I’m voting for him, he’s done a good job. Nelly told Ellie no way, not for that lot. So we cancel each other out. I’m really busy tomorrow anyway. Me too said Ellie, let’s not bother. Agreed?
Next morning Ellie recognised Nelly’s boots under the booth, almost squealed, lost concentration, and crossed the wrong box.
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I thought I was lucky to grab a parking slot on the edge of a row, with a yellow crossed box marked on the passenger side. This kind of thing matters if you’re moving from place to place with a growing bairn who is hard to manoeuvre into his seat at the best of times.
I got back to the car to find a large van snuggled up alongside, leaving me enough room to get the door open about one and a half feet. Aware of the potential havoc to my back I cautiously got the bairn strapped in and closed the door. I then heard the van driver approaching to say ‘You alright there mate?’ I grumphed audibly. ‘Where do you want me to park?’ he says, ‘on the roof?’
Er, well how about legally?
‘Oh what you gonna do?’ says he, ‘call the police?’
Which epitomises the problem of respect and civility in public spaces. It’s impossible for any system of government to oversee all potential disputes, so our society depends on most of us taking other people into consideration in the first instance (citizenship), before questions of legality come into play. Some people seem to see inconsiderate acts first and foremost as either legal, or illegal-but-can-be-got-away-with.
One of the popular questions of our time is whether the proportion of the population in the latter category is increasing. I’m more than ever persuaded that this perception is related to the amount of time we spend cocconed in our cars, a peering position which subtly alters the relationship to the Other. And if it is increasing, I think the next question to ask is: where’s the tipping point?
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We have builders working on the house, this time it’s Dave from just five doors away, and his mate. Yesterday was pretty cold up on the scaffolding, so I heated up some of the apple crumble that my next door neighbour had brought round a little earlier, and took two portions up the ladder for them. They had the chance subsequently to thank her from above as she popped out.
A slightly unusual triangle of service and support then - perhaps an exception to theories of standard neighbour behaviour. Theory tends to inspect some wider social problems - class tensions, ethnic relations - in neighbour relations and then to generalise back out from there. There are symbolic boundaries that we use to differentiate ourselves, and according to this recent paper in Sociological research online, neighbouring reinforces those boundaries rather than breaking them down.
It seems to me that people do both in the neighbouring setting. I can learn a bit about Nigerian culture from a family a few doors along, crossing cultural boundaries with ease for example just by asking for a recipe; or I could shut out all contact from the Irish Catholics next door if I was minded to, just by limiting interaction to a grunt.
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This blog is eight years old today, but the following note predates it. I found this text among several forgotten vignettes in a dusty corner of the hard drive.
A woman got on the train at Gatwick, although not particularly burdened with luggage as so many air travellers are at that station. I was wearing dark glasses as I was trying to sleep. She clattered through the door between carriages, the sound woke me from a doze. She spoke as she clattered through – “Is this the train for Brighton?” At first her words were directed at the woman closest to her, but immediately she noticed that passenger had a walkman and was not ready to receive the question, which was deflected, by the enquirer’s glance in flight, to me. By the time she had reached the question mark, I had flicked the shades up from my eyes, and genuine face-to-face interaction took place, so that I was able to reassure her.
The woman sat down and to my delight, shortly after the train moved on, took out a portable typewriter, opened it up, and hammered a few keys to the rhythm of the train.
June 2002
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I like this example of a public record of pre-Olympic demolition in north east London, captured by Hugh Flouch. One of the boards proclaims simply:
'When they knocked down the flats I sat on the roof of my house to get a good look. My hustband covered in [sic] roses so they don't get covered in dust.'
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As our society's long-awaited public crisis of privacy finally sets the politicians' alarms off, here are some thoughts on how the mixing up of private and public can cause odd behaviour.
I was driving home from a conference this afternoon around 6pm, the roads busy of course, came up a hill in a single line of traffic and there was a car stopped on a corner near the top, drivers having to slow and take turns to pass. I stopped in front and got out, quickly learning what I have come to expect - the lady had been there for 'an hour' and no-one had stopped to help her.
