@TruthIsASword Sickened by this transphobic tweet. Man in ur position? Her name is NADIA. SHE is transitioning. Stop the hate, old man. #DeadNaming #MisGendering #Transphobic #HateCulture #BBC #CisMalePrivilege #BeKind #DropDead
There was scarcely a word of this that hadn’t made him want to rip his eyeballs from their sockets, but @TruthIsASword seemed to have hit pay dirt because his/her/its reply had been liked or retweeted more than one hundred thousand times over the subsequent twenty-four hours and it seemed as if everyone wanted a piece of him now. Who was this @TruthIsASword anyway? A man? A woman? A gerbil? There was no photograph, just some stock image of the word Peace with no biographical profile, other than ‘The truth is even sharper than a sharpened blade’, which to his mind seemed both tautological and absurd.
As the day had worn on, the number of messages coming his way had made his phone threaten to burst into flames, like a Galaxy Note 7 on a long-haul flight. His agent, Denise, inundated with messages on her own social media accounts, had called to suggest that he offer an apology, but he’d refused, asking why he should have to apologize for something that was done with the best of intentions.
‘Because these things are like snowballs,’ said Denise. ‘They have a habit of snowballing.’
‘Your linguistic logic never fails to impress me,’ he replied, wondering whether such pearls of wisdom really deserved ten per cent of his annual income.
‘Just admit that you did wrong, it’s a lot easier that way. People will accept it and move on.’
‘But I didn’t do wrong,’ he protested. ‘Does that count for nothing?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘So, if I was on trial for murder, but I’d happened to be away photographing penguins in the Arctic at the time the crime was committed, you’d say that I should plead guilty and go down for life because “it’s a lot easier that way”?’
‘I would in that instance, yes, because penguins live exclusively in the southern hemisphere, not the northern, so you’d be quickly caught out.’
‘But you take my point. Why should I apologize for something that only someone looking to be insulted would find offensive? If anything, they should be apologizing to me for taking a message of support and turning it into something more sinister.’
‘They being?’
‘The Wokesters.’
‘Who are they? Are they a family?’
‘The Wokesters,’ he repeated. ‘You know, the POOTs.’
‘The POOTs? I honestly don’t know what—’
‘The Permanently Outraged of Twitter. Look, I’ve been in this game a long time and I guarantee you that this will end up being nothing more than a storm in a teacup. It’ll all be forgotten by tomorrow and someone else will be hauled over the coals for doing something just as offensive to public sensibilities.’
‘George, if I may say—’
‘You may not,’ he replied, hanging up.
Only a few minutes later, however, the hacks had started calling, asking for quotes, and he made sure to litter them with so many expletives that they were essentially unusable. And by the time he made the mistake of opening the Twitter app on his phone in the late afternoon, thousands of messages had appeared on his notifications, all from the same compassionate, #BeKind idealists letting him know that he was old, fat, stupid, ignorant, a racist, a homophobe, an anti-Semite, a transphobe, a Remoaner, a misogynist, a hypocrite, a dinosaur, a child abuser, a fascist, a Frenchman, a twat, a prick, a dementia sufferer, a bad driver, a noisy eater, a rapist, a Daily Mail reader, a Tory, an Irish Republican, a Hamas supporter and a fan of Michael Bublé.
‘Totally unfair,’ he grunted, appalled by the insults. ‘I’ve never bought a Michael Bublé record in my life.’
Later, when he got home, reporters were standing outside his front gate and, for some reason, Achilles was chatting away to them, wearing a tank-top to show off his biceps as he brought them cups of tea.
‘What on earth are you wearing?’ George asked, glaring at his son’s arms.
‘Sun’s out, guns out, Pops,’ replied Achilles with a grin. ‘And don’t worry about my style choices. The bigger question is, what have you got yourself into now?’
George had fought his way through the scrum, the smile so wide on his face that he felt as if his cheeks might crack. Still, he thought, it was good to have Achilles about the place. The boy was a complete idiot, of course, but at least he was amusing. Unintentionally.
‘Shut up and get inside,’ he said, pushing his son through the door and closing it behind him on the assembled vultures. As he walked into the living room, he found the rest of his family gathered, watching Sky News, where a group of reporters were live on television hassling some poor unfortunate man who was simply trying to get through his front door. The setting looked painfully familiar to him.
‘And that was broadcaster George Cleverley returning home only a few moments ago,’ said the presenter when the outside broadcast switched back to the studio. ‘Apparently unwilling or unable to address charges of hate speech in a tweet he posted earlier today which has proved deeply upsetting to the transgender community.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ he roared, taking a whisky that somehow had been thrust into his hands by a strange woman who he only vaguely recognized as Beverley’s new ghost.
A long conversation had ensued with his wife and children that had only made him angrier and, eventually, he’d retired to bed in a huff, turning off his phone before anyone else could contact him. Now, the following morning, to his disappointment, if not his surprise, he saw that some public figures who he had counted as friends, or at the very least as engaging acquaintances, were taking the opportunity to use his discomfort to boost their own Woke credentials. The Secretary of State for Culture, for example, a man who George had once observed snorting cocaine before appearing on the Six O’Clock News, had tweeted:
@SecStateCult We need a caring society, where those of all genders and identities can feel safe and welcome. The @BBC needs to remember this.
‘And fuck off,’ muttered George.
But the Secretary of State for Culture wasn’t the only one.
@10DowningStreet Britain is a country that welcomes diversity and embraces kindness. Let’s make 2021 a year for all our citizens, not just the London Elite.
There was something hilarious about being called a member of the London Elite by the current prime minister, he thought. What was next, the Queen criticizing his inherited wealth and privilege?
D-list pop stars chimed in, naturally, hoping for a little reflected attention. As did Z-list actors.
A model-slash-actress-slash-humanitarian-slash-philanthropist who he’d never heard of issued a press statement saying that she was boycotting his show until further notice because she felt ‘unsafe’.
‘Never invited, darling,’ he said, climbing out of bed now and looking in the direction of the en suite with a sense of exhaustion that never boded well when it was still only eight thirty in the morning.
The phone buzzed again and, cursing, he picked it up to see a text message from Angela Gosebourne. He’d momentarily forgotten the other drama currently playing out in his life, that of impending fatherhood.