Why Greta Thunberg is now my go-to girl

(The Guardian, 28 Apr 2019) My reverie about cold war certainties was shattered by the Scandi teenager’s crusading zeal.

Last time I filed one of these Observer columns it was the March weekend of our first failed attempt to leave the European Union. I felt I was living in a farce. Brexit is the No Sex Please, We’re British of European political integration. It will run and run. Chris Grayling spends 14 million pounds on non-existent ferries to ship insulin into a country Dominic Raab “hadn’t quite understood” was an island. And both of them are wearing their wives’ nighties! And Michel Barnier and his EU negotiating team are coming to dinner!!

But, as I attempt this week’s toxic screed, I feel I am living not in a farce, but in a horror story; a lurid yarn that, if I hadn’t experienced the terrible reality of it myself, I would have dismissed as too bleak to be believable, too obscene to countenance.

But forgive me, my old friend. I am getting ahead of myself. Sit down here by the fire a while and I will tell you a tale of… No, not there. That’s my chair. You sit over there, by the bin. No, by the bin. The bin for Christ’s sakes. Does that look like a bin? That is an umbrella stand, obviously!! Well, it’s got all umbrellas and sticks and that in it, that’s why!!! That, there, that is a bin!!! They are completely different!!!! Are you blind as well as stupid?

Forgive me, old friend. I forgot to take my lisinopril. Aaah, that’s better. Yes, one of the side-effects is flatulence. I do apologise. Now, I believe it was last Tuesday night… excuse me, again… that I settled down to watch John Carpenter’s 1994 film In the Mouth of Madness. Horror and pulp suddenly seem more pertinent to the world of today than worthy TV dramas such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: Mugging Inquiries Binned After 24-hour Window Due to Staffing Issues.

External link

The Guardian, 28 Apr 2019: Why Greta Thunberg is now my go-to girl