Contrary to what you might think …
Good morning everyone!
I’m not sure whether it’s a case of ‘What goes around, comes around’ or, alternatively perhaps, a product of something specifically to do with my encroaching senility and accompanying embracing of the joys of being gradually relieved of my responsibilities for anything significant, but – before I get onto my subject de jour – I’d like to address some slightly closer to home and more personal.
As an oldie, of course, I have inevitably become used to suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (not least people from younger and more tech-savvy generations than mine taking the mick*** [see below] because of my failure to keep up with the modern world) but I’m not sure I care and indeed – as I slip daily ever further down the slope to irrelevance – find myself harbouring an increasing inner sense of ‘Two fingers to the lot of you!’ defiance.
[***As I was drafting this post I decided to google to find out the origin of this expression, which I thought was probably a now non-PC reference to a ‘thick Irishman’ – ‘Mick’ being a slang word for one. Not so, it seems! Apparently the phrase actually comes from Cockney Rhyming Slang, viz. “Taking the Mickey Bliss” for “taking the piss”!!!! (I just thought Rusters might like to know this – because I didn’t!)]
I have commented several times over the years of my association with the Rust about my strong suspicion that a factor – I have yet to do or commission any scientific or other research as to its percentage of the overall – in generations ‘of a certain age’ going go-ga is the frequency with which those coming behind persist in telling us that we’re becoming progressively forgetful, absent-minded, clumsy etc. as the years go by (whether or not we’ve noticed any of this ourselves – and let me add here that some of it I have!).
Ergo, (my thesis is that) all this complaining – or is it auto-suggestion(?) – gradually wears down our resistance to the degree that one day, fed up with it all, we simply adopt the attitude “Oh, what’s the bloody point?” and give up and let the younger generations ‘take over’, even if the half of them are so wet behind the ears (and innocent of the ways the world works) that they can barely cross the proverbial road unaccompanied.
I’ve recently been ticked off twice by my daughter Grace (a solicitor), whom I love dearly, for being ‘off the pace’.
The first is to do with a (to me relatively recent and new) facility called WhatsApp.
As I understand it, this is a system via which one can sent text messages for free, enhanced by the ability to attach images or videos as well. After a certain amount of cajoling I began tipping my toes in its waters.
Suddenly I was ‘added’ to a family group or two, not that I was quite sure what this meant.
About two weeks ago, as per my normal practice and in the interest of clearing my decks of what I regarded as ‘finished exchanges’ and living in the present, I thought I’d delete one of them.
I immediately received a protest from Grace “Why have you left the group?” …
As indicated above, I wasn’t aware I had, so replied to that effect.
I was then advised that, by deleting that conversation in question, I had somehow “left the group”.
Thereafter – by some means unknown to me – I was ‘re-joined’ and the family group concerned then had fun at my expense as word got about that I hadn’t got a clue what I was doing.
(I’m glad that I occasionally at least serve as a source of amusement to my relatives).
The second occasion was regards a serious – or potentially so – legal matter.
My brother prepared the draft of a letter to go to a third party and copied it to Grace and myself for comment and/or improvement.
Within hours – and before I had even read said draft – Grace, who has a demanding job and a certain amount of dynamism, had fired back to my brother (also copied to me) a revised version of the draft with her suggested improvements included.
Rather than begin from scratch, I therefore printed off a copy of her version and then wrote an email with roughly seven or eight further improvements suggested – in each case giving the reasons behind them – and sent it back to Grace and my brother. [In my view, some of them were sophisticated, perceptive and steeped in common sense].
Almost by return Grace was ‘on my back’ again. Would I please use the “tracking” facility in future – it made reviewing each successive draft an infinitely easier and more efficient task.
I replied saying I didn’t know what she was talking about.
Although I was all too aware that modern computers contain some software that allows the discerning user to “track changes” to a document (and I had used it once or twice myself when coming across it by accident), I pointed out that when I had ‘opened’ her revised draft as sent there were no such “tracking” marks etc. in or on it.
I had therefore simply, as I had done all of my ‘primary career’ (from approximately 1975 to 2005), printed off said draft and (in my subsequent email she was now taking exception to) gone through it systematically – identifying the each page, paragraph and if necessary line upon which I had a point to make – as I did so.
What was her problem?
It was, inevitably, once again, that I was well behind the times!
Anyway.
The purpose of my post today – in the context of the Rust’s recent adding of The Future of the BBC to our list of serial matters that concern the world but would really benefit from a slice of ‘traditional, old school’ realism such as we Rusters could provide – is to draw readers’ attention to an article on this subject that I have spotted in the media.
For me, it smacks of the “Hampstead intellectual, leftie-lovie” set’s arrogant condescension that any suggestion that an institution such as the Establishment’s favourite media outlet should ever be challenged and/or changed at all is somehow an affront to human civilisation comparable to the barbarian’s sacking of Rome on 24th August 410 AD.
On the contrary – and in my old age perhaps this smacks of my late graceful acceptance of irresponsibility, but if so I am unrepentant: since I’m now supposedly ga-ga, I figure I have absolutely zero to lose and therefore have become (in their terms) a very dangerous animal indeed.
What shouldn’t the sacred corridors of the Beeb be examined and/or thrown up in the air to see what benefits a bit of “fresh air” might bring?
I invite Rusters to follow this link to read the piece penned by Vanessa Thorpe that I believe appears in The Observer today, and also on the website of – THE GUARDIAN
