Like everyone who dares to put their personal thoughts and opinions into newspaper articles, I’m asked where I get my ideas from, time and time again.
I have a reply stored in my head, but I never use it (the reply, not my head) because I was brought up to be polite and it would sound slightly smug.
I abhor smugness as much as I abhor coleslaw.
No, thinking about it, I abhor coleslaw that little bit more.
As you’re the height of discretion and wouldn’t repeat it, I can reveal that my never-to-be-spoken reply is, “I find my ideas in the same places you could, if you looked up from your smart phone occasionally”.
Saucer of milk for Ginger!
It’s just that certain things that attract my attention might not register with others.
Like the sign I recently saw in the window of a health food shop – “Closed Due To Illness”.
You may not have noticed, as I have, that these days no one in the public eye, whether they’re a politician or a Radio 2 breakfast DJ resigns.
Instead, they ‘step down’.
Which infers that, in their minds, until that point, they’ve existed on a higher plane than the rest of us.
Why not be honest and admit, “I realise I’m unpopular, so I’m quitting while I’m behind!”?
And on this theme . . . whatever happened to things happening ‘in the future’?
People now refer to things happening ‘Going forward’!
“Will the Prime Minister confirm his decision will be reversed going forward?”
How daft does that sound?
Like saying a person has ‘passed’ instead of ‘died’, some people can’t face using the correct words, so substitute them for blandly meaningless alternatives they feel more comfortable with.
If this annoying trend persists going forward, I may have to step down . . .