3rd (Rage)
A famous movie star once said that
cynicism is based on envy. As a professional, fully trained cynic, especially
when it comes to humour, I disagree. He has nothing that would make me envious,
and that includes his millions.
Take, for example the tale of the
thief who stole the goalposts from East Stirling’s ground last year. As the
weakest team in Scotland – they’d conceded some 160 goals in three years
– it was easy to see that the best way to stop the opposition from scoring was
to remove the goalposts altogether.
He claimed to have found them, and
I could go with that. I often walk my dog across the moors and I’m always
tripping over several hundredweight of scrap iron left lying around by
disillusioned football clubs.
Favourite targets for my cynicism are politicians, but again it’s not envy. I wouldn’t go into politics for twice the salary.
My MP claimed that his £155,000 expenses proved he was working hard on behalf of his constituents. Actually, it proved that he was travelling to and from London every week, and nothing more. For all we know, he could have been a Chelsea supporter.
I’m a sports fanatic and an
animal lover, which means lobbies like the pro-fox hunting gang get it with both
barrels. Foxes may be a pest to farmers; I don’t know, but I don’t think the
answer is allowing them to be torn to bits by a pack dogs, and I certainly
don’t consider fox hunting to be a sport. The word sport indicates a level
playing field, so let’s balance it up. Issue the fox with laser guided
anti-hunt missiles, and then we’ve got a sport.
By the way, while we’re on the subject, I don’t approve of spraying
the hunt dogs with chemicals to put them off the scent either. Personally, I’d
spray the anti-hunt fanatics with aniseed and set the dogs on them, while the
fox is busily taking out the hunters with its heavy machine gun.
Many, perhaps most of my comic creations are cynical but few of them are envious of others. Instead they look at the world through my eyes and think, “god, what a mess.”