I Was Re-reading Proust When...*

...I happened to notice a copy of the Evening Standard lying on a seat near me. Since I've moved out of London, that hasn't happened for a while. And yet the compulsion is still there to pick it up.

In the London of the Evening Standard, we have the pseudo event, the feigned amazement (and a po-mo labyrinth.)

"A hedge maze appeared in Trafalgar Square today to the astonishment of office workers and tourists."

Reviewed by a 12-year-old girl on a school trip. Or maybe a fully paid up Standard reporter, impossible to be sure which.

"I was staring at two of London's iconic landmarks feeling as if I was standing next to a woodland creek. Surreal."

Little blue plaques along the streets in the maze, informing visitors that "Carnaby Street is said to have inspired Ray Davies to write the Kinks' hit Dedicated Follower of Fashion".

Real antagonisms are either geographically distant, or supplanted by illusory ones: Milliband v Cameron. All's well with the banks (just keep up with the contrite expressions for a little while longer).

Most strikingly, the Big Society in all it's glory:

On pages 8 & 9, a spread on the working poor taking the night bus to work, part of the Standard's Dispossessed Fund, which aims to raise £1 million for charities from its readers, which will be matched by the government.

On the front page, David Milliband's revival of the Mansion Tax idea will 'hit £2M house owners to help the poor.'

As the leader reminds us:

"People living in, for example, Kensington and Chelsea, where it would be easy for their house to fall within the scope of a mansion tax, are not necessarily millionaires." (My italics)

* A French friend told me that she'd encountered this example of disavowal when a French public intellectual (of which they seem to have quite a few in France, the right-wing mob - Alain Finkelkraut and the like - dominate in terms of media presence) was on the radio discussing a reality show that he happened to have seen. "I was re-reading Proust," he said, "when I happened to look up at the TV.."