Marchamont had to check the date on a Guardian story published just shy of April Fools’ Day. With the container ship Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal, the British left’s flagship paper used to occasion to raise awareness of little-known phobias.
The images of the ship triggered bouts of submechanophobia, the fear of submerged manmade objects; megalophobia, the fear of large objects; naviphobia, the fear of ships and sea wreckage; and cetaphobia, the fear of whales.
All these terms turned up genuine-looking websites when googled, which has to count for something. Lofty academics were also quoted in the Guardian discussing the various phobias. It all seems legit.
Marchamont can only question whether such stories serve the left’s interests. In the rolling arguments over millennial snowflakery, having a panic attack at the thought of a tall building is not likely to dispel the notion that bedwetters are inheriting the earth.
