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Spams, Scams, data & the clicky tricks of E-vertisers

31 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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$13000, 3D, 4K, Airplane Simulation, Amazon, Animation, Aristocracy, Back Pain, Betrayal, BitCoin, Breastaurant, Brilliance, Cheap, Content, Contouring, Conundrum, Crystal Meth, data Cache, Data Science, desire, Diet, Digital Advertising, Divinity, Dragons, Dream, Drink, DRONE, Dystopian, e-vertising, Email Campaigns, Emails, entrepreneurship, Ergo, Exclusive, facebook, Game Changer, gene Pool, Genetic Risk, GOOGLE, GPS, Holidays, Hot, IMAGINATION, Inbox Management, Internet, KETO Slim, Logo & Website Design, love, Madonna, Mist, NEW PRODUCT, Penitentiary, Pigmentation, Pro, Prolapse Disc, Relaxation, Russian Women, Sciatica, Sensation, Shark Tank, Shrinking stomach, Skinny, Sleep, Smart Phone, smart phones, Smart Watch, Snoring, Social, technology, The Boss, Tigers, Tracker, True, Ukraine, Visual Experience, Vitiligo, VOGUE, X Men, X Rated

NevScreenshot 2020-01-30 at 19.28.38.png

 

 

 

It seems we are only ever one click away from digital heaven or hell – the chiaroscuro of polluted data bases, email hijacks, scams, dark trading and the ugly beauty of spam and click-bait either flinging us skyward or casting us down into the digital lava of e-hell.

Internet searches can get dicey even with the most innocent of search terms. So staying vigilant and being careful helps. 

God help you if you’re stupid enough to glaze over while scrolling emails [that’ll be me] or even staggeringly dumb enough to click on one that reads ‘Your Amazon Order Update & Competition Exclusive’ [that’ll be me again] especially if, on thinking about it, you weren’t actually expecting an Amazon or any other kind of order for that matter!! [And yes, still Me!] 

But Lordy lord does your gut know the minute you click on that icon that you’ll rue the day you ever did. Perviously this kind of stuff would really irritate me – my inbox suddenly filled to spilling with mindless and pointless pap – honking scams, over-promise and tat. But as life goes on, I’ve started to quietly enjoy the spillage and taint of the ridiculous and spurious missives that land in my box.

And I’ve even started taking to building out a sort of emotional logic around them just to amuse myself!

So here is my take on the most recent batch of e-joy that’s popped into my world. I’ve snatched the most important first few lines just to show flavour. Enjoy! 

Erase my Back Pain

1 weird stretch DESTROYS Back Pain & Sciatica 

Pain Free!!

Delicious! Free anything is good – but PAIN and FREE and two screamers? Wow. I just feel the need to use 13 ‘screamers’ in celebration!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And this one’s actually relevant to me.  I had a prolapse L1/L2 disc some years back, and the terrible sciatica from it destroyed me. So the chance to DESTROY it back with an obtuse physical gesture makes me very happy. 

Get perfect Little toes in as little as 3 days 

Nail Vitamin Deficiency 

Mother natures recipes

But not as happy as the idea of perfect little toes. Anyone that can save me from my Frodo feet gets a prize.  And there is a certain messianic thread to the 3 day promise. And on the third day my feet will effectively rise from their calloused, shoe-stuffed grave to throw light and beauty into the world. Who knew. And that it is Mother Nature doing the raising of my dead feet, all the better. 

ACADEMIA

You read the paper Genetic Risk and Reproductive Decision Making:

Read this paper too!

Punchy. And you are correct – yes I did. But that doesn’t mean I would subsequently like you to send me an update every time someone puts out a white paper with the words ‘genetic’, ‘reproductive’, ‘decision-making’ or ’Risk’ in the title or sub-head. Or for that matter any derivative of the above, words – e.g. gene, or risk – or associated key words, compounds, synonym/antonym comparatives – or any random fridge-magnet approach to key word search stuff you may choose to push at me. Come to think of it, perhaps a peer-reviewed White Paper on The Impact on Intellectual Discourse of the Vulgar Monetisation of Academic Mediocrity might be a whizz.  

Diabetes will kill you! 

Blood Sugar Formula – Mother nature’s recipes

No shit. Will it? I absolutely never, ever knew that. My mother was diabetic – late onset, in her 60s by the time it snuck into view with its thin-lipped, mean-spirited needling and blooding. But she managed it with remarkable elegance and aplomb. And no, it did not kill her. But its presence in her life did really, really irritate her for a while, much like the reoccurrence of all this scruffy E-vertising in my life. 

