Essential Snobbery 101: Judicial ire for communal warmth

No sense of consequence

The motivations behind certain actions just escape me, whether it is for clicks on social media or personal thrills, a communal and societal pact seems to have been broken.

That awareness of action and consequence is lost in a reckless belief that there is no one to hold you accountable and no time for anyone to investigate the situation.

Two incidents have brought the law into the lives of some thrill-seekers with far-reaching implications.

Even with the advent of TikTok, which can produce useful content with a bit of imagination, malevolence for laughs and shockability appear to be more attractive. The lure of going viral is irresistible.

No concern at all

For example, two teenagers are facing the law at Stratford Magistrate Court because they threw a large seat off the top floor of a crowded shopping mall as an internet prank, which did go viral.

When confronted and questioned by the police, the boy who threw the seat said, "It's not that deep, it did not hit no-one.” [BBC News: Boy admits throwing seat off Westfield's top floor]

While there is a real chance that if the seat had hit someone, it could have caused serious injury or death, we might be getting ahead of ourselves. The key question is why the boys believed they could achieve anything by hurling a large seat off the top floor of a shopping centre, whether it was crowded or not.

What kind of pastime could have occupied their minds enough to dissuade them from such an act? We may never get the answer, but there is no reason why they should escape punishment for this egregious act, which showed a complete lack of understanding of the harm it could cause innocent people in a public space.

A chop for gaol

Additionally, as for escaping punishment, two men have just received four years and three months each for cutting down a tree.

Just a tree, but that tree—the Sycamore Gap tree—is a renowned sight, over a century old and near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. [The Guardian: Two men behind ‘senseless’ felling of Sycamore Gap tree jailed for more than four years]

Their quest for notoriety, recorded on a mobile phone as one used a chainsaw to fell the tree in minutes, shows they travelled 40 minutes at night, then walked through a storm for another 20 minutes from a car park to conduct this pointless act.

What kind of thrill could they have been seeking in their apparently restless lives that this tree became their target for reckless vandalism? Though in court, before turning against each other, they acknowledged that what they had done was being covered in the news.

The importance of community

Despite any mitigation that might temper justice with mercy, many seem unable to foresee the consequences of impulsive actions, showing a lack of deep thought about our deeds.

Furthermore, there is little consideration of how our actions might impact, offend, upset, or harm others. This reflects a selfish society.

If only there were a sense of community in these individuals’ minds, perhaps they would have realised their actions were wrong and chosen to find another way to contribute positively rather than to harm.

The point is recognising others, like not littering, keeping noise down in residential areas at night, wearing headphones on public transport, or avoiding reckless stunts on the main road—are fundamental signs of respect.

Surely, there is an unwritten code of conduct, learned at home and reinforced at school, based on the simple principle of treating others as you wish to be treated.

Maybe it is asking too much of that African proverb, “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” What price some pay for that need for warmth, which can often lead to the unnecessary heat of judicial retribution.

Childhood: When parents think they know best

Classic inadvertent abandonment

I happened upon a Facebook status at the end of last year, where there was a discussion about some parents sending their foreign-born kids back to Nigeria to apparently teach the kids discipline and resilience along with avoiding any possibility of their kids being dragged into inner city issues like drugs, gangs, and crime.

After reading some of the comments one especially of a parent who had successfully reared kids in America and could not countenance the idea of sending their children into the care of strangers, be they relations, paid guardians, or strict/conservative boarding schools, I offered a perspective of my own experience.

The lifelong consequence

Imagine being sent from a private primary school environment with a majority international pupillage in Kaduna to a boarding school in Sagamu, Ogun State, at the age of ten. It could have been worse as I had admissions to even more remote places.

The lasting effects of that experience apart from feeling abandoned even if it helped make me both independent and resilient, not that it was unachievable at home, but my parents knew best.

As a child, I was quite outgoing, precocious, and inquisitive, with independent views. I have decidedly refused to associate with old student activities at my secondary school, nor do I retain any enduring friendships from that time. The scars are lifelong.

A rash of parental control

I suffered serious child psychological issues just months before I was shipped off and then in the first term at boarding school, that my parents' closest friends pled with them to bring me back home, those appeals fell on deaf ears, as if they had not learnt from the experiences of being placed with foster parents in England, one of such even starved me, much of that, I have blanked out of my mind.

These seemingly benign parental decisions still affect my relationship with them, and they are both octogenarians. There might be an immediate benefit to fostering your children out to strict environments, but the long-term break in the familial bonds would scarcely ever be repaired.

