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Prejudices
March 22nd, 2002 10:00 am1) People who get really excited about sports they watch. A couple of guys in the office were having one of those "We won" discussions about the football (I assume the match we heard in the pub) and I wanted to butt in with the Jeremy Hardy line * - No, you didn't win. They won, you watched. I should point out that I've got nothing against people who get excited about sports they play - that's fine if not really something I get exactly. I just find myself automatically feeling rather scornful towards people I hear talking about "last nights match". I mean, I'm interested in tennis and I love to watch a good match being played but I don't get the whole Henmania thing for example. I guess, thinking more deeply about it, it's the partisanship that I'm scornful of - if they were talking about a beautiful shot that one of the players made I would just put it down to a strong interest but it's just the sense that they're only interested in a beautiful or skilful shot if it's made by one of the players on their team.
2) People who smoke. This only seems to a apply to people I actually see smoking or who smell particularly strongly of it. I really notice this when I'm walking into work in the mornings when there are quite a few of people smoking as they walk along (presumably to fit it in between the tube and the office). Its one of the things Alex and I would occasionally discuss way back in my younger days. He used to say (and still may do for all I know - I haven't asked him for ages though) that he did think people smoking looked cool whereas I just think they look a bit stupid. Maybe this stems from my school days when if you wanted to be in the bitch gang with all the girls who were more interested in looking pretty (over made up) and having sex (or at least talking about it) than actually doing any work (mostly because they knew they weren't going to come top although most of them would have done OK and couldn't bear not to win so they had to make it look like they weren't competing) then you had to smoke. Or if you wanted to hang out with the guys who wandered around in big puffa jackets and sat in the back looking insolent and not working (see above) in classes then you had to smoke. So I came to see smoking as a badge of being a bit stupid and also of following the crowd. Anyway, whatever the root, I seem to automatically degrade my estimate of the IQ of someone who's smoking by about 10%.
* He was originally talking about war and journalism - "'I for one cannot sit idly by'. Yes you can! You're a newspaper journalist! Sitting idlely by is all you ever do!"
2) People who smoke. This only seems to a apply to people I actually see smoking or who smell particularly strongly of it. I really notice this when I'm walking into work in the mornings when there are quite a few of people smoking as they walk along (presumably to fit it in between the tube and the office). Its one of the things Alex and I would occasionally discuss way back in my younger days. He used to say (and still may do for all I know - I haven't asked him for ages though) that he did think people smoking looked cool whereas I just think they look a bit stupid. Maybe this stems from my school days when if you wanted to be in the bitch gang with all the girls who were more interested in looking pretty (over made up) and having sex (or at least talking about it) than actually doing any work (mostly because they knew they weren't going to come top although most of them would have done OK and couldn't bear not to win so they had to make it look like they weren't competing) then you had to smoke. Or if you wanted to hang out with the guys who wandered around in big puffa jackets and sat in the back looking insolent and not working (see above) in classes then you had to smoke. So I came to see smoking as a badge of being a bit stupid and also of following the crowd. Anyway, whatever the root, I seem to automatically degrade my estimate of the IQ of someone who's smoking by about 10%.
* He was originally talking about war and journalism - "'I for one cannot sit idly by'. Yes you can! You're a newspaper journalist! Sitting idlely by is all you ever do!"
