Cultureshock: Flash- forward.

Cultureshock: Flash-forward.

Bored? Obviously not exactly the best question to ask if you want to grip someone and hold their attention?before I retired I used to pour scorn and derision on folks who said that I would be bored to death within weeks.

'Narr, ' I'd scoff back contemptuously,' Not half as much as I am now. You're only bored in life if your imagination is lacking.' Then as a rider would often add my favourite riddle; what is the difference between a rut and the grave? I had asked so many times they all knew the answer, quite often they did not wait to hear my reply; 'retirement you apes.' I would cry out, in frustration, or laugh at their derision, most thought my mental health was a little suspect anyhow. Despite this they loved to bait me on the occasions when life in the drawing office became too tedious. Nevertheless I would shout after their receding backs: 'It's twice as long!.' I knew it was all part of the game. The rich game of life, but who would have the last laugh?

Yes, there is usually at least one in every office. In most of the offices I worked in I was the one. The easiest to wind-up. The one who the phrase 'don't take yourself too seriously was written to describe.' Though I often could not see when the line had been crossed. And once again I had become the patsy of the hour. It was in fact to take me several years into retirement before the penny dropped, and I discovered just what a smart cookie I really was, not the sort of statement you would expect to hear from a modest before all things, Englishman.

In fact most of what I have already written on this blog and it is not very stimulating to state the obvious. So. So I thought why not? In my youth [many moons ago] when we went to the flicks, we were often confronted by the flashback. A device which I believe has, in the main , fallen into disuse. Probably because although the endings could surprise in the hands of a good writer,actors and director, most folks preferred the uncomplicated straightforward story line. Or perhaps it is true that with the demise of creative use of the imagination film and TV makers have make much plainer and straightforward the story line and their intentions. The drawback with the global imagination must then be is: one size fits all. Just like the euro. What a ghastly realisation that could be?

Then again in the past four decades events in the World at large have taken on a fresh and stimulating aspect to those who are interested in the huge panorama of these changes. Sometimes it appears that the whole of creation is in the same state of flux that must have heralded the start or end of the various ice ages. The difference in those past times was a certain lack of homo-sapiens to complicate issues and invent trials of guilt, especially those by default. As everyone will know trial by default is where most common folk know something is so because they have lived with it for weeks, months, sometimes years. Had their noses rubbed in the stupidity of the hierarchy who insist on the agreed way; the traditional route to damnation.

The expert who guards his knowledge with the passion only reserved for those who threaten his status and pension.  Then suddenly a few gifted, or gilded bods from some university or other produce, at great expense, a pontification on the subject. A favoured hack is briefed and another sensational article or essay sallies forth into the public domain of opinion where grumpy old characters like me will say to their long suffering other halves; I've been telling them that for years. Mind you it is the great saving grace to me that I realised almost as soon as my vision receded and I began to assess the impact that there was no doubt in my mind premature claims on my part as to what this meant would lead only to total melt down.

Now with the past forty years in the United Kingdom, at least, in the hands of the wreakers, incompetents, point scores and general second raters the invaluable knowledge placed at their disposal appears to have been frittered away. Or has it? My own feeling for what it is worth. Despite the asinine short sightedness of the educationalists, still full of their own misguided theories of eqalitarisim, the rest of the World is moving on some might say at a very smart lick. Unfortunately it is almost written into our non-existent constitution that Britain should strip right down to their jock straps, or g-strings, before they take the threats of Johnny Foreigner seriously.

So to my mind there is absolutely nothing new in the present state of unprepared minds to face the challenge even though the enemy is hardly at the gates. They are already entrenched in a whole phalanx of jobs, ghettos, and all the other nasty little ways in which threatened minorities, consolidate from their breaches of the their host, who have been unworldly enough to allow not merely unrestricted entry but positively encouraged the situation. It might prove considerably harder to evict them than the misguided morons who created the situation in the first instance anticipated. Then again do we really want to evict them from their hard won initiative. They have shaken us up and given us a hard smack on the nose. Was it ever the British way to cry, 'foul,' when you are shown the way back to the correct path to repair your fortunes?

Fully aware as I am that shame has left by the back door. Ethics and well tailored clothes are a sign of the wastrel and popinjay. Uniform, illustrates the mind of those inside and is a preset to most of the thinking in the twentieth century. How easy it is to label by appearance instead of at least attempting to evaluate and appreciate? Now however we have the ultimate twin expressions of the new way of thinking as you strive to make your pile, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. The twin pinnacles of achievement, so we are given to understand? but I wonder just how much anyone really understands? This could be the last throw of Mammon, how can such frenzies not burn themselves to ashes?