Kensington is an odd place to work. It smells of vast sums of money and has Range Rovers and their pavement equivalent, Bugaboos crawling all over the place.
‘Yummy mummies’ in giant sunglasses and bloody Ugg boots, ‘do’ organic coffee and say ‘yah’ everywhere.
Restaurants are alright and there is a rather nice sushi bar opposite Universal Music called the Hare & Tortoise (inevitably tagged the ‘hairy tortoise’). Here I saw this rather perculiar ‘brolly johnny’ machine:
It’s for putting your wet brolly in when you come in from the rain.
How polite I thought. How Japanese.
*disclaimer – sadly I’ve not yet been to Japan. But my good buddy Fosta tells me lots about it.
**apology – if this isn’t Japanese I’m sure someone will point it out.
It’s the sort of thing you see on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, a widget. A gadget. A thingmybob.
The idea of covering your brolly just so that it doesn’t get other people wet feels a million miles away from today’s “I couldn’t give a shit that I own crap headphones and it bothers everyone” culture we have here in the UK.
The lack of awareness for others is reallysrting to bother me. It might be age. Or I may be especially grumpy right now. Who knows?
Only the other week I was at a traditional village fair where a group of lads were happily skinning up spliffs and playing footy right next to a toddlers playground. To me, even with a realaxed attitude to this sort of thing, surely it’s inconsiderate? Surely this isn’t on?
As I write this now two lads on the train are going on, very openly about how much they ‘get fucked up’ and wherevthey buy their ‘gear’ from.
I’m getting old.
Clearly being a dad makes me bothered about this stuff.
I want to live in a seaside town having japes in an Enid Blyton sort of way.
Innocence lost? What are my children growing up in?
I wrote about the Singapore Courtesy Campaign the other week and I’m staring to think we need one here.
We’re getting outdone for manners on our own turf.
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