How to ruin your life. PETER RHODES on the perils of social media, the Church's transgender dilemma and why we may not even notice Brexit
I REFERRED recently to Home Office research showing that old people who are burgled are much more likely to die younger than those who are not. The trauma caused by burglary is serious and proven. And yet those Home Office statistics are now 15 years old and I can find no trace of any follow-up research. If you were a cynic, you might think there was a conspiracy to keep the lid on this scandal, and re-classify burglary as a minor crime, thus allowing police forces virtually to ignore it.
JUST as global warming may be cooled by a coming mini ice age, so Brexit may be mollified by a general improvement in world trade. So says the former treasury minister and Remainer Lord Jim O'Neill. He now believes that booming global trade will "dwarf" any ill effects caused by leaving the EU. In other words, after all the froth and fury, we may hardly notice any difference. The millennium bug revisited.
SOCIAL media ought to come with a warning: "Signing up to this will ruin your entire life." Latest victim is Amena Khan, L'Oreal's hijab-wearing model who has resigned after somebody uncovered anti-Israel tweets she posted three years ago. How long will it be before nobody on social media will be able to do anything in the public eye because of their hasty opinions of yore?
WE have already reached the stage where even those of us hacks who studiously avoid Twitter, Facebook and the rest live in fear of our stuff going viral. As the columnist Liz Jones puts it: "For every wise-headed reader of the printed word, there are 1,000 internet trolls on the hunt for the slightest offence to inflame their precious sensibilities."
THE Church of England is a broad church with half a millennium's worth of prayers and liturgy to cover every aspect of human life. This probably explains why its House of Bishops has decided there's no need to create a new form of service to welcome transgender worshippers; the baptismal service can be adapted. But I bet the bishops considered not only the theology but the maths. According to official statistics, no more than six out of every 1,000 Brits are transgender. No more than 20 in every 1,000 Brits are regular churchgoers. So the number of transgender people wanting a new form of service is vanishingly small, especially when you divide it among England's 10,449 church parishes. And yet who would put money on the bishops' decision being the end of it? The campaigning group OneBodyOneFaith has already accused the bishops of “kicking trans people into the long grass” and the lesson of the Church's recent history is that once it is accused of kicking anybody, the only option is a meek apology and surrender.
"KICKING trans people into the long grass." Why do I keep thinking, what would Monty Python have done with that image? God, I hope this doesn't go viral.
PETER Rhodes will be speaking on "Hacking It" at Wolverhampton Literature Festival on Sunday, January 28 at 11am in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Admission free. Visit the link for details
