Come summer 2021, who’s going to save our sorry asses? | Stewart Lee | The Guardian

Inspirational figures are hard to find, but perhaps the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine could be one of them…Two dozen young people, their hair unkempt, their face masks filthy, stood on the rolling route of the Ridgeway at Overton, holding aloft on wooden shafts an enormous pair of billowing ladies’ bloomers. White against the blue sky like nylon clouds, written upon their wind-filled cheeks were the words “sorry ass”. “Sorry ass!”, chanted the children, “Sorry ass! Sorry ass! Save your sorry ass!” In the long hot summer of 2021 (0001 AC) the coronavirus reshaped not only society and the economy, but also the fragile column of ether that is human faith.It was on 2 August 2020, a year previously, that the Sunday Telegraph, Britain’s worst newspaper, had carried an opinion piece concluding: “The celebration of historical diversity shouldn’t be surrendered to the left as a permanent guilt trip or a weapon to use in the culture war. The Tories should embrace it as a celebration of the glorious patchwork of British life.” The Conservatives’ media masters were instructing them to reject racism, not because to do so was right in and of itself, but because feigning wokeness would be another way to discredit their political opponents, a job they had previously been happy to delegate to all mainstream media, clockwork Russian cyber-bots, and sexless young men on YouTube, foaming in their mum’s basements. Continue reading…

Inspirational figures are hard to find, but perhaps the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine could be one of them…

Two dozen young people, their hair unkempt, their face masks filthy, stood on the rolling route of the Ridgeway at Overton, holding aloft on wooden shafts an enormous pair of billowing ladies’ bloomers. White against the blue sky like nylon clouds, written upon their wind-filled cheeks were the words “sorry ass”. “Sorry ass!”, chanted the children, “Sorry ass! Sorry ass! Save your sorry ass!” In the long hot summer of 2021 (0001 AC) the coronavirus reshaped not only society and the economy, but also the fragile column of ether that is human faith.

It was on 2 August 2020, a year previously, that the Sunday Telegraph, Britain’s worst newspaper, had carried an opinion piece concluding: “The celebration of historical diversity shouldn’t be surrendered to the left as a permanent guilt trip or a weapon to use in the culture war. The Tories should embrace it as a celebration of the glorious patchwork of British life.” The Conservatives’ media masters were instructing them to reject racism, not because to do so was right in and of itself, but because feigning wokeness would be another way to discredit their political opponents, a job they had previously been happy to delegate to all mainstream media, clockwork Russian cyber-bots, and sexless young men on YouTube, foaming in their mum’s basements.

Continue reading…