The 3 B’s.

“You can’t come in, you’re not the same as us.”

“Well, I am the same as you, just different.”

“No, you look different to us.”

“I might look different, but in actual fact I am the same.”

“You can’t look different and be the same, that makes you different AND stupid.”

“But if I’m stupid, that makes you stupid, because we are the same.”

“For the final time, we are not the same, we live here, you look different to us, so you can’t come in.”

“Ok, ask the pork scratchings what to do.”

“Don’t ask them, they’ll only call a referendum.”

Said the garibaldi to the wafer.

Now, you might not live in a World where the contents of your kitchen cupboard speak to each other and discriminate based on what you look like, what your beliefs are or how stupid someone thinks you are.

But you do live in a World where humans behave like this. And that is surely not right.

We are all different but we are all the same, to quote a poem or two and the fabulous band James who say “There’s only one human race, many faces, we all belong here.”

We seem to have become polarised: if someone doesn’t agree with you, they are wrong. If you don’t agree with them, you are stupid. But it is possible, I’m told, to have a different view to someone, but still get on.

Imagine, if you can, a huge, friendly march of people from one side, peacefully putting their point of view across. And imagine also, a smaller march, driven by people with a dislike of difference.

It is not the job of the friendly marchers to point out why they are so much better, because that just creates conflict. What if both sides took a moment to look at the similarities they have. They both love their country. They are both human. I imagine some of them even live in the same street. I might also be a little wide of the mark on one of those assumptions.

Try being nice, try seeing another point of view, try helping someone see yours.

Don’t let a bunch of self-serving, rich and arrogant over-grown schoolboys and girls, who all meet each other for a drink afterwards and base their supposed dislike of each other on where they went to school, manipulate you into lining their pockets.

I’m just a gardener, and I spend my time outside, in nature, thinking my own thoughts, which often gets quite overwhelming, because I really am quite stupid and I really don’t understand why I, as a lowly gardener, can see we are being manipulated for other people’s benefit. That doesn’t mean I think I’m any better than anyone else, because if I did, I’d be a politician.

And I’m not convinced a manifesto of biscuits for all, compulsory dog stroking and just be nice would get me terribly far. Or maybe it would.

What do the 3 B’s stand for, you might have asked yourself before you started reading this garbled nonsense. It’s obvious: Biscuits, Brexit and Balderdash.  The fourth B, I leave to The Dancing Queen: “Bloody Hell, that’s the last time I leave you on your own whilst I go to church”.