I HAVE CLOSED DOWN THIS BLOG. Please click the photo above to be REDIRECTED TO MY NEW (continuation) BLOG.

Tuesday 20 November 2018

Getting old?


I had to smile when I saw this juxtaposition of signs - but then I sighed. I think I'm definitely getting old... More or less every day these days I seem to think 'what on earth is that?' or 'what is the world coming to?'.

The shop in Shipley, selling e-cigarettes, was open for barely a year. There's a message on their FB page saying 'lack of trade and large overheads' made it unviable. I'm pretty sure (although it means nothing to me as I'm neither a smoker nor a 'vaper') that there are at least two other dedicated 'vaping' outlets in Shipley's small town centre anyway.

I'm sad for so many reasons. Sad (and bemused) that I find it harder lately to keep up to speed with modern developments (technology, as well as things like vaping). Sad for the future, as every positive advance seems to be matched with a dozen seemingly less positive ones. Sad that large overheads seem to make so many businesses in our town centres unviable; sad that our small town centres hold little more these days than charity shops, betting shops and vaping shops; sad for the people wandering round in such poor shape and for whom drugs, smoking, vaping, drinking are all part of trying to make life a little better. I'm sad - and then I'm angry too.

7 comments:

  1. As they say around these parts: "Arrr...Oi reckon we got old just in time!"

    ReplyDelete
  2. I utter these selfsame words regularly - it feels as if the world I knew and loved is vanishing day by day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. hmm I don't understand vaping either, it seems to be the "in" thing here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I recall adverts for Wills Woodbines, Craven "A", Players (the full-bearded seaman) and Senior Service cigarettes plastered all over the walls of Shipley in the sixties. West Yorkshire buses bore testimony to Littlewoods fantastic football coupons winnings of 75.000 pounds. There was a pub on every corner where working class men spent their paypackets. Most died before sixty. Shipley air was winter smog; the River Aire the filthiest river in England. TB was rife, in Bradford thousands died of typhus. The Victorians bequeathed a sewer in Northern England. Leeds air was filthy. I know. I was born into it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I totally agree...sad and a bit angry. Such a waste of this precious life we’ve been given...

    ReplyDelete