Spoof v Reality

It’s a rum business writing blog posts. Ideas pop into my head or I read something online which is worth sharing and sometimes it becomes a blog post and sometimes it doesn’t. Ideas don’t become blog posts for a range of reasons - here’s an example from this afternoon.

I had an idea for a spoof post where somebody in government proposes a breathing tax. Most unlikely to be an original idea, but easy enough to dream up some kind of tiny monitoring device linked to a smartphone. It would register the amount of oxygen consumed during breathing and transmit it via the phone to a government department.

Two options all adults would face would be to have the measuring device fitted or pay a standard, unmeasured tax. The ultimate goal would be for everyone to wear the monitoring device apart from the usual suspects.

The trouble is, I decided it wasn’t quite right for a spoof post - not quite daft enough to make the post worth writing. There is a dark side to it behind the daftness. It’s a little too close to the crazed levels of micro-managed behaviour we see already. A little too close to current absurdities.

In one sense I’ve written the post already, but not as a spoof. It wouldn't have worked.