Collective Madness, Self-Help Books, Stupidity

 Collective Madness

In soft and measured tones, Lady Hale announced the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that Boris Johnson had illegally suspended Parliament, with a kooky rhinestone spider brooch pinned to her left shoulder.

A Face Covered with Spider Web, 

Madge Gill (1882-1961)

Photo Credit: London Borough of Newham [CC BY]

Immediately, people started posting spider emojis on social media, and debating what type of arachnid it might be.

Within hours, the west London garment printing shop Balcony Shirts created a “Lady Hale Spider Brooch T-shirt” … In less than 48 hours, more than 6,500 had sold.

… Dr Ameerah Khadaroo, a lecturer on the psychology of fashion at London College of Fashion had this to say:

“As human beings, we tend to develop some form of identification with those who we perceive to be like us, or who share the same views as us … In doing so, we can be driven by strong emotions which, in turn, can influence us to search for something tangible that we can identify with, such as a fashion item that is associated with the person in question.”

Outfits and accessories unintentionally going viral, selling out and then spawning copycat versions after someone influential wears them happens more often than one might expect.

The article then goes onto mention some of these ‘influential’ people – Carrie Symonds, girlfriend of Boris Johnson, The Duchess of Sussex and her son, Archie. And then another ‘revelation’ by yet another lecturer in fashion.

… “The spider wasn’t a typical ‘feminine’ animal, something cute and cuddly, like a cat or a deer, but something instead that people generally find unsettling, creepy, or related to masculinity, in the form of Spider-Man,” says Dr Julie Blanchard-Emmerson, a lecturer in fashion history and theory at the University for the Creative Arts.

… “In a world where to be feminine is to be decorative, she turns that on its head by adorning herself with the most unfeminine and distinctly disliked creature… She knows that in the public eye, to be a woman is to have your appearance commented on and dissected, so she engages with that in a way that draws the eye but equally repels it.”

… “I’m sure there are people who do just jump on the bandwagon of the new and, in a way, all messages sent through dress will be critiqued as just about the ephemeral – but that doesn’t necessarily make it trivial.”

(The i, 2019)

A woman in the public eye wears a brooch and that causes a stampede of people wanting to associate with a spider. ‘Experts’ weigh in with much mumbo jumbo and now we await the next headlong scramble of those who want to jump on the shortlived bandwagon of the new.

                                                           

Self-Help Books

A Man at a Barber's Shop, Reading a Paper, 

Edward Bird (1772-1819)

Photo Credit: Glasgow Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]

Of course, having fed every kind of female insecurity, such books [self-help] are now aimed at men. Kiera O’Brien of the Bookseller magazine said,” It’s almost like male readers are looking for guidance or re-assurance on how to be a man in a post MeToo world.”

It’s a constant surprise that I haven’t been commissioned to write such a tome, although stretching “Don’t be a dick” into thousands of words would be quite the ask.

(Suzanne Moore, The Guardian, 2019)

Oh go on Suzanne, I’m sure you could do it.

Stupidity

The Maniac, 

George Dawe (1781-1829) 

Photo Credit: Royal College of Physicians, London [CC BY-NC-ND]

…But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt after all these years it’s that some people can be really, really stupid. It’s only recently, after all, that a dentist had to warn people not to try to whiten their teeth with Domestos. He said he had seen many patients who had been splashing in their mouth the same bleach they put down the crapper. This from supposedly the most intelligent life form.

…Full Fact, a charity, was this year appointed by Facebook to challenge misinformation and found, for instance, a post, encouraging heart attack victims to cough “repeatedly and very vigorously”. Yes, that should do it. Shame on you, cardiac specialists, for keeping this simple health hack from us all this time.

Another, shared by 60,000 people, said that tampons should be used to treat knife wounds. If that were the case don’t you think Tampax would have milked the living bejesus out of it?

Now there is a view – a harsh one, but we don’t take any prisoners here on Times2 – that if you are thick enough to consult Facebook and all its weirdos and conspiracy theorists for life-or-death health advice and not a professional, then you have no one to blame but yourself. If you were being very harsh you might even argue that this is evolution’s way of thinning the herd, ensuring the survival of the fittest. Go on then mate – drink your own urine to cure reflux, or rub bacon on your warts that you obviously caught by touching an angry toad. See if we care. Shorter queues at the GP for us…

(Carol Midgley, The Times, 2019) 

Using Facebook or following celebrities’ advice on medical matters rather than a professional surely indicates non compos mentis. Below are the “cures” according to Giles Coren.

1. Insert a hard-boiled quail’s egg straight from the fridge, into the anus to ease haemorrhoid pain.

2. Use fresh urine to remove stubborn ear wax.

3. If you witness someone having a fit in the office, staple their tongue to their cheek to prevent them swallowing their tongue.

4. If you suffer diarrhoea while travelling and don’t have suitable medicine, ingest road dust to stiffen the stool. Not soil, which contains nutrients, but road or pavement dust.

(The Times, 2019)


The £15 cup of coffee

The First Madness of Ophelia
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Photo Credit: Gallery Oldham [CC BY-NC-ND]

 As I drank my coffee at approximately £1.50 a sip, observing foodies in their element, it struck me that London is not short of suggestible idiots. Me included.

“Can you taste the bergamot orange? The cocoa nibs?” asked the barista in evangelical tones.”…

“And then can you taste grape,” the barista said. “Some red berries and notes of honey?”

…Whether this nose-bleedingly expensive coffee is delicious, rich, pungent and captivating isn’t the question. This is a damn fine cup of coffee. Whether it’s worth £15 to spend 20 to 30 minutes at a small, elegant bar surrounded by coffee musos is the question.

By London standards, to my mind at least, less than £20 for an “experience” feels almost reasonable. Just up the road at King’s Cross Platform 9 and three quarters it costs £15 for a child to queue-jump and be photographed next to Harry Potter’s trolley.

(Grace Dent, The Guardian, 2019)

I think you’re right, Grace. England’s capital city seems to have more than its full share of dur-durs.