THE GIANT FFOOT OF FFLINT

And other things I don't give an Ff about

North Wales is replete with so many mysteries and legends that you could be forgiven for a certain degree of overwhelm when it comes to the region’s weirdnesses. Case in point, a huge metal sculpture of a foot at Y Fflint railway station, which for years I’ve assumed must belong to a giant that’s mythed all over Flintshire.

I’ve had to assume this, because I’ve never actually bothered to find out for sure. Why is there a giant foot at Y Fflint train station? Is it a sculptural ode to an outmoded form of transport? A memorial for all the walkers who’ve suffered foot rot while trudging through the boggy Welsh landscape? A tribute to the region’s chiropodists?

I don’t know. And I don’t really care.

If I’m honest, it’s not because I’m overwhelmed with mysteries that I don’t care about that one. It’s more that I’m content to let some mysteries be mysterious and nothing whatsoever to do with me. Indeed, for someone who has on more than one occasion (i.e. twice) been described as ‘possessed of a lively intelligence’, I am remarkably incurious and apathetic about any number of things. Locked doors, for example, hold no interest for me. A drawer I’m told not to open will never cross my mind again. A terrible smell of rotting flesh emanating from a neighbour’s house? Whatever.

So the giant foot can just stay there on its massive tippy toes for all I care. And I’ll continue not to bother knowing anything more about it.

That’s fine with me. But sometimes I wonder if maybe I’ve taken the not caring thing a bit too far. The other day, for example, I was walking through a town centre when an insincere smarm of young men gathered to ask if I’d like to donate some money to help deaf children. No thanks, I said, and as I walked away, I thought: I don’t really care about deaf children. This surprised me, because I like to think of myself as a good person. It’s not that I have any animosity towards deaf children—if one were presented to me, I wouldn’t kick it in the shin. But it turns out that the words ‘deaf children’ can wander around my mind for ages before bumping into any curious or charitable instinct.

Deaf children are not the same as giant feet, of course. The only thing they really share is my general lack of interest in them. They’re both a bit like ‘the environment’ or ‘politics’ in that respect.

Maybe it’s that they’re a bit too abstract? Maybe I need some kind of personal connection. For example, I don’t care about recycling in general, but it annoys me that Denbighshire Council seems to think that actually collecting the bins is some kind of shameful civic failure. I don’t care about Elon Musk’s role in the US government, but I’m fearful of getting into a Tesla because the only time I was in one the doors wouldn’t open until the driver had deleted and re-downloaded an app on his phone, and it reminded me of the time when KITT, the car in Knight Rider, was possessed by evil and David Hasselhoff had to climb out of the sunroof to plunge a silver dagger into its circuit board.

So maybe I would care about deaf children, but only if they gave me a good reason to. Like if there was a charity raising money for deaf children to drive around in motorised giant feet or something. I’d definitely be interested in that.

Wait, okay. Obviously I’m joking. Of course I care about deaf children. Just… not that much? Like, I care a bit, but not enough to hand over my bank details to a street charmer. And that’s not to say it’s not a super important issue that deserves more attention and resources. I’m sure it is, and does. What I’m saying is: I just don’t have enough space in my head to care about everything in the exact proportion and to the specific degree that it merits.

If I were a better person, I’d probably call this ‘compassion fatigue’ and use it as a way to berate you for not caring enough about things. But the fact is that I’m not a better person, and there is frankly too much going on in the world for me to be able to care about all of it. Deaf children and chiropodists are only the tip of the iceberg.

I don’t think it’s just me being a hard-hearted bitch. I’d argue that many of us are that way. Most humans don’t have the capacity to care all that much. And personally I think it’s a mistake to try. Because if we really cared about every sorrow and injustice, we would do nothing except care all day long, and we’d have to stay up all night caring too.

Consuming the news and then lying awake in knots of anxiety because of how dreadful things are might make you a caring person, but it won’t do any actual good, will it?

It’s been a while now since I decided that the only actual good I can do is to care a lot about the people I live among, the animals that I’m trusted to look after, the paths I walk, the trees and plants I encounter, and the things that I make. I’ve come to believe that smiling and having a friendly chat with someone in the post office is putting more good into the world than angrily ranting about the price of stamps and how it’s just one more symptom of how utterly awful and desperate everything is these days, especially for deaf children and those with oversized feet.

That’s my personal philosophy and I think it’s an okay one. Not only does it remind me to be cheerful every day, but it also excuses me from having to shell out five quid to a deaf child when I could be spending that money on stamps or pedicures. And I don’t really care what you think about that.

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I’d care more about this giant foot if David Hasselhoff put an engine in it and drove it around North Wales

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