Thus far this week thanks to being kept busy typing people’s names into a computer at work. This has meant that I have been working all the time at work and as such I have not been able to indulge my love of reading various websites inbetween calls.
This evening for the first time in a week however, I was reassigned to the phones and the slow mental torture of slow mental callers and in an effort to keep myself sane I stumbled across a link to a recently created blog written by Stephen Fry. ‘Blog’ is perhaps the wrong word for it and he has coined his own phrase for his entries, ‘Blessays’ and even the less cunning linguists amongst us can probably guess the derivation of the term.
At the moment there are three such blessays on the site concerning: technology and iPhones, sweets and addictions and fame. I have devoured all three this evening, but it was the third topic which particularly interested me. (In reality the second article he posted.)
It interested me as it was written from the perspective of a ’sleb’ and whilst I am not as famous as Mr Fry, like him I do have Facebook groups in my honour. The last time I was vain enough to check the score was 2-1 in favour of the hate groups, but the fan group is the biggest of the three. I believe there are also equilivalent groups on MySpace, but it’s MySpace and so matters even less than anything on Facebook.
Whilst he talks about fame in general the point where the article really resonates for me is his talking about his own experiences of fame, several of which I have experienced myself working as Camera Dave. One of the things he mentions is mood which he sums up by saying, “We made you, we paid you, you will therefore look cheerful and contented (but not smug) at all times.” He himself points out that this isn’t an entirely fair expectation as people tend to have happy days and less than happy days and in his case given his bipolar disorder it’s somewhat of a given that some days he’ll be far too happy for some people, never mind not being happy enough.
I recall when I broke up with my ex a few months ago, ten minutes later I was Camera Dave and seemingly all was right with the world. After all people wanted me to take their photo not hear about how I felt like a right cad for breaking up with a girl who at the time seemingly cared for me more than I cared for her.
The other thing that made me chuckle with recognition was about companions and how even if you are obviously embroiled in conversation with a friend people will barge in, ignoring the fact that someone already has a prior claim on your attention.
He uses dining with a friend as an example, I fortunately however am not so famous that dining out is a problem (unless by dining out you mean having a burger in Smith’s in the student union at Glamorgan).
The example I would use from my own recent experience occured last weekend, when I was on the dancefloor with a girl. Now if I had only been dancing, I wouldn’t have minded as much about the interruption - Yes, it would have been rude, but not as rude as interrupting a couple dancing and kissing on the dancefloor. I found it particularly annoying as girls kissing me at work is not a regular occurrance and I was determined to make the most of it and informed the people in this instance that I was, “taking a break”.
The only thing more annoying than people interrupting us to ask for a photo, were those kind, thoughtless people that intruded upon us to offer to take our photo - After all why would I want a photo of me kissing a girl, when I could actually be kissing her? (Other than to prove to my incredulous friends that it actually happened of course!)
