"I have no idea what time or day it is."
It's been a disappointing week for your eagle eared reporter. Just when it seemed that Everyday Eavesdropper (EE) couldn't step outside the front door without someone revealing a fascinating insight or two within earshot, it all dried up. There were promising moments. In an arts centre in the East Midlands for example, two young women talking about clothes (I think): '..and then when I got over to the car, I could tell it was virtually see through ..' which sounded good and only this afternoon in The Pickerel (a pub), someone was to be heard bemoaning the fact that 'you just can't find a good place to have a secular wedding.'
There was potential here, yes, but they moved away so we heard no more.
The good news is that this means EE has been able to spend quality time dedicated in the pursuance of establishing his small time arts consultancy business this week. Work which, at one point, took him to WH Smith (a slightly untrendy sort of newsagent come stationers) to buy a couple of notebooks (one for work and one for jotting down interesting conversations - naturellement) when a couple of University students were catching up with each other - very loudly - at the end of the row.
What is it about students these days? Nay, what is it about Cambridge University students that makes them so damned confident? And here, I would like to let you into a little secret: when I was a student, I dedicated a great deal of energy trying to cover up my middle class background. You see, I studied sociology .. so it was necessary. And that was why I wore the donkey jacket.
Anyway, these (female) students didn't have the same bashfulness about their backgrounds. No, that was there for everyone in WH Smith to appreciate.
"...how are you anyway? I can tell you how I am. I'm all over the place. I've no idea what time or day it is! and I haven't even had breakfast or lunch and I was supposed to be meeting Andrew ... " Of course, EE didn't know for certain that they were students, it was just a hunch.
"... so I decided it was time to get a diary." EE was struck by the quaintness of the approach. New technology was not to be deployed on this occasion.
There's nothing to beat a good paper based diary, and I feel this is a wonderful excuse to let you know about the 'datada' thing. According to my father, and one of his sisters (Auntie Janet) the 'datada diary' was something they bought each year (at the turn of the year I presume). We're talking the 1940s or '50s here and I believe these were the kind of diaries which, in the US, they would call a 'journal' - which people used to use in the olden days to write down their innermost feelings about a day's events before blogs were invented. The manufacturers of The Datada Diary probably put a great deal of thought into the title - datada - the idea being that it would be pronounced 'day to day'. For years though, this obvious fact did not dawn on my father or Auntie Janet who, apparently, insisted on calling them - 'duhtardah diaries' (I'm sorry I can't write phonetically - I hope you get the idea!).
I've always thought that that was so lovely and so like life. I am a bit naive sometimes and frequently it takes me ages to get the point of obvious ad campaigns and puns - 'we won't make a drama out of a crisis' etc.
The 'datada effect' then, for me, serves as shorthand to describe those things we think we understand, but really we don't - which, when you're listening in, happens all the time.
I left the students to find a better way of organising their lives. I hope they do, because they'll probably be running the BBC/Government/City (delete as appropriate) in fifteen years time ... and yes, I suppose I'll probably still be writing about them!
3 comments:
Duhtardah - brilliant! I still have trouble reading datada as day to day myself.
I always wondered why you wore that donkey jacket.
PS: Are you sure it wasn't also Auntie Margaret who talked about "duhtardah" diaries?
PPS: I was in Wholefoods in Durham, NC the other day (a trendy health-food shop near Duke University, full of university professors and graduate students doing their shopping and feeling quite pleased with themselves, me included) and overheard a great bit of a conversation, all the more enjoyable for being a three-way conversation. Boyfriend and Girlfriend are in the tea and coffee aisle and I am nearby being horrified by how much it costs to buy Twinings English Breakfast tea here, and wondering how long the Yorkshire tea I picked up at Christmas will last. Girlfriend realizes that it is her best friend's birthday and she hasn't been in touch with her. She phones her up on the cell-phone, and there is lots of standard American, "How are you doing? Happy birthday! I can't believe . . . . so awesome . . ." etc. and then she says that she and boyfriend were wondering whether birthday girl was doing anything special that evening, because if not, they'd love to join her and do something together. Birthday girl apparently tells girlfriend that her parents are coming around and she is cooking a special dinner for them. Would girlfriend and boyfriend like to join them? Girlfriend clearly feels a bit embarrassed at such an unashamed invitation to what is going to be an intimate kind of family gathering, and tries to decline the kind invitation and back off from the whole situation. Trying to think quickly, she comes up with "Oh, I don't think we can come; boyfriend has got some work to do." Boyfriend, listening in, is somewhat frustrated about being used as the excuse, especially as only a couple of minutes earlier they had been asking if they could spend the evening with birthday girl. Girlfriend ends the cell phone conversation to pick up the pieces with disgruntled boyfriend, and I finish pretending to look at all the different varieties of expensive imported tea and move on to the soya beans and seeds aisle.
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