It’s Something Sharp

I ended my last post with the ongoing conundrum concerned with “the point”, and it has taken me a week to begin to drag myself out of the ever-present cloying trough of acute apathy. I know this will be read by a few, and I suppose that is what drives me on, but it is an essentially futile gesture. It is, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve been contemplating these past seven days, when I’ve not been swearing at my rim/spokes/nipples/hub on a little project I’ve got going on in the garage, or riding down to Kaohsiung and back on consecutive days in blistering heat. It was the Dragon Boat Festival weekend, you see, so I was participating in a family do (an all-you-can-eat-buffet, since you asked) in the city, more of which later. I’ve never seen a dragon boat in all my time out here, but I know all about the festival, simply because my daughter has a Peppa Pig book dealing with the same. Granddad Dog had a big one; Grandpa Pig’s was much smaller.

Contemplating the point – in itself rather a pointless pastime – I have come to the conclusion that, in the grand scheme of stuff*, there are very few things, people or events that really have made a difference to our lives.

*I just paused to see what Goooogle could offer me a propos “the grand scheme of things”, and I found myself transported into a world I’d never imagined. As with previous assertions, trust me when I tell you that this was one of the images which cropped up:

I shat you not, but forget everything else that follows; this has just made my day. Nay, my year, which is just as well, what with being half way through 2020 already.

Anyway, back in the groove with the old contemplatory hat on, it struck me that in a world obsessed with celebrity and fame, and when we hear about something ‘going viral’, it is pretty much the same on all levels, by which I mean that the subject, the individuals, the video clips, the memes, the gifs, and all the rest of the multitude of offerings fired down the line to our multitude of devices, are all essentially irrelevant. Pap. Ephemeral. Bollocks. Vacuous**. Meaningless.

**Seriously, I just paused (again) and checked Goooogle to ensure the spelling was correct. Top of the page – stories about the orange buffoon, Trump. There is a God, and she works for Goooogle. Had that lad not shat in the kettle, this would have made my day/year.

Think about it. Shakespeare, Einstein, the Wright Brothers, Monty Python, Alexander Graham Bell, Newton, Darwin, The Beatles, that dog that could say “sausages”, Dickens, the bloke behind Apple whose name escapes me just now, Johnny Rotten, Muhammad Ali, Father Christmas, Berners-Lee, Johannes Gutenberg, Biro, Pele, Dunlop, Eddy Merckx. A small selection of people who actually made a difference to just about everything and everybody (I realise that your views may differ, but work with me for a moment). They’d all be worth having as a guest at the dinner table, and at least I’d know what to prepare for that smartarse dog. Compare these with countless nobodies who flare up and burn out. Who really cares what they have to say, or what they can do? So what? Fifteen minutes is far too long.

Thus, here I sit, wasting my time, wasting your time. Sorry about that. I think, deep down, I am searching for that moment at which I realise just why I am here doing what I do, hoping that in 300 years time, in classrooms around the globe, they’ll be discussing my influence on the art of pointless prattling to a minuscule proportion of the population of this planet we call Earth.

As for the aforementioned buffet, we had 2.5 hours (that’s 150 minutes) to eat and drink as much as possible. I was absolutely stuffed after about 0.5, but, you know…? The thing is, they even have alcohol. Bottles of wine, draught beer. You just rock up and help yourself. Imagine that in Nottingham, or Portsmouth, or Belfast, or anywhere in the UK/Belgium/France, etc. Carnage. Queues at many of the dishes, but hardly any business on the booze aisle. Some things about Taiwan are bloody ace. Come and stay. Bring your wallet. You won’t regret it.