A Plethora of P

Let’s look at Petrol, Pornography, Privacy, Patriarchy, and Pam.

 

P is the perfect letter to use when you’re considering writing an unfavourable review of, say, a book: perhaps one written by me, in which case you could start with the snide observation that it was unfinished.

But then – the plenitude of P words you could use! Nouns, adjectives, and adverbs!

There’s a profound plethora of them.

Pusillanimous, parsimonious, unPrincipled, poisonous, prancing pony, puking, portly, pornographic, peacockery, a paucity of personality, puerile, porky, pathetic, paltry, ponderous, pendulously-paunched, prurient, and pitifully-pickled.

Perhaps even Pantone-painted, if you were desperate.

Petrol: It’s useful stuff. It would be even more useful if the common internal combustion engine were more than 10% (and I think I’m being generous) efficient. 10% of the energy created when petrol in burned in a piston is converted to forward motion. The rest is heat. Which requires cooling systems to stop the engines from erupting, Vesuvius-like, from their moorings.

Petrol’s dangerous. The by-products created by its burning are boosting climate temperatures, people by the tens of thousand are killed by its accumulated fumes, and – as I said – it’s grossly inefficient.

When Big Tobacco was still saying the cigarette smoke was good for you, we banned the companies from advertising. We stopped them sponsoring sports, etc.

The same with alcohol: we limited its advertising.

Petrol helps kills tens of thousands of people around the world every year. It’s a curse. It’s worse than Covid. But, yes, it is necessary. So…

Why don’t we forbid all advertising and sponsorship by Big Oil? Why don’t we forbid Big Oil from making political donations? Why don’t we strictly control the price of petrol? Make it a pariah (another great word for the list above!) and sell it from unmarked pumps. Embarrass people into buying an alternatively-powered vehicle. Like, say, an EV. And why the hell don’t we have the magnificent little Chinese-made GM EVs available? They sell for around US$4,500 in China and are on the verge of being assembled in Europe. A brand new GM car for $10,000 NZ? Before the subsidy?

Even a bus driver or supermarket worker might be able to afford that.

Pornography. I don’t understand the appeal. I really don’t. Oh, when I was a junior teenager I used to buy Playboy magazine from a local second-hand bookshop, but only for the articles. Well….

But even that wore off after a couple of years. Well, once I had found out how really, really magnificent real live sex was. (for me, anyway…)  And right then and there the pube-free porn of Playboy lost its… charm?

And modern porn, which seems so prolific – it sounds so bloody awful and degrading. If it’s truly a chosen career path, I guess that intellectually I can understand it.

No. I can’t.

But I do understand the Patriarchy. After all, I am guilty of having been part of it.

 Probably there’s still some sneaky part of me that keeps a grip on some prejudice that keeps the Patriarchy alive. It may be kicking in its death throes, but it’s still alive. 

And while the Patriarchy lives, women suffer. 

It’s no comfort to say that we’re better than we were in 1995, or 1985, or 1975, 65, or 55. Wee are. But while men still think that women should be subject to a man’s whim, we’re still in trouble. I occasionally find myself starting the speak for Jenny: “Well, we think that all people should bow to Offler the Crocodile God’s wisdom.”

 Kind of thing.

I usually stop myself, and shame-facedly say that I can’t say “we”. I can only say “I”. (I think Jenny might be a little agnostic, even atheistic, about Offler – but I can’t say for sure…)

Privacy: Is it true that the only Private place available to anyone is inside their craniums? I’m starting to think it may be. Algorithms, God, Offler, and Google/ Facebook / Microsoft / Apple know everything about me (and you) that is pertinent.  

Information about people is now a currency. Data is traded with no thought for privacy, because that data is a commodity. All the details of my life are on the internet: the length of my arms, the fact that I support inoculation, that I am sceptical of conspiracy theories, that I am interested in Philosophy, that I am married and have been married before, that I have two natural sons and a couple of step-sons, and – of course – that even though I am an atheist, I contradict that by my faith in Offler the Crocodile God, Brenda (the daughter of God), and in the Holy Lipless Egg.

The only real privacy is in my head, and that’s continually being disturbed by BLOODY tinnitus and earworms, usually songs by The Seekers. Damn that Judith Durham!

                      AND HERE'S A WORD FROM OFFLER!

If at first you don't succeed, Try again. If you fail again, stop and consider whether knitting might be a better option for you. 

Pam:  No, I don’t mean the slightly less-expensive product line at supermarkets. I mean Pamela. 

Pamela was a hugely popular name in the 1950s, so people of my age tend to know a Pam or two. The one I know is a brilliant example of all that’s good about Pam-ishness.

The name’, like Wendy, is a made up one, although the history’s a little conflicting. It was either created by Sir Philip Sidney in his late 1700s as a character in his book “The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia” (he knew all about snappy titles, by gum!) or by Samuel Richardson for his book “Pamela”, which was published in the 1740s. Wikipedia seems to think that 1740 came after “the late 16^th Century”. Pamela is a portmanteau word, from the Greek for “all” (Pam) and “Honey” (meli).

And there’s talk of a Hebrew name, Pamela, which meant “sweet”, and was around a few thousand years ago.

Although the Chinese invented so many things before the Western peoples did, there is no known Chinese Pamela. Unless you count the Panda at Wisconsin's zoo, and people hardly ever do.

Such a confusing story. But our Pamela, an extraordinary woman, is straightforward, kind, caring, an excellent conversationalist, a gracious host(ess), and one of just a few people whom I can, without fear or favour call “friend”.

Her husband Bill is not a bad bloke, either. But he takes better photographs than I do, so sometimes I am not kindly disposed towards him.

P Poets!

SYLVIA PLATH!

 

How frail the human heart must be – a mirrored pool of thought.

I talk to God but the sky is empty.

There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure,  but I don’t know many of them.

Widow. The word consumes itself.

 

Edgar Allan Poe!

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.