Falling chimney

Two of you asked me for more details of the falling chimney that almost finished me off.

I was a child at the time (not sure what age). I came home from school one afternoon and as I usually did I walked down the narrow alley between my parents' house and the house beside it and went in through the back door.

A few minutes later there was an almighty crash and I discovered that the chimney had collapsed and fallen into the alley. If I had got home a few minutes later I would have been badly injured or even dead.

An experience like that tends to linger in the back of your mind. When we moved into this house it had a slightly leaning chimney and I was always a bit nervous that it would collapse, despite several roof specialists saying it was structurally sound. We finally had the chimney removed to cure a persistent roof leak and I was relieved that it had gone.

But things like the falling chimney remind me of how we assume safety and security and pretend disasters will never happen. Or we're sure they'll happen to other people and not us. Or we say they're statistically unlikely.

Well, you have to think like that, don't you? If I constantly conjured up all the disasters that might befall me (burglaries, car crashes, internet fraud, muggings) life would become impossible, I'd be a nervous wreck.

In fact the nearest I've ever come to a serious disaster is some hair-raising near misses when I was driving a bit carelessly. If it hadn't been for some quick evasive action by other drivers it could have been nasty.

But hey, I lived to tell the tale.

Question time

It's a long time since I did a Question and Answer, so I thought I'd do another one. Respectable questions only of course, nothing too outrageous. So there's no need to brace yourself.

• What is your greatest fear? Creepy-crawlies. They move so fast.
• When were you happiest? Now. Retirement is very liberating.
• What personal trait do you deplore? Non-existent cooking skills.
• And in others? Arrogance, narcissism, self-righteousness.
• Your biggest embarrassment? Drinking too much and being violently sick.
• Describe yourself in three words. Quiet, anxious, friendly.
• What do you dislike about your appearance? Nothing.
• What would your superpower be? Knowing the future.
• Apart from property, what's your dearest purchase? Cars and holidays.
• Your most unappealing habit? Being shy and tongue-tied.
• What scares you about ageing? Possibly getting a disabling illness.
• Your celebrity crush? I don't have one. I don't put celebs on a pedestal.
• Would you choose fame or anonymity? Anonymity. Fame is a nightmare.
• Who should you say sorry to? An old girlfriend I abruptly jilted.
• Who would you most like to be? No one. I'm quite happy with myself.
• When did you last cry? At my mum's funeral.
• Any brushes with death? I was almost crushed by a falling chimney.
• Would you prefer sex, money or fame? Money, in case I live to 100.
• An important life lesson? Don't judge by appearances.
• Tell us a secret. But then it wouldn't still be a secret.

(Questions pinched from the Guardian)

Casual fling

One thing that's changed for the better during my lifetime is clothing etiquette. Clothing was much more formal when I was young, but over the years has become increasingly casual and relaxed.

Where once men were expected to wear suits and ties for all sorts of professional and white collar jobs, now they're often in open-neck shirts and loose-fitting pants. Women might be wearing something similar rather than tight skirts and high heels.

There's no longer a strict ban on fancy hairdos, excessive jewellery, unusual nail polish (i.e. not red), unusual tights (i.e. not flesh coloured), flashy earrings, tattoos and piercings (though a tattoo reading "I'm overworked and underpaid" might raise a few eyebrows).

Anyway the change is fine by me. I'm not bothered by people's clothing so much as whether they can do their job efficiently. Obviously I would draw the line at pyjamas or dungarees or bikinis but comfortable, easy to wear clothing seems better than formal clothing that's restrictive and annoying.

I know some people aren't happy with the changing expectations, and insist formal clothing makes them more confident in the wearer's abilities, but I think that's more a lingering opinion than a serious argument.

Even on special occasions like funerals and weddings, where dark suits and formal clothing used to be obligatory, many attendees now dress quite casually or even flamboyantly. I once felt embarrassed that all I had to wear for a funeral was a bright green jacket, but today nobody would bat an eyelid.

