MÉNAGE A TROIS

If you are hoping for something with a salacious flavour – forget it! You can find that on many other blogs.... if you are a thoughtful reader (and I know that you are), read on....

I am a smoker; have been so for most of my 68 years. It may not be “politically correct” to say so, but screw political correctness. In my early days of smoking I remember small tobacco shops who would create a tobacco mix especially for the individual; it was an art form as the owner, with vast experience, would take an amount of one tobacco, an amount of another and perhaps one or two more. The end result was an extraordinary blend of aromas and flavours. Sadly, they are no more.

It occurs to me that this small, blue planet has suffered varying degrees of conflict in the name of “isms”. I am happy that I lived and worked in what the French term “les trente glorieuses”; these three decades of economic prosperity which combined high productivity with high wages and high consumption, and were also characterised by a highly developed system of social benefits. Capitalism, Socialism and Communism have been the three main protagonists with a bevy of spin-offs trading under one name or another, each proclaiming they offer “the best and most” for the individual. But each one has, through time and the hidden agendas of those who promote their specific ‘ism’, been bastardised out of all recognition. I would say that having lived under all three ‘isms’ each has something to offer without going to extremes. The problem has always been that one ‘ism’ paints its opposition as blacker than black, and itself as whiter than white. In actual fact neither is correct, since life is never absolutes but ‘shades of grey’.

What is now sorely needed is a “small tobacconist” with the skills of blending to take the best of the three main ‘isms’ and create a new, single approach to politics and economics, for the benefit of the majority and without hidden agendas – a ménage a trois. It will never happen in my lifetime, but….

Now, where did I put my pipe……

Until next time,

P.S.