I’ve noticed on recent trips outside London that being a “Londoner” tends to make you a bit of a snob towards the rest of the UK. A few weeks ago I visited a mid-sized town approximately 1.5 hours north of London. Upon arrival at the tiny railway station, there could be seen a group of around 10 middle-aged men all looking rather dishevelled and bored. OK, I thought, they must be waiting for the next train out of this middle-of-nowhere hole. Two hours later when I returned to take the train back to London I was surprised to see that they were still there – upon closer inspection I noticed they were all carrying small notepads and some had cameras – this could only mean one thing: Trainspotters, otherwise known as Anoraks (persons with unimaginative/dull hobbies). What brings people to spend their free time watching trains and recording useless trivia about them I will never know but unfortunately, this sort of activity only reinforces the idea that there isn’t much life outside the capital (even though this isn’t really true… with a few exceptions)!
In Japan, they have a word for similar sorts of behaviour: Otaku – a term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly in anime and manga, but can also refer to any fan of, or specialisation in any particular theme, topic, or hobby. The author William Gibson defined Otaku as “pathological-techno-fetishist-with-social-deficit” which is an interesting take on the way people collect data as opposed to objects in the information age. There are of course different extremes to which this can be taken and I guess we all are collectors to an extent…
I’m off to Amsterdam tomorrow but will be back later next week and will hopefully have a bit more time over the festive season to post more frequently 🙂
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