Writing a memoir does, by its very nature, see one looking back to the past. It’s something that normally I try not to do, but in looking back I find it very interesting how much the increasingly bloated consumer society still exists, unquestionably a long hangover from Margaret Thatcher’s poisonous “you can have it all and fuck everyone else” legacy that still hangs over our country. Not everyone engages in it, but one glance of social media suggests that quite a few do.
Local supermarkets – supermarkets didn’t exist when I were a lad, so old am I – are already well into flogging Christmas tat and Halloween, the latter of which was barely a thing as recently as 30 years ago. Bonfire night might as well be Bonfire month and not just on 5th November or the nearest weekend to it. Christmas did begin in the weeks before Christmas, with a work Christmas lunch which, being an old misery guts, I could never see the point of, New Year’s Eve was a night in the boozer or an evening in watching Clive James’ review of the year on the BBC and Easter was an egg where the devout celebrated the return to life of the supposed Jesus Christ. It was all very simple back then. But it’s not just these regular Big Events which used to be much smaller. How about this lot?
Weddings, if you really wanted to push the boat out, were church affairs with post wedding receptions. Both of mine were cheap as chips Register Office affairs and I honestly never felt I was missing out on anything. But these days weddings – including those in my family – involve luxury country properties, with gallons of free scran, wine and even Champagne, running into tens of thousands of pounds. Hell, people even go abroad for their weddings for reasons I cannot for the life of me understand. Does it really say I love you much more because we’ve married somewhere in the Med and not in the local Reg Office? No. It says I have more money than I know what to do with. And let’s not even get into stag and hen parties which these days are held abroad, again because it’s the new trend to get shit-faced abroad. I did not have a stag night, have only been to a couple in my life and – full disclosure – I hated them. Nothing much was going to change after my own wedding so what was the point?
It’s us embracing consumerism, accepting that something can’t be any good unless we spend a shit load of money on it. Advertising and product placements work. We are shown nice things, and how much better occasions could be if we only spent even more money, and we follow the hordes to the product sellers. If my wedding (well, not mine, really) doesn’t involve groomsmen, bridesmaids, an outdoor ceremony and an expensive disco, I can’t possibly love my partner-to-be as much as you love yours.
Then, there’s the gimmicks like Black Friday where we are all encouraged to buy expensive things we don’t really need, as we seek out bargains that aren’t really there. I do wish things were simpler like they used to be, but to be fair in my life, they, mostly, still are.
Social media amplifies things even more. And if we feel the need to share our lives with people we hardly know, we can’t be seen to not splash the cash. No one shares the parts of their lives that aren’t the happy bits. So we live in this bizarre world where every day appears to be a happy day and a main reason why it’s so happy is because it costs a fortune.
I am not nostalgic for the old days because, contrary to the false memories of those wearing rose-coloured spectacles, things were not that great at all. I am not pining for a return to the old, pre internet, pre smart phones, pre multichannel TV, being able to go abroad on holiday or any of the other nice things that have come along. But I do miss it when times were a little simpler than they are today.
Happily, I am at an age and situation where I don’t feel pressured into having an expensive foreign wedding, buying tat on Black Friday and the weeks leading up to it or going out playing trick or treat. I mean, good luck to you if you get off on that stuff and indeed get off boasting about it on social media. Simple people like me like simple things. I think I’ll keep it that way, thank you very much.
