Peter Rhodes on scary rabbits, facial bikinis and the ethics of the banking industry
“By current cultural standards,” the British Board of Film Classification has decided that Watership Down deserves a strict PG rating instead of its original U.
Damn right, too. It is a violent, grisly animated movie, almost calculated to horrify small children. We have friends whose boys were aged six and four when Watership Down was released 45 years ago. The older quickly discovered that he had only to hum a few notes of Bright Eyes to make his younger brother cry. So, in the way of six-year-old boys, he did.
As temperatures soar in China, smartly-dressed folk in Beijing are reportedly queuing up to buy “facekinis,” sinister-looking face masks offering protection from the sun. They cover the entire face apart from holes for mouth and nose. Some are even fitted with tiny fans. Ironic, isn't it? First the Chinese sell us face-recognition CCTV cameras. Then they invent the antidote.
According to the university watchdog the Office for Students, half of graduates with first-class degrees are inexplicably winning firsts far better than their A-level results suggested. It's the use of the word “inexplicably” that strikes me. This rash of firsts is far from inexplicable. It's the direct result of grade-inflation, the mass bumping-up of marks, either to compensate for the difficulties of studying during the pandemic or to attract more students for the coming years. Some years ago you could buy novelty toilet rolls with each sheet bearing the message: “Sociology degree: please tear one off.” It's coming true.
Another word sticks with me. It is “align,” as in Coutts Bank's statement that Nigel Farage “does not align with our views.” The implication is that the views, opinions and values held by banks are thoroughly admirable. But are they?
An individual who aligned with the ethics of banking would be 100 per cent laser-focused on money, to the exclusion of anything else. He or she would be a latter-day Ebenezer Scrooge, quite relaxed about pulling the plug on borrowers, sacking staff by the thousands, closing branches no matter what the social cost and spending millions on advertising campaigns to promote the bank as a caring, sharing organisation while shafting its customers and awarding multi-million pound bonuses to its bosses. Honestly, who'd want to align with values like that?
