In passing

I am so allergic to euphemisms that I am prone to stop reading (or visibly cringe) when a writer (or speaker) describes a dead person as having ‘passed’ — not to be confused with being ‘past’, the state of no longer being in the present. I grew up in a world of euphemisms, of aversion to calling a spade a spade, although nowadays one probably needs a euphemism for a ‘spade’. For long into adolescence I thought ‘numbers’ was a euphemism for faeces because when I was told to “go and do my numbers” no-one explained there were two things involved: number 1 and number 2. (Hypocrisy warning: Using the medical term ‘faeces’ as an alternative to ‘turds’ might be seen as a kind of euphemism). Genteel visitors to the family home would say they needed to ‘spend’ a penny, ‘powder their noses’, or ‘visit the smallest room’ when even ‘doing their numbers’ sounded too explicit. (Of course, we youngsters still knew the words ‘piss’ and ‘shit’ even though speaking them was taboo.) So, I am happy to pass the salt, to pass when asked a tricky question, to strive to pass muster, to pass the time of day, perhaps even to pass water, and not to pass by on the other side. But please, when my time is up, no-one say that I have passed. If you do, I will come back to haunt you! Just grant me the dignity of simply having died.

Corrida de Toros

 The bull has left his pen and is in the ring, the spectators are in their seats, baying for blood, a whole nation of them in front of their TVs rather than behind the barrera, The banderilleros have done their preliminary softening-up: the 100 tories voting against the Government’s whipped proposal for covid passports. The arch-picador is drip-feeding the news media with damaging stories about boozy parties in No 10’s garden during lockdowns, If the bull is sufficiently weakened and ready for the matador to drive his sword into his aorta of power, who might deliver the coup de grâce? Could it be a rich donor, like Baron Bamford threatening to withhold his millions? Or perhaps a majority of Tory rebels worried about losing their seats? Or even those spectators, due to cast (or withhold) their votes in May? There’s no time to lose. The next contender is already in the pen.