Ex-cess

Excess! Woo hoo, what a topic. This could be an opportunity for your Saturday Blogger to throw caution to the wind and go completely (metaphorically) overboard, diving right into the shaming pool to stir up a few murky secrets and send revelatory shockwaves rippling towards the blogshore. Could be fun.

But no, it's an opportunity I'll have to pass on, because being diplomatic and discreet is second nature to me - and I don't want to get sued. (They know who they are though - and they know that I know.)

So if not whistle-blowing about the excesses of high-profile individuals of my acquaintance, what then? How about pollution in China?

I was horrified to see the newsreel footage of the smog cloud that rolled into Beijing this week. Having arrived, it stuck around - and not for the first time. It is just part of a bigger problem, for the smog blanket currently extends some hundreds of miles along China's eastern industrial corridor cloaking major cities in a foul soup of carbon dioxide, lethal particulates and hydro-carbons (see the image below).

This is not cloud, it's poisonous smog.

Last week I was bemoaning the 5,000 poor migrants who were drowned in the Mediterranean in 2016. By way of comparison, smog in China is supposedly responsible for 4,000 deaths per day - that's 3 every minute, or a staggering one-and-a-half million people every year! Unbelievable. The immediate culprits are the coal-fired power stations underpinning China's industrial revolution and the exponential increase in road traffic, especially in the cities. It's a chronic situation for the millions exposed and at risk on a regular basis: excess levels of mortality triggered by excess levels of air pollution. On the larger stage, it is state policy that allowed this to happen and greedy Western capitalism that has catalysed the catastrophe.

That's my first rant of the year concluded. On to the first poem of 2017.

The idea came to me when I couldn't help overhearing (okay, listened in to) an animated conversation between a group of likely lads in a pub discussing the nature of their relationships with their ex-girlfriends... who understand them so much better than their current squeezes! Breaking up clearly isn't what it used to be.

This may not be the poem's final form, as I can't quite hit the right tone of insensitively foolish laddish swagger, but it will do for now.

I must stress it is tongue-in-cheek and pure fiction. It bears not the slightest resemblance to my own life or views and any similarity to any persons living or dead must be spookily coincidental.

My Ex And Me
My ex and me we get on famously,
much better than we ever did
in pre-ex days.
Back then,
if we weren't at each other's throats,
we would wear each other down
with our constant niggling pre-ex ways.

Ex gratia, the hex is lifted -
post ex, she no longer vexes me.
That's some relief.
In fact I think
she understand me
better than my current squeeze.

My exposition moving forward,
this, in brief:
I reckon my ex and me
we could enjoy some great ex-sex together.

The lads agree.
What's not to like
if it's all done on the QT?
No ties, no grief, no expose.
I'll text her now,
ask her not to expostulate,
just try it out and see...

Thanks for reading. Keep smiling and have a good week, S ;-)