Guilt-edged view of history
Guilt, guilt, guilt. Guilt, guilt, guilt. (Can be sung to the tune of 70s band Sailor’s “Girls” if you are in that space.) Everywhere you look listen or read, more guilt being heaped upon us for a misspent life before wokeness, hot yoga, gender pronouns, etc The recent one is the inquity of body-shaming programmes, even those which did not directly set out with a shaming mission, such as America’s Top Model . This, hosted by Tyra Banks, features a parade of lovely young hopefuls trying to ascend the ladder of catwalk success in their six-inch heels. Even the boys. Or those who identify as ... whatever. It started in 2003 and is now in its twenty-somethingth season. My daughter as a teenager absolutely loved it, and I didn’t mind sitting down with her sometimes to reflect on how different life might have been if I’d had cheekbones like geometry (copyright Lloyd Cole) and a figure like, er, trigonometry. But I was wrong, I was bad, negligent, a cruel mo...