The Judge RANTS!
Date: 14/08/10
Brokebank Mountain?
Due to a managerial screw-up, I found myself in the office yesterday unable to do any of the work that I'm being underpaid for doing, so all that was left for me to do was to go through some of the Depratment's online training courses.
The first one I did was Diversity Awareness. This is standard fare, much of which is common sense to anyone who was properly brought up: don't stereotype, don't make assumptions about people based on their race, ethnicity (and what the hell is the difference between 'race' and 'ethnicity', anyway?), gender, sexual proclivities or physical/mental impairments.
So far, so fluffy.
Then I got to one page where the illustrative photograph seemed...strange. Bizarre, even. I can't reproduce it here, but I can describe it. Two men, aged in their late twenties or early thirties, are sitting at a table, possibly in a domestic environment (although the décor leaves a lot to be desired from that aspect). The one facing us has close-cropped hair (failing to hide the fact that he's losing it from the sides) and a grey sports shirt; the one sitting square-on to his right has shortish dark hair with one of those upturned fringes. He is wearing a turquoise sweatshirt. There is a laptop in front of the first man, who is pointing a pen at a sheet of paper in front of the second and...
...they are holding hands.
Putting the mouse cursor over the image reveals the 'title' tag:
"A gay couple doing their home accounts"
There were two thoughts which occurred to me on seeing this, and the combination brought me to such a state of hysterical hilarity that I had to leave my desk and walk around the building for a few minutes.
Firstly, does anyone know of any couple - gay, straight or any combination thereof - who hold hands while doing the household accounts? Unless it's to conduct a séance to find out where Auntie Freda left the old tin box containing the deeds to a large tract of Worcestershire?
Secondly, after all the rabbitting on about not stereotyping, making assumptions, blah, blah, blah, why did the twerps who put that picture there not realise that in one moment they had destroyed the credibility of the whole package? Because one finds it difficult to take seriously the po-faced claims to respecting diversity from an organisation which shows Van Gogh's ear for the music of proper social procedure.
Asking around, it was pointed out to me that they may have been in something of a bind as to exactly how they could illustrate the fact that the couple portrayed were gay. I suggested that the glass of water on the table next to the one in the turquoise shirt could have had 'amyl nitrate' written on it; or that the glass could have been replaced altogether by a small tube of KY Jelly - but discreetly, mind.
The path to good intentions is paved with hells, isn't it?
Update: I've found the picture online now. Follow the arrow to see it. 
