Tuesday 14 April 2020

Light relief

"This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers." - P.G. Wodehouse

And also, I would suggest, suited to whatever emotional and psychological state in which we find ourselves. I myself have retreated to the Blandings novels of Wodehouse, from the first of which that quote is taken. I do still read the newspaper, of necessity concentrating on the bits about the various incompetent, delusional and self-obsessed leaders in whose hands we find ourselves, and the not unrelated fact that we're all going to die. However, I also actively seek out those few articles which offer a complete distraction from current worries, and so was extremely pleased to find the story in today's Guardian about Amanda Liberty.




The piece reported that Ms Liberty, a young lady from Leeds who is engaged to a chandelier, had failed in her complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation after being nominated for a Dagenham Award by a columnist in one of the tabloids. (For those not familiar with the London Underground, Dagenham is three stops past Barking) It would seem that while the media are forbidden to mock people because of their sexuality, that only applies when the object of the their affection is a person and not, well, an object.




This is all very amusing - except possibly for any innocent light fittings in her vicinity - but what really grabbed my attention was the dawning realisation that I had met the lady in question, and indeed had recorded the event in this very blog. It would seem that she adopted her current surname whilst in a previous relationship with the Statue of Liberty, a period when, as I saw with my own eyes, she would go about her everyday business dressed up as her beloved. The people of Yorkshire are, as they are always pointing out to anyone who will listen, not quite the same as those from elsewhere.

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