I'm not the sort of person to be suspicious of the story I heard and had no reason to disbeleive it. Her father had died the night before, she'd panicked out of the house with an uncharged mobile phone and an empty petrol tank, and from the hospital was now on her way to see her mum
Two kids (and a hamster) in the back and no buggy, so although she had an empty petrol can, she couldn't walk to get it filled. I sorted that easily enough in less than fifteen minutes and they were on their away. So there I was a short while later back in the traffic now busier, with time to think about the possible stats.
Let's suppose the lady exaggerated how long she'd been stuck there, perhaps it was thirty minutes, not an hour. There had to be a minimum of 15 vehicles per minute going past in the direction of travel (and a comparable number in the opposite direction). Even if only a few contained more than one passenger, that's at the very least 500 hundred people - and probably coming on for 2,000 - who saw her, without stopping to help. I could have guessed it, but she told me and I witnessed one example - lots of drivers tooted their horns in annoyance and at least one shouted abuse. She was in their way and may have slowed them down slightly, and being very important people they had stuff to do.
Some human beings behave so oddly when they get in cars, I suppose because it's sharply defined private space in the public realm and that confuses relationships.
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This time last week I was wandering about a town in the south of France, prospecting for somewhere to run the next day. I crossed a likely-looking bit of scruffy, half-finished park and resilient wasteland outside a new estate.
Music grew louder. By a gap in a fence on a dusty track I came upon a lad standing astride his bike. The speakers were attached to the handlebar, impressively loud really. He wasn't peddling, then suddenly he was peddling and the music was replaced by a torrent of complaint from a woman with a leash and a dog.
My french is not adequate to have followed the detail of her argument, but I wasn't going to take issue. The boy had left an empty biscuit packet on the ground. I couldn't tell if this was a one-off or a routine scenario they went through, but I was fairly sure it was territorial. I took the litter to the bin (the stench when I lifted the lid nearly took me out) while she gave me to understand her determination to accost the young man should she track him down.
The woman's volume remained high as she set off in pursuit. I pottered on wondering unfairly about the likelihood that she cleans up after her dog.
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I had a previous example of this apparent evidence of the relentless decline of social capital, poorly photographed in the south of England.
I got this one using the wretchedly feeble camera on my Blackberry. Spotted several hundred miles further south, on the Mediterranean coast last weekend.
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I wrote a few weeks ago about the 'request scruple' and people's willingness or unwillingness to ask for help. Now here's Amanda's engrossing tale of neighbouring from Boston, Mass. 'I need you to help me pick up my motha,' gasps the passer-by. I can easily see this one getting taken up by the neat but cringingly-yclept good gym.
For me it brought back memories of being in Boston for the marathon and for some seminars about neighbourhood relations at MIT, in 2003.
It also made me think about occasions when I've been approached for help by people on the fringes of my neighbourhood or theirs. Usually they're wholly trusting encounters, for example when as I was passing I was asked to go into a house not far away but outside my immediate neighbouhood, to help shut a window - the owner was away and their keyholding neighbour was anxious about security. I didn't know her but maybe she recognised me as a local, as a regular pedestrian hereabouts for many years.
One encounter not long ago rather nonplussed me, when I was asked when passing a bus-stop - the guy suddenly up so close I felt his breath on my face - for a pound. I asked what for, he said so he could buy a book in the charity shop.
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I suppose in some ways this is a relief, it's not just authorities in the UK who work overtime to oppress and bully young people arbitrarily:
'Use of mobile phones has been banned by a local council in northern India. The reason given is to ban unmarried women from carrying mobile phones and also to halt romances between youngsters from different castes.'
Given the importance of cricket to Indians and the importance of mobiles to cricket betting, there's gonna be a lot of confiscated phones floating around the place.
(Belatedly) via the CeMoRe blog. Originally in TechWeek.
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Audrey said I hope we don't get any more snow, I got fed up shovelling it. She told me how she'd made a shovel. Her saw was broken she said, so she had to use a bread-knife, to cut a flat piece from the side of a plastic box. She put a hole in it with a hammer and nail, and screwed it to a broom stick. Matter-of-fact-proudly she described how she shaved a little off the bottom of the broom stick to make it smooth underneath and scrape flush with the ground.
Audrey's in her seventies. She gets about indoors with one of those stable three-footed walking sticks and uses an electric scooter when she goes out. 'And I was the only one in my street who cleared the snow.'
