last time i flew over berlin / we were too busy dropping bombs to land
A Angry Old Man post.
Your nephew asks about your gap year and you mention a hostel in Lisbon. Somebody within earshot sighs about "kids these days" and a lecture about walking to school begins. The school was, apparently, uphill. Both directions. A film is re-released for its anniversary, and the grandparent in the row behind insists the original was better, because in their day they saw it on a screen the size of a garage door. Nobody asked. Nobody ever does. Someone mentions their phone has three cameras. A voice from the armchair says that in the old days one camera was enough, and it was the family's, and you blinked, and you ruined it. Photographs cost real money, apparently. You tell the neighbour you're working from home on Friday. He folds his arms and says that in his day work was something you went out and did, in the rain, with a flask, for forty years, and nobody ever asked how he felt about it. **Why it caught on:** the picture shows an elderly man in a top hat, round spectacles and a grey scarf, scowling and jabbing a finger at the camera, and people captioned it with every "back in my day" grumble they could think of. It spread because the pose does the work for you: the pointed finger, the squint and the Victorian costume suit a rant about youngsters, hills and the good old days, and everyone has sat through one.