Cancel me, go on
It is only right that before you make the reading journey hereinunder below you absorb the following message. We expect both perusers and contributors of the articles in this publication to behave kindly and with toleration. Abuse of any kind will not be tolerated, and if you are not extremely careful, and I mean extremely, someone will log you as a Totally Intentional Hate Crime Incident Provider, which carries a sentence of, er, can't remember how many years. Simply asking what you have done, particularly in that tone of voice, will imply that you are getting ready to be hateful and will involve you being locked up for, er, the length of time shown above. And if you point out that actually no length of time is shown above, it will be taken as an act of aggression and you will be reported to the authorities again and again until you stop. By the way, you are on CCTV.
A word on language. We are sunsetting various expressions that have little relevance or may be construed as microaggressions. The act of 'writing', for instance, connotes the vicious stabbing of virgin paper with stinking coloured fluids via a marking point, which may in some circumstances be a 'nib'. It is beyond the remit of this contribution to point out the Freudian implications of this sullying of pristine surfaces with pointed objects. We (there is no 'I' any more; thanks to the multifarious benefits of social media everything herein contributed represents community consensus, helped in some cases by kind collaborators from the Chinese Communist Party) have replaced the word 'write' with the words 'reach out'. This is much kinder as I know you will agree or else. It has resonances of Jehovah talking to Adam on the the Sistine Chapel ceiling, except for the threatening nudity obviously, and also makes the writer, sorry, reacher out, feel significantly managerial, because it substitutes two lovely syllables for one lousy syllable. Did I say lousy? Please accept my apology and do not report me let us keep the police out of this please please. Goes to show that microaggressions can if not continuously monitored penetrate the skulls of even the most correct of humans. Creatures. Writers. Outreachers. Bloody minefield. Oops.
Anyway.
Sunsetting 'writing' and onboarding 'reaching out' and issuing warnings that most normal human behaviour in the face of public frustration will not be tolerated is part of our plan to make British enterprise a more, er, welcoming place. Many large organizations tasked with (for instance) filling our rivers with perfectly natural human effluent and making it impossible to access our bank accounts are enthusiastically espousing popular causes such as diversity and nature conservation. For example. If you are buying a burger made of a beast fed on soya grown on what was once the Amazon rainforest, it is only reasonable that you should be told the burgermaster is planting a compensatory tree. The tree will not be an ancient forest giant but a pine tree somewhere in Scotland, which will be chopped down, trucked to a port, shipped to Norway, pelleted and shipped back to Drax power station, where it will be burned to provide power for people's mobile phones while the burgermasters and forestry companies and shipping lines and power stations tell you how good you, and by association they, are being. This may cause you to feel what was once known as 'pissed off'. Forget it. You should feel fine, sorry, fully invested, because corporations are wiser than little you, and they know that a tree is a tree is a tree, and tree planting washes greener.
Hang on.
I can hear someone saying that we have strayed somewhat from the original point, whatever that was. I must remind you that such remarks, once considered legitimate criticism, are capable of being considered microaggressions, and are indeed segueing into the actually offensive.
O no they aren't.
O yes they are. The reacher-out's opinion is final. You are cancelled.
But –-
Lalalalalalala. Can't hear you.
Llywelyn Hadid ap Twhir