XPHONE 

One of the best smart phones in the world

Offers a true visual experience at a very cheap price

Lummey. An X phone. What, like an X Men phone? Incredible. No? Oh, or X-rated? Weird. But strangely modern. Anyway. None of this matters. As this is one of the best. But not the best though? I think your ambitions are a little frail at the end there, guys. Or are we worried about over selling – in email – spam? How can this matter when a phone offers a true visual experience. What does that even mean? Are the pictures and films true to the originals? Like they actually play them without creating untrue versions of them? Do phones do that? Play unreal films? Like, swapping out original content and playing a pirated or faux version of it – to avoid licensing fees? A sort of digital mobile BeKindRewind strategy. Hmmm. This X Phone is a conundrum.

Invest in bitcoin and the life of your dreams 

Earn 13,000 in exactly 24 hours riding the bitcoin wave

Only 3 free copies still available

But not as much of a conundrum as deciding what dream life I’m going to take a run at with the 9 bucks a minute I’m earning investing in bitcoin over the next 24 hours. Get In. And, note, it isn’t 23 hours and 49 minutes – or 24 hours and 32 minutes. Be very clear – this is ‘exactly 24 hours’. And it is 24 hours with attitude. This 24 hours is no slacker – no slouch. This 24 hours surfs! This 24 hours carves off the lip of the bitcoin WAVE! How cool is that! Every minute’s worth of that $13,000  – every 9 bucks of it – comes dripping with bitcoin spume. BUT hold on. There’s a sort of Stranger Things thing going on here, no? I could have SWORN that the only 3 free copies still available went weeks ago. So there must be a universal 3 somewhere. Like deities perhaps. Eternal. Invisible. A trinity of Bitcoin Divinity existing only in Upside Down world.

DRONE 4K Camera

Best affordable drone just hit the market

Adventure unfolds with the MACVAIR

Got it. I know how to find out whether the Trinity of Bitcoin Divinity exists in Upside Down world – send in the DRONE 4K camera. And not any old DRONE 4K. We’re talking the most affordable – which means cheap, right? As I really don’t want to be splurging even one cent more than I have to of my 13,000 bucks – no way. But MACVAIR gets that, right? They know that searching for a Trinity Divinity of Bitcoin in Upside Down internet world is an ADVENTURE, right? And that shit is going to UNFOLD. And let’s face it – if I pull this off, find the trinity of bitcoin divinity, convert the 13K in 24 hours [exactly], I am hot stuff. I am off the scale desirable. EVERYONE will be chasing me down. Wanting a piece of me…

Positions available – YOU’RE HIRED

2 position available GOOGLE & facebook

So let’s put it another way GOOGLE. Lets re-frame this facebook. I’ll decide whether YOU’RE HIRED. Hows about that? Not the other way around. Do you know who the actual f%&* I am? I am the wave-riding, drone-flying Bitcoin Trinity Divinity Slayer. I have the last 3 copies, purged from Upside Down World. I DECIDE who hires and fires. Not you. And just by-the-by, if you are going to even dare approach me, I suggest you make that 100 positions available – as I am now obviously worth a hundred of your usual talent quality. Just saying.

Lillian

This drink is the answer to becoming skinny

Your stomach will shrink fast 

Shark Tanks new product is a diet sensation!

Oh I see. So you’re implying that I not only carry the intellectual mettle and heroic weight of one hundred people but also the physical mass of them? Well, if the Shark Tank thinks it’s a diet sensation, how could I possibly refuse. These people are the leading, bleeding edge of entrepreneurship and business nous. Sharks, Dragons, Tigers. They are a menagerie of business brilliance. And if they say that this will indeed be the answer to becoming skinny, how could I question that – other than asking on which planet the originator of the delusional waffle lives? A dystopian one liberally scattered with Crystal Meth and freely available prescription opiates, punctuated with double-fronted fixed trailers lying unnervingly close to a breastaurant, a breakers yard and a penitentiary I’d wager. But hell – let’s try it! 

Track

Rest easy and never worry about your car being stolen again

Richard Berg says

It works like a charm! CAUTION  Make sure you really want to know what you might find out. This thing tracked my wife and her boyfriend into the middle of nowhere

If this push email trail is anything to go by I probably NEED to drink myself skinny, as my united-state-of-largesse has patently rather put off my other half, potentially to the degree that, much like Mr Berg here, if I were to track them to the middle of nowhere I might otherwise find my loved one in fiercely repeated receipt of someone else’s largesse. But hey, you know what? Knowing the exact GPS location of that rutting betrayal completely takes the sting out of it. In fact, it allows me to rise above it all through smartly applied technology. Track allows me to be the bigger person and take the bigger view. Thank you Track.

