Suburban. Surburban, thats what I am, one of the most revilled forms of humanity. I live in the suburbs on the outskirts of a city. Safe and sound in the boring suburbs. But, the suburbs generated the Beatles, Rolling Stones, UK punk, New Romantics, Teddy Boys, Skinheads, Mods, Rockers, and so on. Now I would say the suburbs are so boring that we must do something to make them fun ! Start a new trend maybe, steal a bit of reggae and a bit of punk and make Two Tone ? Wear big boots and kick someones teeth out for fun ? Of course ! The perfect antidote to a life of neatly-kept lawns, keeping up with the Jones's, semi-detached hell ! Drive through the suburbs of any big UK town and where are you ? Manchester ? London ? Birmingham ? They pretty well look the same. Now this can also be said of most of the US suburbs I have seen, long straight roads, every mile or two a cross-roads with identical mall-like sets of shops and take-aways, interspersed with groups of identical houses with identical cars and pools in the back yard.
In the UK it has become almost identical, at least the roads and shops, but at least we still have rows and rows of identical semi-detached houses, a style seemingly unique to this country. Whereas Johnny Foriegner prefers apartments, we have a single house split in two, with each half a mirror image. It is so odd to go into your neighbours house to find an Alice through the looking glass image of your own house !
The suburbs are'nt just semi-detached houses, they are a way of life, a force that sucks people in ! Immigrants from far flung and exoctic outposts of the once mighty empire originally populated the cheap and run-down inner cities. Now as they are going to the suburbs. On balmy Sunday afternoons the aroma of over-cooked cabbage has to jostle with curry ! But these are not classless areas these all-embracing suburbs, there are subtle gradations within them;
semi-detatched 3 bedrooms, semi-detatched 4 bedrooms, detached, link detached, single-car garage, double-car garage, what sort of car ? 4 wheel-drive ? Jaguar ? Mercedes ? BMW ? Ford Mondeo ? How many buttons on your jacket cuff ? Single breated or double breasted ? Cufflinks or buttons ? Silk or polyester tie ? Look closer and the seeming uniformity goes, replaced by complex layers of style, money, taste.
Oh shit, I've got a long drive home in a Volvo. Shit name for a shit car. How did these stupid lumps become so popular ? Is it becuase the twee middle classes drove them in the 70s and 80s ? They are so stupid looking that only head teachers and college lecturers would want to drive them. Now they seem to have moved into the company car arena, no doubt because dull company men (like me) want to look to drive something that is'nt a dull salesman type company car. But that is what they are, dull salesman like company cars, these Volvos.
Oh well, its not for long, or so I hope.