I contain multitudes

‘Do I contradict myself?’

‘Very well then,’ continued the American poet, Walt Whitman.  ‘I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.’

Well, I contain multitudes, too; and, at the risk of someone saying: ‘who does he think he is? Greta bloody Thunberg?’, I have decided not to make any new year’s resolutions this year. This is especially easy for me as I finally kept the four I made last year (1. Write book, 2. Learn online banking, 3. avoid Paul McCartney at any price, 4. Have pandemic.) and I would like a year off. 

Instead, I am offering you a kit with which to build yours, much like Michael Gove probably would, only in a far less creepy and annoying way. I do so in the form of a multiple choice questionnaire, in which you are offered two answers to a proposed point of view. Please select the one closest to your view

1. I would quite like some insects, worms and birds in my garden and neighbourhood, and rather less chemicals in my food.

1. Wrong. I couldn’t give a rat’s arse. I’ve got enough problems in my life without worrying about what’s in my garden shed. (Move straight to Question 2)
2. Fair point. Tell me more. (Read attached link, and take it from there.)

Click to access foee_twelve_things_about_glyphosate.pdf

• I would quite like to eat fish that aren’t a) hurtling towards extinction, b) farmed in dangerously tight densities, and b) generally bad for me and the world.

1. Wrong. I still couldn’t give a rat’s arse. I want fish, and I haven’t got time to faff around shops trying to find one that doesn’t offend your precious principles. (Move straight to Question 3)
2. Fair point. Tell me more. (Read attached link. Then write a rude letter to someone.)

https://www.countryliving.com/uk/create/food-and-drink/a20730575/how-to-eat-fish-sustainably/

• I would quite like to eat meat that basically lived its life in a field, ate grass and only eventually went into a building to die a humane death.

1. Nope. If it mooed and had a pulse, it will do for me. (Move straight to Question 4)
2. Fair point. (Read attached link. Then, whatever you eat, make sure the farmer is being paid properly for it.)

Do you make these 4 mistakes when buying grass fed beef?

• I quite fancy some real honey, you know.

1. Wrong. I quite fancy some cheap honey, especially if it has come from a Chinese factory and gone through industrial heat treatment that has beaten all taste and goodness out of it. (Move to Question 5)
2. Sounds good. (Read attached link. Go to your deli. Pay a little bit more)

https://www.albeena.co.uk/blog/13-ways-to-recognise-real-honey-from-fake-honey/

• I’d like to pluck up the courage to leave retailers’ excess packaging in the shop before I leave.

1. Wrong. I love piles of used packaging in my kitchen. (I don’t know. Go and stay with the Trumps or something.)
2. Sounds good. (Read the attached. Be un-British, make a scene, and then just do it.)

https://www.countryliving.com/uk/homes-interiors/interiors/a3524/can-you-leave-plastic-at-till-in-supermarket/

Whitman said something else, as it happens, that could just be the opening lines to an anthem for these strange times we are living through:

‘Keep your face always towards the sunshine, and the shadows will fall behind you.’

I love that.