Updating my CV - Week 9

I have a few people I am in contact with who act as my weather-vane for stupid. That is to say, when I am slightly worried that I may be making the wrong decision, I ask them what they think and do the opposite. These people, wrong about everything, are incredibly useful until they are either accidentally right or discover that that is how they are being used.

Over the last few months I am convinced that the world's events have become a stupidometer. Something unusual happens and the utterly wrong views and decisions get on parade. Twitter and 24/7 news have given them a platform.

If you've seen the image of a man sleeping on a plane using his face mask to cover his eyes you've seen a stupidometer at work.

If you've seen a party of people embracing in a sewage stream on a hot day during a plague you've seen a stupidometer at work.

If you've heard a Special Adviser to the Prime Minister suggest the normality of driving 30 miles to test his eyesight was good enough to drive, you've seen someone who knew how stupid his audience was.

If you've heard wealthy white people saying that white privilege is not a thing, systematic racism is not a thing and 'white lives matter' is an appropriate response to BLM then you've had front row seats in the stupid show.

Obviously we all have our favourite failings. Chris Grayling, a man who really should '...pay mill-owner for permission to come to work' (Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen) failed to get elected chair of a committee where his appointment had been fixed, and announced.

Parties of stupid burned down the very 5G masts that had provided them with the conspiracy theory that 5G masts caused Covid19. What next? No idea, our phone signal is rubbish round here now.

Presidential Adviser Kellyanne Conway poured scorn on those who had not dealt with Covid1-18 'It's not Covid1' she said. If you think she had a point you are registering on the stupidometer.

Following the toppling of slave-trader Colston's Monument in Bristol a group, described by a woman as 'proper Bristol men', stood around the cenotaph 'protecting' it for a day or two. One of these white, middle-aged guys sported a German WW2 helmet. What statue is on top of the Bristol cenotaph? Good question. There isn't one, but little details such as that don't derail the stupid train.

In Nuneaton a group protected the memorial to the birth of George Eliot. Perhaps they could articulate their reasoning but certainly the links of the writer born Mary Ann Evans to slave-trading and racism are not widely discussed as she expressed sympathy with the north in the American Civil War and was still a lass when The Reform Bill was passed.

It's not always clear what the right decision is in all circumstances. The widely operational stupidometer will certainly help you eliminate some wrong ones. Unless you're stupid. Then you won't notice.