Society
Now what? - Lauren Booth gathers together her poolside reading
Published 09 February 2004
Building a swimming pool has plunged me into a full-blown identity crisis
My computer was downloading a picture of Janet Jackson's breast from the internet (well, it was funny, seeing her pop out of her black leather top - thanks to a bit of a pawing from Justin Timberlake) when my eyes latched on to two Post-it notes, side by side, in my diary. The one on the right has a reading list. The book titles are all copied from the back of Mark Steel's Vive La Revolution. Which is a terrific book. It's so good I've fallen behind in my work because I've been reading it all the time - on the loo, in the bath, on the phone with editors.
This is not a good idea because Huttongate means that I have been inundated with phone calls from the homeland: every one of them is abuzz with edgy discussions about "repercussions", "another bloody inquiry" and - most of all and through gritted teeth - "Campbell's smugness".
I have been only half-listening, though, because the adventures and miseries of those locked up in the Bastille (written in Steel's audible Londonese) have had me hooked. I copied a chunk of the funny and helpful bibliography into my diary, feeling like an excited student given notes by her favourite teacher. The books I want to read are ones I'm sure I would already know if only I'd got into university (instead of getting stoned - or getting a job in the Steamrock Cafe).
So, the Post-it says "MUST READ" crossed out and changed to "WILL READ" - and the names run down a column: Danton, Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Black Jacobins", Tom Paine, Voltaire, Descartes.
It's daunting stuff. So I turned to the other list, the one on the second note. This one read: "Visit 'cave' for wine." Meaning, go into the French town near where I live, buy a litre of red for a euro - and drink it within 48 hours or use it as vinegar. Next: "Call architect re barn, buy six chair cushions and talk to POOL MAN." Talk to pool man? Buying cheap wine is one thing, but talking to a builder about a swimming pool? I felt winded. I'm OK with right-on reading lists - notes written by a lucky thirtysomething suffering from class guilt - but now here was a list about purchasing pool stuff such as cushions and a canvas umbrella and . . . it just didn't sound as if this list could belong to me. In fact, it sounded like a note written by the artificially inseminated bastard progeny of Hyacinth Bucket and Margot Leadbetter. But it's not me, surely not me.
In the midst of this full-blown identity crisis, I had to accept that I had written the note (not even the most skilled fraudster can fake my frantic scrawl). Besides, lists are what I do. Our home is covered with pesky, brightly coloured Post-its shouting: "Call childminder!", "Fix car!", "Galloway v Livingstone!" and, bizarrely, one I've just plucked from my shoe heel that says: "Watch out for Andrew Neil."
Lists are utopian and futile. Yes, in an ideal world I'd keep these written promises to myself to read French philosophers, to stay in or go out, work out or relax. But what happens? I stick notes everywhere, then still forget to pick up the wine.
It occurs to me that notes-to-self are the nearest we get to writing in a diary. Would Pepys have made time for extensive in-depth analysis in 21st-century London, or would his publisher have printed a collected works of his Post-it notes in a special handbag-sized edition in time for Christmas?
This is my last column for the New Statesman. It's just as well. My Post-its used to say things such as: "Talk to bank about a loan." Now they say: "Buy lounge chairs for the pool." Let's be frank, an NS columnist reading Descartes by her pool would be a step too far.
It's time for edgy, up-and-coming radicals to be given a louder voice in the NS . . . such as, er, Michael Portillo.
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