While there are parents who still think the boarding school experience is a rite of passage that is wholesome and germane to child development, if I was blessed with offspring, I would have totally negated some of the decisions taken as part of my upbringing. I know many parents of my generation did not repeat that vicious cycle.

I speak as someone who will be fifty-nine in less than a week. I charted my own course and chose what was good for me in the scheme of things. Some memories are best left unrecalled. [This was drafted before my birthday in December 2024.]

The free speech debate as a freedom from consequence

We listen, be ready to hear

Attending a function yesterday that in a presentation relayed distribution and diversity, it was interesting to note how though there seemed to be a broad spectrum, the predominance of particular identity groups in the age and race category suggested there was still a lot of work to be done even if our cohort represented the most diverse in the sector.

At the end of the presentation, I seized on a passing point to ask questions and suggest an enhancement of service for the people we encounter to ensure they are catered for. There was a perspective that demand should drive production whereas I thought broad consideration should drive availability. A balance of sorts could be achieved.

Moving to lunch, this occasioned the opportunity to have a chat at our table of 4, two men, both retired and born within 20 miles of the venue, a lady and academic from the Far East, and I, straddling the Global South and where were we.

The freedom to be nasty?

One of the men intoned, “We do not have free speech as we used to the UK anymore?” To which the lady suggested, we have luxuries in terms of expression and effective action beyond protest, that they from her part of the world have not enjoyed for almost a decade.

The other man then said, “If I were to say something like…”, the like of which was suffused with stereotype, prejudice, or disparagement, he might be prosecuted. It left me wondering why free speech is usually defined in terms of needing to say something that does not engender neighbourliness, good relationships, and the better of people around you.

The point I made was that free speech does exist and the ones who make the most noise about the absence of free expression are those with the loudest voices and the largest platforms to project their views and suffer no consequences for whatever they say.

The fear of consequences

The issue is not so much the absence of free speech but one of people annoyed or frustrated that their nastiness will now not be ignored, and they might really be held responsible and accountable for whatever they have said.

It is unlikely that if anyone has given thought and expression to the good things of our humanity and fellow human beings to acknowledge and embrace the beauty in others, they would have incurred any opprobrium, I would think there would be much praise and support for their viewpoints from fair-minded people. Then again, all opinions can draw the support of the similar-minded.

The quest for a suitable soapbox

However, I can agree that the traditional Speakers’ Corner of which the one in Hyde Park is the most popular and probably the last surviving, has disappeared in many other marketplaces, street corners, and public squares around the country. [Wikipedia: Speakers’ Corner]

The open-air soapbox and public oratory open the speaker to a general agreement or heckling whilst allowing you to present your viewpoint without any fear of retribution. Yet, any freedom comes with responsibility and the opportunity for free expression should not become a licence of irresponsible public address towards anti-social behaviour or negative persuasion. Social media now offers a global platform for expression. The Speakers' Corner is now your social media status.

Then, the men felt comfortable expressing those views because they found some sort of safety borne of the conversations we were already having and they probably thought their opinions would hold sway without a counterpoint, I guess they did not expect us to be as articulate with ideas that would suggest they should have reflected a bit more on their audience before trying to give their myopia a broader range of view.

It might well be old dogs cannot be taught new tricks, their worldview is set in RAAC*, none of which will stand the test of time.

* Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), is in the news, it was a type of concrete used in many government buildings, especially schools from the 1950s to the 1990s, durable for about 30 years and presently presents the risk of failing and endangerment to life. [Local Government Association: Information on RAAC]

The Hillsong controversy and resignation

Conduct with consequence

I would hate to stand in judgement on the conduct or abilities of another person. Yet in the lives of others, there are lessons we learn by example or the absence of the same to become better people. A few weeks ago, the Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church resigned from the church hierarchy that the church alluded to be certain breaches of the pastoral code of conduct in the last decade.

The two issues investigated together from almost a decade ago and in 2019 were serious enough to require that the co-founder with his wife of Hillsong Church from 1983 resign his commission. Apparently, Pastor Brian Houston in the first instance sent inappropriate messages to a woman who was not his wife, in the second instance, he visited the room of another woman and spent some time in her company.

Medication taking the blame

One should not speculate on what might have happened, but it is obvious that there were lapses in the judgement and definitely questionable conduct on the part of a high-profile religious leader. However, what does not sit well with me are the reasons given for these lapses in judgement; a dependency on sleeping pills and apparent disorientation as a result of the consumption of antianxiety medication combined with alcohol.

