This is the age of the slogan, the soundbite, the snappy phrase in place of considered argument. Thought is dying; reason’s gone critical. In bookshops and magazine racks we’re told only what we want to hear: we’re told it in neat, bullet-pointed affirmations of our own worth.

No more. This is the fightback. The resuscitation. This is the slogan as explainer of the world. One a day for a year. Three hundred and sixty five phrases, soundbites and bullet points with which to make sense of the way things are now and point to how things could be tomorrow. Read them and weep.


Friday

6. Cover thine bases

If the 21st Century is teaching us one thing it is to never accept responsibility. Politicians and bankers, athletes and celebrities, those in charge of your career and your money and your public services and your private aspirations... it’s never their fault. When things (inevitably) go wrong, when things fall apart and the centre doesn’t hold – it’s always someone else who cops the blame. The ruling classes, the bosses, the decision makers and public figures – they’ve got their scapegoats, their fall guys, their messengers ready to be shot. Company Directors walk away from bankrupt businesses with bonuses intact; politicians fail up from one office to the next, while anonymous office jockeys and hapless civil servants fall by the wayside. And for those in the public eye with messy personal lives, the cheaters and dabblers, the drug addicts and philanderers... they’ve got addictive personalities to blame, or bi-polar disorder, or bad advisors, or – worst of all – “paradise syndrome”, whereby the very state of having everything you’ve always dreamed of leads to unhappiness/drug addiction/sex with teenagers (delete as applicable). And when they're rumbled it's the advisors, the therapists, the PR team who duly takes the hit. The lesson? Don’t go into anything without your excuses lined up. Always be ready to apportion blame for your own failures. Cover thine bases.
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