Synthetic seconds

As you grow older, your relationship to time alters. You’re a bit slower and not so much in the whirl. At the weekend I needed to source some picture frames. I spoke on the phone to four people, all young, working in shops. ‘Bear with me a second’; ‘I’ll put you on hold for a second’; ‘Just a second’, and ‘Can you wait a second?’ In none of these scenarios did a second play out as a second. I remember, stroke of greying beard (no, I don’t have a beard, only in a metaphorical sense), when a minute was more the currency of time.

It’ll take a minute, I’ll see you in a minute, etc. Now it’s speeded up to seconds. But, not real seconds: synthetic seconds. Elongated unreal nonsensical seconds.

Okay, since I’m on this tack. The ubiquitous phrase intoned by every drone you phone: ‘Bear with me’. I mean, where does that come from? What does it mean? What together are we bearing if not more nonsense?

One last dig at phrase making. Going forward. Have you noticed how we’re all ‘going forward’. Politicians and business spokespersons are for ever ‘going forward’. Will we know it when we get there? Or is it a case of perpetual motion?