As you may or not may not know I often find the human race's ability to consume vast amounts of food a matter of some concern and I've often derided our lack of intelligence in many areas including religion, general stupidity and Simon Cowell. Well this morning while driving to the office in my car that turns it's own lights on and starts the windscreen wipers if they are needed I realised that the basic problem we have is life in general is frankly a piece of piss that takes just about zero effort to navigate if you so choose. A rather charming lady contributer on the radio stated that because of marketing and TVs in the bedroom people had it hard and life wasn't easy. Really!
When man first ventured into the upright position life was pretty tough, your cave was pretty spartan, your diet consisted of bushes and berries and there was a good chance that dinner would end up eating you rather than the other way round. I can't imagine a diet of badger and gooseberries was much fun. When the sun went down that was it, nothing to do accept sleep and sex (maybe it wasn't all bad), in the summer your cave wasn't that bad and in the winter it was colder than a polar bear's John Thomas. You were lucky to live to 30 and I understand that Status Quo had their first number one around this time. Life was tough and when I say tough I don't mean slightly over cooked steak tough, I'm talking harder than staying awake during the 5 hour director's cut version of the best of Songs of Praise 1970-1980.
As man became more civilised life became a little easier, you could expect to live a bit longer, as long as you weren't enslaved by a Roman, beheaded by a druid or generally hurt by someone with a bigger group of friends than you with slightly sharper spears. Life was still about surviving the winter, finding enough to eat, not catching some horribly disfiguring disease and staying out of trouble. If you were lucky you didn't have to sleep with the sheep, walk 3 miles for water and the old man knew how to start a fire. If you were unlucky you were French.
Unless you were rich then life in the middle ages was still pretty harsh, if you were lucky you were practically enslaved to a Lord of the Manor, usually with some ponsy French double barrelled title and spent your whole life growing potatoes and reaping corn that his high and mighty would take in exchange for allowing you to live in the dung heap at the bottom of his garden. Sometimes he even left you with enough to eat so you didn't have to get through the winter on nothing but acorns and squirrel shit. If there was a war you were either conscripted into the army and butchered by any number of foul means. If not you were just butchered in your bed when the winners decided some light looting and pillaging was in order. Back then just pray you weren't a woman as Farmer John's one eyed dog had more rights than you.
It's not been until the last 150 years or so that our life expectantacy has really started to increase and this is mainly because life started to get a whole lot easier. The chances are you could find food to eat and usually find somewhere to get out of the rain. Slavery, serfdom and big blokes with big swords were outlawed and if you were lucky you could work down mill 18 hours a day for 2 bob a week. Life is much easier with a full belly and someone to make you better when you're sick. Life is also easier when clever people make machines that do stuff quicker than poor people can and if we're honest that's why Britian is where it is today. As countries go we have been punching above our weight. We were good at thinking up stuff, making it and then turning it into profit. Obviously this was in addition to finding small poor countries with no offensive weapons and moving in, building a couple of dozen schools and a few churchs and pocketing a tidy profit.
So when you hear some liberal lefty, wishy washy, tree loving, never done a decent days work in their life, cardigan wearing academic say life today is really tough you can be sure they are talking out a hole they should be sitting on. In a day when people have motorised salt dispensers, order online anything, remote control everything, home delivery, special delivery, pizza delivery. You don't even have to open tins anymore and if you do find an old tin you just use your automatic can opener, while vegging out in front of your 82" TV in your shell suit that luckily comes in XXXXL sizes now. Life is frankly as easy as the crossword in The Sun with the answers supplied on the next page. I'm sure cyber bullying is serious and causes distress to many but I reckon its a touch easier to deal with than an arrow in the testicles.
I'll leave you with this. They say that where ever you are you are always no more than 12 feet away from a rat. The same can now be said about a Tesco.
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