Growing up, there was a saying my friends and I were fond of. Whether we were loitering outside a shop or putting our feet on the furniture, if we were challenged on our behaviour, our go-to response would always be ‘it’s a free country’. It didn’t always fly, mind you, but the utterance was common when I was young.
For obvious reasons, you never hear that one anymore. True, the country wasn’t really free then either, but we were not so heavily regulated and wrapped in a straight jacket of stifling laws as we are now. We could employ a bit of denial back then. An impossible comfort today.
We aren’t free. We know it every time we see a prohibiting sign, or try to express an innocent opinion now condemned, or utter one of those forbidden truths in the office which might see us brought before HR. We know it when the Tories let in hundreds of thousands of foreigners after pledging to cut immigration. We know it when the bank accounts we never wanted are plundered to pay for migrant accommodation, wars we don’t understand, and aid to countries with space programs. We know it when we see Christians arrested for praying silently by abortion clinics, or when local governments allow one protest, but not another, during state enforced lockdowns. We aren’t free, and so the old adage had to be retired.
Another popular saying goes, ‘is the Pope Catholic?’, which is used whenever the answer to a question is an unequivocal ‘yes’. You might think that this one is safe, but with the latest news coming out of the Vatican it looks as though we might need to axe that one too, as it has been revealed that Pope Francis has said his priests can now bless same sex relationships. Not the individuals in that relationship, but the same sex couple itself.
Now, I’m not a homophobe (though I’ve been called one), and neither am I a Catholic, but when I heard this news I couldn’t help but wince. I’m not saying homosexuals don’t have their place in the world, they do, though I’m not entirely sure that place is in the Catholic Church. I mean, the Bible is pretty clear on homosexuality, and it doesn’t exactly give a glowing review of the ‘lifestyle’. Like it or not, that’s how it is, and no man is supposed to be able to change that within the Church. Yet the Pope has done just that, seemingly ignoring the very religion of which he is a fairly significant part.
Some less pessimistic souls might say that the Pope is trying to save the Church by moving with the times. If that is the case, he has failed. Cultures, religions, and nations cannot pursue policies of inclusion. They must, if they are to survive, remain exclusive, with a set of rules or criteria which must be met to be counted among their number. I mean, look at what happened to Britain after it pursued the American style of inclusion and decided that being British took nothing more than the right paperwork. It didn’t take long before we weren’t even sure what Britain was anymore. The same will happen to the Catholic Church.
For my part I am not willing to give the Pope the benefit of the doubt on this one. I do not presume him to be a stupid man and therefore must suppose that he knew by trying to move the Church with the times in this manner, he was in turn rendering the Church redundant. I say this because, if the church is simply to bend to modern sensibilities, against the word of God or not, I can see no point in its existence. What’s next, acceptance of abortion?
Perhaps you feel I’m being hysterical, but remember, when gay marriage was passed in this country, it was done under the unofficial but regularly touted slogan of ‘what two consenting adults do in the comfort of their own home should be no one’s business’. We accepted that, and now we have drag queens reading stories to children and surgically altered men with breasts stripping naked on live television. The decline moves fast, and it appears that the Pope has just opened the door to it in the Catholic Church.
If this is not rejected wholesale by those under the Pope, then it is only a matter of time before we see videos of transvestite priests baptising non-binary infants while the two ‘fathers’ watch proudly. And thus, the Catholic Church will be no more. Perhaps that’s the future you want, but somehow I don’t think it’s the future Catholics want.
What we are seeing is another column of the world we knew falling to globohomo, a force which seeks to drape the world in a pall of moral relativism, and which seeks to destroy all spirituality and replace it with consumerism and fabricated, shallow identity. I have my feelings about that, but I’m not offering them here. I’m simply making a prediction. What I will say is this – the next time you ask someone a question and they respond ‘is the Pope Catholic?’, take that as a ‘no’.
