Connecting need not be by phone

From the Bolton Evening News, first published Monday 24th Jul 2006.

LIFE was all about connecting, according to EM Forster, yet in reality it's just as much about failing to do so.

The EM Forster reference, by the way, isn't an attempt to demonstrate any degree of intelligence (as an IQ-related aside, a large family called Forster used to live opposite us as a child and it was rumoured that there were so many of them because the mother repeatedly refused to take the pill so the father swallowed it), it's just the one thing I remember about him (apart from a collective sniggering at the title of Howards End) from school.

Connecting, be it inter-personal, inter-continental, or Inter City train, is not something we do very well in this country. Yet, somehow, we get by.

Forster's work concerned itself with the connections of class, nationality, economic status, and how each of these affects personal relationships and, in my own way, I found myself connecting with the author and his ideas last weekend.

I don't see my brother too often, yet last Saturday night we managed to meet up for a couple of drinks. Totally by accident.

I had travelled with my partner over to Leeds to spend the night and, after a few drinks, decided to go for a meal in an Indian restaurant. On entering, I was told there was a half-hour wait for a table and to leave my name.

On doing so, I was informed that someone of the same name was already on the waiting list and could I give another name. Yes, it was my brother.

He was 25 miles from home, I was 45, neither of us knew the other was in Leeds and neither had been in this restaurant before.

It's a good job we get on these days, otherwise there could have been trouble. Indeed, the doorman asked if this was a possibility.

The point is though that we connected, without trying.

Similarly, the hotel in which we staying had the X-Factor's Louis Walsh, Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne as guests just a couple of days before our arrival. Louis, who had stayed in the same room as us, was, apparently, quite nice, as was Simon Cowell. Sharon Osbourne, however, apparently arrived with an entourage and several dogs in tow.

The hotel manager said she left behind something of a mess, which was left to her "bag-packer" to clear up.

We, I hasten, to add, did not leave behind any mess, but in our own way, by staying in the hotel, had connected with the three X-Factor judges and, as a result, the thousands of hopefuls that spent their time queuing in Leeds in the hope of securing some audition time and, ultimately, a career in the pop industry.

They could find themselves as famous as previous X-factor winners such as Steve Brookstein. Exactly.

The point is that whatever walk of life you are from you can, however briefly, and usually totally at random, make a connection with someone who generally totally remote from you.

The wannabe from a broken family can briefly mix with the likes of multi-millionaire Osbourne, and hopefully go on to prove that money doesn't mean you have to behave in a certain manner.

Or, you could let a communications company do the connecting and pick up the phone to your brother more often.

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