Pigeon beyond caring

I saw a pigeon today that looked exactly how I felt. I was struck by its utterly miserable expression and decided to take a photograph. Not wanting to frighten it, I edged slowly closer for a better shot. But this pigeon was beyond caring. It sat in a state of complete dejection, not even blinking. It reminded me of Michael McIntyre’s joke about suicidal city pigeons.

After taking the picture, I continued my walk, pondering the peculiar traits of modern life.

We had visitors staying with us last week, and on one of the buses back from Valletta there was an accident right in front of us. A middle-aged woman had been struck on the head, either by the bus itself or by its wing mirror. The driver immediately got out to call the police and an ambulance while we sat helplessly on the crowded bus.

What shocked me most was not the accident itself but the reaction of so many passengers. They instinctively reached for their mobile phones and hurried to the front window to photograph the injured woman. There was pushing and shoving as people jostled to get the best view. It made me wonder how many dying victims spend their last conscious moments staring into a forest of mobile phones pointed in their direction as they bleed on the pavement. Too often, onlookers seem more interested in capturing the drama than in staying out of the way of those trying to help.

I cannot pretend complete innocence. My own weakness is different. I sometimes watch those social experiment videos on YouTube where someone pretends to assault someone to see whether passers-by intervene. It is depressing to discover how few do. Of course, some of those videos may themselves be staged, with actors playing the roles of rescuers and bystanders. Yet not all are fake, and occasionally such experiments have gone badly wrong, with real injuries and genuine danger.

Perhaps the common thread is that we have become spectators and recorders rather than active participants. Often there are perfectly understandable reasons for hesitating. We ask ourselves: Have I misunderstood the situation? Is someone else already dealing with it? If nobody else is acting, perhaps I shouldn't either.

It reminds me of a famous psychology experiment. A waiting room is full of people while, in an adjoining office, a secretary is typing. Suddenly there is the sound of someone climbing a stepladder, followed by a loud crash and the cries of a woman calling for help.

When the waiting room is crowded, remarkably few people get up to investigate. Most look uncomfortable, glance nervously at one another, and wait to see how everyone else reacts.

Yet repeat exactly the same experiment with only one person in the waiting room, and that individual almost always rushes to the office door to offer assistance.

Our humanity is still there. Somehow, though, when responsibility is shared among many people, it seems to evaporate. Psychologists call it the bystander effect. Responsibility becomes diluted until, collectively, no one feels responsible at all.

No wonder that pigeon looked so miserable. It probably realised that if it collapsed on a crowded pavement, the one thing it could rely on was not compassion, but becoming another photo opportunity for some passing idiot.

plan B to lose weight, saw my leg off

I have longed to lose weight my entire life. In my earliest diaries, full of adolescent angst, my weight is recorded in red at the top of many pages. That tally seem to accumulate with the passage of time. Despite my best endeavours the weight just grew and grew. Relatives kindly referred to me as ‘big boned’. I told myself that this explained my higher than usual weight. Others had tiny bird like bones that weighed practically nothing whereas I had these dinosaur-like brutes inside. It all made sense. On good days I told myself that having big bones was a mighty protection. Citing the well-known incident at school when I was hit by a speeding car and thrown off the road to land quite a distance away on a pavement. The damage to the car, the speed and the distress of the driver and spectators was entirely balanced by my extreme embarrassment over the whole affair. Everyone else appeared in a state of shock when I just turned purple in agonising embarrassment. Obviously, those big bones are a source of protection, I thought, as I limped on to the school bus uninjured. I overheard Colin Atcheson, my nemesis, two seats ahead tell his friend,

“Did you see that! Bloody big heifer ruined the poor guys car.”

 I sank lower in my seat by shifting my heifer-like haunches and wondered anew if everything in the entire universe was designed to humiliate me.

In later years I grew more philosophical. There were tiny fine girls who people looked after and cosseted. Then there were the big cart horses like me that were designed to carry suitcases and gas cylinders. I accepted that people came in different breeds like greyhounds and Saint Bernard's. We all come with our own attributes.

Approaching middle age I ballooned even more than usual. Strange how suddenly size 16 just seems smaller. Much better to embrace size 18 and have that loose freedom rather than constriction. Elastic tops to trousers were a great discovery. Huge billowing tops hide a multitude of sins. My attempts to lose weight continued and now turned more Machiavellian. I instructed my dear cousin (Del -you know your duty!) to saw my leg off if I died. Given the considerable thickness of my thighs (big boned all over), I reckoned this would reduce my weight to 10 stone. She was then instructed to make sure my reduced weight was mentioned in the funeral address. By hook or by crook I was determined to get to 10 stone. Such is the desperation of the perennial overweight woman!

There are advantages. In storms I am manage remarkably well. Others may cling to fences for support but my big bones anchor me quite sufficiently. When normal people walk into me on the pavement they invariably bounce back with a great velocity. The conservation of momentum is in my favour. I don't regard huge loads, shopping bags, suitcases or furniture as immovable. I have become accustomed to such obstacles giving way to my will. It is not all positive. I have an unfortunate tendency to pull handles off things. Tug doors of microwaves, break windows and other stuff. It seems most inanimate objects are not big boned like me! They are surprisingly vulnerable. Family members are accustomed to my ability to break things. They are also rarely worried about my safety. When I visit strange cities they worry more about my carelessness than my safety. Who knows what I might break while there? I do not expect to be attacked any more. Instead I am on guard in case I nudge someone onto the road or rail. Goodness knows what/who I could reverse into in shops and damage with my flanks.  These big bones carry a heavy responsibility.

Then suddenly a month ago my weight started to plummet it for no apparent reason. Do I have some strange wasting disease? Out of the blue I have become a size 14 and all of my wardrobe hangs like joke tents around my frame. I am shocked!  After over five decades of weight gain this has come left-of field. My latest theory is that those big bones been hollowed out by some calcium deficiency. They are large but now are hollow and don't weigh as much as they did. Don't worry I am no Greyhound, more of a cuddly Labrador. Just when you think you know yourself, something odd happens. Life is increasingly full of jokes that sneak up on you. It's sometimes hard to catch the punchline. I have not worked out this one yet.

PS I'd like to point out that when Clark Kent, or that thin vampire guy, stopped speeding cars, then both of them were admired as having superpowers. Note that when women such as I, demonstrate such abilities they are merely seen as excessively bulky!  That has got to be unfair!  

* Heifer is a young cow