Stop Snoring device

The mist that stops you snoring

New invention gives hope to all of those suffering from chronic snoring 

And now that we’ve broached the issue of the fading and faltering nature of personal desirability, this email allows me to embrace the wider ambition. Why stop at just getting skinny quick to alleviate the possibility of philandering and betrayal. That over-carbureted nasal exhaust is hardly likely to get the lower engine running and the pheromones firing, unless one finds oneself lying furtively next to a member of the Sus Scrofa family. So the misty blue yonder of non-snoring hope is beckoning me.   

SMART WATCH

The smart watch that watches out for your health 

The smart watch that big tech companies don’t want you to know about

Have you been wanting a smart watch. Well now you can afford one!!

Now, fatuous, fat, snoring, dream-life-living greatness aside, I have never claimed to be smart enough for my phone. I am indeed a stupid man in charge of a smart device. At most recent reckoning I have estimated that I use, at best, about 3% of the functionality of my phone.

So IMAGINE what I felt when I saw that a watch, smarter than my phone even, will look after my health. And what’s more, it will do it TO SUCH DEGREE that Apple and Microsoft just won’t want me to know about it. Wowsers. Could it get any better?

XonePhone

Theres a new smart phone. You can’t ignore its performance and price

Wow-wheezers. It just did. Game change! I agree. It is night on impossible to ignore the words performance and price. Well, that’s what it says in Killing it in the Email Sales Dept 101 Guide to Successful product sales. Helluva key word focus. How do they do it? It would be so easy to stumble into mediocrity in this game, sliding down the greasy chute of indifference towards lowest common-denominator schtick and sleazy selling – but all these guys manage to keep that quality bar so high it makes me dizzy.

Drone X Pro 

Limited time sale on drones

Foldable quadcopter with wide angle batteries [US]

Speaking of which, the DRONE X Pro just feels like its going to take me up to a whole new level. Foldable! What the wahoo is that all about? But it sounds really exciting. But if I’m really brutally honest, the thing that hooked me through the lip like some digital grouper is the idea of ‘wide angle batteries.’ Frankly that is simply genius. Not only is the lens wide-angle but the batteries too. I’ve no idea of the technical nature or material build or the power engineering required to enable a battery to both power the unit AND expand the retinal capacity of the lens on the on-board camera. But that’s got to be worth stacks! Thats worth swag-money. 

KETO SLIM DIET

Shark Tank Investors LOVE miracle weight loss pill

50 lbs. in 61 days: No New Exercise Skinny Pill melts Belly fat

And swag money is the name of the game with these Shark Tank kids. KETO slim diet is feeling like my kind of miracle weight loss pill. And the Sharks LOVE it. That makes this one hot. So hot in fact, that it ‘melts’ belly fat. ‘Melts!’ How cool is that. A kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nazi-Face-Melting moment…but for belly fat [national socialist or otherwise]. You’d need something pretty powerful if you’re going to lose 50lbs in 61 days so something akin to the power of the Christian faith’s Almighty God as vested in the Ark of The Covenant seems like a pretty sensible choice. I mean it could be a scam but there’s something so trustworthy in phrases like No New Exercise Skinny Pill. It just SMACKS of integrity and professional discretion. I’m in.

Ryan Oliver 

Get this new diagnostic Tool and Save Money 

Prevent car repair scams …as opposed too online ones…

Hang On. Ryan. You beauty you. Scams! You read my mind. And not just those of the car variety. Car scams. Diet scams. Technology scams. Bitcoin scams. Ryan you are the man of the moment. So, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to suggest something. Might you ever consider getting together with Sheila, MACVAIR, the Shark Tank guys, Richard Berg and Lillian and create one universal Diagnostic Tool that prevents all and every kind of scam? That would be thrilling.

Meet a Lovely Russian Woman Today

RussianWomenDate.com

International Russian And Ukranian dating

Free membership will close in 01:02:47 

Now this is fascinating on three levels. First of all I sense there may be a role for the Universal Diagnostic Tool here as the countdown clock seems to be stuck at 01:02:47 – so free may not be as free as you think anymore. Secondly, I find it remarkable that one needs a site to meet Russian ladies. There was a perfectly charming young Russian lady on the train the other day, travelling to the airport with her father I believe. [It demonstrates just how conservative and old fashioned the Russian culture is.  A young 20-something Western-European woman wouldn’t be seen dead going on holiday with her father!] And thirdly I am quietly surprised how blatant the Russian Annexation of the Ukraine has become. I mean land is one thing but appropriating the woman as yours seems rather arrogant and presumptive if you ask me, especially if you then flaunt them on a dating site.   

Sheila Andrews

Logo and Website design for my business

Attract more new customers …

But bless Sheila for being the absolute antithesis of all that arrogance and sleaze and complex Ponzi style selling schtick. Simple. Straight up. Honest. Logo and Website design for my business. Do you know what Sheila – if I had a slew of small, low-level, low-grade slightly shady, grubby businesses all scrabbling to make a good impression in an on-line world, before I let them send one email, I’d have them sitting in front of you talking logos and websites. And that’s a promise.

 Ergo Relax

Best travel pillow that ever hit the market

Rest even in difficult conditions

Phew. All of this typing on trains is making me rather sleepy. Can you imagine then how thrilled I was when I saw this. I am in a chair. I can sit back. It is possible to close my eyes – ergo, I can relax. But what really snagged my curiosity on the broken fence of promises is the fact that Ergo Relax tells me that I can rest even in difficult conditions. Holy Moly. So, though I may have made an inappropriate slur for which someone chose to press charges, I would still sleep like a baby! I could tuck in for 40 winks with flood water rising about me. And a good night’s sleep in the midst of a climate crisis beckons. Amazing. Ergo Relax is not to be sniffed at, either with or without Snoring mist.

3D Airplane games 

ProFlight Simulator 

Presenting the most realistic flight simulator ever created 

I can’t pretend to be anything other than a tiny weeny bit suspicious of this. I have a lot of love for simulation tech in all of its guises. And I know that the track records of the USAF and Boeing leave a lot of room for people who might create superior flight simulations and trainers that prepare people to a] not crash and b] not bomb the wrong people. But when I’m told that this is the most realistic flight simulator ever created I am stunned into humble silence. Perhaps this is the issue. The real geniuses are to be found not in Bomber Command or Boeing’s testing team but here, discreetly and humbly selling the most realistic flight simulator ever quietly in the furrows and margins of the internet and my inbox. No accolade chasers or plaudit junkies them. A small profitable stipend from an email campaign is more than enough.  

Herpes Simplex

Medical Mystery. How did their Herpes disappear

Hi If you or a loved person suffer from herpes simplex it is urgent that you do not go another day without the powerful information in the following lines

Didn’t you see the news? Its a revolt!

Perhaps this might explain the shyness of our majestic simulator designers. They may have been so busy creating the most realistic flight simulator EVER that they missed the revolt, the news passed them by and they continued to live another day and another day without this powerful information in the following lines [whatever that might mean.] Can you blame them for choosing to stay rather discretely out of the glare of fame and fortune.

Canvas Print Ads 

Add to your holiday collection

Hmmmn. I wonder whether our reclusive simplex flight engineers might just be a little down. Perhaps they might just need a lift of some sort. Something to jolly them up a bit. Digging out a picture of favourite holiday moments and suchlike can be a real tonic especially when rendered across the highest quality synthetic canvas. I know someone whom has two rather fetching canvas prints of themselves throwing what someone mistakenly referred to as a VOGUE shape at the Casino club, Guildford on MADONNA NIGHT, while sporting a wet-suit and a rather fetching fedora. An easy mistake to make but, for the record, they report that they were simply gesturing to the fire exit due to the fact that the person in front of them looked so HOT they thought they might well burst into flames. That the person happened to be both my associates boss and also their bed mate probably explains why said associate got a raise and was fired, all in one 24 hour period. But to be clear, it wasn’t EXACTLY 24 hours. No bitcoin investment there. Nor a professional Reference for that matter   

Professional Who’s Who

Nominated for inclusion

On the subject of professional credentials, imagine my surprise when the e-call came to join the rarified ranks of the professional aristocracy. But Who Knew Professional Who’s Who even existed? And a nomination for inclusion no less. I am always up for inclusive action. Diversity is a really strong suit at the moment in corporate circles so nominating people for inclusion strikes me as a very enlightened action on Who’s Who’s part. Thank God their email arrived frankly. I was starting to think ‘What? Is every email a scam or a prank?’ So here’s to your professional rigour and enlightened inclusivity programme Professional Who’s Who.  

