Station 9 - Stuff we do

Station 9 - Stuff We Do

Well, it's such a nice day today. 21c today. Manageable. Bit of rain later. Manageable. So I'm not in a complaining mood today. What I do want to ramble about is just that weird stuff we do. Starting with this greeting which became almost a norm since my school days...

• The seeing a friend on the street enigma and saying "Hi you alright?"

This one you can just see in one syllable. "Hiyoualrigh" funny thing is, you never really give a shit whether they are "alright" or not. Nah. You couldn't give a fuck. Neither could they either. Since about 90% of the time they don't actually respond by asking YOU if you are alright. 

Oh look, John is approaching me. Hmm...it's raining and he doesn't have a coat on...bet he'll moan about that in the next shop he goes in to. Ok we are now about 50 feet away from each other and we've made the dreaded eye contact. This is a controversial time of an almost panicky think on your feet time of not knowing what the fuck to do until you are about a foot from each other. You can either:-

1. PRETEND you didn't make the eye contact at all. Start looking around you at anything you can lay your eyes on. Just for the love of God DON'T make eye contact with the person you are playing this little game with. 
2. Get out your mobile and pretend to text. The mobile phone pays for itself in these situations. My phone doesn't even have a sim card in it. I just use it as a distraction. 
3. Walk into a shop. Now this one is a little ignorant as you are basically depending on the fact that your friend hasn't seen you. This little maneuver reminds me of that bit on Raiders when Indy dives out of the way of that boulder at the very last minute. All I'm saying is God help you if your friend follows you into the shop and a live action game of Pacman is initiated.  

Now, you've done one of or if you are a Woman who can multitask done all three. Those painful 49 feet have been crossed and now you come to that pivotal moment where you both look up and BANG! HOLY FUCK! HI JOHN! DIDN'T SEE YOU THERE! You both engage in the most fake element of surprise ever and now one of THESE three things happen:-

1. You stop and ask each other "hiyoualrigh" and have a normal yet probably awkward conversation as you've just spent the last 49 feet trying to avoid them
2. You make the eye contact and give it the "hiyoualrigh" but if you are a John Mclean hard fuck you CARRY ON walking. BUT still engage with the eye contact. The worst part is when the other person STOPS and you carry on. John wanted to have a conversation with you and you could not be arsed in the slightest. Fuck John. JOHN never responds to my posts on his wall so why the fuck should I stop and talk to him just because we made eye contact. 
3. Classic "hiyoualrigh"...you both say it, neither of you respond and you just carry on. The rhetorical fact that if either one of you are indeed "alright" is never established and you just carry on with your day. 

One particularly awkward transgression is when all of the above happens with someone you met through a friend. You may have had a very small conversation with them on a night out. You don't even know this persons name. But you see them all the time on the street. The first couple of times it's step 3 from above. But it's after that it gets awkward. After that you have to see if they make the first "hiyoualrigh". If they don't you feel that you have to. If they do you think "maybe I am, why do you care".

I might bring back the top hat. All you gotta do then is give it a quick tip in the direction of John who'll do the same back to you. No problem. 

• Waiting for a man to stop peeing 

Okay ladies, I apologise but since I have no idea what goes in the Area 51 that is your toilets I cannot describe what happens there. So this one is just for us guys.

Now, it is quite rare to find a Men's toilet to be full. But there comes a time when it is. So I'm stood there, the urinals are full and the cubicles are full. Quite an awkward moment. You don't know where to look. Also, HOLY SHIT how big are these guys bladders? Why does this one guy seem to take about 5 minutes to take a piss? It takes me at the max 15 seconds. Has this guy not had a wee for the past week? HURRY UP CAMEL!! I mean I could understand it if he was wearing cream chinos because that deathly urine spot doesn't exactly hide itself well on those. But no this guy is wearing thick jeans. Hurry the fuck up and let me piss. You ever waited at a checkout with one item and the kind person lets you in front because he has a weekly shop? Well, why can't the same apply here? "Excuse me Mr Camelbladder, I predict that your urination will last about five minutes whereas mine takes about 15 seconds. For the good of efficiency can I go in front of you?" I wouldn't recommend this but damn it would make my toilet trips easier. 

• Complain in normal conversation deliberately louder so other people can hear 

Now I get this a lot where I work. You see a couple of people having a conversation then one of them wants to complain about something and for this time they suddenly go up a few decibles. Pretty much something like this 

"oh yes I had ever such a nice holiday in Benedorm, you see I'm the only person who has ever been there. BUT NO I REFUSE TO PAY FOR A CARRIER BAG IT IS AGAINST MY BELIEFS"

Yes sweetheart I heard you. I heard that you don't pay for carrier bags. You fucking steel-hearted, strong, mandela-esque powerful piece of wonderful humanity. Those few decibels really raised yourself higher on the ladder of importance. Shit, you should run for Prime Minister. Don't bother buying a microphone. Dumb bitch. 

• Announce on Facebook "we are in A+E" but don't explain why

This really confuses me. I don't know why we do it. We see a status saying "Just in A+E" then under it we see about five genuinely concerned people asking "Why?" "Omg why?" but we NEVER hear from them why the hell they are there. 

