TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR BBC is great. News updates every half-hour. Alas, as any husband will tell you, that isn’t nearly enough.
As every newscast begins, my wife crouches ready to pounce on whichever headline takes her fancy. She then runs with the subject like a star footballer, drowning out any chance of getting the correct details of that or any other news item. This is a recipe for disaster.
Two weeks ago, for instance, she started feeding me sago and raw nuts. Cut my protruding ear hairs. Massaged me intimately with Oil Of Olé and Anchor butter. “What’s that all about?” I asked.
“Well, I heard in the BBC headlines that Princess Fergie is selling access to her ex Andrew for $700 000. I don’t see why I shouldn’t get $700 for access to you.”
That’s my princess! The wife, I mean. And a real princess at that. True royalty doesn’t put on airs and act like they’re superior to us lesser mortals.
Like that poppet girl in the Princess And The Pea. The prince wanted to marry a “real” princess. One night in pouring rain she turned up at the castle and asked to stay until morning. Claimed she was a real princess.
So the queen put a pea on the bed. Piled 20 mattresses and 20 feather beds on top of it. And next morning asked the girl how she had slept.
“Dreadful!” she complained, “I don’t know what it was but there was something hard in the bed all night. Now I’m black and blue all over”. Then the queen knew she was indeed a “real” princess and she and the prince lived happily ever after.
Nonsense! Can you imagine what living with a fussy woman like her would be?
In fairness, however, my daughter has another take. The prince had been craving a wife for a long time. Suddenly there’s a pretty girl sleeping in the castle. Might he not have climbed up to keep her company lest she fall off all those mattresses? Could it be that what she felt hard in the bed all night wasn’t a pea at all?
On BBC’s Science In Action, scientists have been trotting out their latest anti-ageing gimmicks. It seems they want to use drugs, genetics, computer implants and the like to keep this generation alive for hundreds of years. Not me and you, of course, but the rich snots who can afford the treatments.
It doesn’t make sense to me. On one hand they claim our species evolved and improved through many years of natural selection. Now they want limit the gene pool, reducing the chance that evolution will throw up improved individuals.
What gets me is, what’s so special about us that we should stick around and rob succeeding generations of a chance to live? Are we a master race?
Talking about master races, we all know about Hitler and his preoccupation with Aryan supremacy. But for sheer conceit and rubbing it in your face, Hitler was a joke to today’s Israelis, God’s chosen people.
Their agents can move into any country and assassinate whomsoever they please, kill civilians in international waters, occupy territory, blockade and torment, forge passports, ignore United Nations resolutions, stockpile nuclear weapons.
And the mighty white nations of America, Britain and Australia cower like dogs before them. Israeli security outweighs everything else.
On Monday a group from USAID came visiting. Nice young people fulfilling America’s genuine desire to help the less fortunate. But you know what hurts? In Iraq and Afghanistan other young Americans, and English and Canadians, are dying in a battle against Islamic militants.
The root cause of Islamic militancy and anti-American hatred is the USA’s continued support for Israel despite its treatment of the Palestinians. And while Americans are giving their lives for Israel, believe it or not, the Israelis treat their government, especially the new black president, with utter contempt, ignoring his demands for a halt to new settlements. Truly they are the master race!
Final word to a real down-to-earth princess, Dawn. Given the symptoms, there is little doubt your mystery ailment is common tizzic (tisic), Piresia unduhneata. Check if your cat is off-colour or has a slight cough. Anyway I wish you well.
And Prime Minister Thompy too!
* Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
