Woking: another place, another life

Recently my mate Chappers posted a clip about my hometown, Woking, on Facebook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns4J0cpBLDo&sns=fb. Anyone who grew up in a provincial, culturally devoid backwater like Woking will no doubt recognise the jubilant ironic pride with which comedian Rufus Hound advertises modest little Woks as “a place the train goes through” and “where people who can’t afford a house with a garden in London come to rub shoulders with the thick”.

I often think about places and what they mean in the repertoire of locations that form the backdrop to your life. Do people who grew up in places with interesting landscapes – hills and coastlines and big rocks – have a different cognitive functioning to people who spent hours looking at vast expanses of East Anglian sky and flat lines? Which one stimulates the imagination more? What effect does landscape have on your aesthetic sense? How much is the place you became you still in you somewhere?

Although I adored the friends and family that were in my life in Woking, lots of my memories of that place centre around it being a bit of a dive. I spent an amazing gap year in the Middle East, mind being blown by the deafening silence of the desert, whose thick quietude reverberated in my consciousness, and discovering ornate temples and camels and sun-bleached palm trees. But actually, it wasn’t a gap year at all, but a gap six months – the first three of which I spent feeling horridly homesick for mundane Woking, for the dodgy village characters in the Hare and Hounds and the tidy domestication of the Peacocks Shopping Centre. And before I went to Amman, Jordan, I worked in Burger King, Woking for six months – a full-time till drone selling flame-grilled burgers and greasy fries to Woking’s tired shoppers, screaming brats and disillusioned office workers.

I realised during a recent conversation with my colleagues that my Burger King days were rather amusing. One of my managers was a scary lesbian with a mullet who had a bit of a soft spot for me, and would give me my choice of shifts (I didn’t work one Sunday the whole time I was there). On a busy day she’d pair up with me, putting the orders on the tray as I put them through the till and took the cash (I don’t think it was just her who called this set-up “backing”…). On one particularly cringe-worthy occasion, a customer asked for a blueberry muffin, which I will remember for the rest of my life cost 69p. This is because, just after I smilingly said to the customer “That’s 69p please!”, my manager leant over and whispered in my ear “That’s my favourite number”. I hope you are shuddering in horror just as I do every time I remember this.

Burger King was in fact one of the first times I felt professionally competent. It was my first paid job. I had to wear a baseball cap and two badges on each of my bosoms that said “GO LARGE FOR ONLY 30P” and “BIG KING: 100% EXTRA BEEF”. But I was also really good. It doesn’t seem like much to say, but actually learning where every menu item is on a huge till and pressing the keys in the right combination was surprisingly difficult (I had several restless, sweaty dreams about how to put through a chicken royale meal with extra cheese). Once I had this mastered, I was awesome. I felt like a robot, sliding around the tiled floor in fluid, mechanical movements, knowing exactly how far to stretch my arm to reach the coke button and which order to pick things up in to make the transaction fast and perfect. I was a stalwart of till 4 – the one in the middle that needed somebody efficient to clear the queue quickly. And even now I get annoyed when I go into a Burger King and they put the food on the tray in wrong order (drink first, and fries shouldn’t be placed on the tray until the burger is ready. Fries have a larger surface area than a burger so go cold more quickly. I’m serious).

It was also the first time I got loads of male attention. There were a couple a geeky blokes who came in every day and ordered the same thing for lunch. It got to the stage where they’d only let me serve them and I’d say “usual?” as if they were regulars in a pub with their own personal tankard. Then one of them gave me a teddy bear with his phone number written on the label! I even got chatted up by Father Christmas. He sent one of his elves in from his grotto (in the bandstand outside BK) with a card from him with a Polaroid of himself on the front, his beard pulled down and waving, with his number inside. Funny how desperate people assume you must be if you work full time in a fast-food place.

I also got a series of love letters in French from a Moroccan guy I befriended who worked in the kitchen (if you can call it that). They were beautifully written, which was a shame because I had no interest in him whatsoever.

How could someone with a reasonable brain get enjoyment out of such a job, I hear you ask? Well, it proved to me that if a job’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing properly, no matter how ‘beneath’ you it might seem. To me, there is no point in doing a bad job of anything. And doing a full-time job that involved scooping solid lumps of white lard from a metal trolley into a chip fryer, counting the number of wasted burgers each day from the bin, and dealing with customers who bring food back an hour and a half after buying it to complain that it is cold means that you get a proper sense of perspective about what you don’t want to do and where you don’t want to be. It allows you to passionately embrace all the wonderful things about life and relish your more prestigious successes. It reminds you that you don’t want to hang around outside the Firkin smoking weed or hear stories about people committing suicide by jumping off the Toys-R-Us multi-story car park.

