Well, for a lighter moment I thought I'd start dispensing lifestyle advice to all you lovely people. I should admit at the outset that this first lot is not, in fact, mine.
Now let me ask a question of all of you. When you were young, mid teens, dealing with guys or girls (as appropriate) how many of you came across the conundrum of varying degrees of relationships? "We're just friends" "We're seeing each other" "No, no, we're not going out, we're just together." Now all this appropriately complicated; until now! Those of you familiar with the show How I met Your Mother will know of Barney and his blog. Well the good people at CBS have set up this blog up and it is from that source that I'll draw this first lot of advice - definitions to help you with pubescent relationships with the opposite sex.
hook·ing up [hoo-k-ing up] - When two people do it, consistently, but aren’t hanging out during daylight hours – unless it’s for the express purpose of getting it on.
hang·ing out [hang – ing – owt] – The process of participating in an organized activity together – such as a movie or dinner - followed shortly thereafter by furious banging.
see·ing where things are go·ing [see-ing wair things ahr going] – The process in which two people hang out, hook up, and do everything they can not to think about what it means.
da·ting – [day-ting] 1) The first time seeing where things are going fails. 2) Hanging out without the guarantee of sex.
hook·ing up [hoo-k-ing up] - When two people do it, consistently, but aren’t hanging out during daylight hours – unless it’s for the express purpose of getting it on.
hang·ing out [hang – ing – owt] – The process of participating in an organized activity together – such as a movie or dinner - followed shortly thereafter by furious banging.
see·ing where things are go·ing [see-ing wair things ahr going] – The process in which two people hang out, hook up, and do everything they can not to think about what it means.
da·ting – [day-ting] 1) The first time seeing where things are going fails. 2) Hanging out without the guarantee of sex.
[source: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/community/barney_blog/index.php]
So there you go, read it well, commit it to memory, and try to be less confused next time the issue of 'hooking up' or 'getting together' comes up.
It does actually make it's point quite well. Of course it's written in a humourous vein, and with a hugely sexual focus, but it does at least try to define this conundrum for us. How many times has this issue been confused by different definitions? Well now you have a printed group of definitions to work by - just don't take it all too seriously.
I'll be back with more for you soon, but until then...
Tuesday 8 December 2009
Tuesday 1 December 2009
We are the angry mob
Public outcry seems to have been something of a theme for this year. Following the highly publicised events of ‘Sachsgate’ and the debate over the Jan Moir article on Stephen Gately, it appears that the public enjoy voicing their displeasure with things. Often with consequences for those being complained about. The possible problem with this is that the victims of public outrage become vilified by the one sided vitriolic outpourings, and often become symbolically lynched by the mob.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that those who have suffered at the hands of public outrage don’t deserve it; my question is are theses complaints being made for the right reason?
While working the other day I was ‘fortunate’ enough to experience a form of this public outcry first hand.
It was the middle of a relatively quiet Tuesday for those of you who care. I was the only member of staff on the bar, and busy serving the three tables of customers who were patronising it. While I was taking an order from a couple the peace of the place was interrupted by a man bursting through the door and declaring “Oi mate, some old boy’s just tripped over your sign!” before sweeping out of the place again. A glance out of the window showed a rapidly expanding crowd forming outside the front of the bar. Figuring that this should be dealt with, I excused myself to the customers in the bar and walked outside. That was an experience! I was met in the doorway by a woman who was about to stride into the bar to tell me what had happened, just in case I hadn’t heard her predecessor. Apparently pleased to have someone to turn on each member of the crowd kindly informed me that my personal sign had assaulted an old man, and this was frankly a disgrace. I did happen to notice however that all these concerned individuals were ignoring the injured old man! Once I got to talk to the gentleman concerned he seemed fairly relaxed about it all, saying he just wanted to get his paper and go home. “But you fell over the sign, you must be hurt” one of our band of well-wishers ventured, “probably very shaken up” another kindly observed – no the gentleman was fine, he’d had worse and just wanted to go and get his paper please. Apparently this was the end of the incident, the gentleman was allowed to relax for a moment, and the crowd – seeing there was no trouble to be made - disappeared faster than they appeared.