So if you are going to announce your sudden residency in A+E. I want a picture of your damaged body part. I wanna see the compound fracture. I wanna see your ankle twisted. I wanna know why you are there, what got you there, how long you have been waiting and what the nurse said. I wanna know the time you arrived and the the time you left. I wanna know every loud complaint that other inpatients made about their waiting time. I wanna see your bandages, your splints. I wanna see your x-ray scan. I wanna know how long off work you are gonna be. I wanna see the injuries of other people in the waiting room. I wanna see how well stocked the vending machines are in there. 

What I DON'T wanna just see is "Just in A+E". If you do that, you deserve to be there. Good. If you're not going to explain why you are there then fuck you. If you are going to leave us on that cliffhanger then I don't care in fact I have no reason to believe you. 

Well I'm gonna leave it there folks. I'll no doubt come across some other frivolities of human behaviour and I'll add them to this. Take care folks. 

Station 8 - Hand me my Shield, no not that, my Laptop

Station 8 - Hand me my Shield, no not that, my Laptop

The internet. It is like a lawless, Wild West town where around every corner you can find people duelling at each other with their mouse (sorry touchpad, get with the times man) revolvers and hurling abuse at each other about...well...nothing particularly important. An empty saloon is like a new forum or a newly posted YouTube video. A quaint place all bespoke and ready for all kinds of interaction and friendly banter. Relevant friendly banter. Well, so is hoped...

The people enter the saloon and suddenly a minor, tiny clash of opinion occurs. Someone doesn't like the way Johnny Hotspur is wearing his hat. This point is made, and suddenly chairs and tables are being flung everywhere and now all that happens in this saloon is just that. A violent tangent of differing opinions. 

I'll leave that metaphor alone now because I've been playing quite a lot of Red Dead Redemption recently and have grown quite fond of the Wild Wild West. 

So, you are watching the music video of arguably (in fact, voted in many a radio poll) the greatest song of all time by one of the greatest bands of all time. In my opinion, and a quite a lot of other people's opinions also. Now, how many times has this video been viewed as of today (24th July 2013)...

74, 497, 060

Not bad. 

Okay, so you are now watching "Baby" by Justin Bieber. Let's see how many views this scribing of poetic genius has...

874, 641, 411 

Oh. Well. You'd think that was a bit of a miscarriage of justice wouldn't you considering the inconceivably large gulf of quality behind the two songs. 

Well...no. 

Bohemian Rhapsody was released in 1975. In 1975 we didn't have YouTube to view this gargantuan epic of a music video. What we DID have however was the gem and now mince pie program Top of The Pops. This began to really push the popularity of songs and revolutionised  how music was experienced. 

Arise MTV. "Video Killed The Radio Star" being apparently the first video on here. MTV became a 24 hour music video channel. Now, imagine how many times 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was played and viewed. I don't know the exact number, I don't know if anyone does. Now what we must also remember is Bohemian Rhapsody's longevity compared to that Justin Bieber song. I highly doubt that in 20 odd years people will be hilariously belting it out and remembering it as one of the best of all time. 

What I'm basically trying to get at is, those people on YouTube who constantly go on and on about how "disgraceful" and "ignorant" it is that the viewing numbers for the two videos are so drastically different just need to close their laptop lids and think. Legend vs Immediacy. Which one wins? 

Moving on, a situation to consider. Gerald 30, a big Led Zeppelin and The Clash fan is walking down the street and he hears quite clearly the hallowed tones of 'One Direction' emanating from a mobile phone being clutched in the hands of 15 year old Sarah. What will Gerald do?

Probably...nothing. What he WILL do though is when he arrives home is to find a One Direction video on our favourite website and insult and swear and troll and flame their fans on there. 

Why? Why bother? I mean do you find THEIR fans doing the same thing to classic rock bands? Nope. They just happily sit in their rooms listening to them not harming anyone. So why is there this terrible trolling of these 1D fans? Because it's "COOL". It enforces your love of your band and gives you a heightened sense of "rock". You feel that if you openly (is it openly?) and quite harshly lambast their fans with your rock and roll testosterone you feel like you are doing your band a favour. Well, you're not are you? The time you spend criticizing their music you could easily spend praising your own. 

I wonder how many of Mr Bieber's YouTube views are SOLELY people just clicking on it to abuse it. 

The laptop and home computer has become a shield to fight your personal battles behind.  That much is clear. Poor old Gerald in the street doesn't have the guts to vent his views on poor old Sarah's "shit" music in Sarah's face. So he heads home and hides behind his keyboard and off he goes. 

I personally have no issue with Bieber or One Direction's fans. Let them be. Listen to the music you enjoy. Because I can tell you now, people who spend their time trolling and abusing the "Beliebers" are far sadder than the "Beliebers" themselves. 

Gerald, you are a 30 year old man with a taste in Rock and Punk music.Good for you. I like your music too. Now leave the teenage girls alone to admire their idol like they leave you alone to admire yours. 

Now, music was a very good example of this...but this hiding behind laptops is pretty much relevant to anything. I mean on a certain football forum I am a member of a "minor disagreement" very quickly escalates into a foul mouthed, personal battle in which even post-counts are used as "hitting where it hurts" jibes. This happens all over the internet. We only really ever see it happen in real life when it is over a girl or a drunken misunderstanding. To be honest, it's a good thing. It's hard to stab or punch someone over the internet isn't it?

So I guess venting anger at each other on the internet is somewhat pathetic and cowardly, but it probably reduces a fair amount of violent crime. Or does it? 

Who knows, but one thing is for sure, this won't end soon. Hide people!