What's more, suits can be very pricey and tough on your budget, so making them optional is a positive step forward.

Luckily I've mostly had jobs where casual clothing is the norm, so I haven't actually owned a suit since my early twenties. I was glad to get rid of it.

Retired and annoyed

I tend to get annoyed when someone asks how my retirement is going, and I'm trying to work out why. I think it's because either they're expecting me to say it's fantastic and everything's a bed of roses, or alternatively that it's dreadful and I wish I was back at work. But the reality isn't so black and white.

There does seem to be a common assumption that retirement is great and there's no downside, that you're rolling in money and always off on the next cruise or the next luxury city break.

Of course this wonderful image is half-true at best, as the minuses of retirement are usually glossed over or spun as if they're benefits. To name a few:

• You might have medical problems that limit what you can do
• You might be expected to look after boisterous and exhausting grandchildren
• You might be very short of money
• You might miss your old workmates
• You might feel isolated or lonely or bored
• You might have to care for frail elderly relatives

At the moment I'm genuinely enjoying retirement, though I do sometimes feel isolated and a bit lonely. It's hard to make new friends and acquaintances to replace the friends you worked with. Many people are so consumed with the day-to-day demands of their family they simply have no time for new friends.

The other thing that annoys me is someone asking what I do now I'm retired, as if, stripped of employment, I have no other interests and don't know what to do with myself. Why should I have to justify my retirement with a list of worthy activities? Why shouldn't I just watch rubbish TV all day if I feel like it?

How's my retirement going? Is that a trick question?

Will trickster

Wills are normally dealt with behind closed doors and out of the public eye. It's generally assumed that the will was properly dealt with and the named beneficiaries got whatever was due to them.

But I've commented before that there's little official monitoring of how wills are handled, and there's plenty of scope for skullduggery and fraud if someone is so minded.

As the sole executor of my mum's will, I could easily have siphoned off a large sum by making out she had less money than she actually had. Nobody would have been the wiser as I was the only one with access to all her bank accounts and the true amount in them.

My sister, brother in law and niece all trusted me to deal with the will honestly. I gave them full details of all financial transactions and they never asked me any awkward questions.

It's rare for someone to be taken to court for mishandling a will, but the High Court has just jailed Mark Totton after he failed to pass on £237,500 to his mother's grandson and granddaughter. He has also refused to explain what happened to the money and has given no indication it will be forthcoming.

He was jailed for contempt of court for not providing information about the estate and constantly flouting court orders to do so. He was also ordered to pay the legal bills for his niece and nephew, some £18,000.

He claimed he had suffered depression because of the row over his mother's will - a row caused by his own trickery!

I wonder what happened to the missing money. Is it just salted away in some secret account or has he spent it on wine, women and song?

Pic: Mark Totton

Doodle house

Would you be happy to live in a house that's covered with doodles from top to bottom? With not a single square inch left uncovered - doodles on absolutely everything from walls and ceilings to beds and kitchen utensils.

Twenty eight year old Kent artist Sam Cox became so fascinated with doodles that he decided to cover his entire house with them. Luckily his wife Alena seems to be as keen on the doodles as he is.

He says the couple who sold him the house begged him not to doodle on the walls but he ignored them. "They told me, whatever you do, please don't doodle. I didn't listen."

There's no way I could live in a house festooned with doodles. They would just be too overwhelming, too disturbing. And surely with doodles everywhere you look, you'd be dreaming of the wretched things?

The artist claims he hasn't had any complaints from his neighbours yet - so he has no plans to tone down the property's appearance or move house any time soon.

If he ever wanted to sell the house, I imagine not many people would like the idea of living with wall-to-wall doodles rather than more conventional decor. I doubt if suburban Kent is ready for such avant-garde eccentricity.

What do you think? Could you live with thousands of doodles or would you run a mile?

