Tag Archives: Musings

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About CROCS – and bullies

A while ago I read an article by some smart fellows who were giving forth on sartorial dos and don’ts.

Right at the end of the article we, all of us – men and women, are exhorted to never, ever, under any circumstances and NO MATTER HOW COMFORTABLE they may be, wear CROCS©.

I remember a theatre nurse wearing CROCS© many years ago and I questioned her about them. She told me that irrespective of the lack of elegance and adverse comment about them they were the most comfortable and easy to clean footwear for someone who has to be on their feet all day and pretty much all her colleagues were wearing them at work. I went out and bought a pair of black CROCS© clogs.

Now the sight of skinny legs ending in those clumpy TRAINERS or running shoes while wearing little hide away non-socks, making said legs look like upside down lollipops, seems to escape comment from the stylistas…but, wear CROCS©!

CROCS© stay on your feet, are comfortable to drive or walk in, are as inelegant as hobnailed boots on a fashion catwalk…and make you a pariah. People will cross the street to avoid associating with you. Non-U does not even approach the disapproval the fashion police will heap upon you.

Comment or advice around the subject of CROCS© is usually offered in the most disparaging and derogatory of terms. Can terms that clearly reference one’s sanity and sense of community really be termed advice? Actually it is a superiorlookingdownthenose form of BULLYING!

However, having reached my three score and ten years, comfort rules, really it does. If I am casually dressed why are slops OK but CROCS© are not? After major surgery on my knees I wore Crocs© all the time during my rehab and walked miles in them with no discomfort.

With this in mind I had a little badge made, with an acronym that I shamelessly cribbed from Kevin Bloody Wilson, the irreverent Aussie comic. The badge blatantly reads DILLIGAF which, loosely translated, means:

Do I Look Like I Give A Flying damn

There is certainly nothing elegant about CROCS©, no matter what colour they are, but they are extremely comfortable and practical so at my age – DILLIGAF!

NB: where I grew up FLIP-FLOPS were always called SLIP SLOPS hence, SLOPS.

Postscript: NO-ONE turns a hair when I wear these particular CROCS©!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Time

“Time and the river“, is the name of a song and the analogy is really quite apt.

On a lazy holiday one may encounter a slow-flowing stream that complements one’s frame of mind – and the song that so aptly describes the experience. Time seems to stretch itself out into a very relaxed tempo.

Conversely imagine being pursued by an enemy along a river in full flood, lots of rapids, in a steep valley. Time takes on the urgency of flight and the rushing river, the confused sounds of scrambling along, rushing water and the PURSUIT adds a dimension of confusion and rush.

And life? Life at times seems to be proceeding at a leisurely pace and dragging along – especially when waiting for a long-anticipated event.

Then again, at every turn of the week we are startled to find the time gone as we exclaim “Is it time to put the bins out, again?”

 

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The Record

These days gramophone records are obsolescent at best – having nearly become obsolete they are experiencing a nostalgic resurgence.

The historical record is one that will never become obsolete but it IS one that some agencies seek to corrupt and rewrite to suit their own agendas.

Not enough people seem to care that the records of history are really important if we are to avoid the mistakes of the past – such as world wars.

A frightening trend appears to be sweeping the world with new generations often seeming to align themselves with suspect organisations. Organisations that would, for their own (and sometimes unknown) purposes deny the lessons of recent history – that which has happened in the last hundred years.

If the record is not truthfully maintained and honestly taught, and the lessons of that history are not fully understood then the future record will speak of the repetition of untold tragedy – of a history unlearned and a record ignored.

 

My life

Misled…

I love reading and, as a child, my reading was always years ahead of my age.

As a result, I had a pretty good vocabulary from an early age.

The pitfall is that no one is teaching you, so you GET it but you do not necessarily know how to SAY it.

For years the most misleading thing in my life was that I thought MISLED was pronounced MYZILLED. I DID, really, I did but for some reason I had never been conscious of speaking it  correctly – my mental autopilot just used it I suppose but I never connected it to my READING misapprehension.

My EUREKA moment came one day when the word MISLEAD occurred in what I was reading. Of course!…the present tense of MISLED that I had heard, understood – and even spoken – so many times, while my brain had persisted with MYZILLED! I looked around guiltily for a moment, as if everyone knew my little secret!

Years later I was listening to a discussion programme and a woman told how her father had always read MISLED as MYZILLED – suddenly I was not alone.