Delaying the Inevitable

I want my country back. I want it to be great again; it feels so different now. I hear conversations on the tube I never used to hear, and it makes me uncomfortable. I want my country back I worry that we’ll forget what “British” really means. This isn’t what that generation fought for, not so long ago. What would they think if they saw what we’ve become? I want my country back They’re not like us at all. They don’t fit in. They don’t even try. They’re just out for themselves. They don’t play by the rules. They don’t care about our values. I want my country back. I want to take control. I want things how they were in the good old days. Cold nights, warm beer, drizzle underdogs and queues. Sarcasm, lack of respect for authority. Inclusivity. Diversity. A country that welcomes your contribution to society whoever you are, wherever you’re from, whatever your faith. I want my country back. T...

Here’s another heart-warming childrens’ tale for the little‘uns (Any similarities with Brexit are purely coincidental) A long time ago, in a town far far away, lived a man. He owned a small burgundy car. It was his most prized possession. Sure, it wasn’t the best looking, the fastest or the most practical. But it was his, and he was proud of it.  Time was not kind to his small burgundy car. Although he loved it, he did not take good care of it, and some of the parts needed to be replaced. Every time he took the car to the garage, they would say to him “We’d love to be able to fix this for you, but we can’t. It’s probably those few new parts, they don’t work well with your type of car. And there’s all these regulations you have to comply with when fixing cars. Our hands are tied”. And instead of fixing it for him, they would send him away, chuckling to themselves “What’s the point of fixing it?” they’d say “He pays us anyway. Let’s just do the minimum we can ge...

A heart warming tale for children of all ages: Bobby was an idealistic little bee. He spent his days buzzing around the meadows, bringing back pollen for the hive. It was exhausting and dangerous work. And he thought to himself “Why do some bees do all the hard work, putting their bee-lives on the bee-line all day, while others get the prime spots in the hive just because of inherited privilege?” The bee rulers said to the bee workers “Aren’t we lucky to have our hive close to the sunny meadow with plenty of flowers? Aren’t we lucky, because some bees have nothing?” And while other bees felt happy with their situation, Bobby knew that this was just a distraction, a con-trick to make the workers grateful for the basic shelter and sustenance they needed to survive whilst the rulers hoarded obscene quantities of honey, enriching themselves at the expense of the masses. So Bobby started to protest, he handed out bee-leaflets, he held up bee-placards, he wrote bee-protest songs. ...

I’ve got a confession to make. I’m in my early thirties, I have a wife and kids and a fairly responsible job, and for the vast majority of the time I’m winging it. I am technically a grown up. In 2010, whilst loading a pram into the back of our second-hand Skoda I felt the last vestiges of my youth float up into the ether. And from that moment on, I’ve been waiting. Waiting for someone to sit me down and explain to me what it is to be grown up. To talk through tracker mortgages, self-assessment forms and school catchment areas. To  explain  pensions, life insurance and to tell me how to bleed a radiator. To give me a card I can keep in my wallet that says “Adult”. One that I can look at every now and then say to myself “Don’ t stress about it , you’ve got this”. I ’m  starting to think it  is n’t ever going to happen. That I’ll go through life an imposter: busking-it, making it up on-the-hoof, a joker in a world of sober-suited professionals with “5 year p...