Once upon a time, in a land not so far, far away, in a pretty drab and cheaply constructed high-rise office building perched on top of a hill–possibly in Islington or somewhere similar–lived a few young men. These were not the type of men who smiled only when genuinely happy, nor were they anything like pleasant young men. No, these men, while they might have been nice once, had now gone some way towards concealing their better attributes beneath public personas. They were defined more than anything else by their ostentatiously expensive personal accessories, and their bizarre jobs, which revolved around selling things that they never actually saw. These cheerful corporate chappies were particularly proud of their permanently shiny automobiles, which they called “sports cars”. This name apparently implied extravagant fashion items intended for sporting in public, rather than useful vehicles within which they might trans-sport themselves from one location to the next, or indeed cars with which, inside which, or on top of which they might play any form of sport. Every now and then, one of these young men would challenge a squirrel or a rabbit to a quick dash down a country lane, but he would invariably get ticked off by the local vicar. Naughty men, they were. Silly? Well, yes, often. Showy? Frankly, always. Selfish? In principle.
How the people of the world did laugh! The folly of these young men was so ill-concealed, so outrageous, that it was never going to be long before general irritation turned into outright ridicule (but only while the young men were at work, so as to avoid the misfortune of being rammed in retribution by one of their silly cars, mid-sport!) Oh, the arrogance! Such self-centred avarice! Profit-driven vanity! Short-sighted technophilia! How much there was to mock! Still, something sensible did occur to the people: how much less effort it might be, and how much more convenient, if these men were to have a useful nickname. A tag–something quick, easy, and a little cutting that could roll off the tongue into casual conversation, and cement a rightful place for these young hoodlums in future slang dictionaries. Therefore the people of the world, minus the young men, all gathered around a table or two–somewhere relatively quiet so that they could hear each other make suggestions–and held a discussion. After some deliberation, various jolly anecdotes and probably one too many cups of tea, the people decided that they had reached a consensus. Without a doubt, an acronym would be needed and a spider chart would have to be drawn. And so it was. Taking a look at the words they’d scribbled down, three stood out immediately: Young, Urban and Professional. Y.U.P.? It was quite good, they thought, but sort of stopped with a jolt, and made it hard not to feel somewhat like a dog when saying it out loud. A little, shuffly dog. Shucks. What, then? Nothing else seemed any better. Just as they were about to give up and go home, a girl piped up from the back of the room: “Poncey idiots! Eurgh!” Although it was not entirely clear whether she was shouting in general frustration or actually trying to contribute to the discussion, the chair of the meeting, along with the rest of the world, was delighted by her suggestions. The Y.U.P.P.I.E. (Young Urban Professional, Poncey Idiot–Eurgh!) was born.
Then, some time later, something very strange happened. The yuppies did have a well-known soft spot for unnecessary gadgetry of all sorts. Their silly cars were forever being succeeded by even sillier cars; their little radar computers telling them which part of the room they were sitting in were usurped by even tinier computers telling them which part of the mirror they were admiring themselves in; their clever, over-priced hair wax outmoded by even cleverer wax that could withstand frequent trans-Himalayan open-top drives and the unceasing disruptive efforts of nymphomaniac Hollywood actresses, not to mention the gale-force decibels of Kenny G which topped off the perfect weekend away. Suddenly, none of this came as a surprise any more. Until the day the walkie-talkies appeared. Yes! These amazing men, with their inexhaustible supply of self-celebratory accessories and their priceless capacity to provide the civilised world with something to laugh about, had now decided that it was time to show that accursed world that yes, his pink suit might have come straight from Milan last week, yes, his shiny car was the new BMW Sportsburger Deluxe ZX Turbo edition and yes, isn’t she a total babe??? But there’s just no time to stop and gloat while… hold on… sorry, could you hang on a minute? Cheers, buddy! Eh, what? Oh, HI! HEY!!! HOWDEEEEEE!!! Sorry–important call, this–better take it.
