EVER since man first stopped living in trees and screeching, choosing a mate has always been quite complicated.
We are usually pre-programmed to have a “type”. So we want our partner to be strong or rich or tall or clever or funny. Or a combination of those things.
But what if we find someone who fits the bill and then it turns out they’ve got a Geordie accent? Or eczema? Or that they like Keir Starmer?
There are so many ways a new relationship could go wrong.
You both like Asian food, you both loathe Piers Morgan, you both enjoy chess, you both detest outdoor pursuits. And you find one another physically attractive. But then you find out your new partner likes cats. So it’s back to the drawing board.
Frankly, it’s a surprise that anyone finds a mate ever. Well, now it seems that salvation is at hand because Generation Z people have decided that actually only one thing matters.
Whether a potential partner likes the environment or not.
In a new survey, a whopping 80 per cent of young people say that “eco-awareness” in a partner is more important than physical compatibility.
So you could be a hat stand but if you use recyclable water bottles, you’re in with a shout.
What they are saying is that you could have a history of violence, a worrying interest in stamp collecting and noncey tendencies.
But if you only buy fair trade biscuits and you cut your own hair, you’re going to get, at the very least, a right swipe.
In another survey, which has reached the same conclusions, one respondent said that if she refused a plastic straw on a date, and her potential partner made a joke about “saving the turtles”, she’d walk out.
He could be the nicest guy in the world but if he dropped even so much as an apple core on the way home, or ordered a bacon sandwich, that would be that.
She was especially adamant that it’s important to stitch up old wetsuits rather than buy new ones.
Well yes, if you like surfing and you are hard up. Which you will be if you like surfing.
I find it easier, and cheaper, and more eco-friendly, to not surf at all.
Anyway, I hope you find this advice helpful if you’re in the dating game and you rather like the sound of the girl or guy you’re meeting this evening.
Just remember: Simply park your actual views and spend an hour pretending to be Greta Thunberg. And you’re in.
Or, if you fancy a laugh, let her rabbit on about veganism and the importance of using a bicycle and then, at the end of dinner, ask if she’d like to go to the South of France at the weekend on your private jet.
Because I bet you’d find that in the list of things that matter to an impressionable young person, a Gulfstream V would trump your charity shop trousers.
KEIR IS BIT TWO STUPID
IF you are fortunate enough to be a two-car family, then you will know that you should never book your car, and your wife’s car, in for a service on the same day.
Because then you’d have no car.
Sadly, it seems Sir Starmer doesn’t understand this simple concept.
He’s making all sorts of anti-war noises at the moment, saying that Britain wants no part of the campaign in Iran.
But the truth of the matter is that he can’t get involved. Because both of our aircraft carriers are currently being serviced.
The Queen Elizabeth is in a dock in Rosyth being refitted, and the Prince Of Wales is in Portsmouth, having maintenance work done.
So well done, Starmer. We paid a fortune to have those carriers built and when we actually need them, they’re both at the menders.
And all we’ve been able to supply is a boat which should be on station in a week or two, providing none of the oars break.
Mother’s Pride film is just brewtiful
I LIKE a complicated film. Not as complicated as Tenet obviously.
I hadn’t the first clue what was going on in that. Or Inception. That was baffling as well.
But just occasionally, I like a simple film, with a simple story and a plot that doesn’t involve a spinning top or time travel.
Which is why I thoroughly enjoyed the new movie Mother’s Pride.
It stars Mark Addy, James Buckley, Martin Clunes – in what I reckon is his best role yet – and a girl called Gabriella Wilde, who I’d never seen before.
But my God, I hope to see her again very soon.
It’s a great story, it’s funny and it’s a love letter to the English countryside, but what made it sing for me was the fact it’s about a publican whose failing boozer is saved when he starts a brewery.
Well, that and the Morris Men dancing to disco tunes. If you’re at a loose end this weekend, go and see it.
One Battle After Another it isn’t. Thankfully.
CRY, OH WHY…
THE creator of a new type of onion which doesn’t make you cry when you chop it up says that people can eat it raw, like an apple.
I’m not so sure about this. Yes, on average, we each eat between 70 and 80 onions a year, but only after they’ve been cooked first. I think the idea of eating one like it’s a piece of fruit might make you look a bit mad.
Fred West used to do it apparently – and I do too if I’m honest – but I think we may be unusual.
HAY! IT’S A GREAT EXCUSE
FINNISH scientists have done some studies and worked out that people who suffer from hay fever cannot possibly be expected to do well in exams if they are forced to sit them in the middle of the summer.
You don’t say. I used to suffer from hay fever quite badly and was able to argue, very successfully, that the reason I failed all of my O and A-levels is because, when I handed my examination papers in, they were unreadable due to the amount of snot on them.
It worked. I was given a lot of sympathy by both my parents and the teachers.
Even though I suspect that the real reason I failed had nothing to do with pollen and everything to do with the fact I hadn’t paid attention in the lessons, I’d done zero revision and that for one exam, I forgot to turn up.
REALLY RACHEL?
RACHEL REEVES stood up in the House of Commons this week and said: “Inflation is down, borrowing is down and I’m taking £150 off energy bills from next month”.
Are you though, Rachel? Really?
Because the way things are going in the Gulf, I’ve an inkling energy bills might actually go up a bit. But what do I know?
Unlike you I was never a chess grandmaster or governor of the Bank of England.
