Richard Ord: Brexit and the Lycra'“clad apocalypse

As visions for a post-Brexit Britain go, David Davis' assurance that it will not be a post-apocalyptic wasteland hardly inspires.
Mad Max: Fury Road. Better in Lycra?Mad Max: Fury Road. Better in Lycra?
Mad Max: Fury Road. Better in Lycra?

It’s a bit like asking for clues to what your Christmas present might be and being told: “It’s a secret but let’s just say it won’t leap out of the gift box and rip your throat out.”

What’s disturbing is that the Brexit secretary was so specific about the dystopian future it wouldn’t be like.

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He said Britain will not be “plunged into a Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction.” So, if not Mad Max, what kind of dystopian future will we be plunged into?

I’m hoping for a more relaxed and tranquil post-apocalyptic dawn, like the one depicted in the movie version of HG Wells’ The Time Machine.

That seemed quite nice. Lot’s of people lying around on riverbanks basking in the sunshine, minding their own business. Obviously the occasional brutal enslavement to cave dwelling Morlocks would put a dampener on things, but hey, you can’t have everything.

I used to prefer the dream future-world depicted in Logan’s Run. Remember that one? It featured a dashing Michael York and delectable Jenny Agutter running through a liberal, free love high-tech hippy utopia.

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A beautiful place, until you turned 30. On that birthday you were either incinerated in public or, if that wasn’t your bag, you could make a run for it and be hunted down and shot by the Sandmen. For that future to have any appeal now, however, they’d have to adjust the kill clock from 30 to 55, but then a free-love world occupied by grumpy 50-somethings kind of takes the shine of that supposed utopia. Still, I guess it would be fun hunting them down and shooting them.

The reason I’d opt for those futures is born not out of any survival instinct but more out of fashion considerations. I’m not into leather.

Why, when the world has been decimated by atomic war or plagues of flesh eating zombies do people (on the screen) reach for the leather jackets and, in the case of Mad Max, the hair gel?

I’ve touched on this before, but surely if your world is infested with grubby walking dead, it’s best to look distinctive. Most on the TV show The Walking Dead are in leather or muted greys. It’s like a giant zombie-inspired dress down Friday.

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If you want to reduce the risk of being mistaken for a zombie, stick to fluorescent Lycra. Our roads are clogged with middle aged Tour de France wannabes in tight brightly coloured jerseys riding side by side, yet there nowhere to be seen among the ghouls in the TV series. Honestly, the oversight spoils my viewing just makes the premise too far-fetched.

Davis and his Mad Max Brexit assurance is still worrying. They say the collapse of any civilisation is often preceded by some unrelated yet seismic social change. This week gin marmalade went on sale, Olympic curling was dogged by a drugs controversy and KFC ran out of chicken!

I’ll get me (leather) coat.