The rest of the world was utterly bewildered. They shook their heads and muttered… arrogance… blooming yuppies… really the limit… silly nonsense… Fortunately for them, their irritation didn’t last long, and joyous mocking soon ran riot again in the streets. Men, women and children of all ages, classes and nationalities would berate the men in public and in private–”yuppie idiots”, “arrogant twats”, “poncing about with their silly phones”, and so forth. This soon became normal, but never really boring. It went on for quite some time, this name-calling. Before too long, it was as if the world had forever borne the burden of the yuppie with his silly car and his ridiculous walkie-talkie. Everyone became quite used to it. Until…
All of a sudden, there was a big bang. Well, perhaps it was more of a pop. Accompanied by a few scratching noises, I think. In any case, there was certainly a decent-sized puff of smoke. Yes, definitely smoke. A big puff, so nobody could see a thing. In fact, the stuff was so smelly that everyone dropped off to sleep. Well, nearly everyone. The likelihood, as it always is with these things, is that there were a few people–not yuppies, but definitely men–who’d accumulated enough money from dubious ventures to have the option of hiding themselves away from the smoke in James Bond-style bunkers with mini-bars, tellies and the like. Aside from those men, everyone conked out. Everyone, from Berlin to Bali and back again. Easterners, Westerners, Northerners, Southerners, doctors, lawyers, artists, painters (and decorators) all dropped off and enjoyed a nice nap, which lasted for somewhere between five minutes and ten years.
Then, one fine summer’s day, the world rose from its slumber, feeling slightly drowsy, but ultimately refreshed and invigorated with the sort of boundless optimism one really only ever encounters first thing in the morning–that “everything’s-going-to-be-alright-no-matter-how-gloomy-it-all-seemed-last-night” sort of feeling. This was going to be a GREAT DAY! Somehow, in this fresh new light, all the worrying they used to bother with from time to time seemed fantastically insignificant: that stuff about poverty, wars, injustice, starvation, environmental abuse, corruption, yuppyism, bla, bla … The good people of the wealthier part of the world, slowly recovering from the soporific effects of the magic pretty smoke, suddenly felt that The Truth was staring them in the face. They couldn’t believe that they hadn’t noticed it before! The penny had dropped; how could they ever concentrate on sorting out issues of imminent human and natural importance if honey is unaware that I’m on the train and just wanted to say hi? And, more crucially, how could a solitary teenager ever be expected to cut down on his energy consumption if mum didn’t know where he was and he hadn’t downloaded Insane Monkey? Well? Everything was so much clearer to the people of the world once the colourful smoky stuff had evaporated. It seemed to them that, as a race, they had undoubtedly been encouraging egotistical, compulsive consumerism. The madness simply had to stop. This was not a matter of options. Progressive dialogue before the puff of smoke had been non-existent. The postmen were bored and on the point of revolt, phone lines had been down for years, and frankly nobody actually knew how to talk to each other about these things. Yes, what the world clearly needed, more than anything else, was a communications revolution!
For a while, they screamed and shouted for help. Nothing was working. Everything had ground to a halt. Then, one day, along came a man called Eriksson. Having long despaired at the English-speaking people’s inability to string together a sentence of any import, this shrewd team-leader spied an opportunity to instigate the revolution, and decisively took over management of their national football team with “pasta, fair pay-packets and coherent sentences” promised from the outset… wait, not that Eriksson, then? Yes, right–the other one. And I think a man called Motorola also had something to do with it… Either way, these marvellous entrepreneurs, learning from the mistakes that had been made by British Telecom (who were taking a while to realise that an old-fashioned public service would never make bucket-loads of profit, especially if people continued to use simple, government-issue handsets) provided just the revolution that was needed. Pow! Just like that, all the world’s woes had diminished! Impending environmental disaster became ever so much easier to forget about, as thousands upon thousands of thumbs cheerfully killed dead time topping up the bank accounts of a few opportune multinationals. The people had created unfathomable new production lines of resource-guzzling electronic commodities, and guilty consciences that were so hard to live with that no one spoke out. The companies took delight in battling local communities for the right to plant pretend trees, and cheerfully slapped sponsorship all over fantasy football leagues. And so the world kept turning, and the silly old shops that used to sell practical things kept turning into walkie-talkie shops–what a relief! Waste and greed were pretty bad and all that, but not really all that bad when the people of the world could get a free upgrade to a walkie-talkie that let them take pictures (wow!) of premature daffodils and melting ice-caps.
And so the world was saved. And it celebrated! It was a bit annoying sometimes, but it was, y’know, pretty great, really! After thousands of frustrating years spent feeling that, when there was nothing to do, they had to think of something to do, or maybe just think about something and face the unpleasant things that crept into their heads if they thought too much, help was finally, literally, at hand. The world could smile at last, safe in the knowledge that even if life wasn’t perfect all the time, at least they could always be got hold of… Oh, wait a sec… Is that me? Yeah, it is… sorry. Hi! Yeah, yeah. Ha ha! How’s things? Great! Yeah, I’m fine… No, no, it’s fine, I’m not really doing anything much…Yeah, yeah…