I’m a bit of a wexter. You probably are too. And yes, that’s a bad thing
|
Version 0 of 1. We all have bad habits, and now there’s an appropriately nasty word for mine: wexting (using your phone as you walk). I’ve got it down to a fine art: walk, scroll, glance up, stop, tap, walk. A lot of the time, rather like a teenage boy, I have been wexting without realising I’m doing it. I don’t think this awful expression is going to catch on, by the way, so I’m just making the most of it while it’s new. Habitual wexting is not going to send me blind. But I do think it is making me behave antisocially. The tipping point? This week I noticed a photograph of women priests celebrating the first female bishop, holding their phone screens aloft, like fans at a One Direction concert, as they paraded outside York Minster. They were at the consecration of the new suffragan bishop and they were merrily wexting away. In some ways it was a sweet image. I applauded it as a sign of the church changing and being part of the real world. But they also looked like aliens with a third eye glued to their hands. A new book out this week, The Organized Mind by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, argues that non-stop screen-checking is warping our brains. The constant processing of new information causes a surge of the stress hormone cortisol, he says. The overstimulation results in (technical term here) “mental fog”. I’m sure he’s right. But it has taken something less scientific to make me see the error of my ways. Just look around. Some of the women priests appeared to have sourced phone cases to match the colour of their clerical robes. Go to any public transport waiting area and everyone – of all ages – is on their screen now. It used to be a minority. Then it was most people. Now it is everyone. We must all stop being a bit of a wexter. Don’t stop doing it for the sake of your brain. But to save your soul. I will lead the way. All shall have prizes When I am not wexting (and I will now officially stop wexting), I spend a lot of time thinking about why books become popular and whether book prizes matter anymore. Disclosure: I’ve just signed up as a judge of the Desmond Elliot Prize for Debut Fiction and have to read a lot of new novels. In the olden days (that is, until about three years ago), prizes were everything – for prestige, but also for sales. Now, though, they can only augment word of mouth: they can’t replace it. Last year We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler, was on the Booker shortlist. Now it’s outselling the winner, Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Why? Reader power: 1,286 Amazon reviews versus Flanagan’s 394. The Facebook jury and the Amazon commenters are not only replacing the literary reviewing industry, they’re in danger of putting prizes out of business too. So while I’m happy to judge one, I know my place. Clooney and the JFK gesture I take the smears against George Clooney’s character with a pinch of cipolla secca (Italian onion salt). Reports of George’s stag do at Ristorante da Ivo near St Mark’s Square with the free £3,000 meal featuring six flavours of ice cream, including takeaway cartons, initially irked me. Apparently the tip was small but he kissed the chef, Giorgina Mazzero. Bit tacky for someone supposedly planning a presidential bid, surely? First, though, this does sound like the sort of thing JFK would do. Second, reading between the lines, I think this is less evidence of George’s debauchery and more proof of the Venetian propensity to exaggerate. I know George. He would never eat gelato after zabaglione. @vivgroskop |