Perhaps we could all perk things up a bit. (Updated July 2025 with this link to a 3rd party site’s item about colourful cities – a different take on the subject, below.)
A short time ago I took the photo, below, of a Red Kite on a tree, a couple of houses away from my garden.
And I particularly noticed the intricacy of the plumage. From that start point I had a quick review of some of the regular garden visitors and that left me thinking about how uninteresting I and many of the folks in Caversham and, on the whole, in our entire society look too. (There’s a gallery of some avian visitors over on the RG4 site.)
But I then thought I might be being unfair, in that the birds don’t have any say in how they look, while we all do. But that would mean it would be fairer to assess what we humans look like when we’re naked. But that offers even less variety. Yikes!
So, let’s stick with (one of the) things that distinguish us from other animals – our ability (all things being equal) to make choices, including about how we dress.
What influences how we dress? Inevitably, a number of factors will come into play, not least our social and cultural context. The brightness and variety of the colours on display in a street in, say, Lagos, or Ulan Bator or Delhi is very different from what you’ll see in central Caversham.
And you have person-specific choices regarding how people dress – what an individual likes. We probably all know someone who is far more adventurous in their attire than most. (Hello, Neil.) And then there are event- or occasion-inspired reasons to look a bit special, or a bit different, or as required. From hobbies to parties, workplaces to weddings and so on.
So, yes, there are lots of exceptions and variations. But, that all said, if you take a seat in the centre of Caversham and watch the folks go by, I think it’s fair to say that our ‘plumage’ (mine included) isn’t as striking as it could be. Which is a bit of a shame – it would probably cheer us all up if we lived in a more brightly coloured context.
