Essays in Idleness

“The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed.”

I pick up such delightful phrases in my (entirely unnecessary) morning ramble through the news on the Internet. This one had me giggling, for, in addition to applying to the test flight of a commercial blimp — which nose-dived upon approaching the ground — it seemed to explain everything else.

Other items included the information that the driver of a Great Western train that derailed while pulling into Paddington station, after passing through a double red light, thus crippling rail service across much of England for a few days in June, was in the sixteenth hour of a Ramadan fast.

“The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed.”

Or news that our Canadian RCMP (“the Mounties”) will allow female officers to wear hijabs. This adventure began a quarter-century ago with Sikh turbans; but where will it end? What, for instance, will be the Mounties’ response to transgender requests? Especially when these cross-pollinate with their multicultural agenda?

“The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed.”

Or, the young backpacker in a Queensland hostel whose journey ended when she was stabbed to death by a gentleman from France shouting, “Allahu akhbar!” This in front of thirty witnesses, including a man and a dog who tried to intervene. (Both are in critical condition.) The grief machine has been cranked back up in the tabloids, with social media excerpts from the much happier former life of the victim — a popular, and quite photogenic, 21-year-old from Derbyshire.

“We don’t have a motive yet,” said the police spokesman.

Alternatively, he could have said: “The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed.”

Mere chance, of course, that the next three items to catch my attention after the dirigible prang happened to involve members of the same, formerly non-Western religion. I’m sure Catholics crash trains during Lent, stab strangers while reciting their Credo, and should be allowed to wear mantillas while serving in the Mounties. And it is probably the heavily pro-Catholic bias of the media that keeps such stories out of view.

“Whatever,” as we say today, whenever required to make choices. Or since that expression is getting tired, I propose to replace it with:

“The flight went really well and the only issue was when it landed.”