Growing pains
I want to grow up. I do. I’m in my forties, but this fabled conservatism that’s supposed to creep up on everyone as they get older simply isn’t creeping up. Two weeks ago 200 girls were kidnapped from their dorms at school in Chibok, Nigeria: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/27/307451067/have-mercy-on-our-little-ones-kidnapping-agonizes-nigerians
This terrible ordeal for the girls and their parents has barely registered in the mainstream British press. Instead our media has been full of news of William and Kate on tour in New Zealand. Now, I’m a practical person. Yes, a monarchy seems preferable to a Berlussconi-rompy-pompy type president. But seriously, we’ve heard about Kate’s dresses and lickle George’s outings in cotton dungarees in such depth I’ve had my nappy’s worth of propaganda. It’s enough to make a North Korean snigger at us.
Sure Kate has nice hair and dresses, but excuse me – 200 school girls have been kidnapped by fundamentalist rebels. Most of them are still missing.
Why is no-one talking about this? The most shared online item in my daily newspaper yesterday was “You can sit with stuffed Moomins if you get lonely at this cafe” followed closely by “Teacher gives pupil lap dance for his birthday”.
I’m feeling radical. I should like comfortable shoes and lift muzak and playing Candy Crush. When I see a 25-year old on Take Me Out who still gets his gran to iron his shirts and is looking for a girlfriend to do the same, I scream at the TV set. “No, you smug, sexist git, iron them yourself”. Will these feelings of never wanting to be conservative (with a small or big ‘C’) ever go?
Or is my internal clock ticking and it’s only a matter of time? And will those poor girls ever be found? Here’s praying for one and not the other.
