It must seem incredibly quaint to people who grew up after a certain point to know that when we wanted to watch something on television, we used to be beholden to an arbitrary schedule that wasn’t decided by us, the viewers.
Sure, pay-per-view and on-demand services existed, but they were often extremely expensive and in some cases still beholden to someone else’s schedule.
Today, of course, if you want to watch something you just call it up from any of the bazillion streaming services available, or raid your network-attached storage that is loaded up with pirated movies you’ve torrented over the course of the last decade.
Streaming services have their own drawbacks, of course, with the two main ones being that there are about as many streaming services as there used to be cable packages, and the dreaded “analysis paralysis”, where being given complete freedom to choose anything often causes you to end up choosing nothing.
The reason I bring this up is because while we’ve been away on holiday, we haven’t had any TV-connected streaming devices with us. And you know what? It’s been kind of nice. We’ve watched a bit of telly while we’ve been here, and it’s just been whatever happened to be on while we wanted to just zone out for a bit. And broadcast television as it exists today is more than happy to cater to this type of viewer.
You know the sort of thing: shows that require zero commitment or even attention, like game shows and reality TV programmes about traffic police. Mindless garbage, to be sure, but somehow to me will always feel less offensive than attention-deficit slop on services like TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Perhaps that’s just my age talking — and to be clear, there’s plenty of broadcast TV I find too offensively awful to even watch as background noise — but everything we’ve watched “by chance” this week feels like something I’ve actually got something from, even if it’s just some general knowledge trivia. I absolutely do not get that from “pov: u ordered a large fish and chips at wetherspoons”.
Anyway, it’s time to go home tomorrow, so it will likely be back to not watching any broadcast TV at home. It’s been a nice change, though, and a reminder that some forms of media still aren’t quite as dead as some people would like you to believe.
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Well, I’ve done it. I’ve made it through all of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at last, and I’m pleased to report that it was fantastic. A consistently excellent show from start to finish, and a real demonstration of why ’90s Trek is so fondly regarded to this day.
I should probably add at this point that there may be spoilers ahead. I have somehow managed to go this long without having any of the latter part of Deep Space Nine (which I hadn’t seen prior to this watchthrough) being spoiled to me, so on the offchance there’s anyone in the world still left in that position, I thought I’d give you due warning. After this image of Doctor Bashir and Garak smouldering with unresolved sexual tension, anything goes discussion-wise.
One of the things I’ve always liked about Star Trek is that it strikes a good balance between being convincingly “sciencey” and having quasi-mystical elements. That’s the kind of sci-fi I like: where there’s a high level of technology and cool spaceships, but also where there’s still stuff that science can’t quite explain, or which feels like it drifts somewhat into the realm of fantasy. As someone who enjoys nothing more than an RPG where you kill God (or equivalent) at the end, I always have time for pseudo-mystical fantasy, even in a sci-fi setting; in fact, I tend to find that particularly “hard” sci-fi — that is to say, sci-fi that paints an overly practical, “realistic” image of the future without any overtly fantastical stuff, is a bit of a turn-off.
Deep Space Nine had this right from its very first episode, where leading character Ben Sisko encounters “The Prophets”, aka the noncorporeal entities that live outside of linear time inside the Bajoran wormhole. And this element runs as a constant thread through the entire series, right up until its climactic confrontation, placing Ben Sisko, Emissary of the Prophets, up against his most fearsome foe: the Emissary of the Pah-wraiths, who, of course, turns out to be Gul Dukat.
Gul Dukat is a thoroughly interesting character throughout the entirety of Deep Space Nine, and played brilliantly by Marc Alaimo. Beginning as a somewhat smarmy individual that is clearly bitter about the Federation occupying the space station he used to be in charge of, the episodes that involve him reveal a character with a considerable amount of depth and complexity — and one who goes through almost as much shit as Miles O’Brien. Sadly for Dukat, he doesn’t pull through in the way O’Brien tends to; his eventual fate is unglamorous, but for him to be the “final boss” of the series, defeated by Sisko flinging himself into the fire with a Pah-wraith-possessed Dukat in tow, is entirely appropriate.
The whole Dominion War arc, which takes up a significant portion of Deep Space Nine’s complete runtime, is kept consistently interesting by allowing us to see it from a variety of different perspectives. Even the Dominion’s grunt soldiers, the Jem’Hadar, are given some complexity through episodes such as “Hippocratic Oath” and “Rocks and Shoals”. And the sinister twist of Section 31, while relegated somewhat to background lore, provides a good means of giving the Federation a bit of interest, too.
