I’m hearing conversations in the background I could do something about.
Press Tent Girl: (to colleague at desk) “Do you remember Frank Sidebottom?”
(blank response from colleague)
PTG: (to other PR person) Do YOU remember Frank Sidebottom?
Them: Who?
I can’t keep quiet any longer. I turn around.
DE: (with an attempt at a helpful smile) Yes, I do. He’s still very much going. He played the Kentish Town Bull & Gate recently.
Pause. The girl and her colleagues stare back at me with a look suggesting “Who asked you, blondie? Mind your own business”.
I don’t know. It’s so hard hearing a conversation in the background where someone wonders about X, and you know you can go over to them and help them with the enquiry, resolving their wonderings with an answer. But they don’t want to hear your stranger’s Yes, I Know. They want to hear the No, I Don’t Know from their friends.
It’s the history of warfare in a nutshell.
Oh, crumbs, now I’m hearing:
PR Boy: Who’s Tom Verlaine?
PR Girl: I’m not sure.
I am doing my best to remain silent.
Earlier, a girl who was taking photographs for a magazine asked me who Nicky Wire was. I helpfully enlightened her.
Photo girl: How come you know all this stuff?
DE: (speechless)
There MUST be a way of getting paid for knowing what people with jobs in the music industry don’t know, but frankly should. It’s a clear case of supply and demand. And yet I can’t make the connection.
