Heroes

I wish people wouldn't use the word hero so casually, not just for those who've done something genuinely heroic and life-threatening but for anyone who's done something a little bit daring.

Firefighters rescuing someone from a burning building, or a person fighting back against an armed mugger, yes, that's genuinely heroic, but someone who brings down a cat stuck up a tree - no, that's not heroic, that's just helpful.

Patrick Hutchinson, a black man who carried another man to safety at a far-right protest rally in London on Saturday, has been described by the media as a hero. Well no, not really, because he was shielded by his friends as he did his "heroic" act.

Likewise all those health workers who've been hailed as "heroic" for months. Most of them dislike the word and say they're just doing their job, treating illness and saving lives just as they did before the virus outbreak.

Likewise people delivering food to the housebound are described as heroes, when all they're doing is looking after the vulnerable and making sure people don't starve. That's not heroism, simply altruism and kindness.

The word heroism is always applied to something physical, but to my mind it can also mean something mental or emotional.

Someone who overcomes crippling fear and self-doubt to make a big change in their life they've always shied away from - that's heroic. Or someone who overcomes the memory of a horrific sexual assault to start dating again. Or those who're always true to themselves despite others trying to push them along a different path.

Like Professor Gail Dines, the American anti-porn campaigner, who has been heavily criticised by other academics but carries on regardless.

And then of course there's refusing a second slice of chocolate cake or a second helping of ice cream - how heroic is that?

Candid camera

I really don't understand the widespread fuss about CCTV cameras. The claim that they are invading our privacy and creating a Big Brother society seems to me rather hysterical and over-the-top.

So what if a camera at the top of a building somewhere can see me blowing my nose or watching an attractive woman or wrestling with an over-stuffed sandwich? Where's the threat?

Critics say the ubiquitous CCTV cameras (the UK has one of the highest concentrations in the world) are intimidating us and putting us all under suspicion. They are the sign of an authoritarian society that wants to monitor its citizens' every movement.

I think that's farfetched nonsense. I don't feel in the least intimidated by the odd camera. No one's going to see anything particularly revealing or illicit, unless I'm fixing a drugs deal or handing over a bribe. And who in their right mind would do that in full public view anyway?

We don't mind hundreds of other passers-by watching our movements so why are we so worried about cameras seeing exactly the same thing?

They're only in public places after all, where we're expected to behave ourselves. It's not as if they're in our living rooms or bedrooms recording our private vices and eccentricities.

What's more, CCTV has caught quite a number of genuine criminals red-handed and led to convictions that wouldn't have happened without them. And that includes rapists* and muggers who seriously jeopardise street safety. If we can catch a few more of them, CCTV's just fine by me.

* An estimated 47,000 women are raped every year in Britain.
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Oh dear! The ever-popular Grandad, usually brilliantly funny, has done a spectacularly unfunny post condemning political correctness. He says we should be free to call people anything we like, no matter how offensive, and stop being so over-sensitive. Micks, Paddies, golliwogs, what does it matter? Sorry, grandad, I couldn't agree less. The point of so-called political correctness is simply to have respect for other people. Of course it can be overdone but so can anything. And most of the extremist scare stories are tabloid inventions in any case. Is it so hard to call black people blacks and not niggers?

NB: In the interests of fairness, please also read Grandad's reply in Comments.