Forget the Rich List. Here’s the Ridiculous List.
The Nurse has a lot of time on her hands at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Which is why she’s typing this post from underneath several unfurled and chaotic rolls of Elsan toilet roll. You know, that crinkly stuff that’s about the same thickness as tracing paper and twice as shiny. And utterly non-absorbent. Dreadful for personal hygiene but highly effective for writing lists.
This week’s list covers a slew of issues that appear, to one incarcerated for so long, frankly crazed. When The Nurse was last at liberty, smelling the sky and letting the sun fall on her scarred cheeks, the world was a simpler and more logical place. But then again she has been mouldering here for a very, very long time.
Things that make The Nurse’s blood boil
1. Why isn’t Iraq allowed to have nuclear weapons when America, the UK and most of the developed world have them, with no intention of ditching them? There’s no logic.
2. Why is everyone getting so het up about the housing ‘market’? When The Nurse was young and free there wasn’t a housing ‘market’. A house was a home, not an investment. You decorated and extended it to your taste and needs, not to please prospective buyers. You bought a house to live and love in, not to make a fast buck.
3. Why’s everyone wittering on about how terrible children are these days? When The Nurse was young she knew boys who blew up empty buildings with home made explosives (sugar and fertiliser), broke into the local post office, fired dirty great rocket fireworks at passing buses, threw darts at each oter, wielded deadly home made catapults and smashed every pane in their neighbours’ greenhouses. That was back in the 60s and 70s. The difference in 2008? The Nurse thinks it might be a matter of understanding common sense barriers: in the noughties the kids are carrying knives. And nobody has told them not to stamp on people’s heads. Perhaps that’s one of the things a kid needs a dad for? Think on, wilfully single mums.
4. Why does the Government seek (and pay a massive amount of our tax money for) expert advice then ignore it? The Nurse feels Brown et al are displaying the most crass, foul and disgraceful arrogance by believing they know best. Cannabis, for instance. The facts state that there has been absolutely NO discernable increase in psychotic episodes and illnesses as a result of cannabis or anything else. Or so the experts say. But what do the experts know, eh Gordon?
5. Why are people getting so pissed? The whole country’s rat arsed. The Nurse occasionally finds slightly tiddly, happy people fun to be with. But drunk people are boring, stupid, ugly, alarming, repetitive and maudlin.
6. Why is everyone hell bent on saving ‘the planet’ when the planet will be absolutely fine, whatever we do or don’t do? It is actually our own miserable, greedy, polluting skins we’re trying to save. Without us, our beautiful blue planet will remain beautiful and blue, spinning serenely through eternity. With us, it is turning into a shithole pretty fast. It would be honourable to acknowledge this rather than pretending to be altruistic.
7. Why has it taken so long for people to start taking notice of the potential for worldwide fuel crises? The Nurse remembers being taught, back in the early 1970s, that we’d run out of oil by about 2020. We’ve known about this shit for a long time. But have we done anything? Have we ****!
8. Why is everyone ignoring the fact that human survival is doubtful as long as our population keeps growing? The Nurse imagines any discussion would be horribly non PC. But there’s a really nasty dichotomy between working to save human lives and the sheer unsustainable numbers of us. Perhaps it is too scary to think about.
9. Why can people buy cars that are capable of going way over the speed limit? What’s the point? It’s common sense that if a car lets a person drive fast, a percentage of people will drive like buffoons. Why not stop the problem altogether by making cars that go a maximum of 80mph. That leaves drivers an extra 10mph emergency speed if they’re travelling at 70mph, the legal maximum. Why does anyone need more speed?
10. Why don’t kids play out any more? The Nurse enjoyed years of total freedom as a child, leaving home at dawn and home at dusk for tea, filthy with adventures. Self confident and brave with skinned knees. Chased by skin heads, falling off walls and tying little brothers to lamp posts. Ranging far and wide. The Nurse thinks she knows why… it’s mostly because of cars. Oh dear, what an appalling petard we’ve hoist ourselves upon. Rather than giving us freedom, the car is responsible for the loss of many precious personal libereties. Basic stuff like the freedom to walk and breathe safely. Sometimes the freedom to walk at all. Try crossing the Warren roundabout in Worthing on foot. You’ll be lucky to survive.
grossesse wrote,
Very true.I think those developed countries need to answer these. The situation became worse after world war 2. Its been a story for every people living in developing countries.Thanks Nurse for this.I hope your list spread to every one and work and people think for it.
Link | August 31st, 2009 at 10:48 am
Herbert L. Shallcross III wrote,
These were presented in the form of questions, so let me take a whack at a few of them.
1. Why isn’t Iraq allowed to have nuclear weapons…
While we here in the U.S. were the first to use nuclear weapons, we have also refrained from using them longer than any other nation and dedicated an enormous load of our resources to make it clear to other nuclear nations that it wasn’t in their best survival interest to use them. We didn’t want anybody else to have them, but what can you do? As to Iran, the problem is that they continually promise to annihilate their neighbor, Israel. Pretending that if they had nukes they wouldn’t use them is naivite that Israel can’t afford, being about 10 missile-minutes from Iran. Nukes in Iran almost guarantee a nuclear exchange.
6. Why is everyone hell bent on saving ‘the planet’ when the planet will be absolutely fine, whatever we do or don’t do?
The nurse comes so close here-
The planet isn’t in imminent peril, especially from non-existent manmade global warming. In my town, Philadelphia, recycling saves the city millions of bucks a year. Recycling, energy efficiency, etc. makes good economic sense, and the market is figuring that out quickly. Only government would put their money on widespread use of something stupid like compact flourescent bulbs that use mercury that will be a nightmare to dispose of.
Enlightened self-interest will solve these problems if given the chance.
7. Why has it taken so long for people to start taking notice of the potential for worldwide fuel crises? The Nurse remembers being taught, back in the early 1970s, that we’d run out of oil by about 2020.
Does the Nurse realise that so much oil has been discovered since then that the known supply will last for more than 100 years at current consumption rates? Of course, it won’t be long before a lot of Chinese and Indian people will be able to afford autos, but hopefully market driven increases in fuel efficiency will be able to offset that to some degree. It’s important not to start huge misguided government alternative energy projects that will waste enormous amounts of money on current(dated) technologies purchased from bloated old companies like Mr. Obama’s friends at General Electric. That will only make it harder for smaller, nimbler, more creative entrepreneurs to compete. Central planning never works. Let the market sort it out!
Link | January 10th, 2010 at 7:05 am