I swear it’s true! I just saw an advertisement on my television, a Panasonic too, ten years old. The advert showed this monstrous, ugly, box-like vehicle, one that almost needs an attendant petrol tanker to keep it going. I heard an awe-struck, excited voice say quite clearly, "This is the world’s greatest 4WD!" I looked, I saw, and I vomited.

Now see here, I don’t want to crush any one’s dream but I thought that we were involved in trying to come to terms with, and do something about, global warming. I thought that extreme weather events were occurring across the world and the icecaps were melting at an unprecedented rate and that water levels were rising yet here the automobile manufacturers are pushing onto the market yet another petrol-guzzling toy, one designed to appeal to urban cowboys who, desperately afraid of horses but dazzled by clever advertising, covet these noisy beasts.

Now, coincidentally perhaps, Reuters today reported that a survey carried out in countries which represent 56% of the world’s population showed that most people believe that eventually we’ll run out of oil, that peak oil has come and gone. Despite this fact, people continue to drive compulsively. Only Americans, who consume most of the oil, felt that it would run out soon and that alternatives had to be found quickly so their giant SUVs could, vicariously, continue to cater for their primitive cowboy urges while simultaneously providing hi-fidelity music from twenty-six, 100 watt surround speakers and leather upholstered seats. This may have been the moment when I finally gave up on the human race. Suddenly I was filled with a deep sense of despair, a sense of foreboding, a sense of inevitability, of doom.

Of course, previously, I admit to watching the American Presidential elections in short bursts. No one could watch that without becoming depressed. How did we humans, the supposedly most intelligent species on the planet, manage to construct such an interminable farce which is guaranteed to elevate to a position of unimaginable power some person of dubious character and intelligence? Don’t answer that.

Then I admit I’ve also been watching the Pope "…dressed in white satin," pontificating all over the place, waving his arms in holy gestures and mumbling mystical things in his execrable accent. Of course, he, like the man on the 4WD add, is also advertising. But at least the television man is offering something real (though destructive) to those who have very big wallets. The Pope however is promoting the world’s biggest con to gullible people and gives them nothing but false promises in return for their investment of time and money. Lest you think I have some vendetta against men wearing dresses let me say that all religions are guilty of exactly the same fraud.

Then, as well, I’ve witnessed the reaction of the world (America and Israel)  to the honesty and good intentions and commonsense of Jim Carter, ex-president of America. Entirely predictable of course but deeply sickening none the less. Blessed are the peacemakers? I think not.

I, at this moment, have tidal waves of depression rolling over me. I feel as though the world’s greatest 4WD has just driven over me, that the Pope is continuously sinking his holy slippered feet into my groin, and that every capitalist corporation, especially the oil and auto ones, has its hands around my throat in a serious attempt to throttle me. Other than that I feel O.K.

Someone said once: "Get thee to a nunnery!" What a good idea! I too could wear a dress.

Wonder what colour suits me?