Other vignettes and fictions
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This is brilliant - here's a neighbour at the door, mid-evening. Not sending cards this year, says she, I thought I'd give everybody cup-cakes.
And what strikes me is this: I imagine the warmth my neighbour felt making them, and how similar is the sensation among recipients. This is a gesture uncontaminated by expectations or morality or faith or politics.
What is it about us humans in our settled settings that makes such a simple offering so powerful?
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Alice told me Rick, he must be nearly eighty, had gone down three times on the ice, he went down hard and his back is bad. I saw him go down on the corner she said, you know he goes out for his paper, it was treacherous, I won't go out she said, no you mustn't, I echoed.
Then up in the village by the stonemason, you know the pavement is so bad there said Alice, he fell again. How does she know these things. Anyway I said should I pop round see how he is does he want anything should I take him to the clinic, No.
And Doug said you can't do that he wont like that, you see he's very independent, he never had anyone care for him, you couldn't offer to help him, that would upset him.
Anyway I met Rick out of the paper shop a couple days later, well not very well he says when I asked, anything you need shouldn't you go to the, No, says he, Thanks, shaking.
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Pouring rain as I made my way back from the train station. Five minutes from home I saw a near neighbour approaching, just dashing into the post office. He paused, held out his car keys: 'you can sit in my car if you like, it's just round the corner, I won't be a minute.'
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I get very lucky in my work sometimes. Today I was in a community shop in Haringey for a drop-in tea and cake session for older people, and had a hilarious time.
Quite a few stories came out - like the one about the neighbour who kept a pig (this is inner city London we're talking about, in this case maybe ten years ago although memories aren't always reliable on dates). He took it for walks like you would a dog, on a lead. But not always on a lead. I missed the next bit of the story as I was sorting cups of tea but when I came back they were talking about butchers' shops.
Then there was a conversation about how 'when I was a kid' you didn't misbehave because everybody knew who you were. ("And mum said that if grandad found out, we'd all be in trouble"). So someone asked, surely you got up to some things you shouldn't have, didn't you? Oh well yes. David recalled how they got hold of a canoe and paddled it down the sewer, "about 14 of us, I don't think anyone found out about that".
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Robbie told this story how he saw a fancy carpet on a clothesline, rolled it up and made off with it on his bike. This was over Eastleigh way, you know where the new houses are, well not so new, and how he was so neat going across the big field there, it was all wasteland then, said he carried his bike for a bit then put the rug down and rode over it so his tyretracks wouldn't show. And the same on the fields coming back past your end, where it's muddy in the dip. The sort of thing he did, he wanted to be a proper criminal. Robbie took it to the feller in that used-stuff store down on Paisley Lane, he said that's not a carpet lad it's a curtain, could you not tell the difference? There should be two. And they both should be clean.
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Here's a story that reached me the other day about a young boy at a family centre. He turned up one morning and when asked how he was, said that he felt a bit strange.
So they took him to one side and gently asked questions to see what the problem was. Children with difficult backgrounds, it's right to be attentive and you might be looking for certain signs. Nope, there didn't seem to be anything untoward, he just felt strange and couldn't explain.
It turned out to be happiness. The lad had no vocabulary for the sensation and no recognisable previous experience to refer to, so how was he to know what it was?
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A friend has extended family staying over, from Nigeria, including two children, from one of the cities in the south. On arrival they had been terrified at the doorstep by my friend's dog, as placid and playful a beast as you are likely to meet.
I learned that the only dogs in their city are guard dogs, reared and trained to scare people. These children had not before met a friendly dog kept as a pet. That's sad.
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A couple of lads had climbed up onto the roof of the bus shelter on the main road. They were about ten, maybe 12 years old at most. I realised as I passed that my mind had done those little assessments - are they safe? will it break? can they get down? - and moved on.
A moment later behind me, 'Get down, you vandals! Get off there!' - a voice in a suit. They scrammed, hopefully not accruing too much more resentment about the ridiculous intolerance of adults.