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Who Controls Europe’s Streets? The Migrant Riots of 2022-23 as a Glitch in the Matrix
“We were suddenly gifted people”, shrieked the German Green Party politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt in 2016. This happened at the annual gathering of the EKD, the German Lutheran protestant Church (after the Catholic Church, the second largest denomination in Germany) which has become an adjunct outlet of the Green Party. Shortly before that, the narrative of “all those great Syrian doctors“ was born.
However, nobody is talking about migrant doctors – or itinerant rocket scientists – these days. Instead, the Dutch and Belgian police were nervously biting their nails as they watched the games of the Moroccan soccer team during the 2022 World Cup.
If Morocco won, there would be riots – in Brussels, The Hague, Rotterdam and elsewhere. If Morocco lost, the outcome was much the same. The outcome of the games did not seem to matter all that much.
What did seem to matter to these future brain-surgeons (even in the third generation) was to show to their (not so) new home countries where their true loyalties lie and who controls the street.
In France, The Grinch that stole Christmas from French policemen arrived in the form of Kurdish rioters. Some lunatic, white Frenchman, had opened fire on visitors of a restaurant and culture center.
This resulted, of course, in riots – much as anger and grief about senseless violence is understandable, but why take it out on French society at large? It is not like Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey are doing a better job at keeping Kurds safe.
You thought all that would fulfill the allotted contingent of migrant rioting for a year? Enabling European cops to kick back the heavy boots, put their feet up, sip a Glühwein or a hot toddy? Not so fast.
Germany’s imported future nuclear physicist community was happy to oblige. This time, to their credit, they were not sexually assaulting women in their hundreds – as happened in 2015/16, just months after Angela Merkel had thrown open the borders.
Instead this year the “gifted people” had graduated to attacking ambulances, firemen and, of course, policemen. In one instance a Fire-engine was lured in an ambush, 25 masked thugs attacked the fire engine, the firemen had to retreat and part of the equipment was looted.
No, this is not Kabul or Mogadishu but Berlin, in the country formerly known as Germany.
If Germans had ever doubted subsidizing their public broadcasters with 8 billion Euros in compulsory fees) – this New Year’s Day the public broadcast delivered a stellar piece of hard hitting investigative journalism.
A gallant young reporter, the Berlin correspondent of the Tagesschau (the flagship of the public broadcaster’s news media) rode to the rescue – and twisted himself in an argumentative pretzel in order to avoid saying the obvious (i.e. who the rioters were).
Here is the transcript (link, fast forward to 2:42):
[Main newsreader]: “So, who are the perpetrators? What do we know to date?”
[Hapless, deer-caught-in-the-headlight-Berlin-correspondent Thomas Rostek]:
“Talking of the perpetrators‘ is always a little bit difficult in such contexts [sic!]“.
“As a matter of fact, the, uhm, The Union of German Policemen, has already, uhm, commented on this and said that these are group-dynamic processes, uhm, therefore in society as a whole there was meant to be this, uhm, great pressure, now on the occasion of 2 years of pandemic and now one is just, uhm, trying, uhm, uhm, exactly, that you can also easily obtain, pyrotechnics [meaning: fireworks, flares, fire crackers] then that this just, uhm, led to great problems. Correct.“
[Main newsreader, very serious]: “Thank you for the assessment. Thomas Rostek in Berlin“.
Wow, so this is the kind of eloquent, hard hitting journalism that you are getting for just 8 billion Euros annually. Also, do they no longer teach using conjunctions such as “because” or “therefore” in journalism schools? Either way – we are getting solid comedy gold:
Even the logic starved brain of a public broadcast journalist, could only take so much reality denial: His cerebral cortex switched into “I am outta here” modus.
Explaining away violence against firefighters by pointing at a pandemic and „group-dynamic processes and pressures from society at large“ (whatever that is supposed to be) would have been difficult even had he mastered the proper use of conjunctions.
Let’s ponder on the symbolism of this journalistic masterpiece: Since 2015 we have been dealing with a well-oiled world explanation machine. This machine has perfected papering over the increasing cracks between reality and publicly desired narratives. Alas, increasingly glitches are showing in the matrix.
