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The optimist's guide to the current news shitstorm

COVID’S back, Brexit is reaching unprecedented levels of hardness, and Trump is planning another eight years. Try to look on the bright side: 

America’s west coast is on fire

The Instagram pictures of orange skies are awfully pretty, and perhaps burning Hollywood down will finally kill the Mission Impossible franchise which hasn’t had a good one since 2011.

The UK is breaking international law for Brexit

Who needs other nations? North Korea’s cut them out completely, and their leader has a 110 per cent approval rating, even dead. Just think how much happier we’d be without anyone to compare ourselves to. It’s ‘dance like nobody’s watching’ on a geopolitical scale.

The global pandemic is not going away

This COVID business is all a bit awkward, isn’t it? Still, might lower house prices a bit and help younger people – no, wait, the government has fixed it so prices are going up? Marvellous for homeowners.

Elon Musk has implanted a computer chip into a pig’s brain

This raises deep moral and ethical questions, but only for pigs. The rest of us will to find our new bus drivers, office colleagues and junior cabinet ministers much more congenial than the old ones.

Sea levels are rising

Or, look at it this way, the beaches are getting closer just as the weather’s getting warmer. Soon we’ll be a happy tropical island playing steel drums to cruise ship passengers. Wouldn’t that be better?

Five more things that are definitely caused by young people

Young people are shit. In addition to being the sole spreaders of Covid-19, here is a list of their other crimes.

Flimsy paper straws
If you’re old enough to have to drink your dinner, you’ll probably be struggling with a paper straw. That is a direct result of Gen-Z’s self-obsessed desire to ‘protect the environment’ from ‘catastrophic climate change’. Greta Thunberg cares more about molluscs than you enjoying your Friday night steak and ale pie smoothie.

Occasional gay thoughts
It can be very challenging to keep your head straight with liberal, non-binary youths being so confusingly sexy all the time. Back in the day, it was easy to know who to sexually harass. Nowadays you can’t safely perv on a girl in the street in case they turn out to be a boy.

Not getting a seat in a restaurant
It’s no wonder young people can’t afford houses when they’re out every night clogging up restaurants. It’s bad enough having to hear about the gluten-free option because of them. There was a time when coeliacs didn’t exist and you just put up with crippling pain every time you ate. Snowflakes.

That buzzing noise
There’s a high-pitched whining noise and it’s keeping you awake all night. You don’t know what it is but it sounds electrical, and electricity can only mean one thing – adolescents. It could be your tinnitus acting up, but it’s most likely a youth on a skateboard trying to beam 5G into your brain.

Cancer
One in two people will be affected by cancer in their lifetimes, and everyone has met a young person. This is not a ‘coincidence’.

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