When my lads were little, they liked watching Lamb Chop’s Sing-Along. Invariably, the characters ended the show by singing The Song That Doesn’t End. A recent trip to Perth left me with that song repeating endlessly in my head.
I’ve heard Cory Bernardi talk about Qantas’ ‘welcome to country’ announcements (technically an acknowledgement of country), but I’d never experienced it until recently. As long as I don’t have to listen to three different Anglo speakers emphatically and performatively acknowledge Indigenous custodianship at an everyday online meeting, it’s usually no skin off my nose.
But Wokedom is no longer just one thing here or there. It has become all-pervasive.
After sitting on the tarmac for 45 minutes while Qantas staff searched for the guy who booked the cricket team’s luggage (‘we will have to remove all 45 bags of luggage before we can depart… Oh, wait, maybe he was the person who booked the cricket team’s flights? Yes. We can go now. Enjoy your breakfast), the Wokeness began.
On the back of the Aussie cricket captain’s recent Woke nonsense, I was not amused. And then came the breakfast.
‘Continental or hot breakfast?’ I opted for hot. A continental breakfast is expensive talk for cornflakes. I can’t eat cornflakes without thinking of Tim Brooke-Taylor’s skit, Plastic Spacemen: ‘Oh look, Mummy, I found a cornflake.’ My sense of humour ended there.
The hot breakfast was offered as a frittata with a chicken sausage. But after two disgusting mouthfuls, I read the label: ‘kale and quinoa fritter’. I folded up the meal and dumped it in the bag as the attendant passed by.
A few hours later I listened to the acknowledgement of country as we landed in Perth and I caught a taxi (not an Uber – they kept bumping my fare) to my hotel. At last I could relax. Or so I thought. But wait, there’s more!
The toiletries in my hotel were conveniently made of kale, chia seeds, and parsley stalks. How can it be possible that even the toiletries are Woke?
The only thing I’ve found kale good for is attracting masses of cabbage moths. Even my chooks won’t eat it.
I decided to stay on the safe side. So, I emailed my meal preferences to the convener of the conference I was attending: ‘All the meat – no fish. All the gluten. I am allergic to vegan and vegetarian food and non-alcoholic beverages. Thank you.’
Next time I travel Qantas, perhaps I’ll pre-order my ‘special’ breakfast: bacon and eggs with a black coffee.
What annoys me most is that big companies like Qantas are moving beyond virtue signalling. They think this is a market trend. I doubt these woke capitalists have ever eaten their disgusting Woke breakfasts.
Like Lamb Chop’s song, ‘This is the Woke that doesn’t end, it just goes on and on my friends. Somebody started ignoring it not knowing what it was…’
Until this most recent trip, I thought that Wokeness was merely another academic trend. But when it up-ends the food we eat and the political rituals we are forced to endure, it is inherently political. And, most abrasively, it is not of my politics.
Woke rituals are trying to take on the appearance of morals or even laws, to the point where we endure them whether we like it or not. I may have sworn an oath to serve my country when I joined the Army, but like they said, ‘You joined the Army, the Army didn’t join you.’
But woke rituals are not voluntary. That is why I object to the current virtue-signalling by hypocrites. Especially when it comes from businesses where I am the customer. Remember, dear Woke businesses, ‘You work for us, we don’t work for you!’
So, for goodness’ sake, now we know what ‘Woke’ means, call it out for the nonsense it is before the fun police completely ruin travel, too.
