Skip to main content

Kings and Queens of Denial

Of all the ideas derived from psychoanalysis, the notion of someone being "in denial" is perhaps the one that's wormed its way the deepest into popular culture. (I won't probe too deeply into why I chose the word "wormed" in that previous sentence. Or why I chose probe for the subsequent one.)

Anyway, there's no one better at denial than estate agents. A recent door-drop at Woodford Towers from a local property pusher refers to the 'many hungry buyers' who are 'on the hunt' for cottages in our south-west London enclave.

I'm like yyrw. Which is like yeah yeah right whateva for those of you who aren't up with the lingo.

We're then encouraged to call their "busy" office where a lady called Ann will pick up the phone. Unless, of course, she's just too snowed under. If it rings and rings, it would probably be that she's dealing with a flood of hungry buyers who've decided to besiege her desk. It absolutely wouldn't be that Ann had chosen to go out for an extended lunch break between 11 and 3.

All this kind of stuff reminds me of the Japanese salarymen who lose their jobs but continue going to work regardless. They dress up in a suit, collect their neatly packed sushi from the Mrs and head off to the local park, where they sit until it's time to head home.

"How many properties did you sell today, love?"

"Oh, I lost count. And we had some great new instructions. Potential for loft conversion (STPP) and gardens being laid to lawn and... and... I'm sorry, darling... I just... I just can't keep up the pretence any more. Please forgive me. I've been lying to you ever since the spring of 2008."

It's a weird old psychology. If I were a shrink, I'd look at these super egos and consider their brains very worthy of study. Internal viewing highly recommended.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Fawlty Towers script? Si, senor!

Ok, so I gave ChatGPT the following scenario: "Imagine a theatrical script for a situation comedy set in a hotel in Torquay, England. The proprietor is called Basil, an eccentric man who believes the calibre of guests to be low. His wife, Sybil, is often frustrated by Basil's incompetence. They employ a Spanish waiter called Manuel, who struggles to understand English. Basil suspects that two guests, who claim to be married, may be lying." Here's what our favourite AI came up with: Scene: The hotel lobby in Torquay, England. Basil is standing behind the reception desk, looking at a piece of paper. Sybil is standing next to him, looking annoyed. Manuel is hovering nearby, trying to look busy. Basil: (to Sybil) I don't know why we get such low-calibre guests at this hotel. Look at these two - Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They claim to be married, but I suspect they might be lying. Sybil: (sighing) Basil, it's not our job to judge the marital status of our guests. Just m...
Post a Comment
Read more

Becoming a Twister board

I spent yesterday evening in an old factory building off Brick Lane playing kids' games with an organisation called Fun Fed. The idea is that a bunch of adults get together and act like children for a couple of hours. We played tag and stuck big coloured discs on ourselves so that we could become human Twister mats. There was an awful lot of running around and I was thinking that I ought to get to aikido a bit more often. Being a child is very hard work.
1 comment
Read more

It's been a tough year. Let's give ourselves a clap.

If something didn’t smell right about the UK handling of the pandemic, the British public was never going to notice. But they knew that if they couldn’t smell something, they really ought to get a Covid test sent to them in the post. There has been something incredibly British about the DIY swabs and their delivery via the gig-economy workers of Amazon, hasn’t there? Touch of corona? I’ll pop something in the post to you. Should be with you tomorrow. I suppose it was inevitable that we’d need some new kind of system. After all, the coronavirus outbreak was the first thing in the history of the NHS that couldn’t be cured by paracetamol, rest and plenty of fluids. This understandably left GPs flummoxed and anxious. The UK decided pretty early on that if you were ill with a novel pathogen – which proved deadly in maybe 1% of cases – you really shouldn’t go to the doctor. You should STAY AT HOME and spread it quickly to your flatmates or family members. And because they were now at ...
Post a Comment
Read more