I just had an
“interesting” experience, sitting in a branch of Caffe Nero.
There was some kind of family group in and they were worshipping a
child. They shouted and the child shouted. The more noise they all
made the happier they all were. The child could speak but they all
spoke baby language and the child joined in to ingratiate itself
I had been
concentrating on what I was doing, but at the time it was fairly
routine. However, it came to a point where the noise the child was
making, and it was a child and not a baby, were painful – what is
sometimes called ear-splitting. It was way beyond not being able to
work. (Caffe Nero say they think one can work in their cafes.)
I called out to them to
keep it down and they gestured at me in a sort of 2001 opening scene
sort of way and went on encouraging their child to join them in
making pre-verbal noise.
This repeated several
times and the more that they refuted my arguments with their detailed
analysis and rhetoric, the more self-righteous their grunting
gestures became.
No one else complained.
They just got up and left. People are coming in now. Now there are 6.
You might think the
staff would tell them off. Three or four of them were occupying about
1/5th of the entire place. One of the staff has just spent
some time returning the furniture to its place where the adults and
child had displaced it by running up and down. They were disruptive.
But I infer that the
staff are not allowed to tell people off. If they have money, take it
off them. That's the policy
There came a moment
when the child uttered a really painful scream and I flipped -
shouted at them to bloody shut up. The squattest of these early
primates loped over and uttered various phonemes. I found it a little
bit frightening that someone who might just be human was so
incoherent. I asked him what he was saying and eventually pieced
together his propositions.
1 That's a child.
It is a fundamental
tenet of all bad parenting that children make an unbearable noise and
cannot be stopped, that to dispute that is to be stupid and that any
child who does not make an unbearable noise is probably exhibiting
signs of disease. Furthermore, parents who discourage their children
from making an unbearable noise are bad parents.
2 This is a public
space and I can make whatever amount of noise I want.
I disputed that and he
refuted my opinion before I had finished it with “course I can”.
I told him he was anti-social and he said fuck off which he seemed to
think was a clincher.
It reminded me even
then of a woman who responded here “it doesn't affect you”. When
I disputed that, she said “No it doesnt because it's my child and
not yours.” Some weeks later I had said to an acquaintance, someone
who was becoming a friend, that I wasn't sure I'd be able to spend
time in their home because of their smoking. They said “It doesnt
affect you” When I said it did, no matter how hard we both tried,
she said “It doesnt affect you because it's my choice”
At such times I wonder
if there is any point in learning any logic, in learning anything, if
we are subject to this sort of crap. Anyway that was the beginning of
the end of that friendship.
3 If you want to
play, go to the library.
Now I did find that
impenetrable for some time; but in my quest to communicate with alien
species, I persisted in saying, I confess, what are you burbling
about? and eventually noticed that as the creature was saying this
sentence it was gesturing with one of its forelimbs at my laptop
To the creature, the
noise he and his fellow creatures was making was serious and anything
done on a computer is playing. I think that's it. Such play is to be
conducted in the library. I think that's it.
And I think that was
when I first used the word “moron”. I am not proud of it. I do
not condemn slugs for being themselves; but I do remain outraged that
someone with such an aggressive and selfish and stupid attitude help
to elect the government.
It seemed the noisy one
was incapable of understanding that the objection was to its noise
regardless of what one was doing
I do not think they are
morons. I think they are culpable. I think they have never bothered
to think. Before I realised that they only spoke proto Modern
British, I asked them “Where do you get your sense of entitlement
from?” and one replied “We are entitled”
This is the reality of the electorate
14 people in here now.
Funny way to run a
business. But if you have seen some of the regional managers or
whatever they call themselves, you'd understand. Up themselves
smartarses