I flicked on my TV earlier, and E4 popped up, showing the end of the film Just My Luck. I will admit to owning this film. I bought it purely for McFly, as Lindsay Lohan fell off my radar when she started gallivanting with the wrong Ronson. And yes, it's terribly. No, McFly didn't make it in America. And that film is the reason Chris Pine ended up as Captain Kirk, so the film has a lot to be blamed for / wrong with it. And as I watched the credits roll past, mindlessly scanning what else was on, I saw a whole real (about 7 or 8 names) of people who's role ended in 'for Ms Lohan'. Assistant for, Second Assistant for, Wardrobe designer for, Hair stylist for, etc etc. Some were so mundane I've already forgotten them. I have to ask - why does Ms Lohan need so many people buzzing around her all the time, it's not like she's rushed off her feet being an excellent actress. She could save thousands, maybe even millions of pounds if she just fired them all and did it herself. Or have one, call them 'personal assistant' and make them deal with all the other crap. If you can't dress yourself, how the hell do you have a film career? No wonder paparazzi shoots up-skirt shots all the time, she clearly has trouble with her wardrobe.
But this isn't about Lindsay Lohan. God, I could go on forever, but I won't. Waste of cyberspace (and I'm sure there's already plenty of ranting blogs about her anyway). But all this reminds me of something my favourite teacher when I was about 12 used to say - I'd ask her hurriedly 'do you have a minute?' because I wanted to go through my latest piece of creative writing, or whatever, and she'd always reply 'I've got as many minutes as you want'. This isn't the case with teachers anymore. University lectures won't give you unlimited supplies of their brilliance and their time. Sometimes they don't even bother reading your whole essay when marking (or second marking, to be exact). Or, worse still, if you finally grab that teacher and spend a whole minute chatting to them, you can go outside and your friends won't be waiting for you, because their time is equally far too precious. When did time become so sparse? Did the clocks get quicker suddenly? Did the gloom of immortality cloud everyone's mind? Or do we just live in a culture of speed - everything has to be quick, prompt, faster-than-the-speed-of-light or better. Internet is a classic example. I remember when we first got the internet - we had a gateway computer, a good old modem with the dial-up tone and it always took about 5 minutes to connect, so you'd go make some toast and/or tea whilst it connected, but as soon as it was up you'd do what you had to do and log off as quickly as possible because it was like the telephone, and you paid for the minutes you used, and its darn expensive. I was 10, so I don't know how expensive, all I know is that the idea of making Mum mad at me because I'd spent too long downloading Bejewelled scared the big jesus out of me.
Now, 10 years later, our internet is brilliant. But my father, Mr. I Don't Need Technology (and Mr. We'll never have a television in the kitchen), enjoys watching the iPlayer every night during dinner. The computer in the kitchen has an 15inch monitor. In the next room we have a projector, and lazyboy recliners and a fuck-off nice fire. But no, dinner is time we won't get back, may as well watch the tv at the same time in the kitchen. And every now and then, because its 7.30, Eastenders has started and a quarter of the country are doing the exact same thing as us, iPlayer lags badly and jumps, or pauses, or stops altogether. Everytime this happens without fail my father will shout at the computer. He'll scream rude (and unjustified) words at the monitor, telling it to 'come the fuck on', and then the classic 'what a piece of fucking shit'. Teaching him that yelling at it won't help didn't work. He just yelled at me. Teaching him to yell at the router instead of the monitor did help, because it means he leaves the room. But I find it absurd that a man who once though travelling from Norwich to London was a very dangerous and long journey and certainly couldn't be done alone in one day (oh the joys of the '70s), is now infuriated by how slow our amazing technology is. Why must we be so demanding for things we don't need any quicker? I stood in line at asda today for 20 minutes holding one item. Every single person that walked past the queue would comment on its length. Every person then had to go join a longer queue, because they'd walked past the first one thinking we were all patient little sheep who just enjoy queuing up for some reason.
Next time your in Asda, buy more the one item, stand in the longest queue and yell profusely about how awesomely slow it is. Get your phone out and chat with that person you've been meaning to call. Make a list of things you need to do when you get home. Learn the names of all the states if the queue is really long. Just learn to love time. Time will always be the same, we've got to accept that: it's what you do with it, how you use it that counts.