An email from Holland:
You were mentioned in a column in NRC Handelsblad, a national newspaper here in the Netherlands. It refers to your post about Facebook and digital friendships versus real life.
There’s a pdf of it here:
http://www.dickonedwards.co.uk/nrc.pdf
Well goodness, hullo to Holland newspaper readers. Glad to be of use. I suppose I have a slightly unique perspective on online trends, being a blogger before the word was invented, and generally looking on at modern life from the outside. I watch things come and go, and slightly join in with some of them. A drawback, but also an asset in terms of being the outsider looking on at it all.
Of the Marvel comic heroes whose adventures I read while growing up, the one that most connected with me was ‘The Watcher’, an alien being who looked on and considered alternative universe versions of known stories. Those ‘What If…?’ tales were always the stories I liked the best. Of the boys who grow up reading 70s and 80s Marvel comics, one type of boy wanted to be Spiderman or the Hulk. Your usual boys. Another type of boy wanted to be Wonder Woman, and we won’t go into that. I was neither. I wanted to be The Watcher. Albeit with nice hair and a tie.
***
On Tottenham Court Road a woman with orange skin in a black PVC catsuit blocks my path and tries to hand me a flyer. I now realise this is outside a branch of Spearmint Rhino, the franchise of lapdancing clubs. She’s persistent, and matches my side-stepping so well that I have no option but to take her flyer in order to get past. She is like the troll under the bridge. Or in this case, the trollop under the bridge.
‘I’ll wait for yooooo!’ she calls after me in a heavy foreign accent, as I blushingly stride on. Behind me I hear her giggling with her colleague, a similarly-attired lady. I suspect they’re taking the mickey out of me: I can’t possibly look like the regular Spearmint Rhino customer. Perhaps I am their light relief on a dull afternoon. In which case, I muse about sending them an invoice for providing them with entertainment, rather than the other way around.
Not only do I not find these satsuma-skinned strumpets in the least bit attractive, I don’t think I know anyone who would. I never understand just what’s wrong with being pale and pasty: it’s far more honest, and honest is attractive. Indeed, ‘Pale And Pasty’ sounds like one of those specialist magazines. There’s always something for everyone.
Orange skin may be the fashion for mainstream pop stars and TV presenters, but I think it’ll be the kind of trend that future decades will look back on with a certain mockery.
One can imagine the call going out in 2050:
‘We’re having an Early 21st Century-themed party. Don’t forget to paint your skin bright orange, wear pork-pie hats, sports trainers and baggy jeans halfway to the ground. RSVP.’
