Generational Insanity

I was talking with my parents last week about the gathering scandal surrounding the disappearance of young Shannon Matthews in Yorkshire. For those of my imaginary readers that don't know about the case, visit the BBC website and run a search in her name. Our discussion moved on to the subject of crime in general and child-molestation in particular, when something odd occurred to me: my parents are barking mad.

Not raving lunatics, but quietly psychotic. You see, I have often heard them expound the benefit of torturing and executing criminals, or lay the blame for our deteriorating society on the 'immigants', or announce that we should simply obliterate the Middle-East with nuclear weapons to rid the world of such a troublesome place. I rather fancy that if you come from what we refer to as a civilised western background and you have parents of, say, 60 or 70, you may have heard similar outbursts. But two things worry me and give me hope at the same time. The first is that my parents actually mean what they say! Given the opportunity, I believe that my parents (and most of their generation) would carry out or seriously consider acting upon the most extraordinary of impulses. There would be a whole subclass of neutered, lobotomized, branded and tarred unfortunates, and our cemetaries (or refuse dumps) would be full to bursting with the corpses of those who were found to have crossed the line, or even just rumoured to have done so.

The second thing that worries me is that, as time passes and I stumble awkwardly into middle-age, I am becoming less and less tolerant myself. I don't know for sure whether this is because I am changing in my outlook, or because I am not changing with a steadily more easy-going society, but it is worth considering that every generation's (and by generation, I mean every thirty years or so) standards and morals always seem horrifying to the previous and next generation. Take, for example, my father, who will be quite literally sickened by a television programme about cross-dressing homosexuals, or morbidly pierced new-agers (while I would just be slightly bored), but actually believes that the world today would benefit from a World War, involving the loss of tens of millions of lives, a process he would refer to as 'thinning out'.

War is, in fact, the major note of contention between my generation and the previous one as far as I can see. For most people of my mother's age, it does not really matter that our government has taken us into a conflict with lies to increase the profits of rich business corporations. They just want some arabs killed because they see them as threatening our way of life(!). They were raised in the late thirties and early forties, when propaganda was a way of life and probably gave comfort to them as children, with its promise of justified war-mongering and swift victory.

But there is a difference between the views of my father and those of his parents. They actually witnessed the horror of war first hand, and as is usually the case, condemned it utterly. As far as the other sociological issues go, however, they were even more draconian. It is worth remembering at this point that at the beginning of the nineteenth century (probably at the time my great-great grandparents were in charge) a succession of animals, including pigs and monkeys were executed in Britain for the crime of treason. Barking.

These ramblings have led me on to another of my persistent questions: has there ever been a more selfish, self-absorbed, critical, greedy and morally bankrupt generation than that of our parents? If you, like me, grew up with your mother and father bemoaning the state of society, crime, architecture, crappy household goods and rude behaviour as if it was all your fault, it must have occurred to you at some point that the world we now live in is to all intents and purposes fashioned in their own image. They were a generation that divorced in record numbers, chose careers over children, consumed vast quantities of the worlds resources, polluted the environment on a hitherto inconcievable scale, sold our industry down the river to Asia, consumed illegal drugs in record numbers, borrowed money to the detriment of the world economy, created weapons of horrifying destructive power, plundered Africa, persecuted minorities, perpetrated holocausts and genocides and began the mass abortion culture that, for better or worse, still increases to this day. Then, for good measure, they decided to retire early and blame the resultant shortfall in the National Insurance kitty on illegal immigrants.

And how do they behave now? They are, for all their moralising, the single most rude, brash and outright vulgar of any class of people you can hope to find. They are pushy, tasteless and spoiled. My day-to-day measure of decency is to analyse what kind of people thank me for the small kindnesses I perform throughout the day: holding doors open; a cheery smile; letting a car out of a junction. The grey foxes, I am afraid, perform atrociously, whereas their parents were among the most polite.

I can't think of a single sociological achievement of the last generation that didn't have it's roots in the previous one. The political, scientific and cultural revolutions of the early 20th century eventually gave way to a sort of global pie-eating contest.

Believe me, I have a lot of respect for individual members of that generation, my parents included. But taken as a whole, I wonder whether our present system of existence will ever recover from their complacency and greed.

All of which gives me a little hope. For all I worry about my son, and the life he is going to lead with the threat of street-violence, drugs and hoody-style gang culture, I can rest easy at night knowing that he won't be wrongfully disfigured by some vigilante old goat mistaking him for a pig. Unless we move to Norfolk.

