Cardboard Conundrums

I’m worried about the fact that I’m not worried about the fact that I am getting demonstrably older. I was musing on the tempus fugiting aspect of my life while perusing my birthday cards. As is my wont my musings became a little more analytical (or self indulgent as some people insist) and the results are here for your delectation.

Of the total number of greetings which were received on or about the Day, the statistics read as follows:

Cards: vaguely insulting and ageist 41.6%
Cards: winsome 8.3%
Cards: Romantic 8.3%
Cards: generic and complimentary 8.3%
Cards: Xmas with ‘Birthday’ written in 8.3%
Greetings: electronic 8.3%
Greetings: telephonic 16.6%
TOTAL 99.7%
[The missing 0.3% is the sum total of the Powers That Be wishing you well] {I would now expect Catrin Lloyd to work out the total number of greetings}

What is the earliest age at which it is acceptable for irony to be used in cards? When did I first appreciate irony? Like the shock of understanding death as a child, it should have been startling, a life changing moment – but I can’t remember it. Isn’t that ironic! And the percentages: when I was younger most of my cards were perfectly acceptable stereotypical cards for boys: racing cars; football player;, train drivers; the countryside; earnest and sinister junior storm troopers masquerading as inoffensive boy scouts; swimming and cartoon characters. No humour. No irony. And, as I recall, many of them with money inside: I am young enough not only to remember a crisp ten shilling note (10/-) looking impressive but also realising that it had considerable buying power (e.g. it would buy 480 Black Jacks!) What person now would ever get away with giving any relative (no matter how distant) 50p as a gift?

I suppose that there must be a certain moment in a person’s life when the giving of a sincere birthday card will be both disturbing and suspicious: where sincerity appears to be the easy option – no thought needed; the greetings equivalent of quorn. Irony (or real abuse) shows, paradoxically, that you care. No wonder so many people can watch ‘The Simpsons’ and merely laugh rather than weep with the realisation that the programme exudes weltschmertz more graphically than the collected works of Jean Paul Sartre.

The electronic greeting came a day late, but the sender assured me that it was still the day of my birthday where he was because of the time difference: a very nice point! Given the prevalence of computers and the way in which all of us are in thrall to the electronic dictatorship of communication around the world; perhaps there should be the internet equivalent of GMT – a sort of internationally recognized cyber time completely divorced from any terrestrial or snail time.

Everyone knows that time spent using a computer is like time spent looking something up in the Guinness Book of Records: you start with a simple evening’s get together being poisoned by vicious arguments developing over simple questions like, “What was the longest strand of spaghetti ever produced?” Before armed conflict breaks out in your dining room you have recourse of the Final Word on Trivia – the aforementioned book. But, it is only when The Book is produced that the real dangers of human interaction reveal themselves.

As the Holy Text is brought into the room each person shows themselves eager to be the devotee to turn the pages and discover the grail of truth. When the Galahad character deemed worthy by the company has wrested The Book unto himself (usually by physical force) then The Searching begins. The methods of find the answer vary from the Divine Intervention approach, that is, opening the book at random and expecting the answer to leap forth to following the helpful comments of whose the company regarding looking at something called the index which is ordered ‘alphabetically’ – a mystical arrangement whose intricacies are explained to the Galahad character by helpful persons reminding him that “’s’ comes after ‘r’ you plonker!” But this advice and information is far too late because the reader has now discovered that there is an entry called, “Road Kill: largest quantity discovered on a one mile stretch” and feels impelled to expound his discovery to others, to their mingled astonishment and delight. Taking heart from this response he goes on to “Retching: highest velocity in insects” and “Rattan mats: greatest number eaten by trained wombats.” At this point the initial question has evaporated from all consciousnesses and the evening is over. Time has gone.

So too with computers. Cyber time is not real; it has its own dynamics and should have its own terminology. Hours, minutes, seconds; they are all interchangeable in cyber space. They have no solidity they cannot be measured by mere clocks, they are the way we touch another universe.

Beware: Christmas is not far away. There are cards involved in that festival too. Interesting, very interesting.