Over the past few months I’ve been taking a long, cold look at my ‘habits’.
As someone who seeks order in my life, I’ve taken to looking at my web-browsing activities… and much to my horror I find that the 'Daily Mail’ happens to be very close to the top of my most-visited sites. That’s very worrying to me, because that paper actually represents most of what I abhor in life. Any kind of media ‘habit’ is one that I can do without, but I’d prefer that if I did have one it would be more focused on ‘The Independent’ rather than the ‘Daily Mail’, but such is life...
What concerns me more than anything about my navel-gazing, is that my reason for dipping in to the DM appears not to be for the purposes of titillation or cocking-a-snook at the British lower-middle-class; nor is it to find examples of the paper’s hypocrisy, like supporting campaigns against pornography whilst simultaneously publishing countless photos of ‘side-boob’ shots from their supported paparazzi.
My problem - and I’m sad to admit it - is that I’m actually addicted to Liz Jones...
If anyone at DM analyses my website activity, they’ll find that I take a cursory look through the headlines and then do a search for ‘Liz Jones’ and rank it based upon ‘Most Recent’. That’s worrying to me as I’m currently unable to gain sufficient distance to visually frame myself as someone seeking out and reading, much less responding to this drivel.
I could describe my obsession as a ‘guilty-pleasure’, but a more fitting description for my activity would be a ‘rubber-necker’, because every time I read a Liz Jones article I see myself as one of those motorway drivers that cause traffic-jams for no other reason than slowing-down to gawp at a roadside accident.
My life experiences thus far have taught me that being contrarian is a positive trait, but with Liz I find myself drawn into the abyss inhabited by the masses, and temporarily I obtain a certain ‘sick-satisfaction’ from it. Then I do feel physically sick.
You’ll appreciate from this that I’m terribly conflicted…
Part of me wants to jump on the bandwagon and ‘rip the piss’ out of her, which I frequently do… then I feel guilty because the other part of me sees her as a totally lost, fearful soul reacting to life the only way she knows. She may be one who has sold her soul for rock’n’roll (albeit previously to an imaginary rock-star, and more recently to ’Two-ton Ted from Teddington who drives the baker’s van’), but the other part sympathises with her crap life decisions in that a £500k pay-cheque from the DM - as a pact with Mephistopheles - is one destined for disaster.
My thoughts about the possibility of ‘money for nothing and chicks for free’ went out the window when MTV, Dire Straits and Sting came in… but I I’m fascinated to know how and why someone from my age-related peer-group did. Lizard may be 53 - or thereabouts - but she’s got the emotional intelligence of a 12 year old, and I struggle with how to relate to that dynamic.
I sense that many of you posting on here will relate to some of these thoughts.