If anybody has an address for the Coon family from out Pennsylvania way – east coast USA – would you mind dropping them a line, and telling them they’re going to have to change their name by deed poll?

It’s not to everybody’s liking. Apparently. I know the family patriarch, Edward William Coon has long since pegged out – the founder of the iconic cheese brand apparently carked it way back in 1934.

But that’s not to say there aren’t a few other more contemporary Coons roaming around – some great-great-grandchildren perhaps, causing untold emotional damage on account of their unfortunate (and now) acceptable surname.

Gee, we’re going well, aren’t we?

Last week it was the world of film and television that was pulled apart, frame by offensive frame, and “cleansed” by the dribbling do-gooders.

This week the dribblers have turned their attention to the grocery aisles – Coon Cheese, Colonial Beer, and everybody’s childhood favourite, the Coco Pops monkey – all under siege for reasons that 99.98% of the population simply can’t fathom.

But hey, if the remaining 00.02 per cent are arcing up, then the whole of society has questions to answer, and circumstances to explain.

Serious question – just when did we become so frigging precious? So sanctimonious, so emotionally frail? Particularly here in in Awstraylya. We were once such a hardy, robust bunch. We took everything in our stride.

Whatever happened to “no worries mate, she’ll be right!”, the very attitude on which the country was built?

These days, everything is a worry. Nothing is quite right. It’s offensive, or it’s sending the wrong message, or it’s not fair, or it’s deemed by the ever voluble 00.02 per cent to be “too dangerous”. So we all have to fall into one long obedient line, and tip-toe ever so carefully through time. Compulsory bike helmets. Don’t get me started on that.

The problem the dribblers have is that they’re permanently placing their happiness in the hands of others. They’re victims. Every morning they get out of bed, they’re relying on the rest of the world to say and do the “right things”. The right things according to them, so they feel safe and comfortable. And are not offended.

Last time I checked, that’s not the way the world works.

Some four years ago, John Cleese, one of our more lucid thinkers, addressed this very issue on a segment called “The Big Think”.

Cleese conceded he was offended every day. He was offended by the British press, by the laziness and the inaccuracy and the nastiness of their reporting. But that didn’t mean he should be able to do anything about it.

“The idea that you need to be protected from any sort of uncomfortable emotion is one I do not subscribe to,” the Monty of all Monty Pythons explained.

“If people can’t control their own emotions, then they have to start to control other people’s behaviour.

“And when you’re around super sensitive people, you can’t relax, you can’t be spontaneous, because you’ve got no idea of what is going to upset them next.”

How good.

As we’ve already identified – perennial victims, intent on dragging us all down into their dungeon of misery and self-pity. The “poor me” club.

What we, as the rational clear-thinking majority must do is ensure that we don’t become victims of the victims.

If we do, we’re no better than they are.