BORING POSTCARDS

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This Group celebtrates Boring, ordinary, dull, commercial Postcards that feature aspects of our everyday life – such as streets, roads, houses -- and are, in a strange way, interesting because they are so uninteresting. Join in and share your Postcards of our Boring world.

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DULL AND/OR BORING?

by Valentine Mark Herman

Sep 22, 2020

DULL OR BORING?

I am a member of the British-based Dull Men's Club (DMC) – which also includes women, and, indeed, claims to have 35,000 + members worldwide. (membership@dullmensclub.com)

The DMC's “mission statement” is to 'celebrate the ordinary... the life-changing magic, of simple, everyday, run-of-the-mill things'. (www.dullmensclub.com)

It's current Blogs include:

  • Car Parks

  • Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society

  • Manhole Covers

  • Wet Floor Signs

  • Drainspotters

  • Post WW2 prefab houses

  • (forthcoming: a blog by yours truly on French shutters)

One of the current Blogs features a British postcard collector who reckons that he has well over a million postcards amassed over 50 years, He admits “..I’m obsessive at times. Last year in Berlin I picked up 114 postcards of the old Berlin Television Tower, the tallest structure in Germany, third tallest in the EU. It was constructed in 1965 by the German Democratic Republic.”

Which makes my, our, and Martin Parr's collection of Boring Postcards look pretty meager

One of the DMC's FAQ's (too many acronyms here!) asks:

“8. Are dull men the same as boring men?

“Yes and no. Boring men are dull men. But not all dull men are boring men. Boring men are dull men who don’t know when to stop; they go on and on and on. ”.

This dull/boring distinction led me to consult a book that I have been carrying around for 50+ years: The Nuttall Dictionary of English Synonyms and Antonyms. (No doubt the 'Net will have zillions of other sources, but I will stick to my Old Favourite.)

“Dull: Tiresome, boring, dry, uninteresting, barren, jejeune, fatiguing, tame, vapid, meagre, plain, dreary.

“Bore [but not 'boring']: Tire, weary, fatigue, vex, annoy, worry.”

So, and in conclusion, are our Postcards Dull and/or Boring? And, as I have argued from Day 1, do our Dull and/or Boring Postcards at some stage become Interesting Postcards?





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  • up

    Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)

    Perhaps this is not a 500 word essay,
    unless there are 250 words and you read it twice?
    But to answer some of those dull questions:
    Homer, writes in the "Odyssey":
    (or as a bard he may be chanting...)
    "Sing to me, Muse, and through me tell the story
    of that man skilled in all ways of contending,"
    (what is a car park and what is a parking lot)
    "The wanderer, harried years on end"
    (not knowing that a postman is also a mailman...
    and they are surely post person and mail person as well)
    Charles Dickens, "Tale of Two Cities" states that:
    "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, "
    (for boots in raining weather, and boots for the automobiles...)
    "it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,"
    (a foolish trunk to pack your travel attire in and a trunk for the spare tire,
    and a trunk for the elephant, too) 
    "it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,"
    (time to wear a bonnet , or a jumper with a hood?)
     
     it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, 
    (dark especially if the hood was wearing a hood and was 
    walking in the hood, when someone picked up the hood of his car)
    it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, 
    we had everything before us, we had nothing before us...
    we had car parks and we had parking lots,
    we had postmen and we had mailmen..."
    Shakespeare, the other Bard sang:
    (via Cole Porter from "Kiss me Kate")
    "Brush up your Shakespeare," MomKat,Kate,
    Start quoting him now,
    Brush up your Shakespeare, Val,
    And the women you will wow...
    "...If she says your behavior is heinous 
    Kick her right in the Coriolanus"
    Brush up your Shakespeare
    And they'll all kow-tow...ya think?"
    2

    Sep 24, 2020

    • up

      Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)

      Thank you, gentlemen, thank you,

      I thank you,

      Coriolanus thanks you:

      Shakespeare thanks you, 

      Dickens thanks you,

      and Homer says ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΩ!

      Sep 25, 2020

      • up

        Bradford

        Παρακαλώ

        Sep 25, 2020