The things people say

Generally members of the public are fairly polite. They don't pass comment on personal things and tend to err on the side of pleasant when they do comment. Also, they don't usually speak to total strangers just because they can.

Unless you're pregnant or have just had a baby on which case it is deemed entirely appropriate for strangers to comment on your age/size/bump/number of children and subsequently comment on your baby as to whether they think they are big/small/the right or wrong gender. My daughter was a month early and so it was obligatory to comment on her smallness. More than one person asked me on all seriousness if she was in fact a doll.

Medical conditions are apparently a free for all generally. Nothing seems to be quite as hilarious as an eye patch. Tee her, eye injuries are such a laugh. Pirate jokes are always welcome. How about a stookie, or crutches, or other visible malady? Clearly anyone would want to discuss their medical history with total strangers.

We have a dog; he is a greyhound, a large greyhound at that, and yes, he's a big dog. He comes on the school run occasionally and almost every child who claps eyes on him comments on his size. Which is fine. What is weird is adults saying to me in a slightly disapproving manner that he's so big. Or they say to him "aren't you a big boy?" to which he responds with a hopeful sniff for a treat and not much else, being, as he is, a dog.

I'm not sure how people in the public eye cope with open questions being asked by everyone of them.   It's appalling the way people cast assumptions about people and why they are single, or childless, or why they dared to go to the post office without wearing full makeup.

Having said all that, I do worry about that which I don't say, but which may be written all over my face due to what I am thinking.  You don't actually know exactly what your face is giving away. What shows on your face when someone is wearing way too much perfume and you're breathing it in?  When you see someone and are racking your brain to remember who you know that wears glasses just like them? Or your desperately trying to remember their name or even how you know them? When someone says or does something pretty innocuous but that happens to be a pet peeve (like bad grammar, for example)? When it is really important you don't offend someone but they say something actually awful?

I think this may be another ex smoker thing. When you are smoking your face has something to do. When left to its own devices, your face can get you into a whole heap of trouble.

Of course for some people, they just blurt out what occurs to them. I suppose they don't have to worry  about such trivialities as being misunderstood or inadvertently doing anything.

Other People's Thoughts

I think of things too late. So here stands thoughts based on what other people have said:

On politeness:

I tend to be pretty polite, I always says please and thank you and all that, I speak to people, all people, I don't treat anyone like they are less than me and have the same inane chat with someone, whoever they are. I do this for two reasons: 1) I always have some banal thought in my head that I want to voice, be it to the car or to the binman, and 2) no matter who it is, they have something to say and might well want to voice it themselves. It might be fascinating, it might be boring, but it's rare that one or both of you don't have a moment of interactive happiness just from exchanging a few words.

So, the supermarket. Here comes me: blether, blether, ooh, isn't it cold, what a lovely packaging that lettuce has, it's nearly time for lunch, etc etc. Mostly to the checkout staff, because other customers usually think you're mad if you talk to them. Unless you're both looking at the same thing, in which case there's an opening for "ooh, that's lovely isn't it?".

Anyway.

I do that because I do, I don't HAVE to do it. If I'm a bit tired or sleepy or sad, then perhaps I won't instigate chatter, but I don't remain mute if people talk to me. So I find it rather irksome when the person who is supposed to be nice to me, the person who is paid to be nice to me, the checkout operator, fails to even look at me, only mutters the very minimum of necessary words "do you have a loyalty card" and "that's £3m please". Not because they're shy or in a bad mood, no, this has happened to me three times this week: twice because the checkout operator was having a chat with the person at the next desk, and once because she was Reading A Magazine. That's rude. And when the mad customer beams and says a cheery "thank you, bye!" it surely doesn't hurt to say "bye" back?

Gah.

On Nintendo:

I've loved Mario for a long time. Longer than I've loved anyone else other than maybe Worzel Gummidge, but Mario has had far more of my time. From glimpsing him first on the first Gameboy, to coveting him on the NES, owning him properly on my own SNES, watching him 3D on the 64 and Gamecube and then flying through space on the Wii as well as being 3D and platform on the DS. And there's all his other adventures: Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Super Smash Brothers and the sublime and addictive Mariokart. All actually good renditions of the sport they're meant to be, but with the silliness and humour of Mario.


Mariokart.
Mariokart.
The greatest game that ever played.
The DS version is probably the best. Retro, but good.

I've played Nintendo with so many people, people used to come round just to play Mariokart, or Mario Bros depending on their gender. It's fun. Playing Mariokart sure beats showing everyone just how bad a singer I am and infuriating them all by the fact that although I sound like a strangled cat, I'm actually scoring quite well because I am accurate if unlistenable to. But I do restrict it mostly to Mario titles. I mostly ignore the fact that a PSOne, PS2 and now an XBox 360 have joined the household, there's no Mario, there's no point. I can't stand regular driving games, it's going round and round and round in circles, then blinging your car and driving slightly faster in circles. No humour, no violence, no cheating. Pah! I do quite like Driver and GTA, because you have to do missions and shoot people, but I'm not very good at them. I have played a fighting game precisely once (not including Super Smash Brothers), it was Tekken 2, and I got killed immediately by someone's laser eyes, so that was that. War games are unnecessary, and I've never got the Sim thing.

So, if it's about Mario walking about collecting things and jumping on turtles, I'm hooked. Or sports titles where you do something relatively interesting - the Wii is pretty good for this. Some of the titles available leave me cold; Animal Crossing and all those role play pretend life things are boring as hell. They're primarily DS anyway, and everyone knows that's for Brain Training, Trauma Center and emergency Mariokart. Wii's a bit different, it's interactive again, it's sort of addictive because you can be crap, that's ok, you're better next time and it's very proud of you when you are. It's like your friend. I do believe that everyone can enjoy this, even my Mum likes playing golf. Even I like playing golf and can nod appreciatively when people talk about albatrosses and irons. You don't need other people, but if there's other people around, they can join in. And you don't need to have the 1000 crap titles. Go old school. You know you want to.