Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Tom enters a magazine competition

Sunday, July 10th, 2016

Tom decided to have a go at a caption competition in the music magazine, Q. The picture showed David Bowie leaning out of an old British Rail train window, dressed in a black and white striped suit, talking to the train conductor. Unfortunately, Tom did not win as he decided the scene deserved more than a one-liner, so he submitted a short conversation instead! See how many Bowie album titles you can spot in the following dialogue:

“‘Scuse me, mate.”
“‘Low.”
“When does this Tin Machine leave?”
“Oh, Hours yet. Tonight, I think. The Next Day, maybe. Never Let Me Down, though. Station to Station, that is.”
“But, Reality…?”
“Scary…”
“Listen. I’m The Man Who Sold the World, Earthling.”
“Young Americans, eh,” said the conductor, shaking his head.
“Hey. Let’s Dance. Outside.”
“Hunky Dory.”

Manners? Who needs them?

Sunday, January 24th, 2016

‘Manners Makyth Man’ is a quote attributed to William of Wykeham, who lived in the 14th Century, a man who, amongst other things, founded Winchester College (and incorporated the quote into its motto). But what does the statement mean for us today? Is the age of chivalry dead or, at least, on its deathbed? Do the Thatcherite years and the ‘every man (or woman) for themselves’ mantra continue to have a lasting legacy? With the explosion in the world population over the last 50 years, do we still have the space and time for a bit of consideration? Or, equally, with globalisation and the slow and steady mixing of cultures, is it becoming an irrelevance (as other cultures behave in many different ways to us and so water down our own behaviour)?

I don’t propose to try and answer these questions right here and now. I expect there are many out there better qualified to address them than me. I have commented before about the kind of behaviour which has become commonplace*, but instead of repeating myself, I will share a story with you.

Near home is a long thin road, about half a mile long, with cars parked approx. half the distance on one side and half on the other. When you drive through one of these sections, it is nearly impossible to see the other, and although there may be gaps between parked cars such that it is sometimes possible to pull in to let an oncoming vehicle pass, the vast majority of drivers are courteous and set aside the ‘right of way’ rule in favour of (a quiet life and) letting people through. So, imagine a scenario when you are half way through one of these sections and another vehicle suddenly appears ahead. What do you do? We assumed the ‘courtesy’ angle and carried on, but the other driver did not even slow down. Our natural reaction was disbelief, as the vehicle approached to within a couple of meters. With tinted windows, it was impossible to tell what was going on in the other vehicle, but then a finger appeared, pointing behind us. What made the proposition of reversing back up the road even more ridiculous was the fact that someone had chosen to park on the opposite side to the parked cars, mostly on the pavement, but still creating a narrower passage. I shrugged my shoulders and indicated that there was nowhere for us to go. Then there was movement, the car door opened and we braced ourselves as a rather large man got out. He looked very dapper – it could have been a Trilby on his head, and he sported a very impressive looking walking cane. Nervously, we opened the passenger window, but to our astonishment he said ‘Good morning’ and carried on walking, on up the road behind us! Was he checking for a spot that we could reverse into? If so, he was wasting everyone’s time. Had he decided to abandon his car? Apparently, not. We were already late, so I judged the gap and eased our car onto the pavement and around his, and when we were safely back on the road, I stopped and my wife got out with her iPhone. By that point, he was clambering back into his vehicle. He took off at speed, and disappeared around the corner, but not before we grabbed a picture of his registration plate.

Stressful. Ridiculous. Totally unnecessary. It seems no one is satisfied with maybe getting their 15 minutes of fame any longer. In an age when we can push virtually anything we want into the public online domain through many different channels, we have grown to believe that no one is more important than me, me, me, and if that means shoving it right in your face, so be it.

You asked for it, mate! Don’t you know who I am?


*short extract from ‘Seconds’

There’s the jostling at the bar, shoving into queues at the supermarket or petrol station, brazenly nicking a space in the car park right in front of your nose, any excuse to get ahead at your expense.

Seconds

Friday, July 1st, 2011

It’s all about winning, doing something memorable in order to carve your name into the history books before anyone else gets the chance. They say no one ever remembers who came second, and they’re probably right most of the time. Take the 100 metres: whoever wins is an instant hit; the rest of the field may as well have stayed on the starting blocks! We’re talking about fractions of a second to become a hero or a has been. If you think about Formula 1, these guys race at 300 miles an hour, so frighteningly fast, and yet separated by the merest hundredths of a second. The urge to get there first is paramount, an evolutionary human trait, one which pervades our existence to greater or lessor degree, manifesting itself in many different guises: in sport, naturally; the business world, of course; but it is also evident in our everyday lives, some of which is distinctly unpleasant. There’s the jostling at the bar, shoving into queues at the supermarket or petrol station, brazenly nicking a space in the car park right in front of your nose, any excuse to get ahead at your expense. Of course, the best sportsmen and women are paid a small fortune, and expected to set new standards; the business world must excel because it has its shareholders to answer to (though whether that produces the right kind of results is a whole different ball game); but ordinary individuals? They have no such high pressures, except those which irradiate their daily lives. This, apparently, entitles them to set aside common courtesy in favour of some fairly obnoxious behaviour. They cannot contemplate (or comprehend) waiting for a mere second or two, and would rather offend than hang back. Holding back is a sign of weakness, appropriate only for wimps.

Don’t get me wrong. People have difficult lives, but, then, that has always been the case. The trouble is that these difficulties have become an excuse for a way of living: be inconsiderate, be rude, because everyone is behaving the same way.

Who is to blame? I’m inclined to point the finger at Thatcherite Britain, the kind of Gordon Gekko culture that we woke up to in the 1980s, when me first was applauded, and we were berated for not getting on our bikes to hunt down a job. The tone was set by Norman Tebbit in 1981, and, since then, we have become enamoured with people (so-called celebrities) grabbing their 15 minutes of fame, by eagerly embracing any one of the seven deadly sins, oft times through voyeuristic shows like Big Brother and their like.

Where will it end? Well, give me a second, mate, and I’ll tell you.

 

Copyright © David Thomas Cochrane 2011