Thursday, June 18, 2009
Bea Campbell's Rabbit
Thanks to Recusant's comment, I have discovered the single greatest newspaper article ever written anywhere. Beatrix Campbell explains why it's okay to accept an OBE in spite of the fact that 'the archaism of our constitution hails values that are inimical to the values that are being celebrated by the gong.' She got her 'gong' - she loves that word - for services to equal opportunities. Equal opportunities are 'inimical' to an honours system 'clothed in royalty and imperialism'. And yet they still gave her the gong and Bea feels comfortable accepting it because, in spite of being royal and imperial, it celebrates the radicals as being 'the best of British'. Personally I think the rabbit was in the hat all along.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Glad to be of service Milord Appleyard.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be a disease afflicting Guardian columnists. On the same day Lord Hattersley had a column extolling his republicanism and berating the royal family for wielding power whilst being unelected.
Yes, since you ask, he did manage to say it with a straight face.
Well, as straight as you can make that face.
ReplyDelete18th June is providing us with an incredible crop of 'you couldn't make it up' stories. Who is the patron saint of unlikely stories? And was he martyred for telling a bunch of pagans unlikely truths on this day?
Wonderful. On a par with finding out this week that the Scottish Athletics Championships are sponsored by McCain's oven chips.
ReplyDeleteThe article is, of course, ridiculous. But, having enjoyed a good laugh at her expense, I came away from the piece feeling a good deal warmer towards Bea Campbell, OBE, than I had ever felt before. Why so? Hypocrisy, on this harmless sort of level, is really quite lovable: humanizes us all. Would the world be better - kinder, happier, more interesting -if we all acted in strict conformity to the things we believe, or profess to believe, or pretend to believe? It's hard to think so.
ReplyDeleteI once observed this particularly loathsome outcome of positive discrimination treating an Undergound ticket clerk like dirt clutching a copy of her unreadable (believe me) book on "working class women".
ReplyDeleteWho do you think the "intergalactic film star" might have been (Charles Laughton? R2D2?), and more to the point what was he drinking?