Why a man of God cannot sleep or needs to be on anti-anxiety medication that he ingested beyond the prescribed dose along with alcohol during a major global church conference is one might have to ponder and is open to conjecture, much as it speaks to the inadequacies and frailty of our humanity, regardless of position or status.

Owning up to our actions

Yet, we should be honest and ready to own up to our indiscretions, mistakes, errors of judgement, or irresponsible actions, whether sober or inebriated. To absent ourselves from consequence for our actions by reason of diminished responsibility or mental incapacity brought on by what we have consciously done is at best cowardly, if not dishonest, but let us not jump to conclusions.

For a church leader in the evangelical and Pentecostal circles to vacillate and dissemble when much of their core teaching is on leadership is quite unfortunate. I have given up friendships for what ex-friends have said about or to me in their drunken state because that is how they felt about me all along, the alcohol removed their inhibitions and sense of judgement or restraint to reveal what was in their hearts. To separate the man from the bottle or their addictions to excuse and overlook their actions, is to suggest all agency is lost when under the influence.

Admitting to our own faults

We might well excuse drunk drivers who cause accidents by their carelessness, maybe even gun owners for shootings because it was the gun that killed rather than the person who pulled the trigger. No, we hold them responsible because as a society we expect people for face consequences for those actions.

Indeed, Pastor Brian Houston might well take the time to reflect on how his life’s work might court an ignominious exit and the far-reaching consequences of his actions. The loss of place or status is a great sanction, and there might be redemption with the passage of time, but a man, if he is to be called a man must stand up and face what they are responsible for whether under the influence or not.

The owning up to “I did this …” has not been fully admitted to, rather it is the sleeping pills, antianxiety medication, alcohol doing the heavy lifting, what we are hearing is a tendency to seek absolution by reason of rather than the clear admission of fault by the person. This is where we need to be, his actions might have been exacerbated by medication, but the real story is the action of the pastor, that is what he resigned for. It is a matter of character as much as it is of integrity.

References

Hillsong: An important message from the Hillsong Global Board

Blog: Hillsnog: How the scandals at Hillsong took root

In the gut of surprise

Knowing by happenstance

Surprise as a function of events in commemoration of something can useful and exhilarating, however, when deployed in situations of long-term consequence, whoever is caught on the edge of it might be left nonplussed.

That is the feeling one would get when you learnt of the pertinent which should have been known aforetime and first-hand rather than through the equivalent of eavesdropping. For to be aware of the consequential through the accident of passing conversation directed elsewhere leaves a mind unprepared for the unexpected, removes agency for anticipation and reaction, and is thus unplanned for, even if with hindsight it is revelatory of other matters in flux.

Knowing nothing now

Inexplicably, the frame and structure of words to broach the subject are scarce as to be absent as rumination over days and nights proffers no respite or direction, like a cousin once said of a typical setting, you are left completely discombobulated, totally mixed up and in the dark.

One cannot act in haste and take a deep breath to be calm and in control of one’s temper and temperament whilst hoping some wisdom eventually prevails. Some things are just beyond explanation, that’s just how some things are.

My boarding school story still affects me

Parents in the know

I have been watching with rapt and engaged attention the developments on the Nigerian Twittersphere about boarding school life and bullying, that began following the unfortunate death of Sylvester Oromoni, a 12-year-old pupil of Dowen College in Lagos as a result of an apparently coerced initiation into a cult. [BBC News: Sylvester Oromoni: Nigerians demand justice over Dowen College death]

My boarding school experience which started over 45 years ago was a decision by my parent to give me a grounding in our culture and traditions, as we lived in the north of Nigeria and they were from the southwest, I was born abroad with a good few things well-formed, language and speech, mannerisms and attitude, I was somewhat a stranger not integrating enough into what should be a Nigerian.

Back home to black out

On the other hand, they also wanted to toughen me up as I began to relive the separation anxiety that I experienced in England. For I was preterm by 10 weeks and that was spent mostly in an incubator in Birmingham whilst my parents worked and studied in Walsall. I also had a bit of fostering and being moved around foster carers as they progressively could not find suitable ones, one even starved me that I took to stealing food out of the refrigerator when I was back with my parents. Odd behaviour, my mother thought until she found out what was happening.

