IF I had to sum up the central tenet of my political aspirations it would be that more things should be banned.
Banning is the basis of civilisation, of law and order, and of all that is decent in respectable society. A brief scan of newsprint this week finds that the healthy instinct to ban is alive and kicking, with Rangers manager Steven Gerrard getting a touchline ban, Lord Tebbit calling for a ban on comedian Frankie Boyle, and Prince Harry advocating a ban on a computer game called “Fortnite”, a name which further suggests the desirability of a ban on stupid spelling.
I cannot pretend that I support all these bans, and didn’t even know what the last one was about; it says here that Fortnite is a game in which people fight to the death in cyberspace using crossbows, rifles and grenade launchers.
That sounds about standard for these things, but the Red Prince wants it banned for children, which I would support, as long as the ban was extended to adults. We cannot afford to indulge these weird, violent minority pursuits, and Fortnite’s 250 million registered players will just have to find something more wholesome to do with their time.
Even foreign countries, which are generally two or three decades behind Big Britain, sometimes ban things. In the course of researching this article or homily, I discovered that Kenya has until recently had a ban on non-woven bags.
In the Third World, meanwhile, I came across this headline: “Smoking ban on the Belgian coast expands”, which sounds like it may have lost something in translation but still strikes one as good and true.
Here in Scotland, when our controversial protectorate was eventually allowed to have a small amount of control over its national life, one of the first things it did was to ban fox-mangling, which made me so proud, apart from the punishments not being nearly severe enough.
A good smacking for this sadistic perversion should have been instituted in law but, as it happens, Scotland also swiftly banned the smacking of children, a move that I also supported, believing it better to torture the little ones psychologically or to smash up their computers.
At the time of writing, it will strike most decent ratepayers as passing strange that cycling has not yet been banned, until one remembers that it is the transport of choice for the liberal-left elite that rules all our lives. However, one day, I am sure, working-class people will rise up and take back control of our roads.
The left are great banners, so to say, usually of opinions, words and so forth, which as a proper, old-fashioned socialist I find deplorable. The left’s allies, such as the Taleban (tr: “Ban Everything Party”), have done many deplorable things, although – like most sensitive men – I am an enthusiastic admirer of their ban on dancing.
There are so many different kinds of bans: hosepipe, film, diesel cars, attractive modern architecture.
When I was growing up “Ban the bomb” was a big thing, but it never got anywhere. I still find it odd that people who express horror at the idea of hanging a single serial killer, then add: “However, under the right circumstances, I do believe it would be advisable to incinerate many millions of innocent men, women and children.”
It’s all relative, I suppose, and it is this relativism that has led to the moral malaise in modern society. The best thing about a ban is that there are no grey areas. Something is either allowed or it’s not. And in most areas of human life the correct judgment is: not.
NO ONE should be surprised that Edinburgh’s ghastly New Town has been the death of many people. The dour, grey, cold buildings were erected as a refuge for the rich who had, till then, lived cheek by jowl with the capital’s poor, around the Royal Mile and similar slums.
Research by four top experts shows that stonemasons who built the infamous sink estate suffered horribly from lung disease, with dozens losing their lives. This was despite stringent health and safety measures being in place at the time: the workmen grew big beards to filter out the dust.
Alas, this had little effect, other than making the men unattractive to ladies (as all beards do: I have properly sourced, anecdotal evidence of this), and the men fell victim to silicosis.
Thus, the wealthy denizens living in the New Town today are domiciled atop the skeletons of the proletariat, whose ghosts stand and point at them accusingly.
I’ve over-egged the pudding there somewhat, particularly as today’s residents can hardly be blamed for the slaughter. Indeed, very few have any stain of Scottishness on them, making Alexander McCall Smith’s novels, which imagine a New Town with Scottish people living in it, all the more delightful for fantasy fans.
STORIES dispelling the myth of Scottish meanness are ten-a-penny, and this week one reported that Glaswegians were the most generous tippers in Large Britain. Who knew? We did!
Even Edinburgh came out of it well, while the meanest tippers were in Plymouth down on the south coast of Little England. Imagine my shock.
That said, even in Glasgow the amounts left seemed shamefully small: an average of £2.43 on a £30 meal. That’s not even the 10 per cent stipulated in The Bible.
Possibly, it’s because hardly anyone carries money about with them now. Such a quaint practice. However, at least handing over cash was easier than fiddling with these stupid card machines that they give you now.
In my experience, if you want to leave a fiver, you always end up inputting £5.55. Or, if you try to avoid that by starting off with the zeros, you end up leaving £0.05. Or maybe it’s just me. Not bright, d’you see?
At any rate, tipping is just a shameful way of subsidising low-wage Britain. The solution is relatively clear: this is something else that should be banned.
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