Please don’t call us snowflakes or we’ll cry!

UPSET STUDENT: Octopus terrine dinner was served in Oxford College

GOOD MORNING, class.

No talking at the back, please. I’d like to begin with a moan. Did you read about the Oxford college that served an octopus terrine at dinner one evening that left a first-year student upset because she hadn’t encountered octopus before? Whereupon the college instantly banned it.

Now, why should a dish be removed from menus just because a student was upset? I’m only amazed that, like any weedy millennial, she didn’t squeal, drop it, call the fire brigade and then go into therapy to cope with the PTSD. 

The same Oxford students then voted to ban Halal and Kosher meat. So, this year’s grads aren’t going to be much cop at any job requiring overseas travel. Unless, that is, they take enough tofu sandwiches to tide them over.

I think I’ll pour myself a large scotch and lie down in a cool, dark room. Letting snowflakes dictate menus is like putting someone in charge of a blood bank despite knowing he’s changed his name from Count Dracula. Or: being trapped in a lift for a week with David Cameron (or, worse, Tony Blair).

All this snowflakes-getting-upset nonsense makes you wonder how their future employers will address their need not to be upset. I’ve various scenarios running through my mind and conclude that a lack of enthusiasm and preparedness for, and experience in dealing with, upsetting or stressful situations could fatally torpedo their career prospects.

Medicine, nursing, the law, social work, fire fighting, the military, teaching, human resources, customer relations, air crew, veterinary work, etc – forget it!

What is it with students today? If they’re not being upset or offended, they’re reconsidering their gender, moaning about equality, pulling down statues, renaming buildings, banning clapping, having PTSD, campaigning against the wrong kind of lavatory doors . . .

Recently, I wrote that I sometimes think I’ve been abducted in my sleep and, on awakening, find myself on the planet Vacuousa orbiting the star Stupidopia. OK, I’ll add to that this week: I’m on the planet Millenial-Snowflakia orbiting the star Gormlessia.     

Nora Johnson’s psychological crime thrillers ‘The Girl in the Woods’, ‘The Girl in the Red Dress’, ‘No Way Back’, ‘Landscape of Lies’, ‘Retribution’, ‘Soul Stealer’, ‘The De Clerambault Code’ (www.nora-johnson.net) available from Amazon in paperback/eBook (€0.99;£0.99) and iBookstore.All profits to Costa del Sol Cudeca cancer charity

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Nora Johnson

Novelist Nora Johnson offers insights on everything from current affairs to life in Spain, with humour and a keen eye for detail.

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