Millennium Nation

I've mentioned in the past that it's my belief that we are (still) going through a bout of millennial hysteria.

I'm sure historians of the future (and, when time travel is invented, futurologists of history) will look back on the last years of the 20th and the first years of the 21st as an era of madcap craziness and crazy madness.

Consider the evidence.

Religionists blowing themselves up all over the place, blowing other people up, and generally behaving like the world is going to end, or they want it to.

Lists, countdowns, more lists, more countdowns, and people going bonkers to be first, whether it's queuing up outside bookshops for the latest Harold Pinter or the Apple Store for, er, an operating system? If you think about it, it's all about counting down, whether it be the top 100 farts in the movies, or the minutes-to-midnight when the shop opens to allow you to pay for a book that, believe it or not, would still be available during normal shop opening hours.

The need to be first also equates to the need for speed, whether that be speed reading Hairy Potty (afraid you'll die before you reach the end) or just dashing about everywhere, without the time to take stock, take a breath, and savour the slower things in life.

Worrying about things is also a sign, and people everywhere are worried about the weather (signs and portents), asteroids (what ho, BBC Horizon team? What's going to destroy us all this week?), or everybody getting too fat and exploding like hysterical religionists.

Then there is completely out-of-character behaviour, like one/two-minute-silence for anything and crowds of people turning up to look at gates, doors, and walls, as if there was some hidden meaning in looking at them. And leaving flowers, of course, whether they are at little shrines at the side of the road, on lampposts, or left propped against the aforesaid gates, walls, and doors.

Whatever happened to "Fresh flowers in next lay-by"? Fresh and wilting flowers seem to be in every lay-by, and at every roadside death spot.

We drove home a very different way from my Dad's house the other day, a 2.5 hour drive from Lincolnshire to Bucks. And in spite of the unusual route, across winding roads in beautiful countryside and through many more villages than usual, it took more or less the same time as dashing up every dual carriageway we could find and avoiding those 30 mph signs.

Not only does this indicate that by-passes may improve quality of life for villagers, but certainly do not make journeys faster, but it goes to show that most journeys take as long as they are going to take, no matter what you do.

Getting my Gaggia at home has brought home to me that some things just can't be rushed, that there are indeed some things that have to take a certain amount of time. If the shot of espresso doesn't come through in 20-25 seconds, then it just ain't right. And if you try to hurry, you'll do something wrong like leave the steam boiler switched on, and fuck everything up and have to start again.

In spite of my many years of higher education, the book that has most impressed upon me the right way to live is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is the Bible of Doing Things Right. I commend this book to anyone who wept at the deux-minutes, or sat up all night speed-reading the latest Furry Potter.