I find easily offended people offensive and take offence at the ease of their offence.

At present it seems there is precious little from my youth that has escaped the cancel culture cull, as, all we hold dear, our ideals, our pastimes, our societal comfort blankets, have been ushered unceremoniously off the precipice.

To exacerbate this turn of events, we are then expected to self-flagellate for daring to previously admit liking something now deemed abhorrent.

It’s unavoidable: Statues are toppled and defaced as, with questionable logic, past misdemeanours of those cast in stone are magnified, and history eroded.

The simple truth is little has changed with persons of note, be they bygone or present day.

To get to the top in any industry, unless born with God-given talent or copious lashings of luck, you must lie, cheat and be self-centred as you mistreat others on the way up the greasy pole.

Games are denounced, writers pilloried, and artworks cancelled, as any opposing view is attacked mercilessly as the aggressors purport to be liberals as they act most illiberally. Schools are forced to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum, as Homer’s ‘the odyssey’, an English mainstay for decades, is cancelled as it is deemed sexist.

Yet sexism in its current form in far away lands, such as modern-day Afghanistan, are beyond the pale for criticism. Instead, the easy target is a long dead writer and their work of that time, as the box is ticked, and the virtue signalled.

The tiger who came to tea, a simple if effective tome, is also in the firing line.

‘Zero tolerance’, a Scottish charity recently undertook a ‘diversity audit’ of 3000 books from children’s nursery libraries.

They deemed only 14 per cent to pass their self-styled ‘purity test’ arguing that such books, and not the children’s home environment, would lead to ‘violence against women and girls, in the future.

The over-the top shocklamations will harden the line of those who are already converted, as they use this example to increase their hype of ours being a cruel and unjust island.

Extinction Rebellion ‘activists’ taking a break from pater’s country estate are busy ‘daubing’ anything shiny with blood red paint as they call for a banning of pretty much everything designed to make our lives a tad easier.

Folk are offended by GB news and have predictably called for its cancellation ‘forcing’ big business to pull advertising from the station.

Their crimes, at the time of going to press, are still unclear.

The truth is, far from believing the hype, corporates back anti-capitalist woke radicals by supporting their ‘movements’ as it is good PR and ultimately improves their bottom line: oh, the irony….

As for me, I will continue my track and embrace the offence this column will undoubtedly garner in some quarters.

It’s true, you can’t please all the people all the time, and once you learn to live with that, and pay no credence to it, all turns out nice in the end.

Brett Ellis is a teacher