Come on let’s talk about me!

Indeed, you cannot write twice weekly newspaper columns without being somewhat fascinated by yourself and all you do - it rather embarrassingly goes with the territory I’m afraid. Nevertheless, it never ceases to amaze me just how ‘self-centric’ we’ve been encouraged to become by all-and-sundry - from vacuous television presenters, to touchy-feely young royals in need of a selfless new cause to bash us over the head with. I wouldn’t ordinarily mind, but I would love to have been paid a pound for every time I have either read, or heard first hand, someone describe in mind numbing detail the part of their life’s journey they are embarked upon at the moment. Shockingly perhaps, I am fast becoming a counter-revolutionary; in that - I now long for a glimpse of shallowness and glibness in famous people, rather than having to listen to them grinding on about their sodding ‘journeys’ and all the good they wish to do, or have done, for the benefit of mankind. To my mind, self obsession is a strange beast, it makes us seek out answers where there are none. It demands that the ordinary be complicated, the everyday meaningful, the straightforward profound - and so on.

Recently, when reading women’s magazines, which frankly has always been considered a bit-of-a-worry by my friends - I have noticed that they have become dominated by ‘Why I love me’ features. Not that it is just women who suffer from self obsession - no, men can be shockers in this regard as well. Take for instance the ageing rock star I heard on the wireless last week, he talked as if his life and career were some sort of ‘second-coming’ such was his pleasure at just being him. Strictly speaking, that may not be self obsession in the strictest sense, just some bloke being blindingly, self-mutilatingly tedious, which isn’t quite the same thing I suppose. No, my friends, real self obsession goes beyond a healthy interest in No 1 - it articulates itself through the quite abject desire only to be interested in what you are doing or thinking to the exclusion of all other things. Quite frankly, what he wants to do, is tell you about him and what he thinks, and the only possible use you could be to him is to sit and listen in complete and silent awe. I think that there’s a lot of it about - you know, self obsession - don’t you think? Now, that’s a silly thing to say, as I really couldn’t care less what you think - so there!