One of the things Deep Space Nine shows repeatedly is that even the forces we have previously been led to believe are the “goodies” have their dark sides — and likewise, traditional “baddies” can have solid redemption arcs, too. The narrative arc of Dumar, set up to be a character the audience is supposed to loathe when he kills Dukat’s daughter Ziyal — one of the few indisputably “good” characters in the series — is thoroughly fascinating, with his descent into alcoholism and bitterness and his emergence on the other side with a new-found determination to cast off the shackles of the Dominion’s oppression. It’s fitting that he die a martyr.
Kai Winn is another character who I was pleased to see eventually get their comeuppance. I wasn’t sure if they were going to go full-on “Evil Space Pope” with her during the finale, but it is, again, entirely fitting that she have all the power and glory denied to her at the last minute as Dukat steals the show. She was a consistently loathsome character throughout her entire run in the series, so seeing her fall to evil out of her lust for power and end up incinerated for it was thoroughly satisfying.
It’s kind of sad that the end of the series marked so many “farewells” from the regular cast, but it makes sense; Deep Space Nine was not the kind of Star Trek that would necessarily lend itself well to a movie in the same way as The Next Generation was, and so it felt appropriate for most people to go their separate ways at the conclusion. I was surprised at the inconclusive fate of Sisko himself — I was expecting him to pop back into existence, Q-style, towards the end of the episode — but again, with the buildup of him being part Prophet throughout the latter seasons, it made sense for him to at least temporarily be “at one with them”, if not actually dead.
Anyway, I’m relieved, as finishing Deep Space Nine now means I feel like I can engage with Trek media produced since that series finished. The Dominion War was such an important event in Star Trek canon that I had always been hesitant to engage with anything post-Deep Space Nine for fear of inadvertently spoiling myself, but now I feel like I’m free to explore the wider Trek universe, be that through other series or video games. And there are a fair few Trek video games I’m interested in trying.
That said, I do kind of want to see how Voyager goes for its whole run. That’s another one I haven’t seen all the way through, so as far as my Star Trek journeys go, that one might well be next on the list.
Later, though. We’re off on holiday on Monday, and I wanted to finish Deep Space Nine before then, as it would have been frustrating to have just a couple of episodes left and no means of watching them while we were away! Now I just need to finish Silent Hill 2 before the end of tomorrow and I can go away with no regrets…
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
One of my many not-particularly-guilty pleasures is terrible police documentaries. Not the kind that deal with actual hard-hitting crime like murders and whatnot, but the shows that are typically on late-night TV and focus on the more mundane parts of the police force such as traffic and rail cops.
I’m not sure why I enjoy these shows so much, but I have done for quite some time. I think part of it is the fact that I’ve always taken a certain degree of pride in being law-abiding and resent those who get away with breaking the law — consequently, I rather enjoy seeing people who have done something wrong get into trouble.
I get the impression from these shows that it’s not particularly fashionable to be in favour of the police or of “authority” figures in general, and as such the shows themselves tend to be skewed rather more in favour of the police than the criminals. Good PR and all that. All that said, even without the inherent bias in the shows I’m pretty sure I’d find it tough to sympathise with a drug dealer or twat driving an old banger without any insurance.
The one thing that does bug me a bit about the police depicted in these shows is their ridiculous overreliance on business-speak and jargon. It’s never a car crash, it’s an “RTC”. It’s never a house, it’s a “property”. And God knows what they’re on about with half of the charges. “Aggravated vehicle taking?” No, mate, you nicked a car.
These documentaries aren’t going to win any awards for quality television or hard-hitting journalism, and often end in a rather unsatisfactory manner explaining just how the people the cops in the episode spent tailing managed to not get locked up for the things they clearly did, but I still find them enjoyable nonetheless. They’re not something I’d find myself actively watching in favour of something else, but as something on in the background — usually while we’re trying to get to sleep — they’re hard to beat.
On that note, it’s an early start tomorrow so it’s time to get to bed and hear Jamie Theakston explain what ANPR is for the 500th time.
I watched the first episode of a new anime called Keijo!!!!!!!! today. This is an anime that I became aware of after Kotaku did one of its sadly predictable outraged articles about, dubbing it “deplorable”. (After that, a number of people I know actually watched it, and had good things to say about it.)
“I don’t care that it’s well-animated,” writes the apparent latest “name to avoid” on Kotaku, Cecilia D’Anastasio. “I don’t care that the women have discernible personalities—no cookies for you. It is beside the point that Keijo!!!!!!!! was previously a manga. It could have died in obscurity. Now it’s on Crunchyroll.”
