TRAGEDY OR COMEDY?
We were walking along Princes Street today, after grabbing a bit of shopping, and found it increasingly difficult to get through the crowds on the pavement. Now this is Edinburgh, in August, the Festivals are still running at full speed, and one of our major shopping streets is always going to be busy in the early afternoon. But this was different, people stopping dead in their tracks and looking to the sky - and a bit of sunshine in Scotland isn't quite as rare as rumour would have it so it wasn't just the shock of that big yellow thing being there.
The centre point of all the attention was the top of the Scott Monument where a man was hanging on to the outside of the topmost viewing platform. Down below the police had cordoned off the surrounding area, up top one of their number was there, doing his best to convince the man not to jump.
A tragic situation, and not without precedent at this landmark. No surprise then that people would at least want to take a quick look and confirm the situation with their own eyes. But what are you hoping to gain from standing there watching it all unfold? Hopefully the relief of seeing the man climb back to safety.
But what were all those people doing pointing their phones skywards, taking photos of the incident? With so many people now displaying a constant need to share their every movement on social media, how many of these photos were then winging their way on to Facebook or Instagram or Twitter? And why? Is this how ghoulish we've become?
Later on I heard the good news that the poor man had been persuaded to come back inside and was brought back down to earth.
For us personally there was the irony of coming across this scenario after recently seeing a Fringe show that had at it's heart a decision on whether or not to commit suicide. I can only hope that the man today manages to find his own reasons to live just like our comedian did.
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