Boring Like A Drill.

Someone called Roshan Doug gets to write in The Guardian about “what a train journey to Birmingham can tell us about Britain in the midst of terror”. Basically, it tells us that Britain doesn’t like Roshan Doug very much. Everyone avoids him for the entire journey.

Doug reckons it’s because he’s Asian (and a young man, and travelling alone, and carrying a bloody great rucksack). You may find this shocking, until you get to the end and find out that he’s also a poet in residence at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, so he’s probably the type of person you go out of your way to avoid sitting near on a train regardless of the circumstances. Particularly because he’s a poet whose contact is a Hotmail address called ‘erospoetica’.

The article ends with this profound insight:

As I looked back I saw armed officers with sniffer dogs and railway guards questioning mainly young Asian men about the validity of their journey and their identification. And I know it might seem naive to say this, but I couldn’t help likening that scene with something from Nazi Germany.

The customs desk in an airport international terminal.
Freeway construction.
Police evacuating your building when someone leaves a bag outside.
Bert Newton in The Producers.
Volkswagens.
Basil Fawlty goosestepping while holding a finger under his nose.
The decline of modern cabaret.
The nice Iranian lady next door whose first name gets transliterated as ‘Nazi’ by the gas company when they send her a bill.