In the space of a twenty minute car journey the other night I wondered, listening to the evening news on BBC Radio 4, if I had in fact missed the news and was listening to a new 6:30pm comedy show. Two items in a row suggested that to me. Either that, or the world has gone totally stark raving mad.
It started with a kiss
The first story was about Luis Rubiales, the former president of the Spanish Soccer Federation, and the kiss that went around the world when he planted a smacker on the lips of the victorious Spanish women’s team captain, Jenni Hermoso. It passed virtually without comment at the time, other than being seen as a display of Latin exuberance in the heat of a very hot moment; they had just won the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia.
Hermoso seemed happy enough at the time and carried on celebrating with her teammates while Rubiales proceeded to carry another one of the players, Athenea del Castillo, over his shoulder. She also seemed happy enough.
But it was not long before the jungle drums began beating. The crowd had barely left the stadium on the Sunday of the match, when it was reported that Hermoso was less than happy at being kissed. Rubiales had apologised by Monday, having realised that, perhaps, a full on kiss was probably not appropriate in this day and age.
With two fingers up to keeping politics out of sport, Spain’s answer to Keir Starmer, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez weighed in with his view that, where Rubiales was concerned: “apologies are not enough, I even think they are not adequate” and that his behaviour showed “there is still a long way to go for equality”. With her two fingers up to reason and perspective, Spain’s equalities minster Irene Montero described the kiss as “a form of sexual violence.”
Efforts by Spanish Soccer Federation colleagues to persuade Hermoso to accept the apology from Rubiales, to don her ‘big girl’ pants and move on only fanned the flames of her anger; that and some judicious egging on by left-wing politicians and feminist groups. It was not long before Rubiales fell on his sword, which he surely thought would draw a line under the event.
But no. Now out of a job, publicly disgraced and apologetic, more than a full calendar year on Rubiales is on trial in Madrid’s High Court with prosecutors calling for three years in prison. Hermoso, with plenty of time to rehearse how violated, subjugated and ‘disrespected’ she felt is overegging her pudding, doing her best to see he does.
I wish I was making this up. After all, there was no such fuss when Maradona kissed Carlos Tevez full on the lips.
Changing times in changing rooms
The above story was immediately followed by one on Scottish nurse Sandie Peggy, who complained about having to share the female changing room at work with a bloke. The bloke in question being Dr Beth Upton who, you guessed it, identifies as a woman.
Peggy and Upton both work for NHS Fife and you can imagine how they reacted to the complaint. That’s right, they told Dr Upton to sling his hook and use the male changing rooms.
Only joking! Of course, being the political wing of the transgender movement, the NHS suspended Peggy on a charge of bullying and she is now in the throes of an industrial tribunal. The court has already ruled that Dr Upton’s legal team may refer to him using female pronouns, which cannot exactly engender confidence in Peggy that she will receive a fair hearing. She has consistently refused to refer to Dr Upton as anything but male, which is what he is.
This story had me both laughing out loud and screaming with anger at the radio. Laughing at the absurdity and angry that the real bully, a man entering a space that should be safe for women, was not the one being tried. But we are getting used, increasingly, to these Alice in Wonderland scenarios where words can mean anything people want them to mean, and gender is bent to accommodate the whims of someone who, by any definition, is mentally ill. To my mind the question of his competence to practise medicine is raised; but I guess we must deal with one thing at a time.
Meet Mr I.P. Squint
Not a news item, but one which came immediately to mind, based on recent experience of having a lunchtime pint with a former colleague in the University of Hull Student Union. The bar is a Wetherspoons and they were selling Theakston’s Bitter for £0.99 that week.
Since our last visit the place had been refurbished and that included the toilets. Being men of a certain age and, despite that fact that we both only live a few hundred yards from the campus, we decided to be safe rather than sorry and visit said toilets. My friend commented on the way that we could enjoy a gender neutral pee. The toilets had been repurposed to accommodate those of both sex and none in the name, presumably, of progress.
It is impossible to imagine why anyone would consider gender neutral toilets to be a good thing, especially any women. After all, the toilet habits of males and females are entirely different due to anatomical differences which I doubt I need to explain to the enlightened readers of TNC. I had four sons and four daughters so I have studied this in some detail, as has my wife.
Suffice to say that on entering the gender neutral toilet area, which was remarkably free of women, and subsequently entering the luridly pink painted cubicle I was confronted with a common spectacle suggesting that someone of the male gender had been last to use it. The toilet seat and floor were liberally sprinkled with urine and, I learned subsequently, that this is not uncommon. Why any young lady should be subjected to having to wade through a sea of wee only to have to sit down in it is beyond me. Gender neutral toilets seem, to me, to be the epitome of male privilege.
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.
If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!
Truly gender neutral wouldn’t require WC provision at all as such ‘people’ surely must be as smooth down below as Barbie or Ken (or the misnamed Action Man).
I gave up listening to the news over 25 years ago. I couldn’t understand why I arrived at work in a foul mood even if the commute hadn’t been as bad as it could have been (I worked in The City of London). It was soon obvious to me that my habit of listening to The Today programme was the problem and I stopped at once. Since then I’ve neither listened to the BBC nor watched television. My mood has improved accordingly although it is being seriously tested by the lunatics on parade at present.
Unfortunately at times even alternative media such as TNC, TCW, DS can have the same effect (but for different reasons).
What a sensible action to take. I haven’t watched a TV news for 10 years or more and stopped listening to Radio 4 about 8 years ago. When I tell people that if they stop watching/listening/ reading the MSM they probably will never do so again and will feel better for it they often look at me with incredulity. I always urge them to give it a try.