Blog News

1. Comments are still disabled though I am thinking of enabling them again.

2. There are now several extra pages - Poetry Index, Travel, Education, Childish Things - accessible at the top of the page. They index entires before October 2013.

3. I will, in the next few weeks, be adding new pages with other indexes.

Monday 23 August 2010

Not for the better

The area where I live has changed in recent years and not necessarily for the better. It's inevitable that as time goes by some people will move out and some people will move in so its there will obviously be more and more people that I don't know. Probably just as inevitable is that as I'm getting older the age of the new residents will seem to me to be getting younger. 
What does strike me though is how attitudes seem to be changing. For example I've noticed people drinking in the street recently which is something I never saw in the past. The one that particularly gets to me though, the one that has just prompted this post, is this.

I am sitting at my living room table at a window which overlooks the street. As I was typing my previous post I glanced out of the window to see a woman in her twenties walking past my house in pyjamas and dressing gown. It's twenty to two in the afternoon and people are wandering about the streets in nightwear. It's something I've seen a lot lately. People, especially (though not only) women wandering about the streets all day dressed in clothes that are really only suitable for the bedroom. Or, maybe more pertinently, the day wing of an institution.
Why do they do it? Twenty years ago, it would never have happened. There are other ways in which the area has changed - some might say gone downhill - but this is one of the most visible and obvious. Maybe they just feel that they should be "comfortable" but frankly I don't think this is a change for the better.

3 comments:

arnie said...

Yes, I agree in many ways. The times, they are a-changing, not for the better in many ways. I can't say I've seen many people wandering the streets in my area in their nightclothes, but I've seen a lot more people eating and drinking (not just alcohol). In the past most people would take the food from their local chippy or other fast-food shop home to eat, apart from those on their way back from the pub in the evening after a few pints. Now you see people eating in the street at all times of the day.

I also don't understand the need to carry a bottle of (pricy) water about, and take frequent swigs while walking along. We live in a temperate climate and I don't believe global warming means that we can't live without a drink for a few hours.

David Love said...

Like Arnie I have long been intrigued by these water guzzlers. I know that television health gurus are advising us that regular water consumption is good for us. I am even inclined to believe it. Why is it, therefore, with very few exceptions, that these imbibers of Adam's ale look anything but the picture of health?

Bob Hale said...

Nice to see you. I assume I can't count on your support at Bilston Voices tomorrow night when I shall, for the first time, be attempting to fly without a safety net by reciting/performing rather than reading my selections. (I had a lot of time on my hands in the summer job to attempt to learn it all. I have no idea how you manage to remember all those songs.)

Just in case I CAN count on your support it's at Cafe Metro opposite Bilston Town Hall and at the moment I seem to be rounding off the first half which means I should be on at around 8, maybe 8:15. (Of course it is £2 to get in).