Friday 23 April 2010

Am I a god, or what??

What do you see, in your head, when you think of yourself? This was something I was thinking today while eating an ice cream, people watching. I and Mrs Giant68 were sat in a shopping centre, somewhere in Hampshire, with a Thornton’s ice cream each, just watching people go by. I have spoken about this before, so you shouldn’t be too surprised about our pastimes.

Everyone is different and it takes different strokes to make a world, and boy did we see some different strokes this afternoon. Tall skinny ones, short fat ones, tall fat ones… You know the sort, the intelligencia mixing with the dregs of humanity. The Chavs and the Chav nots.

But what do they see when they look in the mirror? The middle aged bloke with his trousers slightly too short, shirt a bit too tight, the comb-over and the tattoos on show? Does he see an Adonis with the sartorial elegance of an Italian fashion house? Does the Chav single mother with the bacon belt see some sophisticated super model, as she looks at her reflection in the shop window, with a cigarette stuck between her lips?

When I look in the mirror, intellectually, I see a middle aged, overweight, exceedingly tall bloke. Yes, I have broad shoulders and, apparently, a nice backside, but I want to see a tall, broad shouldered, narrow hipped god of a man. Do the people that are out and about sometimes let their “want to see” take over from what they actually see. Does the 60ish year old woman in tight leggings and high-heeled shoes think she looks like a goddess instead of hooker for a niche market? Sometimes I wonder.

I also wonder if I will ever follow that route. Not the leggings and the shoes, obviously, but maybe dressing like a tw*t in some other way. Mini Giant68 reckons I already do! Thanks, son!

Wednesday 14 April 2010

The Tall Guy

It’s time to get grumpy again. Let’s face it, I seem to be better at grumpy than I am at deep and philosophical. Yet again I am p*^^ed off with the world, nothing unusual there. So far, over the last couple of months I have lost over 2 stone in weight. This leads to the fact that all my clothes are now too big. OK, so when you are 6’8” and weigh 21 stone the clothes are going to be damn big, but now I am smaller in girth, and without a tight belt my trousers fall to the floor.

So now I have to go and get more trews. Difficult at the best of times. I have walked the floor of the department stores and drawn a blank. This is due to the fact that I need a 35” inside leg trouser. Now, they are available, but only if you are built like Peter Crouch. If I have the waist size equivalent to something that a gardener would grow beans up then I can buy trousers. But if I am a more normal size I may as well forget it. 32” waist, 35” inside leg, certainly Mr Beanpole, 40” waist, 35” inside leg, forget it you fat b*^$^rd.

Now I can’t be the only one that is slightly larger size, can I? There must be a clothes shop somewhere that can help me.

I have been, pretty much the same size for the last 25 years so why is it that whenever we get a new issue of t-shirts at work do I always get issued with a size to small? Everytime I have to hand them back and ask for bigger ones and then wait while they are ordered?

It strikes me that all this is a form of discrimination. If I was a midget, black, a homosexual, female, missing a limb or all of the above I could scream from the rooftops that I was being discriminated against. But I am just tall. I can’t buy trousers. I struggle to buy shoes, shirts and trousers. I bang my head when I walk through doorways. I can wedge myself between the floor and the ceiling on buses so that I don’t fall over. Buying a car is a bloody nightmare. But it seems that the only solution is to have a couple of inches surgically removed. (Heightwise, what were you thinking?)

Maybe I ought to start a support group? Suggestions for the name on a postcard please…

Monday 5 April 2010

What's your story?

What’s the story? I was having a conversation with a friend the other day. He was lambasting me for my terrible blogging rate again. I try, I really do. But sometimes the blog just doesn’t flow. Anyway, we were talking about people, and how we never really now the people that touch our lives. And what is the story of some of the people that we pass in the street. This came about after a story in the papers about an old woman who turned out to have been a spy during the war.

So when you are sitting in some café having a cup of latte and just watching the Saturday morning shopping crowds wander past do you ever wonder what people do, or have done. Do you make up stories about them? If you read my blogs you will have read about the courier van stopping by a man stood at the side of the road, that sort of thing. Mrs Giant68 and I quite often people watch. It can be quite entertaining. We have awards for the weirdest person of the day, largest boobs (yeah, I know, kinda strange) Tallest, shortest, fattest etc. But sometimes I look at people and wonder what they have experienced.

Older people will have lived through such different times than we ever will. I used to have a friend who was a gunnery officer in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. He used to tell me all sorts of stories over a few pints down the pub. He talked of sippers and gulpers and cockers p’s. There were other old boys I drank with who were serving in the navy escorting Baltic convoys. These people have been through things that anyone of my generation and younger cannot imagine. Their experiences have shaped their lives in directions that ours will never go. The way the world is going, the younger generation will have their lives shaped by which computer games they play, what films they watch and which lager they drink. What sort of stories will they be able to tell people in the future over a pint in the local? Of how they set their trophy dog on some other chav after he spilled their Stella?

So when you are people watching bear in mind that the old guy shambling down the street could have a story that is far more interesting that the one you have just made up about him. When I think of all the people I know, and what I know about them, there must be some really good stories to hear. My great uncle Norman, ex RAF warrant officer who has served all over the world and tells the most amazing stories, Oggy the ex-gunnery officer, Jumbo from the Baltic convoys. Listen to the stories before they are gone, because the story of Norman getting a tank transporter stuck in Woolworths In Salisbury will be lost forever. Laugh, I very nearly p*$$ed myself over that one!