We are feasting our eyes on a new addition to the family and hoping the extra people we have made will not pile unnecessary pressure on the pool of available resources. Sustainability is what we are aiming for, isn’t it? Or is that term so ubiquitous and loaded that it’s become unsustainable, the victim of its own popularity?
Entropy; is it the Law of Entropy which dictates that all states of matter are gradually diluted, leaking energy, slipping off the cosmic couch and onto the floor? If entropists are right, might it be that sustainability is simply a mirage, a construct of the hopeful, jargon for town planners?
It would be a lie to say my brow was furrowed by this while sitting in the coffee concession at Oxford’s Debenhams, as I’ve just thought of it, but there I was with my wretched brow glowering into the middle distance, with Poz upside down in his seat crashing his plastic pterodactyls together. It’s not that I hate shopping exactly, I'm just a little nervous about consumer culture, not sure it's really there for the benefit of ordinary people.
Then I had a bit of an epiphany. Little Liza was on my knee, watching it all go by, and people began breaking out in spontaneous smiles as they passed. I kept my gaze fixed on the aisle where Jane was last seen but my peripheral vision caught it all and softened my brow. We’re all the same at heart, getting on as best we can. Most of these people weren’t smiling until they saw the baby and then something inside them gave way.
It was as if the anxieties of consumerism were momentarily lifted by the memory of innocence, the possibilities of a new life. At worst, the unbridled and un-selfconscious wriggle of the proto-consumer, with the future of retail at her feet. I loved having her there on my knee. She helped me belong, which is a more comfortable place for an old man than a life of cantankerous disapproval.
As we walked up to the car I remembered being on that same spot a few weeks ago, on my way back from a networking evening with a bunch of builders. It was cold and as I turned up the collar of my new Debenhams overcoat I saw a small banquet underway behind the leaded lights of one of the Oxford colleges. Completing this Dickensian scene, a beggar drew his dog close on the pavement outside. I dropped a coin into his palm and said, “reckon it’s a two-dog night tonight mate.” He grinned in agreement.
