If you’ve seen it, you’ll know you can’t help but gasp. A gasp, a shake of the head and a thank your lucky stars it wasn’t you.
Simon Smith, a hitherto unknown HGV driver from Reading, is currently Britain’s Luckiest Man, having been hit by an out of control double decker bus, cracking its windscreen with his head and flying 45 feet along the pavement before picking himself up and walking into the Purple Turtle for a pint.
Double Decked, ran The Sun.
Millions of people have viewed the gut wrenching video of Mr Smith’s near miss as he made his regular Saturday morning trip to deposit his pay cheque. His pluck in immediately heading pint-wards has been widely praised.
Mr Smith, and his close encounter with the number 17, is an allegory for our times.
You will remember Brenda from Bristol, made famous for her exclamation of dismay when confronted both by the BBC’s Jon Kay and the news of the snap election. “You’re joking! Not another one. Oh, for God’s sake.”
Brenda from Bristol was styled the voice of the nation. Brenda from Bristol was said to be representative of the country entire.
I beg to differ.
In these straitened times, these times of impending Brexit, repeated terror attacks, the Grenfell Tower disaster and political turmoil, are we not better represented by Mr Smith of Reading? Does the description of being smacked painfully and unexpectedly from behind by a looming, out of control force as we carry out our everyday business not bring a niggling sense of familiarity to us all?
Are there not multiple times the news has so depressed us we’ve felt whacked to the back of the head and hurtled through the air to a tarmac landing?
And should we not then turn to Mr Smith for inspiration? While bruised, stunned and wondering what on earth’s going on, we should pick ourselves up, shake, and carry on.
But Mr Smith’s story is an allegory for our times in another way. Mr Smith, in fact, did not pick himself up and head for a pint. The pint was enjoyed, but not until much later in the day after the staff of the Purple Turtle had called an ambulance, Mr Smith was checked over in hospital and released following treatment to cuts and grazing.
“I’m feeling quite traumatised that I should be dead,” Mr Smith said, when actually asked.
Truth, way, good story, etc. Or, as it now is styled, Fake News.
But when have we ever allowed the real backstory of an ordinary man to prevent us from turning him into a figurehead? Though I prefer the real version. He did the sensible thing first.
I thought of Mr Smith’s brush with death this week as I read yet another article about sitting being the new smoking or some such scaremongering. Edinburgh University researchers have found that middle-aged office workers spend more time sitting in a day than your average over-75. There are health risks to excessive sitting, we’re told: an early death, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers.
Excessive sitting. Dangerously sedentary. If there isn’t enough to worry about, we’re killing ourselves in the course of our 9 to 5. Should we worry about that, when there’s every chance we might be hit by a bus anyway?
Unhealthy lifestyle choices place a burden on the NHS costing billions of pounds, so we can’t entirely sniff at the notion of personal responsibility and a desire to energise the populace towards good health. However, I can’t help but feel that sitting will be bad until it isn’t. Just as red wine was bad until it was good, fat was the devil until it was healthy… and on and on.
It’s difficult to juggle eating five a day, having a Meat Free Monday, avoiding saturated fats, moving more during office hours, doing 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week and strength exercises at least two days a week, keeping under 2000 calories and sticking to fewer than 14 units of alcohol a week.
Mr Smith, my new hero, says he feels lucky to be alive. There’s nothing like government health advice to sap the joy from living.
If you need me, I’ll be in the Purple Turtle with a gin.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel