Have you woken up yet?

 

For those who don’t know, and many of you don’t, Fryday started four decades ago as an attempt by me to prove the pen was indeed mightier than the sword. I created the Fryday e-letter, one of the first in New Zealand, to fry a Glen Innes panel beater who demonstrably screwed me. That post is lost. Anyway, it didn’t work; he is still in business. But so, too, is Fryday, though it has mellowed and has recently taken a hiatus of a couple of years…until last week’s revival and my homage to Charlie Watts.

Thank you very much for your response to that.

My problem with Fryday is that I have no idea when I start what I am going to write. I get up at 6.00 Friday mornings, go to my computer and suffer. There is nothing.

So, this week I thought I would write about…nothing.

One definition of nothing is a lack of something.

Here in New Zealand and around the world there is a lack of common sense, augmented by a paucity of maturity. How else can we explain the deluge of wokeness that has rushed to fill the void left by the departure of those two great human traits—the remnants of which can be found only in the far reaches of the Outer Hebrides and visitors to Spike Milligan’s grave?

If I had seen that flood of wokeness coming, I would have got Donald J. Trump to ask God to send Moses back.

Examples abound, and I don’t want to give them credence by promoting them here. However, some of them are just plain silly and nonsensical. Why on earth would you not put a baby’s gender on the birthday certificate? Why would you tear down a statue of Abraham Lincoln (of all people) in Lincoln Park (of all places)? Why would you appoint newsreaders seemingly incapable of pronouncing Auckland and New Zealand? And don’t start me on the endless “issues du jour”.

None of this is, of course, new. When I worked in advertising in the 70s, an edict came out from Radio New Zealand stating that it was no longer acceptable to use the word manhole; it was to be replaced with person-hole. Thank goodness that didn’t take off, it could have injured someone.

The “issue” I have is that anybody who won’t embrace wokeness or criticises it is automatically labelled out of touch, reactionary, middle-aged or older, white, racist, and inferior. They might have a point on some of those points. I am white and at my age, if I bent a knee, I might not manage to get back up.

But look, don’t label me the way you want to label me. Don’t label me at all. You don’t know me. You only think you know me.

And don’t automatically assume that because you think you are right, I am wrong.

There is in my world, room for diversity. In yours? Apparently not. Ironic, eh?

Yes, the world was asleep before you woke us up. And good on you for doing that. But now you are taking it over the top and getting boring. So boring, in fact, that you are sending me back to sleep.

Good night.