Tall people seem to get on well in life.
In history height was regarded to be a measure and indicator of power and dominance. With the exception of diminuitive Dictators most great world leaders have been of above average stature.
It may have been advantageous in Medieval times to breathe and exist above the mire and stench which will have lingered from open sewers, festering wounds and those not quite able to afford a posy handkerchief. With advanced height there also tends to be a lean physique and, with that ,better prospects of longevity, well at least more towards the age of 30 in those dark, dank ages. I can see, however some disadvantages of standing out in a clump of bandy legged colleagues in a battlefield scenario or up on the castle ramparts. A proper target, head and shoulders above the rest presented for the unwelcome attention of arrows, cross-bow bolts, trebuchet armaments and the rest that siege and warfare of that period could excel in projecting through the air.
Many such contemporary giants, although probably akin to average height in our modern day well nourished society, may have pondered on what their actual purpose in life was to be.
There is pressure equally on tall persons to live up to expectations. I was responsible for the training of a student who at a towering 6 feet 7 inches could just about fit in my first company car. He was quite broad generally and had to purchase his clothes from a specialist outfitter who only seemed to have access to garments fashioned out of antique tweed.
For a 20 year old of gigantic proportions this aged him by at least 50 years. The lad was very well spoken, actually quite painfully well spoken and this gave him a rather camp persona and it was only his sheer intimidating bulk that prevented him from getting beaten up regularly.
I can see that in his early years of standard height for respective age he may well have been bullied. Those exacting wedgies and other unpleasantries will have fretted increasingly over their own fate as they witnessed his rapid growth in his adolescent years. That is unless he was born oversized, in which case I have every sympathy for his poor mother who may have felt that she was carrying and giving birth to a horse.
Usually such characters would be first pick in a line up for rugby or football and a definite starter on every team sheet for basketball. However, he was by some freak of genetics absolutely no good at any sports, apart from shooting where he could easily see over the hedges and surprise small animals who felt safe and undetected from prying eyes or those intent on murdering them in the name of sport or a stew.
Being the son of a farmer he knew everything about the countryside and could not resist talking about it every time to the point of being an utter bore, especially to me being a townie through and through.
We did not hit it off too well on the first day of his secondment to me. I briefed him on a meeting with an important first time client whose business would be valuable to my employers , tactfully implying that although he could not avoid being seen he should not be heard.
This was completely negated by the client himself who, given a choice between a colussus in a tweed suit and a small and baggy suited man of average height, chose the former to gush forth in greetings and expressions of doing the best for all parties in any subsequent dealings. A modest, conscientious and considerate individual of any vertical elevation would, you would think and expect, correct the misunderstanding and deflect and diffuse any potential for embarassment immediately with a good humoured comment. Expect and think, yes but in reality Goliaths big brother assumed control of the situation, bullshitted his way through and left me in the role of a sumo wrestlers bucket boy.
I felt like I was about 1 foot tall, which stood next to the behemoth was an equivalent in scale to about an inch. The Client was none the wiser. This made what had taken place even more humiliating for me.
I thought of exacting a suitable revenge. This consisted of, when he was not looking, pushing the front passenger seat as far forward as possible and wedging it in place so as to prevent it from being moved. This, in my bitter thoughts had the desired effect of making him extremely uncomfortable, cramped, knees up around his ears and bulbous grossly proportioned nose pressed up against the inside of the windscreen.
He resembled a giant being taxied around in a pixie car. Result.
(previously called Little Big Man from May 2012)
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