PS: Lots more pictures in the link above

Petty peeves

There are the major annoyances that drive you crazy. Then there are the petty irritations that niggle at you but are more or less endurable.

I stumbled on an old post about a journalist with twenty five of his petty irritations. I didn't actually list my own, so here are some of them now.

• Loud music in restaurants and coffee shops. I have to almost shout to be heard. If I ask for the music to be turned down, they adjust it very marginally.
• Doorstep chuggers*. A Red Cross person appeared yesterday, and I told him we already donated to the Red Cross. He laughed as if this was a joke.
• Loud phone conversations on trains and buses. Can't they wait until they get off? Can't they text instead?
• Changing layouts in supermarkets. I knew where the tofu was but now it's been relocated goodness knows where. Why oh why?
• Cashpoints declining my card. So I insert the card again and it's fine. Presumably some random security measure.
• TV adverts. None of which interest me. I don't need pant-liners or perfumes or hair conditioners. Just get on with the programme.
• Incorrect weather forecasts. It's pouring with rain but the forecast said dry all day. The best bet is still to look out of the window.
• Cyclists riding on pavements. I understand why - they don't want to ride on busy main roads. But it takes pedestrians by surprise.
• Misdelivered mail. Both our own and our neighbours'. Luckily people are kind enough to redeliver the mail.
• Untrained dogs the owners can't control. They leap on me and sniff me, while the owner mutters some feeble apology. Just keep Fido to yourself!

The only one on the original list was loud phone talkers on public transport. If you're curious, the list is here.

*Chuggers: charity muggers

Trigger puzzle

I don't understand how the TV companies decide on trigger warnings. They give frequent warnings about things that seem trivial, but ignore things that seem much more important.

Most TV dramas start with a warning that the programme contains strong language and violence. But how likely are these things to trigger a seriously distressing or traumatic reaction?

Surely most people are well used to strong language and aren't going to collapse if they hear the words "fuck" or "arsehole" or "bastard". Likewise they're well used to scenes of violence and won't have a meltdown if they see a punch-up.

On the other hand there are no warnings about, say, rape or torture or self-harming, which I would have thought could be genuinely distressing if you've had personal experience of any of those things.

I've seen some quite horrific scenes in TV dramas that deserved serious trigger warnings, but there weren't any and such scenes come as a total surprise. So as I say, why are some things flagged up while others are ignored?

Furthermore, why are trigger warnings only given on TV dramas? News bulletins and newspapers are probably far more likely to include disturbing scenes and reports, yet there are no trigger warnings.

Do they assume news watchers are immune from emotional distress and need no warnings? Or else there are so many things likely to upset them it would be impractical to list every single possibility?

Or is there a tendency to avoid trigger warnings in case too many people stop watching?

Trigger warning: this blog may contain dodgy opinions and inebriated nonsense. You are advised not to show it to gullible children or snooty aunts.

Crumbling respect

The respect for authority figures that was the norm when I was growing up has gradually crumbled over the years. Crumbled so far in fact that it has almost gone into reverse, with more and more people saying they distrust "experts" and other authority figures and intent on going their own way.

When I was young, people generally submitted to every sort of authority figure. Be they doctors, teachers, parents, government ministers, civil servants or police officers, we did what they asked us to do because obviously we were ignorant young dimwits and they were older and wiser.

That attitude slowly caved in and people started to question authority figures and the idea that they knew best. Did they really know best or were they fallible individuals who could get things horribly wrong as well as totally right?

Confidence in experts has been shaken by a constant succession of disasters and blunders. Like the inferno at Grenfell Tower, which was covered in inflammable cladding. Like incompetent surgeons who leave patients in agony. Like houses that are knowingly built on flood plains.

Bit by bit automatic respect for authority figures has drained away as people got the confidence to challenge what they said. And quite right too. Instead of assuming they won't be questioned, they have to justify their opinions and take people's scepticism into account.

