I'M WORRIED ABOUT PEPPA'S DADDY

I worry about today’s role models. Are we creating mini-Trumps , Farages and Beyonces by allowing and even accepting as normal their strange, rude behaviour? I don’t think our children are stupidly impressionable but they are influenced by those they see on TV. Not only influenced they also learn their words by heart and mimic their actions.

Take the Peppa Pig family. I’m very concerned by the laziness of Daddy. Not only does he seem to do little but he lounges around and says he’s worked hard so he must relax. He spends a lot of his life goofing off and mucking up. He falls out of trees and is a general incompetent. He’s a shocking layabout of a role model who should be spending more time sorting out that ghastly cry baby George whom I suspect is crying because he thinks he might end up like his father.

Topsy and Tim have a father who constantly seems to be coming back from work in the middle of the afternoon. The twins and their oh-so-nice parents live in blissful sunshine with never a cross word.  Their ambition to “be friends forever” makes ‘Love Actually’ look a rather grim movie in contrast. Their sense of entitlement is affirmed in the words of their theme song
“We can be anything 
If we close our eyes and dream.”

“Oh no you can’t!” I want to shout “you have to work really hard to get anywhere at all.” The absence of any work ethic here fills me with despair. I was brought up on a diet of westerns where the relentless mission to succeed was huge. This was Rawhide:-
“Keep movin', movin', movin'
Though they're disapprovin'
Keep them doggies movin', rawhide
Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope, throw an' brand 'em
Soon we'll be livin' high an' wide”

On such stuff were men made and “gals” had their place
“Wishin' my gal was by my side…”

My slightly satirical view of our world has a few serious thoughts underpinning it. We are creating the future by the kind of images we show now and we have a polarised choice between the pastel world of Enid Blyton and the extreme right wing of Breitbart.

We should, of course, show people what a better world looks like but for sure don’t frighten the beejeezus out of them by creating visions of a terror-threat-future but don’t get too soppy either.

 I quite like Peppa Pig as it happens. It has a pleasantly good natured set of ethics bar one. Unless Daddy starts working really hard and appearing only briefly - “got to get this website ready it’s really urgent” - the next call he’ll get will be this:-

“Hallo, It’s the Danish Bacon Company. Can you pop by there’s something we want to talk about”

And no Daddy, it’s not a new website they want. Check out the next episode “Daddy Pig brings home the bacon after another hard day’s work.”

WHY HAVE SO MANY GOOD CAUSES SCREWED UP?

Polar bears, organic vegetables, political correctness, liberal values, employee rights, health and safety. Somehow they’ve all got melded together in some kind of misguided and worthy gel. And all the good stuff that lay behind the causes they individually represented has been lost.

How can it be that I’ve leapt from a believer to a sceptic this fast?

Let’s look at organic food. How is it can I find myself applauding Matt Ridley saying that organic farming was sustainable for sure, sustainable insofar as it sustains famine and food shortage? Why? Because it’s so inefficient a method of production.  And I’ve just begun to discover something important: a lot of it doesn’t taste very good. And there’s the e-coli issue in Germany has made me question how safe it is. So if it costs more, tastes poor and makes me ill,  that seems a dodgy old marketing platform.

One after another, good liberal causes are being strangled by mendacity or hype. I suppose it’s the messengers rather than their messages that I’ve begun to distrust or think would say anything to prove their point. Life seems too short for this and the devil in me is muttering there’s nothing that a diet of Marlboro, pork pie, Tequila, chocolate and Jeremy Clarkson won’t solve.

My second thought this week relates to role models.  There’s probably nothing really wrong with Bob Diamond who runs Barclays or Sepp Blatter who runs FIFA or Bernie Ecclestone who runs Formula One or Jean-Marie Le Pen who runs the French National Front Party (potentially the next French President). They are rich, successful, utterly shameless and with feet of something clay like.

But Rory McIlroy, the wonder golfer, fills me with joy (especially in contrast to the charmless Tiger). As does John Hegarty ad man extraordinaire whose book is just out. As does Jamie Oliver. As does George Clooney. As do Sue Barker, Margaret Heffernan, Carolyn McCall, Stevie Spring ….

All nice guys.

As Margaret Heffernan put it “nice is the new mean.”

The nice guys who espoused the nice causes I talked about up front have screwed up because they’ve stopped being nice. The moment you forget your values and just focus on winning at all costs you lose your sense of fun, your reputation and your soul.