Textbook Folly
The sensible Swedes have struck a mortal blow against the post-literate future.
Despite my card-carrying liberalism—at least in the old-fashioned and sane sense of the word—I harbour a burgeoning desire for corporal punishment. Pelting miscreants with mouldy tomatoes or rotten eggs seems to me a fun, socially corrective outing.
Every day, whether on the tube, in a pub, or swanning around town, intrusive thoughts command me to smash eggs at strangers. Look around. From man to pig and pig to man, they pollute the airwaves with the demented cackling of their TikTok feeds. They thumb the screen, eyes rapt like improperly dosed mental patients. It’s a scene from the Walking Dead: Con-tent! Con-tent!
You might think it’s none of my business. Oi, Gage! Give it a rest. Have a day off, mate. You could bore a Xanax to sleep. Stop being so judgemental. Live and let live.
I could not agree more. To live and let live is the principle which I hold dear, even if so few agree in 2026. Live and let live is the British default setting. A setting we exported (or enforced depending upon your sensibilities…) to the rest of the world.
Trevor Phillips, the British politico, mentioned this recently in a piece for The Times. Phillips, not one to coat his words in white spirit, added a crucial caveat: Live and let live—but don’t take the piss.
For non-British readers, a quick primer. To take the piss is to mock, to ridicule, or to push a situation beyond the boundaries of fair play. In the British psyche, it is the ultimate social sin: the act of exploiting another’s good nature for one’s own gain.
In the 17th century, before modern chemistry, the destitute collected and sold urine to gunpowder merchants. To ‘take the piss’ meant to worsen an already dire situation. Hence, if you ‘haven’t got a pot to piss in’ you’re flat broke.
Thankfully, we no longer carry around with us buckets of urine, but we still lambast the piss-taker. He is the one who corrupts the British ‘live and let live’ default and cloaks his own insolence behind it.
Here is a prime example of a piss-take. According to primary school teachers, many children shamble through the doors today zombified and crying out for their iPads.
Their parents, lined at the school gates, barely say goodbye, what with the hypnotic drivel spewing from their iPhones.
The kids greet their teachers with the YouTube vernacular: “Hi, guys!” When handed a book, they swipe and tear at the unfamiliar paper. They greet each other with: “Welcome to my channel!”.
Finally, when they leave, they don’t say goodbye. They say: “Remember to like and subscribe!”
