Eco-protest movement has driven everyone quite mad
The exasperation was clear in the commuter’s voice as he shouted “it’s an electric train, you idiot!” at the person who had glued themselves to a DLR service heading into the City from east London. Elsewhere, morning travellers took matters into their own hands and hauled protesters down from the top of Tube trains.
We’ve all been there. It’s dark, it’s drizzling, you’ve been up since six and the final leg of your journey involves shuffling like cattle towards the platform edge in the hope of forcing yourself into a carriage. Nobody is at their best during this ordeal and so to be confronted not by a six-inch gap into which you might squeeze yourself but instead by the softly-spoken apologies and demonstrably false predictions of the middle-class Extinction Rebellion brigade is bound to test a traveller’s patience.
So intense was the backlash that some members of the Rebellion immediately distanced themselves from the decision to target the Tube network. Others held firm, saying such methods are vital to get their message across.
I spoke to some Rebellion activists earlier this week when they blockaded the Walkie Talkie, and found them to be a perfectly polite collection of middle-aged, middle-class worriers. I doubt if even a handful of the activists support the group’s formal anarcho-socialist anti-capitalist eco-radicalism, but I don’t doubt their sincerity or their commitment to the wider cause of environmentalism. That’s why Boris Johnson was wrong to dismiss them as crusties, swampies and hippies. Not even their leaders fit that description. These barricades are manned by parish councillors.
In my opinion the protesters are wrong to claim we face imminent extermination (no scientific body supports this) and they were wrong to target commuters on the Tube. The PM is wrong to dismiss them as hemp-wearing irritants, the police were wrong to ban them from the capital entirely, and Lewis Hamilton is definitely in the wrong line of work to lecture us on the harm we’re doing to the planet. In fact, as this argument grows louder and louder it’s hard to discern exactly who is right.
Dictionary scorner
Once or twice a year, press officers (sorry, academics) at the Oxford English Dictionary reveal their latest effort to remind the world of their existence (sorry, to maintain their sacred repository of the English language) and every time, without fail, it annoys me.
I am probably more conservative on this issue than any other, even though I appreciate that language changes and new words are drawn from science and a range of academic fields. But if this annual parade of new words and settled definitions is meant to serve as a record of our progress, a snapshot of our linguistic evolution, I’m not sure future generations will be too impressed.
As of this week, the dictionary will now give you a definition of: whatevs, sumfin’, chillax, simples, cocktease, dick-sucker, kapow, Jedi and promposal. That last one is “an invitation to be someone’s date to a school prom; especially one which is elaborately staged, filmed and made available on social media.” Scrabble, anyone?
Human rights farce
Encouraging news from the United Nations today as the illegitimate and brutal regime in Venezuela won a coveted seat on the UN’s Human Rights Council — the body “responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe”.
Despite the fact that more than 50 countries including the US, France and the UK do not recognise the government of Nicolas Maduro, he retains the backing of Russia and China. The Human Rights Council also includes Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Kazakhstan. Bravo.
Bowing to Beijing
China’s government is hyper-sensitive and won’t forgive anyone who appears to disrespect them. Luxury brands are also hyper-craven when it comes to securing lucrative market access, so it came as no surprise that Dior issued a grovelling apology after an internal HR slide failed to include Taiwan as part of China.
“Dior has always respected and upheld the principle of one China,” they said, adding that they “treasure the feelings of Chinese citizens.” This supine behaviour is just pathetic.
Main image credit: Getty