Thought experiment – you have built a Hundertwasser (Google him!)–styled airplane, that looks great but contradicts physical imperatives for flight (e.g. Bernoulli Principle and Newton’s laws) and thus cannot fly. Dealing with this collision between reality and wishful thinking can be done in a variety of ways:
Strategy No. 1 – Denial: “Nonsense, the plane can fly!”
Strategy No. 2 – Placation: “Ok, it can’t fly, but it is ‘not very helpful’ to say that, mmkaay?”
Strategy No. 3 – Not reporting or banning such unwanted news to page 30 of the newspaper
Strategy No. 4 – Adjusting the definition: “Ok, part of flying is rolling on the tarmac, and that has worked really well, so technically it has been flying, sort of.”
Strategy No. 5 – Attack at a personal level: “If you say one more time that this thing ain’t flying you are a terrible person, and you hate birds, and women, too.”
Strategy No. 6 – Glitch in the matrix/meltdown: If all papering-over measures are failing, one can always resort to pseudoscientific gobbledegook and say “uhm” a lot and have a good old fashioned meltdown.
Strategy No. 7 – Waiting for the news cycle, change the topic and use censorship: Recover from No. 6 meltdown by:
a) Hope the next news will make the viewers forget about the meltdown
b) Talking about “insurrections” (such as a bunch of German pensioners planning a coup with crossbows – yes I kid you not)
c) “Politicians, please help and give us new censorship laws.”
For this still young 2023 to be on the lookout for glitches in the matrix, they are occurring more frequently, as reality collides with the desired mainstream narratives more and more.
In the meantime even the notoriously unfunny public German broadcasters (same should apply to the BBC, CBC and NPR) are delivering comedy gems for eternity – enjoy!
On a more serious note – this should go without saying – the aim of this article is not to blame entire communities for the acts of a minority. I have worked with plenty of young people from some of the countries of origin that seemed to have been disproportionately involved in the recent riots. I have found them to be very hard working, polite and highly polyglot. This is precisely why we should be having a debate about what has gone wrong.
Have we at times attracted the wrong subset from these countries? What about our vetting processes in the face of open borders? If we do not believe in ourselves as a country, why should they? If we do not enforce our own norms and laws – aren’t we bound to create communities stuck in a nihilist limbo?
Important questions that should be asked and discussed, but that are subject to the “Lala, nothing to see here”/ostrich treatment of the mainstream.
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With Friends Like These…
“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
Lord Palmerston’s famous adage is typically divorced from its context, especially when used in discussions regarding Britain’s foreign policy, or lack thereof. Delivered as part of a speech in the House of Commons in 1848, the then Foreign Secretary was responding to an argument put forward by one of his most consistent and outspoken opponents, Thomas Anstey, Irish Confederate MP for Youghal.
Over a decade after Poland’s incorporation into the Russian Empire, Anstey maintained intervention in support of the rebels, seeking to establish an independent Polish state, was both a feasible operation and a moral imperative which the government of the day – especially Palmerston, who was still foreign secretary during this period – absconded in favour of non-interference, despite previous suggestions to the contrary. According to Anstey, this amounted to, among other things, a betrayal of Poland and, by extension, their sympathetic ideals.
Accounting for the particular circumstances in which Palmerston was operating, primarily seeking a basic balance of power across the continent, maintaining a preference for less-absolutist models of government without a frothing desire to see them imposed at the drop of a hat, the essence of his shrewd foreign policy stems from the realisation there is no equivalence between interpersonal and international relations, due to the second-order consequences which come with maintaining such agreements:
“…When we are asked why the British Government have not enforced treaty rights in every case, my answer is, that the only method of enforcing them would have been by methods of hostility; and that I do not think those questions were questions of sufficient magnitude in their bearing on the interests of England, to justify any Government in calling on the people of this country to encounter the burdens and hazards of war for the purpose of maintaining those opinions.”
