Entertainment For Lively Minds
What is it with "Passion" ?
The other day I listened to a snippet of something on Radio Four where a bloke who used to work in a restaurant kitchen was reminiscing about his head chef's violent mood swings and appalling abuse of staff. He then explained that the behaviour was simply evidence of this chef's great "passion" for perfection.
It's almost compulsory for contestants on The X Factor and similar talent shows to trumpet their "passion" for their music /acting/ dancing, and in the later rounds of Masterchef (a food talent show), contestants are urged to out-gush and out-emote one another on "The Passion Test".
When I drove past a restaurant yesterday and noticed a sign outside that read "Food-Glamour-Passion" I began to wonder "what is it today with passion ? " We didn't all go on about it twenty years ago. Is it a good thing ? Is it always a good thing ? What's really deserving of passion, and what isn't ?
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Passion victims
Presumably "road rage" is just a "passion" for driving.
("Road rage" - another term I hate - name it, justify it).
I don't know...
I don’t know what it means in the food world, but in football ‘passion’ means ‘pumps fist, screws up face, and covers technical inadequacies by kicking opponents’.
Kevin Keegan's managerial prowess
Summed up rather succintly there!
Chefs - They're All The Same
My father worked as a waiter, and as a result I've been in more than my fair share of restaurant kitchens and I never met a chef who wasn't several stops short of Dagenham. I think the heat gets to them.
Clapham Junction
Some estate agent has adverts below the station signs at the Junction. The slogan is I think "A passion for excellence". What sort of bollocks is that?
A measure of excellence
The estate agent's car and house.
"Musically,
passion was invented in 1980 by Rowland the First. His eulogy at Birmimhgam "Searching for the Young Soul Rebels" was insistent that he and he alone - aside from the odd Irish playwright or minor soul singer - had the requisite degree of passion. All others had passivity - but Rowland had The Pash and had it good"
David Starkey: Tea, Chips and Donkey Jackets - Britain under Rowland.
However
Graham Parker (see Retropath & Tim McGuire's YouTube posting below) released Squeezing Out Sparks in 1979 where he declared Passion Is No Ordinary Word.
First thing that sprang to mind musically was
a massive influence on Pet Shop Boys.
I have this month's in-house management magazine in front of me
The "Five-minute Manager" column starts, "Research [at Kingston University, commissioned by the Chartered Institution of Personnel and Development] shows that people who have a passion for their work are happier, more engaged and perform better. ... Ultimately, passionate employees ignite contagious enthusiasm in their colleagues." That's odd, because when I point out the errors in the latest form letter imposed upon us my manager couldn't be less enthusiastic.
'Passion' is the latest recruitment buzzword. Job applications go through fashions. Are CVs one or two pages long this season? The right adjectives demonstrate that you have made the effort to read the careers pages. Applications are marked in the same way as essays: they look for certain phrases and add up the ticks. He's diligent; she's very interested in accuracy; I'm passionate [beats fist against heart] about meticulousness. You have to say it to pick up your tick.
Being 'passionate' excuses quite a lot of bad behaviour. You can get away with screaming in the face of someone who's merely coolly efficient. They do not appear so passionate about the dignity of others though. I imagine you can disguise an average talent by making a lot of noise about how passionate you are.
I view all this talk of passion as a form of age discrimination. I'm in Generation X, the demographic not the band. I don't even feel passion for passion. There's no need to make an exhibition of yourself.
Passion is no ordinary word.
Parker, G.
As Graham Parker said
Passion is no ordinary word.
I was in a band in the eighties and guess what our name was.....
We were signed to Stiff Records in 1983. I played guitar (Les Paul Gold top)!
Like Dust
is a fabulous record, and I still have the 7". I tip my hat to you, Lunaman.
There was a time....
....when footballers got through their entire career without feeling the need to be seen kissing the badge. And that was in the days when they did stay with the same club for ten years so there would have been some justification in so doing.
"Passion" is just the visual exhibition of qualities like dedication. Nobody believes anything today until they see it acted out on TV.
Foodies are passion victims
David Mitchell
has been on his Soapbox about this.
http://www.channelflip.com/2009/04/30/david-mitchells-soapbox-passionate...
Didn't Bowie once sing something about...
"Passion, turn to the left
Passion, turn to the right
We are the goon squad
And we're coming to town
Beep-beep"
(gets coat)
If you say you're passionate about something
then it's giving the illusion you actually mean business.
But no one believes you.
Passion now resides in the home for overused words, along with genius, journey, etc.
Can I lock 'robust' in there
as well please?
Could I...
...add 'seminal'?
And
"Richard Thompson"?
and coruscating
as I don't think many people know what it mean when they use it.
Thanks , Chris:
Not that I've ever used the word, but you've prompted me to look it up, and I'm now up to speed.
I'll try and remember to give you a credit should I use it in future.
(I could do with an emoticon here to make clear I wasn't being in the least ironic. I didn't know what it meant, and now I do.)
While we're locking phrases up
can we get 110% locked up as well. It's impossible so stop saying it.