Nonetheless, a few years and a first-class degree later, I took a temp job at NRS Direct Care, a company that delivered mobility equipment to disabled and elderly people in their homes. I think I thought I’d be living by my values and helping people. Little did I know that NRS was the most depressing, useless and negligent corner of the Sheerwater Business Park. The company was so bafflingly incompetent at providing a decent service to the most vulnerable people in our area that it made us all bad at our jobs. We’d bullshit and let people down at every turn. The only form of escape was Thursday nights out with colleagues in the eponymous Woking, getting shitfaced in whichever hideous club was popular that month (there aren’t enough people in Woking to keep more than one seedy after-hours joint going at a time). Then we’d all come into the office on Friday hungover to shit, and take turns napping on the Airwave mattress in the showroom downstairs (usually for people with severe bedsores).

Thankfully after six months of genuine stuck-in-a-ruttedness, I realised that this wasn’t ME, and got a job selling books in Waterstones. And Waterstones is in Guildford, a town I could passably associate myself with. A pleasing feeling of being surrounded by knowledge and enlightenment. A pretence that even though it was a retail job, existence could not be vacuous in a bookshop. Creeping away from the bleakness of small town Woking. Just like BK, NRS gave me the impulsion to do something else, to grab life and appreciate it – and that’s when I did my Masters degree, became a part-time editor, and the rest is history.

And now I live in Oxford. A place that feels intellectual and cultural and that I am so proud to call home. Even though I still sometimes call Woking “home”! You can take the girl out of Woking, but…?

So what is ‘home’ anyway? Just a concept of a place, and how you feel you belong or not to it. Not the solid walls and architecture and street furniture and bandstands and Ashmoleans. It’s the life you create for yourself and the things you do to make yourself feel fulfilled. It’s the prospect of a better life. It’s the hope that some day soon, you will do something great that will justify your parasitical existence on this earth. It’s your own imagining of home. It’s created by you.

Lantern moon over Port Meadow

I’ve just seen the Northern Lights. And I’m sorry to say, it was a bit shit. There were no Joanna Lumley moments (I will admit to never having seen whatever programme Joanna Lumley was in gasping in awe at the Aurora Borealis, but it does always seem to come up when I tell people I saw it). It didn’t look anything like the coloured swirls on Windows Media Player. I’ve just found a wallpaper for my laptop depicting this natural phenomenon in all its glory – one of those stunning, unreal images that can be held responsible for nature never looking quite as stunning as we hoped, as human eyes do not view the world through filters and PhotoShop. It didn’t look like that either.

We searched for the Lights on two occasions during our (brilliant) trip to Iceland. Two coachloads of hyped-up tourists trailing around darkened scenery, imagining what the snowy hills must be like in the light, and stealing frequent, improbably hopeful glances up at the sky every few seconds. Coiffed 18-30s Aussies in North Face rubbed shoulders with Bob and Carol from Bognor, and the Tripod Brigade carted their expensive equipment around seriously. The first night’s light-seeking was unsuccessful, and we spent all evening stood in a layby in sub-zero temperatures, walking round and round the coach making up songs and male alter-egos and ideas for Backstreet’s Back flashmobs.

Attempt no 2 seemed more promising, and we headed out this time much further from the light pollution of Reykjavik and the seaside towns, towards Þingvellir National Park. Here we were greeted by stunning moon-on-snow blueness, a clear and expansive view of all the Northern hemisphere’s constellations, and the jagged rift caused by the epic leg-spreading of the American and European tectonic plates that Iceland straddles. This seemed the perfect setting for the aurora to put on its show – to curl and swirl gracefully across the pristine black canvas of the sky.

But alas, it was not to be. The crestfallen tripodists hoiked their equipment back into the coach and the Aussies reprised their analysis of the previous evening’s piss-up. Then, just as we thought all was lost, the driver swerved into a side road and we disembarked, blinking dazedly at the sky that was being pointed out enthusiastically before us.

I resisted a strong urge to yell “Is that IT?!” when I finally was able to make out the greyey-greenish smudges that were The Northern Lights, figment of imaginations, legend of literature and folklore. They built up in the sky so gently you could almost be imagining them into existence; they could easily be mistaken for clouds if you didn’t know what they were. The worst thing was, they moved and swished a bit in what would have been quite a cool way, had it not been for the mawkish, gaspingly exaggerated exclamations of the coach trippers. “WOW. It was soooo worth it wasn’t it?!” I heard Carol exclaim to Bob. “NOT REALLY!!” I wanted to yell into her completely deluded face. You can tell yourself that, that it wasn’t a waste of time and that you couldn’t have been having a delicious meal out in the city instead, that your feet being fully numb is a good return on investment once you have borne witness to this greyish smudge in the midnight sky. You can tell yourself that.

