Greener Pastures Await, Thankfully?

I'd have been gone like a shot long before now if there was a city somewhere in the world called 'Fuckwit'. Bristol would have been twinned with it years ago if there was.

I have this love-hate relationship with Bristol, and so far, this is probably the longest I've stayed in any one place for my entire life. Now, I'll admit that it's pure laziness that's prevented me from moving anywhere else - and the fact that I really cannot be arsed with the packing, unpacking, and starting over again in a new locality. Unless, of course, I’d have become the beneficiary of a major lottery win. In which case, I'd have been gone like a shot long before now.

If there was a city somewhere in the world called 'Fuckwit' then Bristol would have been twinned with it years ago. From the incompetents who've run this city - and still do, two short plank syndrome trickles down like treacle and is just as thick as the many numpty-dumpties who've settled here since I arrived, well over a decade ago. Real, born and bred Bristolians are, generally speaking, 'salt of the earth' types, as I'm sure are a great many of the incomers to this city. It's just screaming me-me's who's always got some issue to take to the streets and protest about who should be taken away for compulsory termination, and not even allowed to breed before it even reaches that stage!

I'm sure the intelligent people of Rochdale must feel exactly the same after events this week. Well, one, to be more precise. Now, to be clearer than clear, I'm in no way condoning a police officer kicking someone in the head, and for this justice will be served, quite rightly, in the fullness of time. It's just the outpourings of complete and utter bullshit in the form of emotional incontinence that befuddles all of my sensibilities when mob mentality takes place.

You see, not even cold custard could match the thickness of those who protested outside Rochdale police station, after having only viewed a one-sided video of the Manchester Airport incident on a social media platform. Despite Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, calling for calm and adding that what people had viewed was in no way a representation of the entire incident and that everyone should wait before making final judgements.

I don't think anyone, other than the person who was first to film and upload the video knows whether it was carefully edited to place the police in a more deliberate bad light, or whether the camera person just happened to rock up at the last minute, and just as the police officer's foot was seen to be making contact with the detainee who was, by now, on the floor of the airport.

Okay, enough said about this. For now, anyway, and while I'm not dismissing its importance, as always, there is another side to this sorry tale. My question is, what does the subsequent public protest say about our society as a whole that aligns with the protest outside of Bristol's Bridewell police station back in 2021?

You may well say anger, frustration, injustice, dissatisfaction, and more - I get it, and, again to a certain extent I would agree. Except for the fundamental point no one chooses to address through generationally taught, learned helplessness. Look, protests and riots are nothing new, this goes without saying as history has proven, time and time again. So, my next question is, what have we 'really' learned, other than to repeat existing behaviour patterns time after time, decade after decade, and longer, that mature us away from repeated patterns of learned helplessness? Can we seriously still be locked into ‘Monkey see, monkey do’ behaviour?

It was George Bernard Shaw who coined the phrase, “Only fools repeat the same thing over and over, expecting to obtain different results”. Pure common sense dictates that while we’re repeating we’re not evolving.

Plato is famously quoted as saying, “There is no harm in repeating a good thing” - however if all people can do is repeat, repeat, repeat for the sake of it, then it becomes a useless tool rather than a good thing - and this is where are in 2024, in Rochdale, with a useless tool. Or, more precisely, given the crowd of baying protesters outside Rochdale police station, useless tools. Mob mentality on full display. Those we used to call ‘Rent-a-Mob’: a group of people regarded as regularly or instantly available for an expedient purpose, especially a public demonstration that rarely advances the cause of peace.

I began this blog piece in Bristol, and here I am, some 24 hours later a mere 20 miles away from Rochdale, and I wouldn’t hear so much as a pin drop it’s that quiet, here in Leigh. Yet, almost simultaneously overnight, public attention turned to nearby Merseyside, and the usually sedate coastal town of Southport.
perhaps, better known like Eastbourne, as something of a retirement destination for many of the older generation.

All of a sudden it turns into riot town, as people turn up to protest about this tragic incident, and it’s back to mob mentality as organised rioters show up, and instantaneously create chaos for the sake of it. Of course, they show their distain about the murder of innocent children. But to this lot, their modus operandi is always about anarchy above and beyond anything else.

Already, my home back in Bristol feels more like a distant memory, and I could just leave everything behind, as I’ve done so many times in my life, and settle up here again, never looking back. The longer I stay here the more it feels like my real home. Somewhere I left a long time ago to return to someday.