Daily Archive: October 25, 2008

25th October

Up early to catch the train to go to London, well Milton Keynes actually where Malcolm will be picking us up to go to Harpenden to visit and attend his daughter's christening where I am a Godparent. Never very bright in the mornings (like so much of the rest of the time to be honest) and my erratic sentence structure style, so variable at the best of times, completely falls apart as thoughts juggle for room in an already compressed space.
Random news report indicated that many of the breed of recent quad bikes and other utility/recreational vehicles are sold without proper safety instruction or in fact training of any type. There has been a spat of deaths arising from people driving them unsafely.
As usual my dark sarcastic side beat my compassion to my mouth and mind and I was more concerned that we should be focusing our collective emotion on more worthy causes than people who think that bombing around at high speed without safety equipment and proper training is fun and safe.
Clearly it isn't.
Part of me is worried for very young children who take little notice of their own welfare and safety, which is why we should have responsible parenting. The rest of me thinks we should set up special areas for the people who care little of their own safety and the welfare of others, we could set up special cliff zones called extreme ride parks and let them ride off them. Fast, quick and clean. Just dig a big hole at the bottom so they can bury themselves in it, we can cover it over when it's full and move onto a new site.
Okay so maybe a little too dark.
A lot of me is thinking that some of this is a Social Darwinism at work. People who live in a safe society like ours are now subject to ignoring their own safety and that of others. We live in a sheltered world where the need to think about your own safety and that of those around you is reduced by sensible safety measures, legislation and good health care. I feel convinced that to some this means they can disengage that part of their brain that tells them riding at eighty miles an hour along a muddy track with no helmet on and waving at your mates is unsafe.
So do we mourn these people or do we give them a much greater rush and fire them out of a canon and into a wall that's five feet away.
Well onto the train on time. Managed to grab a table seat opposite a couple, that has a working power outlet so the lapcat has juice, always preferable. The woman opposite spots the stickers on lapcatty's shell and asks "should I be worried about that?" to the sticker that says "I'm not normal". I grin at her and mumble, "not necessarily" and point to the "Kill all Humans" sticker. This one doesn't seem to phase her and she politely asked "do we get to choose who?" I found it too amusing that she was more worried about me not being normal as opposed to killing to point out that she and I were both inclusive to the 'all' part of the statement. Must get new sticker, that replaces this with "kill most humans, vote here :)".

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