Everybody Do The Knee-Jerk

It’s been highly amusing in the last week or so to see certain sections of the media get themselves in a right state about a supposed "BBC diktat" ordering staff to stop using BC and AD when referring to a year in favour of CE and BCE. That’s Common Era and Before Common Era, apparently.

Naturally, the story is a load of complete unadulterated bollocks. No surprises there. You’d think they would have learned a lesson after the whole Jeremy Vine non-scandal the other week – a devout Christian, he’d joked on his Twitter feed that he’d needed permission from his bosses to play a hymn on his show. Cue meltdown from sections of the press, the readers of which also tend to be the same reactionary lunatics who call up Vine on a weekday afternoon. You get the feeling they’d be equally unhappy if the BBC hadn't allowed someone to play a selection from Marching Songs of the Third Reich. Political Correctness gone mad.

Lessons weren't learned in any case, and so the AD/CE story rolled on. My favourite quote was one infamous hack stating that this was clearly evidence of a "Marxist plot to destroy civilisation from within".

Fantastic. I mean, seriously, you could almost admire someone for writing that, submitting it to the subs and collecting his pay – all with a straight face! I’d have lost it at the first stage, probably at the point where the sub raised their eyebrow and said "seriously?" However, the writer in question would appear to be very serious indeed, so instead I just feel sorry for them.

Why pity? Well, I can dig a good conspiracy theory as much as the next open-minded fellow. Hell, that was half the point of the Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid games. But Marxist plot? In reality? Really? I’d have been more inclined to give them the time of day if he’d instead written it was a scheme by Martians to soften up humanity’s spirit before an invasion scheduled for 2015 (CE, natch).

Maybe it’s because I live in the grim North, and not down that London, where the cocaine is fair trade I’m told. Maybe there is a ruthless cabal of hardline Marxists who have taken up positions of power and influence in the media and government. Before you know it, they’ll be coming for us to send us all off to the gulags they’ll set up in the frozen wastelands of, umm, Scotland.

Or, instead, it could be the rantings of somebody whose sanity filter is on the blink. Personally, I wish there was a bit more of a left-wing feel to British politics but being born in 1981, I've yet to see much of anything but us swinging more and more to the kind of ultra-capitalism that’s gotten the States into the mess they’re in. Utilities and railways sold off, university education going from costing nothing to tens of thousands of pounds, cuts made to local authorities. Aye, the spirit of Karl Marx is doubtless sat back somewhere, probably at BBC HQ, rubbing his hands and whispering "yes, yes… it’s all coming together".

Actually, so far away are we from any kind of Socialist Nightmare that I’d not be surprised if before every commercial break we got a shot of Davey Cameron saying "Listen up, peasants: spend your money on some of the crap you’re about to see. I’m not asking, I’m telling, or else I’ll stick another 10p tax on those fags and tins of cheap lager I’m told you’re all so fond of."

At least there’s still the NHS, thankfully. For those unaware, a few months ago I had a random fit at work, collapsed in a heap and was carted off to the local Accident and Emergency. Since then, efforts are being made to ensure there’s nothing wrong with me and it was just the kind of one-off event that can happen to anyone. A couple of days ago, as part of this, I had an ultrasound scan of my heart, which pretty much works in the same way as the scans they do of a baby in the womb.

To say it was weird seeing it pumping away inside my chest is an understatement. Like most, I try not to think too much of what’s going on underneath my skin a lot of the time. Beneath this devilishly handsome and toned exterior (cough) is a lot of soft, squishy stuff that can easily go wrong and inevitably will do at some point.

For now, though, my heart seemed to be ticking over quite nicely and seeing it do so gave me a strange sense of calm. I even wanted to wave at the screen and say "Hey you! Thanks for keeping me alive and all". But I didn't, because the nurse would have given me a strange look and maybe even sent me off for some psychiatric evaluation.

To surmise the point of this anecdote: the NHS is bloody great, as I don’t even want to think about how much my insurance premiums would have gone up if I’d been American. Here in Blighty, it’s not a problem. Of course there’s problems with it – an organisation that size is never going to be perfectly efficient – but it’s there when you need it and you don’t need to fret about expense if you’re not rich and get really sick. So nice one and thanks, Nye Bevan.