© Bill Stott
Bill Stott writes:
“On the Go..”
Now that’s a phrase that irritates the hell out of me. What does it mean? Doing something? Travelling somewhere? Possibly. But it’s mostly used to imply that we’re all tremendously busy with no time to spend in bovine cogitation. So we have to do things “On the Go”. Drive Thru Food. Drive Thru Weddings. Drive Thru Divorces. Drive Thru Cremations. We don’t even have time to spell “through” correctly.
There’s even a deeply irritating TV ad which features a young executive smartarse dropping into his clothes – not unlike Wallace, but nowhere near as endearingly – and then swooping down into a Really Important Meeting whilst DRINKING HIS BREAKFAST! Weetabix, actually. You see, he’s On the Go – complete, I might add, with shiny, pointy shoes, a sure sign of executive importance. The manager of my local Tesco wears them.
“I’m loving your shiny, pointy shoes !” I can’t simply LOVE them because that would imply I have the time to stand and stare. No. I’m LOVING them because I’m On the Go. ‘Byee ! SYL [See you later] or IGHFAP [I’m going home for a poo]. Done On the Go, that can cause all manner of interactive difficulties.
And just in case [a] you’re reading this, quite possibly On the Go and [b] you think I’m some sort of Luddite dinosaur, I’ll have you know that I HAVE A MOBILE PHONE! It’s very tiny and very old, but it does what it says on the tin. It makes phone calls. It doesn’t receive many because few people have my number and I really, really could not stand being constantly interrupted whilst using time to stand and stare. I can send texts too, but my little phone spends most of its life switched off. I don’t feel the need to be continuously in touch with people. Others – MANY others – do. An amble down your local high street will reveal scores of people staring downwards at their phones – usually those SmartArse phones which can do so many things, like Tweet and make tiny rounds of toast. Are these people staring down at important things ? No, they are not. They’re staring at messages like, “Hi, its me. Just drunk my Weetabix. “
And I’m not saying for one minute that in certain circumstances, like unidentified tanks suddenly being spotted rolling past Aldi, that mobile phones aren’t vital, but mostly they’re used to make us look important and busy. So busy that quite a few of us text whilst doing 85 in the outside lane of a motorway. Probably in an Audi. Audis have taken over from BMWs as The Most Important Car on the Road, driven by men full of liquid Weetabix whilst wearing shiny, pointy shoes.
Oh dear. Is there anything I like about this Brave New Electronic World ?
Don’t like Twitter. Don’t like Facebook. Way too much irrelevant babble. And could I be bothered with the constant checking ? No – that would make me look way too busy.
Mind you, I do like emails. I know, I know, emails are SO yesterday. But they do give us the opportunity to bang on at great, tedious length, rather as I’m doing now. And they give the recipient TIME to consider whether to reply or press the delete button.
Off now for a spot of breakfast. Guess what it won’t be.