pricks – Observations and Misunderstandings

Go on, admit it, who panicked back there for a little? Buy too much toilet roll did you? How about all those bags of porridge oats you heard were nutritious and would last a long time? What on earth are you going to do with all those tins of kidney beans, you don’t even like kidney beans. How did that baking bread mission go, bored of the effort yet? It’s great being able to take the moral high ground and call people out for being pricks.

I saw something online earlier that some councillor in Derby had posted showing bins full of food people had dumped because they had bought too much and it had good bad. Loaves of bread, chicken, vegetables, that type of thing. There was what appeared to be a carefully placed bunch of bananas at the top of one pile though yet the bananas looked fresh, not a speck of aged brown on them, eerily similar to the standard I bought earlier today actually. The skeptical monster in me went into overdrive, my bullshitometre when wild with excitement as I realised the whole thing stunk of set up. The game given away by someone trying just too hard to make the food waste look unjustifiable. I don’t care what you say, nobody throws away a fresh bunch of bananas.

I must confess that in all the panic I did buy two things in bulk, three actually if you count that I now have two kilos of peanut butter and one of cashew nut butter. I must stress though that I eat that stuff normally, and found it strange that in all the panic with empty shelves everywhere, there were loads of tubs of inexpensive pure peanut butters which are a great source of protein and fats. How many times, you can’t live off toilet roll and tinned tomatoes. Actually four things if you count the three tins of sardines I bought thinking it was mackerel, three tins which might find themselves donated to a food bank it’s worth adding.

I bought about three months supply of multivitamins, vitamin c and probiotics just incase it does all go tits up and I’m living on stale bread and water for a bit, also to keep me healthy with virus’ going around of course. I bought thirty kilograms of dog food for my little darling too. People didn’t seem to mention pets in all of this chaos but what happens if the food supply dries up and we run out of pet food, do we start giving them people food when we’re hungry ourselves? Well to avoid that conundrum I now have a back up of three to four months worth of food for her. I may not have rushed out for myself but at least my dog won’t go hungry. It’s amazing the lengths we’ll go to when we find someone or something to love.

But the madness seems to have calmed. The shelves are full and now people only look suspiciously at each other looking for signs of potential illness. I saw a great moment in the queue for the check out though when a woman reminded the couple behind her that they should be keeping a distance of two metres. The man just suggested she simply move forward to create it oblivious to the fact that she would then be less than the two metres from whoever was in front of her. People are a constant source of entertainment. I bet she got about two days worth of excitement from retelling that story.

I’m drinking red wine it’s really nice. I had a small thought at one point today and it was about whether we have trained a generation of human security cameras. It was based on a short five minute video of an older comedian talking about taking his granddaughter to the park. It was a slightly obvious joke in that it was critical of the modern day child being wrapped up in cotton wool and not playing with live open wires like the good old days. He was being critical of slides in playgrounds and how they’re designed to be shit and not really give any decent fun propulsion. While he wanted to give her a helping hand he could see all the other kids and adults watching him “Go on granddad I dare you” as they all take out their iPhone’s. But the reality is it’s true.

There have been seemingly endless revolutions over the last lets say five to ten years, all of which appear to have failed miserably. What has become evident and I first noticed this in the Arab Spring of X amount of years ago, was that the humble camera phone became an integral part of reporting. While I rejoiced at policeman being caught out beating up non-violent protesters and wondering how the media would be able to ignore such conclusive evidence, very easily it turned out, I praised these phones and thought they had changed the game in regards coverage of protests and such things. They changed everything of course, and were dutifully ignored by the apparatus of power, but is it possible it could go the other way? What happens if people become so used to filming and publishing any video online they collectively start recording every little incident of social existence. There are so many situations in daily life that people act outside of the law, that is the reality, but they’re harmless, nobody gets hurt and in reality nobody has a problem with them. But it’s on camera now. Or what about an innocent situation like Grandpa above, somebody films him being a little over exuberant but harmless, and he becomes vilified, shamed and doesn’t feel comfortable playing freely with his granddaughter anymore.

We’re such judgmental pricks that both these situations are plausible. The latter has become part of daily existence but is the evolution of this that we inadvertently become walking CCTV’s. It seems far fetched, and in some ways it is because it’ll never end up exactly like that, but there already are versions of this kind of behaviour. The power people have to catch each other and feel good about themselves. It’s enough to make humour vanish. Maybe I should stop drinking red wine.

Tag: pricks

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