Opinions

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Graham Chapman is a doctor and writer.

His parents hoped for a serious

jewish heterosexual son.

They were disappointed.

Tonight on Opinions he argues

that we should all stop worrying

about what the

neighbours will say.

A chat about what will the

neighbours say could become

a dissertation, a pompous

word, on peer pressure,

which is both glib, and pompous.

To help me stop this, a little box

in the bottom left of your screen

will show the number of times

the phrase peer pressure is used.

An important ethical, or sociological

statement of global significance

will be indicated by a

letter of the alphabet

in the bottom right hand

corner of the screen.

Now that we've established

these guidelines,

I hope you'll all sit back and

really enjoy this stunning chat.

Incidentally, towards the end, there

will be quite a lot of filthy talk.

Stories about sex, smutty

revelations about big names,

and what they get up to

between the sheets.

Yes, the low down on the high

life of the high fliers,

rock, superstars, film,

mega, and giga stars.

And not just towards the end either.

Then there will be some quite

lavatorial bits in a few minutes.

There. Well, what will

the neighbours say?

Now, as the son of a country copper,

a parish PC, an urban district d*ckhead,

I was made aware of this

phrase at a very early age.

If any of my family were

the subject of gossip

that would put the mockers on

dad's promotional prospects.

Perhaps it was being so aware of

this that made me ignore it totally.

I looked at my neighbours, and didn't

care what they thought, if they did.

Scandalising and mocking

nice decent ordinary folk

became the mission

of a lifetime.

Now, one thing that neighbours

say almost universally,

is that everyone should settle down,

and get married, and have a family.

What a load of donkey do's!

Why in grantham should

anyone commit themself

to a path of such

mindstunting mediocrity?

It's not as if the one thing the world

really needs is more children.

There's nothing clever or difficult

about the act of procreation.

There are four and a half

thousand million of us

on this crowded blue

planet already.

And this will rise to twelve thousand

million in forty years time,

if people continue to settle down,

get married, and have families.

Think of that. Three times

more people then there are now.

Try and find a job then,

you family lovers.

Think of that you in the rush hour, or

while you're on a crowded beach in Ibiza.

Now I know my voice gets louder and

rises in pitch as I warm to my theme,

but I'll try and change that.

Of course, the population of this

country will not rise as quickly

as that of the less

educated part of the world.

But then, we're overpopulated

already, you dumb clucks!

I'm sorry.

Halve the population of Britain,

and there might be hope of

it being self sufficient.

With those who want to work

in interesting jobs working,

and those who don't, just reading

books and playing snooker.

Recreating, but not

reproducing ourselves,

while robots, quite rightly, do all

the messy, boring, and dangerous jobs

we would have such fun

creating them to do,

like mucking out the anaconda.

I mean, swell me, two thirds

of the world is starving now,

Our limited natural resources

are rapidly being used up.

Oil, minerals, forestry, entire

species of animals wiped out

by humanity's unthinking expansion.

Think of this.

And think how, in the name of god,

if there is such an entity,

can people adopt an

attitude of high morality

when advising you to get

married and have a family.

They are of course

using an outdated morality,

one of an age of primitive tribalism.

This is perpetuated by many modern

religions and political beliefs.

In a tribal era, if you were going to

survive primitive hand to hand combat

with other tribes, you

needed more tribespersons.

Tribespersons, through

ignorance, were malnourished,

ate lumps of dirt, swapped

plagues with each other,

and were generally

infected and infested,

living short lives in

verminous clutches.

In those days, if they were

going to survive at all,

they had to reproduce like

rabbits to make up the deficit.

It is precisely against such a

background that many religions began.

The trouble is, they haven't

changed their act since.

Silly people, silly pope.

And for those of you

in Northern Ireland:

You have noticed how I fell

of my chair just then?

Of course you did.

I commend your attention spans.

And for those of you who

have short attention spans,

and maybe are already staring

blankly at the screens,

going back to your knitting

or just chasing crabs,

wake up and pay attention!

I don't intend to go

over all this again.

If you are that stupid, or

have just come into the room,

I am talking about what

will the neighbours say,

a little chat about peer pressure.

The way the weak and feeble amongst us

allow others to determine

the course of our lives.

Now, where was I?

You know, even before a child is born,

parents begin to worry about what

the neighbours will say about it.

Do you want a boy or a girl?

Now if it happens to be a boy,

there's often extra celebration,

presumably because of

the tender thought

that a boy may well earn

more money later on,

and not shame his family by not

getting married and or getting pregnant.

Also it's thought boys are more likely

to become sport stars, pop singers,

union leaders, airline pilots,

Harley Street proctologists etcetera.

But then aren't they also more likely

to become second hand car salesmen,

football hooligans, and or

psychopathic mass murderers?

As soon as a new infant

arrives in the world,

it is entered for a competition

with the neighbours.

Will she be called Sarah Maude,

or Charlene Chirrel?

Will he be called Simon Bend,

or Dwayne, or Darrell?

How painful of painless

was the delivery?

How heavy was the baby?

How long was it?

Did it have hair, and

were all its bits there?

Does it even remotely resemble its father?

Was its name put down for private school,

and if so, how long before birth?

Or is it so special that it

should have no special privileges

and be sent to one of the best

local educational authority schools

that the parents could

just happen to live near?

Fortunately, the neighbours

have at long last admitted

that they boobed over bottle feeding

and now sensibly recommend the breast.

Look, we've run out of letters

for the right hand corner already,

and it's a bit confusing with

that peer pressure thing

going on in the other corner,

I think it'd be better

if you'd just assumed

that everything I say

is stageringly important.

You won't go far wrong.

The next neighbourly competition

is called milestones.

How much more quickly did

your child learn to grin,

walk, crawl, take that

up, and deduct, teeth?

All useful signs for the paediatrician

looking for abnormalities,

but even better for gossip.

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