The View from my Bicycle [COLUMN]

3 Points

First of all, health authorities in the UK are expecting 100 000 swine flu cases each day in August. That's this year. If these numbers bear out, there may be Wimbledon next year, but there won't be any spectators. That means empty stadiums for the 2010 Soccer (keep building them though). It means, conceivably, every major sporting event is hanging in the balance. Even the Tour de France. 2009 may mark the year we say goodbye to the way things were.

Today I was at a craft market. I was warned by an indian chap whose stall I was renting - for a month - that the old lady next door is a real cow. Within about 5 minutes of arriving at the stall, the lady told me that selling photographs was a really bad idea (she may have been right), and also that I might need special permission since across the aisle they were selling frames (which was bullshit - there are a lot of similar crafts sold, there's no copyright on what you're selling, and frames and photos in frames aren't the same thing). Shortly after that she started ordering me around my lot, telling me where not to put my pictures (on behalf of other people), citing her 45 years on the job, and calling me a 'piss dick'. She said something like this: "Talk to me when you've achieved something in life, otherwise shut up." She also repeated again and again that she was going to slap me etc etc.

So here I was, just trying to set up my stall, and this old hag basically ambushes me. When I returned from fetching another load of pictures she was speaking to some of the organisers (in their blue overalls). It had something to do, again, with me not being allowed to sell framed photos so close to another stall selling frames. Never mind that this was not what she was selling. I let her regurgitate her breakfast to the guys around me and after about a minute I said, "I think you need to go back to your stall and mind your own business." She then told the organisers that I was being rude to everyone, harassing them - I just left and went to get another load. When I got back one of the guys in the blue overall said: "She's a difficult woman, just ignore her. It's fine, you can use this stall."

The odd thing is, I can name, right now, about 7 women. 5 are in their fifties or older, and two are younger. All have had a major insecurity complex (God knows why), and in their efforts to exert power have resorted to the following:
- universally accusing me of 'harassment' . Harassment means talking to them, or presumably, breathing, or having an existence on Earth. Of course, in the scheme of things, I've been harassed, (what do you call being shouted at, maligned in public, bumped, poked in the ribs, threatened etc) but when a guy accuses a woman of that, it's laughable

What has shocked me, really, are these dishonest distortions. It's manipulative, it's destructive, it's wicked. I don't know whether I come across as a fairly quiet person who seems intimidating. But whatever it is, the amount of aggressive dishonesty is really disappointing. In all 5 of these cases, it is an attempt by a woman to...besmirch...I think is the word, in order, by stepping on your face, to gain the upper ground. I don't know, I thought there were a bunch of other ways to gain the upper ground - using a ladder, intellectual reasoning, being fair. Oh right, when we're really fair it may mean we have to take a step back and let the more deserving person do their thing, or the person who has earned their chance to speak, or paid for their place, whatever the case may be.

I find it odd, in a country with such high crime statistics - for domestic violence, for rape, for murder, for violence against women, that women (okay, this is a sample of five, so it may not be entirely representative) can resort to such aggressive and dishonest posturing. Because the result is that you create a root of resentment in your opponent (and you make the other person, effectively, an opponent, rather than just another human being sharing your space). You may say fostering resentments are fine. Really? Look at Israel. Look at Iran. In time there has to be a nuclear mushroom cloud. And then it really is too late, it's pointless, to find out who is to blame. If you play with fire, you burn your fingers. So I really don't understand women who snap awake one morning and decide to hit men, slander men. Sorry, I don't get it. How does it help either of you?

Final point. I watched the movie DOUBT yesterday. It's an excellent story. It demonstrates that even in the midst of absolute certainty (and commonly those who are absolutely certain have some unshakable faith in something invisible) it is impossible not to admit that we may be entirely wrong.

I believe in the coming months our uncertainties will form daggers and grow into a voracious shark mouth, and will come to devour us and all our illusions. We really exist now in a preternatural theatre that is an odd calm, an odd safety, before the walls implode. When it comes to reality, harsh words, deceits, wickedness, simply doesn't hold any water. Too many people right now are like balloons bulging with water. That water is hubris, ego, delusion, misperception (fear and madness). Those balloons, millions of them, are at bursting point. Swine flu is a prick. So is this recession. So is everything else that's coming. It's the price we pay for insisting on being right, when we're not.