Considering I have labelled this blog a rant, clearly
there are many things I find worth ranting about. On one hand, my ranting
is a matter of a dressed up kind of intellectual, brain expulsion of whatever
has been sitting in my mind for a day or two. These often dare to adopt some
heightened sense of their importance, assuming an air of complexity that hides
the cracks in my hurried argument. On the other hand, my ranting is
truer to the nature of ranting itself, addressing the things that anger
and distress me without much thought beyond my immediate emotional reaction,
given a sketchy linguistic form, which I feel compelled to share with whoever
takes a moment out of their day to be bombarded by my nonsense.
I’ll never
get around to writing about all the things that annoy me—they amount to a
self-generating, never-ending list—but given the right opportunity and the
right level of simmering self-righteous indignation (a state I do particularly
well), I will inevitably find myself transmitting whatever has bothered me at
the exact moment of this annoyance. Today I saw something in The Age
newspaper that has successfully managed to drive me to this state; indeed, it
is something of an old bugbear of mine.
However, before getting onto the
thing that has really got stuck in my craw today, here is a list of things that
give me the shits to somewhat contextualise my irritation; that is, illustrate
how mundanely stupid I find the whole thing that has captured my attention:
- Slow walkers (as a man who
strides at a brisk pace I find them morally reprehensible)
- TPG internet (The Grand
High Fuckwit of Fuckwits Worldwide Ltd)
- Moths (seriously, along
with giraffes, what purpose do they serve?)
- Speaking to a machine/computer
when I call my telecommunications provider and repeating ‘bill inquiry’
five times before they put me through to a generic (without a particular department
orientation) human consultant who still cannot comprehend my problem
- Computers stealing/deleting
my work
- Technology in general
- Lol-ing (not laugher
itself, but short handing it)
- Canned laughter (a lie
designed to guide us to an otherwise absent hilarity)
- Frozen Philadelphia Cream
Cheese
- The pursed lip face people
make when they suck on a Boost Juice
- The Pancake Parlour with their overpriced ordinary pancakes and bewildering Alice in Wonderland aesthetic (kind of paedophilic, really)
- The Herald Sun (and
any right wing commentators who feel hard done by with freedom of speech laws—you
are a pack of marauding, partially autonomous, hyper turds, best suited to
the drain you somehow slithered out of)
- Bike thieves (TC’s)
- Rental real estate agents,
and, in particular, their mysterious incapacity to respond to phone
calls/emails/physical drop ins (I suspect they’re all kidnapped work
experience kids who know no way to escape; who have been brainwashed)
- Tony Abbott’s smirk (did
you know that every time Tony Abbott smirks a unicorn dies?)
But what has caught my attention today? What has driven me
to compel myself to distract myself from my work to write this?
This, from The Age website,
pretty much wraps it up:
Support for an Australian republic has slumped to its
lowest level in more than three decades just as royal enthusiasm reaches fever
pitch over the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate.
(Mark Kenny, http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/republican-movement-wanes-amid-royal-revival-20140415-zqv05.html#ixzz2z0XHFop7)
There are times when I truly despair for my nation and our
supposed values; namely our much vaunted ocker (gross word, that) independence;
our apparent characteristic of standing up to the man; of not respecting,
even being above, the feudal class system of Britain (we love to clap each other on the back and remember how we didn't salute British officers in WWI). This is definitely one of
those times when I look around, not so much at the people around me, but at the
people I guess I will never comprehend, and mutter, ‘you cannot be serious.’
If being presided over by a hypocritical,
gay/environment/human rights hating, unicorn-slaying tyrant was not enough, I
seem to still live in an accepting colony of the British Empire—in the 21st
century no less—where approval for our anachronistic Constitutional
Monarchy still stands disturbingly solid; indeed is at its highest level in ‘more
than three decades.’ All because people seem to be all too willing to lie down
at the Cult of Royal Celebrity and worship our figurehead rulers as some kind
of Trash Magazine Semi-Deities.
One measly visit with wee George—along
with all their smiles and mannerisms and empty speeches and kind of
handsomeness and memories of Kate’s sister—and, BOOM, where’d the Republic go?
I once wrote about the idea of ‘fame,’
and it being perhaps the worst form of ‘incomprehension.’[1]
Obviously here, in the superficially heightened status the Australian public
ascribe some visiting royals, this befuddled fame is at its absolute height: they
are famous for no other reason than being famous. They are without any set of
special skills that actually distinguish them from us—skills that usually grant
the so-called famous (actors, musicians, whatever) their fame in the first
place. The royals are people whose fame is a product, literally, of the luck of
their birth rather than any actual, you know, accomplishment.
No one celebrates me for being
born and living and doing things. If I was to smash a champagne bottle on a
ship (do they even do that anymore), I’d get arrested, not celebrated. And
although I believe I could be as effective a symbolic governmental leader as
any of those inbred, tea-sipping twats, I am without the sheer luck of their
birth that has granted them such a status; that still stands now
years and years after their relevance as actual rulers of the land has faded,
even in fucking Britain itself.[2]
I marvel that Australia has not
relegated the monarchy to the annals of a cringe-worthy history; that there are those our there (including you Mr Abbott) who still identify themselves as ‘staunch’ monarchists. We, as a people, are
apparently so shallow that the mere presence of the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge—with all their rigidly proper sex appeal—can wash away the idea of a
Republic.
We don’t refer to Britain as ‘home’
anymore, but many of us still apparently bow down to its Queen, and refuse
our right as a population of otherwise INDEPENDENT people to be a Republic and
shake off the final remnants of the unnecessary burden of the figurative weight
of still being, essentially, a quasi-colony.
And why don’t we make this move? Because
Australia is full of morons who mistake celebrity with worth; who claim these
people as honorary citizens despite their almost complete absence from our
shores; who mistakenly go by the adage, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ (of
course nothing is broken because we are NOT actually ruled by the Monarchy, we
rule ourselves in all but official name); and who, despite proclaiming the
strength of our cultural identity, are so fearful of being identified as completely
Australian that they still look to England for reassurance.
Really, what is wrong with people
when an incomprehensible fame can determine the broader identity of nation? When a Women's Day spread can make us squeal and prostrate ourselves before our awkward political history? Especially when it is a fame grown from the luck of birth and few fancy dress
parties they televise and call a wedding.
(look at how smug they are ... dorks)
[2]
Apparently I am related distantly to the last King of Wales, so perhaps I will
try to smash some champagne bottles. Perhaps not on ships, though. If someone
wants me to bless and see-off a new car, I’m happy to help. Or perhaps you want
me to colonise you?
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