Daily Entertainment: Hobbies! What Are Your Hobbies?
I hate that question. At parties, someone, desperate for social interaction, will ask it as you gather in a nervous group by the punch-bowl. And you just know, don't you, that the question is going to be taken up by a balding chap called Douglas who 'goes to the South of France for wine tasting every summer with the little woman' and you just know that the next hour and a half is going to be spent desperately grinning and nodding till you are finally drunk enough either not to care while he expounds on the relative merits of Reisling or Sauvignon Blanc.
Sometimes someone will get in before Douglas and say shopping. In a way they're worse than Douglas the Wine Bore, because all that actually means is they want you to pick an item of clothing or accessory and comment on it. There are two ways they will answer your unwilling enquiry. It'll either come from a little street market and have been a complete bargain, or it will have come from a little boutique somewhere in Soho and have cost an absolute fortune. Your own clothes are of course, gorgeous, oh, what do you mean it's off the rack? You wear it so well darling, I couldn't tell. At that point, it is of course acceptable to shoot them in the face.
Those who say 'socialising' or 'drinking' (usually with a slightly forced laugh) are dead inside. What that actually means is they spend most nights sitting on the couch with a jar of Branston pickle in one hand and the Sky remote in the other. What you don't know is that this is the first night they haven't just got in from work and changed straight into their pyjamas in about a week. I should know, we can smell our own.
I much prefer questions like 'What is your favourite fruit?' 'What would you do if you won fifty grand on the Lottery?' 'What is a song that you remember from your childhood?' Big daft questions that invite a group discussion about nothing much, but leave everyone feeling good.
Of course, if you are at the party and you can't shake off this mewling idiot who is so desperate to know what you do out of work, and cannot be fobbed off by the relative merits of water-melons, then there are a number of answers that can work, and won't require dismembering anyone. Reading is a good one. I enjoy lots of different books, though I really don't read as much as I used to. Or travel. I don't understand how you could consider it a hobby, but you can and people do. That means that everyone can talk about ghastly foreigners, that odd bug they picked up in Tenerife and a funny little place they went to in Brussels, you must try it if you ever go...
The one thing I never admit to drawing. Or art, I suppose, although I've never worked with anything more arty than charcoal. This is for a number of reasons. Saying 'I like to draw' makes you sound about three. The shopper will look at you with a mixture of pity and confusion, like you've just admitted you like to watch In The Night Garden, while Douglas the Wine Bore will say 'Ah, one of those bohemian types, eh?' with an approving leer at the neckline and a death-glare from his neatly coiffed 'little woman'. The socialising and drinking crowd will either ask you to draw them (with a high-pitched aren't-I-funny giggle) or demand you show them something you've done recently, like you keep a portfolio in your bag.
The thing is, I don't draw for anyone else. I send Mum and Dad a still life every year for Christmas, a tradition started when money was a lot tighter. They have them all up in their study. I have sketchpads full of things I saw while I was overseas. Temples, trees, even the occasional person (though I've never been very good at people). I'm not going to do anything with them. They just are. I might show them to someone, but they'd have to ask. I'd never publish any of my attempts at fan-art (mainly because they would be eviscerated by the critics). I only have one page that I would consider putting on my own wall. (Because putting your own art on the wall in a frame and everything always struck me as a little gauche.) I did it way back in uni. It's mainly a half-full wine bottle and a toy car. But there's a picture of Mike too (a little cartoon-y, he must have been watching me, which would explain why I've rather cruelly labelled it 'Still Life') and That Thing glowering at me with one eye. I've got John on there too. He can't have been watching me, we must have been watching telly. It's a good picture. He's laughing at something, completely relaxed. I know that I'm not much cop at this art lark, and I've improved with time, but it's a little moment in time, an average evening, and I've caught it, in my own way. And that's why I draw.
Of course, if I did say this at a party, I would soon find myself alone at the punch-bowl with only a few floating orange pips to keep me company. So I suppose if you asked me what my hobbies are, I'd say watching movies, or reading, and that would be that.
Sometimes someone will get in before Douglas and say shopping. In a way they're worse than Douglas the Wine Bore, because all that actually means is they want you to pick an item of clothing or accessory and comment on it. There are two ways they will answer your unwilling enquiry. It'll either come from a little street market and have been a complete bargain, or it will have come from a little boutique somewhere in Soho and have cost an absolute fortune. Your own clothes are of course, gorgeous, oh, what do you mean it's off the rack? You wear it so well darling, I couldn't tell. At that point, it is of course acceptable to shoot them in the face.
Those who say 'socialising' or 'drinking' (usually with a slightly forced laugh) are dead inside. What that actually means is they spend most nights sitting on the couch with a jar of Branston pickle in one hand and the Sky remote in the other. What you don't know is that this is the first night they haven't just got in from work and changed straight into their pyjamas in about a week. I should know, we can smell our own.
I much prefer questions like 'What is your favourite fruit?' 'What would you do if you won fifty grand on the Lottery?' 'What is a song that you remember from your childhood?' Big daft questions that invite a group discussion about nothing much, but leave everyone feeling good.
Of course, if you are at the party and you can't shake off this mewling idiot who is so desperate to know what you do out of work, and cannot be fobbed off by the relative merits of water-melons, then there are a number of answers that can work, and won't require dismembering anyone. Reading is a good one. I enjoy lots of different books, though I really don't read as much as I used to. Or travel. I don't understand how you could consider it a hobby, but you can and people do. That means that everyone can talk about ghastly foreigners, that odd bug they picked up in Tenerife and a funny little place they went to in Brussels, you must try it if you ever go...
The one thing I never admit to drawing. Or art, I suppose, although I've never worked with anything more arty than charcoal. This is for a number of reasons. Saying 'I like to draw' makes you sound about three. The shopper will look at you with a mixture of pity and confusion, like you've just admitted you like to watch In The Night Garden, while Douglas the Wine Bore will say 'Ah, one of those bohemian types, eh?' with an approving leer at the neckline and a death-glare from his neatly coiffed 'little woman'. The socialising and drinking crowd will either ask you to draw them (with a high-pitched aren't-I-funny giggle) or demand you show them something you've done recently, like you keep a portfolio in your bag.
The thing is, I don't draw for anyone else. I send Mum and Dad a still life every year for Christmas, a tradition started when money was a lot tighter. They have them all up in their study. I have sketchpads full of things I saw while I was overseas. Temples, trees, even the occasional person (though I've never been very good at people). I'm not going to do anything with them. They just are. I might show them to someone, but they'd have to ask. I'd never publish any of my attempts at fan-art (mainly because they would be eviscerated by the critics). I only have one page that I would consider putting on my own wall. (Because putting your own art on the wall in a frame and everything always struck me as a little gauche.) I did it way back in uni. It's mainly a half-full wine bottle and a toy car. But there's a picture of Mike too (a little cartoon-y, he must have been watching me, which would explain why I've rather cruelly labelled it 'Still Life') and That Thing glowering at me with one eye. I've got John on there too. He can't have been watching me, we must have been watching telly. It's a good picture. He's laughing at something, completely relaxed. I know that I'm not much cop at this art lark, and I've improved with time, but it's a little moment in time, an average evening, and I've caught it, in my own way. And that's why I draw.
Of course, if I did say this at a party, I would soon find myself alone at the punch-bowl with only a few floating orange pips to keep me company. So I suppose if you asked me what my hobbies are, I'd say watching movies, or reading, and that would be that.