That questioning can be overdone of course. Those people who say they never trust an expert and rely on their own judgment are taking distrust too far. They're often grossly misinformed and horribly wrong themselves.

We need a happy medium where the opinions of experts aren't instantly dismissed but carefully examined and evaluated before we rely on them.

Being offended

The big feature of cancel culture (aka polarisa-tion) is that it puts "being offended" into a whole new context. "Being offended" has suddenly become a huge deal, a hazardous minefield to be traversed with difficulty.

When I was young, if someone was offended, it was just a routine human reaction, like being upset or scared or sad or disappointed. If you were offended, you either shrugged it off or asked the person to apologise. And that was that.

Now it's practically a mortal sin to offend someone. Everything you do or say has to be vetted in advance in case it might offend someone. You're meant to know exactly what might cause offence and avoid it.

"Being offended" is no longer enough. The offence must now be "purged". The person concerned must not only apologise profusely, they must be abused and ostracised, punished in some way, even sacked from a job they may have done for decades.

If the offence is a thing, the offending book or article or statue must be banned, destroyed or otherwise removed from the public gaze. Whether the book has literary merit, or the statue has cultural significance, is beside the point.

It's not enough to say, Oh well that book was of its time, you'd expect some dubious references, a bit of racism or sexism, but it's not the end of the world, it's still a great bit of writing and people still enjoy it. Trying to obliterate it is an absurd over-reaction.

Unfortunately the new obsession with "being offended" means that people hesitate to discuss certain sensitive subjects for fear of the reaction and are effectively silenced. How can that be a good thing?

Believe it or not

It never ceases to amaze me how people will believe not only the unlikely but the clearly impossible. Even if other people pick a hundred holes in whatever they're champion-ing, they take no notice. I guess it's true that people often believe what they want to believe.

The Queen's death has been the signal for a tsunami of nonsense about the royal family, most of it totally absurd but eagerly propagated day after day.

One of the most bizarre is a video that criticises Meghan Markle for wearing an old outfit of Diana's at the Queen's funeral. This is despite the fact that the funeral won't even take place until tomorrow. But hey, that's just a minor detail.

Then there are the claims that some public figure has actually died and been replaced by a look-alike, the best-known example being Paul McCartney. Supposedly he died in a car crash on 9 November 1966.

The claim that the US's last Presidential election was rigged and that actually it was won by Donald Trump also widely persists despite numerous declarations that the election was completely fair and legitimate with no evidence of fraud.

Many people still believe it's possible to change sex even though it isn't. If you challenge them with the biological facts, they simply reiterate their opinion.

And then there are those who deny that major events ever happened - like the moon landing, 9/11, the covid virus and the Holocaust.

How do people manage to have such baseless beliefs despite all the opposing evidence? How do they convince themselves that they're right? It intrigues me.

The only blatantly false belief I've ever held is the existence of Santa Claus. I was ten before the truth dawned on me. No idea why it took me so long.

Tact shortage

Tact. "Skill and sensitivity in dealing with others or with difficult issues". A word that isn't used much these days, but perhaps it should be. It seems to me our society has become conspicuously tactless.

Many people feel free to blurt out whatever nonsense comes to mind, or to act in a clumsy and thoughtless fashion, regardless of how their words and actions might be perceived by others.

I'm thinking for example of the dozens of employees of Clarence House, the King's current residence, who were abruptly informed by email that they would be sacked. Could they not have been given the news in person?

I'm thinking of all those people who criticise celebrities, picking holes in every aspect of their personalities and their lives, oblivious to how upsetting this might be to those on the receiving end day after day.

Likewise, all the abuse directed at frontline employees who're simply trying to do their job and aren't responsible for their employer's failings - shop assistants, doctors' receptionists, paramedics, call centre staff, delivery drivers.

Then there are the MPs bullying and harassing their personal staff, who are expected to put up with such behaviour by "taking the rough with the smooth".