The point here is this; were these people complaining because they were concerned for the old man and others walking the streets? Or was it simply an excuse to get outraged at something and make a noise about it? Free speech is all well and good, but do some people have to be so free about it? I would go so far as to suggest that in many of these cases, most of the complaints are made because people want something to complain about, not because they care about the issue at hand. If I remember rightly the number of complaints made about the phone calls to Andrew Sachs went up significantly after the Daily Mail reported the article, declaring how disgusting it all was. It turns out that a significant number of the complaining mob had never even heard the phone calls.
Apparently then, lots of these complaints are in fact regurgitated bile passed down from one source through a herd of bleating sheep, who have no personal opinion on the matter, but like making noise about something. Well do us all a favour, and stop it. A mass lynching by a noisy, but ill-informed, mob is not exercising your freedom of speech, nor is it standing up for what’s right. By all means if you have an opinion which needs defending, go ahead. If you are genuinely concerned for the well-being of the injured party, then make yourself heard. But if you just want to make noise because you can, then sing in the shower. Or if you really need to jump on a bandwagon and have your say then go into politics!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that those who have suffered at the hands of public outrage don’t deserve it; my question is are theses complaints being made for the right reason?
While working the other day I was ‘fortunate’ enough to experience a form of this public outcry first hand.
It was the middle of a relatively quiet Tuesday for those of you who care. I was the only member of staff on the bar, and busy serving the three tables of customers who were patronising it. While I was taking an order from a couple the peace of the place was interrupted by a man bursting through the door and declaring “Oi mate, some old boy’s just tripped over your sign!” before sweeping out of the place again. A glance out of the window showed a rapidly expanding crowd forming outside the front of the bar. Figuring that this should be dealt with, I excused myself to the customers in the bar and walked outside. That was an experience! I was met in the doorway by a woman who was about to stride into the bar to tell me what had happened, just in case I hadn’t heard her predecessor. Apparently pleased to have someone to turn on each member of the crowd kindly informed me that my personal sign had assaulted an old man, and this was frankly a disgrace. I did happen to notice however that all these concerned individuals were ignoring the injured old man! Once I got to talk to the gentleman concerned he seemed fairly relaxed about it all, saying he just wanted to get his paper and go home. “But you fell over the sign, you must be hurt” one of our band of well-wishers ventured, “probably very shaken up” another kindly observed – no the gentleman was fine, he’d had worse and just wanted to go and get his paper please. Apparently this was the end of the incident, the gentleman was allowed to relax for a moment, and the crowd – seeing there was no trouble to be made - disappeared faster than they appeared.
The point here is this; were these people complaining because they were concerned for the old man and others walking the streets? Or was it simply an excuse to get outraged at something and make a noise about it? Free speech is all well and good, but do some people have to be so free about it? I would go so far as to suggest that in many of these cases, most of the complaints are made because people want something to complain about, not because they care about the issue at hand. If I remember rightly the number of complaints made about the phone calls to Andrew Sachs went up significantly after the Daily Mail reported the article, declaring how disgusting it all was. It turns out that a significant number of the complaining mob had never even heard the phone calls.
Apparently then, lots of these complaints are in fact regurgitated bile passed down from one source through a herd of bleating sheep, who have no personal opinion on the matter, but like making noise about something. Well do us all a favour, and stop it. A mass lynching by a noisy, but ill-informed, mob is not exercising your freedom of speech, nor is it standing up for what’s right. By all means if you have an opinion which needs defending, go ahead. If you are genuinely concerned for the well-being of the injured party, then make yourself heard. But if you just want to make noise because you can, then sing in the shower. Or if you really need to jump on a bandwagon and have your say then go into politics!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
