Archives for category: Comment

The Olympic Spirit

23/07/2012 //
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The Olympic torch was carried by the local milkman. The customers that he rarely sees lined the streets to cheer him on.

Ahead of him there were floats and lorries from Coca-Cola, Lloyds Bank, Samsung and McDonalds. Big screens showed adverts and people handed out flags with company logos on. When our milkman ran past, it was difficult to see him behind the squadron of bodyguards dressed in uniform grey running gear.

In the middle of that there might have been something good, something capable of bringing people together, but it was utterly lost behind the corporate sponsorship and security.

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Categories Advertising, Comment, Sport

Cultural Jet Lag

11/01/2012 //
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Whenever I go abroad, it’s hard to adjust. I always experience a vague uneasiness if the hire car’s waiting for me at the airport or the hotel knows I’m arriving.

This week I’ve renewed my passport, changed car insurance, sent a tax return and attempted to pay an electricity bill. Each could have been handled with one call or email. Each turned into a long, drawn-out saga riddled with hidden costs.

Living in Britain, I’m conditioned to expect this. That’s why, when visiting a foreign country, it takes a while to settle in, a while to get used to efficiency.

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Categories Britain, Comment, Travel

Rotherhamist

04/06/2011 //
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I didn’t know why the police pulled me over. I hadn’t been speeding but there could easily have been any number of things wrong with my car.

I gave the officer my best I’ve done nothing wrong kind of smile, all the time thinking: please don’t look at my tyres.

‘What’s your name?’ she said. I told her even though she’d already run my number plate through her computer.

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Rotherham.’

‘That’s why we’ve stopped you.’

It says a lot about a town when just the fact that you’re from there means you’re worthy of suspicion.

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Categories Comment, Experience, Judgmental

Originality, Quality and Excellence

18/04/2011 //
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With a day off and access to a television I inevitably wasted all my time vegetating. Daytime terrestrial TV offers a staggering variety of programmes. If you’re moving house for example, you could watch: Homes Under The Hammer; To Buy or Not To Buy; Escape to the Country; A Place In The Sun or Build a New House In The Country. Then again, maybe you like antiques? If so, there’s: Cash In The Attic; Cash In The Celebrity Attic; Bargain Hunt; Flog It; Dickinson’s Real Deal and Restoration Roadshow. If you want to watch anything half-decent however, you’re absolutely screwed.

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Categories Comment, Experience, Television

Back To Basics

09/04/2011 //
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In the cell of a budget hotel chain who’ve managed to turn austerity into a selling point. On the towel rail: ‘This unit has been disconnected for your safety’. The window: ‘for your safety this window is restricted.’

Thanks!

How about comfort? How about: ‘for your comfort, the duvet is thicker than an inch,’ or: ‘for your enjoyment, here’s a biscuit with the coffee making facilities,’ or even: ‘for your convenience we’ve provided you with some toiletries instead of charging you an extortionate amount to get them from our vending machine’.

The cost of the room wasn’t even that cheap.

 

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Categories Comfort, Comment, Experience

Harshly Judged

22/01/2011 //
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They were positioned at strategic points down the cobbled main street of the town centre – five of them, standing in the middle so they could reach the shoppers passing on either side. They were collecting for a children’s charity. I walked right by each one and none of them rattled their tin in my direction.

I loitered next to the last one, waiting for her to approach me. I was ignored. Why? I’m old enough to have children, I can feel sympathy, what part of my appearance meant I was excluded from their demographic? What was wrong with me?

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Categories Comment, Experience, Judgmental

Welcome to Wimbledon

03/01/2011 //
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Standing smoking under the overhang of the tube station exit to avoid the rain, I could hear a histrionic American preacher shouting about fire and damnation. He sounded far off so I assumed it was one of those nutters who attack city centre shoppers on a Saturday afternoon armed with sanctimony and a microphone. I then realised that the glum old man next to me was carrying a stereo wrapped up in polythene. The preaching was coming from there. How lovely to be welcomed after a long train journey by being told that you’re going to burn in hell forever.

 

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Categories Comment, Observation, Religion
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