Gael Cliche

It’s linguistic correctness gone mad! It’s Delbo.

Somebody somewhere coins a catchy phrase and next thing you know it’s all over the web. Or its gone viral through YouTube or cable TV. Everybody down the pub is using it and it makes me heave. I’m glad the football season is over so I won’t have to hear ‘park the bus’ (they have a good defence) until August.

Or when some filmic autobore … Hang on, filmic??? This abomination means ‘it’s to do with films’. Where was I? Ah yes. Or when some filmic (spit) autobore says a film ‘pays tribute to bla bla’ all he means is that bla bla has been shamelessly plagiarised as the script-writers wouldn’t know a fresh idea if it crashed their iPad. Post-ironic (grrrr) my arse, they’re just clueless copyists.

Cliches, that’s what we’re on about here. They’ve got to be severely limited in their useage with severe mediaeval penalties falling on persistent abusers. Take the chronically overused suffix -gate. Watergate OK, that’s the origin. But in the last week I’ve endured Blattergate, Clegggate, Obamagate, Pippagate, and the simply inexcusable Giggsgate. (Surely that’s an alleyway in York?)

Due warning. This is going to get bloody folks.

What I’m asking for is your top 3 worst cliches. I want to see flesh creep and bilious eruptions here. You can cherry pick the low-hanging fruit  and move forward to claim the point. Yes, that’s right, it’s a point-tastic bonanza here at Minggate but remember folks, it all goes to charidee.

Vote Nobody

He’s got a Masters in Politics, you know.

I am quite taken by a new development in our current general election campaign. A political party that realistically has no chance whatsoever, has developed a movement for people to vote for ‘none of the above’, as the ballot slip allows. Their campaign posters show a series of unsavoury animals in suits with the slogan ‘Keep the animals out of Parliament’. Predictably the national vets association has complained for comparing innocent animals with politicians.

It reminds me of the old anarchist slogans – ‘don’t vote, it only encourages them’  and ‘whoever you vote for the politicians get in’.  But it goes beyond this to actually attempt to motivate people to vote, but actively vote for nobody at all.

It is an idea whose time has come. Plucky little Belgium has spent a year watching their bickering political parties attempt to form a coalition and fail, with the result that there has been no government for this period. And the sky didn’t fall in, regardless of the siren screeches of the doom-merchants.

So here’s your challenge. Imagine a ballot paper where you are invited to vote either for a politician (living or otherwise) or Nobody. Name that politico who so gets your hackles up that voting for Nobody is a distinctly rational choice. A point or two for the most compelling case, with credit given to pungent and intemperate language.

Meet the new boss/ same as the old boss//