George Orwell, in one of his essays, expressed the thought that when Noah was building the Ark, someone was writing a book entitled The Changing World. If Orwell were writing today, this book would surely bear the title Climate Change, which would be more in line with the popular and fashionable trends of today.

I would say that Noah had the same premonition that we have today, namely, that the world is coming to an end if we do not do something about it.

This causes me to conclude that not much has changed, only the language or the expression of clichés. And in a period of 70 years, one can easily become aware that not even the clichés have changed.

This is one of the worst (if not the worst) vicissitudes one has to cope with in old age! If you are still mentally alive, let’s say, at eighty, the barrage of clichés and boring patterns from various sources becomes so irritating.

There are linguistic and seasonal patterns in the media, such as at the beginning of the holiday period with the all too familiar programs and documentaries about where to escape to, how to keep your children busy, the best camper vans and the cheap flights to Disneyland or Hawaii or Clunes...

Then, at the end of the holidays, you get adverts about the preparations needed and the grooming required for your child’s first day at school, and were you can get the cheapest pencils and the safest texture colours, followed by comments about how expensive this ‘free’ education of ours is, and the choice of schools based on results. Not to mention the choice and expense of uniforms etc.

The language and the interviews do not change, only the extent of the laughter – it increases with the banality!

Politicians are not shining stars when it comes to turns of phrase and choice of words

Politicians are not shining stars when it comes to turns of phrase and choice of words.

They usually stick to long sentences, like good old Bob Hawke, so that by the time the speaker climbs to the end of the sentence, you would have no clue where he started from. And then the politician would spend a day in Parliament emphasising that he did not say what he is accused of saying and that ‘what I meant was…’ By the end of it, you would be more confused than when you heard the whole original sentence.

After all, that’s what ‘experts’, like judges and magistrates and professors, are for – not to explain and simplify, but to obfuscate and confuse! Then they publish a book entitled Explaining the Theory of Something; and have you heard the latest? – ‘nobody is perfect!’

Leaders of Opposition parties are not given much chance to explain matters on TV, for which I would say, in many cases, we should all be grateful.

Especially when he/she is only permitted to say a short sentence or two, usually couched in such terms as ‘trains should never be late’; ‘they are expected to run on time’, or ‘it is expected to rain any minute!’

And I love hearing a politician say especially, ‘The project has greatly and by far exceeded its original budget.’ (The politician does not add that the project was started 10 years ago, most probably when he was the minister in charge of reconstruction!)

Then there are the sacrosanct and the popular turns of phrase. You have certainly heard it said that ‘this is an age of transition’ or heard proclamations about ‘these uncertain times…’ or that ‘we live amid startling changes…’ – ‘we are at a crossroad!’ And, my favourite one, ‘we are at the cusp of change, either of life or of history!’

And how about the seasonal, or perhaps the ceremonial clichés that are generally uttered by royalty at Christmas or the beginning of a new year? These are usually about the ‘unification of the country’ and the ‘solidity of the family’, which they are ‘striving hard to keep together’...

We hear such things too during swearing-in ceremonies, especially statements about the fact that the ‘strength of the nation is based on the strength and unity of the family’.

Ironically, when these mouthpieces come down from the ‘pulpit’, they do all that is possible to break the family up in the name of liberalism! 

And please don’t get me started on the ‘-isms’ which, even though have been heard and read about many times, become more bereft of meaning as times roll on, only to become status symbols of language.

All the modern -isms, like ‘modernism’ and ‘post-modernism’, ‘liberalism’, ‘realism’, which have taken the place of the ‘socialism’, ‘totalitarianism’, ‘communism’ of the ’30s and ’40s – all terms which you need a heavy dictionary to define since definitions change with the compiler or with the nations where the dictionary is published.

What do you call this? ‘Confusion worse confounded?’ The ‘beginning of the end?’ Or ‘not another major climate change!’, which I would say would also have been exclaimed by Noah when he was building the Ark and noticed the looming clouds, twisting the cedar planks on a burning fire and muttering, ‘why is it always us, Lord?’