"Pistols At Dawn, My Good Man!!"

After a frantic morning, the household has come to a standstill. Everyone is asleep, bar me. It's 2:30 in the afternoon. Silence is demanded- music, television, crockery destruction, air-horn practice, balloon surgery etc are all off limits.

Kinda nice actually. Frustrating, but nice.

Reading is still permitted. Graustark- amazing, absolutely brilliant. Romances aren't usually my thing but this has a ton of swashbuckling adventure thrown in & the romantic parts are stylised enough to be amusing. Which got me thinking.......

Duelling. Apparently, it's no longer legal to challenge someone to a duel. Maybe that's a good thing considering how easy it is to use fatal weapons these days. Any idiot with an AK-47 can do some serious damage. Mastery of the sabre is kind of useless when pistols are so effective- no misfires, more accurate, faster loading.....

But duelling had its benefits. In other times, politeness wasn't just a nice thing to have, it was a survival skill. If you weren't polite, someone might try to cut your throat open. People tried harder to get along with each other & settle things agreeably. If you ripped someone off, pushed in front of them at McDonalds or ran over their cat, you could very well end up in a coffin or at least with a nasty scar.

But now, people just sue other people. The lawyers get rich. The courts make ridiculous precedents that pervert justice for the next hundred years. Everyone's as rude and discourteous as they like. The phrase "so sue me" has entered the lexicon. Additionally, there's hundreds of ridiculous liability forms to fill out every time you try to do business with somebody. Rich companies can easily defeat individuals. There's no respect for other people.

Re-introducing formalised duelling is probably not a good idea. But after it's removal, there was nothing decent to replace it. With a shift in mainsteam thinking towards moral relativism ideas about of honour, right & wrong, even good manners have all become so hazy that its difficult to resolve conflict. Instead, it stagnates, bitter feelings drenching our society & corrupting the soul (this is only a slight exaggeration).

Okay, I'm just in love with the romantic image of the charming hero waving a rapier around & having absinthe parties in a cold stone castle on a dark, craggy cliff. Let me dream.

The family appears to be waking up. I must go.