Ultra Boost WiFi

No More Buffering! WiFi boost speeds up your internet 

Your cure for spotty internet

Buffering. I must confess I LOVE this word. [Note to self: beware excessive use of screamers, capitals and absence of punctuation induced by protracted periods of time looking at push emails from shite businesses, products, faux brands and personalities.] Buffering implies a fierce circular attention to something, involving friction and some form of rotation or animation. So I can imagine that once someone’s stopped buffering this liberates a massive cache of energy to apply in some other direction – to power the WiFi connection for instance. That we can give that surge of redirected energy a boost just fills me with utter joy. Currently my wi-fi wheezes along at barely a breath. If I was of a mind to take up contouring as a new face-forward make-up solution, I’d be stuffed. It would take an age to play even the smallest section of a 2 hr 32m Contouring Tutorial – to such degree that I would probably take to spending enormous tracts of time seemingly in a creeping state of tribalism – given that, at any point in the day, the marks on my face would have developed in some really slow flick-book animation of an abstracted patch pattern effect – a sort of snail’s pace Tyson-face tattoo – part Maori part Bobbi Brown part Shrigley.

But nonetheless, all’s well with Ultra Boost. And that it cures spotty internet is a matter for religious level celebration. Hallelulia. No more teenage internet angst. No more screen scrubbing. No more microbeaded bandwidth. Internet spots are gone forever!    

De Pigmentation

I am vitiligo free and so much healthier and confident overall.

Vitiligo Miracle

Cure Vitiligo holistically

Much it seems as will be the ones on my hands face and other extremities, very, very soon. As the words set out, I may well be Vitiligo free with this holistic miracle. I have had Vitiligo for a few years and it is spreading. Though I am aware of it, especially when I have been in the sun, it has always been a visual thing for me. So LORD, I never knew that I might be unhealthy because of it? Unhealthy? How? Herpes. But I’ve got news on a natural remedy revolt for that. Obesity? Screw that, as I’ve got two Shark Tank approved skinny making pills and something from a lady called Lillian for that baby. Diabetes? I can kill it before it kills me. Back Pain? Again, one ninja move and a weird stretch and that baby’s history – so not that. Which leaves me little to worry about. My anxiety seems to have ebbed away.

And how amazing – my confidence… has soared! It’s true. I am going to be absolutely fine!

As all of the wonder emails have told me. I am the answer. I only need act. Perfect.  

Seems simple enough to me. But hang on. Just got to read the 347 emails that have just popped up in my inbox.

But then I’m getting RIGHT to it.

 

er compromising on quality

Being  organised with time and resources

Utilising available learning

Taking care of EHL property

Making productive use of available technology

Being productive with time

Sharing knowledge

Living the 7 steps of service excellence every day

Ensuring processes are implemented and followed

Meet your deadlines

Understand our business

Be a champion of sustainability

Measure and evaluate the impact of your decisions

Never compromising on quality

Being  organised with time and resources

Utilising available learning

Taking care of EHL property

Making productive use of available technology

Being productive with time

Sharing knowledge

Living the 7 steps of service excellence every day

Ensuring processes are implemented and followed

Meet your deadlines

Understand our business

Be a champion of sustainability

Measure and evaluate the impact of your decisions

Speaking loudly in a Public Place & The art of conversing sustainably.

28 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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80s Casuals, BREXIT, cars, Class War, Education, fashion & Beauty, Fotball, gene Pool, Genetics, Golf, Harry Enfield, Hilditch & Key, Holidays, Identity, Living The Dream, Llandeilo, Macclesfield, MAMILs, mobile, Notting Hill, Petworth, Prince Regent, Rugby, Semi Detached, Sex, Skiing, Sustainability, Tacchini, Tech, Trainspotting, Trump, Withal & I

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Love us. We just can’t help ourselves.

For all the homespun wisdoms and studies around how being more socially aware of, sensitive to and inclusive of those around us creates a more resilient society, we just can’t help banging on, sounding off, shouting out, and blahing about  – loudly, relentlessly and shamelessly – about us, us, us.

There’s a touch of Blackadder’s Prince Regent’s about us.

In Blackadder the Third, Sense and Sensibility, Rowan Atkinson’s eponymous butler is trying to coach Hugh Laurie’s roaring roistering and very shouty Prince Regent in the art of public speaking, unhelpfully aided by two ‘actors’.

‘Unaccustomed as I am to speaking loudly in public place…’.

Yup. That’s us.

We’re simply oblivious to the cascade of fog horning we actually do. Or simply don’t care.

