One of the 3 billion perks about having a 9 year old is that you get to introduce them to all the old movies you loved from yesteryear. Recently, we settled down to watch Back to the Future, Marty and the Doc, flitting between the past and the future with considerable ease.
A film released in the 80’s, it was fascinating to observe their take on what the world would look like ‘in the future’ – 2015 to be precise. Steven Spielberg seemed to hang his hat on flying cars being a think. Mond you, it could possibly rectify the chaos at West Vale traffic lights. But watching the film got me thinking about how life could be in 30 years from now. And what improvements would I personally make to general human behaviour that would make the daily task of living ever so slightly more fun and interesting.
And I have come up with a few ideas.
First of all, I would brighten up customer waiting areas, such as dentists, doctors and banks, by having every customer referred to by their historical (or perhaps existing) nickname. No longer would the receptionist announce ‘Mr McNeil, Room 4 please’. Oh no, nothing as mundane as that. Let me use a live and factual example for the alternative. ‘Peanut, the Doctor will see you in Room 10’. Yes, Mr McNeill was known to his friends as peanut. Why? Well, Mr McNeill played in a football team in his younger days and his best pal in the team was called Charlie Brown. Get it? If not, have a wee Google.
Let’s use another working example. Me. I never really had one particular nickname. I kind of had a few that were casually used throughout the years. A selection would be ‘big man’ (not a great deal of creativity there), ‘big G’ (slightly more creative but still lacking), ‘stretch’ (a bit better and was named as such due to my ability to stretch my rather long legs and tackle the opposing footballer if they had the audacity to take the ball past me). Perhaps the most creative originated from a fellow footballer and great pal, James Sweeney, who on realising I was perhaps ever so slightly more articulate than most (and from a rather posh village, namely Kilmacolm), christened me ‘big la de da’. I think it was a compliment. Kind of.
But yes, if we were all referred to by our nicknames in public customer waiting rooms, the world would be a much happier place. Can you imagine the howls of laughter when (insert full nickname) was announced? And nobody would ever miss their appointment.
The next improvement I would love to see would be to replace the human behaviour of walking with – skipping. Remember how happy we were as kids, skipping everywhere we went. And I mean everywhere. Skipping home. Skipping to the toilet. Skipping to see the headmaster for potential detention. No matter the situation, we skipped. And we loved it. I would soooo love to live in a world where everyone skipped as matter of course.
Finally, every city, town and village would awake on a Monday morning to the classic song from the 1980’s band Madness, entitled ‘One Step Beyond’. This would be played throughout the streets. On buses and trains. In shops. Between 7am and 9am. It would get people skipping, dancing, the lot!
Just pause and reflect on my visionary proposals for a second. Would you smile if you heard a funny nickname being called out by a serious looking receptionist? Would you enjoy skipping to work? Or dancing in the aisles of the 8.07 Halifax to Hebden train to Madness?
I think you would love it.
Photo by <a href=”https://stockcake.com/i/busy-waiting-room_655187_473446″>Stockcake</a>
