D
Damage limitation
An attempt to restrict the amount of harm done by an act or statement.
Was there ever a time when politicians told the truth? Probably not. Was there ever a time when politicians didn’t try to avoid the issue? Probably not. And damage limitation is just a new name for a very old practice; telling the truth when all other forms of defence have failed.
Dance
Moving the body to music.
Ballet is moving the body to music, of course it is, but ballet has one set of supporters and dance has another. And dance should be a verb, the thing that people do in dark and smoky rooms when they hope to go to bed with each other, but in this instance dance is a noun, is about moving the body in the hope of moving others to make erudite statements.
Dangerous drugs
Substances which kill.
Nowhere is hypocrisy more prevalent than in the filed of mind altering substances. Apart from the Mormons (an American sect who sell their wares from door to door) most people would be horrified if you put coffee in the same class as cocaine, or even tobacco in the same class as heroine, yet all four can and do kill. It all depends on how and where you use them, and what is the Government’s attitude to them. There is no logic in treating alcohol, a very dangerous and heavily taxed drug, any differently to any of the so called ‘hard drugs’, unless of course it is the public perception and morality, which in turn is the life blood of Government policy. In conclusion then, dangerous drugs are those drugs which have not been legalised, and are therefore not subject to taxation.
Death
The end of everything, for all of us.
I have a suspicion that, when it comes, it will be similar to a drunken stupor but with no danger of a hangover in the morning. It is probably boredom raised to a higher level, or even the eternal and everlasting disappearance of Coronation Street from my life. And it is a cliché to say that it comes to all of us, which of course it does, but it comes to some sooner than others, depending on prevailing government attitudes. Take capital punishment for instance. It is said to be a deterrent, though there is no evidence for that, not when people steal fewer sheep now than they ever did when they could be hung for it. What it is is a state sanctioned murder which becomes a covert entertainment for the narrow minded and hypocritical, a punishment which can only be imposed by those who are already morally dead. NB: In certain countries it is the punishment for being a Booker Prize winning author, or a woman who has forgotten who she is married to.
Debt
The condition of owing something.
We have already looked at the possibility that certain institutions, banks and the like, make money not because they produce anything of value but because other people owe them money. We now turn to the mechanics of this arrangement. Debt is a complex calculation which equates as any sum of money owed which exceeds the sum needed to recover it. It is a fiscal liability only when the creditor is a bank or other financial institution, not when the creditor is your neighbour or your brother, or people with whom you can discuss the matter over a few pints of beer. See also money.
Defence spending
The budget for the armed forces.
Here is an anomaly. If every nation in the world is busy defending itself, and nothing more, then where is the threat that requires such a capital outlay? Defence spending is national paranoia expressed in financial terms, or employment for the otherwise unemployable.
Deje vu
A belief that you have experienced something before.
A condition bought about by reading television listings magazines.
Democrat
Someone who supports the concept of freely elected government.
A member of an American political party which appears to restrict it’s membership to sexually active heterosexual males, or simply someone who is called a democrat by people who call themselves democrats
Democracy
A system of egalitarian government devised by the Ancient Greeks.
Dictatorship is a bad word, democracy is a good one. It is so good that it is said to be the cure for all ills, even the standing of a country’s football team. In Russia and Eastern Europe it is now the freedom to have the Mafia operating on your own doorstep. In Western Europe and America it is a system by which one second’s mental aberration on the part of the voter leads to five years of bad government. It is, in a few words, the most abused word in any lexicon, the government of the apathetic by the faceless.
Depression
A dent in something.
It is unlikely that our caveman suffered from depression. Depression is a condition brought about by the need for self help in our lives, for counsellors and psychiatrists and expensive (legal) drugs. When personal it is a complaint which other people only suffer from when you are suffering from it. When seasonally adjusted it is the amazing discovery that dull wet weather does not make you feel as cheerful as bright sunny weather.
Designer label
A label which has been designed rather than one which came about by accident.
In order to create a need for debt it is first necessary to create a need for need. By this philosophy it is not sufficient to simply buy clothes which will cover your nakedness, or protect you from the elements. They must have a label stitched on the outside informing the rest of the world who the manufacturer was, and that there has also been a 500% mark-up on price. Designer label clothes are the clothes worn by people who use a credit card when they go to a nightclub, and the means by which nightclub bouncers identify those who are allowed into the club. Designer clothes are made by people who could not even afford the label but that also is in the nature of capitalism, someone has to suffer so let it be the person who makes the goods rather than those who buy and sell them.
Devil
The antithesis of God.
It is unlikely that The Devil is a democrat, but then there is no evidence to suggest that God is either, whatever else you might think of Her. The Devil is someone who does wrong things, in varying degrees. And The Devil is most often considered to be a man, especially a man who sleeps with a lot of women, to the admiration of men who do not. Theologians argue a lot about the Devil. But if she did then that would be a momentary lapse of reason on her part, which is something that is not supposed to happen.
Dictator
A self imposed ruler.
Dictators are not democrats either, even when they have been elected to the post. Mostly they are men, though there is a feminine version of the word, the dictatrix, which is probably only ever used in crossword puzzles or erudite quiz shows. Mostly they are politicians who are less than five foot six inches in height, or with a penis that is less than five and a half inches in length. In African countries they are often politicians who were trained at the Sandhurst Military Academy in England. Some dictators claim they were appointed by God, others by the will of the people, but non would say they were doing the Devil’s work, even when they are.
Dictionary
A list of words in alphabetical order.
As a spelling aid; that which is useful to all but those who can not spell. As a repository of information, that which is organised in the most inconvenient manner. As an alternative to serious thought, as in this instance, a total cop out.
