Swallow

Nick Kershaw is giving his riffs - an '80s throwback, and I'm zooming down the A12, a road forsaken by the pantheon of Gods, trying to air-guitar Kershaw's track, because the radio won't pick up anything else in that part of the country and it's all a bit depressing. It reminded me of an ex-boyfriend, and at that moment, I missed him, but it didn't last long, thankfully, and I went back to my normal state of being glad we have gone our separate ways.

I was amazed at this pang - what, exactly was I missing? Possibly his spontaneity, his sense of fun, his boundary-less perception of the world? That his child-like view of the world meant that it was still all out there, the world having as much appeal as it had the first day he opened his eyes. An unquenchable hunger - thirst - to reach out and grab what ever attracted his fleeting attention, even if it ripped the flesh from him.

I was also amazed at the sense of nostalgia that was hankered for around the table earlier in the evening. How they pined and crooned for bakelite, and wept with dismay at the anonymity of the the iPhone, and the general detriment of tactile sensuousness in today's electronic commodities. Out with rubberised phone jackets, in with gloss black, a touch of chrome. Desecration. Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? Richard Hamilton, 1956. Obviously as much a concern now as then - or more so in these post-apocalyptic days of green issues, ethically sourced organic food, global gold prices rocketing and flooding of Chinese imports. I rarely feel nostalgia, but for others, it's a state of continual yearning. Someone around the table had questioned this human need for objects - behind the consumerism, the leisure shopping, the snobbery of objects, the staving off of boredom, new toys and illusions of higher efficacy in the kitchen... just what is this addictive desire to own all this stuff?

Whatever it is, Reverend Billy doesn't agree. More factually, wiki/Reverend_Billy_and_the_Church_of_Life_After_Shopping is radically anti-consumerist, part of the wider field of wiki/Culture_jamming, where subversion and intervention of first world gluttonist tendencies are the order of the day, and don't we know it? Culture jamming is so much a part of our everyday lives: Banksy; for those of you who go way back... the Adidas logo being turned into a cannabis leaf 'Adinuf', or even the Ronald MacDonald scandal and the reinterpretation of this character. Whether it's visual art intervention, a political stance on serious social issues, or getting on your bicycle www.critical-mass... It's the silver bullet for consumerism. laurakeeble.com/down-the-aisle: She comments on High Church cultural values of our High Street and the irrevocable bond, the insatiable desire, that is consumerism (and we all thought it was sex, which is a submissive tool to the desire for ownership). She and Reverend Billy are singing off the same hymn sheet.

Around the table, we had been talking about Sudjic's 'The Language of Things', Reviewed by Julian Dibbell, in the Daily Telegraph, he also reviews alongside Walker's 'I'm With The Brand' (intended irony here, these link to Amazon). Dibbell points out Walkers' "murketing" as the space between seller and sold-to: the subversion (diversion, re-routing) of objects: he cites black youths in NY wearing Timberland boots "as a ghetto fashion statement", the intention of the original object lost through re-contextualisation and given new meaning. No more than foxes moving in inner city spaces; the destruction of the rain forests as MacDonalds provides food for the masses, turning the world into a dustbowl, it seems to me that Timberland becomes emblematic of all of this.

We're very familiar here in the UK with beltless youths walking around with their jeans hanging off their butts. I wonder how many of them realise that look was appropriated from inmates of the American jail system: your belt is taken off you in case you hang yourself; you lose weight, and your clothes start hanging from a frame that was once first-world-fed fois-gras plump. Or Tiffany&Co jewellery. Us ladies love that stuff - you're familiar with the chain and heart tag: 'I'm so rich I have my jewellery in a safety-deposit box, and I'll wear the security chain' as the status symbol. The irony that those who wear this stuff could never afford Tiffany leaves me confused as to whether I should laugh or cry. 

Subversion is a natural inclination: we hanker for the things we can't have, like the stereotype of a typist forever grooming her nails; bucking the system. Culture jamming by the individual voice and en mass, the power of the consumer is actually in telling the producer what their product really means by what use they put it to. I use my Tiffany to chain my worthless crock of a bicycle to the nearest lamppost, it's certainly strong enough to do the job and no-one can steal my freedom. That's design to me: even if the product does or doesn't fit the intended use, I'll use it for whatever I want; if the product doesn't say what I want it to about me, I'll change it till it does, but that's a fine art.

Now, where did I leave my handbag?

Shopping trolley - private or public place?

She and I are laughing about the gender difference in shopping - women tend to be discreet in their shopping, slipping the hair dye/tampons/chocolate beneath the bag of spinach and loaves of bread. Women, I don't think, stare as much at others shopping. He quips "When a man buys dog food and pasta shells, you know what's for dinner" Oh, the habits of male singledom should be a line not transgressed.

So, would you ever put your hand in someone else's shopping trolley? It's the kind of thing that happens by accident, all very embarrassing - but there's that shock moment when you think - is that my shopping?!!! Is the shopping trolley a private space in the public arena - the same mentality of the car-owner, who views his car with the same fondness (or maybe more) as his living room and his sofa. Or, her sofa. And drives around in his personal living-room, and views the ownership of whatever bit of road he happens to be occupying as his personal space too.

Our male friend resumed that men tend to buy food with petrol - bad stuff, like pork pies and crisps...Ginsters!!! The infidelity of a Ginsters Pasty, the incriminating flakes of pastry falling between the legs, to be brushed away hurriedly at the traffic lights... but that wasn't what we were talking about, really. It was Hirsts £50m disco ball www.guardian.co.uk/artblog/hirst, or "For The Love of God", 2007,  the Rock Star of all Vanitas, the ultimate in consumerism, which was where the coversation had started - this genre of reminding us that we can't take it with us to the next life. The question here on this mortal earth is, after Hirsts statement of the ultimate power to buy heaven on earth, where do we go from here? He has achieved the immortal. 

It certainly gives those road-hogging sods another view of ownership, and indeed, a marvelous transgression of discretion to show that display of wealth: to be disgusting, unfair, glamorous, powerful, wasteful, idiotic or idyllic... but for it to be a consumable in the open market gives it the appearance that it could be attainable. Unimaginable for the bloke driving around in his living room, and he can stick to the disco ball air freshener hanging from his rear-view.