Smell the Flowers

Last week I photographed a man—it need not concern us who.

Suffice to say he is a man of some renown in his field and he has what my good friend Phyllis Fenwick describes as an infectious smile. Phyllis would know: her late husband also had an infectious smile, that later turned out to be herpes.

However, this man (the one I photographed) came across as a sincere kind of bloke who most would instantly like. I did and that surprised me

Why?

Well, I’ll tell you.

 I met this man before, many years ago, and on that occasion, I found him unfriendly, arrogant and dismissive. You know the type—the type that women (and it is invariably women) excuse as being shy. We men know different: we know a prick when we see one. And based on my meeting with him years ago he was one.

He doesn’t appear to be one now. Quite the opposite: open, friendly accessible and—under the circumstances—patient. And the interesting point about that is he is doing the same job he was doing all those years ago. He has had different jobs in the interim, and that may have changed him, but right now, and back at his old job, he is missing one core and defining component of his earlier personality—bitterness.

Recent events surrounding him could have subjugated him. They could have made him bitter. They did last time. Not, it appears, this time. Instead he looks relaxed and rested with no rancour about him. His smile is sincere. He seems genuinely interested in what people need to say to him, and he comes across as down to earth and honest. Which is unusual for someone of his occupation, which I again choose not to name.

I thought about this I thought about me. And I thought about Fryday. Mainly about Fryday.

Fryday over its past 26 years has tried to be like this man—though, until now, I would not have recognised that.

Sure, Fryday has taken the odd-swipe; but never without the quietude of humour. Only once has it shown bitterness, and that was its first posting when it attempted to drive a panel beater out of business. It didn’t and I learnt my lesson.

That lesson was that I have no mandate—let alone faculty—to educate you; only, if I can, entertain you. And the lesson I learnt from observing the individual I photographed is that there is little point in bitterness, and every point in a smile.

I am not suggesting blind acceptance. We all have our concerns. And those who exhibited them most intensely changed the world: Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, Adolf Hitler and my personal hero Mikhail Gorbachev were some.

But, I am not talking the big picture here. I am talking one picture. One picture I took last week of one person. It didn’t change the world; It simply changed my opinion of him.

And to a certain extent it justified 26 years of doing this bloody Fryday. If Fryday gives you a smile today, then I guess it has achieved its only achievable and modest expectation.

For all else to make our day great, look not to Fryday; rather look to the venerable Ferdinand the Bull and do as he did: simply smell the flowers.