If you don’t know who Kal-El is, you may want to enrol

If you don’t know who Kal-El is, you may want to enrol at a better school of pop art. The name is the original Krypton language version of someone called Clarke Kent. That should get you over the hump.

I’m not saying that American pop culture is the only thing going, in a world of deep division. But Superman mythology is the place where the American dream goes to live and die. So it’s also a place of universal darkness and light.

I think of Superman every time I have to fill up my tank. Yesterday I waited almost 20 minutes, for a gigantic tanker to finish filling an underground cave with a sea of petroleum. Only then could I fill up my car, to carry on living my life.

I suddenly understood the comic book world — the need to colorise the everyday lives of ordinary folks, who dream of sorting out their problems by simply flying off into the stars. Prime evil can be fought in the outer limits of the universe, and there would be no more waiting in the queue at the bank.

In reality, I don’t know when last I stood in an ATM queue, to tell the truth. For the last year or so I’ve been completely cashless. And I worry, because there’s some old fashioned comfort in feeling that dirty paper in your hands. Something future generations may never know.