What a Waste of Pixels

When it comes to first world problems the idiots in the Guardian have cornered the market. Today, we get Zoe Williams whining like a jet engine about the census.

Completing the census should have been simple – all you have to do is say who and where you are. In the grand scheme of history, it’s not like journeying to Bethlehem with nowhere to stay. But still – it was an ordeal.

Really? You have three choices. Play the game and complete it truthfully. Poison the results by lying or ignore it. Hardly an ordeal. Living through the Blitz was an ordeal, dealing with this is not.

Separated parents who share custody equally are expected to list the kids at the house they are in on the night of 21 March. I would happily have done that if my kids were due to be with me today, but they are not. So, when the question came up, I merrily texted my former spouse: “Sod it. I’m putting them down anyway.” “You can’t put them down anyway,” he said, with some dignity and patience. “It’s a census.” “You know what, King Herod? Screw you!” I replied with gusto.

Because she is so petty and childish that she can’t just let her ex put them down where he is. Jesus.

Then I did what I always do when faced with a difference of opinion – took the issue to Twitter. Apparently, population scientists study this exact conundrum: what do you do about divorcees who double-count for sentimental reasons?

Well, that tells us a great deal, doesn’t it? She parades her idiocy on the cesspit of Twatter for all the other half-wits, morons and idiots to see because she isn’t adult enough to accept a simple situation.

Most people said: “Just put them in the house they are in that night and stop being an idiot.”

Indeed. For once the Twatterati are correct.

One censorious tweeter said simply: “Time to be generous.” That was my mother, ladies and gentlemen. Boldly siding with my ex in the open waters of social media. And you think you have problems.

I would suggest that it is Zoe’s mother and Ex who have the problems here. What a pompous, obnoxious self-righteous arse she is.

Atheism is a peculiar thing: so many of us live it – 39% of those in Great Britain, according to ONS data from 2019 – yet the word retains connotations that were already a bit rum by the 50s. To say you are an atheist is a needless provocation – why can’t you just say agnostic? Why deny God altogether when you could just not know? If atheist is insufficiently respectful, it’s also not respectable – it’s like saying you don’t have a driving licence. It’s fine, society can live with it, but it’s not going to fall over itself to get you into the golf club.

Oh, FFS! Most of us don’t give a hoot. I don’t believe in gods. Any of them, but I don’t feel the need to agonise about it. The question is voluntary, so either answer it truthfully, put a silly answer or don’t answer. No one – that is not one person in the entire universe – gives a single hoot about your lack of belief. You really aren’t that important.

Finally, there was a petition afoot to subvert the national identity question. Instead of putting British, English, Welsh, Northern Irish or Scottish – if any applied – the idea was to tick “other” and specify “European”. That way, if you disagreed with something significant that had happened recently – perhaps you thought Brexit wasn’t a brilliant idea – you could really stick it to the man. Let him know how you felt. He would definitely be listening.

I could put Breton. Actually, that would be true. Likewise if I put English or Irish… But it doesn’t matter. Personally, I don’t believe the question should be asked in the first place as it is no one else’s business and it certainly shouldn’t be used to drive policy.

Mr Z has incredibly strong views – if you accidentally say “English” about anything, he will correct it to “British”, unless you are talking about mustard or bull terriers (it’s surprising how often I am). He hates nationalist or regionalist sentiment of any stamp; he probably has views on Catalonia, should anyone be so foolish as to ask.

He sounds as if he is as big a pompous, humourless, self-righteous arse as his tedious partner. Right barrel of laughs they must be. They are clearly well suited. I am English. I am also a Man of Kent. It’s where I was born. It is my national and regional identity and if saying so upsets popinjays like Mr Z, then I will say it often and loudly.

Of course, when it came to it, I filled in the form accurately. If there is one thing I hate more than a crisis of national identity, it’s a £1,000 fine.

The likelihood of that fine is low. How will they know if you’ve lied? This whole diatribe is the product of a self-obsessed, vacuous Gurdianista with nothing of value to say.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Yes. One can tell.