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Jerry, happily six and eleven twelfths years old, had been playing football in the garden, but Rooneyed one over the fence and heard that glass sound, that sound when glass is no longer quite what it was. To his and her credit Jerry ran to his mother with his concerns. She encouraged him to be brave and go and knock at the door, apologise and find out the damage. He did so, and learned that his neighbours had been putting out empty wine bottles, as you do, at the moment of his miss-kick, and perhaps one slipped from a grasp or it was just vigorous clinking.
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After she died, friends and neighbours helped him sort the necessary, the paperwork, the clothes. The hats. He thought of moving, and was too tired to realise that he was too tired.
He came lastly to her computer, there being nothing visible about it to have stirred his attention sooner. On. It groaned shamelessly and the emails started to file in, stacking themselves in neat indifference. People to be notified, ignored, forgotten. They stared back at him.
Who is this? This person doesn't know. It seems wrong to write 'she died, go away'. What difference does it make. By way of varying the task, he returns a few words in her clipt style. He allows the days to pass, watching others. The next time he goes to her computer, a reply is there. It enquires of her. He begins to pick through the debris of her style, tapping without enthusiasm at whatever might be used: an arbitrary sequence of non sequiturs, the polite barbs, half-recognised allusions to music or landscape, a blurred glimpse of time spent slowly.
Soon he has built up a vague dialogue with someone in Wiltshire. He gathers fragments of her past, they do not have to be pieced together, he is writing it now.
She gathers fragments of her past, they do not have to be pieced together. She declines to talk about her health, but enquires after yours. And this, and that. She notes inconsequential news, how amusing that you went there, alludes to the time of year, mentions the market, the concert.
But what's this, she writes here of her partner's health, she who never mentioned him. She begins to absorb his life into her messages, those few words every month or two, spilled sparse, less sparsely now, from her address. His days less vague now in her words, though she now dead some time signs off as ever
v1.0, May 2010
Other fictions:
Of exactitude in democracy (after Borges)
Day. Centre.
Autobiography
View
The discovery
When the time comes
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Out for a run the other day I took a path that passes by a primary school, and the kids were out playing in the field. Three or four of them, aged I suppose about seven or eight, were occupied close to the fence, in what you'd presume was a game of collective, innocent imaginaton. And I distinctly heard a little boy's voice: 'We're getting paid for this, right?'
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You notice Kev, he's a big fella - burly, bald and tattooed. He has a background in serious drugs and gangs, which he wants to tell me about.
When you come into the community centre he offers you a cup of tea and a cake, 'how d'you like it?' Kev sat in with the street reps who were talking about how to recruit others by having some meetings in the evening and not just the day-time. It's an age-old problem only partly helped by new technologies.
Most of those present don't like to be out nights, not round here. They feel vulnerable and they start talking about the young people who gather round the shops at the end there. No-one says anything negative about the kids, just that they're intimidating, and there seem to be other vague factors.
The idea of a walking bus is revived - grow your own intimidating group. Where would it start, cos you lot're over there but we're all up this end aren't we? The conversation's lively but going nowhere. Kev puts his hand up. I don't mind being out if people'll trust me, and I'll come to your house first, then we'll come onto you alright?
Sorted, locally.
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A friend of a friend suffered some difficulties which consigned him to a wheelchair and made it hard for him to get work. Seeking to register as unfit, he was told he'd have to go to a town about 15 miles away, for his disability to be assessed.
When he got there, it turned out the assessment office was on the fifth floor. Sure there's a lift. But, they asked, would he be able to make a quick exit on foot in the case of a fire? Ah no, obviously not. I'm afraid we can't do the assessment here, you'll have to be assessed at our office, er, in your home town.
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In this time of big freeze, many people have had to park their cars away from their homes, if they live on ungritted side streets and/or their street is on an incline.
This can lead to the scenario I witnessed in a nearby street on Sunday morning, of at least thirty residents out with their shovels chipping away at the ice to make the road useable. The scene from the foot of the hill was worthy of Breughel. I stopped to note all the conversations that were taking place: no doubt there's plenty of new social capital available to people now.
By contrast, here's another local tale, of a resident who went out to clear her stretch of the road, shovelling and chipping away at the stubborn ice. A neighbour appeared and said, 'are you working for the council now then?'
The traditional passive model of service expectation dies hard, but I suspect its demise will accelerate in the coming big spending freeze.