“It does not follow, when a Minister announces in Parliament an intention to perform a public act, that it is to be considered like a promise made to an individual, or by one private man to another, and that it is to be made a reproach to him if the intention be not carried out.”
Indeed, the maintenance of certain opinions under specific circumstances simply isn’t worth it. The opinions we value, whether written in parchment or spoken over the airwaves, and what we are prepared to do to maintain them, form the essence of our political loyalty. Unfortunately for many in Britain’s political class, even its nominally right-wing constituents, their political loyalty seems to lie with Israel. Berating any criticism or lack of enthusiasm as an act of betrayal, the British people are expected to view their interests as secondary to the interests of the Israeli government, all else being unthinkable.
However, much to their aggravation, Britain’s cooling support for Israel has only accelerated these past few days after a convoy of three vehicles, each displaying the World Central Kitchen (WCK) logo, was attacked whilst returning from a humanitarian mission to Gaza through a deconflicted zone; a route agreed with the knowledge and consent of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). The affected British nationals were working as private military contractors tasked with protecting the convoy and providing medical support. By all estimations, not exactly frothing Hamas-adjacent anti-semites motivated by Islamism or Palestinian nationalism. Worse still, the convoy contacted the IDF after the first vehicle was hit, but to no self-preserving avail.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Israelis has taken liberty with the lives of British nationals, although it’s perhaps the first instance in which the disregard of the Israeli government and its supporters has been made so blatant. The IDF’s chief of staff released a less-than-sincere-sounding apology, claiming the attack was an accident, which chef José Andrés, WCK’s director and co-founder, evidently didn’t find convincing, noting the attack took place over considerable distance, never mind in an area tightly controlled by the IDF.
Benjamin Netanyahu responded in a similar vein, stating occasional civilian casualties were part-and-parcel of war and the overarching mission to keep Israel safe. Whilst not technically untrue, it’s also part-and-parcel – even if not an iron law of reality – for states to alter their relations in accordance with their interests, often in unexpected ways; those who are allies one day are rivals the next. As such, I’m sure Netanyahu would be very understanding if Britain ceased all arms exports to Israel, especially if we had a few security concerns, so to speak.
The Israeli government’s sense of entitlement when it comes to Western support is hard to ignore. David Mencer, Israeli government spokesman and former director of Labour Friends of Israel, affectively stated Britain was obliged to continue supporting Israel as doing otherwise would constitute a betrayal of liberal democratic values. In Mencer’s own words: “You’ve got to take our side.”
Indeed, Britain had great sympathy for the Israelis following the attack on October 7th and a military response from Israel was thought to be expected and justified. It is essentially different to claim Britain has a moral and political responsibility to secure the existence of the Israeli state from its enemies, whatever that entails. In any case, this whole debacle suggests two things about Israel, both of which should inform the UK’s future relationship. Either Israel is too incompetent to be considered a reliable ally or too malicious to be considered an ally at all.
However, despite growing suspicion, mainstream criticism of the Israeli government and its agencies has yet to attach itself to the national interest or any loosely-related concept. Sir Alan Duncan’s comments on “pro-Israel extremism” at the highest echelons of government, citing the conduct of various ministers and politicians, resulted in accusations of anti-semitism and a near-immediate disciplinary inquiry from the Conservative Party. At first glance, this looks like one of several increasingly confident pockets of dissent at the heart of the establishment. In reality, it’s the more puritanical believers in the liberal rules-based international order pointing out the internal contradictions of the status quo.
The likes of Lord Dave and Sir Alan aren’t posturing against Israel out of ‘realpolitik’; they aren’t aligning against the Israeli government for nationalist reasons, but for internationalist ones. In their mind, Britain should distance itself from Israel for the sake of conforming to international law to a greater extent than it already does; it has very little to do with a state being so entwined with a foreign government that it can barely condemn attacks on its own citizens, undermining the most basic interest of any modern state: the protection of its people.