But what has got this angry young woman so infuriated? Well, here’s the premise: Keijo is a fictional sport somewhat akin to sumo wrestling, only on platforms floating on water. The aim of a Keijo match is to be the last one standing; if you fall into the water or touch the platform with anything other than your feet, you lose. It is a contact sport, but you are only allowed to touch other competitors with either your arse or your chest. In other words, it’s Dead or Alive XTreme’s “Butt Battle” taken to the next level.
Keijo!!!!!!!! is a sports anime through and through, focusing on protagonist Nozomi as she strives to realise her dreams and be the best at a sport she has come to love. Like most sports anime, there’s a heavy element of exaggerated action in there, with the Keijo battles themselves incorporating all sorts of physically improbable/impossible stunts, including a girl who is so fast she can smack people in the jaw with her arse and knock them out before they even have time to react to her presence.
I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but it’s already clear that each of the cast members introduced are there for different reasons. Nozomi is there as the typical “underdog” that we’re supposed to root for through the series, and she’s a likeable, spunky character that sits well in the lead role. Besides her, we have the older woman that everyone looks up to, the “rival”, the clumsy idiot, the shy one (who is inevitably going to “snap” at some point, since she was already showing signs of it when Nozomi got a bit too close for comfort in this episode) and plenty of others besides.
There’s a wide variety of different personality types on display — and a wide variety of body types, too, unusually for anime that focuses on female characters. Nozomi is relatively “normal” in stature; her best friend is small but with a formidable butt; her comrade from trials is a tall, muscular young woman and their instructor — dubbed “The Siren” — is a rather portly mature woman who would doubtless be a formidable opponent in a Keijo match; the first episode ends just as Nozomi and her classmates are preparing for their first training session with her.
Inevitably, given the subject matter, there’s a fair amount of fanservice going on, but any lingering boob or booty shots come during the Keijo matches themselves, which kind of makes sense, given that’s where the “action” is, so to speak. Outside of the Keijo matches, we get to know the girls themselves and see that, so far, they all appear to be well-defined, likeable characters that I’d certainly like to know more about.
Keijo!!!!!!!! may not be an entirely original concept — aside from the fictional sport that it’s themed around, the show seems to follow the standard “sports anime” formula fairly closely — but it proceeds with style, charm and so many likeable characters that I find myself wondering quite how joyless you have to be to dub it in any way “deplorable”.
But then, if you read D’Anastasio’s article you’ll see that the sort of person who does think Keijo!!!!!!!! is “deplorable” isn’t exactly the sort of person who seems willing to even attempt to engage with it or see what’s really going on. Much easier to judge it purely on its premise than to actually do some research, after all.
Sigh. One day we’ll have “critics” who actually care about their jobs… maybe.
Freeview TV channel Dave is best known for being the home of endless repeats of BBC shows such as Top Gear, QI and Mock The Week, but in the last few years it’s been putting out some pretty solid original programming, too. Aside from the excellent Go 8-Bit, which I’ve talked about previously, there’s been an unscripted chat show fronted by Alan Davies, which made for surprisingly compelling viewing thanks to the candid conversations that unfolded; there’s currently a new series of Red Dwarf running which doesn’t appear to suck; and there’s a show I only discovered a few days ago called Taskmaster. It’s the latter I’d like to talk about today.
Taskmaster, one of several programmeson Dave that began as an Edinburgh Fringe production, is an unusual show in that it’s set up a bit like a panel show, only it’s the same “guests” each time over the course of a whole series, while the show is presented by Greg Davies playing an exaggerated version of himself, accompanied by the show’s creator Alex Horne playing a meek, sycophantic version of himself, a good foil to Davies’ mock arrogance. In the first series, which I’m currently watching, the lineup of guests includes Frank Skinner, Romesh Ranganathan, Tim Key, Roisin Conaty and Josh Widdicombe, who all happen to be some of my very favourite current comedians as well as regulars on the panel show circuit.
As the name suggests, Taskmaster revolves around tasks — specifically, Davies setting his guests a series of ridiculous challenges and then acting as omnipotent judge and jury over the results. The tasks are many and varied, including identifying the contents of a pie “without breaching the pie”, emptying an entire bath of water without pulling out the plug, producing a video that when played backwards appears to depict something incredible, and high-fiving a 55 year old member of the public as quickly as possible before the other contestants.