Dinner party
A small social gathering with food.
Social clichés are wonderful things. So the working classes eat fish and chips while they are watching Coronation Street, or a Chinese takeaway if they are watching a film about people of the opposite sex who are attracted to each other, but we all know that the middle classes do neither of those things so the middle classes have the dinner party. If only the working classes knew. In truth it is an attempt to destroy good conversation with too much wine.
Diplomat
A senior representative of one government to another.
The theory goes that when nations are talking to each other they are not fighting with each other, which is generally held to be a good situation. To achieve this ideal state God created, in Her infinite wisdom, the diplomat. He is mostly one who is skilled in the well mannered practice of deceit, a civil servant who can order a single malt whisky in three different languages, a penguin with the benefit of a public school education and the first to get out when the soldiers appear over the horizon.
Director
One who gives instructions.
Not to be confused with manager and certainly not with administrator. The director in this instance is the one who works in the performing arts. The director in this instance could well be a creative person, despite the worrying overtones of management and administration. The director has the unenviable task of persuading the performer that the producer is not a tool of the Devil and persuading the producer that without the performer there would be no show. In terms of those who do and those who do not the director does, and few of them make good teachers as a result.
Disaster
A catastrophic occurrence.
Television needs soap operas and quiz shows. The tabloid press needs photographs of women who forgot to get dressed, and it needs disasters. Better still it needs naturally recurring events which no one warned a politician about, such as the weather. For the tabloid press a disaster will take precedence over everything, even the doings of the Royal Family or the England football team. A disaster does not need a specified number of victims to qualify as such but there is a sliding scale. Five people and one cow dead would qualify as a disaster in England whereas it would take five thousand dead humans and an unspecified number of cows to qualify for the same description if it were happening in India.
Discrimination
The process whereby two or more things are distinguished.
The good art of picking the best by using intelligence. The bad art of picking the worst by using ignorance. Few television producers have the art in the first instance, most politicians know the art in the second.
Divorce
The legal ending of a marriage.
Marriage, as a form of contract, is almost unique in that it presupposes that only death can annul it. Divorce is the legal remedy for such romantic optimism. Divorce is the acceptance of the pre-meditated imitation of love, a life event which has marriage as a pre-requisite. A common cause of divorce is adultery, the matrimonial offence of having a sexual relationship with someone who is not your partner. For some reason this is considered a sporting pastime for men but a reprehensible activity for women. Unmarried couples and gay couples, who have no marriage licence to start with, can not commit adultery so they simply cheat on each other. Unmarried couples and gay couples can not get divorced, all they can do is split up, which is bad news for the legal profession since they are denied a cut of the action. See also infidelity.
Divorced father
A male parent who was once married.
The man who still enjoys Walt Disney movies when his children would rather be watching ‘Terminator’, the man who suffers from the delusion that his children still drink Coca-Cola, the man who has no other excuse for eating Macdonald’s on a Sunday. You will rarely hear a woman being described as a divorced mother, she becomes a single parent and a good deal of the time she can not afford to eat in MacDonald’s.
Do it yourself
Construction work carried out by people who are not skilled in the building trades.
If you have a blocked intestine do you take a knife to it? If you are flying to Hong Kong do you insist on taking the pilot’s seat? Of course not. So why then do people who have never used a shovel or a trowel in their lives still want to build extensions to their homes? Could it be an excuse for business executives and council officials to wear comfortable clothes on a Sunday? Perhaps, but it’s certainly a way of paying more for a worse job.
Double glazing
A form of home insulation which involves two sheets of glass.
In fact it is a form of insulation which cuts out reality and common sense, something which is sold when the market has nothing else to offer but still wants to get us in debt. As a form of salesmanship it is a last resort for those who have been sacked from jobs selling re-cycled sewage or sets of Serbo- Croat encyclopaedias with three volumes missing.
Doubt
Uncertainty.
Doubt is the agnostic in us when certainty is the atheist. Doubt is buying more than one book on any given subject. Doubt is the progenitor of all learning.
Drama
The art of disseminating ideas through the medium of voice and movement.
Or maybe it is the art of disseminating ideas through the medium of confusing imagery. One thing drama is not is television soap opera. On the other hand it could be a form of self expression which occurs, or erupts, without the aid of a psycho analyst.
Dream
(1) A fantasy which occurs during sleep.
(2) A hope for the future.
Dream has now come to mean an impossible hope, particularly concerning something which was irrelevant anyway. So we have a dream football team, which is one with players which cost more than the present squad, or a dream scenario, which would most likely be illegal. A lot of what happens in actual dreams could be illegal as well, which is why they are so interesting if they belong to us. When it is an account of someone else’s dream then it is on a par with listening to their account of a package holiday. See also boredom.
Driving licence
A Government permit to operate a motor vehicle.
We all know that cars are male, otherwise why would they need an exhaust sticking out the back? So then, for a man a driving licence is a proof that he to has a penis while for a woman it is a suggestion that she has been sleeping with the enemy. On the other hand it could be a declaration that no one has yet died under the wheels of the driver’s car. Finally it is a convenient form of identity for those claiming Social Security benefits, who mostly can’t afford to drive cars anyway.
Drunkenness
Inebriation as a result of consuming too much alcohol.
Alcoholics don’t get drunk, for them it is a natural state, but they do sometimes get sober. It is sober people who get drunk, who start telling the truth in one of its least acceptable forms. In this sense drunkenness is a condition which affects the hearing more than any other sense, a memory status which is always, and thankfully, forgotten when sober.
