Breakdancing? Let’s have competitive tutting instead...
Come Paris 2024, breakdancing may be an Olympic sport: excellent news for fans of MC Hammer, street artists and people who find having a “party trick” a suitable alternative to being capable of holding a conversation with strangers. Though, naturally, a less favourable development for we Brits; the combination of physical activity and dance sadly renders our likelihood of troubling the medals table slim. Billiards and chess were also proposed for potential inclusion in future Games but dismissed – a shame, given sports that require little physical exertion tend to be those in which our nation truly comes to the fore.
This is not to say we aren’t talented in other areas. And, if the Olympic Committee is out of ideas for new ways in which to pit countries against each other every four years, Britain could certainly excel in...
Short shrift
This is mostly administered via the medium of tutting and shushing, and comes in handy for cases like that of Samantha Quek, the gold medalwinning hockey player who was this week asked to remove herself from a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor after coughing twice. Yes, getting cross with people for emitting an involuntary physical reaction – usually making the offending noise worse in the process – is utterly unjustified, but we shan’t let that stop us. Quek’s offence took place at the Vienna State Opera, which suggests that potential competition would be fierce. But the Brits, surely, could just about edge it.
Making seismic political change exceptionally dull
Why go to a bunga bunga party or start up a relationship with a former teacher twice your age when you could run through a field of wheat? So goes the apparent logic of our elected leaders who, when given the option to do something interesting – either with their personal time or, you know, during periods of potentially tectonic societal upheaval – somehow always revert to bland, bland, bland.
Take the current main party implosion which, instead of shaking the foundations of our two-party system as promised, feels a bit like a boy-band reunion without enough of the key members involved to make it worth tuning in. Or our departure from the EU which, instead of acting as a global lightning rod for which Britain provided the metal, has instead been, to use the kindest possible term, excruciating. At least by making Brexit so boring, our politicians have willed voters on both sides to pray it happens as soon as humanly possible.
Finding weather surprising
Sun, snow, particularly strong gusts of wind – fairly run of the mill stuff, over the course of a lifetime, yet somehow able to confound us afresh every time. Other nations seem to find the sky less cause for eternal fascination and consternation, but not us – not least because it’s the immediate remedy for another of our greatest hits: social awkwardness. Nobody knows awe like a Brit during a slightly-less-commonthan-average weather event.
Producing questionable food
Can there really be such a thing as vegan cheese? Yes, insist ardent defenders of our planet who spend their afternoons “milking” oats in order to spare our livestock; of course not, say people with tastebuds.
But, as the hubbub surrounding La Fauxmagerie – a cheeseless cheeseproducing deli in south London – this week proved, where there are grains and the ability to suspend disbelief, there is a way. Besides, real foodies know that fare which seems unpleasant only ups its gourmet status. See the resurgence of Spam – a tin-based hate crime best left in 1945 or, in the words of the Washington Post’s Going Out Guide a few days ago, an “addictive slab” currently delighting DC diners. No, we’re not convinced either, but if our rogue rations are a hit, who are we to argue?
Giving, then quickly reversing, national sweetheart status
How we love to build people up, only to crush them as soon as they do something we find even mildly irritating. Sorry, Meghan. You had a good run. It seems curious that, having decided to exercise, the doingyour-trainers-up element would prove the most exhausting part. This must be a common issue, however. Why else would Nike have dreamt up their Adapt BBS, shoes which can be tightened with a tap of your smartphone minus the indignity of bending down and using your arms to pull the little strings?
Because they are innovators of the highest degree, or they can put a £310 price tag on it – one or the other, perhaps both, if we’re being generous. But either way, “connectivity issues” mean the self-lacing function of these selflacing shoes is refusing to self-lace, thus presumably putting the kibosh on would-be runners doing any actual running, given a rather fundamental piece of their kit is malfunctioning. If only there was some kind of analogue alternative.
If there was any doubt over how deep into the buzzword abyss we have descended, “finefulness” – a term which denotes being neither too positive nor too negative – is the sad answer. It’s the latest in a ceaseless string of meaningless terms used to denote “new” trends, that are not new, or trends (see also self-care, Kondo-ing and mindfulness).
I’m all for linguistic fripperies but this recent batch is, frankly, rubbish. When it comes to catchy locutions, the old stuff is far superior – a particular favourite being hurkledurkling, used to describe lying in bed long after it is time to get up. Both a term and trend I can get on board with.