The tinkling teaspoons of the coast

The sound of the future is the clinking of teaspoons against the sides of china teacups, just after the spoons have been used to create millions of vortices in the freshly steaming beige liquid within the cups. The background sound of the future is polite reedy chatter in which all words are annoyingly only half audible. The place of the future is the South Coast of England, or the more picturesque, bits of it at least.The countryside of the future is nice flowery gardens with beds of neatly planted annuals and perennials. The food of the future is imported, it is all processed, it is grown and processed where labour is cheap or cheap labour can be imported to process it. The catering of the futures is carried out by polite immigrants.

Except that this is not the future, it is now. unless the future is just now but only more so, after all everything mentioned above has been going on and increasing for at least a century, may be more.

Then again different slices of now exist simultaneously in separate locations cut apart from one another by things like train journeys from the South Coast to the capital city. When Mauris made such a journey after only a week away on the Costa Geritrica, land of the tinkling teaspoons, he almost ended his journey home by emerging from the tube station that was nearest to his gaff, he was knocked metaphorically out with joy to see and hear all sorts, conditions and ages of people from all over the globe. He was happy to hear, within seconds of coming through the ticket barrier, about five different languages being spoken none of which he could understand and not all of which he could identify, even tentatively. But, it wasn’t just that, that cheered Mauris, most of the people here seemed to moving around with some purpose or aim in mind other than walking up the road to look at the sea and wait to die.

There are also other versions of present and future knocking around in the city too. Coming back from the supermarket, a day or two later, Mauris saw red and green banners flying proudly outside what had once been a small office and warehouse unit just off the Edgware Road. Mauris thought about what he would like this to signify; that a crazed vanguardist sect of eco-socialists, such as the one he belonged to, had decide to do a “Dublin post office job” to initiate the downfall of global capitalism.

Sadly for Mauris, as he knew all along, the flag fliers were marking an Islamic ceremony that was taking place inside the converted building. They seemed to be celebrating an eighth or ninth century martyrdom and perhaps their chanting could be the sound of the future, just as much as, if not more than, the tinkling teaspoons of the coast

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