The Headmistress Effect - a rant against practically everything

I am SICK TO DEATH of being told what to do. By the government, the aspiring government, the health Nazis, the social reformers and practically everyone else who thinks, somehow, they have a right to tell everyone else The Way To Do It.

Take, for instance, this supremely daft idea of David Cameron's to give married couples a tax break in order to promote Marriage As A Way Of Life. We are no longer ruled by the Christian Church, it is no longer evil to live with a partner, of either sex, and the presence, lurking at the bottom of a dusty drawer, of a piece of paper stating that X and Y stood up in front of a person in a long white frock or a smart navy suit who did nothing more than say a few words at them, is not going to stop the breakdown of a relationship.

And today - exemptions from debt for students who get first class degrees??? I am so incensed I can barely type the words.

So far in the naughties and now the - what? teens? - we are no longer allowed to smoke anywhere but our own homes (and watch it! They'll try and stop that next) and the Milk Marketing Board, or whatever it likes to call itself these days, is telling us we are now ready to change from semi-skimmed to skimmed milk. Have they told the cows?

The attitude has slithered down to otherwise intelligent individuals, too. There have always been people who have no fear of telling you exactly what their opinion is on any given subject, and, again, telling you what to do. But now these people, and a good many more, show total disapproval if you deviate from their notion of How It Should Be Done.

I am fed up with it. (Had you guessed?) I really didn't think I would grow up to live in an Autocracy, but it appears to be the way we are going. Big Brother reigns, OK. And not on telly, either. Isn't there anybody out there in some sort of position of power who will tell the afore-mentioned organisations that they are being bl**dy daft? It's 2010 and most of us are grown up. As long as I don't kick the cats, and I'm nice to my children, I'll do what I like, thank you very much.