Typewriter notices on ED Bus Shelters

[ibilly99]

Does anybody know who puts up these typewritten state of the nation pieces about the decline of the UK and sticks them on bus shelters around ED - sounds and feels like an OAP who is losing it - tempted to carry my camera around and photo them and put them up on the internet - which is what it was invented for - ranting into the ether so at least he would get a bigger audience. Apparently the answer is to write to the Queen and express our displeasure at the decline. If only it were that simple ... Very touching in a sad,poignant life drifting away sort of way.

P.S Saw the whistler on Peckham Rye today - whistling away into the wind .....

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I wish he'd hire me as his proofreader.

[ibilly99]

No spellcheckers on typewriters I'm afraid

[PeckhamRose]

I saw one such sheet on the window of Tina's Hairdressers on Grove Vale.

Lots of racism stuff so I casually amended it.

Next day it was all torn down!

[ibilly99]

Racist ? well not overtly and directly - it's the ramblings of an old boy (I assume) who has seen his whole world changed beyond recognition - these people belong to a forgotten era. He may have fought in wars and not grown up in multicultural environment so I try not to judge him by today's standards. He?s trying to make sense of his declining years and raging against the dying of the light ? I can sense the haunting impotent loneliness of his tattered thoughts scratched off and peeling ? barely read by the busyness of the fuller lives of the passers by? -

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

[????]

x

[PeckhamRose]

Fair post.

I did stop and read the entire thing, and I did think about it. I did think about the person who typed it and the effort it took and the time, and the sort of person whose life had been, and how they interpreted what they saw and felt. I did think about it. And thought about the life they are living now and how their experiences have changed and how they can only see the bad things and all that.

But just because someone is old does not mean their racist opinions are to be "tolerated" by everyone else, does it?

[????]

done

[ibilly99]

Not tolerated necessarily but understood in the context of our more liberal benighted hillock on which we stand. His 'racism' if that what it is - is probably a result of growing up in a fairly monocultural world - I went past the old civic centre on the Old Kent Road today (next to Topps Tiles / B&Q) and there is a mural celebrating the life of the area and ends with Pearly Kings and Queens as celebration of the area. Looks quaint and old fashioned by today?s standards and not a multicultural reference in sight. Wouldn?t happen today nor should it ? but it was a different age and different values.

http://www.tilesoc.org.uk/images/dbasel12.jpg

[KalamityKel]

Sounds like the delightful piece of literature (sense the sarcasm and disapproval here) that dropped through my letter box a few months ago - altho this seems more subtle...