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!

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!

For one week in six I sit in an office that looks out onto a busy dockyard.
The job is not too arduous and gives me a little time to just watch the
world go by. It is strange, some of the things that I see from my window.
Today, for instance, there was a man stood by the road, just waiting. Then
a courier van pulled up on the other side of the road, the driver got out
and reached into the back of the van and retrieved a small parcel, walked
over to the waiting man, chatted for a few minutes then handed over the
parcel. Now that struck me as odd. Normally a courier would deliver to an
address, not to some bloke in the street. What was in the package? Was it
some dodgy drug deal, or something else just as illegal? Or was it a
message form the past, as in Back To The Future. A letter written a hundred
years ago and stored until a certain date in the future when it will be
handed to a man in a grey jacket stood by the side of a particular road.
Maybe the boredom is just getting to me.

Some of the funniest sights are when we have a cruise liner in the dock. We
get a steady stream of older people walking through the dock gate to their
ship. Most are dragging suitcases the size of the wardrobe that contained
Narnia. By this point most of them are on their way to a heart attack. They
get off the train at the central Station and can see the ship that they
will spend the next few weeks aboard, it doesn’t look to far. They can walk
that distance easily. What they fail to realise is that the ships are big.
Really huge in some cases, and look closer because of that. It is probably
½ a mile from the station to the dock gate. But from their it is easily
another mile to the quayside, along a pavement that is full of lumps and
bumps and potholes. By the time they pass me they are on the point of
collapse. Generally the woman is ok because the husband has, obviously said
“Don’t worry, dear, I can drag every item of clothing and pair of shoes
that you ever bought in this large wardrobe on wheels the short distance to
the boat.”
Strangely enough, when there is a cruise liner in there are generally a
large number of ambulances entering the dock, wonder if there is a
connection?
I am thinking of setting up a business replacing suitcase wheels from the
ready supply found scattered along the pavement.
These people have just spent several thousand pounds on a cruise. You can’t
tell me that their pension won’t stretch to the cost of a taxi from the
station?

There is also a steady movement of brand spanking new cars through the dock
on their way to destinations, probably, more sunny than this. Hondas, Fords
and the occasional Jag. Every now and then, when there is no traffic along
the dock road, some of the guys that shift these cars like to have a bit of
fun. The car stops, then to a scream of spinning rubber and the
accompanying smell and smoke the car takes off at a significant rate of
knots. Jealous? Me? Yep!

My Arse!

For one week in six I spend my days at work directing traffic. No, I’m not a copper. I just tell the drivers of trucks where to tip their load. I sit in an office and look out the window at a lorry either side of me, trailer tipped up and cab facing out into the road. I listen to the radio; do the relevant paperwork, tidy up, whatever.

Now, don’t get me wrong, most of the drivers that come in are nice chaps. Very friendly, although they do tend to take the mick at times, but, I guess, they get as good as they give.

The towns are full of chavs with their trousers ½ way down their arse, showing the colour of their underwear. It really annoys me and makes me feel like telling them to pull the bloody things up! But they are nowhere near as bad as some truck drivers. At least the chavs just show their underwear. Sometimes I look out of the office window and wonder if I can hold onto my lunch as another driver reverses out of his cab with trousers at ½ mast and most of his arse on show! Why do they have to do it? Do they feel that this is a good look for a knight of the road? Surely they should be able to hoik their trousers up inside the cab? Or maybe someone could design a pair of strides that come further up the back and, therefore, don’t expose the rectum to fresh air. Then the poor afflicted driver can spend more of his time worrying about where he can obtain a Yorkie bar.

And as for Tyrone and his reversing…