Experts

"Go away!! Just leave me alone, will you!!"


I found a kindred spirit today - and he's a seal. He's Sahara the hooded seal.
Please spare a thought for Sahara as you attempt to wade through the metaphorical treacle of another day in the 21st Century because he, like me, and I suspect you, is suffering at the hands of people who insist they know what's best - the ubiquitous "experts".
I am told on a daily basis that I am doing everything wrong. I eat the wrong food, apparently. I wear the wrong clothes, allegedly. I drink the wrong things, supposedly. I have eaten bacon and so I will get cancer. I have been out in the sun so I will get cancer. I have used a mobile phone so I will get cancer. My bottom will fall off because I don't eat five pieces of fruit-a-day. My penis will fall off because I smoke. My feet will fall off because I've been on a plane. My pension is too small so I will die in poverty. My debts are too large so I will die in poverty. I will drown because I'm melting the ice caps. I will be burned alive because I've used aerosol deodorants. I will have a heart attack because I'm overweight. I will have a heart attack because I'm middle-aged. I will have a heart attack because I'm a man. I will have a heart attack because I worry...............No wonder I bloody worry!! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, WILL YOU!!!!!
If seals could talk, I am certain that you would find poor Sahara yelping that line repeatedly to the gaggle of "experts" who have decided that he is not living his life the way they think he should. What did Sahara do to warrant this unwanted attention? He decided to take himself off to Tenerife for the winter!
I awoke this morning to find a heavy frost on the ground and the air as cold as a witch's mammary gland. Would that I were on some sun-kissed isle, I thought. Sadly, I can't afford the air fare and I'm not that strong a swimmer. Sahara, on the other hand, is quite good at swimming. So, off he goes. It's a fair few hundred miles but the thought of putting his flippers up in the sun obviously kept him going.
He gets to his destination and no sooner has he unpacked his little bag and put his towel out on the rocks than the "experts" appear over the horizon and tell him that he should be in the waters off Iceland. Before our little hero can object he is crated up and flown to the African mainland. From there he is jetted back to the south coast of Britain and then he is loaded onto a lorry and driven from Land's End to John O'Groats. Then he is packed off to the Orkney Islands where a radio transmitter is stuck on his back and he is dumped in the freezing Arctic waters!
More than a thousand miles the poor little lad had been hauled, and why? Because "they" know best. Sahara, however, vowed not to be beaten. What did he do? He promptly headed south again and made it as far as Spain before the "experts" caught up with him again. I mean, weren't they getting the bloody message by then? Had they even bothered to consider the remote possibility that perhaps Sahara WANTED to be where he was? Nope, of course they hadn't. So, what did they do? Yup, they crated him up and packed him back off to the Orkneys! Poor sod!
Why don't they just leave him alone?
Let's hope that Sahara is battling his way back down south again as we speak, muttering "fuck 'em!" as he goes. In the meantime, for his sake and mine, the "experts" can take a trip to Grantham.