I don’t need many reasons to be cheerful on a Friday, and the opportunity of two Ian Brown tickets from one of Mandy’s colleagues at work put an extra big grin on my face. As is always the way with these things we met loads of great people and had a wicked night, in fact, as time goes on it’s the new people and alcohol that appeals more than King Monkey himself.
Take for example the two young girls in front of us in the queue outside. Well dressed and funny with a sharp sense of humour, essentially the epitome of cool with their intuitive sarcasm and Essex accents. The same goes for the people we met in the little bar upstairs. Okay, there was a certain amount of ‘Lost it’ to the occasion, but these where genuine people with interests and lives all the same.
The next morning, after coming out of the greengrocers, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of optimism and pride as is dawned on me that we’re not such a bad race of people after all. Now I don’t want to come across as smug, or overly romantic or like I’ve been taking handfuls of pills, it’s just nice to feel a bit more positive about things sometimes.
I think that in paying too much attention to both tabloid hate and broadsheet self hate, we appear to each other ugly and bitter individuals. What I’m trying to say is, that we may be running the risk of turning ourselves against each other through no fault of our own. The bitterness of the press combined with the egotistical insanity of modern politics is so relentless that we may actually start to believe the cynicism, or worse still, to think of ourselves in those terms.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Because for every tosser that leaves his coffee cup on the train, abuses public office or pisses over the toilet seat, there are a hundred other people out there capable of humanity, kindness and respect. And that applies to London more than anywhere.
So, as the fashionable vortex of suspicion and hate gathers pace, just remember that we don’t necessarily have to join in. From Ian Brown to the Greengrocers and from Snaresbrook to Chelmsley Wood…
We’re all right really.