PART 5 - TAOTC - NOTHING TO HIDE

BETTER WAYS OF LOOKING AT THINGS AND EVENTS

 

This is the 5th Part in a series of articles under TAOTC = The Art Of Thinking Correctly. The articles are selected from various books and are intended to enlighten readers with different, hopefully better, ways of looking at things and events.

 

While the following article is intended to exhibit the creativity of a citizen in the United Kingdom, we can also change the title to 'Nothing2Hide' as a slogan which had recently infiltrated our vocabulary.

NORTH SEA GAS

Years ago, the UK was being converted to run on North Sea gas.
They had to dig up all the old pipes, all over the country, and lay new ones.
In some cases the pipes ran under houses.
Then they had to come in and dig underneath.
I read about one frail old lady who didn't want to be converted.
She just wanted her house left alone.
British gas told her it was compulsory.
The main supply line ran under her house.
But she refused.

WIVES DID NOT COMPLAIN TO THE POLICE

Her neighbours said she was just a little old dear who'd had a rough time in the past.
She'd lived in that house ever since she had got married, many years earlier.
Unfortunately her husband was a violent drunk.
He'd come home every night, after the pub, and beat her up.
All the neighbours knew it was going on.
But in those days wives didn't complain to the police about their husbands.
They just accepted it quietly.

THE BEATINGS STOPPED

Then one night after years of abuse, her husband left her.
He got drunk at the pub as usual.
Came home, gave her the usual slapping, and walked out.
No one ever saw or heard from him again.
This was a mixed blessing for his wife.
On one hand it meant the beatings stopped.
On the other hand it was shameful for a woman's husband to leave her.
So everyone was very kind and sympathetic towards her.

But all this cut no ice with British Gas.
They said they'd have to dig under the house, and that was that.

THE LITTLE OLD LADY CONFESSED

So, as the old lady stood by weeping softly, they lifted up the carpet.
Then they lifted up the lino.
Then they lifted up the floorboards.
And there was a pit with a human skeleton in it.
The skeleton had a crushed skull.
And the little old lady confessed.

One day she'd decided she couldn't take the beatings any more.
So every night, when he went to the pub, she rolled back the carpet, took up the floorboards, and began digging a pit.
Then she put it all back before he came home.
It took many months of hard work.
Just a few hours every night.
Digging a little bit and disposing of the soil.
But finally she decided the pit was big enough.

So, when he came in blind drunk again, she hit him as hard as she could.
With a cast-iron frying pan.
When he went down she hit him again.
And she kept on hitting him until he was dead.
Before dragging his body to the pit and dropping it in.
Then she put back the floorboards, the lino and the carpet.
And she told everyone her husband had walked out on her.
And everyone was kind and sympathetic to the poor thing.

COMMENTARY BY DAVE TROTT, the author:

Not all creativity happens in a flash.
Sometimes, as with her, it's more methodical.
She analyzed the situation.
The primary problem was her husband's violence.
The secondary problem was that she couldn't leave, and he wouldn't leave.

So the brief was defined as:

How could she stop the violence without either of them leaving?

And the brilliantly simple solution was:

He doesn't have to leave, he just has to appear to leave.
Then she actually made it happen.
And that was the real creativity.

The dogged determination to do whatever it takes.
That's where most of us fall down.
We have a good idea but we stop there.
If no one does then we give up.

But she didn't.
That frail, frightened lady did whatever it took.
However hard, however long.
Night after night.
Month after month.
And that's the difference.
Unless we make it happen it never exists.

It just stays as another good idea that never happened.

COMMENT

Obviously the little old lady had something to hide. It should not be a surprise to Malaysians to see people trying to appear 'innocent' but really 'guilty'.