There’s a clear element of things being staged a bit — Key is usually set up to “cheat” in the challenges in one way or another, for example, while Ranganathan’s shtick is to get absolutely furious at him for breaking the rules — but this doesn’t hurt the show at all. Because the five guests represent such a broad spectrum of attitudes and approaches to comedy ranging from Skinner’s middle-aged calmness to Conaty’s energetic ditziness, the challenges can all unfold in a variety of ways. During a task in which the cast were challenged to eat as much watermelon as they could in a short amount of time, for example, Widdicombe thought things through before entering the room (and thus starting the clock) by finding a knife and spoon, then proceeding to very politely slice the melon then eat it a mouthful at a time, while Ranganathan simply picked up the melon and hurled it at the floor, shattering it into countless pieces which he then had to pick up from the floor and eat.
The challenges are frequently physical and slapstick, but never quite cross the line into “gross-out” territory; the closest it came to genuine unpleasantness was following Ranganathan’s melon-eating episode, where he ended up coughing a fair amount of it back up afterwards, but this wasn’t dwelled upon. Instead, the atmosphere is very much one of a group of friends setting silly tasks for one another, knowing full well that one of them is going to cheat, one of them isn’t going to be very good at it, one of them is a bit old for this shit and so on.
It’s been a real pleasant surprise to discover Taskmaster, and if you’re looking for something entertaining to watch I can highly recommend it, particularly if you’re a fan of Davies in full-on “Mr Gilbert” mode. You can watch it online here, though those outside the UK may need to dick around with VPNs and whatnot to convince the site that you’re a proud Brit.
I finished watching Toradora! last night — I also forgot the time we normally raid in Final Fantasy XIV on Monday nights, so I had to split the last episode in half — and I have to say, I’m very much a fan.
I knew nothing at all about the show going into it, aside from what a few of the characters looked like and that it was by the same person who did Golden Time, which those of you who have been reading for a while will recall was the last show I watched all the way through. I enjoy jumping into things like this, whether they’re books, movies, TV shows, anime or games. It means that you can start watching/playing/reading/whatever with no preconceptions, and it also means you have that genuinely pleasurable sensation of not knowing what is going to happen next — and the equally fun ability to play “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”
Toradora!, as it turns out, ended up pretty much where I expected it to end up, albeit with a bit of a twist in the latter half of the last episode. It was an enjoyably unpredictable ride along the way, however, featuring some extremely complicated interpersonal relationships between the main cast members — who were, in turn, complicated individuals in their own right.
Ryuji was a good protagonist. Eschewing the frequently-seen blank-slate or self-insert protagonist found in a lot of anime — particularly slice of life, romance or harem anime — he was an interesting character whom we gradually came to understand fully over the course of the whole show. The show sensibly didn’t batter us over the head with his personality traits or angst; a lot of his characterisation was quite subtle, with the things he didn’t say often being as important as the things he did say.
Taiga, meanwhile, was an exciting leading lady. Brash, unpredictable and quick to anger without relying completely on the tsundere trope, much of the show’s “point” — if indeed it had one — concerned the audience and Ryuji alike coming to understand exactly why she seemed so angry at the world. Again, though, the show didn’t fall into the trap of having her make overly melodramatic gestures of angst throughout; the things that caused her pain were real and relatable, and her relationship with Ryuji was believable and heartwarming to watch grow.
The other cast members all had their interesting elements, too. Minori, for example, lets her genki girl attitude slip more and more as the show progresses and reveals that her feelings for both Taiga and Ryuji are complex, conflicting and difficult to know what to do with. Ami, meanwhile, underwent some interesting development from being a simple two-faced bitch to someone with depth and not always entirely clear motivations. I did find Ami’s falling in love with Ryuji to be a little hard to swallow — it felt a little like drama for the sake of drama — but it added an interesting twist on proceedings.
I was surprised that the show had two surprisingly brutal fight scenes, too; these weren’t sexualised catfights that were intended to be arousing rather than shocking, as sometimes seen in more fanservicey anime, and nor were they overdramatic, exaggerated conflicts that, while stylish, were out of place with the rest of the setting and characters. They were gritty, believable, brutal and genuinely quite upsetting outbursts of anger from people who had been bottling things up for way too long. (As a fellow “bottler”, I could relate very much to the feelings in these scenes, although I have thankfully never come to blows with anyone over this sort of thing.)
Ultimately, everything wrapped up fairly neatly, but there was a pleasing tang of bittersweetness to the ending; the understanding that, despite your best intentions and grand plans, things don’t always go exactly as you expect them to — and that in a complicated situation of personal relationships, you need to know when to let go, otherwise somebody is going to get hurt.
