Be Still My Beating Heart

So, our Brave New World was unveiled yesterday.

No fireworks, no street parties, no announcements on the telly-box, no letters shoved through the door, no parades, no backslapping, no high-fiving.

In fact, for a country that officially joined a community of nations with a population of just over 500 million souls, the day was remarkable for just how little attention this historic day received. I have been wondering why.

Human beings are very predictable. When we achieve a great thing, we generally shout about it. We did good, dammit! And we want to share the good news with all and sundry. Yet here we are, Day Two as Europeans and......nothing.

Yesterday we were all awarded dual citizenship. We are Europeans first, and hell, I don't know, Region Niners, or whatever Region # you ended up as, second. Anyhoo, we are all equal now. Allegedly.

Since this is about Things I Did Not See, I wanted to mention a couple of other things that weren't immediately noticeable in this awesome, historic, level playing field we all inhabit now.

Frinstance:

My smokes didn't plummet in price to match those in the Slovak Republic (£1.30p for 20), or those in Latvia (£2.01p for 20) or even those in Greece (£2.88p for 20).

Prostitution is not suddenly legal here, as it is in Germany.

Marijuana cannot be consumed openly as it can be in the Netherlands.

Beer is not suddenly reduced in price to match Bulgaria where half a litre costs just £1.10p.

New car prices were not slashed by 25% to match French prices.

I won't bore you to death with an exhaustive list, but you get the picture, right?

So despite the fact that there was no immediate price equalisation, and no sudden relaxation of, frankly, infantile statutes, there should still have been headlines trumpeting this life-changing day. No broadcast from the monarch who stood by and gave our country away. No bragging from the politico's about the great thing they did, without, naturally, a mandate from the people.

No. Mention. Whatsoever. There was nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Conclusions? Are we ashamed? Are we embarrassed? Did we do something dirty, something underhand, something furtive?

It would appear so. Good ol' reliable human nature kicks in again when we do something that we are not proud of, we slink, we hide, we down-play the event, and the very last thing we do is go on telly and shout "Look what we did!".

We just got married to 26 other countries. At least with my marriage there is an escape clause. When I die, or my wife partner significant other dies, the marriage is ended. Not so with the shotgun wedding that took place yesterday. There is no such clause. The sun will never set on this unholy union. Even Unkie Adolph put a time limit on his Third Reich. He generously allowed that it would continue for 1,000 years.

No such luck for us. We are in this forever, Citizens.

Surely we should celebrate that?

It's not every day we get shackled to a corrupt regime, hell bent on wasting trillions of euros.

It's not every day we get to swear allegiance to unelected, overpaid megalomaniacs.

It's not everyday we demote a monarch.

It's not every day that we learn that in order to be heard, to request changes from the Commission, all we have to do is gather one million signatures.

It's not every day we give our nation away.

The silence is deafening.

CR.