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A friend told me she was out for a run the other day and saw someone she knew also running. Waited for him, greeted, and was told 'Sorry, I'm a solitary runner'. And on he went. She noticed he had his ears stuffed with, what are they, earpieces of some kind, music let's suppose. The next evening he phoned to apologise for seeming rude.
This was someone who would be classed as an acquaintance, neither friend nor stranger. I'll be posting a review here shortly of a book about acquaintances, by David Morgan.
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It is said that the traveller George Lewis bought a bundle of papers in Kashgar relating to the work of 11th century Uyghur scholars. Among the records of families and distinguished tradesmen of the settled tribes there is an account of a system of governance devised by the people of the Tarim Basin sometime before the sixth century BCE. In that region, the practice of democracy had attained such perfection that the membership of the committee for a single province numbered the population of an entire city, and the committee for the region itself numbered an entire province. In the course of time, these extensive arrangements were found somehow wanting, and so the Guild of Democraters devised a system whereby the committee was required to be of the same scale as the population, and coincided with it point for point. Less sympathetic to the science of democracy, later generations came to judge this system cumbersome, and discarded it unsentimentally. Occasionally in discreet meetings in the houses of scholars along the Silk Road, rumours circulate of the survival of pages from the records of those meetings, but no fragment has subsequently been discovered in the libraries of the world.
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New neighbours just moved in, round for drinks the other night, with this story -
The delivery van unloaded and away, two of the local lads hovering around. Hi lads, y'alright? They stare, no answer, no response. Oh well. A few minutes later, a knock at the door, there they are. 'We'd just like to welcome you.'
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Stefan Gatward of Tunbridge Wells got fed up with the street name where he lived being wrongly displayed as 'St Johns Close', and went out with brush and paint to instate the lost apostrophe. One of his neighbours remonstrated with him, objecting that post would no longer be delivered. And since it seems the neighbourhood is chock-full of retired military, there could be a protracted campaign underway. What fun.
This story was on the Beeb at about 0720 this morning but took some hours to reach t'interweb, here for example, or in the Mail here, and Telegraph here.
To help explain the sweet irony for readers beyond these barmy shires - the town of Tunbridge Wells is commonly referred to as the home of the archetypal middle-England reactionary, with the phrase 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' widely used as an ironic sign-off. If nothing else, we English have had a lot of practice at self-parody.
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With ragged sinews Dearie grips the chair arm. Staring at the volunteer holding tea, she's peering at what it was that Don said about landing on the moon, when he got home from school, what was it. She glares awaiting focus, and has all day to do so. Off-centre now she shines down on the rest.
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I was born in 1955. In Gloucestershire I watched a field change and a hawk settle on nothing above it. Villages were raised by their children, invisibly harnessed. Sometime later I let go.
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Tramping home from the train station I came round the corner and saw one of my neighbours, propped up with a walking stick, using a foot-pump to re-inflate one of his car tyres.
The stick was the more unexpected sight. Turns out he'd recently had a cartilage operation. I took a few minutes at the foot-pump (must have made some difference) while we casually swapped news.
Could it be that cars offer more for neighbourhood relations when they malfunction than when they run smoothly? I understand it's a slow puncture, so with careful management it could provide numerous valued encounters over the years.
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I just wanted to ask, are you sure it's not a fox?
Meanwhile, to redress the regrettable imbalance in communication of this kind, I long for an example of complaint about cats. Without prospect of being controlled, they crap all over the gardens of people with children. And yet somehow, cat-owners seem incapable of recognising this as anti-social. Wait, don't go, I haven't started on the bit about their habit of killing birds...
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Annie lives on the seventh floor and hates with hardening passion the trudge up when the lift fails. Coming home to a flat at height is a committed action, you wouldn't feel like popping out again shortly after, for anything.
To the window now. It's early evening, a thin light is being peeled from the old earth. Bits of city are seething away somewhere completely out of reach. The patch below unpeopled, but it hardly looks as if they'd belong there anyway. Her tea cup rattles on its prim saucer as she slops to a chair, relishing the wobbly silence.
Then I see what it is, the cost and benefit of detachment. Living in a house separates you, living in a tower separates you more, until you begin to like it. Of course Annie works at that with the tenants committee but it was the sound of the door catch closing behind her that refreshed her most.
