It
appears I am starting to get to the age where some aspects of modern life
irritate me more than is healthy. I wallow in nostalgia with greater
regularity than I used to, and find myself starting sentences with “Yes, but in the olden
days…” I despaired at a recent retro-inspired Father’s Day buffet, where
my youngest sibling not only admitted he had never seen a studded cheese and
pineapple hedgehog before, but then had to ask what to do in order to eat
it. That’s a child of the nineties for you.
But
one of the very wonderful things about the modern times we live in, is social
media, and in particular, Twitter. To be very brief, Twitter is a
constant update of feelings, opinions, information and wider internet links,
from whomever you feel like following. It brings people together
instantly, and tends to allow the barriers between ‘famous’ and ‘normal’ people
to slip once in a while.
Luddites
opposed to such types of communication, often decry Twitter as being boring and
irrelevant. Comments along the lines of “I have no interest in knowing
what Simon Pegg is having for his lunch” give the impression that some people
think that this is all Twitter can be. An ongoing, regularly updated
account of the mundane eating habits of people they have never met. But
it is SO MUCH MORE than that. Here are two reasons why.
•
Having a limit of 140 characters encourages
succinct comments, and little waffle. People have to be funnier, or
demonstrate greater clarity and ‘cut to the chase’ quicker.
Alternatively, they can post links to sites you would never have found but are
glad you now have.
•
You
choose who you follow. They don’t have to accept you (unless they’re
using the mostly unnecessary privacy settings) you simply follow them. You
create your own community that is just for you. My own self-created
community keeps me informed of breaking news stories, (@BBCbreaking) the death
of any well-known figure via a fake Princess Diana account, (@DianaInHeaven)
and all comment pieces in a range of daily papers, written by my favourite
writers (@charltonbrooker, @caitlinmoran, @MarinaHyde, @KiraCochrane).
Occasionally
it becomes apparent, however, that one of the downsides of Twitter is that it
is easy to forget that the information and opinion with which you are regularly
updated, can be a little one-sided. With the vast amount of left-wing
articles and opinions I was reading in the run up to the General Election in
2010, it was obvious to me that the Lib Dems were going to romp home with a
massive overall majority, and free University tuition would no longer be
consigned to the history books. It was something of a shock to find that
my Twitter timeline did not reflect the mood of the nation. Now, I have
no intention of seeking out some BNP Tweeters just to provide balance, but now
and then I just need to remind myself that perhaps I am not seeing the whole
picture.
Yet,
on Wednesday of this week, I really hoped I was being presented with the whole
picture. It seemed Clive James had been speaking on a Radio 4 programme
about his terminal cancer, and had stated that he was ‘getting near the end’ of his life. My
Twitter timeline of journos, writers, comedians and general media types sprang
into a Clive James love-fest. Famous people tweeted about the wonderful
qualities of the man they knew; writers declared he was the reason they began
their craft; mere mortals posted links to their favourite poems, or essays that
they loved. His name was trending throughout the UK, and if you clicked
on the hashtag, there was even more - a feast of word-meat into which to sink
your teeth. It appeared to be, and I hoped it really was the case, that
the world was grateful for the existence of this man. Not just a
one-sided liberally minded collection of arty-farty people, but the larger
world beyond my like-minded little collection of tweeters.
I
think, however, that Clive James is more than just a brilliant writer,
comedian, poet, scholar and all round good-egg as has been the picture created
by this week’s Twitterverse. He symbolises a bygone age of media
creativity. He was on TV and in the papers before dumbing down began,
before reality TV became engrained, before TOWIE and its ilk became part of the vernacular and before
twenty-four hour, easily accessible, hardcore porn was available to everyone. He was there when wit and intelligence were enough to be featured on prime time TV. New Year with Jools
Holland is great but there was nothing like watching the year’s
round-up when it was presented by Clive James. Belly laughs, satire,
poignancy and Big Ben. (It pisses all over a seemingly bladdered Cyndi
Lauper, who kept me company last New Year’s Eve.)
I
question sometimes whether Twitter is part of the cause of this plunging common
denominator. Has reducing everything to 140 characters -
occasionally forcing even the linguistically puritanical like myself to write
‘R’ instead of ‘are’ (oh, the shame) – meant that the beauty of language has
been lost? Has word-play and poetry become pointless and time
consuming, creating an unnecessary barrier to the actual point? (Just like
the realisation that it is much less faff to bung a bowl of mini sausages on a
buffet table, than to spear them individually with a cocktail stick, arrange them symmetrically on a grapefruit and then watch people juggle a wine glass and potato-salad
laden flimsy plate in one hand, whilst using their other to prise a stick
of meat out of a citrus fruit.) Has Twitter contributed to the loss of
the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the written and spoken word because
people can't be arsed? Though at times it may feel as though this is the
case, after clicking on #clivejames yesterday, I was led to link after link of
virtuoso writing – too much to read all at once – but evidence of the treasure
trove that is the body of his work – work that will ultimately outlive
him. Twitter led me to this. Good old Twitter.
Taking
the opportunity to read some of his TV reviews yesterday, (like this one about Beyonce) it is
easy to forget how far the intellectual bar has been lowered in recent
years. Clive James is a link to an era when it was accepted that the
viewing and reading public had a brain, and that they were willing to use it to
engage with material presented to them. If you want a reminder of that
time, or if you have no concept of what that must have been like due to an
almost force-fed diet of Mail Online and Cowellian gruel then you could do a
lot worse than dip into the great man’s website. Just don’t be surprised if your
brain kicks in and cogs start to whir. It happened to me yesterday.
Don’t worry, you’ll like it. It’s retro.
