisk about two metres high.  I’d seen it many times before but never bothered to stop.  On that day in the glorious sunshine, its weathered grey was bright and warm and dry. There was no breeze in the drowsy afternoon, and no sound, just settling puffs of dust at my boot heels.  No one was there but me.  There were four or six or maybe even eight names etched at the base (Hedley wasn’t a very big town in 1918.)  I touched the stone where the names were cut and read them to myself.  These were men my age — sons and brothers.  They had looked at the same mountains I saw that day; saw the same creek wandering down to the Similkameen River.  They’d played games on that street, run and laughed and learned how to talk to girls.  They were in their time what I was in mine.

Every year on November 11th, Remembrance Day, we pause for a moment.  We touch the names cut into stone.  Every year, I remember that I’ve forgotten those names.

American Election: A Suitable Alternative

jokes

I refuse to talk about the American midterm elections.  As the world holds its breath waiting for what the media has decided is the biggest contest between good and evil since Moses outmaneuvered the Egyptians at the Red Sea – count me out.  Why?  Because the media has decided it’s the biggest contest between good and evil since Moses outmaneuvered the Egyptians at the Red Sea.  Please!  I’ve lived through Jimmy Carter, Georges Pompidou, James Callaghan, Ronald Reagan, Valery Giscard d’Estaing and Maggie Thatcher – I know what evil looks like.  So for those of us who like a little more meat and a little less Wavy Gravy in our political discussions, I’ve prepared a suitable alternative.  Here are some of the best jokes of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Enjoy!

The problem with my jokes is that they sometimes take a while to get. Sometimes I’ll tell a joke and then 10 minutes later, when a different comedian is on stage, everyone starts laughing.
David McIver

When I see Donald Trump, I get the same thought in my head as I get after a particularly painful bikini wax. Bush wasn’t that bad.
Angela Barnes

My wife said she wanted to meet new people. I took her to the maternity ward

I’ve created an app to help with insomnia, called Slumbr, which lets you talk to other really boring people until you fall asleep. It’s online sedating.
Jon Harvey

The waiter in the restaurant asked me if I had any allergies. I said, ‘Yes, I am allergic to penicillin’.
Stuart Mitchell

I didn’t like getting lost on a campsite in the dark. I was feeling tents.
Charlie Partridge

I weigh 20 [280 lbs – 186 kg] stone, so being stalked by me is like heart disease. If you really want to avoid it, just start jogging.
Matt Price

I threw my hands in the air, which was a shame because I had nothing to catch them with on the way down.
Paul Mayhew

My girlfriend is half Irish and half Chinese. Which means she’s incredibly beautiful and I’m never allowed to do an impression of her.
Brett Goldstein

If you don’t know what introspection is, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself.
Ian Smith

My reasons for learning origami are two-fold.
Ken Cheng

Heaven is a bit difficult to reach, but if you are Catholic you can aim lower, to Purgatory: it is like a cheaper version of the afterlife, the Ryanair of souls.
Luca Cupani

Since my kids were born, I’ve started wearing jeans from M&S. They’re a style called ‘relaxed skinny’ – ironically, two things I haven’t been since my kids were born.
Lucy Porter

I played Hamlet once, not very successfully. The audience threw eggs at me. I went on as Hamlet and came off as omelette.
Gyles Brandreth

I only go for runs when it’s raining because it feels like you’re sweating way more and no one can see that you’re crying.
Paul Williams

I could never work in The Job Centre. Imagine working somewhere and knowing if you finally have the courage to quit, you’ve still got to go in the next day.
Adam Rowe

Someone close to me died this morning, which made for an uncomfortable train journey.
Glenn Moore

When I was unconscious in the hospital, Mrs Tavare played me music as stimulation. First she tried Justin Beiber in the hope I might get out of bed and switch it off…
Jim Tavare

I took my nephew on the swings.  He kept complaining that it goes up too high. I said, ‘Shut up and push’.
Nick Dixon

I suffer from insomnia and I’ve tried everything, even counting sheep. I got up to about 100 sheep the other night and still couldn’t get to sleep, so I went back inside.
George Rigden

My dad loves his dog more than us.  He makes it a roast chicken seasoned in herbs every Sunday, which is stupid as dogs have no concept of Thyme.
Rachel Fairburn

I was arguing with someone until we came across a smiling fortune teller… I think we found a happy medium.
Bread & Geller

Shears: cutting-hedge technology.
David Ephgrave

I didn’t start experimenting with drugs until I was in my 40s.  Prior to that, I was just enjoying them.
Roman Fraden

I invented the self-fulfilling prophesy.  It probably won’t go anywhere, but still. . . .
Garret Millerick

My boss has finally recognised my potential and reduced my wages accordingly.
Richard Todd

And my very favourite is:

It might seem like we’re heading for a dystopian future right now, but I read that book, 1984, and things were way worse back then.
Jim Campbell