Frieze on the Millennium Bridge.Love is good. The word "lover" is good too. Even when applied to inanimate objects the word is pleasing as in "book lover". And the thoughts that go with it. Today a letter arrives in a smart envelope addressed simply to "Pizza Lover". That's not me. I like pizzas, especially the one I bake myself, but love them? I am not so sure. Inside the envelope is a leaflet advertising "Domino's Pizza Tunbridge Wells Mega Week. Classic Pizza, Any Size. £7.99 Collection, £9.99 Delivered." I am not so sure. I am not so sure at all.
Am I alone in failing to recognise people who wave to me as they pass in their cars. People whom I am obviously supposed to know. The only one thing to do is wave back, but when I do, I feel a bit of fraud.
2 comments:
The waving neighbour. Who was that? Mrs BB asks me. I have no idea, I typically reply. Since I nearly always walk with Mrs BB to Tesco, a mere ten minutes away, and this is usually a daily occurrence, I have the impression that car-drivers regard us as an ambulatory permanence deserving of recognition; stay around long enough and others feel it necessary to salute you.
There's a subtle variant on this. On foot outside our respective houses we see our very-near neighbours too often to wave to. But when they pass us in their cars a sort of noblesse oblige applies.
Whereas the average Englishman will admit to "loving the Lake District" he is far less inclined to use "love" and/or "lover" in its primary meaning. I was able to reflect on this in a passage between Clare and Jerry in Gorgon Times. Clare admits to being uneasy with Americans who tend to use these words much more frequently. I think you were at your height as a pizza lover when we used to lunch at that place in Sutton High Street. Given that it specialised in pizzas it had a strange kind of formality.
I was at my height as a pizza lover when I first met the beast aged about 20 in Rome, in a dark pizza restaurant with a glowing wood-fired oven. I had never heard the word "pizza" or seen or tasted one. Then it was love at first sight and at first taste. And the experience has never nor ever will be improved upon.
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