Some people might say that Brits habitually employ a very British form of tact - not mentioning a subject at all in case they offend someone. They avoid sensitive subjects like religion, politics, the royal family, transgender and relationship breakdowns for fear of the reaction.

But it seems to me that nowadays such diplomatic silence is not so common and people are holding forth on anything they feel strongly about, regardless of how it might go down with their listeners.

Do tell me I'm wrong and there's plenty of tact around - I'm just not noticing it.

Ready to go

One thing Jenny and I have never dared to do is take on a "fixer-upper" (a crumbling old house that needs a lot of work to put it right) and spend the next few years living with constant building work and all the related disturbance.

We were thinking of building an extension onto our previous house, but thought better of it in the end. We thought the complexities of it all would stress us out alarmingly - working out exactly what we wanted done, getting planning permission, finding a good builder, putting up with all the disruption, keeping a close eye on the work in progress, and deciding on all the interior fixtures and fittings.

Now it would probably be out of the question anyway as building costs have rocketed and initial estimates of the cost of building work are being so greatly increased that they become unaffordable. People often run out of money half-way through the project and have to take out extra loans.

One thing that delighted us about our current house was that absolutely nothing needed to be done to it, we could just move into a comfortable home and enjoy it. It had already been extended to create a huge kitchen-diner and extra bedrooms.

As for actually building your own house, nothing would have induced us to do something so daunting. Jenny and I are fans of the "Grand Designs" TV programme, in which people build their own houses and invariably run into all sorts of unforeseen and costly problems along the way. What's remarkable is their resilience and determination to keep going in the face of one crisis after another.

No fixer-uppers for us. Give us a ready-to-go every time.

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So the Queen has died and King Charles takes over. A very simple news item, which for some reason calls for voluminous news coverage. You'd think war had been declared or an earthquake had destroyed London or there'd been a nuclear explosion. Oh well, let's see what Charles makes of the job.

Globe trotting

It's taken for granted nowadays that tourism and travelling around the world is completely normal, and anyone who prefers to stay at home is a bit weird. Don't they want to see other countries, sample other cultures, see how other people do things?

When I was a child, this huge appetite for global tourism didn't exist. Most people took their holidays in domestic seaside resorts and had no wish to jet off to some far-flung location. Did that mean their lives were somehow impoverished? I don't think so. They just didn't have the modern wanderlust.

But is mass tourism necessarily a good thing? Personally I think it's gone too far. Many popular holiday spots are now so overwhelmed by tourists that the local infrastructure and services can't cope and longstanding residents up sticks and move somewhere quieter.

The huge extent of air travel that underpins this feverish globe-trotting is not only polluting the planet but has led to declining in-flight comfort as airlines cram more and more passengers into their planes.

So what is gained from all this travelling around? Are people generally better-informed, more open-minded, more interesting? Not that I've noticed. People can fly all over the world and still be remarkably ignorant and ethnocentric.

I've got to the age when I've lost the taste for long-distance travelling, now that my energy levels are less than they were. And I'm happy to stay at home. It doesn't make you an unadventurous stick-in-the-mud. It doesn't mean you're uninterested in the rest of the world. After all nowadays you can find out anything you want about other countries by half an hour's googling.

It seems to me this escalating desire to zoom all over the globe has got a bit out of hand. Why not appreciate our own country a bit more?

Goodbye cycling

The only time I've cycled regularly was between the ages of 18 and 20 when I didn't have a car and as a local journalist I needed to travel around to interviews and meetings. I've often thought about taking up cycling again but never done so.

Cycling was safe enough when I was a teenager. There were far fewer cars on the road and cyclists weren't routinely insulted and provoked by motorists as they are now. Cyclists were respected and treated as bona fide road users.

A number of things have put me off cycling again. There's the abuse and contempt just mentioned. Why should cyclists have to put up with that?

