All things must come to an end and it saddens me to report that Elephant Books(1) will soon be closing its doors for the last time. Every single book is currently half price but once it's gone it's gone, so if you're in or near Leeds get yourself down there.

I was up there the other day and was talking to a friend about what I'm currently reading, ('Out' by Natsuo Kirino) I related how, some time ago, I had realised that almost everything I read was written by white AngloAmerican guys.

As a result I made a conscious effort to try and read literature both from further afield and written by women. I must admit I've done better with the first than the second, though Natsuo Kirino is a woman. Anyway, the reason this was important to me was that what I read plays a significant part in making me who I am.

I felt it was important to get as wide a range of viewpoints as possible, to gain a better understanding of things I can/have never experience/d. I already had an interest in some aspects of Asian culture through computer games, martial arts films and animation so this seemed like a good place to start.

I left this particular visit to the elephant with two books under my arm. One was a collection of short stories by a young Native American guy, a culture I've long been interested in but have only ever heard of rather than from. The second was by an old South African guy , again somewhere far removed from my own everyday life.

Now I stand by everything I've said so far but, during this now overly vaunted visit to my favourite second hand bookshop, I began to realise that my viewpoint required another adjustment. I was talking about having watched the first episode of 'Spiral', a French crime thriller that was apparently huge across the channel.

It was interesting enough for me to want to see the next one, (I know I've missed it, I'll catch the repeat,) but one thing in particular really stuck in my head. Rather than pondering the plot or the characters I spent most of the episode trying to work out just how the fuck the French legal system works.

What really struck me was how significantly alien the show looked and felt. In my search to find variety and people with lives different to myself I had pretty discounted Europe and the US out of hand. Watching 'Spiral' however I realised that even these guys next door, with whom we have a longer and more closely tangled history than anyone else, have a viewpoint distinct enough to be valuable.

A couple of points made, maybe I'll just leave it there...

...no ok, I can't, so third and finally:

I went out on my second ever site visit at work today. For those who don't know I'm only a mentally ill, dope smoking writer by night. During the day I'm a mentally ill, dope smoking civil servant. It pays the bills. Anyway I spend my days arranging and facilitating the repair and maintenance of council properties.

Now sometimes there are leaks in blocks of flats and, unlike houses, these can cause huge damage to lots of properties if left unchecked. Sometimes, however, it's not always possible to get hold of people to make an appointment to get into a property. It's usually just people who work nights but sometimes they'll be on holiday or they'll have done a bunk or worse.

In order to avoid putting other tenants through the ordeal of water damage etc, (and to avoid getting sued,) we are allowed, having given 24 hours notice, to force entry to properties to fix the problem. Anyway I arrange all this and today my boss and I went out to oversee just such an operation.

There were various things about the state of the interior that suggested our tenant had fled in a panic and left the country. Now it has to be said that I never hear from the vast majority of our tenants who probably live their lives much as I do.

It is also true however, that many of the people I do hear from have their front doors kicked in on a very regular basis, by the police if they're lucky, by 'persons unknown' if not. These people live in the same city as me, in fact some of them quite literally round the corner.

These people's lives are utterly different to mine, lacking things I take so much for granted I didn't even recognise their existence, like being able to sit in my front room and feel safe behind by front door. Thinking further I realise that during another recent visit to Elephant I bumped into a homeless mate of mine.

I hadn't seen him for months and, based on the state he was in on that last occasion I had started to fear the worst. I am very glad to be able to say that he had put some weight on and looked much stronger. But here was someone right in front of me who's everyday routine I couldn't even imagine.

Once recognised this concept spread out through my life in great ripples. After my site visit I returned to the office. Most of the people I work with began their careers as craftsmen and while they may not have much in the way of academic education there isn't much they don't know about what they do.

Having spent most of my life in streamed formal education and then working in a shop among an almost exclusively disillusioned-graduate workforce I have had distinct lack of contact with anyone beyond my own peer group.

I've enjoyed getting to know my work colleagues and I continue to enjoy working with them. As well as this though I feel lucky to have the chance to get to know and understand people who've led lives different my own, it shows in the way they think and work and there's plenty I can learn from them.

I realise now I'm not really sure where this is going but I guess there're are a few basic points to take away from these semi-random notes:

you don't have to look to the other side of the globe to find a different world, you walk through thousands every day,

the stories of most of the people around us are not being told, where're the books and the art from council estates rather than about them? not in our mainstream, that's for sure,

while reading about people different to yourself can be eye opening, actually meeting and sharing something with such people is not only more informative but much more pleasant as well,

footnote

(1) to find out how to get to Elephant Books just take a quick look http://underthecheapseats.blog.co.uk and hit the ELEPHANT BOOKS tag.