On the trials and tribulations of modern life
Yesterday at about 3.00pm in the warm mid-afternoon sunshine – after a relatively sedentary day to that point – my “other half” and I decided to go walking at a local coastal area of protected wildlife and other things.
As we arrived we were seeking nothing more than a quiet, reflective, experience taking in spectacular views of the countryside and marshy inlets reaching towards the Solent where – in the far distance – we could already see the faded outline of the Isle of Wight and (to our west) as far the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth and beyond.
There were just four vehicles occupying the car park we had chosen, including one beside which a young male sporting a baseball cap and a white ear-piece in one lug-hole was standing, aged (I should estimate) in his early to mid-twenties. He was talking to someone on his phone, we presumed just finishing a call before he set off on a similar mission to ours.
We accordingly got out of our car and set off at a slow walking pace in Wellington boots donned in order to cope with any muddy or wet ground conditions we encountered.
The young man then began following at a distance of about 30 yards behind us. As he was still talking quite loudly on his phone (ostensibly to nobody at all) we were therefore obliged to listen to “his end” of the conversation as we strolled towards the coastline.
It turned out that he wasn’t in the process of “ending his call” – in fact, quite the opposite: he was apparently intent upon continuing his chat exponentially.
After about 50 yards, I motioned to my companion that we should slow down and stand aside to let the chap go by, in order that we might then continue behind him without having to listen to his conversation.
This we did – and he murmured his thanks for letting him through.
After another 150 yards or so we then came upon a fork in the footpath at which there were three different potential “routes” via which to continue. By now I was becoming irritated by having to listen to our “friend” and had whispered to my beloved that we should wait until he had chosen his preference … before we then continued on a different one.
He chose to go left, so we chose to use the one straight ahead in order to “escape” him. However, after a couple of minutes, we suddenly became aware that he was catching us up from behind, still engaged in his (one-sided) chat, having clearly changed his mind about in which direction he was going to walk.
You couldn’t make this sort of thing up!
I began to “lose my rag”.
At the time there appeared to be no more than eight people out and about anywhere in this massive “conservation” area but, completely by chance, our intended 90-minute quasi-solitary walk was now being adversely affected by this prat who – with no regard for anyone but himself – was following us around whilst talking at high volume to some pal or another of his on his smartphone.
Two things occurred to me at this point.
The first was that de facto there are currently far too many human beings living upon the planet.
The second was that – if and as, for example, a stalwart UK citizen walking close to Bracklesham Bay in West Sussex was to end the life of a particularly annoying example of British manhood and then bury the corpse somewhere in the mud of the marsh-land of coastal inlets in the area, under the laws of England & Wales there ought to be a statutory and absolute defence available to him of “justifiable homicide” in the event of him becoming involved in a subsequent murder trial.