And looking out I have the most profound sense of unbelonging. Not to this place or person, not to the tangent of this view, or the conversations before with those around who might move or speak or dream as I do.
Before my eyes a bird unhurried sets off to separate the sky.
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I popped out to the bank, less than half a mile, walked back down one of the side roads, noticed someone sitting in their car reading a newspaper, with the engine running.
A few minutes at home - fielded a phone call, changed shoes, off out again to the train station, chose the same route. There she is still, sat there reading with the engine running. Now I'm at the window. Excuse me, your engine is running. She's closed, no reaction. I'm talking clearly at the glass: I came past ten minutes ago and it was running then. We only have the one planet. Faint response, finger to the head. I heard the motorsound replaced by a reluctant sort of silence behind me as I shuffled on.
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Some time ago a frontline public library worker said to me, it's like working in mental health.
What she meant was that libraries are an important refuge for people with mental health difficulties, who may have nowhere else to go for much of the day; and a lot of what library staff do now is providing a facility which helps them. It's an under-appreciated role. Libraries are also an important daily checkpoint for many refugees and asylum seekers.
So I applaud the fact that on a day of capital-stopping weather, on which schools were shut without hesitation, at least in my area the libraries were kept open.
Other notes from the day:
Checking up on the NDNs. She offered me table salt for my path.
Apparently the local store opened up as usual, but a small gang gathered to hurl snowballs through the doors at the groceries so they shut for a while.
Some complete plonker driving on packed icy snow, one hand with a mobile phone to his ear, yacking away. As a pedestrian, it's not the conditions, it's prats like that you have to worry about.
Admiring the weak light making the boughs seem green on a hidden path I use, gasping at the clear readiness of landscape.
On my way back from my run I noted a snow-woman, scruffy but still somehow poised and elegant. A minute later cries caused me to turn, to realise she'd been brutishly knocked over by a couple of unthinking lads, embarrassed at their own laughter. Well at least they were outdoors.
Other schoolkids who have not really known snow, rolling down hill together, learning something about innocent collective discovery that will outlast all childhood.
Recalling the winter of '63, slides right across the village pond, birds frozen to wires and frozen milk forcing the caps off bottles that stuck to the step.
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A wet day. In car parks and lay-bys, dogwalkers and allotment users sit in their cars and exchange their muddy boots for shoes.
Usually they take them with, when they leave.
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I had to return the NDN's soup jug as she'd brought me round some hot veg broth the other day. So I prepared a pretty decent orange and carrot soup - worrying everso slightly about complicating the reciprocity and the implication of snobbing-up the relationship - and took the jug back full. I followed it up later with a warm wholemeal loaf and came away with a couple of warm scones and a bit of gossip.
Previously: Hot soup
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I met this caterpillar the other day (the day after the shortest day of the year) trying to make off with my gate. I didn't say anything in case it took offence.
I don't know much about them but I'd thought every honest law-abiding caterpillar in this neighbourhood was always snugged up in a chrysalis at this time of year.
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I was walking up the road this afternoon and heard a car start up nearby. The driver pulled out of the drive, rather closely in front of an oncoming car, then after a short distance drew in alongside a post box. I watched a woman get out and post a letter. She was clearly able-bodied. She got back in, turned the car round and headed back the way she came. I thought, well I suppose you might do that if you're off somewhere. So I turned round to see if she was. But she drove straight back into the driveway of the house.
I crossed the road to take this pic of the house, from beside the post box. It's about 75 metres away I reckon.
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Nice note from Peter Ryley about common decency towards people we happen to encounter:
'A bit of generosity, support, appreciation and a hand up to anyone we can give it to. It might not seem much, but it can make someone's day, or, perhaps, as with our taxi driver, change their lives. It goes under many names, decency will do for now.'
Thanks Ian for the nod.
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They built a gated estate near me, for the posh people. It's such a shame, as they drive up to their electronic gates, the inhabitants have to endure the derisive glances from people who walk and occupy their neighbourhood, it must be awkward.
Someone left this exquisite message by the fence for them.
