A generation going Ga Ga because they can't use their phones | Simon Carter

It was a moment of wonderful irony, and almost certainly lost on some members of the audience.As the interval lights went up at the Mayflower Theatre on the opening night of the Queen musical We Will Rock You, I made my way up the stalls’ stairs quickly. Well, when you’ve got to go…
SURGICALLY ATTACHED: Teenagers and their phones Picture: ShutterstockSURGICALLY ATTACHED: Teenagers and their phones Picture: Shutterstock
SURGICALLY ATTACHED: Teenagers and their phones Picture: Shutterstock

In doing so, I passed numerous people who were no doubt busy furiously checking social media or text messaging what a superb production they were watching. Which they certainly were.

Yet here was the irony: the show’s storyline concerned a futuristic society where the Globalsoft corporation churned out a conveyor belt of students who were totally reliant upon technology.

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Rewriting Radio Ga Ga – the song which acquired legendary status at Live Aid – the cast had belted out the following...

John Westwood and Simon Carter at The Petersfield Bookshop.John Westwood and Simon Carter at The Petersfield Bookshop.
John Westwood and Simon Carter at The Petersfield Bookshop.

‘We sit alone and watch your light; Our only friend, through teenage nights; And everything we want to get; We download from the internet.’

It was wickedly witty, cruel even. But as a commentary on life in Great Britain in the year 2020, 100 per cent accurate.

No sooner had the cast left the stage, out came the phones – after all, the audience had been deprived of the chance to stroke their phone screens, for…. oooh, about an hour. No wonder some people couldn’t wait to log on again.

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‘Hope to record our life online; Touch any key, the world is mine; We’re lost in space; But we don’t care; Without your light our world’s not there.’

My daughter, 16, once asked me: ‘Dad, what was it like growing up without the internet or mobile phones?’

‘It was tough,’ I replied, sticking my tongue firmly into my cheek. ‘We had to talk to our family and friends instead.’

Ellen pulled a massive face.

‘Even at the tea table.’

She pulled an even more massive face, muttered ‘I don’t believe you’ and then strolled off to take a selfie and Snapchat it to her mates. Totally lost in (cyber) space, and Ellen didn’t care.

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But perhaps the problem doesn’t lie with those all-too-quick to start stroking again or living a life online. Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I’m the one who’s going Ga Ga…

… but there are times when social media is force for good

Last Tuesday, the day after writing about John Westwood’s bookshop, I visited it for the first time.

Mr Westwood was there, gloriously decked out in Pompey blue. He told me he was ‘overwhelmed’ by the support he had received since appearing on national news.

(If you were visiting Mars last week and haven’t heard, a tweet sent by a shop employee after a first-ever day without a single book sale went viral, resulting in increased publicity, orders and footfall).

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Mr Westwood showed me a letter from a woman in Chicago, enclosing a £5 note left over after a recent UK holiday. Someone else in California sent him US $50.

I’m often critical of social media, but this was a great example of the good it can do.

Brian Clough and Bagpuss: What does that say about me?

In last week’s column I mentioned the fact I have hundreds of books. After visiting John Westwood’s shop, I now have four more.

Books can tell you a lot about a person’s character, so here are the ones I bought:

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1) A book about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake; 2) A biography of Malcolm X; 3) the autobiography of Oliver Postgate, the man who helped create Bagpuss and the Clangers; 4) a book about 13 people murdered on just one day in the USA.

In the past two months, I’ve also read books on: 1) Peter Sutcliffe; 2) the IRA in the ’70s and ’80s; 3) Brian Clough’s year as Brighton manager.

So, quick recap: the Yorkshire Ripper, Cloughie and a saggy cloth cat. What does that say about me?

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