“I’m so proud to stand before you after yet another year of increased profits. At this rate there is not a single competitor who can claim any more than 6% of the market share. The team that sits before me is the sole reason for this. It is your hard work, your extreme dedication, your attention to detail and inability to let anything, regardless of how small it may be, slide that allows us to grow while the rest of the market slows. With this team in place, their is no way we can fail. Now, do we have any… ah yes I can see a hand raised already, that’s what I like to see. You have a question?”

Someone let it slip to me about two weeks ago now. And it’s damn near driven me insane. They let it slip so casually too, like they’d said nothing interesting.

“The elderly love feeding the ducks.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

The hick of today is a stunning sophisticate compared to his counterpart of only one or two generations ago. Often flaunting an Ivy League education and a job in the public eye requiring diplomacy and social nuancing, today’s cracker, compared to yesterday’s in terms of sophistication, is as Rand Paul is to Harry Truman, or as Jeff Daniel is to Oliver Hardy, or as Miley Cyrus is to Minnie Pearl. You would never guess how many influential politicians, trend-setters and opinion-mongers are actually outlanders from benighted states like Ohio and Texas and Kentucky, but grown remarkably adept and refined.

If I had a talking dog I would train it to have a reasonable debate with the postman rather than viciously attacking him. It could politely ask:

“What are you doing in my garden? Please get out of my garden.”

And the postman would reply:

“Please don’t be cross, I have letters for you, they are replies from all those celebrities you write to.”