Perhaps it’s all part of our genetic makeup. Not happy with our messenger genes working furiously, invisibly, silently on our behalf, perhaps we need to openly trumpet our superiorities and assert ourselves on something, anything, to demonstrate our fitness for gene pool ascension. A sort of oral chest beating. A belt and braces approach to social assertion.

We’ve certainly got plenty of topics to choose from with which to do it:

  • Holidays (boutique off beat long haul 6 star glamp “please find me interesting” and package all-inclusive entertainment included “… but it’s great for the kids…” meets the urbane city break couple with an ironic burlesque trapeze in their suite)
  • Homes ( and the whole region meets post code fascism thing that goes with them  -you know who you are London)
  • Fashion & Beauty (naked stripped back Paraben and orang-utan free meets hi bake crusted fake slathered super gloss with a centre ground of super-drugged over doses of buy 3 get none free )
  • Cars (muscle car versus hot hatch versus electric versus petrol head versus bike versus Classic versus Zip)
  • Sex (socially this is open season – from “euughhh no thanks!” princesses and the blank-eyed cote d’Azur lizard lover to semi-detached Tudored, Tweezered and GoPro-ed all-in wrestling and Breezer bus-stop procreation)
  • Education – (Toffs going state-side leaving the Publics to the oligarchs and bankers , the rise of the Old grammar, and the Churchy state scrum versus post code lottery shitsville Secondary in an over-pressured catchment area kind of thing)
  • Sport (especially things like Golf and Formula 1 – but Rugby versus Football is good for a class fight – but then so is Union versus League – yikes – and cycling’s for MAMILs)
  • Technology (is that the latest super triple upgrade diamond encrusted razor thin i-phone meets digital poverty and second hand devices with digital dementia)
  • Drugs (council estate pill heads, skunks and suburban speed freaks rub up against school study stoners and coke horse fashionistas – with a sprinkle of Withnail and Trainspotting for good measure)

There is endless fun to be had for anyone with a Class calibrated slide rule and an eye for an accent, a shabby cuff, an overturned trainer instep in whitest white and a social smoke machine.

All of the above and many more subjects besides can offer multiple signposts to our ability to secure, protect and expand the gene pool – as a mate and provider –  and more importantly, where we think we currently are and hopefully wish to land on the great ladder of Life.

But many of these subjects are impenetrable to most of us in the flow of our accelerated lives – and carry a complex and subtle range of degrees not immediately obvious.

Impact demands some quite bloody and explicit sign posting and you’ve got to pick the right ones if you’re going for the ‘speaking loudly…’ option.

If chosen properly, to suit both the environment and the audience, the best ones can be a source of endless amusement for the seasoned observer are the ones where our social anxieties, bombast and terrors come rolling boldly into view unmasked and unfettered.

Now before we go on and just to clarify, on the technology front, there is of course a whole sub section beyond the basic noisy snobberies and tribalism of who’s got what “look at my device” technology, rooted in a whole new behaviour – that of a Life lived like an open wound on mobile loudspeaker.

Who has not had the unmitigated pleasure of listening to someone blah on in full voice about riveting subjects such as the process of returning the cardigan they bought on sale for £7.39 …but I had to return it  but then I find out that the sticker bar code had rubbed off so I had to go to the second counter, yeah the one across the other side in charge of bar codes, who’s that?…in the background?….ahhhhhh….how is he….anyway, and you wouldn’t believe it they only sent me back to the first one…ooh…he’s always dropping things that boy….and anyway that snooty cow was there you know the one and anyway…bip bip….oh sorry thought the bus was being re routed so anyway they put a bar code on it and scanned and then the machine woudn’t w…

SHUT UP!!!!!!

Why anyone thinks that listening to the utter banality and mundanity of them honking on about everything from Cheese and Onion crisps to their bunions holds the slightest bit of interest for anyone else within 20 yards of them beggars belief. Do they care. No. On and on they go. At top volume.

Perhaps fog-horning into our mobile while staring listlessly or sometimes cluelessly out of train or bus window makes us feel more alive, or alternately, less dead, or inert.

Or perhaps we all blah on because we’re afraid of the silence. Silence is very scary. Especially in the glittering noise of our conspicuous consumption world. The Silence gets filled up with stuff like thinking about over-drafts, and unpaid bills, and the car we can’t afford: the person we aren’t. And the fact that your other half seemed to pay far too much attention to old slippery bollocks with the ‘hot hatch’ at the pub AGAIN. Oh no. Fill that silence RIGHT NOW.