A Frogs Chorus

It looks like the sordid divorce of Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather is finally drawing to a close. It has marked the nadir of my opinion of a once great musician and songwriter, an opinion that has steadily degenerated through twenty-five years of dreadful decisions taken by the man (some important and usavoury; others less-so).

Let me take you back to an event that shortly preceded the divorce, when Heather McCartney was reported as being unhappy with Sir Pauls' continued use of marijuana. It was what I refer to as a 'Chinese Bang' of a story; a brief yet fairly amusing run in the tabloids that seemed to paint the picture of an ageing sixties pop-idol being nagged into old-age by a young demanding wife. I did not care about the story one way or the other, but was surprised at how little play the tabloids gave to it, seeing as how the drug-use seemed a little at odds with Sir Pauls' wholesome veggie image.

After a few months, things got a little nastier for Heather, as revelations emerged in the press of her shady, vile (and frankly exciting) past. Pictures of her in soft-porn poses were released to the newspapers, with assurances of further more hardcore images to follow. We were informed that Heather had been a prostitute in her younger days, hired out to rich 'Arabians' (sic) (because let us not forget, there is nothing more certain to get Daily Mail readers more upset than foreign men having sex with British women) without any proof of these events bearing more than the slightest resemblance to fact. Her reputation was in tatters. It began to look like the weed-nagging was a bad idea.

Remember that she was still ostensibly happily married to Sir Paul at this juncture. He even came out in the papers in support of her, despite rumours that his own daughter from a previous marriage, Stella, carried a dislike for his current wife. Shortly after these revelations, however, the marriage was all but over and the ugly divorce commenced in the full public glare.

But how did all this really come about? Is Sir Paul really as virtuous and gallant as he has appeared in the British press? Well, I would draw your attention to a few events, some from the dim and distant past and others from the near-future to explain how I think this man (and our news industry) operates.


When the Beatles officially split in 1970, the world looked for reasons for the break-up. Indeed, the rabid fans of the group were looking for someone to blame. Little by little, with no outright fact or quote from the Beatles themselves, it begun to be reported in the British press that Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono was the person that had disrupted the balance of the band. Later (and indeed right up to the present day), it became an accepted fact that this was the case. John Lennon later revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine (and in subsequent interviews) that the real reasons for the split were the increasing isolation between McCartney and himself, a disillusion with the musical direction of the band and a desire to 'start playing Rock 'n' Roll' and draw himself away from McCartney's insistence on elevating the cache of Rock music to that of opera. All pretty boring stuff. He also made reference to feeling betrayed by McCartney after he felt that he had used the music and broader press to discredit him and his wife. Whilst it was obvious that he still had affection for McCartney, he painted a picture of a man obsessed by popular success and global image. Tellingly, Lennon continued to perform with the other two Beatles, Harrison and Starr and went on to perform with other contemporary musicians, such as the Rolling Stones and Dylan, all of whom it must be said have no such love for McCartney. Sir Paul announced the dissolution of the Beatles (reportedly without telling his band-mates) a month before the release of his solo-album, a move that further upset Lennon and seemed to confirm his misgivings about McCartney.

Because of Lennon's reluctance to enter into a public argument with McCartney, however, Ono's role in the split has become part of our culture. Britain does seem rather ready to 'blame the woman' when it comes to things like this. Did Paul have anything to do with these rumours? To my mind, a fabulously rich man with an eye toward his public image is capable of anything, and to smear the reputation of a scapegoat in the press does not even approach the limit of such a man.

In later years, Sir Paul honoured the death of his former writing partner by legally changing the order in which his name appears in the writing credits on Beatles songs, a move that many have condemned as petty. But this slightest of changes to the historical order (one which was surely only ever laid alphabetically) not only puts McCartney first in the minds of future generations, but also guarantees him increased revenue due to the fact that Lennon is deceased. It will further benefit him when negotiations conclude as to the digital rights of the Beatles catalogue.

So, petty and greedy then.

It is rather alarming that history seems to be repeating itself with Heather. I obviously do not know the woman personally. She does seem rather incapable of keeping control under what are admittedly rather pressured cirumstances, but enormous amounts of attention have been centred around her in this whole thing, while Sir Paul (the father of her child, let's not forget) is getting away scot-free.

I am a fond reader of conspiracy theories. I don't believe them all, but I find them fascinating and usually as factual as the agenda-driven official lines spun by our lapdog press. One such theory is that Paul McCartney was actually killed in a road accident in 1966, only to be replaced with a lookalike (named William Campbell) by a terrified record and management company, to prevent a colossal loss of revenue. This would, on the surface, appear to be a preposterous tale.

But then there is the Frog's Chorus...........