On a current affairs TV news programme I watch a group of people talking about the legacy of the Olympic games. The subject itself doesn't matter. What is impressive is that these people are having a discussion as opposed to an argument. They support rather than confront each other. They try to understand the points each is making rather than pick holes in arguments they haven't or are not prepared to understand. It strikes me that we are too quick to disagree and often profoundly negligent in trying to understand opposing views. Something that schools could teach us to overcome.
On the narrow strip of pavement between Chapel Place and the lights and pedestrian crossing leading to The Pantiles I hear a woman's voice say "I'm not used to walking on the right side?" It sounds like a continental accent, someone used to driving on the right. We drive on the left. Others on the right. Fair enough. But what is the correct side of the pavement on which to walk? I seem to recall that when I was young the only rule was that men (gentlemen) when walking with a woman (lady) were supposed take the outside. I supposed this to be to shield the weaker sex (as they were then supposed to be) from splashes from the gutter. But an older story suggested that a man was expected to walk on the right of a woman in order to have his sword hand free to defend her in case of assault.
2 comments:
The stain and its shadow self, though the stain is two-dimensional, not three. You capture the interesting in the ordinary, overlooked of our lives, indicative of a good artist's eye, Plutarch.
Cheers, Crow. Sometimes I think that it must seem a bit daft to see or look for patterns in stains, a sort of self-imposed Rorschach test. But the patterns often seem to be worth something in their own right.
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