World’s gone mad but it ain’t so bad
There’s just no respect for senior citizens these days
What do you mean culture is not being cancelled, it is just evolving? I remember the days of the old school yard. We used to laugh a lot. At Specky Four-Eyes, Fatso and Ginger-Nut. Hurtful? Nah, it was character building. No harm was done. I mean, look how you Millennials have desecrated the ‘Gollywog’, an image of childhood innocence, burned on the cross of political correctness.
Yes, this is my heritage, a Baby-Boomer, raised, a working-class lad, where self-deprecating humour and an inclination to poke fun at each and every person was the norm. It bonded communities, where the daily grind curtailed many a lifespan. Life was awash with cutting retorts, all taken in the spirit they were intended. Harmless banter. Nobody complained back then. To express your disapproval was weak and incurred further torment. ‘Take it on the chin’, ‘keep a stiff upper lip’, vestiges of post-war, Imperialist Britain that still resonated within tightly knit communities. Sexism, racism, and misogyny did not exist. Everybody had their place, and they all knew their role. Men worked, women washed, cleaned, and raised the kids.
You tell me that my sense of humour is as obsolete as my 45rpm records, Vesta meals and folk clubs. Yacht Rock is still Kitsch isn’t it? Us BBs were fed on a diet of Bernard Manning and Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. ’Til Death Us Do Part’ was an award winning sit-com. Stand-up comedians delivered one-liners in smoke filled ‘Working-Men’s clubs, to lairy audiences that lapped it all up. Making light of people’s colour, religion, race, gender was the norm. We never stopped to ask those on the receiving end of ‘the joke’ whether they found it funny. Why would we? They laughed, at least on the outside. What about inside, away from the shopfloor and the pub? Who cares? Incomers had to fit in and take the slights ‘on the chin’. That was the expectation. These days, so many folk are just ‘snowflakes’. Wellbeing, is that even a word? More like has beens.
What is the harm in a wolf whistle goddammit? It is a compliment. Getting ogled at means that you are desirable, that’s a plus isn’t it? You have got to feel sorry for the women that do not get the attention! Ugly or what? I would not touch them with yours! In the boardroom or at the office, the only women were those that brewed the tea or took the minutes. The ‘girls’ never complained about a bit of slap and tickle. Demeaning? Nah, they enjoyed the attention. If they did not like it, then that was their problem. They could always go and work somewhere else. Many of them got a bonus, nudge-nudge, wink-wink if you know what I mean. Equal opportunities, humbug, in business if you are good enough, you will get promoted. There is no such thing as a glass ceiling. I cannot see it, can you?
Women do not need liberating, and from what? Take my wife…please! She knows which side her bread is buttered. We have been together since we were teenagers. She knows how to keep a diplomatic silence. Brow beaten, subjugated? Get real, her horizons are married to my income, a fact that I remind her of when she steps out of line. Mind you, all that burn your bra stuff back in the nineteen seventies was quite a turn on. I am not much use now though; prostate problems have seen to that. Lately we have had the #MeToo. Sexually frustrated if you ask me. Women in charge? No thanks! They are not called the weaker sex for nothing. Soft in the head, incapable of making difficult decisions. Maggie Thatcher excepted. Look what she gave you Millennials. A cosy way of life, big cars, foreign holidays. Debt? Well, that is your own fault you should have more self-discipline.
And do not get me started on Gay’s. L.G.B.T.Q+, I wish they would make their mind up! There are only two genders in my book, the rest is against God, not that I believe in all that religious mumbo-jumbo. There was nothing effeminate in our workplace. Homosexuals, god forbid! It was a man’s world. Come to think of it there were none of our ‘Commonwealth Cousins’ up in the offices. They never had the right connections. Of course I see the person when they come into the room. I check out the colour of their skin, the size of their breasts, the clothes they wear, and their accent. Manicured fingernails and mascara are a shoo-in for blonde haired bimboism and anything less than the Queen’s English is a sure sign of feebleness.
Standing for government, writing for the local paper, or working on committees, keeps us Baby Boomers relevant, filling the spaces avoided by you Millennials, too busy on your mobile phones to hold a proper conversation. I do not go in for much of that social media stuff, too much fake news for my liking. I put my faith in a reliable newspaper, like the Daily Mail, something that I can trust.
It seems our experience is welcome, but our attitude is not. Well, you cannot have one without the other! Of course, we are reluctant to hand over the reins. ‘Generation Rent’ what do you know? You are still green around the gills. You do not know what hardship is, you have never had to do without. So, what if I have a gold-plated, index linked pension, and home of my own, mortgage free. I have earned it. Selfish? We are not selfish, look how much we do for the community. A fiver every time a charity box is waived, as long it is for a good cause mind you. Climate change? Why should we bother we will be long gone by then? I am sticking with my reliable gas guzzler, it is a classic now, you know.
We never used to do things like this in our day. Christ. I am beginning to sound like my parents.
It is our constitutional right to be able to express our own views, anything less is curtailing our freedom of speech. Taking a rise out of people is not bullying its observational humour. There is no difference between laughing at or laughing with someone. You Millennials are just as bad, working class or middle class, to you we all look and sound the same. Ageing, pale, male and stale, with distended bellies and hair peeping out from our ears and a dreep hanging from our nose. Call it for what it is, Ageism. There is no respect for senior citizens these days. Why do I not retire? I fear nothing, not even my mortality, but becoming irrelevant is more than my ego could bear.
“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’” (Bob Dylan 1964)
