I have a problem with being polite to people who I feel are beneath me. I can do it, but it's unpleasant, like taking a shower in your own piss. Being the slick tranny businessman I am, the only time I am nice to people I don't like the look of is when I am about to acquire something valuable of theirs.

But I may be realising the error of my ways. I was at the bar yesterday with a girl from work. Trust me, she is as cold-hearted capitalist as they come: when we are on a project together, she combines my slick tranny-like persona without being an actual tranny; a potent mix. Suddenly, two American girls came over and both heard me cutting glass with my English accent.

One was very attractive, smart, and evocatively dressed. I don't know what the other one looked like because she was ugly. Or what her personality was like for that matter. But one thing was obvious: the great oak tree of genetics hadn't dropped her a completely healthy acorn.

But then something strange happened. My friend was being nice to this girl. She engaged with her, laughed at her par-for-the-course jokes and with some sincerity kept her quite amused. It suddenly dawned on me: what if we were all nice to each other? Not uncritical, nor egalitarian, but rather a kind of permanent cordiality? Jesus spent his whole career being nice, and he got a book written about him - by God!

I often see the comments under these posts (most of the time under Alex's or Sofia's) and I see some people willing to forego courtesy upon having found a moron or someone with a contrary or differing outlook. I'm probably just as guilty. But life is too holy to dismiss someone who has picked up different ideas than you about immigration or capitalism.

If someone just tells me to fuck off I'll be pretty annoyed.