Just after my 10^th birthday, the common entrance examination season for secondary school admission started, my parents were not looking for any schools near home, I was in taking exams in the old Western State and Lagos to the extent that I was away from home for over 4 months living with relations mostly met for the first time when they came to pick me up from the airport. For a while, I was with my cousins when the February 1976 coup happened.

Blog - Childhood: Shocked into adolescence

On my return home in late May, I already had another baby sister, amongst other things too distressing to talk about here and then as a listener with wild tales about paranormal activity between my aunt and our new house servant, I began seeing things, apparitions of otherworldly figures that my father dismissed as fantasy. My parents weren’t listening to me.

Blog - Thought Picnic: The reality beyond the augmented

A misfit adrift

I prepared for boarding school with much of what I needed to fit in wrong, my shorts should have been light green, they were grey, I could not tell if that was a typographic error on the part of the school or something my mother misread. I had a hefty machete to cut the grass when what I needed was the equivalent of a scimitar. This introduction to boarding school life was brutal and harsh, so I left essential personal health things undone and resumed bedwetting that rarely ever happened in the past year or so.

Soon, I was seeing things in the night, ghosts, I thought, and recited Psalm 23 all through the night until I was completely tired out. Amongst my classmates, I was in the younger cohort by an average of 2 years and were it not for my early development, I would have been picked on more, just as I was the butt of jokes and extreme ridicule.

That first term was torture and when news of my situation reached my parents, I know that my mother’s best friend tried to prevail on them to bring me back to the north, which they refused to do, confident in their reasoning that the boarding school experience was essential to my education and tough education it was I found ways to adapt and survive whilst keeping counsel of my own situation. My parents weren’t listening.

New terms of engagement

The Christmas holiday was spent in the village with my grandparents and my father came to visit for a week. In that time, we visited grottos and medicine men, had incisions in all sorts of places, drank concoctions, some too vile to describe. All to the goal of curing me of my apparent ailment or psychological illness, but never once did I see a professional, a specialist or a paediatrician in psychology or psychiatry, which with hindsight might have done me a world of good.

The first half of the second term, I spent as a day student living with my aunt because the boarding house could not endure another half-term of nightly disruptions from an apparently unstable child.

I returned to the boarding house in the second half of the second term and appeared to settle down to school. To my parents, their planning was working, I was becoming more independent and may be responsible. Responsible for some things they probably would not have liked me to be responsible for.

You get by even with the injustice

There was bullying and abuse, much that I try to forget, and I made friends with similar backgrounds, though I was more privileged in that when they were returning home for holidays, they got on trains to the north. I was picked up and taken to the airport to fly home, there are things where my parents really did lay out the red carpet for their son. Even when we moved from Kaduna to Lagos, at half-term and the end of term, the driver arrived in time to take me back home. No fuss.

In the last year at school, we returned for summer school which was going well for a few weeks when some amongst us looking for fun in their riotous youthful exuberance raided the girl’s hostel causing damage to property and harming some of the girls. Many of us were oblivious of what had happened, but rather than investigate, the Parents Teachers Association imposed collective punishment on all the boys, and we were expelled from the boarding school for the fifth year.

The vice-principal came to the hostels to see us pack up to leave, and she said to my hearing as she looked at a few of us that she knew we were not involved in that melee. I spent my fifth year as a day student, and it is a huge upheaval to my early education. For that unjust act, I have not forgiven Remo Secondary School (RSS) for that injustice from 40 years ago. I believe I would have had a better leaving school result had I stayed in boarding school.

My education was searing

The result of my boarding school experience is more far-reaching than I sometimes realise. For whilst, I am in contact with some of my school and classmates through social media, I have no enduring friendships. That time represents when I seemed to fall into clinical depression from which I did not recover or find any bearings for 5 years. It also took completely leaving my parents’ and home too. The boarding school experience had schooled me into preferring to be away.

I have not participated in any RSS old student association activities or offered any support for first the reason I gave earlier and out of the fact that part of the leadership has some of the people who bullied me in charge. It is strange that a couple of years ago, one of them attended an event I was at, I would not have recognised him and if I did, I most definitely would not have approached him.

Not another chance to do that again

The most consequential part of this boarding school experience and I was speaking to Brian about it is Nigeria. When I left Nigeria, I left for good. I have family and relations in Nigeria, my father, an octogenarian and my mother a septuagenarian, I have felt a bit shamefaced about not seeing them in a very long time, but the truth is we broke those strong affinity bonds much earlier in life when they were being strong parents.