Or maybe it’s just a sign that we are lonely creatures relentlessly reaching out with any excuse to just talk to someone about something anything. Nail clippers. The benefits of GREGG’s foot long sausage roll (which to be fair does demand quite a lot of conversation).

Who knows. Anyway. Ear plugs in. Crack on.

So where was I? Oh yes. The deafening hawk, crackle and scrape of social laddering grinding across the room at full volume is a wonder to behold, especially in England, that bastion of crippling class consciousness and the emollient cold eyed Cheshire cat smile of its courtly Norman culture.

Now whether these conversations happen in a semi in a cul-de-sac in Macclesfield,  a terrace in Llandeilo or a townhouse in Petworth, the broad trajectory and oath is the same.

I – the fog horn – being of sound mind and body – shall peak loudly in such terms as to clearly communicate to those gathered within ear shot what level of lifestyle I have, the laissez faire with which I take or leave ‘work’, the shade quality or quantity  of leisure time I have and how I spend it – and ultimately – really really – whether I am, to quote the great Philosopher, Harry Enfield, “considerably richer than yaow”.

 (NOTE: This dynamic becomes doubly interesting with couples who might in the secrecy of a closed conversation or room be accused of marrying ‘below’ or ‘above their station’: as this creates an explicit external dynamic – between the individuals and those outside around them – and the implicit internal one between two people in intimate contact and with an intimate knowledge of each other’s foibles and failings in the class department)

So, for example: hands up who’s sat in a restaurant or bar listening to the rallied ranks cawing about a skiing holiday they have just been on or upon which they are about to embark?

Amazing. It is such a perfect storm of social drama. Which resort? Which slope? Drive or Fly? What grade? Mogul? Age of Youngest on Skis? (since he was 3 months old…Obvs). dangerous off-piste-er? French skier? Snowboarder?

And up diddly up up it keeps going. Heli Skiing. Cloud skiing. Rain Skiing. Skiing across a killer whale’s back juggling a bottle of fizz and a Grey Goose chaser.

“Ohh Jasp, you ARE a just SO fucking OUT THERE”.

The ratcheting upwards of who’s the biggest cock in the skiing conversation is a great example of a topic hijacked by our social and genetic need to assert ourselves and is a miracle to behold.

And when I use the word ‘cock’ please do not think I am removing the female gender in this. Social climbing and social fog-horning reaches its apogee in the open mouths of some of the women in these conversations in much the same way with the men.

Don’t get me wrong: I really enjoy skiing. I am not terribly good at it. But I have fun. Moving from bar to bar at high speed across snow is a right laugh. But life’s too short to spend more than 15 minutes talking loudly about it. Isn’t it? And let’s be clear. I am not referring in this piece to people who actually really do LOVE skiing. The die-hards any-weather, can’t live without it addicts. I could listen to their stories all day long.

No. I am talking about the people who haul themselves and their families up a collection of slopes every year, more out of social terror for what not doing it might mean to their school run dinner party schtick than the actual pleasure of doing it.

Golf has a similar schtick. Come on. We’ve all witnessed it. The arcane yet very loud golf-speak followed shortly after by ‘the swing’ with invisible iron finished off with a tongue on roof of mouth ball ‘TSCHH” sound  effect. Marvellous. And what’s interesting in the social malaise is that someone using Golf to publicly assert themselves socially may not even realise that someone else might be judging them silently for the fact they actually pronounced the word GOWLF instead of saying GOFF.

(Careful out there. The issue with social ladders is once on them, there tends to be people both above as well as below you. And the same rules apply. ‘Betters’ are like Bosses – everyone has one – somewhere – somehow – even if they are not immediately visible. They are there.)

Christmas is also a mine field of social fog-horning as it allows the social fog-horner to draw string together a whole host of levers and pulleys.

Consumption and exotic gift purchasing. Rare party invitations. Travel – preferably long haul. Higher order experiences. Exceptional distance from ‘here’ (everyday life)

Witness in a Notting Hill coffee shop three women, all American, just at the ordering point, a casual collision while all on their different morning threads – to work, to yoga instructor, to next coffee shop – living the dream, replayed in coffee shops up and down the country at every rung up and down the social ladder.  (You do not need to have a banker for a husband or as a job to pretend that you can live like someone who does. What are credit cards for!)

So the first asks the second:

“So hey, when are you heading out?”

“Oh gawd, we HAVE to go to New York first, some dull party but then up to the Cape, and then straight to Vale as soon as his mother lets us escape. How about you?”

