Boogie Nights

A sweary hyperactive maritime professional, really very keen on laughing a lot, doing their best to avoid all the trappings of societies' expectations by acting on impulse to any adventurous idea that wafts by. Let's go!

bienvenu, hola, ciao!

26 October 2007

Entry psycho-analysing handbags

Entry psycho-analysing handbags

entry Oct 26 2007, 10:48 AM
Since we moved our boat closer to a convenient train station I have been partaking in the English past-time of getting to work at random times ( mostly late) via public transport.

It's quite an entertaining, infuriating, humanising, de-humanising, educational experience.

first of all, there's quite a variety of people, but most, if not 99.9% don't talk, not to each other that is.

this is commuting in the south. this is cramming as many people in to one small space as is possible and then seeing how much those people crammed in together can avoid any form of direct human interaction or verbal contact. they all communicate with other worldy beings via the magic of their portable communications devices. they sit there texting and emailing or doing their very best to ignore or avoid any form of communicative contact with the humans just a few inches away. That is until you realise that in fact we are all sending off messages all the time to everyone around us, you just have to tune in.

In my bid to blend in with the sheep, Ive taken to shoe and bag spotting, along with keeping my nose firmly attached to a book or a free newspaper. I think these two items a person adorns themselves with can tell you quite a lot. One of the main rules of this non-talking sport is never make eye contact and the second rule is, if you do find yourself in a squeeze and forced into physical contact with a fellow traveller, you must pretend they don't exist.

women with bags, small bags sometimes, but mostly BIG bags full of I have no idea what. men usually carry rucksacks, practical and organised. or designer man-bags for those who like to tote and tell the largely self consuming, self obsessed, eye-contact avoiding train populous, 'hey look at me Im loaded, stylish and not afraid to mince in public, perhaps Im good in bed, perhaps I know how to show a lady (or man) a good time, perhaps if you like the style of my bag and I like the style of yours we could hit it off, fall madly in bag-love and go shopping at weekends together, maybe we can eat out at a local sushi bar...'
The men and women around me wear their bags like they are their personalities. It seems the more they spend, or the more they are perceived to have spent on their large leather/plastic/fabric appendage then the more 'personality' they have or appear to possibly have. Those with more introverted personalities have the more sensible bags and those who watch Big Brother on the television walk around with a bag bearing the logo "princess" or some other type of proclamation of being royalty or somehow special, yes, you little miss princess all in pink with glittery spangles, you really are 'special'

in this rather isolated world of non-direct verbal communication, the humans have found an entirely different way to converse.

is it any wonder that one of the recent shoe crazes was to wear a brand of footware, itself, called Converse?

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