Home again (almost)
Well it's been a wild ride and a long time away, but the adventure in the underparts is finally drawing to a close.
I am typing this blog in Fife, where my father has now embraced the digital age and signed up for broadband. Various dogs are lolling about waiting to be strolled (or for a fire to be lit), and the mound of dirty washing is slowly shrinking.
So what of the random whitterings, you ask. Well, I've decided to spare you all the tedium of wading through what I've been up to. It's not that interesting really, and probably just makes people jealous. Keeping the journal as I went along was a useful exercise in writing - without it I would have produced nothing at all. I've still got to pull together my recollections from Singapore and four hellish flights, but I've decided that I'll post the whole lot on my website and link to it from here at a later date. That way you can ignore it or read it if you please.
A thought occurred to me in the last day or two of flying. Why is it that people can't understand and follow the most basic of instructions? It doesn't matter how often the captain tells passengers to remain seated until the plane has come to a complete halt, as soon as the wheels are on the ground, people are up, opening lockers, guddling about with things and trying to make their mobile phones work.
There have been other, similar incidences of this. In Singapore, for instance, we took the night safari at the zoo, where we were all asked not to use flash photography as it disturbs the animals. Regardless of this simple instruction, it felt sometimes like we were in the middle of a silent storm.
Now I don't want to pretend that I always play by the rules; I've been known to go a little bit faster than is strictly allowed on the motorway, and like many others, I have little but contempt for a great deal of legislation allegedly passed in my name by the current government (and past ones too). But when there's an obvious reason and a polite request, it seems churlish and selfish in the extreme not to honour it.
I guess people are quite happy for the rules to exist, just as long as they don't have to apply to them. Or more accurately, and more galling to someone raised to believe that manners makyth the man, I suspect that mostly people are just doing things without any immediate thought.
I am typing this blog in Fife, where my father has now embraced the digital age and signed up for broadband. Various dogs are lolling about waiting to be strolled (or for a fire to be lit), and the mound of dirty washing is slowly shrinking.
So what of the random whitterings, you ask. Well, I've decided to spare you all the tedium of wading through what I've been up to. It's not that interesting really, and probably just makes people jealous. Keeping the journal as I went along was a useful exercise in writing - without it I would have produced nothing at all. I've still got to pull together my recollections from Singapore and four hellish flights, but I've decided that I'll post the whole lot on my website and link to it from here at a later date. That way you can ignore it or read it if you please.
A thought occurred to me in the last day or two of flying. Why is it that people can't understand and follow the most basic of instructions? It doesn't matter how often the captain tells passengers to remain seated until the plane has come to a complete halt, as soon as the wheels are on the ground, people are up, opening lockers, guddling about with things and trying to make their mobile phones work.
There have been other, similar incidences of this. In Singapore, for instance, we took the night safari at the zoo, where we were all asked not to use flash photography as it disturbs the animals. Regardless of this simple instruction, it felt sometimes like we were in the middle of a silent storm.
Now I don't want to pretend that I always play by the rules; I've been known to go a little bit faster than is strictly allowed on the motorway, and like many others, I have little but contempt for a great deal of legislation allegedly passed in my name by the current government (and past ones too). But when there's an obvious reason and a polite request, it seems churlish and selfish in the extreme not to honour it.
I guess people are quite happy for the rules to exist, just as long as they don't have to apply to them. Or more accurately, and more galling to someone raised to believe that manners makyth the man, I suspect that mostly people are just doing things without any immediate thought.
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