Flag mania

National flags seem to divide people quite dramatically. Some people love them and display them at every opportunity to show how much they love their country. Others loathe them and find their display irritating and unnecessary. Others are simply indifferent to them.

The British government has taken to displaying the union flag at every media briefing. They're also stipulating that every government office must fly the union flag not just on special occasions but every day of the year.

One Tory MP has even criticised the BBC's Annual Report for not including the union flag and said the flag should appear several times. Other Tory MPs have suggested the BBC is ashamed of its British links.

It seems shocking to me that there's so much fuss over the national flag when other important issues like poverty and homelessness never get the attention they deserve.

Quite honestly I don't understand why the union flag needs to be publicly displayed at all. If you're patriotic and proud of your country, isn't that enough? Why the need for flags?

And it's beyond ridiculous when people declare that if you don't like flying the flag then you're unpatriotic or even some kind of traitor to your native land.

I've no objection to flags in general. If people want to fly a gay pride flag or a Thank You NHS flag or a Green Party flag, good luck to them. They may ruffle a few feathers but they don't arouse the violent tribal passions the union flag is now burdened with.

Incidentally, the union jack isn't even recognised in law as the national flag. It has become so purely through custom and practice. Unfortunately custom and practice has also led to a jingoistic intolerance of flag sceptics like myself.

A time of trepidation

The media is still wall-to-wall President Pussy-Grabber. Other news has been squeezed out of the headlines. Every available columnist has been told to pen a few words, however trite, on the new Bum-Fancier-in-Chief.

I feel I should do my bit and lob in my ten-cents worth. But what to say that hasn't been said a hundred times already? What to say that isn't apoplectic, hysterical, doom-laden, abusive or childish?

Above all, I feel for all those millions of Americans who are now very scared about the future, and how they might fare under the Trump regime. All those who till recently felt at home in America, and (on the whole) were treated decently by their fellow-citizens. All those who now feel things are changing rapidly and changing for the worse.

• Homosexuals
• Transgender men and women
• The disabled
• Black people
• Foreign nationals
• Migrants
• Women

They've seen how things declined in the UK after the EU referendum, with a huge upsurge in hate crimes, abuse, death threats, physical attacks, ostracism and ultimatums to leave the country. Some were so nervous about their personal safety, and their families' safety, they have indeed left the country. Many others are thinking of leaving.

Of course those lucky Americans who aren't in one of the threatened groups, those who're well off and doing nicely and largely unaffected by who happens to be President, mostly aren't interested in those less fortunate citizens.

They shrug their shoulders, insist everyone's over-reacting, joke about moving to Canada, say the campaign rhetoric was just hot air, say Trump will be put in his place, and so on.

Such complacent dismissals won't reassure those who know how hard it is to stem the flow of hatred and intolerance once it's become normal and once it's been sanctioned at the highest levels.

I fear Trump's America could turn very ugly.

But it's traditional

I'm always suspicious of the word "traditional". It's so often used negatively, to malign someone or prevent them doing something.

If it means enjoying yourself and having a good time, fine. Nothing wrong with wanting, say, a traditional family Christmas or a traditional seaside holiday. No harm in that (unless you can't stand your relatives or you can't swim, of course).

But when people bang on about "traditional marriage" (i.e. a man and a woman, or a breadwinner and a housewife) or "traditional British values" (i.e. what immigrants need more of) or "traditional British cooking" (i.e. none of that foreign muck), I cringe. It's just a sign of blinkered intolerance and inability to accept other people's tastes and preferences.

In any case, a lot of these supposed "traditions" are either being hugely misrepresented or are actually quite a recent thing. Single parent families have always been common. British values have always pillaged values from other cultures. And British cooking has always used foreign ingredients. So where are these much-vaunted traditions that are always being waved in our faces? They're mostly mythical.

But it sounds good, doesn't it? If something's "traditional", it must be based on long experience, tried and tested methods, solid common sense etc. Except that if you look more closely, it's just as likely to mean nothing more than force of habit, sticking to the status quo, and running away nervously from anything unfamiliar.

We could do with a bit less tradition and a bit more eagerness to try something new.

Acting normal

We're all so good at acting normal, aren't we? I guess at least 50 per cent of the population are somehow screwed up but you wouldn't know it. We've all perfected the art of putting on an appropriate public persona and keeping whatever is festering away inside very carefully hidden.

Most of us have been messed-up by one unfortunate experience or another - drug abuse, alcoholism, violent partners, childhood bullying, workplace bullying, extreme mental health issues, stalking, strange obsessions and compulsions, you name it.

Yet to most people we seem quite mentally and emotionally healthy, going about our daily lives in an unassuming way, not showing any signs of inner turmoil or distress, apparently well able to cope with whatever life throws at us.

Only occasionally do we let slip some small clue, some oddity, that makes people wonder if we're as normal as we seem to be. Usually it's only our loved ones, or our closest friends, or a therapist, who are privy to some secret agony that's tearing us apart and which we're desperate to end.

