Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

When I was a young lad in the 80’s, I always used to think old people (say 60+) were a world apart from me. Not the physical age alone, but the way they dressed, what they did, the music they liked and so on.

As I drove to work today though, I nearly burst my ear drums with “Jean Geanie” by Bowie from turning my iPod up in the car and not realising the stereo was at full volume too. I think a few people in France may have heard this as well. I noticed there were some OAP’s by the bus stop   and I thought to myself “I bet they’re tut tut’ing at all this modern music”

Then it crossed my mind that an OAP’s aged 60-70 would have been mid twenties to mid thirties when the song was released. Chances are they heard it when it was first came out. There’s every chance some of these people were rocking to Judas Priest, Hawkwind, Bowie, Sweet etc. in their prime.

There suddenly didn’t seem a big gap between myself and pensioners, like there was when I was a kid.  Someone in their 20’s and 30’s in the1970s and 1980s isn’t that alien to someone in this day and age, at least not like someone in their 20’s in the 1940’s

Perhaps music just seems to last longer these days, or perhaps there isn’t such a huge gap in generations.

Funny old thing, age.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

I wouldn’t describe myself as all that politically correct. In the main this is because I find there are so many different groups out there and many of them are that sensitive, then even if I tread on eggshells all the time then chances are I will still no doubt offend someone somewhere and have an effigy of be being burnt on CNN.

I would however class myself as fair. If I like or dislike a person, then it down to their personalities or actions. It is not down to the colour of their skin, hair or pubes or if they are an XY or XX chromosome.  In this respect, I am a strong believer in equality of race and gender.

We are not in a utopian society so there will always be prejudism in one form or another. In many ways this is human individuality and personality coming through and clashes, fear or animosity of differences or even ingrained hatred.  I am a strong believer that to heal past wounds then there needs to be a drive for equality. I would not say there has so be forgiveness for past crimes or errors, however there has to be an acceptance if we are to progress as a society. In short, if the scales were overbalanced in the past, then they need to be level now - not reversing them to make the other side overbalanced to “make it fair”or “get a bit of payback” (especially as it may be future generations paying for the mistakes of their grandparents). This just perpetuates the problem and breeds new generations of predudism.

This is one of the reasons I have always been angered by the hypocrisy of “Positive Discrimination”. In my opinion any form of discrimination, whether good intentions or not, is still discrimination. It now however, has a new name…

Affirmative Action

I have heard the sexism card played a few times, and usually the same woman who complains that there is not enough equality is the same person who says “well it’s about time!” when they hear of men being discriminated against - which kind of makes a mockery of their original stance and motives, however when it gets to a corporate level then it moves far beyond individual cases and gets allot more serious with more consequences.

The latest example of “affirmative action” is in the police force. The powers that be are discussing wheter the decesion to who gets employed will not be on merit, ability or competence anymore - as the places may go to a less qualified person if they are female and/or Asian. In a country where we are constantly wanting “equality”, then I wonder if this goes ahead how a white male will feel if he is told he’s not getting the job because of the colour of his skin or gender. Will he think (pardon the pun) “It’s a fair cop!”, or will he feel discriminated? I know what one I would feel.

Although laws are being discussed to have more “affirmative action”, this is nothing new. In general HR terms, you can only be discriminated against if you are in a minority group.  The minority groups themselves have additional rights. To give an example, it is perfectly legal and acceptable for an Indian themed restaurant to open and refuse to recruit white people to work in it, so they “keep with the theme”. If on the other hand an English themed restaurant opened and refused to recruit Asians, then this would be racist.

It would seem the white man living in the UK does have some hurdles to pass if there is to be equality, yet even making a statement like that there will no doubt in the back of some people’s minds questions of “can he say that?”, “isn’t that racist?”

I really think the government in the UK has lost the plot (unless this is part of some master-plan) when it comes to this. The normal apathy of UK citizens is wearing thin and I’m hearing more and more people who are normally the most tolerant starting to consider themselves racists if that’s what they have to do to demand equal rights for white people.

I just hope it’s directed at the right people, i.e. not the black/Asian person who has probably never asked or wanted to be positively discriminated against in the first place, but more likely the white politician dreaming up these laws.