At bottom-level, their understanding is an extension of their bizarre idea of domestic affairs. Parliament amending and breaking the law are one in the same; as an entity, law is stagnant and cannot be ‘constitutionally’ changed, at least not to any political degree. Likewise, the breaking of treaties, for whatever reason, is a violation of international law and therefore necessarily bad. Alas, just as men must tear muscle to build more to gain bodily strength, states must tear laws and treaties to create new ones to gain political strength, at home and abroad.
This line of thought is straightforward and popular enough. In fact, it may explain some of the strongest support for Israel among certain sections of the public; older, Conservative and Reform-voting types with the Union Jack and the Star of David in their Twitter bio.
Accounting for the obvious fact many use support for Israel as proxy for domestic concerns pertaining to the rapid growth of Britain’s Muslim population, doubling as an implicit anti-racist credential by aligning with a historically-persecuted minority group, I suspect a considerable amount of Israelophilia among Britain’s old can be attributed to Mossad’s response to the 1972 Munich Massacre; a 20-year global hunt for Black September soberly titled Operation Wrath of God. Their first impression of Israel, as portrayed by a sensationalist mass-media machine at the height of an international event, is that of a rabidly nationalist state which spares no expense when it comes to pursuing its goal and eradicating its enemies.
The fact Israel didn’t catch the main culprit of the massacre is of secondary importance, what matters is the will and perception of the Israelis was evidently more attractive than whatever the British state was doing. At this time, Britain was enduring some of the worst years of its post-war history, encumbered with economic stagnation, social unrest, and an impotent political class with no perceivable willpower or solution. Sound familiar? As many will recall, similar flickers of admiration were visible following the early response of Israel to the October 7th attack, reigniting a love for a certain determination which our own foreign policy lacks.
Of course, this only accounts for the inclinations of a broadly defined, misguided but well-intentioned demographic of everymen. The political fetishism of Israel among Britain’s centre-right commentariat and policymakers (literal fetishism in some cases) defies any comparable justification. Outside of building the largest possible electoral coalition against Islamism, it seems to be a bizarre fixation.
In short, condemning the actions of Israel committed against our country may feel like a condemnation of the type of politics many of us desire, but it isn’t. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true: it is one of many steps required towards the realisation of a sovereign, self-interested foreign policy.
Palmerston was right, there is no fundamental equivalence between interpersonal and international relations, but there is one similarity worth remembering: trust is the basis of all relations. We trust based on our perceptions of others, our experiences with them and others like them; we make informed guesses, leaps in the dark, as to whether or not we should make ourselves open and vulnerable for the purposes of co-operation and friendship. If our knowledge of another changes, it impacts our ability to trust them. Sometimes this strengthens trust, sometimes it weakens it, and if trust is weakened to such an extent, whether chipped away by routine transgressions or destroyed outright by a single, deeply callous act, one is forced to reconsider their relations.
This is true of both people and states, and following the most severe form of disregard from our so-called ally, after all we felt and done for them, without expectation of reimbursement or lavish praise, it is time we reconsider our relationship with Israel; not towards Palestine, but to our own, independent national interest. They haven’t allowed our co-operation and friendship to disrupt the pursuit of their perpetual interests, it’s about time we do the same.
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Stop Pigeon Hate
Why is the pigeon so hated? Is it due to his availability as a target? After all, he is a common sight in our towns and cities, so common he can seem like an omnipresent nuisance.
Maybe it’s his appearance? Admittedly, he is less stunning than other birds; his generally grey countenance is far less pleasing than the radiant scheme of a kingfisher or the sparkled wings of a starling.
Perhaps it’s his stature? Small and stout, he’s certainly an easier target than any bird of prey, lacking the brawn of an eagle or the sleekness of a falcon.
Whatever the case, the pigeon does not have a good reputation. Recently, he has faced criticism for a variety of reasons, from trying to liberate mankind from its self-imposed enslavement to mass media, to taking over a house after the landlord made the avoidable mistake of leaving the windows open for four weeks.
In my view, the public’s attitude towards pigeons can be best summarised with a well-known, albeit not entirely original, comment from Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London: “pigeons are rats with wings.”
Now this is simply not true. Given the opportunity, the pigeon shows himself to be a considerate and upstanding member of our society, which is certainly more than can be said for many of its human participants.
Naturally, some nuance is required. After all, there are many different types of pigeon and there is no strict distinction between a pigeon and a dove, the latter of which has marginally better connotations, such as being a symbol of peace and salvation.
The largest and most common pigeon in the UK is the woodpigeon. Shy and tame, they are mostly grey with white patches on its neck and wings. Although primarily found in rural areas, they can also be found in more urban areas.
Due to their sizeable presence, you’ve definitely heard their call, especially if you live in suburban England. The soundtrack to a gloomy Sunday evening, their gentle cooing stirs a sense of melancholy in the local children, reminding them they have got school tomorrow.
Secondly, there is the collared dove, which gets its name from the black mark which stretches around the back of its neck. Pale brown, with reddish eyes and feet, unless there’s a buffet on offer, they’re almost exclusively seen on their own or in pairs.
Indeed, the collared dove’s unwavering monogamy is arguably more defining than the mark to which it owes its name. Wrapping only half-way around it’s neck, hence it’s comparison to a collar, when united with another collared dove, it becomes a full matrimonial ring. How’s that for nature’s poetry?
Then, there are rock doves. Also known as the feral pigeon, they are ancestors of domesticated pigeon. Coming in a diverse range of colours, from dark blue to black, from pale grey to white, from a rustic brownish orange to a brick-red.
These are the urban sprawl of pigeons. Whilst all creatures are innocent until proven guilty, should you find a stray blob of poop on an inner-city pavement, he’s going to be your prime suspect. When people speak of rats with wings, they think of the cooing greaseball known as the rock dove.
Similar to rock doves, stock doves have darker feathers, especially on their rump and wings, a distinct green neck patch, and a pink chest. Concentrated in the English midlands and southwest, becoming rarer in northern Scotland and Ireland, the UK is home to over half their European population.
However, unlike the rock dove, the stock dove is less likely to be seen in urban and suburban areas, preferring farm life to big city living. This is because he is generally shyer and more averse to humans than his cosmopolitan cousin.
Finally, the turtledove is the runt of the flock, being only slightly bigger than a blackbird. Arriving in the UK in spring and leaving for Africa in winter, its feathers are a distinctive mottled mix of a black and golden brown, with a white-rimmed black tail.
Unlike his relatives, the turtledove is a picky eater, choosing to indulge on cereal grains, oilseed rape, and chickweed. Unfortunately, due to his refined tastes, the turtledove has been in decline since the mid-90s, largely due to a lack of his favourite delicacies.
Given this, we can see that the pigeon is not merely a rat with wings. All at once, the pigeon is a sensible everyman, a young lover, a boisterous yuppie, a country bumpkin, and a persecuted aristocrat. They are diverse and endearing creatures with varying personalities and habits, reputations and interests, but much of the public want to exterminate him over a few measly droppings.
Every bird defecates, but the pigeon is solely hated for doing so. It’s for this reason I militantly oppose anti-pigeon architecture. Every public building in Britain is glazed with spikes, ruining their appearance in the name of protecting it.
On several occasions, I have sat in York station, waiting for my train home, with a quiet emotional investment in pigeons looking for somewhere to perch, watching them steer clear of the spikes, mentally cursing the communist station master who had them installed.
I’d prefer railway staff clean up bird droppings than behave like members of the Cheka, indulging their pathetic power fantasies by shouting at people for standing less than a country mile behind the yellow line. Mate, mate, mate. Health and Safety, yeah?
Following the riots of Oxford Street, which included looting and violent clashes with the police, one left-wing academic suggested the chaos could’ve been avoided if the rioters had access to public swimming pools.
As most people realised at the time, this suggestion is ridiculous on a number of levels. For one, unlike animals, humans have an innate tendency towards evil. It is easy to imagine machete brawls between illiterate migrants and fake bomb threats by TikTok pranksters overrunning such places.
