It doesn’t matter what your political affiliations are or what issue is most important to you.
It
doesn’t matter if you study every word in the party manifestoes or attend all
the major debates and wrestle with your conscience long into the night.
Because
at the end of the day after all the weeks of campaigning and electioneering it
doesn’t matter in which box you put your cross for the government will always
get in.
Like laboratory mice in a maze, we are conditioned and set on their path.
It
all begins at 6.45 AM when the car pulls off the drive and they travel in
silence arriving outside the station at 7.13.
He
kisses her cheek and exits the Cherokee.
He
spends approximately two minutes purchasing a newspaper and negotiating the
barrier and then occupies the same spot on the platform that he has occupied
for the past twelve years.
Should
he find an interloper standing in his place then they are subjected to the commuter’s
version of Paddington’s “hard stare” and if that does not suffice then a loud
snort is employed.
Apart
from the snort there is no other conversation.
7.17
AM the London train arrives and he boards and stows his brief case then
occupies the same seat as every other day opposite the same faces behind the
same newspapers.
As
soon as he is seated, he opens his own paper, and the train pulls out.
There
is no conversation during the journey not even so much as a polite nod in fact no
acknowledgment even of the existence of fellow passengers.
The
train arrives at Waterloo at 7.43 AM and its contents are disgorged onto the
platform and then like lemmings are drawn towards the concourse.
On the concourse bodies appear to, at least on
face value, to have no purpose whatsoever just a chaotic whirlpool of flotsam.
However,
on closer examination you find that the chaos is caused not by the Lemmings
lack of purpose bat rather in spite of it.
Each
Lemming, or perhaps better described now as a Rat, has a purpose and a course
but the chaos ensues when all of them refuse to give way.
Like
Salmon fighting the rapids and leaping obstacles the melee is eventually
escaped and the strange commuter creatures start to disappear down holes and
tunnels only to resurface after varying periods of time.
From
deep underground, hot, confused and blinking in the daylight and join their
fellows on the crowded pavements, still not giving way, until one by one they
take refuge in their office buildings.
Eight
of nine hours later the mindless commuter creatures reappear to repeat the process
but in reverse flooding onto the pavement and flow along the pavement and then
down their tunnels like excess rainwater down a storm drain. Emerging at
Waterloo the flood water ebbs and flows like a surge tide meeting the mouth of
a river.
But with great resilience the strange creatures manage to reach it predetermined destination.
Once on the train he again occupies his usual seat this time opposite a different group of familiar strangers behind their evening papers.
Back
in suburbia he leaves the station and gets in the Cherokee and kisses his wife
on the cheek.
She
says, “How was your day?”
He
replies, “OK the usual”
She
then recounts the details of her day, which he doesn’t hear.
Once
he arrives at his luxurious detached Surrey home, he kisses the children and
tucks then in bed.
Then
he takes a shower and changes into something comfortable before having dinner
with his wife.
He
then watches an hour’s TV before going off to bed so that the next day he can
do it all again.
The
reason he suffers the joys of commuting is to earn the big bucks to pay the
huge mortgage on the luxurious big house that he has no time to enjoy.
Not
very bright creatures are they.
My boss has either been struck down by a midlife crisis or the male menopause.
He
has just bought himself a Porsche or as we prefer to regard it as his
“MenoPorsche”.
There
can be few things in this life more ridiculous than a middle-aged man in a
sports car.
Men
don’t even like sports cars after all they are so impractical.
Men
like Trucks, Vans, and Landover’s.
Women
on the other hand love sports cars, which is the reason that middle aged men
like to drive them in the vain attempt to attract women.
He
will soon come to his senses and buy a pickup because he won’t pick up anything
in his Porsche.
How absurd are TV outtakes? Why is it that we delight so much in seeing Actors and presenters cocking up?
After
all we don’t get to see other professionals getting it wrong as part of our evening’s
entertainment.
We
don’t see a top surgeon removing the wrong kidney or nicking the patients
bowel.
Nor
do we see an undertaker burying the wrong body or a waiter twice dropping your
steak on the floor before he left the kitchen.
Some
things are best-left unseen.
I have found as I have travelled life’s highway that in the end everything comes down to perspective.
For
example, if you are inside a car your perspective would be that the car was an
efficient and economic means of getting from a to b.
However,
if you were a pedestrian walking and urban pavement you would view them as
dirty, noisy and smelly polluters of the planet.
That’s
perspective.
I have
found as I have travelled life’s highway that in the end everything comes down
to perspective.
For
example, if you are inside a car your perspective would be that the car was an
efficient and economic means of getting from a to b.
However,
if you were a pedestrian walking and urban pavement you would view them as
dirty, noisy and smelly polluters of the planet.
That’s
perspective.
Another
fine example was Diana (Princess, lady etc) she was viewed in almost equal
measure as one of three things.
Firstly,
as a demure heroine of the people, secondly as a scheming, manipulative
self-publicist or thirdly as a vacuous clotheshorse.
Note
that this can be applied to every conceivable area of debate whether it is
Homosexuality, Religion and politics or eating habits the list is endless.
If
another case in point is necessary perspective is regularly demonstrated in any
televised football match.
When
a disputed incident occurs, a goal, a penalty, or a bad tackle, it is examined
by the panel of experts and it is viewed from various angles.
Some
show it is, some show it’s not and some are inconclusive, but you are able to
make a balanced judgement because you have seen it from all the different
angles or perspectives or to put it another way you have viewed it through
other people’s eyes.
Unfortunately,
in normal everyday events we are unable or more likely unwilling to see an
issue through another’s eyes.
Is
it any wonder that we are so good at war?
Most people if pressed would not admit to giving a name to an inanimate object. Well, I can tell you now that 90% of them would be lying and the rest didn’t understand the question.
The
commonest object, by some distance, to be endowed with a pet name is the car
and More often than not it will be a feminine name.
This
is because we perceive that a cars personality is inherently female.
The
reasons for this are quite obvious because they are expensive to keep,
unpredictable, unreliable, they only respond when you speak nicely to them and
you need to endlessly accessorize.
For
my part I have a dark blue ford fiesta which I bought new, and I called her
Abby and I did this because it was the Abbey who loaned me the money to buy
her.
Anaphylactic shock is a severe allergic reaction to something such as a Bee sting or maybe eating peanuts or shellfish.
While
on the other hand prophylactic shock happens when you discover your boyfriend
didn’t wear a condom.
