No Thank You

You can often feel under siege in January, with all these things like 'Veganuary' or 'Dryanuary' going on.  If you choose not to participate then certain parts of the media seem determined to make you feel as if you are some kind of heretic.  Even though, in truth, the vast majority of the population aren't participating either.  I try to be polite about when being bombarded by calls upon me to go vegan or not drink alcohol for the month - I just say 'No thank you, I don't want to go vegan or teetotal' and hope that they'll then leave me alone.  But they don't.  They are relentless, implying that I'm a complete bastard as, by continuing to eat meat and drink alcohol, I'm personally responsible for climate change, domestic violence, road deaths and knife crime.  I'm not.  I'm merely exercising my right to make a choice.  I just wish that all these people wanting me to give things up would respect that choice.  I mean, I don't go around trying to persuade vegetarians to eat meat or pouring alcohol down the throats of non-drinkers.  They've made a choice and I respect that.  Moreover, I don't go around decrying fast food outlets for adding vegan products to their menus - I don't have to eat them and it makes perfect business sense for them to try and widen their appeal to minority groups.  AsI've said before, I have nothing against the likes of veganism as a lifestyle choice, but I do object when it starts becoming a political campaign, getting in my face and refusing to take 'no thank you' for an answer.

In which respect it is a bit like Brexit.  Despite the much vaunted 'leave' 'victory' in the 2016 referendum, a majority of the UK's population didn't vote in favour of leaving the EU.  Just as, despite his majority and all the trumpeting about 'Tory landslides', the majority of the electorate didn't vote for Boris Johnson.  His majority, thanks to our antiquated first-past-the-post system, is base upon winning only 45% of the vote.  But to get to a point, of sorts, what's really bugging me about Brexit right now, is the Brexit bastards' determination that our 31 January departure must be marked by some kind of celebration. Once again (and I suspect that I'm in the majority here), my response is 'No thank you'.  Yet they persist.  They want their triumph.  Let's face it, for most of the right-wing idiots who enabled Brexit, this is the only moment of 'glory' they are ever going to have in their lives.  Once the deed is dome, they will fade back into deserved obscurity.  But the rest of us shouldn't have to suffer (let alone pay for, as taxpayers) their celebration of the UK having fucked itself up the arse.  So, they can take their 'Festival of Brexit', or whatever the fuck it is meant to be, and stick it up their arses.  So there you go, a bit of politics to round off what has been a difficult week - I'm still working behind the scenes on The Sleaze to rectify recent problems.  It's slow progres, but we're getting there.