So what’s your concept in regards to the Magdeburg sandwich thrower? Simply in case you haven’t but encountered this thriller for the ages, a phantom chucker of tinfoil-wrapped sausage, cheese and salami frühstücksbrötchen (breakfast rolls, a German factor presumably, and I can’t say I hate it) has been, properly … not terrorising, however maybe intriguing or mildly irritating residents alongside the B184 within the Saxony-Anhalt area of Germany.
An image within the newspaper of native soccer membership supervisor Holger Becker down on one knee, holding out some crumpled foil wherein a worthy-looking brown crust is seen, as if proposing to the viewer with it, is a elegant addition to the canon of indignant folks in native information pointing at stuff.
The seek for which means has been highly effective and poignant. The sandwiches – some bitten, some untouched – are thrown solely on weekdays earlier than 6am. Would possibly they characterize a cathartic gesture of revolt towards capitalism, the grind, or gluten? Are they expressing anger, or rejecting German values?
Psychologist Anke Precht instructed a newspaper that the sandwich fly-tipping could possibly be the results of a “missed moment” for candour in a relationship, which has resulted in a necessity for ongoing duplicity. Maybe, the idea goes, the thrower doesn’t like breakfast bröte however mistakenly gave their associate the impression they do, and having left it too late to inform the reality has hit on this answer? These items occurs. I instructed my future husband I favored clubbing on our first date to attempt to sound edgy, then needed to go clubbing repeatedly for a depressing 12 months, each of us feigning enjoyment. However why the drama, when chucking it within the workplace bin would do the job? No, there’s a defiant, performative component right here – a need to be unmasked.
However is “why” the fitting query? Looking for which means and developing a story round occasions is what makes us human, certain, but it surely’s half Fortean Instances, part-Ripley’s Imagine It Or Not! on the market proper now. Within the final week, I’ve examine a Florida man making an attempt to cross the Atlantic in a hamster wheel, a useless nun who has remained completely preserved for 4 years in Missouri, and Mexico senate hearings into extraterrestrial life analyzing “ancient aliens” that appear to be one thing you possibly can purchase from a head store in Camden Market in London.
We’ll put on ourselves out making an attempt to grasp all of it: is the thriller totem pole on the Kent coast a pagan image or an artwork challenge, or is it invoking divine safety for nesting birds? Has a Chinese language zoo changed its solar bear with an individual in a bear go well with (inform me you haven’t zoomed in on its wrinkly arse and puzzled) to attract curious crowds? Is the mysterious “skin-like” golden orb discovered within the sea ground off Alaska an alien pod?
And that’s solely the stuff that doesn’t matter (I’ll remorse saying that when orb flu comes for me subsequent 12 months). What in regards to the issues which can be bogglingly bizarre however necessary? The previous US president conserving categorised paperwork in his (hideous) bathe room. Liz Truss writing a e book to “share the lessons” from her farcical premiership. Billionaires threatening to cage struggle one another or biohacking themselves to everlasting life when Earth is likely to be incompatible with all human life fairly quickly. Matt Hancock – OK, he doesn’t matter however I can’t cease myself whispering “why?” at every recent full-body cringe that marks his post-politics “career” (couldn’t we put him on a hamster wheel within the Atlantic? I wager he’d agree if we inform him Channel 5 is filming it).
More and more, I believe dealing with life in 2023 is a matter of shedding the impulse to hunt explanations. We’ve accepted (type of) that we stay in a post-truth age; it’s most likely time to just accept we’re post-meaning too. Let final week’s cautionary story of Virgin Media reporting {that a} mysterious crater on a Dublin seaside is likely to be “the aftermath of a cosmic event” when it was dug by “some fellas … with a kid’s shovel” information you.
What does all of it imply? Nothing. Save your vitality. You’ll want it to lure squirrels and struggle the sewer folks quickly sufficient. Time to embrace the age of the inexplicable.
