Keep Calm and Fuck Off

That nostalgic pride you feel towards the image of the understated Brit standing tall through adversity without so much as a whimper… Being British is bloody brilliant.

keep calm poster

It’s safe to say that almost all of us will know of the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster. This slice of wartime Britain in the midst of being blown to high heaven by the Germans might make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in the context of the Blitz, but not plastered on your teacup when you whine and moan about your first world problems on Facebook. The irony is that the poster was never widely distributed, which probably points out that, if anything, we were calm enough whilst being firebombed by Jerry every night.

That nostalgic pride you feel towards the image of the understated Brit standing tall through adversity without so much as a whimper… Being British is bloody brilliant.

Hold your horses though: this is modern Britain. Your favourite poster has been raped by capitalism. Now everyone is ‘keeping calm’ whilst they toil through the misery of peacetime and free health care. I don’t know if it is a chronic lack of imagination, or the British public will actually collapse into an orgy of hysteria if their saturated biscuit crumbles into their cup of tea.

Someone at UCL thought it was fantastic idea to post ‘Keep Calm and Vote Pro-Choice’. Yes, thank you for your boundless innovation and ability to jump on the bandwagon, but I am nowhere near hysterical about an issue that was resolved by the Abortion Act 1967. Yes, the world outside of your small student brain has been pro-choice for 45 years. Students should stick to student affairs and stop clogging my head with information that does not affect my life at university. Yes, the Palestine/Israel conflict is contentious, yes abortion is worthy of debate. Just go and talk about it somewhere else and put some more energy into something more pertinent to student life. And yes I am calm, and so are the other 80% of students who just don’t give a toss and didn’t vote in the referenda. And for everyone’s sake use your imagination next time.

Everyone should listen to some Churchill speeches and look at the original poster in the context of its purpose and be thankful that we were calm and we did fight. Hence you can now sit here on your computer, with your fancy education and freedom from bombs, and hopefully realise that the poster does not apply to your comparatively dull life.