Last night, as I briefly Twittered, I was at the Odeon Covent Garden for a live screening of Simon Boccanegra from Milan. I didn't Twitter much about it because a) my phone battery was running low* and b) I figured that it was pointless to tweet during the Leaders' Debate†
There was an interval after Act 1, so, being me, I slipped out the front door of the cinema to have a quick smoke break in the street. There were quite a few people outside, including a group of munchkins holding clipboards.
I suppose it's cruel to say 'munchkins' but these were a remarkable group of men. Not excessively short - I think they were all taller than me. But all of them seemed to have exceptionally short legs, making their rotund bodies seem disproportionately long. They all wore the same 'NHS' specs with bottle lenses and they moved in unison as if choreographed.
Two taxis drew up; they moved like a shoal of fish to the first one, realised it was the wrong one, and moved to the second one. A strangely dressed man got out, and he slipped to the side of the pavement; my friend informed me he was Kim Newman. The munchkins gathered round the other man, to have their photos taken and to get his autograph on pieces of paper attached to their clipboards. By perusal of posters in the cinema foyer, my friend deduced this other man to be Joe Dante - it seemed there was some event connected with the London Independent Film Festival.
I shouldn't really mock, because I don't see any problem with people having niche interests and I certainly don't see a problem with celebrity-worshipping someone who has an impressive list of achievements on his CV; surely better than celebrity-worshipping on the instructions of the tabloidese. The sort of person that trainspotters would sneer at for being geeks and dorks is far too easy a target to mock.
Hypocritical, too, because even as I write this, I'm engaged in a dialogue on Twitter, part of a bigger campaign I'm waging about how the mainstream media marginalises and mocks older people and non-glamorous women, with the tacit acceptance of otherwise liberal younger people (especially but not exclusively male) in a way that would not be acceptable if the marginalisation and mocking was aimed at gay and BME people (of course I know there are many racist and/or homophobic attacks from the illiberal media, but that's not my point). And in any case, an auditor mocking Aspies is on very shaky ground.
Later in the evening I was on the Tube. Looking around, about half the people in my carriage were using a phone (interesting considering the absence of a signal!). All sorts of shapes and makes and models, all used un-self-consciously and unostentatiously. Except for one man, who gave me the creeps even though there was nothing inherently creepy about him. His particular gadget was a touch-screen one. He stood in the space between the doors in an overtly masculine pose, even thrusting his groin out, as he looked around to make sure everyone could see how cool he was.
He jabbed and jabbed his touchscreen gadget and simultaneously checked that we were all looking on admiringly. A woman opposite me caught my eye and smirked, which set me off, which set her off. He saw us, his shoulders slumped, his gadget went in his pocket, his legs closed, his posture shrunk, his face fell and he shrivelled up in a proverbial corner.
It was just so funny because you simply wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't been behaving like such a pratt. He looked ordinary and nondescript in the same way as most people do. But he was so determined to show off that he had chosen to spend his disposable income differently from the rest of us - presumably lesser beings - it was just so funny!
* it has been suggested to me that these batteries only last about six months: ie can't cope with an entire day's data download on one charge**
** I can recharge it at work, but the sockets are well underneath the desk; I'm bored of crawling around on the floor with H&S implications; I do leave it charged in halfway across the office, but then it's not next to me and not mobile!
† The previous two weeks showed that
Twitter was entirely devoted to the Leaders' Debate: people not
interested in the debate would tune out of Twitter; for people interested in
the debate, their Twitter stream is moving so fast on debate posts, any extraneous material would just complicate matters
