Silence Is Golden
For better or worse, I've started up a new Squidoo lens, Raindrops On Roses ( http://squidoo.com/raindrops-on-roses ). I missed the cuddly cartoon monsters telling me I've earned another lot of points. Raindrops is going to be about my favourite things, the things which make me feel glad to be alive. It will feature a lot of fiction, in one form or another, and pop music, because I'm addicted to those things. Reading, watching, listening, playing. Not doing very much, though. I don't get much exercise. I don't watch sport, let alone play any. I like long walks, preferably in the country, or at least somewhere with trees. It's the Jack Russell in me. And I like to go alone, utterly alone. But for various reasons, that never seems to happen.
It seems to be a feature of life, at least life around me, that everyone is trying to corner someone else. I work with the public, and it's a rare day when a member just tells me what he or she wants. They always begin with their boilers breaking down, or their neighbours, or their medical histories, or a hundred and one things which I'm utterly unable to help them with. I'm used to long preambles before someone finally gets to the point; but gradually, so gradually I'm not even sure when it started, we seen to have reached a point where everybody treats everybody else like their closest friends.
I've even seen it in shops and banks. Customers nattering to the cashiers, regardless of any queues behind them. In fact, those institutions seem to encourage it, not because the institutions care (although individual cashiers might) but as a way of flogging more products. I find it disconcerting when a complete stranger asks me "How are you today?" I'm never quite sure how honest to be. And being wished a good day drives me up the wall. I never say that to anyone at work; I like some people more than others, but if I started wishing one lot of people a good day, I'd have to do it for everybody, even those I couldn't stand. You never want to say: "Have a nice day" through gritted teeth.
I can't work out whether it's me being anti-social or miserable, or some sort of mass delusion which has taken over Londoners. Pretending that we all live in Emmerdale. Victoria Station is particularly depressing. All those yokels spilling out of the ticket barriers wide-eyed in astonishment. Seeing the crowds around them and thinking : more friends whom I don't know very well yet. All those robinson crusoes and ben gunns, trailing their wheelie suitcases, wide eyed in astonishment. There's a Starbucks.
I blame it, as with a lot of things on Margaret Thatcher and the Tories. I don't even blame David Cameron so much as her. He's the smug, clueless etonian pretending that everything's fine and dandy; but Thatcher wrecked Britain beyond repair. And one of the results was a country where the only jobs to be found are in London (in the Burger King at Clapham South). So everybody drifts towards the capital (everybody in the world, it seems), and you have to create your communities on the spot. It's not healthy.
Incidentally, when I'm on the tube, I don't make eye contact with you a) because I don't want to hear about your problems, b) in case you turn out to be a nutcase, and c) if you're pregnant, I don't want to have to offer you my seat. It's not because I'm being nasty...
It seems to be a feature of life, at least life around me, that everyone is trying to corner someone else. I work with the public, and it's a rare day when a member just tells me what he or she wants. They always begin with their boilers breaking down, or their neighbours, or their medical histories, or a hundred and one things which I'm utterly unable to help them with. I'm used to long preambles before someone finally gets to the point; but gradually, so gradually I'm not even sure when it started, we seen to have reached a point where everybody treats everybody else like their closest friends.
I've even seen it in shops and banks. Customers nattering to the cashiers, regardless of any queues behind them. In fact, those institutions seem to encourage it, not because the institutions care (although individual cashiers might) but as a way of flogging more products. I find it disconcerting when a complete stranger asks me "How are you today?" I'm never quite sure how honest to be. And being wished a good day drives me up the wall. I never say that to anyone at work; I like some people more than others, but if I started wishing one lot of people a good day, I'd have to do it for everybody, even those I couldn't stand. You never want to say: "Have a nice day" through gritted teeth.
I can't work out whether it's me being anti-social or miserable, or some sort of mass delusion which has taken over Londoners. Pretending that we all live in Emmerdale. Victoria Station is particularly depressing. All those yokels spilling out of the ticket barriers wide-eyed in astonishment. Seeing the crowds around them and thinking : more friends whom I don't know very well yet. All those robinson crusoes and ben gunns, trailing their wheelie suitcases, wide eyed in astonishment. There's a Starbucks.
I blame it, as with a lot of things on Margaret Thatcher and the Tories. I don't even blame David Cameron so much as her. He's the smug, clueless etonian pretending that everything's fine and dandy; but Thatcher wrecked Britain beyond repair. And one of the results was a country where the only jobs to be found are in London (in the Burger King at Clapham South). So everybody drifts towards the capital (everybody in the world, it seems), and you have to create your communities on the spot. It's not healthy.
Incidentally, when I'm on the tube, I don't make eye contact with you a) because I don't want to hear about your problems, b) in case you turn out to be a nutcase, and c) if you're pregnant, I don't want to have to offer you my seat. It's not because I'm being nasty...
Comments
Post a Comment