“Yeah pretty much the same. He’s on his got to get away tip at the moment. Dunno. Might go to St. Barts over New year but that’s about it.”

The deafening silence of the third woman is palpable. Both turn to her and one speaks.

“Hey what about you guys?”

VERY LONG PAUSE.

“Well, think we’re going to have to stay put this year what with John’s work …”

BIGGER PAUSE – SILENCE – and she turns to the server.

“…can I get a Grande decaf cappuccino please…”

SHUT DOWN – SMALL COMPRESSED SMILE – OUCH.

The pause and silence is deafening. All the signs are big: really, really BIG – and not in a good way.

The two ladies look at her, shuffle a little, small smiles to each other.

This is uncomfortable. Not this is AWKWARD.

Three large klaxons have sounded above the lady’s head accompanied by flashing neon.

STATUS ALERT – might not be able to keep up/social death/slightly embarrassing

MONEY ALERT – might not be able to afford shiny life this month or year – do we invite her?

JOB ALERT – husband shaky job position or worse – NO ONE stays in London over Holidays.

Hopefully her remarkably over-priced hot, wet frappecrappachaiccinolate will take the edge off the moment. Nothing says Everything is Awesome quite like an over-priced coffee.

That much cow product in one over glazed cup would put most people into a cow coma of dairy proportion – something that I think she may well appreciate at this very moment.

Sometimes things scream louder in public than any raised voice – or should I say sometimes the world of logos and marques SCREAM louder in public that any raised voice but to much the same effect.  And of course there is the collision of semiotics and invisible gesturing that needs to be folded into this.  Social sign posts come in all manner of variants

In one conversation with a very sartorially obsessed man, I noticed the usual scoffing at a large bloke in a Tacchini sweatshirt – 80s Footie Casual FLASHBACK.

The gentleman pointed out that it was a larger than life example of crass status making –vulgar logo bright colours – gaudy etc.

When I mentioned that he and the Tacchini man were no different he looked aghast. The higher order pomposity of him was firmly pricked.

My point to him was this. I ‘knew’ that the shirt he was wearing was from Hilditch & Key. I had one in a similar fabric, French cuff, cut away collar. His shirt SCREAMED Jermyn Street – in much the same way that Sergio Tacchini man’s screamed Wembley Market.

This stuff matters – to everyone. No-one is immune. This stuff – this pointless scrabbling for identity and the scatterings of ‘things’ that prop it up – it’s part of who and what we all are – whether the ascetics of the Sustainability world like it or not.

(To be fair our ability to wield the Luxury Of Conscience as a day job is a massive assertion of status, identity and educational favour in itself – one that few on this planet, even those in the emerged western cultures, can dream of let alone afford to pursue.)

We need to be really careful when we incite people to stop consuming shiny things they can’t afford and that damage the planet.

So, when someone tells me they’ve developed a new sustainability methodology, garnered some new insights or developed a campaign that involves the words or sentiments ‘stop, reduce diminish, lessen’ and all of the other reductive words we use in sustainability communications, I think of all of these people speaking loudly in public places – sometimes shamelessly, sometimes unconsciously but always slightly desperately asserting their social ascension or at its very least their social survival on the ladders of the ‘look at me’ gene pool.

If we stopped trying to mitigate and compress their competitive genetically fuelled need to assert themselves in the world – and equally stopped trying to erase their ‘terrible’ world view (good luck with that)  perhaps we might be quicker to find a language of human resilience in which we can all share and take part – and somehow get more than the usual 7-13% depending on your think tank or academic referencing to give half a crap about how we live and what we consume.

NOTE This piece was sparked by my reading yet another recent and of course exhaustive Sustainable Lifestyles White Paper Report while sitting in a pub in East Sussex populated by a rather noisy cross section of society.

They were all outwards and upwards – celebrating their very survival in the game called life. They were all at the end of their week, sweeping grumps and whines away with pints and wine and thoughts of pies, curry, pizza, pork scratchings, or clubbing and gear followed by lie ins, golf, swimming, mountain biking, shopping, shooting (birds not films), movies, football, rugby and then what form of Sunday they might have before the shitty bitty day job and weekly worries heaved back into view.

I can safely say that not one of them was at any juncture discussing climate change, acidification of the oceans, human suffrage or equality and diversity – and until we find a way or theme or thread that brings these conversations into the pub meaningfully and without sounding like the Vibe Killer has just turned up  – we’ll stay on the margins wondering how ‘terrible’ things like BREXIT TRUMP and the rest of the sorry shower of deniers and their master plans manage to get the thumbs up in this world  

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