Many of these hidden torments are things other people wouldn't understand or sympathise with. Or we're deeply embarrassed and ashamed of them. Or we don't want to expose how much pain and hurt they cause us. So we keep our lips sealed and deal with the anguish as best we can.

As you know, I have plenty of neuroses and hang-ups of my own. Some of them I've revealed but others I seldom confide to anyone. If people were more open-minded, more tolerant, more compassionate, I wouldn't need to be so secretive, but the fact is that prejudice and intolerance are widespread. Anyone revealing something a bit out of the ordinary can be vilified.

So like most people I'm adept at acting normal. Or so I believe. But more than likely my engrained eccentricities are all too obvious to everyone. Just don't probe them too deeply. There might be an alarming shriek of pain.

PS: After Ione Wells wrote about an experience of attempted rape, more than 50 people confessed on her website to similar experiences and said they were previously too afraid or ashamed to speak out. A number of students at her university confided similar experiences to her. And I bet that's just the tip of the iceberg.

What a shame

Why are there so many things we're ashamed to talk about? So many things we'd rather not mention for fear of the conse-quences?

It seems that for each thing we lose our shame about, something else shameful pops up to take its place. And the list of shameful topics is frighteningly long, even in the supposedly tolerant and open-minded 21st century.

Some things have become, well, not totally shameless but much more widely acceptable than they used to be. Part of the scenery at least. Like being gay, being transgender, having an abortion, or being an unmarried mum (funny how unmarried dads have never attracted the same scorn).

On the other hand the number of things people feel ashamed of is as long as your arm - addictions, mental problems, fatal accidents, rare illnesses, affairs, suicide attempts, sexual assault, eating disorders. And I'm sure there are plenty of things I've missed there.

Yet these are all commonplace human events or weaknesses, shared by thousands of people. Why so much shame? Why can't they just be talked about freely? Why the chronic anxiety and fear about sharing them with others? Is society really that intolerant, that scathing, that uncomprehending?

There are not that many things I'm personally ashamed of. I'm happy to reveal most of my odd quirks and eccentricities. There are one or two things I keep to myself, not out of shame but because I know they're probably incomprehensible to others and there's no point in mentioning them.

One thing I feel slightly ashamed of is not being honest enough with other people, being polite and agreeable rather than voicing my true thoughts and feelings. But hell, don't we all do that? If we were totally honest all the time, life would become a nightmare of insults, rejections and wounded emotions. I wouldn't fancy that.

Weighty secrets

I don't like having secrets. They feel like a burden, a rock on my back. I want to be a totally open person, revealing myself without any inhibitions or squeamishness.

Unfortunately so many people are censorious and intolerant, and likely to trample all over whatever I happen to tell them, that in practice I'm extremely secretive, keeping all sorts of things to myself for fear of the consequences if I don't.

Stuff about sex. About gender. About relationships. About phobias. About prejudices. About extreme emotions.

I find this a tremendous load to bear. There is so much I want to share with other people - to get their views, their advice, their own experience of the same things. But I have to stay silent and work through them all on my own.

Obviously I'm not talking about things people tell me in confidence. Those stay secret for a good reason. But all this other personal stuff locked inside me like junk in the attic - I just want to let it all out, let it circulate, do something with it.

Some people enjoy having secrets, knowing things that others don't know. They like having bits of themselves that are theirs and theirs alone, that can't be taken away or spoiled. The last thing they want to do is share them with all and sundry.

I don't feel like that at all. I really want to let it all hang out. Having so many secrets that aren't public currency makes me feel isolated, shut off, detached from other people like some sort of awkward outsider. And it makes me feel abnormal, weird, perverted, as if I'm harbouring some monstrous tendency that mustn't be let loose.

I want to bare my soul. But not to a hostile audience with axes to grind.

Thanks to Leah for the inspiration 

Brushed aside

It's easy to overlook human frailty. If we're able-bodied, healthy and mentally alert, it's easy to be impatient and insensitive towards those who aren't.

We don't always understand the limitations and failings that other people are struggling with, and sometimes it's all too tempting to believe they're exaggerating their problems and don't really need as much help as they make out.

How often I see people intent only on their own personal pleasures or urgent tasks rushing through the streets in a self-absorbed bubble, with no time or tolerance for those who are physically impaired, slow-witted, confused or otherwise not as capable as those around them.

How often I see reports of lonely elderly people forgotten about by their neighbours, disabled people forced onto the sidelines, mentally ill people treated as work-shy frauds, and wonder when we're going to have a bit more compassion and consideration.

I think the worst offenders aren't ordinary individuals, who can be astonishingly generous and sympathetic when prompted, but politicians to whom the weak and vulnerable are frequently nothing more than a tiresome embarrassment to be hidden away and ignored. Or told they're leeching off the state and should get off their arses.

A couple of years ago there was an elderly man living in the house next door. I didn't think about him much, I assumed he was happy enough doing his own thing, whatever that was. Then I heard he had died of chronic liver disease as a result of heavy drinking.

I thought that maybe if I'd been a bit nosier, a bit friendlier, he would still be alive. I was maybe just as oblivious as so many other people. The truth is, he was out of sight and out of mind.