Sunday 10 December 2017

Writing About Writing

Today started with me waking up unusually early with a spring in my step ready to hit the ground running, right up until I started scrolling Facebook on my phone. Might I be addicted to technology? It's certainly a possibility. I'm certainly aware that I have to approach my consumption of media with a certain air of caution. My intention currently is to write a blog post everyday. Yes I'm mad.

I have not idea what I would have written about before I started scrolling (not that that was why I was scrolling). The I watched a video of James O'Brien from LBC radio challenging a racist listener that was calling to express their views on Brexit. It's hardly surprising that someone with racist views phoned in to a show about Brexit. What actually amazing me is that anybody has racist views at all. It has always surprised me from a very young age that any British person might consider that somebody else doesn't belong here? It's crazy. How in school that we can be taught that Britain controlled two thirds of the world and yet how dare anybody come visit it. It's kind of bizarre especially when you engage with this shit from a place like Cape Town. Where the spoils of war (or lets be more clear here) the benefits of colonialism (for a select few) are clearly on display. It's fucking inconceivable to me that someone from Pakistan or India would be disparaged for coming to Britain.  I almost wish that every immigrant to the UK was issued with a pamphlet specific to their country that was entitled. This Is How The UK Fucked Up India.

We could have a whole series:
This Is How The UK Fucked Up Pakistan
This Is How The UK Fucked Up Palestine
This Is How The UK Fucked Up Ireland
This Is How The UK Fucked Up South Africa
This Is How The UK Fucked Up Australia
This Is How The UK Fucked Up Kenya
This Is How The UK Fucked Up New Zealand
This Is How The UK Fucked Up North America
This Is How The UK Fucked Up Syria
This Is How The UK Fucked Up Egypt
 and that's just for starters.

For the more advanced we might have another series:
This Is How The UK Is Still Fucking Up Afghanistan
This Is How The UK Is Still Fucking Up Iraq

Wouldn't it be a great if once again we could use immigrants to educate the British public. Imagine some racist being handed those pamphlets with an official issue of the British Government stamp. Better yet video tutorials from the Queen. The Queen going Facebook live on the wreckage of British history signing off with "terribly sorry would you like a cup of tea?"

Anyways the whole writing on writing thing. It's interesting to find the things that stir you up enough to spur you to create and then you wonder why this subject. Why not chartreuse knitwear for example? So what I write about often becomes a source of self examination. What would I have written about if I hadn't started scrolling? Fresh brain for the morning write seems the least that I deserve. Stop scrolling.


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