Rude words and other stories!

I saw a man yesterday wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “ke te joden”, which I guess means “f**k you”. Just one of those polite messages you see on T-shirts these days.

Swearing is odd, usually a mixture of references to “rude” body parts or functions and religious references. This website gives information about a range of Anglo-Saxon swearwords. My grandson thought I was making it up when I told him “bloody”, which he maintained was not swearing, was derived from “by Our Lady”, but that religious reference probably passed him by as well. The website talks about ‘gorblimey’ as a mangling of ‘God blind me’, crikey’ disguising ‘Christ’, and ‘jeepers creepers’ as a replacement for ‘Jesus Christ’. I knew all that, but, come on, who says ‘gorblimey’ even in its shortened form as ‘blimey’ or ‘crikey’ or even ‘jeepers creepers’ these days? It sounds like something from a 1950s comic. Maybe Jacob Rees-Mogg, who does look rather like Lord Snooty after all, says such things!

No, that kind of swearing sounds very innocent nowadays. Modern swearing is a lot cruder. And a lot louder and a good deal more frequently heard! Unfortunately we cannot go back in time to an age of gentler, if perhaps more inventive, swearing.

Mr Macron would like to go back in time, or so it seems, as he wants to reintroduce national service for all 16 year olds in France. The options being looked at include voluntary teaching and working with charities, alongside traditional military training with the army, police or fire service. Mr Macron himself is too young to have done military service himself as it had been abolished before he came along.

A poll reportedly found 60 per cent of the adult population approves of national service. However, that number fell below 50 per cent when younger people's opinions were taken into account. I am a little surprised at the percentage of adults declaring themselves in favour. Surely the majority of the adult population are my sort of age or younger and so most of them will not have done military service themselves. A case of “don’t do as I did, do as I think you should”. Curious!

My Spanish brother-in-law did military service back in the 1970s but it no longer exists here. I read that Greece, Russia and Finland still have it. Is it a solution to youth unemployment? Does it make the youth more disciplined? Do girls do it as well as boys? I wonder!

A large, probably undisciplined, blimp is going to be flying over london, a baby-Trump lookalike apparently. However, they plan to keep Mr Trump away from London for most of his imminent visit. He will be meeting the queen and the Prime Minister away from the capital I understand. Presumably this will avoid confrontation with demonstrators. And then he can go off the Scotland to his golf course without any hassle.

And my own planned visit to London can also be hassle-free, hopefully without the propsed disruption to underground travel.