And the Tripod Brigade came out in full force, excitedly erecting their equipment and pointing it paparazzi style at the modest site ahead. Everyone started pushing and shoving and flapping around like flies round shit, as camera flashes did their utmost to fade out the waning view of the lights. I don’t know much about photography (or about a science book, or the French I took – okay scrub that last one), but surely pointing a flash at a black sky hoping to capture an ethereal, non-physical light phenomenon is not a winner? Haughtily annoyed by the almost tangibly self-aware delusion of the other tourists, I retreated out of minus 12 into the coach with a bah and a humbug.

A few weeks ago we took the Guides out onto Port Meadow in the dark. It was cold and misty, the kind of night where you can imagine a be-cloaked highwayman appearing out of nowhere and demanding that you part with your most treasured sapphire necklace. Icy swans floated across creepy-looking lakes formed from flooding either side of the footpath, and the edges of the meadow stretched out into the darkness with Haywain-esque charm. In the distance, the city shimmered and hummed, electric lights blinking magically through the night haze, and an eerie orangeness hued the girls’ faces as they scurried about excitedly. Then suddenly, I noticed a huge, round, yellow lantern balanced on the top of a house to the edge of the field. It looked completely unreal, like a paper lamp imported from an eighties kid’s TV programme with puppets. It took me a few seconds to realise that it was the moon, standing over us and radiating close-up magnificence.

As the heated coach transported us back to the Hotel Björk, I chortled at how much more beautiful I had found that Port Meadow scene than the famous aurora borealis, and realised that unexpected beauty right on your doorstep is much more memorable than beauty you hunt down and dull because you’ve treated it like a celebrity being hounded by Heat magazine.

Weird dream no 4

There were zombies. Lots of them. A dream very obviously inspired by Sunday evening's episode of Misfits. Except in my version, instead of having to thwack them over the head with a cricket bat in order to smash their brains in and stop them eliminating humankind, you had to placate them with one of three zombie solutions: intellectual stimulation, high amusement or death (no 3 being the conventional method of zombie dispatch I suppose).

So in some very odd fitful moments between wake and sleep, I found my imaginary dream self performing stand-up routines and pontificating on the meaning of life in front of a bunch of sceptical zombies, teetering on a knife-edge between succeeding in the demanding task of keeping them entertained and failing to amuse them, which would result in a blood-curdling fight to the death (theirs or mine). I'm not sure the narrative ever got as far as this violence, but the promise of it in return for a lacklustre performance was enough to make me wake up feeling highly unsettled, like I hadn't really been asleep at all.

Why I can’t stop watching ‘Made in Chelsea’

We have developed a bad habit in our house: watching shit TV programmes that should not be condescended with a look through one of your eyes, let alone both of them. Anyone who has lived with me before will know what a snob I am about these things; I shrink from Big Brother and its shrill shoutiness, am too busy having fun on a Saturday night to be watching manufactured pop crap on X-Factor, and am proud that only one copy of Heat magazine has ever made it into my house (and obviously I didn’t buy it). Predictably for a middle-class left-wing educated girl from Surrey, I think most reality TV et al is a load of vacuous corporate bullshit that only serves to fuel the meaningless cult of celebrity and downgrade the quotient of genuinely edifying culture.

Happily, I also took no enjoyment from any of the above vacuous shit, meaning that I never felt like I was missing out on anything, edifying or not. But now I appear to have succumbed to that now-clichéd idea of a guilty pleasure. The quite unbelievably awful ‘Made in Chelsea’.

This Guardian article sums up my reaction to the programme more eloquently than I could: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/may/07/grace-dent-tv-od-made-in-chelsea?INTCMP=SRCH. On a basic level, it’s a pretty standard response to really really posh rich 20-somethings swanning around Chelsea being twats, in “structured reality soap” format (read: people who can’t act acting like they are not acting). But what is it about this most exaggerated example of awfulness that makes me keep tuning in?

It’s so bad it’s captivating – you can’t quite believe anyone would be so lacking in self-respect to be part of it (participants and programme-makers – and me??). The worst thing about it is the fact that it is the pure embodiment of the word “stilted”. Whilst I realise that it is not designed to be a documentary, but rather sets out to be a crude rendering of a type of person you love to hate and who can’t possibly exist in the real world, I can’t help myself: I’m sucked into wallowing in the feelings of self-righteous indignation that the programme-makers have deliberately fostered in me by portraying the dickish antics of people with impossibly Etonian names.

