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Friday 13 December 2019

New Year trends – No 1




Trends to watch for 2020 and beyond. This is the first.

There are all kinds of things a chap could say about the recent general election, but one aspect tends to slip under the radar. Yet in an unobtrusive way the election has highlighted this aspect rather well and that is the modern lifestyle trend of going bonkers. It is popular, it is easy and we could see much more of it in 2020.

Perhaps it is a funny old world where we have a lifestyle option of going bonkers but with no genuine risk to our physical way of life. Bits of food are usually to be found in the fridge, the phone works, the car works, credit cards work and Tesco is generally open if something essential goes missing in the food or drink department.

Yet in the not so distant past a chap had to be an aristocrat to risk the bonkers lifestyle option. Even then there were pitfalls, some of them rather gruesome pitfalls such as having no money and finding out how temporary friendships could be.

Yet time moves on and today going bonkers does appear to have its attractions. For one thing the mental grind of understanding abstract ideas goes out of the window. For another, the pain of having to find something intelligent to say disappears completely.

One to watch in 2020 I think.

2 comments:

Sam Vega said...

It might be that there was always a sizeable group of people among us who were completely bonkers. The lack of media, and the possibility of ostracism or violence resulting from saying bonkers things in face-to-face interactions, meant we didn't hear from them. Their minds were seething pits of nonsense, but they kept it to themselves and nobody was going to make a living broadcasting their inanities. I remember my parents talking about certain people being "not all there" or "funny buggers".

Now, of course, technological innovation means that there are new TV channels, social media platforms, etc. to fill in order to pay the mortgage.

A K Haart said...

Sam - you are probably right. I once came across a claim that Victorians were generally more eccentric than we are because roads, transport and communication had not ironed out those eccentricities as they have today.