The NHS, the Nanny State’s military wing, has worked hard to install itself at the centre of our lives, instead of focussing on the nation’s health. Not content with being the vanguard of the masking, jabbing, social distancing and lockdown fanatics, it has now fallen for its own rhetoric of ‘saving the NHS’ and is making further incursions into the public sphere.
We are no longer allowed to smoke. Drinking alcohol is akin to dicing with death, and the occasional luxury of a juicy, cheese smothered calorie laden burger not only endangers our own lives, it endangers everyone by contributing to global warming. With most forms of enjoyment now off limits, how’s a chap to fill his spare time?
There used to be casual sex, but that’s been banned as you are not allowed to flirt. I was on the London underground this week and there was no shortage of posters reminding me. I had already been warned on a poster at Hull Station that exposing my genitals in public was unacceptable (unless you’re a transwoman, in which case it’s presumably de rigueur?). But on the underground, they have taken this to a new level. I was sitting opposite two posters, one of which told me that inappropriate touching of other people was unacceptable (who knew?), and that ‘intrusive staring of a sexual nature is sexual harassment and is not tolerated’. Quite what constitutes staring ‘of a sexual nature’ was not exemplified so I was uncertain whether I was doing it or not. I presume there is a training course I can attend on ‘inappropriate staring’.
Frustrated by the lack of opportunity to indulge in the occasional guilty pleasure, a man’s mind turns to the potential gratification of DIY (read on and stop making up your own jokes). That shelf the wife needs fixing, why not do it yourself? Decking in the garden love? Leave that to me. A garden shed you say? Blimey, don’t push it, I don’t even have a toolbox yet. So, off to B&Q you pop and arrive home considerably impoverished but armed – literally – with saws, hammers, expanding rulers, and things that just looked good at the time, but the function of which eludes you. Of course, you buy one of those utility belt things that makes the average tradesman look like Rambo and drives women mad. On the other hand, you have never even wielded a power drill.
Returning to B&Q to buy the drill you forgot to purchase first time round, you finally make it home with something that would not look out of place on a battlefield, with more interchangeable heads than a Swiss army knife. You identify your first job and are just about to make a start, when some words ring in your head: avoid DIY to save the NHS. Yes, seriously, some idiot in the higher echelons of the nation’s favourite sacred cow has issued this advice. The service which everyone adores is going under and will crumble and fall if you hit your thumb with a hammer or saw off your finger. This is simply safetyism gone bonkers. What could be next? Presumably, the sky is the limit when it comes to saving the NHS. How about the following, which I reluctantly suggest lest it gives the NHS ninnies any ideas:
- Stop making tea and coffee; kettles full of boiling water are just accidents waiting to happen.
- Move all household activities including sleeping to the ground floor of the house to avoid the risk of falling down the stairs.
- Don’t shower – that’s a slippery slope
You might laugh but, given the way we kowtowed to the Covid doom mongers and bent over backwards (carefully of course) to accommodate the faint hearts and fanatics during the Covid panic, it would not surprise me if the NHS thought they could get away with this. After all, who in December 2019 would have believed we’d spend two years covering our faces with useless strips of cloth, lining up for jabs that we didn’t need, skiving from home instead of skiving at work and following one way systems round supermarkets and bars like a herd of sheep? But they did get away with it, and we did all those things.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