Rarely does this wilful submission to being manipulated by a programme-maker jar on me quite so much… I wonder what their ulterior motive is… I know that when I watch True Blood I am a bit turned on and intrigued by the relationships, just as the writers want; but I can’t stand the idea that with this could-it-be-real-really grotesqueness someone is deliberately playing to my own stereotypes and disgust. I don’t like reacting in the way someone expects so predictably. You are supposed to hate the vacuous characters and pity their small-minded, shit-for-brains life – that’s the whole point. So if that’s the point, feeling outraged by them is a meaningless act and is just one-dimensional – you’re just playing into someone’s hands, which is tantamount to being told what to do – or even what to think (horror of horrors).

Also, it’s interesting(?) to see the in-built artifice of it all – the awkwardly long silent stares, contrived pouting and flouncing. It’s almost as if they’re trying to make some awfully clever comment on the form itself – a postmodern trick that forces you to confront the artifice of all forms of entertainment by slapping you in the face with it. This is the only way I can see someone wanting to make such a programme, because they can’t just be stupidly admiring and capturing these people.

So how real are the people? Maybe it’s the blurred line between real and fake that keeps me engrossed. It’s more comfortable to think that what you’re participating in by watching is layer upon layer of self-reflexive irony. But actually, it’s more likely that by watching these affected caricatures, who think they are better than everyone else, ponce about on your screen, you gain a sense of enjoyment and validation from knowing that you are more intelligent and self-aware than they are – better than them.

Cunningly, this turns back on you all the things you purport to hate about them. Neat.

PS Oh Lord, I have just read this quite sincere-sounding article by Made in Chelsea's creator: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2011-09-19/made-in-chelsea-they're-not-fakes. In the RADIO TIMES. There is no hope for any of us.

Self-righteous arse

Yesterday I stumbled upon this email (at the end), which I sent to all staff in 2008. What has become of this impassioned, outraged, inappropriate individual? I wondered if I would do such a thing these days. I think I thought I was funny and that that would excuse me from being dubbed The Green Nazi. Or I didn't care what people thought about me, because I cared about my cause more.

I know we are supposed to become less radical as we get older, but aren't we also supposed to develop into higher functioning versions of ourselves, ones who might be able to aspire towards living out our values in a healthy, productive kind of way? I feel a bit like I have lost sight of some of mine - have contented myself with being a good person on some fronts, and working hard at those... but then what happens to those beliefs that provoked such strident militancy in the past? Somehow I still think they are vitally important, but in a vague, sign-an-online petition, make-a-monthly-donation-to-charity kind of way.

Another thing that strikes me hugely reading the below is the idea of self-concept. That person's idea of herself had environmental values running as a definitive streak through her middle, like a stick of rock. What's the value that defines me now? As I type this I know what it is: it's people. But in a much less abstract sense than the notion that we need to save the planet for the sake of the people living on it, now and in the future (which I still believe by the way). It's a more concrete sense, of being someone who is warm and generous to all people she comes into contact with.

And in that I feel steadfast. I hear myself say "community" a lot. I adore having people round and cooking for them and being hospitable and lending them stuff and being a shoulder to cry on and the person you call when you've fallen over and need frozen peas from the shop. I love thinking of presents and throwing myself into celebrations and writing long newsy letters and not going home until the bitter end. It's almost like I have become more eager to please others - and that's why I wouldn't send the thing below nowadays. It must have pissed everyone off.

But, but... which one's the person I want to be? How, over the course of my life, can I fuse together the person I was born as and the person I aspire to becoming? For all of those of us in our thirties: this is our time! This is my rallying cry: now is the time to become that person you imagined you would be! The one who looks at an empty field and sees it teeming with life and poetry. Scary stuff but if we don't do it, nobody will do it for us.

And I know that always, my friends and family will be there to share it, scoffing food and laughing in pools of ambient light.

From: Kate Parrinder
Sent: 03 September 2008 16:07
To: _Client Support; _Consultancy Operations; _European Offices; _Finance; _Innovation and Publishing; _Learning Design and Delivery Team; _Legal & Company Secretarial; _Marketing; _IT Dept; _HR; _Learning Operations
Subject: Have you turned off your monitor?!

DID YOU KNOW that almost a third of UK office workers frequently leave their PCs running overnight or over the weekend when they go home, resulting in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions equivalent to the output of 120,000 4x4 cars (source: Energy Saving Trust)?

TURN OFF YOUR MONITOR before you leave – it’s not hard, it won’t give you RSI in your index finger, and quite frankly it GETS ON MY NERVES when I walk round your empty offices and see your screens flashing with their incriminating little orange lights, spewing increments of unnecessary energy into nothing in a chorus of wastefulness. You have to shut down your computer AND turn the screen off separately.

Thank you kindly,

Kate

Kate Parrinder

Project Editor