Shouters. And generation names!

Late on a Saturday night into the small hours of Sunday seems to be the optimum time for standing on the street below our flats talking at the top of your voice. It’s quite understandable that people choose to talk then. By then the street has cooled sufficiently for it to be a comfortable place to stand and chat. And of course, as everybody has a strong opinion on everything they all talk at once and each voice gets louder in order to be heard above the rest. Which is all very well unless you are inside the building trying to go to sleep, with the window open and the blinds closed enough to keep the bugs out but open enough let the air in and, of course, the noise! Such are the trials of hot nights.

It was already showing 23 degrees at 9.00 this morning on a chemist’s sign down on Travesía de Vigo. Despite the already rising temperature that is a good time to be up and running. I see people out running in the early evening but by then the very air is warm and heat is radiating off the walls of buildings. So unless you really believe that you have to sweat as many toxins out of your body as possible, by whatever means, then early evening is not a good time for running.


That talking at the top of your voice is a common phenomenon. We travelled to Mondariz by bus this afternoon and all the way to Porriño there was a shouter, sharing bus conversation with the rest of the bus. I thought at first he might be one of those benighted people who think that when you talk on the phone you need to shout. But, no, he was talking to someone sitting next to him, someone who responded in quite normal tones. It was a great relief when the shouter got off the bus. I suspect his seat companion, who remained on the bus, thought so too. It’s a good job also that the bus was air-conditioned. A shouter on a hot bus (33 degrees outside) would have been too much to bear!

The other day I found this curious item in one of the newspapers online:-

“If you were born during the late 70s or early 80s, you are most likely grouped in with the annoying millennials or pessimistic Gen X's. Good news, you're neither! There is now a micro generation between the years of 1977 and 1983 called Generation Xennial. If you're born in one of these seven years, you've probably found that you don't fit into either of the existing generations surrounding you, this is because you shouldn't! Xennial's are different and therefore they get their own mini generation.

Typically, Xennials don’t have the cynicism associated with the Gen X generation, but they also lack the excessive optimism of millennials, who are said to overestimate their potential. Xennials fall somewhere in between these two extremes People born during this specific time period did not grow up in world where the internet and cell phones were always there, like the millennials who came after them.

Xennials can distinctly remember when these technologies emerged. But unlike Gen X, they were able to adapt to these new technologies very quickly and easily. When new technology came out, it grew as they did. They were old enough to get used to it and young enough to adapt and understand it. They are now able to use technology just as proficiently as millennials but can still remember a time without it.

Xennials take the good from both generations surrounding them, and leave the bad. If you were born around the time of 77 to 83 and feel like you never belonged as a Millennial or Gen Xer, it's because you're neither! Congratulations Xennials, you've waited long enough and now you finally have your very own micro-generation, that also has some pretty awesome traits.”

So there you go! Both our offspring are Xennials and, naturally, they are pretty awesome! They understand technology. And they don’t shout either!