Right of passage
Melissa Kite Irealise that I have for some time been approaching my life with all the flexibility of an Orangeman. Every day I march my traditional route to a well-known sandwich shop. I buy the same sandwich and march back. Anyone who gets in my way is treated with the sort of courtesy that a member of the Orange Lodge might muster to deal with a group of Catholic residents on the Garvaghy Road. 'Stand aside, I must walk over this precise piece of pavement because that is the way it has always been.' Tourists taking photographs are given particularly short shrift — I must figure in literally thousands of smiling holiday snaps as I fulfil my lunch requirements with the grim determination of an Apprentice Boy of Londonderry.
The other day my route required me to force my way past a Russian government security team which was attempting to protect a Muscovite minister as he got into his car. 'Please wait for a moment, young lady,' said the tall streak of menace with wires protruding from every area of his ruthlessly sharp Armani suit. To my astonishment I heard myself declaring, 'I certainly will not. Let me pass immediately or I shall report you to the relevant authorities for obstructing a public highway.'
Like many of those anachronisms who march to protect ideals and scream 'No Surrender!', I have never been entirely certain in my own mind exactly why I feel so strongly about my right to make my way unmolested to a particular sandwich chain and purchase the same ham and cheese combination. I just always knew it was somehow central to the very essence of who I am.
The other day, however, things came to a head. The shop where I buy my traditional sandwich suddenly changed their bread.
I did not realise the full horror of what had happened until I had left the shop and arrived back at my desk. Upon opening the package it became clear that the bread was no longer wholemeal, but granary. I paraded back to the shop with full ceremony and demanded to see the manager. A long standoff ensued. The bread had been changed six months ago, he claimed. It was now too late to campaign for the original bread to be reinstated. It could be argued that the new bread was now traditional. I tried to explain that my life had effectively been ruined. But he was clearly not trained to deal with such incidents. The situation was out of control. Only an independent Sandwich Commission would have been able to adjudicate.
I know I am not alone in behaving this way. I recently witnessed a perfectly nice young girl losing it big time in a juice bar. She demanded to know why they had run out of her favourite soup. The assistant did not have an adequate explanation. The girl was soon in tears. You could see that the foundations of her life were trembling beneath her, that the very core of her identity had been called into question. When the assistant offered her another type of soup, she raged and growled. She bayed like a wolf at the moon.
I hate to be a harbinger of social doom, but I predict an increase in Juice Bar Rage. It strikes me that these sorry tantrums are not unconnected with a desperate last stand by the law-abiding majority as it attempts to assert what is left of its rights.
I bet the soup rager didn't shout as loud when the government said we were all going to have to carry ID cards, or when her local council told her she couldn't park her car outside her house, or leave her dustbin out on the wrong day, or put cardboard in the recycling bin. No point.
To put it bluntly, the British citizen only has the right to argue about soup. Faced with an erosion of personal control in all aspects of our everyday lives, we are clinging to the things we can exert influence over. Lunch, basically.
We don't want to be rude. But politeness is the preserve of nations who allow their citizens to get on with their lives. If David Cameron really wants to know how to create the 'civil' society he's always banging on about he ought to start by promising to allow people to go one mile an hour above the speed limit on an empty road, or put their bins out on the wrong day without the full weight of the law being thrown at them.
Because at the end of the day we will have our freedoms. If we cannot have the great sweeping important ones we will fight to the death for wholemeal bread instead of granary.
It's pathetic. But this is what the great British sense of fair play has been reduced to.