Friday, 29 November 2019

Today's Power of Three

A common ploy used in creative writing is 'the power of three'. It seems to be some talismanic quality that renders three the magic number, particularly in comedic articles. Keeping this little 'thing' in mind, I'm going to write about three things that got up my nose today.

We will begin with the article I saw this morning about the usual 'outrage' because a mother was fined for having a magician entertaining at her kid's birthday party, which was held in an Adelaide park.  It's great that she provided employment to a professional entertainer, who was likely more convincing than Uncle Harry trying to entertain the kids by playing Camptown Races on a wax-papered comb, and whose repertoire of magic tricks start with the magic incantation: 'Pull my finger'. Naturally the Outrage Squad are complaining about the Fun Police, and officious local government bureaucrats. But the reason the councils require permits for professional entertainers in parks relates to public liability insurance. However, what really has me grinding my molars is the woman hosting the party actually enquired whether a permit was required, and was told that there was indeed a permit to be obtained before being allowed to have a hired entertainer perform there, whereupon she decided she DIDN'T want to pay for the permit, went ahead with the party and the professional magician, copped a fine, and WHINGED TO THE MEDIA! Am I getting old, or is the world being overtaken by sympathy-seeking, point-missing, entitled jackasses? I know that if I was stupid or arrogant enough to flout local government bylaws, thus receiving a fine for my own informed decision, the last thing I'd do is take it to the media expecting sympathy. And do you know why? Because I know I would arouse the ire of irritable old biddies like myself, who'd know straight away I'm just an attention-seeking, spoilt twit.

The second thing that annoyed me today is reading about politicians in Ohio seeking to introduce a bill that would have doctors reimplant ectopic pregnancy or face abortion murder laws. My dudes and she-dudes, this is biological balderdash. Ectopic pregnancies are NOT VIABLE! Furthermore, they have the potential to cause fatal injury to the mother. If you want to pass bills policing women's bodies, at least have the common sense to fucking learn about them first. The Handmaid's Tale is not a textbook, it's a work of dystopian fiction, so stop trying to follow it so closely.

Finally, today I read a locally written article about a bail application relating to a crime that was committed in the area last year, and one of the sentences began with 'And'. My fellow grammarians will know this is simply not on, when it comes to sentence starters. Yes, I know my paragraph regarding the first of my annoyances today has a sentence starting with 'and' (to wit, 'And do you know why?'), but here's the difference: I'm writing a creative piece that will hopefully entertain you, whereas the article I read purported to be formal prose. When writing formal prose, my loved blog-browsers,  you do not commence a sentence with a conjunction. It ruined my day, and only a fellow grammar pedant would understand how infuriating it is to see the standards slipping and sliding like a bunch of kids (and drunken beer-gutted uncles) on a soaped-up Slip-n-Slide on a hot Christmas Day.

Well, those are my contributions for the 'power of three'. I hope you enjoyed reading them, and I hope they didn't get up your nose to the extent they did mine.

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