Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Real life | 31 December 2015

2016 was to be the year of no more principled stands, but that was before I got wind of London’s first toilets for the socially excluded

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issue 02 January 2016

‘Sadly, the world is filled with apathy,’ said my friend, as we looked at our sad little list of conscripts to the cause of fighting left-wing lunacy in our local neighbourhood. He’s right. But I can’t help feeling, as I enter another year of what will surely turn out to be non-stop trouble, that a bit of apathy would do me good.

My problem is I suffer from the reverse of apathy. I’m too bothered by everything. I can’t stop objecting. I need to sit back and learn how not to give a damn. The apathetic masses must have much lower blood pressure than me. And a lot more friends. When I look back on 2015 it was one tiresome principled stand after another.

I took a stand against house-building on the green belt. I took a stand against HS2. I took a stand against my friends sneaking down the pub with the ex-builder boyfriend, the dubious result of which was that whereas before they drank discreetly with my ex behind my back, now most of them don’t speak to me at all.

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