Tuesday 16 June 2009

Time keeps on ticking... into the future

A blog I read is subtitled "Full time dad wastes valuable reading time by writing about reading".

I've been wasting valuable blogging time by well, reading. And now I'm going to waste reading time by blogging about reading.

So, I've realised recently that I read like a man. I used to read like a woman, largely fiction, largely women's fiction. A bookcase full of the characteristic dark green Virago and striped Women's Press spines was testament to my reading proclivities. I cared about the Orange Prize. I was a demographic.

Now I read non fiction. I read non fiction written by men. I read non fiction written by men who used to be music journalists. Not exclusively, but enough to make note of.

Is it also relevant that I used to be fiercely monogamous in my reading and now I have a pile of 6 books on the go?

I am currently reading:

Mark Radcliffe's Biography i.e. a book about a bloke
A book about 2 blokes who get an allotment
A book about a bloke who decides to travel around all the places on the shipping forecast
A book about a bloke who does a load of experiements to prove the theory of social economics
A book by a bloke who needs to get a real job, talking about the pleasures and sorrows of work
A book by a bloke who decides to travel around Britain, drinking in a lot of pubs on the way

If I were the subject of RFID based targeted advertising a la Minority Report, and took the advice of the advertisers, I would be buying a lot of lager, gilette razors and tyres right now.

I am still a demographic, just not the right one.

Question: Does it matter?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great bit of blogging and a marketing mans (or should I say persons nightmare). Actually fancy giving the 'shipping forecast' and 'man drinking in a lot of pubs' a try. Reading them that is not visiting the shipping forecast places - although the drinking in a lot of pubs sounds very appealing.

Unknown said...

"I've realised recently that I read like a man."

A man with pads on the elbows of his tweed jacket, at that. Allotments, shipping forecasts & pubs makes me think you probably wouldn't be buying too many Gilettes, though, as you'd no doubt have mutton chop whiskers to boot.

But then I'm a youngish (ahem) bloke who recently borrowed some Virginia Woolf audiobooks from the library, so I don't know where that leaves me...

And no it doesn't matter because the great leveller that is t'internet means all demographics are merely tagetted with offers of cheap viagra.