middle aged Man in the Mirror

At what age does a man look at himself in the mirror and realise he's attired as a middle aged frump? It happened to me today, aged 35, admitting I need to ditch some of the shirts I use in the tropics, as they passed their sell by date about a decade ago. Dust and sweat stains, be gone.

I caught up with UK news and had one of my very regular waves of frustration at the way news is covered by the media and debated between politicians. The Tories are getting a load of flak for reduced police numbers and a rise in violent crime in London. Amber Rudd was on Radio 4, in a clip labelled on social media as 'car crash', explaining that crime is multi-dimensional, cannot be attributed solely to police numbers and that the government is investing in tackling other growing types of crime in such a rapidly changing society.

She was right, as how, for example, can greater police numbers tackle something like the increasing impact of online bullying, causing mental health issues in youth susceptible to knife violence. The presenter solely kept trying to force her to admit police numbers were the sole cause of increased violence, which of course she was never going to do as it would have been political suicide.

I thought Radio 4 was supposed to pride itself on intelligent journalism but it exhibited close to zero nuance on this occasion. I'm no fan of Amber Rudd and if the sitting Home Secretary had lost that Hastings seat in the general election my chuckles would have been heard from Land's End to John 'o' Groats. But it doesn't help any of us if someone acting reasonable is labelled as irrational. It distorts the truth and twists perceptions unfairly.

Enter other political parties who want to force the Tories to admit the same thing, triggering endless rounds of semantics. For politicians to spend more of their time criticising others than inspiring the electorate, they have to be bloody confident in their own abilities to create positive change, which they can never fully be. Lacking a crystal ball they just open themselves up to the same cyclical criticism years down the line. It's often impossible to attribute successes and failures to parties' four-year terms and far far too much energy is spent debating others' failures and not focusing on the greater good.

The public is now attuned to soundbites and one-sentence messages as they shout more loudly and in a high velocity world, people don't have the ability to engage more deeply. Inspirational rather than critical politics are what we should aspire to and base our voting decisions on. Then we may stand a chance of achieving some collective goals and some semblance of national unity.

After work the main road was gridlocked due to the passage of the vice-presidential convoy. When the entourage of blacked out police and army vehicles starts blaring, regular drivers must move aside and wait for it to pass. On this occasion two security henchmen in suits and sunglasses opened the opposing doors of a moving vehicle and assumed armed standing positions to intimidate bystanders. They were ridiculous parodies of themselves and I wanted to jump in front of the vehicle and ask them if they were aware they were not in a James Bond movie.

It used to happen in Cambodia that whole blocks would be cleared for visiting dignitaries to pass through. I'd like to do a study on the loss of economic productivity in a city at such times, as I am sure that it is collectively greater than the inconvenience caused to a bigwig.

Sometimes the world just makes you want to go and live in a Liberian rainforest, doesn't it?