David Hill: Another middle-aged male vents his spleen

I went to a district council committee meeting a while back. I've always been interested in blood sports.

The meeting included a submission from the local branch of the Cancer Society, asking if the council could provide shade in a few places along our coastal walkway. It was a polite, practical, sensible submission. Or so I thought.

Evidently I was wrong. A few days later, after the Cancer Society's request had been reported in the paper, there appeared a letter to the editor, reacting to the submission.

So - fumed the letter-writer - the Nanny State was going to make local bodies build shelters against the sun, was it? Next thing you know, there'd be laws fining us if we didn't wear hats and sunblock. Anybody going outside would be made to wear trousers and long-sleeved shirts. And so on. And further on.

I didn't need to read the whole letter to realise it was a resentful rant. In fact, I didn't need to read more than the very first word. Because that first word was "So".

Letters to the editor beginning "So" are almost invariably sneering, small-minded and spiteful. "So Helen Clark and her cronies think" ... "So the bludgers on benefits want" ... "So some politically correct expert says" ...

I'll make an exemption for "So many" and "So much", but otherwise the presence of that opening two-letter word is a near-infallible litmus test of the writer's venom. And of their age and gender: they're nearly always older men.

The years from middle-age onwards are a tough time for males in our society. If most under-25 men know everything, most over-55s suspect everything. And their suspicions bubble up in "So" letters to the paper.

It's easy to understand why. After decades of being breadwinner, head of the house or other cliches, men suddenly find themselves without a job and without status. The world keeps accelerating, and they can't reach the handbrake any longer. They're disorientated and resentful.

What's a quick and satisfying way to express their resentment? By writing splenetic letters to the editor. Letters such as "So our deep-voiced woman leader believes" ... "So the clique of trendy liberal hacks who dominate the media maintain" ... I suggest you just read that first word, then save yourself time and cardiac arrest by skipping the rest.

I accept that letters beginning "So" have their uses. They provide our teacher friend with material for her Year 12 and 13 classes when they study illogic and irrelevance. They keep the letter-writers off the streets.

But I think there's a much more effective and less tedious way for males over 55 to vent their venom. I believe the answer for these sneering "So" scribblers lies in crockery.

I read some time back of a Japanese entrepreneur who bought vast quantities of chipped cups, bent bowls and shonky saucers from his friendly neighbourhood pottery - all the stuff that was destined for the tip. Then he set up a business where people paid to hurl bits of that crockery against a wall.

The social effects were dramatic. Road rage in the area diminished markedly. So did domestic violence. And (I'll wager) coronary occlusions. And (second wager) "So" letters to the editor.

In this election year, astute politicians should be promising facilities where letters-to-the-editor addicts can come, pay and hurl crockery against walls while shouting "trendy lefties" ... "women leaders" ... "PC nonsense".

It could be the vote-catching strategy of the decade.

So ... so there you are.

* Garth George returns in a fortnight.