Fight The Power – With Knitwear!

 

Today, I watched a video in which the Home Secretary, Theresa May, proposed allowing the police to detain protesters who wear balaclavas. It’s entitled ‘UK To Ban People From Marches & Protests & Police To Validate Clothing’.

‘Home Secretary anti-balaclava power – ACTIVATE!!!’

The title makes it sound like a shocking breach of innocent individuals' rights, but anyone with a brain and an ounce of objectivity can see that that's not what’s going on here. Some people seem to react as though this is tantamount to chemical castration, including the person who uploaded it:

‘What is the point of demonstrating to conform, Marching to obey, Protesting to accept. Jesus overturned the tables of those who participated in usury. The heroes of demonstrations and protests are enemies of governments and kings.’

‘Why should law abiding citizens be held to be guilty beforehand - everyone is innocent till proven guilty. A govt elected by 20% of the population has no right to attack civil rights.’

Let’s ignore the fact that I’m almost certain the 20% figure is nonsense. To me, everything the Home Secretary suggested sounded pretty minor, measured and reasonable but then, for some people, any kind of restriction on human behaviour is seen as an outrageous breach of their individual entitlement.

I’m sure there must be activists out there somewhere protesting for the restoration of people's democratic right to rape donkeys.

‘Yeah, ‘cos we can’t let them stop us raping donkeys, ‘cos then where will it end, y’know? Before you know it we won’t even be able to, pleasure ourselves in the privacy of our own yurts, innit?

And I need my balaclava to keep me warm, innit, ‘cos god knows the yurt don’t.’

To be fair, it’s true – the balaclava is a not just a symbol of the extremist activist. Historically, you may be surprised to discover, it’s had two functions:

A) Keeping your face warm.

B) Hiding your face so that you can cause criminal damage, or worse.

But let’s be honest, not one balaclava has been used for purpose A since the 1980s – coincidentally, around the same time that the IRA popularised them as the must-have accessory for cowardly thugs. Plus, we have snoods now.

What these heavily-biased malcontents are essentially whining about is the removal of their right to act unlawfully against the state, without detection and punishment (which is not a real right, by the way). This would be admirable, and a reasonable reaction, if we were all living under the yoke of an abusive legal system, put in place by an ultra-fascist police-state - but the fact is, we aren’t.

Sorry activists. I know you all wish that this was V For Vendetta, and that you could leap between the rooftops on implausible anti-government adventures, but unfortunately this is the real world. I know that you like to think the world needs you, but we don’t. Go home. We’ll be fine. Britain isn’t oppressive – it’s just very dull. Nothing to get worked up about.

If you’re really keen to make a difference, why not move out of your parent’s house and ship out to North Korea. The North Koreans are some of the most downtrodden people on Earth, and their rooftops are completely devoid of slogan-spouting, balaclava-wearing, police-baiting tits.

Even if we did live in an ultra-fascist state, if secret police were ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, and if you felt that the best way to deal with this reality was to engage in yobbish violence in a busy public space, a ban on knitwear is going to be the least of your worries.

And do you know what the sad thing is? I’ll bet the balaclava-wearing thugs didn’t even have anything to do with posting that video. The kind of people who write things like ‘What is the point of demonstrating to conform, Marching to obey, Protesting to accept.’ would probably shit organic yoghurt all over their student bedsits if you put them in the same room as one of those balaclava guys.

This brings me to my final point today, which is my strong suspicion that this ‘anti-establishment, police-state, your-local-leisure-centre-is-run-by-a-corrupt-global-elite’ merry-go-round exists mainly to provide escapism for bored, middle-class, twenty-somethings. People who’ve tried and failed to jump-start a meaningful career, and now rely on hand-outs and minimum-wage non-jobs to finance their next festival ticket. Those are exactly the kind of people who change the world. Not.

Put down the balaclavas, and grab a tea-cosy guys – it suits you better.

Have you ever worn a balaclava? Were you a violent protestor, or just cold? What are your thoughts on the Home Secretary’s plan? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

Taking A Jiggermast Up The Lubber’s Hole

 

No jokes about rusty portholes. Seriously.

Image © Robert Radford

Taking a jiggermast up the lubber’s hole – it can’t be done. Why? Because the hole is too small, and the mast too large. Plus, there’s just no need for it.

