tinyjo: (Default)
Emptied of expectation. Relax. ([personal profile] tinyjo) wrote2002-03-22 10:00 am

Prejudices

1) 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!"

Team sports

[identity profile] zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com 2002-03-22 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
I don't think your comment about 'we won' is fair. A great part of the joy of following a sport like football is the team spirit - the players themselves will acknowledge that knowing they have their supporters gives them a great boost.

To most true football supporters it's also a community thing, the local team represents the people of that area and there's a real relationship there. A guy with a season ticket who goes and stands on those terraces come rain, hail or shine is as much a part of the bigger team as the star striker or the guy who sells the pies at half time. They all contribute to make the football experience what it is.

This does not apply to Manchester United fans, naturally. ;)

Re: Team sports

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2002-03-22 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
They contribute to the *experience* but I find it hard to accept that they contribute to the *game* so I find phrases like "We scored the most fantastic goal" a bit annoying.

I do accept that my position is unreasonable though - that's why I think of it as a prejudice. I'm just wondering where it springs from.

Rain, hail or shine

[identity profile] zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com 2002-03-22 02:18 am (UTC)(link)
Footnote.

In the case of the Scottish league, that's just rain and hail btw.
jinty: (Default)

Torn on the subject

[personal profile] jinty 2002-03-22 06:50 am (UTC)(link)
The whole smoking thing is weird for me. I never have smoked, don't want to, and don't like being wreathed in it down at the pub. Nevertheless, I do actually go with the 'smoking looks cool' thing -- it's ingrained somewhere deep in my psyche, probably from the mass media I spose -- and actually I rather like the taste of kissing a smoker. That's not to say it's something I would want in my longterm partner, but the salty taste is kind of sexy (again, I spose in a bad-boy type way).

Re: Torn on the subject

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2002-03-22 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
Interesting. The one time I've kissed a smoker I thought it tasted absolutely foul. I wonder if it's one of those things like lemons (and chinese food aparently) which tastes significantly different to different groups of people. Any ideas anyone?

Re: Torn on the subject

[identity profile] zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com 2002-03-22 07:59 am (UTC)(link)
I think it depends on the brand and how recently the cigarette was smoked. Alexander smokes, although only a few a day and sometimes I won't kiss him till he's cleaned his teeth and even then sometimes I can still taste it.

I love kissing him when he's just had a cigar though!

I smoked heavily for ten years, but I think you knew that.

[identity profile] andypop.livejournal.com 2002-03-22 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
I guess I always wanted to be in the "Bitch Gang". So though I don't smoke, & think it's stupid, I have to admit that there's times when it does look 'cool' to me.

Concur with Jenni comments on kissing smokers, too. As long as their entire body, clothes, and house don't reek of it, that is, which is another thing entirely.

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2002-03-22 07:39 am (UTC)(link)
It occours to me to wonder whether part of that is because you guys are both older than me - and were around in the seventies for example...

Dunno. Just a thought.
jinty: (Default)

[personal profile] jinty 2002-03-22 01:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Erm, in what sense was I around in the seventies, other than as a pre-teen? Old enough to get messages from the media, I guess, but not old enough to be actually doing anything about it.

It is odd when you contrast films made in the seventies and early to mid eighties with recent onces -- the main example that springs to mind is Alien, where they're in a spaceship, for god's sake -- the ultimate sealed-environment -- and they're sat there smoking.

[identity profile] tinyjo.livejournal.com 2002-03-25 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
Movies and TV was mostly what I was thinking of really - I think the stuff you see when you're a kid do have quite a lot of effect on you and in the '70s they were still making things where it wasn't just the bad guys who smoked (didn't Shaft smoke?)

[identity profile] oxfordslacker.livejournal.com 2002-03-26 09:15 am (UTC)(link)
That said, the most recent example of cool smoking that springs immediately to my mind is the bad guy from Charlie's Angels (the film, natch. I'm not old or anything.) Think the sound track and the dancing helped, admittedly, but it can give an air of devil-may-care insouciance to a person. Or, as you say, make them look like an idiot.

Hell, films can make anything look glamorous, I guess. Bet loads of kids were going out getting gut-shot after watching Reservoir Dogs.