First-world problems

For those who think the sky’s about to fall in should they a) break a nail, b) be mis-gendered, c) lose an egg-and-spoon race (or just take part in an egg-and-spoon race if you’re vegan), then look away now. You’re only gonna get mad.

Yessiree: a first-world problem is defined as a situation or an event that’s classified as a problem only by those who are sufficiently monied / healthy / lucky / myopic for it not to be a problem in the greater scheme of things. I do like the phrase, despite the fact it insinuates that everyone living in the third world isn’t monied, healthy or lucky. And conversely, I don’t like the terms first and third world on their own; they imply that the third world is inferior to or behind the first world. Which proves my point. Spending time stressing over whether ‘first-world problem’ is an appropriate phrase is indeed a first-world problem. Are others offended / irritated / outraged by me adopting this phrase? That’s their first-world problem.

Here's another one. A seat on one of my loos (yes, I have more than one loo. How first-world am I?) had worked loose and moved at inopportune moments. (No more details forthcoming.) And of course it’s a new-fangled, high-tech, why-can’t-they-keep-things-simple loo seat where I had to find the instructions because I hadn’t a clue how to fix it, even though I have a science master’s from Cambridge. I eventually found the instructions, filed under ‘Receipts’, but the manufacturer is catering for a global market; so instead of going to the expense of explaining things in multiple languages, it resorted to text-free diagrams. What the H does that symbol mean? What and where the H is that arrow directing? Eventually I worked it out – I have a science master’s from Cambridge – and have a stable loo seat once more.

Talking of loos, the BBC ranted and raved the other day about supposedly unreported sewage spills in our rivers and lakes, which got all the usual suspects frothing at the mouth, out of which spurts foulness worse than any Combined Sewage Overflow. Darlings – in the third world, many don’t have flushable toilets. They don’t have enough or clean water to drink, never mind kayak in. Their water is not comparatively cheap for the availability and quality. They don’t have generous pension funds invested in water companies. They haven’t the time or energy to climb on the latest ill-informed, bleeding-heart, politically expedient bandwagon. Friendly advice x3 to said usual suspects: get a grip of the facts not the fallacious; get a grip of priorities not posturings; just get a grip.

The weather has been awful, hasn’t it? I’ve had five ‘summer’ social events the last seven days. The first one I put my silk dress back in the wardrobe and dug out a thick cotton one and a coat. By the time of the fifth event, I was wearing a woollen dress, a padded gilet and a wind-proof raincoat. At least I had the choice of warmer clothes, unlike in the third world. The icing on the cake? Deciding on shoes, handbags and jewellery each time I changed my mind re the dress. So horrendous! Can’t imagine a greater hardship (unless I lived in the third world).

I expect Princess Kate is going through a great hardship at the mo. She’s not my favourite Royal (but way more likeable than Diana Spencer). I can’t seem to warm to her, whereas I adore Camilla, Anne and Sophie. But what’s important is, she’s going through a cancer scare and she’s a wife and a mum, and she brings a lot of joy to a lot of people. So to sneer at the press coverage of her predicament and the rabid speculation that she might be at Trooping of the Colour (she was – she needs to eat more carbs) justifying the sneering because she’s Royal and privileged, is just mean and a warped first-world indulgence.

I mentioned in my previous blog that I’d recently been at an event (one of those freezing cold ones) where the guest speaker had once been cancelled. He’d said something ‘unacceptable’. Others have said worse – I’ve actually been on the receiving end – but they have the cheek to lambast this particular gentleman, claiming some sort of warped moral high ground. I chatted to him after his speech. He was charming, chivalrous, witty, sensitive, philosophical, receptive, uber intelligent and resilient. I sensed that what hurt was not that he’d been cancelled by the faceless (brainless) mob, but that people / institutions to whom he’d been generous and indulgent and a good friend over the years hadn’t supported him in his hour of need. I guess echo chambers, political correctness and Guardian fellowship trumps loyalty and forgiveness. What has this to do with first-world problems and third-world real life? Before he was cancelled, this gentleman had directly helped some from the third world, and first-world posturing put a stop to it. Ironic, eh?

Another first-world problem, apparently, is the – er – first world. Listening to some (who should know better but they read the Guardian), all the world’s ills are down to the colonial, neo-colonial, imperialist, neo-liberal, capitalist first world (or Global North as the intelligentsia prefer to call it). Even my buying green beans from Kenya (via Waitrose) is a bad thing, because the Kenyan farmer gets pennies as most of the purchase price goes to middlemen (or should that be middlethem). But when I point out that the Kenyan farmer wouldn’t get anything if no one bought his green beans, and that some middlemen are based in Africa, I’m told that the structure needs to be dismantled. I think by that they mean a Marxist takeover of the whole world. The fact that no (neo-)Marxist state has ever succeeded appears to have passed them by. Another fact is that large swathes of the third world are beset by tyranny, wars, insurrection, terrorism, neo-Islam, corruption, incompetence, China – and Marxism. All this is more to blame for current ills than Queen Victoria. Or Nigel Farage.

It’s not that I’m a my-country-right-or-wrong kinda gal. More my country before any other. If you have a problem with that, it can only be a first-world problem.