GRETA Thunberg has taught the world’s teenagers that as soon as they have a GCSE, adults MUST listen to what they have to say.
Old people are wrong and the young are right, always.
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Which is why, this week, they’ve all been on social media telling us exactly how they would solve the latest bout of fisticuffs in the Middle East.
It’s incredible. They may only be 16 years old but somehow they’ve been able to look at a war that’s been raging for 2,000 years then form an opinion that can be neatly expressed in a seven-second TikTok video.
Hmmm.
I’ve read many books on the Middle East, I’ve been there and I’ve spoken to people on both sides of the argument. And I’m really not sure it can be solved with a soundbite from a weeping teenage vegan in Harpenden.
Technology, though. That’s a different story . . .
All week, we’ve been watching Israel using the Iron Dome system it built to protect itself from a rocket attack.
It sounds like science fiction. The idea you can build a bullet that can be used to shoot down another bullet is preposterous.
But they’ve only gone and done it. I’ve watched the footage and it’s amazing. Hamas launches a rocket. It’s seconds away from hitting a target in Tel Aviv.
Then — whoosh! — an Israeli missile streaks into the night sky and, even though the two projectiles have a closing speed of maybe 1,000mph, there’s a flash of orange and — kaboom! — the Hamas rocket is destroyed.
And then it happens again. And again. According to reports, more than 90 per cent of incoming projectiles are being knocked out of the sky before they can do any damage.
It’s like Israel has a superpower.
So how’s this for an idea? Now we know this technology works, why doesn’t someone sell it to Hamas?
Because if you have two enemies facing one other down and both sides know they can’t land a blow, they won’t bother trying to launch an attack in the first place. Once they realise this, we might be able to get them to the negotiating table . . . where they could be shouted into submission by an Instagrammer with a C in history.
I'LL GIVE CLUELESS MIX A MISS WHEN IT COMES TO LECTURES ON THE MUSIC BIZ
JUST when you thought the world’s supply of earnestness has been mined, along come a band of people called Little Mix to explain that the music industry has been dominated for years by “white men”.
Really? I only ask because I’ve been through my record collection and in it there’s a lot of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry and James Brown.
There’s also a lot of Debbie Harry, Kiki Dee, Kate Bush, Janis Joplin, Carole King, Cher, Tina Turner, Martha Reeves, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Rita Coolidge, Linda Ronstadt, Patti Smith and Alicia Bridges. So, after careful consideration, I have deduced Little Mix haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about.
Which is probably why they use a stockbroker to write their songs. A stockbroker who’s black and a woman.
CLOOS HAVE IT ROOF
WE read this week about the collection of extremely beautiful houses that George and Amal Clooney own around the world.
There’s the remote hillside home in California he bought from Stevie Nicks; the elegant Georgian mansion on the banks of the Thames in England; the spectacular Villa Oleandra on the shores of Lake Como in Italy; and a cool, modern beach house in Mexico.
It all sounds idyllic – having homes around the world so when people you’ve never met invite you to their wedding, you have somewhere of your own to stay nearby.
But the fact is that in each house, the boilers will explode from time to time, the fuses will blow, trees will fall down in the garden, the washing machine will break and there will be a burglary.
Having one house is exhausting. Having four must be a nightmare.
Small wonder we don’t see him in many movies these days.
He’s probably under a sink somewhere with a plunger.
KING'S ROAD TO RUIN
FELICITY KENDAL is wrong. The much-loved actress, above, who shot to fame in The Good Life, says that if plans to build an “Emirates”-style block of offices and flats on the King’s Road in South West London are greenlit, the street will be ruined.
No it won’t. It was ruined long ago.
But that said, if the plan gets the go-ahead, it will stop any attempt to bring it back to life.
The King’s Road is where Mary Quant launched the mini skirt. It’s the birthplace of punk and, more recently, it saw the dawn of the Sloane Ranger movement.
You have the Chelsea Potter pub, sung about by 10cc. Flip, where you could buy second-hand American clothes, is long gone. It’s now mainly chain stores.
But thanks to online shopping and a shortage of staff post-Brexit and the pandemic, they won’t survive. Which means the small independent retailers will be back.
But only if the shops haven’t been replaced with luxury apartments.
PIGS-STYLE
EARLIER this week, The Sun’s Rod Liddle argued that pigs should live in better conditions than they do now.
I hope he wasn’t pointing the finger at me. I have two pigs that live on a two- acre plot, where there’s a small copse and far-reaching views of the Cotswolds. It’s idyllic.
But every single day, they escape. The fence is well-maintained and the gate is metal but this doesn’t stop them. Which is why I’ve called them Steve McQueen and James Garner.
Yesterday they built a vaulting horse and the day before they were wandering around treading subsoil into the grass.
Last week I caught one of them on the other side of the farm riding a motorcycle along the fence line.
I think the problem is they share their plot with a family of badgers — and they don’t get on.
Who can blame them? Because contrary to what Rod and Brian May would have you believe, badgers are bs.
Living next door to them is like living next door to that Lottery winner who built a stock car track in his back garden and spent all day vomiting.
TRAIN IN VAIN
AS I had to get from Oxfordshire to a distant part of South East London this week, I thought I’d use the train.
And then, when I reached the capital, something called “the Tube”.
However, all services into London were cancelled because cracks had been found in the locomotives, so I had to drive instead.
And guess what? I arrived at my destination 15 minutes before I would have done had I used public transport.
The car was cheaper, too. Plus. I didn’t catch a disease.
PLAY IT AGAIN…
I HAVEN’T been to a football match for more than a year but I have tickets for two in the coming days.
There’s Chelsea versus Leicester this afternoon.
And then, next week, Chelsea versus, er, Leicester.
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BERLIN WAIL
7SO, the part of Elizabeth I in a new drama has been given to German actress Alicia Von Rittberg.
Doubtless this will spark fury among the nation’s royalists. A German! Playing the part of a British monarch!
Oh, hang on . . .
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