Month: June 2017

Is it a granny pants day or go commando?

Recently I had a really bad day. It was an awful day. I spent the latter portion of the day in tears. That day was a granny pants day. A few days later I had a really good day, that day, I decided, was a go-commando sort of day.

Then my weird thought came: pants are a great way to classify 24-hour happiness levels.

Types of pants

So here is my classification system:

  • Control Briefs (Granny Pants): the worst sort of day imaginable, you have botched up big time at work, someone has died, you’ve crashed your car, you’ve had a bad review, someone has been really mean to you, you’ve failed an exam (or all your exams).
  • Classic Briefs (not far down from Granny Pants): a fairly bad day, you’ve got a stomach bug and feel awful, the exam you took was really had and you think you may fail, your dog is unwell, you’ve had a row with a close friend.
  • High-cut Briefs (I’m not even sure what these are): it hasn’t been a great day, work was full of niggles, you’re feeling stroppy and hormonal, you’ve got a headache.
  • Hipster (these are not unfashionable, but use more fabric than others): it’s been an average sort of day, not much has happened: things have been neither good nor bad.
  • Boyshorts (I wear these): you’ve had a reasonably okish day, perhaps you enjoyed a good cup of coffee but that was the highlight of the day. The rest of the day has been average.
  • Bikini Briefs (I don’t wear these, they are so 1980s): someone has paid you an unexpected complement, you’ve solved a problem, you’re feeling a little creative, you’re reading a really good book.
  • Tanga (I have no idea what these are): it’s been a good day, you’ve been shopping and bought an amazing pair of shoes or you’ve been out for a drink with good friends, you’ve had a good meal with your loved one, you’re book is unputadownable, you’re feeling happy and in love, you’ve got that warm gooey feeling you get from being content.
  • Thong: it is your birthday or Christmas Day and you’ve got lots of nice presents.
  • G-string: today has been excellent, from start to finish. You’ve been touched by human kindness, someone has surprised you in some way, a long-lost friend has got in touch, that handsome prince has kissed you, you feel healthy and alive. You’ve come up with a brilliant idea.
  • Go-commando: you are happiness. End.

These chaps are having the best day ever

We only live to 100 as we can’t cope with a century of change

This is my weird thought of the day.

Today, I came across an old lady in her mid-90s. She’s called Betty. She’s currently in hospital in Shrewsbury. She doesn’t want to walk. She’s not even that keen on feeding herself. I haven’t heard her talk. She’s inactive. She’s lived a good life. I don’t imagine she’s got a huge amount of time left on this world. Watching her sit in her chair today with her mouth agape I had one of my weird thoughts: ‘Perhaps we only live to around 100 because more than a century of change is too much for us to cope with’.

Betty was born in the 1920s. I’m not sure exactly when in the 1920s but at 90-something it will be the 1920s. She was born at a time when the motorcar was a novelty. The motorcar didn’t travel very fast. There were no motorways. We had had one world war, but not yet a second. I wonder if there were roundabouts in the 1920s? I suspect not. We didn’t watch TV. We didn’t have the word ‘television’. We didn’t really listen to the radio, or ‘wireless’. The telephone rarely rang and it had a handset and a mouth piece. I suspect we had to speak to an operator before we got to the person we needed. The idea of having a phone each would have been preposterous. There were no computers. We read books. We talked to people. We drank cocktails and sashayed about in flapper dresses.

Betty now lives at a time when we all have phones. We go to nightclubs. We watch TV every night. Our phones are connected to this amazing virtual land called The Internet. We drive up and down the M54 with such regularity, and rather fast, we could do it with our eyes shut. We don’t need to listen to the radio; we have iPlayer. Does Betty know what a pod cast is? Is she on Facebook? Does she update her status with ‘Spend the day sitting in my chair with my mouth open again.’ I doubt it. I suspect that Betty has reached her limit on change.

The M54

I don’t mean to sound patronising (perhaps Betty is very Internet savvy) but I suspect that in the year 2065 I, too, will feel tired of change. If I try to imagine what this world will look like in the year 2065, sat here in the year 2017 in the age of Facebook and Snap Chat, and I cannot. I cannot picture what it will be like. That’s my point. I suspect that by then, I will have had enough. I suspect that by then I will be like Betty.

This lady was born in 1898. She’s very old.

So I conclude, we simply cannot live past 100. Even as medical science advances further, we won’t live much past 100. Why? Because if we do, it’s just all too much and our brains explode. That would be messy.