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Time travel exists... if you can splash the cash
Why...
Can’t I have my own flux capacitor in a Delorean car, like Marty McFly in Back to the Future? There are a couple of people whom I would love to revisit in the past and give them some sound investment tips; Atari, Pan Am and Bernie Madoff! However, in the real world anyone who actually wants to experience time travel simply has to go to a National Health Service A&E department at the nearest hospital to remove the saucepan stuck on their toddler’s head. By the time their infant is extricated he or she will be a teen-ager and the parent will be eligible for a pension. If however, they had shelled out for private A&E they’d be home in time for tea and the private hospital would no doubt scrub the saucepan before returning it. Same result... decades apart! Now, before you all yell at me that this is a disgrace and elitist, I fully accept there are people who have no option but to use the NHS. However it’s £100 for this service privately. The same as a family dinner, a football ticket or a couple of months of Sky TV. Plenty of people can afford those. It’s really about priorities and our sense of entitlement. It’s no different from buying a priority boarding pass on an economy airline so that they can cattle-prod you to the front of the queue. For me it’s worth it not to sit next to a gaggle of hen party revellers or be lectured by an expert on Brexit for three hours. And the same journey can feel like it’s taking twice as long if seated next to someone listening to rap music but without headphones rather than a pretty girl asking what she should do all on her own at her new destination. Well, that’s the theory of relativity explained for you. The only equaliser amongst us all is time and how we allocate it. Having spent a week bouncing around North America, then a week unpacking furniture, had I the money I would gladly have paid other people to do either.
...and another thing
Most things that really waste my time are very difficult to speed up. Post Office queues are top of my wrist slitting league quickly followed by melting in a dry cleaner’s shop waiting for my duvet. It’s one of life’s little mysteries to me that so many dry cleaners are overweight yet must sweat more each day than a marathon runner on cocaine.
I suppose if you have money you can get others to waste their time for you but try getting your butler to queue for you at passport control. There are some things you just have to suffer… no matter how rich. Well actually that’s not quite true. If you are a celeb or a tin pot dictator you can pay £3,300 extra at Heathrow and get whisked through customs and passport control in your own hermetically sealed immigration unit complete with a Michelin starred chef.
I wonder if the rubber gloves used for ‘cavity inspection’ are smeared with creme de la mer instead of Vaseline. I mean three grand has to buy you something, right?
...and another thing
Here is a quick time travel thrill…
Dig out a photo album (If you are that old) or access your photos stored on your phone or computer. Go to the earliest photos and look at your shoes. Apparently of all the things we own and use everyday, the one that triggers most memories and takes you back in time, is a pair of shoes. Worked for me!
In the meantime I should really apologise to my readers for being absent these past three weeks. Honestly… I was abducted by Aliens.
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