A favourite quote and a way by which to approach life.

Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday.

Friday 9 September 2011

In passing

Do you ever overhear snippets of conversations and wonder how on earth they fit into the whole?  I was passing a couple of young men the other day as I trundled through the campus of Northumbria University on my way home, when I heard one of them say to other, 'I have a real hatred of shoe laces.'  Was this a comment out of the blue?  Was it part of a wider conversation about shoes?  What does this guy hate so much about shoe laces?  I was almost tempted to turn around and chase after them to ask.  I resisted in the end, thinking that they might think I was stalking them, or at the least very strange.  No comments from the back! ;oP

On a completely different note, I saw the most terrible thing from the bus window the other day.  We were going down the main shopping street on the edge of quite a deprived part of Newcastle and I saw a young man, who I presume was the father, put a cigarette into a child's mouth.  The child must only have been about 4 or 5 years old, and the 'father' was clearly instructing the child on how to light the cigarette.  It was an awful sight.  It's bad enough to see teenagers smoking, let alone very young children being plied with cigarettes.  It made me angry, and so angry that I felt sick.  I think I would go as far as saying I consider what I saw to be child abuse.  What about you?

6 comments:

Hopalong said...

that is horrendous but its so hard when we are just passers by as its not something we can turn off from but are helpless to do anything about :(
you made me giggle with the shoe laces tho!!!

Sal Adams said...

Awful to say - I love my homeland but I've seen stuff like this before when at home. If somebody did that down here, the police would be called! You very rarely see people down here yelling at or hitting their kids or smoking over their buggies - it always shocks me when I go home how many parents smoke in front of their kids!
The shoelaces reminds me of my Mam - she was always getting interested in other people's chats. We'd be in a restaurant & she'd say to me or dad, 'Shut up a minute - I'm listening to the conversation at the next table!' xx

BeckyG said...

Hopalong, it really was horrendous to see, and you're right it was more difficult that I couldn't say anything because I was on the bus.

Glad you liked the shoelaces anecdote ;o)

Sal, I have to say that it's not all parts of Newcastle that you see kids being smacked, yelled at or smoked over. It tends to be in the more deprived areas, and I suspect it's the same in more deprived areas around the country - not specific to the north.

I LOLed at your mum's comment. One of the funniest/weirdest things I ever heard was years ago when I was in restaurant in London with my brother and his wife. Our conversation had reached a natural pause, and just as it stopped someone on the table next to us said, 'It's strange to think that my dad's currently rowing naked somewhere in the middle of the atlantic.' !!

Joy said...

I totally agree with you, Becky. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it.
J x

Joy said...

And had to post again - the verification word for this message is, appropriately, 'nicatol'!

Diana West said...

What an awful thing to see - and then you hear about prospective foster parents being banned from fostering under-fives because one of them smoked two (celebratory) cigars in eighteen months. Do social workers know what actually goes on in the real world?