I won't bore you with the whys and the wherefores, but every Saturday I spend an hour in a 'caff', trying to avoid buying more than one latte, and reading the tabloids that are scattered about the tables.
I know very little about who's really who and what they're up to in the big wide world. If it were down to me OK and Hello magazines would be 'not at all OK' and 'goodbye'. But this evening, as a result of spending 60 precious minutes reading tabloid upon tabloid, I know that a world-famous singer with a 'girl-next-door' image may or may not have had a drink or two on New Years Eve, someone called Fiona Philips never really took to 'The Vicar of Dibley', and some rock star who's quite a maverick used to, in fact, act in school plays and was, apparently, a very well behaved pupil.
But what I don't know is what happened 30 meters down the road from where I live at 10pm the other evening (I turned into our road after an evening meeting to find an ambulance and police cars, and to see one person lying face-down on the pavement). Furthermore, I have no idea why two police cars drew up and called at the house next door but one at 3.30 am on New Years Eve.
The Road to Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood by William Woodruff, (excellent book) describes how in the early 1900s neighbours would drop by your house incessantly of an evening, for a chat or a game of cards. Within that neighbourhood, people would have known the full tale of 'the accident down the road' before it had happened! (This type of community spirit remains alive and well in parts of the country; I know. My mother enjoys something of it in Wales). But here in the big city, I might easily know so much more about the identity, family, habits and traumas of a singer in LA or Sydney Australia, than I do about the people next door, with whom I share a drive.
The book mentioned above is an excellent and thought-provoking read. My favourite story of the moment, though, is the fairy tale 'Emporor's New Clothes'. I've seen so many photos in the papers today of totally talentless, celebs perched on stick-thin legs with hair ironed straight, and I've read so much about 'Celebrity Big Brother' and other - oh gosh - wait for it - 'celebrity reality shows' that, upon finishing my, by-now-stone-cold latte, I just wanted to shout out at the top of my voice 'NONE OF IT MATTERS' and 'IRONED HAIR LOOKS AWFUL'.
Why write it? Why read it? I'll take me laptop to the caff next week and read blogs instead.
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3 comments:
Tut. I know just what you mean.
We have what could be called, 'community spirit' up here, (although slightly different I suppose, being a base, only the people within it understand what the person next door/across the road/round the corner might be going through) but it actually comes with a huge sprinkling of nosieness (noseyness?) which, in some cases, is just damned interference and spitefullness.
There are a few genuine characters around though.
(And I can usually find out what the cop car was doing at no 7, whether it was civie or RAF and who went away in the ambulance...)
I do have to remind myself that one of the things I loved about London when I first moved here nearly 20 years ago (for Heavens sake) was the sense of anonimity I had here. It was so refreshing after Cleobury Mortimer where everyone knew more about everyone else than they did about themselves...
I'm sure there's a happy medium. You can easily feel very lonely in a crowd here.
I have a nosy fellow -- I mean a friendly neighbour -- across the street who makes it his business to know what's going on -- like who drove through the edge of my yard when making a too-wide turn, and the name of the garbage man, and where the people live who let their dogs poo in his yard and don't pick it up...
some people find him annoying. I choose to call him thoughtful and caring instead. And so he brings his party left-overs over for us to enjoy.
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