Interior Life of an Estate Agent. Part 2

Here's a conundrum. My car insurance needs renewing. Honest as ever, I tell my insurers that I work at the weekend and use my car for work. I am told that, it is most likely that if I use the car for business, the insurance premium will go up. If I use the car for business and don't tell the Insurance Company, then I won't be covered should I have an accident.

My difficulty is this: if I was driving my car to my voluntary work, at the theatre, then I would be covered; if I am driving the same car to the shops, to the beach etc, I would be covered. If, however, I drive to a house where I meet prospective purchasers, show them round, then drive back to the office, I will not be covered - unless, of course, I pay a higher premium.

Roads are roads are roads, and traffic is an unknown quantity. At any point on any journey, to the theatre, to work, around the county for work, or on any recreational journey, I could have the misfortune to be in a collision. I don't understand why the Saturday driving carries any more risk than any of the other journeys. Do people drive more recklessly in work time, then take it easy on the way home? It goes against the grain to discard my natural honesty but, should I have an accident, would it not be more sensible to say I was on my way to the shops? My salary is a princely £42 per week. My car insurance is already £284 per year. I could be spending my meagre salary on an increased premium if I 'fess up.

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OLD JOY. Dir Kelly Reichardt. 2005

Dropout Kurt arrives in town and calls up his old friend, earnest father-to-be Mark to suggest a camping trip out in the forest, away from the city. They haven’t seen each other for some time and the film suggests a desire for intimacy as well as a quest for peace. Something of a lost soul, Kurt is emotional and, at times, to be pitied. He lives outside society, in a world of new age type retreats and travels, which seem to have left him out on the margins. In contrast, Mark has a home and a pregnant partner, and tunes his car radio in to phone-ins with much loud chat about the state of society in America but he seems only half alive. They drive out of town, with the camera as passenger, which gazes out of the car window while a gorgeous soundtrack by Yo La Tengo sets a mellow mood. The use of extended silence makes me a little uneasy; it’s hard to get away from memories of Deliverance, and a sense of apprehension. In the city, the glass of the car windows insulates us...

Interior Life of an Estate Agent - part 18

You're not from round 'ere then? I am surrounded by delightful young families, happily retired couples, or contented empty nesters, enjoying their return to pre-children companionship and some freedom from parental responsibility, as well as a large number of women who have escaped their marriages and bought a dog, preferring long walks and book clubs. One of the imbalanced things about living in the west country, as with living in the farther reaches of Scotland, is that there is a surfeit of single women and a dearth of suitable single men. The men are wage slaves, and to be found in the south-east whereas women, on the whole, like a bit of a view. This must be the centrifugal effect, as though single women have been flung out from the frenzied middle of a dance, and have landed, like so many wallflowers on the hard chairs all around the dance hall. I can tell you; those chairs are hard; and sitting on them makes you invisible; not, however, to the sort of man who has an ...

Ian McEwan. Amsterdam. London: QPD, 1998

McEwan’s novel about ambition, personal betrayal and revenge features Clive, a modern composer trying to complete a major orchestral work, his friend Vernon, an editor trying to save his ailing newspaper, and Garmony, an unscrupulous right-wing politician on the rise. In common, all three have, in previous years, been lovers of recently dead Molly. They meet at her funeral and the story follows the next few weeks of the men’s lives. Vernon and Clive act as one another’s conscience, each infuriating the other. Which is more important, honesty, friendship and trust or Vernon’s newspaper and Clive’s symphony? The novel presents the difficulties of balancing personal and public morality, the importance of private shame and public reputation, the conflict between taking a moral decision for the greater good, or putting first ones own desires. Not just a simple exposé of a politician with a vulnerable side, Amsterdam is full of double standards and surprises, and takes a long, cynical look a...

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