Then there's the lack of dedicated cycle paths. Mostly you have to cycle on main roads, competing with speeding motorists, massive lorries and parked traders' vans. The risk of an accident is pretty high. For cycling to be totally safe, there would have to be set-apart cycle paths completely separate from roads and vehicles. Unfortunately that would require a lot of spare space next to roads, which in most cases simply doesn't exist. So dicing with death on busy roads it is.

There's also the possibility of theft. The rate of bicycle theft has gone down, but it's still pretty huge - around 150,000 thefts a year in the UK.

If I even float the idea of cycling to Jenny, she says it's far too dangerous and virtually forbids it. I think she's right though, it's very hazardous. I watch wobbling cyclists trying to manoeuvre around heavy traffic and they do look horribly vulnerable. Unlike motorists, they don't have a metal shell around them to provide some protection.

So much as I would love a few energetic cycle rides, I'm not taking it any further.

Why a pre nup?

Pre nuptial agreements have been around for a while, but most couples still marry without one. Are they a good idea or not? Certainly Jenny and I never considered a pre nup, we just expected each other to behave sensibly in any sort of crisis.

The usual objection to pre nups is that they immediately imply you don't trust each other and need elaborate safeguards to stop the other person behaving badly.

I guess most couples assume the marriage will work out just fine and there's no need to provide for all sorts of unlikely situations. Even if they know how many marriages collapse, they still don't think their own marriage might crumble.

I had a look at what pre nups usually cover:

• Rights over property, inheritances and other assets
• Protecting each spouse from the other's debts
• Each spouse's entitlement to the other's support
• How assets will be split if you divorce
• Providing for children by a previous marriage

Jenny and I have never had a dispute over any of these things (we have no children to worry about). We agreed very early on that all our assets would be jointly owned and we wouldn't have separate bank accounts. This has worked well and neither of us is secretly salting away thousands of pounds or trying to claim sole ownership of the house.

People do add some unusual provisions to pre nups. An American couple agreed that if one of them cheated on the other, they would then have to pay all the household bills. Other pre nups have included the right to random drug tests on a spouse, the condition that a husband watches only one football game a week, and restrictions on the use of social media.

Pre nups might very well avoid some of the nastier marital bust-ups. But who wants to envisage bust-ups when you're still besotted with each other?

Beyond my ken

There are many things people do that leave me scratching my head in bewilderment. Why do people do these things? What's the great attraction? Oh well, different strokes for different folks, as they say.

And what are all the things that puzzle me? I listed some of them a few years back. Mostly they still apply.

• The obsession with celebrities
• Tattoos
• Tongue-piercing
• Stag and hen weekends
• The prejudice against public services
• Posting naked selfies on Facebook
• Wearing a face veil
• Having private quarrels in public
• Personalised number plates
• Going mental on a plane
• Nouvelle cuisine
• Barbecues
• Thongs*
• Cosmetic surgery
• Weddings on the other side of the world
• Gangnam
• Letting kids run wild
• Teeth whitening
• Designer labels
• Lads' mags

The gangnam fashion didn't last very long, so I think I'll substitute bottled water. Why pay through the nose for something that's no better than tap water - and may actually be tap water?**

Luckily I've never been on a stag weekend (and never been invited to one). It's hard to imagine anything I'd enjoy less. And thankfully I grew up at a time when naked selfies were unheard of. When nakedness in general was something to be studiously avoided. I also grew up at a time when barbecues were a quaint custom in far-flung countries like Australia, where rain was virtually unheard-of. Somehow they caught on in the wet and gloomy UK.

*that's the underwear and not the Aussie footwear

**an estimated 25 per cent or more of bottled water is just tap water

Hugs and kisses

For as long as I can remember, I've been very physically demon-strative. I love hugging and kissing and holding hands, to me it's friendly and it's fun and it makes me feel closer to someone.