However, it raises an important, if only loosely related question: why are there so few public birdbaths?
Despite his reputation as a feathered hobo, the pigeon is quite a cleanly creature, taking every chance he gets to fastidiously groom himself.
We have a birdbath in our garden, and we have many regulars, our most well-known being an especially rotund and fluffy woodpigeon, whom my mother affectionately refers to as Fat Wilbur.
I do not see this ‘winged rat’ Livingstone speaks of. Wilbur makes his stop, does what he needs to do, takes in the atmosphere, before moving on his way, not wanting to overstay his welcome. Should other pigeons accompany him, he makes room, as they do for him, and all is well.
The idea that such tranquillity could emerge in a society as presently low trust as ours is simply absurd. Of course, being a pigeon, it’s unlikely he does this for any pretentious, perception-based reason. Indeed, his fixation must be rooted purely in the value of cleanliness itself!
However, contrary to pervasive anti-pigeon sentiment, the pigeon is not only a cleanly creature, but a clever one too.
It can be hard to accept that pigeons, creatures known for flying into windows and pecking at cigarette butts, can distinguish between Picasso and Monet, but they can. In fact, according to the scientific research we have, pigeons are amongst the most intelligent birds in the world, showing a variety of relatively complex cognitive abilities.
Of course, whilst it is undeniable that humans are much smarter than pigeons, we do not use our superior faculties particularly well.
Whilst humanity may be threatened by the whims of idiots or a lack of imagination, hindering our ability to innovate and develop, our kind is similarly threatened by overthinking.
As a result, we deny ourselves the ability to be authentic, we shun risks in the name of avoiding embarrassment and pain when such risks could just as easily bring us laughter and joy. In the words of Paglia: “consciousness has made cowards of us all.”
As such, we should not be surprised when pigeons manage to be funnier than us. Just by being what they are, pigeons are funnier than basically every living comedian. Every wannabe BrewDog-sipping funny man, with his safe-edgy humour and hashed-out irony, fails to be more amusing than a random birb going about its business.
Walking around in circles, sporadically pecking the pavement, stopping occasionally to exhibit his dumbfounded ‘the lights are on, but nobody’s home’ expression, bobbing its head like its listening to a really good song, it is a grave fault in our being that a character as innocently absurd as this is considered less amusing than James Acaster.
Even the mere idea of a pigeon is funnier than most human attempts at humour. Go ahead, in your mind, visualise a pigeon (don’t worry, the cops can’t do anything… yet). You see that? Now that’s comedy. If you deny this, you Just Don’t Get It. Not much I can do about that.
Looking at these odd creatures, has nobody once thought: what are they up to? What’s their game? Why did they peck there and not there? Why did he take flight for seemingly no reason? Is there some secret pigeon meeting he needs to get to? What’s his schedule? Does he have time for an interview?
Yet, despite his apparent gormlessness, it is clear pigeons are far more sensitive than the average human.
If you’ve ever commuted anywhere via public transport, you’re no doubt familiar with the hectic nature of it all. From the loud noises to the chaotic stampedes, from the excruciating delays to the dodginess of certain folk, commuting isn’t exactly what most people would call an enjoyable experience.
Of course, whilst we might find certain aspects of commuting more annoying than others, we all agree on one thing: the worst part of commuting is other people.
Compare this to the pigeon, who shows consideration for personal space, does not play loud music, doesn’t try to con you out of your money, and generally minds its own business, preferring to get out of your way, rather than get into it.
If what Sartre says is true, that hell is other people, perhaps heaven is to be in the company of animals. More to the point, who is better company on a long commute than a pigeon?
Undoubtedly, the pigeon is not a faultless creature, and the shortcomings of us and other beings cannot excuse or undo this fact. That said, any fault which can be found with the pigeon can easily be remedied by human custodianship. We must spare him from the misguided disdain of busy adults and the clumsy tyranny of misbehaved children.
Pigeons are not flying rats, nor are they government spies. They are our friends and we should treat them as such. Stop Pigeon Hate!
