The builder boyfriend sat nervously in front of my laptop as I logged him in to do his speed awareness course.
I sat him at the kitchen table, I clicked the link the speed course people sent him and then, as we waited for them to admit him, I began my pep talk: ‘Do not say anything political. Do not joke. Joking is the worst thing you could possibly do.’ I had already decided this was going to end badly.
How could the builder boyfriend button his lip long enough to get through a three-hour online speed awareness course – the result of a trip to the UK to do a roofing job – without being reported to the police for coming out with something you are not allowed to say any more?
How could he manage to have some po-faced, overpaid functionary lecture him about the non-crime he had committed – driving at 32mph – without eventually bursting with the anger of the righteous working man and telling the merciless technocrats who still manage to rule us, even though we have moved to West Cork, what he thinks of them?
He would be speaking for millions if he did give them a piece of his mind. But the whole object of this course being to avoid points and higher insurance, I urged him to remain focused on affecting compliance, no matter how preposterous things got.
The poor chap looked wretched, sitting in front of a conference-calling software program he doesn’t understand with a screwed up half-packet of cough sweets, a cup of instant coffee, an old pen hardly working and a scrap of paper he’d pulled out of his work jeans pocket to write on.
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