The world seems to be filling up with imbeciles

From The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. Page 95.

Back at the hotel, I showered, then sat on the edge of my bed watching TV, waiting for it to be time for a drink, and wondering how many tens of thousands of days have passed since BBC One last showed a programme that anyone not on medication would want to watch. I flicked through the channels to see what else was on and the very best option available was Michael Portillo riding a train in the north of England in a pink shirt and yellow trousers, clutching an old guidebook. Occasionally he would get off the train and spend approximately forty seconds with a local historian who would explain to him why something that used to be there is no longer there.

‘So this used to be the site of the biggest prosthetics mill in Lancashire?’ Michael would say.

‘That’s right. Fourteen thousand girls worked here in its heyday.’

‘Gosh. And now it’s this Asda superstore?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Gosh. That’s progress for you. Well, I’m off to Oldham to see where they used to make clogs for sheep. Ta-ta.’

And this really was the best thing on.

At dinner I brought the subject up. ‘I like Michael Portillo,’ Daniel said, but then Daniel likes everybody. He told us that shows on some satellite stations have more people working in the studio than are watching at home.

I mentioned my observation that the world seems to be filling up with imbeciles. They explained to me that this is simply an affliction of age. The older you get the more it seems the world belongs to other people. Daniel, it turned out, had it much worse than I did. He had a whole list of demands for putting the world back to the way it ought to be. I can’t remember exactly what they were, but I am pretty sure they included leaving the European Union, returning to the gold standard, banning planes from flying over Chiswick, restoring the British Empire and home deliveries of milk, and stopping immigration.

‘I’m an immigrant,’ I pointed out.

He nodded grimly. ‘You can stay,’ he allowed at last, ‘but you must understand you are permanently on probation.’ I assured him that I had never considered myself anything else.

The rest of the evening was mostly filled with drinking too much and recounting our infirmities, but as mine are principally to do with memory loss I don’t recall the details.