Skip to main content

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.


I know that I've shown the Diamond Princess before, but I do like the clouds in this one. Anyway, the tourist season is drawing to a close, so I don't expect to be showing cruise ships any time soon.

There was a woman on the bus this morning who appeared to be browbeating her husband on the phone, she looked like the archetype of a horror wife: stern hair, sour eyes and a mouth like a crack in a pie. Anyway, she chastising 'Phil' to "stop feeling miserable about it, get of yer arse and get a bleedin' job". She then did the best approximation of 'slamming' the handset down with a firm poke of her (chubby) finger.

When did people lose their sense of shame?

Comments

Magpie said…
I totally agree. There are so many things people "air" in public that I have no desire to know about nor do I want to listen to.
KL said…
I guess from the day when I started using the concept of "political correctness" in an extreme way. I don't know about the situation in Australia, but here in the USA, you can't tell student anything like, "why aren't they studying?," or "why didn't they study?," or "perhaps they need to study harder," etc, etc, because they are not politically correct to say and you might be harming students by saying so. Tuesday is their exam; still on Monday they have no clue even what the exam will be on. Even in such situations, you cannot tell them that they need to study, pay attention, etc, etc....

Thus, as educators, parents, guardians, I guess, we are failing to show people their mistakes because of the concept of political correctness and thus we are seeing all these around us.
Roddy said…
I have always loved a steel grey sky, preferably against a well lit background. I always got great delight in sailing into Melbourne, (Australia), early morning or late evening with the grey sky against the lights of the city. Magnificent!
We lost modesty in the late seventies, but especially since we acquired mobile phones.
I agree totally with KL, we have no rights to chastise anymore. More corporal/capital punishment, and we may get their attention.
James Wilson said…
Slightly depressed to see that the same thing is happening as far away as Tasmania as it is in London. England was once the exemplar of public standards. Nowadays it seems to be almost a requirement for students on public transport to declare most aspects of their private life into a mobile phone, as though they were speaking into (or rather through) a megaphone.
Kris McCracken said…
Magpie, word!

KL, shame and guilt are very good things in small doses.

Roddy, BAH!

James, the world over, I suspect. Unless you're in Dubai.
James Wilson said…
Possibly North Korea too, but only on the basis that there isn't much to do when marking time till death.
Kris McCracken said…
James, unless you're related to the boss!

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...