I think it's partly a reaction to my parents, who weren't very keen on physical affection. My father avoided it completely, while my mother stopped hugging and kissing me after she heard it might turn me into a homosexual (I know, it's hard to believe people actually thought that way).

So I'm happy to kiss and hug anyone who fancies a bit of kissing and hugging. Like me, some people enjoy it and can't get enough. Others recoil from it, seeing it as something affected and unnecessary, strictly the province of celebrities and chat-show hosts. I certainly wouldn't force a hug on someone who seemed unwilling.

I'm not ruling out men. I know affectionate physical gestures between heterosexual men are generally seen as a bit peculiar and even threatening, but I've never felt that. Why shouldn't men get the same pleasure from a kiss or a hug as women?

It may come as a shock to some (or it may not) that I've kissed hundreds of men. The explanation is simple. When I supported the Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s it was the custom at meetings to greet your friends with a kiss. Not wanting to appear unfriendly or staid or homophobic, I followed suit and merrily kissed every man I met, even casual acquaintances. It was greatly enjoyable.

But for most men, shaking hands is all they can manage. My brother in law is strictly a hand-shaker, and clearly very suspicious of anything more affectionate. He doesn't know what he's missing.

Alive and kicking

There's a British TV drama right now called "Marriage", which depicts marriage as being boring, frustrating and claustro-phobic. It may seem like a blissful union to start with, is the message, but as time goes by it'll become something very tedious and joyless.

Most of the critics agreed. Marriage sooner or later turns rotten, this is a brilliant portrayal of what it becomes, telling it like it is etc.

Well, Jenny and I couldn't recognise this depressing view of marriage. Is the typical long-term marriage really so dismal and vacuous? Are couples really so non-communicative, so ground-down, so forlorn?

Our marriage may go back 27 years but as far as we're concerned it's still very much a "blissful union" and we don't at all feel it's degenerated into something tedious and joyless. We get on very well, we enjoy doing things together, we have wonderful conversations about everything under the sun, we resolve our differences easily, and there's lots of laughter and excitement.

We don't feel there's anything lacking in our relationship. We don't think that maybe we'd be better off with someone else. We don't think we've taken some wrong turning and landed up somewhere we don't want to be. We're very happy just where we are.

If the average marriage really is as dismal as this TV drama makes out, I feel sorry for all those couples trapped in such an unsatisfying situation. Did they just marry the wrong person in the first place, have they simply lost interest in each other, or do they lack the skills needed to reinvigorate a tired relationship?

All I can say is, Jenny and I are very lucky our marriage hasn't become so "hollowed out" and is still alive and kicking.

Enough is enough

Why do some people think it's okay to force their beliefs or their principles onto others, along with abuse, threats and self-righteous moralising? Where does this creeping authoritarianism come from?

An Isle of Wight restaurant has stopped offering vegan dishes because of "nasty" and "bullying" vegans who constantly complained about what was on offer.

They used to cater for vegans. They had vegan cream teas, even BLT sandwiches with vegan bacon. But they got tired of the "holier than thou" attitude of vegan customers and the abuse directed at restaurant staff.

Now they have no vegan dishes at all. Owner Sally Cooper says it isn't a given that they should adapt their menus to suit the customers. "If you want vegan food, go to a vegan restaurant. If I went to a vegan restaurant and asked for a steak I wouldn't get one, nor would I expect to."

Jenny and I are both vegetarians, and we're sometimes disappointed by the small number of vegetarian options on a restaurant's menu, but we wouldn't dream of telling the restaurant to change its menu for our convenience. If we're not happy, we can always go somewhere else.

We accept that most people are meat-eaters, and very unlikely to change, so of course restaurant menus are going to be meat-based. We just have to work around that situation to cater for our own tastes.

It would be a shame if people concluded that vegans are rude intolerant individuals who just want to force their own dietary preferences onto other people. As anyone with vegan friends could tell you, that's not the case.

Pic: the restaurant in Ventnor, Isle of Wight