I very much enjoyed the show as a whole, and understand now why it’s such a well-regarded anime. I think some lighter fare is on the table for my next show to watch, however; after an hour or so of several people I follow on Twitter exchanging a series of rather racy pics earlier, I’m strongly considering checking out High School DxD, because who doesn’t love a bit of fanservicey nonsense? Boring people, that’s who.
Started watching a new (well, new to me) anime a little while back after finally finishing Silver Spoon. It’s called Golden Time, and I’m not entirely sure how I became aware of it, but it was in my Crunchyroll queue and had intrigued me, so I decided now was the time to check it out.
On paper, it’s a fairly straightforward slice-of-life anime. Protagonist Tada Banri is starting his new life at university, and in the process meets a number of new friends, including the obligatory harem of potential romantic interests. Of the main cast, however, the most interesting — and the one highlighted in the show’s opening and ending titles — is Kaga Koko, a strikingly beautiful young woman from a privileged background who has shown up at Banri’s university in pursuit of her childhood friend and supposed love of her life Mitsuo. Mitsuo, meanwhile, wants nothing to do with Koko, having surreptitiously switched universities in an attempt to get away from her, but she wasn’t about to let him escape that easily.
Central to the show is the developing relationship between Banri and Koko as the former tries to help the latter come to terms with the constant rejection she gets from Mitsuo. It’s a troubled and unconventional relationship, and doesn’t follow the usual tropes of anime romance stories, largely because Koko is such an unstable but delightfully fascinating character.
When Koko is alone with Banri, we see what is clearly the “real” her. She’s frank, candid and honest, and willing to open up about her feelings — though she’ll pretend that she’s putting on a front to garner sympathy from others. Occasionally she lets some obvious, genuine feelings slip, however, such as in one of the early episodes where she complains to Banri that no-one will talk to her because she has the reputation of being “that rich, beautiful girl that is out of everyone’s league”. Banri consistently gives her the time of day, however, and quickly falls in love with her; she rejects him, however, and puts him well and truly in the “friend zone” with her constant and emphatic reiteration of What Good Friends They Are.
When Koko comes across Mitsuo, though, her whole personality changes. She becomes obsessive, jealous and irrational. When she sees Mitsuo with the adorably cute Chinami, whom Mitsuo has taken a liking to, she is extremely rude to Chinami; Chinami, however, is a lot stronger than she looks, and brushes off the torrent of abuse she gets, even going so far as to deliberately try and befriend Koko in later episodes. Koko claims to Banri that the person she is when she’s with Mitsuo is the “real her”, but it’s abundantly clear that the complete opposite is true; the only person with whom she can truly be herself is Banri.
The other interesting twist in the tale, aside from the complex and difficult relationship between Banri and Koko, is the fact that Banri is an amnesiac. Prior to the events depicted in the show, Banri was in an accident that cost him all of his memories from before he turned 18 and left for university. He doesn’t remember who he is, what his personality is or what his relationships with others were like. As the show progresses, he starts to uncover things about his past — and I’m only a short way in so far, so I’m not sure how far it goes, but it has a lot of potential to be very intriguing indeed.
Interestingly, Banri’s amnesia is depicted not only by him struggling to recall things, but by a ghostly apparition of his past self that occasionally narrates short sequences. The ghost describes himself as having “died” the day of the accident, and that the current Banri is nothing but an empty shell. Again, things aren’t that simple, though, as amnesiac Banri starts discovering ties to his past — and the fact that people whom he thought were strangers and new friends actually have a lot more to do with him than he initially thought.
There are two big things I like about the show as a whole: one, that it’s constantly raising new questions and drawing the viewer in through Banri’s journey of self-rediscovery; and two, that a lot happens in each episode. So often with slice-of-life anime, things just sort of pootle along for a while and nothing really happens; this is fine, so long as the characters are strong enough to carry this sort of nothing-really-happens story, but Golden Time sidesteps this style of slice-of-life in favour of something that, while obviously the stuff of fiction, is plausible, believable and emotionally engaging.
I literally have no idea how things are going to turn out by the end of the 24-episode run, but I’m looking forward to finding out. I’m enjoying the show a whole lot so far, and cautiously recommend it to anyone looking for a slice-of-life show with a bit more depth than many other offerings.
I finally got around to finishing off the anime series I’ve been watching off and on for some time now: Silver Spoon. And I enjoyed it a whole lot — the amount of time it took me to watch the damn thing from start to finish was more a matter of time than the fact I wasn’t enjoying it, I should add.