This is because a ‘jiggermast’ is not a penis, as you may have surmised. Nor is a ‘lubber’s hole’ any orifice of the human body. No, these are just two of many, many nautical terms that happen to sound risqué when combined in a sentence.

A jiggermast is in fact the correct name for a mast on a tall ship, specifically the one closest to the rear. As you see, avoiding innuendo is almost impossible when it comes to the outpourings of seamen. And to set the record straight, a lubber’s hole is an opening that allows smooth entry and exit from the bottom. Of the crow’s nest.

There are endless permutations of the ‘taking a (something) up the (something)’ format that are suggested by nautical terms. It’s almost too easy. Taking a banyan up the nipper. Taking a monkey’s fist up the cunt splice. All real nautical terms, fully verifiable on good old Wikipedia.

But we’re all about creativity on the Pithy Soapbox, so let’s mix things up.

How about watching a cockswain pitchpole the gunner’s daughter? Possibly quite exciting, but not in the way you imagine – this would involve an incompetent helmsman causing cannons to fall overboard as a ship capsizes.

Perhaps you’d like to see Mae West garbling the midshipman’s nuts? Really? You' want to see a floatation device mixing waste, cargo, and a crushed biscuit dessert? Fair enough.

If this foolish exercise proves anything, it’s that we’ve all got filthy minds, and love a cheap laugh. Don’t even get me started on cockpit and poopdeck.

We should all be ashamed of ourselves.

Do you have any more hilarious innuendos with perfectly innocent explanations? Have you ever taken a banyan up the nipper? Click the ‘comments’ button below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

The Thrilling Retrospective Post of Undying Light

Pithy Postmodern Soapbox – cooler than smoking.

Image © Maggie Smith

Yooooooooooooo!!!! Ahem.

Welcome to Pithy Postmodern Soapbox, the embarrassing uncle of Pithy Postmodern Writing. Let’s begin this exciting new era with a look back at some of the best bits of the schizophrenic beast that was Pithy Postmodern Title:

 

February 2011

‘Are you sitting comfortably? No? Well of course you’re not – I’ve strapped you down and inserted an unnecessarily bulbous probe into your startled rectum. All in the name of science. In any case, we’ll begin with the informative section.’

 

January 2011

‘The class divide in Britain is alive and well, but it’s no longer based on wealth, status or breeding. The two-tier class system of today is based on education, empathy, social-awareness and civility. A stark divide exists between those who possess all of these faculties, and those who possess none of them. You can see it in some people’s eyes – two dispiriting windows into a mind devoid of all thought and emotion, save for a burning sense of crass, hedonistic entitlement.’

 

December 2010

‘I recently discovered that ‘Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo’ is a grammatically correct sentence. Don’t believe me? Look at this.

By this reasoning, we can be fairly confident that ‘Pyramid pyramid Pyramid pyramid pyramid pyramid Pyramid pyramid’ is also grammatically correct. Probably. Despite the fact that I do not fully understand the reasoning behind the ‘buffalo’ sentence, I feel no need to research this further.’

 

November 2010

Poem In Which a Person Responsible for Illegal Violence at Sea Suffers from Urinary and Faecal Incontinence Caused by Pathogenic Bacteria Present In Undercooked Meat, and Written On the False Premise that Ovine Ungulates Enunciate the Call of Bovine Ungulates, Where In Fact They Demonstrably Do Not

Poor Pirate Percy,
piddle-puddle poo,
mostly meaty mutton,
middle-muddle moo!

 

October 2010

‘Essentially, if we were to stop allowing ourselves to be part of each others' pyramids, we could stop piling pressure and misery on each other, and start fulfilling our dreams. If everyone could somehow be their own pyramid of one, perhaps we could all be Da Vincis, Michaelangelos and Shakespeares. If we stopped trying to do things together, maybe we could actually achieve something great.

Be the pyramid.’

 

Expect more of this sort of thing. If you relax your eyes, hold the monitor up to your nose, then move it slowly away from your face, everything will eventually make sense.

Do you have any ideas for the sort of thing you’d like to see on the Soapbox? Would you like to write a ‘guest rant’? Comment below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk