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‘The strawberry crisis makes me question what the world is coming to’

Sep 27, 2018

Brian wonders what the world is coming to when people do stupid things like put needles in fruit. Source: Getty.

Do you sometimes wonder just what the world is coming to? I certainly do frequently, what with needles being inserted in strawberries and schools trying to stop the celebration of Christmas, just to avoid annoying a minority group within our community, most of whom are unlikely to actually be offended anyway! It seems to me, because of the undoubted horrors of social media, that we are becoming a nation of complainers who all think they have a right to tell others where they are going wrong and to criticise them heavily because their points of view may differ from ours.

It’s a very sad world we live in at the moment, all because of a few people who seem to have louder voices than the rest of us, but none of the general community’s natural feelings of humanity. The worst thing about all this is that these people don’t even have to do anything — the threat they make doesn’t need to be fulfilled to do it’s frightening job, but precautions are still essential in case the story is genuine, as in the case of the strawberries!

I may be classed as naïve to think this, but I can’t imagine that, as recently as 10 years ago, anyone would be so cruel, stupid or downright evil, as to put needles in a punnet of strawberries, an action at worst dangerous enough to kill, if a small child were to eat them, at best cruel in that many hard working companies could now go out of business, with mountains of unsold fruit stacked around their premises, their hard working employees suddenly out of a job! As if to compound the stupidity we now have to suffer the actions of so called ‘copycats’, idiots who must have brains the size of a mouse’s, out to prove they are just a ‘clever’ as the originator of the trick.

I confess I was to a certain extent saddened by the initial actions of the supermarkets, who I feel, took precipitate action in removing all strawberries from their shelves, when they could as easily have put large warning notices over the particular shelves, regarding the possible insertion of needles in the fruit and pointing out that customers could easily protect themselves by always cutting it up before consuming it. This would at least have kept the market moving and would have negated the animosity displayed towards growers by these evil and silly people. Thankfully, the supermarkets are now starting to sell strawberries again (at least in our area), so some of the pressure on growers may be eased — I hope it’s in time!

The real trouble is the fact that social media, which now plays such an enormous part in most of our lives, to the point of intrusion in many cases, is an open gateway to these people, who can affect most of the world within seconds, just by the use of a few well chosen words. We have many names for this, with ‘spam’ playing one of the largest parts I suppose, but whatever it’s called, it usually does the same job wherever if occurs, causing panic and fear for a lot of innocent people, especially members of the older generation who are people belonging to an earlier period when others could usually be trusted, and when everyone lacked the soon-to-be-invented computer!

I would be one of the first to think that the computer is a wonderful thing, opening up a magic world of knowledge and information, but in the wrong hands it can be deadly, costing others money and sometimes their lives. Weird to say that, I guess much the same things have been said in the past about the motor car, another great modern invention, but just look at how many youngsters have stolen a car to go ‘joyriding’, only to end their lives horribly against a concrete wall, or a tree!

I just hope this strawberry farce gets sorted out very quickly, and the culprits get caught, so that things can get back to normal — though just what IS normal these days is hard to fathom!