Silver Spoon is an interesting anime because although it technically falls in the “slice of life” category, it eschews the usual “high school harem” situation that genre usually favours, instead presenting an uncompromising, realistic, educational and non-judgemental look at the world of agriculture.
Now, you may not think that sounds like a particularly thrilling premise for an anime, but it really works. At least part of this is due to the fact that the protagonist Hachiken is put in much the same situation as most members of the audience when they start watching Silver Spoon: he’s bewildered, doesn’t know much about agriculture and is frequently surprised, distracted and horrified by some of the things he finds out. Over the course of the show’s two seasons, both the audience and Hachiken go on a journey of discovery and learn a lot about the sometimes harsh truths that members of the agricultural industry have to deal with every day.
The show doesn’t shy away from matter-of-factly explaining about how livestock is reared only to be sent to the slaughterhouse — and how animals that aren’t “good enough” are treated differently — though it doesn’t resort to shock tactics like actually showing the slaughtering process. (There is plenty of poo, though, and the occasional cow giving birth — though again, you don’t see full gory detail; it’s mostly about Hachiken’s reaction rather than shock value.)
It also doesn’t shy away from depicting the grim realities many modern farmers face: rising debt levels, ranches having to close down due to insufficient business, and children of long-standing farming families feeling forced into taking over the family business when they’re barely out of school. There’s a nice degree of drama to the whole series, delivered in an interesting, compelling and occasionally heartbreaking manner through Hachiken’s interactions with his classmates, all of whom have ended up at the agricultural high school in which the show is set for different reasons.
The show’s run is currently for two seasons, and while the second season does wrap up on a satisfying, suitably “final” feeling episode, there are still plenty of unresolved plotlines to explore that I believe have been covered in the manga the show is based on. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to see a third season someday, because it really did turn out to be one of the most surprisingly enjoyable anime series I’ve had the pleasure of watching for quite some time. It’s witty, it’s funny, it’s heartfelt and it has something to say without beating its audience around the head with The Message.
If you’re looking for something a little bit different from your usual fare to watch, I can highly recommend checking it out.
The TV is one of the most ubiquitous items of consumer electronics, but it’s also one of the ones I use for its originally-intended function least frequently. Oh, sure, I watch DVDs and use my consoles on it pretty much every day. But watching actual, proper TV on it? No.
There are plenty of reasons for this. The first is the fact that there’s just not a lot of stuff on TV that I’m that interested in watching. Related to this is the fact that of the stuff I am vaguely interested in on TV, I feel a bit of resentment towards being tied towards the arbitrary schedule of the TV channel. I of course don’t have to worry about it, as most of the stuff I am interested in watching is available either on iPlayer or the awesome YouTube Shows. And for lengthy series, I’ll tend to wait until the DVDs are available and then watch the whole lot as it suits me.
This is very much a symptom of the modern age. People want what they want, and they want it when they want, dammit. It’s a wonder the Tube hasn’t yet been replaced by individual passenger carts that you call by pressing a button on the platform when you’re quite ready to leave. (Actually, that’d be kind of cool, if terribly impractical.) It’s pretty much only travel where we have to be tied down to someone else’s schedule these days—and even then, if you’ve got money to burn, that isn’t an issue.
The trouble with this, of course, is that it indirectly makes people more selfish. People get used to being able to have what they want when they want, and when they are put into a situation where they might have to wait their turn for something, some people get a bit stroppy about it.
Let me use one establishment in which I used to work as an example. Said establishment worked on an appointment system for technical support, and with good reason. Several hundred angry customers with broken computers or generic multimedia playback devices (some of which incorporate telephony features) all bearing down on the desk at the same time would have been completely unworkable, so customers had to book appointments. I lost count of the number of times people got in a strop over this, however you positioned it to them. They just didn’t seem to understand the fact that they weren’t the only person in the store (not by a long shot) and that there were—shock—other people who’d got there before them.
Perhaps, then, everyone would do well to tie themselves to the TV schedules once in a while, just to remember what it’s like. And if you live in an area which hasn’t had the digital switchover yet, spend a couple of days getting your news via Ceefax instead of the Internet. People actually used to live with, you know, waiting around and having to be in the right place at the right time. And they did all right.
So take the time to think of other people once in a while. The world doesn’t just revolve around you, though the world of social media and the Internet might make it seem that way sometimes. Be a bit less selfish. And if you say you’ll be there at 8, be there at 8.