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It's not just pirates have to look after their booty. Note how date, time and location are pretty specific for this sort of public declaration of loss. And we get a wee pic of the baby to admire as well. 'Small reward' it says at the bottom.
Good to know that little things still matter to some people. Sorry about the blurring, it was so cold, I really regret not taking a moment to get a better image.
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I ran about fifteen miles on the trails today, sunny but cold. A marvellous light varies the trees. When I got back I put on a few layers and a hat til my temperature settles, then here's the NDN at the door - 'How was your run?' - with a jug of piping hot soup - 'Every vegetable you can think of. Have some now while it's hot'. Thanks m'dear, you all ok? How's S. Not so bad. Mind the step. Stay warm now.
The NDNs are in their seventies. I sit thinking autumnal thoughts about ephemeral connections and uncomplicated acts of kindness.
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I've just written a story about a blogger who, over the years, introduces occasional fictions into his posts. They accumulate, and gradually begin to dominate. Anticipating that the time will come when his integrity starts to flake, he sets out to duplicate his own identity.
Straightforward enough. Dates, address, passport number, bank account details, dates of employment and major embarassment, phonecalls and journeys made, places frequented, minor achievements, a selection of emails sent. Soon enough there's plenty on which to build some sort of personality, and he begins to plan how to substitute the new identity for the old one.
He starts by turning up at a meeting that he himself would have gone to, using an immaculate copy of the email invitation. The effect seems seamless and he makes the commitment. A week later he even makes a comment from the floor at a debate, claiming to be his former self, and goes comfortably unchallenged.
But the issue of reputation crackles in the background. A couple of over-confident anonymous enquiries to test the new identity result in problematic silences, when contacts who should have been guarantors of good character appear not to know anything about him. How can this be? He blunders on, clumsily detaching reputation from self as he overlays detail on its own image, searching now for something factual to blog about. But the real world won't be seen by fictioned eyes, it does not exist, he has discovered a bankruptcy of social capital.
I know, it needs a bit of work. The final text is here.
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Heavy rain and quite cold this morning. Drawing back curtains I noticed in the house that backs on, a ground floor window wide open and unfixed. I peered for signs of life, there were none.
On Sunday I'd seen someone in the garden, but they have family and might have gone away on holiday at this time of year. It would be easy to get down the alley and over the fence, so of course I assumed a break-in.
For a moment I sat and examined my motivations. If my fears were confirmed, speed was not necessarily of the essence - it was broad daylight by now. If I took action, was it because I was bothered about crime in the neighbourhood that might reach me? Would I feel guilty if I had done nothing? Would it make a difference to the householder or to the police? Ah, I see how easy it is to do nothing.
I plodded out there in the wet, went round the front and rang the bell. A small window was open above, but no response. I rang again and waited. I drew away in the silence, walked along the street looking for signs of life, then looked back and saw the door just closing. Scurried back, explained, expressed relief, apologised. It was just his son being a little unreliable, after all, and that's a relief. That'll be the lad who managed to sneak his way into my garden and stick his bubblegum on the window the other day, presumably as a dare - I admired his sense of adventure. Said nothing about it.
Returning, I started to wonder if he now thinks I'm nosy for having seen that his window was open. Oh well.
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I live on the edge of the Greater London area, and came across this handsome pair of beasts bringing in the hay just a couple of miles from home.
I asked the carter if this is a new choice of transport (not having seen them before, and thinking it might be a farmer's response to the recession) but he said they've always used them.
They gave a sense of awesome, dignified power. A moment later a vulgar 4x4 flashed past, which didn't.
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Today the NDNs celebrate a golden wedding anniversary. I will potter along to the party later, in ignorance of how many years that amounts to but out of certain celebration for being Next Door Neighbours to them.
Regular readers of this blog will appreciate what I mean (eg) - but even today I had an instance.
I was fumbling with my ladder this morning, huffing puffing and shuffling it about for some painting round the crumbling edges of my house where access was tricky, and out comes the govnor - do I want a hand there?
And him with his back and heart that dodgy, I'd not ask him to help, but he was allus there with practical advice if I needed it, like when I laid the concrete base for the shed that time, and the missus with a cheery word and warm scones.
I invite you to join me for a moment in simply celebrating ordinary neighbourliness.
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