Imperfect = Bad

It strikes me lately how our society is becoming obsessed with removing all imperfection - witness the uproar over a few politicians' use of their "work" credit cards for private expenses - most of which, it seemed to me, had been genuinely repaid later, with a few forgotten. In Chris Carter's Ministry, one of the staff members had the job of trawling through lists and letting him know how much was personal and had to be repaid. And as I said at home, before Winston Peters did on the radio - imagine standing at the reception desk of a major hotel going through each and every mini-bar purchase, use of gym, spa, or movie rental, and getting each member of the party to line up one-by-one to pay their little bit. Much more sensible to do it in one lump and apportion it later. No doubt the odd thing will get on the wrong list and the odd MP will cheat, but these should be fixed up quickly and heads should only roll if there has been blatant repeat sneaky use of it. I found myself thinking of TV shows of the recent past - like The Vicar of Dibley - where we are laughing with and at the most imperfect people and yet loving them. The only characters in that show that are not actually certifiably insane and / or mentally deficient are a fat greedy woman and a snooty greedy rich man. David is possibly the most morally upright, and certainly the most intelligent, of the village's native inhabitants, living properly in a beautiful house, wearing the right clothes and talking correctly. And he is the least lovable of the lot - we do eventually come to love him, but it is despite his correctness, success and efficiency, not because of it. It is the quirks and weirdnesses of all those substandard weirdos that make them separate, identifiable people. I'm thinking along these lines because of the no-smoking-for-prisoners ruling coming up soon, as well as the credit card affaire. I can argue both sides of the debate to myself very well - leave the poor lowlifes some tactile pleasure, versus we mustn't contribute to the enforced passive smoking of the staff, nor of the inmates. I don't know which I really think the stronger argument, but I do think our society in general is just trying to clean everything up too much, iron out the wrinkles that make a person or a place memorably who or what they are. All of my favourite people have had characteristics or habits that I really hated - and it didn't stop me loving them for their creative genius or their lovingness or their own peculiar brand of me-ness, as I love cats for their sometimes aloof independence, and dogs for their joyful slobberiness. One of my imperfect idols smokes a particularly nasty brand of cigarette and nips out regularly to swig at a hip flask, a couple are really not very bright, a few go on and on about things I was only mildly interested in, one or two are fat and several have bad breath. The one in whom I have been unable to discern any faults in self-reports a couple of doozies. One proudly kept his flat so dirty that I always arranged a toilet stop before visiting. The one I liked enough to marry, I could list pages and pages of imperfections, as could he of me - up close nothing is hidden. Fortunately plenty on the other side of the ledger is also more than visible.Two people I liked very much took such a strong dislike to each other (one was very arrogant, one very Buddhist, both highly intelligent but the quieter, less arrogant one probably more so) that it was impossible to ask them both to the same do ever again. It didn't stop me liking them both. I liked the abrasive rational pushing and challenging of the arrogant one, and the loving gentle wisdom of the quieter one. Just as, in comedy, I love both the old "My Word" and "Just a Minute" radio quiz shows, where anything unseemly has to enter by stealth and by innuendo - and my word does it ever! AND the brasher, ruder, things like Blackadder, Ben Elton, and so forth. Maybe next time you're tempted to Improve Yourself, you have a look at enjoying life instead? As it is, now. More money, a better figure, less nicotine, etc, will only give you a different style of enjoyment and circle of friends, not necessarily more enjoyment or more friends. Laughs of a different kind but not more laughs. It isn't necessarily greener over there - or if it is, all that leafery has plenty of scope for hiding some whopper bugs.