Towards Better Democracy

In the coffee bars that I frequent that are owned by a vast corporation, meaning that there are many, all identical but not of patrons, there is a selfconsciousness on the part of those who approach me. As if they have to prove their knowledge or education. I tend to put book title pages face down in such places to avoid this kind of approach. I don’t read in public to excite the attention of others. When spotting a title that someone else is reading, not in the chain coffee places I might say, I don’t approach the person and engage in a pseudo knowledgeable, eager gushing way.

To be diverted for a moment, I remember years ago going to a reading in the tiny town I lived in, way off the cultural map of Great Britain, the kind of place where nothing, absolutely nothing, ever happens, which the Council of Great Britain were sponsoring, do they still do such things, at which Adrian Henry, Iris Murdoch and Adrian Mitchell were present. To be present in such august company I would die for today. I knew of Adrian Henry’s work and admired it. Murdoch I had read. Mitchell I knew not at all and still don’t. There the three of them sat and asked innocently for questions from the audience. I think it was the turn of Mitchell or maybe they had all spoken. I don’t recall. Henry and Murdoch are fit for human consumption, Mitchell not. As I recall he was something of a Marxist, at least professed. Two older people were sat at the front. Older I mean, Henry was the star turn. Penguin had just published the Mersey Sound book of poetry and it had rocketed up to the top of the best sellers. And so most of us were young. Anyway, here sat these two oldies and one of them, the man, naturally, raised his hand, and Mitchell nodded his assent to the question.

“We’re from the Dickensian Society,” he began …

The rest of what he said I have no memory of nor do I need to. The phrase itself has stuck with me as one of those priceless gems that .. how can one say?  Well, one can’t. For their sticking power lies not in what price they have in the mind but the fact that they are so memorable.

I suppose that those hapless individuals that come with a sort of lost dog look to say something to me remind me of that man. I am no Adrian Mitchell and Mitchell tore into him mercilessly. The wife, if that was who his companion was, must have squirmed in her boots. But maybe not. She may have felt like punching our resident Marxist on the nose. Certainly he needed it. Ideology, yes. Pomposity, no. His questioner’s had been enough for both of them.

So here I am in this coffee bar and am reading a book I just picked up. New it is from a secondhand bookstore. This city I live in does not offer much fortune but this particular chain of bookstores is one of them. Much of my shelves are populated with what came off theirs.

The book is about the book. I can read it here knowing no self-consciousness. I can be reading, “How to FART successfully,” and no one will bat an eyelid. Such a pleasure is it not? To not be accosted by the local members of the Dickensian Society, though in Mitchell’s case he called for questions, I do not.

Malcolm D B Munro
Sunday 23 October, 2016

Filed under: Arts, Culture, history, Media, Memoir, songs, stories