What Would Grandma Do?

Peter was in London this week at the height of the Direct Shopping Spree (also known as riots) that were kicking off.  The point is, he didn’t know they were happening.  Not that he’s chronically unobservant, you understand, but he was in central London, not Tottenham, Croydon or Hackney.  They were harder to miss in Manchester, as they were in the middle of town.  It was only by a total fluke I decided not to go into Manchester that afternoon but to go shopping elsewhere, where all was peace and calm.

It’s often been said that, notwithstanding the fact that, by and large, we have better houses, are better fed, better off and better clothed than people only a few decades ago (i.e. we have more stuff and live longer to enjoy it) we’re more nervy and less optimistic than previous generations. Part of it's envy (ask any rioter) that there's  really cool stuff  heavily advertised that we can't afford.   Part of that is, of course, taking for granted the things we do have which used to be the privilege of a very few, such as eating well all the time, having a car and lots of clothes.

If, say, my grandma could pop in from the 1930’s she’d wonder what anyone had to grumble about. The idea of a machine which did the laundry by the press of a button instead of hours scrubbing away at a washboard, a cooker which could switch on or off automatically, chickens that came ready-done instead of covered in feathers (she kept hens) a car to do the shopping in and her grandchildren, instead of going into Service as maids, as she did at the age of twelve, are going to, are at, or have been to university would have seemed like a cross between pure fantasy and unimaginable luxury.  She wouldn’t be able to wait to pin her hat on and nip round to tell the neighbours about it…

And the neighbours would probably be out.  Or not know her.  Why?  Because instead of standing at the front doorstep, grumbling about the weather, they’re all indoors with the telly on.

And the telly, in between adverts for  perfect lifes fuelled by More Stuff with the subliminal message that if you don't have this product you're a complete saddo, tells us that London is virtually in a state of civil war and Manchester’s apocolyptic.  All the problems that used to be comfortably Out There are now very much In Here, in our homes.  In some ways, of course, this is a very good thing.  We’re having a collection at church tomorrow for famine relief in the Horn of Africa, just one of the many, many collections that been have taken up to help the poor beggars who are starving.  It feels like something we ought to help with, because we’ve all seen pictures of the famine on the telly.

Absolutely. Instead of just dealing with our own problems, we’re confronted with every truly awful problem everywhere, such as earthquakes, famines, wars and – to come back to where I came in – riots.  It can feel like mere frivolity to be happy when life is so ghastly for others.  It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that It Could Be You, even though it isn’t and probably won’t be.

It’s ironic that the telly, which really is a window on a wide world, has made that world so much smaller.  So don’t feel guilty when yet another pundit ticks you off on the telly for being more miserable than your ancestors and demands, in that hectoring way, that you should Cheer up!  Now! Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s still ignorance. I don’t know what grandma would do, but we’re stuck with, I’m afraid.