#alt-literate

Alt-boring

I’ve been quiet these past few weeks; I’ve been busy, I’ve been clocking up intercontinental Avios’s, but mostly I’ve been depressed and defeated. I had nothing to say that someone cleverer or wittier than me hadn’t already said/tweeted/snapped or sung. My Facebook feed was a spiralling toilet roll of complaints and curses and pleas for mercy from the relentless media shitstorm that has spewed a bright orange flatus onto the collective consciousness. #hisnamemeansfart

Faced with a daily barrage of disappointment in my fellow humans, I’ve become a hermit of hygge. I’ve retreated into the handful of activities that bring me joy during the four hours of weakening sunlight we are lucky to enjoy in a London midwinter. Rich Buttery Food, Danish building blocks, knitting, Disney Movies, Disney Animation, Disney Songs and reliable, relatable TV. David Attenborough had me cheering for baby iguanas, the former Shadow Chancellor Gangnam Style’d his way onto the nations hearts* and Graham Norton’s sofa is the only Bright Orange object I want to see on any screen of any device that whizzes through my line of sight. #tangerinestings

This week Graham’s sofa was an allegory for our utopian future state; my alt-reality.

A married gay woman of Danish origin, a heterosexual cross-dressing Englishman, an intergalactic female American of (by her own admission) dubious mental health and a Muslim woman of Bangladeshi heritage. All of them were corralled into telling their story, or selling their latest oeuvre, by a Gay Irish man. #favouritetimeoftheweek

When the Baked Sweet Potato-Elect has absolute power, the only member of the couch to whom he’d grant an oval audience is Princess Leia, and only if she was wearing her bronze bikini. #nocostumeforhimtobejabba

Each of the Famouses told their unique story. Sometimes they agreed; Grayson had amazing shoes. Other times they didn’t; Nadiya’s arranged marriage. But despite Graham’s best efforts to bait them with his own special kind of humiliation, often an embarrassing photo dredged from the bowels of Internet; at no point did anyone stand up and chuck a hissy fit. No one threw a punch, no one verbally insulted anyone else, no one threatened to sue, build a wall, banish a race or snatch a snatch.

In my alt-reality, my curls don’t flatten while I sleep, cheese has no calories, crying in th office is the ultimate sign of corporate strength, I’m a universally adored writer, I’m a proud mother to a Collie that doesn’t poo and I own a country pile with an outdoor pool. My alt-reality is not alternative; it is not real. It is a euphemism for dream, imaginary, immature and escapist.

Which is why I have no time for anyone or anything or any non-descript-abstract-notion that describes itself as “alt-right”. #drevilairquotes

Alternative to right is left. I have two arms, a right one and a left one. The only alternative to my right arm is my left arm. There is no right-er arm. My right leg is not my alt-right arm. Right and left, like hot and cold, like yin and yang, like cheese and all-other-food is a binary notion. You are one or t’other.

Unless of course you are a Fascist. In which case you are at best an alt-human, but more specifically, you are a Fascist. You are not alt-right. Your political beliefs are not an alternative to conservatism; you are simply a misanthropic cunt (sorry mum) who believes that your race/nationality/viewpoint/ideology/book/existence is more important than someone else’s.

I hear you; my obscene rant is demonstrative of my own intolerance of someone else’s viewpoint. Therefore, I must be Fascist too!

I’m not a Fascist.

I am intolerant of electoral ignorance and jingoistic politics stemming from a midnight tweet rather than debated written policy. I am intolerant of British people with Greek parents or English people with Indian parents or Americans with German grandfathers eschewing immigration. I am intolerant of men and boys who thoughtlessly insert bits of themselves into vaginas, conveniently forgetting there is a uterus at the other end. Promiscuous, repressed, men and boys who invoke divinity when they legislate what happens inside that same organ. I’m intolerant of a twice-divorced practising catholic protesting gay marriage on the basis of her Roman religion. I’m intolerant of votes, elections and referenda based on bullshit and blustering and buses. I’m intolerant of Piers Fucking Morgan simulating vomiting into a bucket at the sight of Madonna twerking.

All this makes me a latte drinking leftie. Intolerant, no. Exasperated, yes. I pay more than my fair share of taxes with no claim for a discount. I am an immigrant, albeit a blue-eyed one and so was my father. I have very strong arms, but no guns. I’m big on self-harm, but I’m not out in the streets harming my fellow man. Although I sometimes stand too close to the door in the tube, I’m not restricting the free movement of others. I’m terrified of spiders, but I’m not peddling fear. I’m just bitterly angry that the alt-smart’s are winning.

I wouldn’t mind them winning if the fight were fair.

I wouldn’t mind them winning if they were going to be alive long enough to see the catastrophic outcome of their Geriatric Exodus. I wouldn’t mind them winning if there were coherence between their Christian-coloured words and their rapist-actions. I wouldn’t mind them winning if they were anyone on earth but Nigel Farage.