He often reads to me while I am preparing supper. It is mostly from online newspapers, and predominantly The Guardian and The Times. I have my favourites. The political sketch writer, John Crace is certainly one as is Andrew Rawnsley. And I used to enjoy piece written by Matthew Parris and William Hague but their blind belief in Rishi Sunak and their, seemingly, entrenched Conservative values make such reading stick in my craw. Last night he read an article by Matthew Syed about cruelty. It’s focus was on the bear-baiting inherent in reality shows like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Naive, as I am, I had no idea that it involved viewers vote and pay for one of the contestants to participate in a Bush Tucker Trial. It sounded appalling. Syed’s piece was a plea for a return to authentic kindness.
We had our second instalment of The Father last night. Cruelty was rife there too. But his cruelty (the destroying of his daughter’s self-control) was perhaps more forgiveable because he clearly has dementia and losing his wits. His biting sarcasm was shocking, nevertheless. Does dementia make a kind person cruel or does it merely increase their already nastiness? It is hard to say.
