After visiting the Keep and commenting on other people's diaries - we decided to keep Tuesday diaries during the project. Partly because it occurred to us that it's easy to comment on other people's lives, but it’s not until you have to write about your own day, that you realise you ain’t so different! We also thought it would be interesting to try out how it feels writing a diary when you know other people will read it - does it change what you write/how you write?
Here's my first attempt:
Diary Day Jan 6th
Got up to walk Mabel before
catching train to The Keep. She had diarrhea, so ended up cleaning it up and
only taking her round the block. Got talking to a man who told me he gets up
at 5.30 to walk his Golden Retriever for an hour and a half in Hove Park.
Mass Observations is like a secret treasure
trove, if rather bureaucratic! We spent the morning trawling for different
examples of ways diaries are completed to share with prospective diarists. Some
are infinitely boring, but just as many are compelling, either it’s the detail
of lives, (the man with yellow mucus and the Waitrose tissues), the quirks,
(bank manager who trims foils on his model airplane before going to work, and
also does a daily check of the family’s bank statements), the humorous and odd,
(woman with fox lover and slightly racist views...) it’s all there. Lots
written about food, weather, catching trains, shopping,
health – usually ill health, and occasional frustrations with husbands or
mothers – and a rumination on a best friend which sprang from a sentence about
going out on the river. Hard, not to
think of Thoreau’s quote that “the
mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Home – Mabel sick. J had cleaned up
house (!!!). Spoke to R about Speaker’s
Corner Event – he wants controversy, off the shelf, delivered in 3 weeks. You
wouldn’t think that would be difficult in Brighton, but it is! I suggested the
Uni or councillors, he says they are all too timid not to toe the line anymore;
everyone agrees with each other now. ‘We want Jeremy Corbyn.’
‘Do you have a contact?’
‘No, but he’ll need work soon, wanting
people to speak up then sacking them for disagreeing with him, we are all too
quiet and samey these days, we need noise, sparks.’
Off to yoga with sense of
foreboding – I haven’t been for six weeks.
Stopped at Asian grocer on way home for
coconut – only ones for sale in Brighton are shaved to white pyramid point –
when did this happen to coconuts? Is there a coconut season? Didn’t buy it in
the end after the last coconut episode.
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