I can forgive them the boarding school experience, but the result is the result, I am not inclined to get on the plane to see anyone, much as I love them and would probably miss them when they are gone. I do the necessary in supporting them as much as I can and that is where we are at. Boarding school shapes you, marks you, scars you, if you have a child in boarding school, be prepared for the unintended consequences. Yes, I am well into my fifties, and it is a wound that never healed, I just learnt to tend it and live with it.

Blog - Childhood: Ghosts and ghouls of my past

Blog - Thought Picnic: A child has memories that last a lifetime  

Thought Picnic: The whip that stole a father's confidence

Differentiating the import

Until the time I realised that my father’s word was not an order, a command, an instruction, or even advice that I was duty-bound to follow to the letter with all submissive obedience along with fear and loathing, our relationship was defined by what I saw him do to others and how he treated them.

Today, I consider his views an opinion limited by his perspective of things to which I have the full volition to entertain or discard, albeit respectfully and with a clear understanding that the decisions I make are my own responsibility and no one else’s.

Big brother and little sister

No relationship with another was more impactful to how I saw my father than the one he had with his youngest sister who came to live with us in Jos in the early 1970s. Obviously, my father was the king of his entire, his word was law, and there were standards of behaviour and conduct expected of his wards, the breach of which attracted the severest sanctions.

My aunt had an independent, if not adventurously wayward streak, and one day she tattooed her thigh using the alkaline sap of a fresh cashew nut. When my father saw this indelible adornment, he unleashed his fury on her with such a fiery vehemence in his room. Having her lie forward at an angle, feet on the dresser and hands on the floor, he horsewhipped her mercilessly. I hope I have been a better big brother and I have had some regrettable failings.

A matter of consequence

Her cries and howling could not be assuaged as he locked his door that no one could entreat him to have any leniency. Whilst I did not see her bruised body after that ordeal, there was no imagining what happened in that room and that crystallised my view as a 7-year-old that my father could be implacably cruel at the meting out punishment. In essence, he was unapproachable, and I could not have him in confidence about anything, even the things that mattered. I rarely faced that wrath, but what we had as father and son, into my twenties, was full of the foreboding of wrath.

Invariably, anything I could do to escape his ambit of influence, I probably did, until I left Nigeria. Now, we do not have that fearful relationship, but that lasting effect of that event is I engage on my own terms and at my own convenience. I probably will be quite sorry and regretful if he predeceases me, I guess we unwittingly laid the ground for the fraught because we lacked the anticipation of consequence.

Do well to all

Then by extension, much as I love to be treated with courtesy, respect, and dignity, I also watch how those who make allowances for me deal with others because it is not a singular thing but a broader expression of character and integrity that regardless of status, position, means, ability, standing, or representation, everyone deserves to be treated respectfully, fairly and justly.

I do observe how people interact with others and if they deal badly with others, there is the possibility that a confluence of events might create the opportunity to do the same to you. If you cannot call them out for correction, you want to give them a wide berth before their odium becomes the perfume you are forced to sniff.

We should be anything be character schizophrenics, having many faces to different people, allowing a sense of superciliousness or superiority to get the better of us, because there might just be someone thereabouts ready to give you your just deserts when you need them most. If you can’t be nice, be good, or just hold your peace in neutrality that your offence is not reckoned in the book of Karma.

Blog - Childhood: My aunts saw red

The Horror Apprentice is cancelled

Something to celebrate

Today heralds a new dawning in the world order and global leadership with the inauguration of President Joseph R. Biden as the 46^th President of the United States of America. We need to take time to let that sink in, it is significant.

The outgoing president in his bitterness and truculent will hopefully slink into obscurity only to be noticed when his many legal and financial troubles are given the burning tails to chase after him and whether he is able to escape opprobrium or justice is left to be seen.

A piece of work

Donald J. Trump was an aberration visited upon us with a temperament most unsavoury even if entertaining for many. We had completely different worldviews, he’s was entirely self-centred with the pretensions to public service he was never disposed to. Apart from ambition, there was nothing exemplary in his conduct, demeanour, attitude, or deportment.

In speech, his excessive use of comparatives and superlatives with repetition for emphasis showed a man who did not read, was ready to dish out but averse to receive, he had the bully pulpit of the presidency and wielded it with a tyrannical ferocity attacking anything that did not serve his ego or redound to his personality. Basically, he had no humanity.

