The Caveman is out of the Man Cave for a few days. As I write, I am bound for Vienna but en route to Slovenia; a country so wonderful, picturesque and friendly that I always think I have arrived in paradise.
It will be great to be in a virtually hijab-free zone for a few days, albeit not entirely free of that particular abomination. Over the years I have been visiting Slovenia, I have witnessed a gradual increase in the immigrant population, most probably coming from the Islamic parts of Eastern Europe. I don’t know if their ‘contribution’ to Slovenian society is acknowledged, but plenty of them expect passers-by to contribute to them as they sit at strategic points throughout the cities holding out their hands.
I’m here to teach and to give a keynote at a conference and, as with the case in most European (or even Far Eastern) countries I visit, I reflect on how good the hospitality is compared with anything we offer back in the UK. Taking a guest out to dinner at a UK university is inevitably permitted only with a cap on the amount that can be spent, with severe restrictions on the circumstances under which alcohol can be consumed, and on how much. Alcohol was only permitted with food at my last university and then only at some measly equivalent such as one glass of wine per person.
This week in Slovenia I am being taken out for dinner and drinks on arrival. I’ll charge one meal with alcohol included at my hotel to the university, on another night the rector of the university is taking me to a ‘steak and whisky’ restaurant, and after the conference we are going on a tour of local breweries. My hand will never go into my pockets and I’ll be lucky to get home alive.
Give me a water break
I mentioned in a recent Man Cave column how, on my visit to Wembley to watch the Championship play-off final, there had been a hydration break in both halves of the game. This is a new phenomenon and probably quite a humane one. I was getting dehydrated that day just watching the game.
But it has not taken long for this new phenomenon in football to become weaponised. This weekend the Financial Times ran a column on the forthcoming World Cup in America (Canada, United States and Mexico). The FT does not normally report on sport, and it has not started; the column was headed ‘Climate change’. We were treated to an explanation of how games in extreme heat and humidity would be stopped for hydration breaks.
The piece was accompanied by three graphs showing how, over the course of the competition, temperatures were expected to rise. Yes, that is what happens over summer (except this year in the UK)! The competition starts in June and proceeds for a few weeks into July. Since when was climate change responsible for that? We can, of course, expect more of this nonsense, mark my words. Each time there is a break in the game for the players to ‘take on water’ (aka ‘drink’) wait for the commentators to explain in solemn tones how necessary this is and what lies behind it: global warming and rising carbon dioxide levels.
Brown out and white in
Now, given where this is published and going by previous ‘cave’ oriented columns, you may be expecting some anti-immigration rant here. Au contraire, this is about eggs (and climate change). One of our supermarket chains, Sainsbury’s (other virtue-signalling outlets are available) has decided to stop selling brown eggs and only to sell white eggs. This is not motivated by any kind of racial prejudice or white (egg) supremacy, but by the news that the production of brown eggs creates more atmospheric carbon dioxide than white eggs.
Surely this kind of stuff is just made up. An egg is an egg, and a chicken is a chicken. Even with my PhD in biology, I have no idea what dictates the colour of what drops out of their behinds, but I am simply not prepared to believe that it makes any difference to their little chicken-shaped carbon footprints. And, in any case, the link between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming is tenuous.
I do know that there is absolutely no nutritional difference between brown and white eggs, and I know which ones I find more aesthetically pleasing to look at in our eggboxes – the brown ones. When I go to the United States, where they have exclusively white eggs it seems, I find that they look less appealing.
As we can expect the kind of nonsense that Sainsbury’s has started to spread, then the simple pleasure one gets from looking at a big brown egg will soon go the way of so many other simple pleasures such as drinking a bottle of wine that does not tell me to ‘drink responsibly’ or eating a box (yes, whole box) of Smarties that actually taste like Smarties, dyed my hands like a rainbow for the rest of the day and got me as high as a kite.
Another simple pleasure now denied to me – as an Elite member of Raddison hotels (look at me!) – is the free drink token. I checked in last night, no token so I lowered myself to ask to be told ‘Oh, we’ve stopped doing them.’ Is it just me or is life getting more shit by the day?
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He 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.
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