8degreesoflatitude

AUSTRALIA | Taking it on the chin

Like the flatfooted NSW premier, Dom Perrottet, though in my case through a compulsion known only to someone else’s god, I feel the need to confess. 

Moreover, the significant lack of judgment of which I am culpable and for which I am compelled by unknown forces to plead for understanding and sympathy was not committed when I was a callow lad of 21, formally adult but far from grown up. 

No, my fancy dress offence is far greater. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. It took place when I was 50, which by any measure of circuits of the sun except that of political opportunism, is an age at which lapses of judgment and demonstrations of bad taste should be well behind you.

Perrottet dressed in Nazi uniform for his fancy dress appearance. Dumb. So dull. He should have gone as Il Duce. His uniforms were far more sparkly, and his hats were to die for.

My offence, in contrast, was far greater. It was at a Mediaeval-themed wedding and I went as Crusader knight of the era. You know, those guys who “took the Cross” in the patois of the age and buzzed off to the Holy Land, aka Outremer, to slay as many infidel Mohammedans and Christ-killer Jews as possible and do a bit of rape, pillage and looting on the side.

No, there are no photographs, so don’t ask. But I still know some people who saw me at the scene. How embarrassing. In my defence, can I say that I only went as a knight because by the time the Distaff and I got around to acquiring costumes to go, the only other remaining option was to dress up as a monk, complete with crucifix. I wasn’t a believer by then, but it would still have seemed like sacrilege. (The Distaff went as Lady Shallot, or something, complete with wimple. She looked a treat.)

Gosh, I’m so glad to have got that off my chest. It’s been too long. Longer than Perrottet’s been hiding his own dirty secret. My crime was committed in 1995, prehistoric times for many these days. Dom’s party was in 2003.

But, seriously … 

Let’s get real …

Politics is a vacuous game at the best of times. State politics in Australia adds enervation to the mix. It’s heady stuff. It invites one to consider how the proven benefits of catalepsy – coma can be fun, you know – could be a better option. 

That Perrottet wore a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party might be an indication of many things (remember I only dressed up as a bad knight because other options were unavailable in store): Lack of judgment, lapse of taste, a penchant for vapid Australian hooray henry-ism, whatever. It does not for a moment indicate that he had failed to understand the pernicious secular faith of the madman Hitler and his acolytes, or its murderous effect on Jews, Gipsies, deformed or defective human beings of any provenance, and sundry others, including Russian prisoners of war. It simply indicates that at 21 he was remarkably thick. 

I do not live in NSW, so I won’t have to not vote for him. But if I did live in NSW and didn’t vote for him, it wouldn’t be because he was evidently remarkably thick 20 years ago.