My dad used to go out for a few beers most nights of the week and also enjoy a lunchtime tipple on a weekend too. He was not an alcoholic nor were his peers, far from it.
His generation drank pints of weak beer that were a backdrop to the basic need to simply share the stories of the day – rather than have them fed to you through the television – and to socialise.
Working in a noisy factory most likely starved any man of communication other than by sign language.
Pubs observed well understood opening hours and A&E wards up and down the country were not brim full of abusive people, sucking resources out of the NHS, seeking a cure for their Happy Hour excesses.
Life changes, that we all know, but look around most pubs these days and the “regular” is an endangered species as is the pub. Clearly, younger people have other choices and the pub may not be high in aspirational lifestyle terms these days.
However, it does illustrate, in part, how withdrawn we have become as a society. Even when we do go out, a cursory glance around most pubs will find even couples engrossed in their smartphones, heads down, fingers and thumbs twitching, oblivious to each other.
You look wonderful tonight?
It’s not just the pubs; look around the other great meeting places of the past like the churches or the sports clubs (often owned by the large employers) with ever dwindling numbers. We are an increasing population but where are we?
Perhaps how we spend what disposable income we have at the end of the week determines much? The financial pressures on everyday life in a must-have society are markedly different.
Property is stupidly expensive and we all want to fill our homes with the best of everything, freely accessible on most retail parks. A family holiday is no longer a week in Bridlington.
Tucked away we communicate by email, Facebook and text.
Want a conspiracy theory? Slowly but surely we are being brainwashed, herded into our homes, fed by the Government and Mr Murdoch only what they want us to see and hear. Before they haul me off to the secure facility you read it here first.
Hue & Cry
Hugh’s War On Waste was watchable fare from the BBC if only to witness how incredibly complacent and stupid we have all become especially with regard to food.
With thousands dependent on food banks in one of the richest nations in the world, the amount we waste is mind boggling and most of this is produce that never reaches the retailers.
Having pursued Westminster and Brussels with admirable aplomb during his campaign over fish discards, old Hugh now has his sights on our supermarkets. I don’t doubt his sincerity but you wonder why this serious issue needs a “celebrity” fronting it.
Episode One focused on a parsnip farm seemingly reliant on one customer – Morrisons – and utterly in their grip. With a grim timing almost tailor-made for the cameras they were slowly seeing the business die on it’s feet.
The waste was obscene as produce deemed imperfect – too long, short or blemished – was simply driven back into the land. It was like ethnic cleansing for vegetables.
Equally puzzling was the evasive response from a supermarket group not short of problems at the moment. What a chance missed to come on camera and front-up but, for several months, the spineless PR driven suits ran for cover.
Not so KFC who did front-up to counter the suggestions that millions of chickens were also going the same way, albeit you could not ignore a sense of the stage managed; still, a commitment of sorts was provided even if it had a happy ever after feel.
Back to Morrisons and evidence surely of the kind of management qualities that have seen it’s fortunes tumble like a stone.
Eventually, Hugh got his way and Morrisons launched a trial of vegetables that would have been discarded previously, in this case courgettes and at one store only. What a commitment then.
Labelling them as “Ugly Courgettes” and selling them along side their beautiful family members at the same price guess what happened? The “perfect cousins” outsold the “ugly sisters” by two to one! Well I never!
Surely a more meaningful trial would have been to offer the “ugly” option at a discount which would still generate a margin for both producer and retailer plus avoid the obscene practice of ploughing the crop back into the fields from where they came?
Doh for Morrisons with a chance missed to take a lead here and, at last, have some good news to shout about. Small wonder my shares have gone tits up with clowns like these guys in charge.
Take a minute to register your disgust at the appalling waste going on in the pursuit of designer food by completing the petition on the website because there has to be a better way.
If we keep driving producers out of business, one day we may not be so abundant.
Full Circle
Apparently, laughing at slapstick as we get older is an early sign of dementia. As kids we laughed our socks off at stuff like Benny Hill so the wheel clearly has come full circle.
For those of us that never stopped laughing at Benny enough said…and far less remembered!
Have a good weekend, grab a bit of slap and tickle where you can and don’t forget to wipe your bum!
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