This morning I went to one of those digital marketing shows at Earl’s Court. After having a barcode hung around my neck, swiped as though I was a unit of cattle, I walked in and almost heaved at the sight of hundreds of people selling technology products and services, things you can’t actually hold or see, things that don’t really exist. The crowds of people drank coffee, stood outside smoking, sat listening to that same seminar about behavioural targeting by that same multinational superpower on those same dirty mauve chairs as the previous year. Clipboards clapped, pens popped, glasses clinked and smiles snapped. It was raining outside on the walk to the station, littered with leaflets about the ‘next big thing’ and those ‘next big things’ which were still the future two years previous. But for all the rain drops and stations outbound from the cosmetics of a glorified farm pen, with built in troughs full of croissants and buckets of latté, I still feel soiled.
Tag: Articles
Premium Yawn Steals The Stage
X Factor – everything wrong with the music industry but the most perfect television show on earth, even if Beyonce ‘If I Was A Boy’ Knowles got introduced to the stage as a ‘hero’ by the reason Hollywood is suffering an eye drop drought right now.
Alexandra love, there’s an ‘If’ to that song title, so ‘heroin’ (albeit with an extra E) is the word you was looking for, or perhaps had taken whilst secluded from the cameras in the biblical cloud of lights, fire and smoke, going by the relentless Xtra Factor hysterics that followed. Okay, perhaps a little harsh. Who am I to say she’s mainlining already and not in fact the reincarnation of Christ? The stage is a 21st century church of sorts after all.
And either way, the voice is bloody good and the girl’s got balls, unlike the JLS lads, whoever last year’s winner is and Leona ‘Is anybody home?’ Lewis. That’s not to completely get on all fours for the new reality TV queen, as Boyzone, Westlife and a distraught Owen (spelt Eagzouvin) back stage probably had to for Louis Walsh.
The Beyonce duet worked but will haunt Alexandra ‘pronounce my surname the posh way’ Burke (I mean, Bhuuck) every record launch, as the public go googling and remember not her triumphing over Diana ‘Alien Hands’ Vickers and the likes, but the outclassing by a diva who can make a nation’s jaw drop in disbelief with a mere glorified yawn over Alex, who’s already being oh so Suzanne from Hearsay and denying it’s her in the sex tapes to the Sunday papers.
A Load of Bank
Last night I realize my bank account’s about to dip into overdraft, so I go online to do some twiddling. God forbid my direct debits for magazine subscriptions or the gym fail! I knew the credit crunch (yawn) would eventually grab me, and the yearly cash in of my coppers tin to a different bank’s savings account would come to my rescue. Enter pin – check. Memorable pet’s name – check. Good ol’ Sally the goldfish, I miss you babe!
Then comes fury. Not only do I have to cross my high rise bedroom to dig out a ridiculous online banking device they’ve sent me, but it doesn’t work when I enter my card. Rewind 15 years to the times where people line up for eons whilst dippy cashiers fiddle with paper behind stained, plastic screens.
‘Can I help you?’ asks the lady. I was a mug to assume she could. On explaining my late night banking woes, lazy device thingy and urgent need to transfer funds, she hit me right in between the eyes with as fine a bullet point from the manual of bureaucracy as they come. ‘Certainly, that’s a £20 transfer fee please.’ Just how much did she think my piggy bank, the oldest of friends, had held in his belly?
Apparently it’s free to wiz money around the intergalactic superhighway but not in human form, in a building that’s sort of meant to deal with such tasks.
Not to give in before the face of inconvenience, I recall the invention of holes in walls and make a withdrawal from my savings card. One nil to logical thinking! Grasping my emergency notes, I cross the road and line up to deposit in the near fatally overdrawn bank account’s branch. Five cashiers, one line and a single person in front of me. Things surely couldn’t be any simpler. ‘So long technology. You’ve lost!’ I mumble.
Then, three cashiers close their windows, one spends the next forty minutes trying to communicate with someone that only speaks Danish and the lady in front of me loses her cheque book (wow – they still exist?) in her foot long bag. Out comes her family photo album, about three containers of medication, the world’s largest collection of intertwined key rings molded into words like ‘Mum’ and ‘Love’, then off she goes. I finally step up to the counter, hand over the cash, secure the fate of my beloved bills and take comfort in the smell of a Greggs Bakery next door.
‘Hmm, well at least I’ll be eating two for £1.09 pasties for breakfast. There’s good in every situation to be had’ I philosophize, preparing my change for the quick pre-office pit stop. Then, not that it wasn’t clear by now, comes confirmation that it’s just one of those days. The queue for cherry tarts and donuts is to the rim of the shops entrance, a kid is licking her dropped block of fudge cake off the tiles and I’m now an additional half hour late to work. No, I do not want a bag or receipt.
Monk and The City
Joining the line that stretched far enough back from the counter that you couldn’t see the target, I started flicking through the paper being bought. It wasn’t in my hands to inform me of worldly matters. No, I just wanted the pull out pages listing jobs and articles about how Facebook is the new Google is the new God.
Page one, nothing. Page two, promising. Then the next person to discover this meandering line stepped up behind me. ‘Chhhk Chhhk Zzzzzp Chk Chk Zzzzzp’ looped her phone speakers as I thought to politely ask her what she was listening to, perhaps with a mention that it wasn’t very audible and was probably running her phone down to ‘my last bar of battery, init’.
Unable to CTRL + F a reliable enough way to make these remarks without causing war I carried on licking my dirty finger to turn each filthy page. Besides, she was too busy spitefully asking ‘Who asked you?’ to her sister, or perhaps daughter, each time the young companion innocently read the price tags of tall bins filled with chocolate bars, strategically placed along the line’s shore.
Before long, as it had to, it happened. Right out of the text book that is high street angst said the visibly irate skin head of thirty something years – ‘Only two bloody tills and all these people. Unbelievable. This’ll be defrosted by the time I get in the car’.
I don’t know who he was talking to, but they sure were a great listener. He seemingly gained the world and all its self service checkouts in throwing that right out there and was soon served, ready to hit ‘defrost’ and ‘five minutes’ back home in no time. Maybe it does help to speak your mind, I thought, as he moved towards the volatile sliding doors with an ‘about fucking time’.
The final destination was nearing and to those under the rule of time, must have promised the same relief Tom Hanks probably felt reading his final lines to Meg Ryan in ‘You’ve Got Mail’ (avoid). Looking back, I smiled into the eyes of those that knew they had them, noticing that the ‘Chhhk Chhhk Zzzzzp’ turned ‘Tssst Tst Tst Meaaah’ was actually from headphones. Those poor ears and that poor kid who’s older sister, or mother, has probably never heard her raw voice separate to a backdrop of call waiting music on crack.
‘Thanks a lot. Enjoy your evening’ I concluded before leaving the counter turned stage spotlight. ‘Safe’ replied the cashier, or perhaps he didn’t and was on edge in social situations so repeated comforting mantras. I threw the smile back on, passing my fellow audience members turned audience. ‘You’ve been a great crowd. Goodnight!’ I thought, with paper under arm and a Twix chocolate in mouth.
Watching my step, I dodged past that same ‘How are these meant to hold?’ man, crawling on the pavement collecting canned hotdogs with sweaty, angry hands. Taking in all the moment had to offer, whilst the lettuce rolled beneath a car, I stood thinking. If only we could all see this funny side every time that we hit the shops.