Peace and Quiet of Prison, Bag Lady, Cancel Culture

 A wanted man handed himself in to police in West Sussex to avoid having to spend any more time in lockdown with the people he lives with.

The man, whose identity was not disclosed, presented himself voluntarily to Sussex police on Wednesday afternoon, reportedly in the hope of getting some "peace and quiet"...

The Prisoner of Chillon
William Daniels (1813-1880)
Photo Credit: Walker Art Gallery [CC BY-NC]

Psychologists have reported a rise in people experiencing symptoms of sustained stress similar to burnout at work, including problems with sleep and concentration, and many people are desperate for human contact after months of relative or total isolation,

Going back to prison appears to have been more appealing than being cooped up with certain others. Insp Darren Taylor of Sussex police tweeted: "Peace and quiet!  Wanted male handed himself in to the team yesterday afternoon after informing us he would rather go back to prison than have to spend more time with the people he was living with...

(Jedidajah Otte, The Guardian, 2021)

The poor guy only wanted a bit of peace and quiet and he was not getting that where he was living. Perhaps too much talk and human contact can trigger sustained stress and create problems with sleep and concentration! 

Bag Lady

It might not be the description  most women aim for as they grow older but Dame Sheila Hancock has said that she enjoys looking like a "bag lady".

The actress added that she hated shopping and only ever bought second-hand clothes. Her daily outfit is now "filthy old corduroys, a terrible old jumper of [her former husband] John's and a woolly hat a floor manager's mother knitted for her decades ago.

Old Tramp
Isabel Codrington (1874-1943)
Photo Credit: Gallery Oldham [CC BY-NC-ND]

"I look like a bag lady now and I am in my element," Hancock, 87, told the podcast My Wardrobe Malfunction. "I hate shopping from the depths of my soul. I went into Topshop once and thought I was going to die... I love second-hand shops. It is partly ethical in as much as we must stop buying cheap frocks that we wear once and put into landfill. It is a disaster... I hate this fashion for cheap throw-away fashion. It's bad for children, not to care about the work that has gone into things, not to respect the people that are the makers."

(David Sanderson, The Times, 2021)

Good on you, Sheila.

Cancel Culture

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
unknown artist
Photo Credit: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum [CC BY-NC_ND] 

There has been no teaching at Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School in San Francisco for almost a year... When students do eventually go back to classes in the city's Sunset district one of the things they'll have to learn will be an imminent change of the school's title. It's one of 44 that the local education authority recently voted to rename... they have decided  urgent action is needed to remove from schools the names of those who had "engaged in the subjugation and enslavement of human beings; or oppressed women, inhibiting societal progress; or whose actions led to genocide; or who otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those among us to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

What, you might ask, did the author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped do to diminish the opportunities of San Franciscans to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? His offence, according to the official record, was to have written a poem called Foreign Children... It was described as "cringeworthy" by the authority not on literary grounds but because of its white privileged voice and the use of demeaning ethnic terms such as "little frosty Eskimo".

You might agree that a school that honours a children's author with a Victorian view of the world does irreparable harm to the lives of young Californians, but how about Abraham Lincoln? His name is another of those slated to be removed from a school on the grounds that his policies were "detrimental to...Native peoples of the United States". That whole freeing the slaves thing evidently didn't make the cut. 

(Gerard Baker, The Times, 2021)