Irritating yes but impossible?
No.
If you have 100 apples and I have 110 apples then I have 110% of the quantity of apples you have.
Apologies
I meant it in terms of effort - as in "I always give 110%". That's impossible.
I agree 110% with you on that one
when that MP last week
said he was '1 million per cent' sure he had done nothing wrong you just knew he had didn't you?
You clearly work in Sales :o)
"passion is key to 2018 bid" says Beckham
As if right on cue - from Sky Sports. Can you wait for the themed Mars bars? No me either.
Passionwatch: Breaking News
Eric Cantona manages to get three into one soundbite at Cannes:
he clearly doesn't need
anyhelp from these people
http://www.briannorris.com/passionholics.html
So passion is, like, cool now?
Trainspotters and their ilk are passionate but they're nerds (and I salute them). Protesters are passionate but we're nutters (and doing our employment prospects no good at all). I was led to believe that screaming in someone's face because they have their own ideas about, say, cooking a bit of fish, was decidedly uncool (not to mention oppressive). Has that changed?
I must be showing my age. It's another sign that my generation's compassionate cynicism has long-passed its sell-by. Think: what does Simon Cowell want? Passion suggests innocence which spells compliance.
I can do enthusiastic though. Is enthusiasm good enough?
Screaming in someone's face about cooking
is doubtless seen as cool because some grade A alpha-male macho bully (and, let's not forget, fake fishing "hero") of an ex-professional footballer (no names, no pack drill) has been seen doing it on the telly.
Some people's popularity is a complete mystery to me...
I agree. When I want to watch an angry man lose his temper
I'll dig out "Fawlty Towers". And Basil was never cool.
Of course, this idea of passion is not passion as I've ever understood the meaning of the word: poetry, spirituality, love ("with a German film star I once saw in a movie", specifically). Unfortunately, I fear we are going to hear about passion until its meaning is debased. "Passion" is the "solutions" of 2009.
I think it was Marco-Pierre White's trademark
well before Gordon Ramsay appeared on the TV.
You're doubtless right, stimpy,
but I still think that the "cool" status of such behaviour can be attributed to Ramsay's TV-based popularity.
Fake professional football player too
if certain revelations are to be believed. Bloody Ainslie Harriot!
Retro, you've no idea how happy you've just made me!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1158283/How-Gordon-Ramsay-l...
And let's not forget about this one
"Empty prayer, empty mouths, combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths, talk about the passion
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
(chorus)
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Empty prayer, empty mouths, combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths, talk about the passion
Combien, combien, combien de temps?
(repeat chorus)
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Combien, combien, combien de temps?"
I couldn't have put it better.
No Brian-er
Dear Massive
I was on a course yesterday and a lot of this was about passion.
We had a couple of inspirational DVDs; one about a Downs Syndrome man who put his own "thought for the day" in every bag he packed in his supermarket job - and another about 212 farenheit (boiling) being just one degree higher than 211 farenheit i.e. a little more effort etc etc.
Oh and lots about Tiger Woods still - still! - needing a coach even though he's the best in the world.
I'm sorry, Massive. I nearly had a Reggie Perrin moment. How long are we going to continue allowing our intelligence to be insulted by these fucking idiots?
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for the warning.
That will be something to look forward to. It sounded awful. How did you keep from laughing?
I hope I won't have to kiss the logo on the ID hanging around my neck. I'm very happy to deliver a high standard of work but putting on a show whilst I do so is beyond me. Fatuous abstract nouns are the bane of my working life.
I work in an environment where you have to be careful not to smile as you enter a room because your colleagues may have just found out that their jobs have moved an hour up the M5. It's the same in many workplaces. Conspicuous displays of passion are somewhat tactless. Where do these initiatives come from?
Re: Tiger
Surely all "top, top" sportsmen need and retain coaches to either get them to the pinnacle or keep them there; there is always room for improvement or refinement in any endeavour. Compare/contrast Roger Federer - his loss of form/ranking over the last year or so can be put down partly to the fact that he hasn't had a coach in that period.
To clarify
I am not disagreeing with the Tiger analogy, I agree with it.
It is just that lazy training consultants always use top sports teams as an analogy. I work all week and I quite enjoy it - but training consultants always believe that we can learn from sport e.g.:
"Research tells us that top sportsmen like Tiger Woods always make sure that they put their undies on BEFORE they pull on their trousers. As you can imagine, someone like him HAS to get that right - every time. So he has systems in place to make sure nothing is left to chance. It's the same in the world of biscuit production...."
You're a Tiger!
Let's go to the sales conference...with you all the way Austin. Where people stand up and declaim "This product is so good that I nearly w*nked myself to death the first time my eyes fell upon it".
What I have learnt from Sport to paraphrase the great Ed Smith is that twats are exactly the same on and off the pitch.
crap footballers have
crap footballers have "passion"...joey barton
good footballers "don't"...berbatov
Great footballers
Have both.
that they do
that they do
i would have thought all of us have 'passion'