Vote with knowledge

The thought that he could have been rewarded with a second term was scary until it became obvious that he would not so be granted that opportunity.

If anything, we learnt of how power in the hands of one who breaks all the rules and does not subscribe to the orthodoxy can radically affect our lives. The vote is not something to be gambled away on the whim, for it is not enough to just assume power, the responsibility that pertains to power is tested when met with a crisis. That crisis became the Coronavirus pandemic.

401,777 people have died of CoVID-19 disease to-date, there had to be consequence and repercussion for this. [Johns Hopkins: Coronavirus Resource Centre] It is therefore gratifying that he lost the election to the person he nicknamed Sleepy Joe and has to the very last day not conceded to him. The systems and institutions have stood strong against the Trump onslaught and his quest to undermine democracy in America. He came into power with his party in control of all arms of government and he departs having lost it all for them.

No new season

Personally, it was essential that Donald Trump’s tenure end in disgrace with all the accoutrements of his malevolent character in global display as lacking in grace, in deportment, without gallantry, and full of calumny. He had no acquaintance with the truth, the Washington Post says President Trump has made 16,241 false or misleading statements in his presidency. When the truth is absent from our leadership and democratic system, we are left with little to trust about how we are being governed and the policies implemented that affect our lives. [Wikipedia: Veracity of statements by Donald Trump]

This became the hallmark of this woebegone presidency, an antithesis of decency in every ramification and a black spot on civility. He cannot be gone soon enough and to many it is good riddance. One however must not forget those who hitched their wagons to this apology of wanton excess, who believed every word he uttered, bestowed on him cult followership, and sacrificed everything to his cause. Some paid the ultimate price others will pay more than they bargained for. It is a veritable and cautionary lesson and tale to be told for history and wisdom.

In closing, one can only wish President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris the very best on their tenure, my prayers follow them and we hope that the leadership we have always excepted of America will be restored for some semblance of peace and the embrace of our common, yet diverse humanity. The future beckons as The Horror Apprentice has been cancelled for a second season because the ratings were rotten and the host was indescribably atrocious.

Thought Picnic: Be a fool, quietly

Abuse is free like air

Now, I have been at the receiving end of all kinds of abuse that it is a waste of mental energy to begin to find categories or classifications for those different types of abuse. What has mattered is how I dealt with abuse, the ones I could to run from, the ones that caused harm, the ones for which I was equipped to withstand, or the ones for which maintaining my counsel was the higher moral ground. Abuse, in the end, will not define me.

However, on reading a story and commenting on it on Twitter, I thought giving my views a bit of flesh on a blog can be useful. Some might say, having seen some of my blogs that I have opinions and many of them. I probably have many more than I have dared express and I hope that is the beginning of wisdom.

Be at home with your thinking

A football player based in Canada decided to go on a homophobic rant on Twitter, reinforcing his views with more deeply held opinions, and don’t we all have the urge to say just what is on our minds without let or hindrance? It is a free world. [Queerty: Football player goes on antigay rant, says he doesn’t care about getting fired, gets fired]

I would have felt that his being on a football team meant that he understood the rules of football and he was a good player. Also, as a Canadian resident, and I do not care to check if he is native or immigrant, this is a matter of knowing where you live. He could not have been unaware of the societal needs to accommodate diversity, no matter how diverse from his worldview.

Know when you’re mouthing away

I was a bit surprised that as a football player, he appeared not to know the difference between playing home and playing away. I would even aver that, in Canada, when expressing homophobia, you're quite dangerously playing away and not at home where your supporters would cheer you on to score a goal.

Basically, as I continued my Twitter thread, I stated, there are certain antics you never get up to when playing away, the consequences of which might be dire and grave for your team and the little troop of supporters that showed up for the away game. Therein is my lesson in football etiquette.

The unerring winds of social backlash

We live in times of the instant consequence for the slightest infractions, not to talk of the gravest sins of commission that would land in the docket of the unforgivable. By all means, you are free to have any opinion, it takes another force of providence, insight, intuition, or just reticence to realise you just need the discipline not to express every opinion you have.

I concluded, speaking more to myself than to others, in terms of expressing views that are discriminatory, exclusionary, or hateful, know the law of the land, the sway of moral outrage, and anticipate the unerring winds of social backlash that can dispossess you of your livelihood and make you a pariah. Be a fool quietly. Be not intrigued, I write first to adjure myself, whether it relates to others can only be an unfortunate coincidence.