To be honest, my main concern was whether my wife would tolerate it; not everyone wants a poster reading “Strong and stable my arse” in their front window. I’d got one of the Jeremy Deller prints, mocking Theresa May’s campaign slogan, from my friend Robin, who’d ordered a stack for his bar. Once home, it went straight up: I wanted to say something about the election, but couldn’t quite bring myself to put up a party poster. “It’s art, innit?” said my wife, granting her approval.
That was just over a week ago. And it has become the single most interesting thing about our house in its history. “There are always people taking photos of that poster,” my 13-year-old son noted on Sunday (he’s the one wandering the streets most often; he’d know). “It’s peng.”
Last Wednesday evening, I left the house to discover a group of 20 or so people – God knows what a tour group was doing in my residential part of north London – with several of them photographing my front window. They didn’t even look up as I left the house, until I took a photo of them: “Now he’s taking a photo of you taking photos,” someone called out, and everyone laughed. Same thing on Saturday, when I went out to watch the football. “That’s fucking brilliant,” said one young fella to his mate, as they both took photos, ignoring me walking out of the door alongside the poster.
Then there was the woman who came to the door last week and rang the bell. “I was just passing by and I noticed your poster. Could you tell me where I could get one?” A couple of days later, another woman knocked on the door. “I don’t want to disturb you,” she said. “I just wanted to say how wonderful your poster is. Quite right. What a fantastic thing.”
I suspect I’m only seeing the tip of the iceberg. How many more people are knocking and photographing when I’m out? And, given I keep the shutters drawn because I hate people seeing into our squalid little world, how many people are taking photos without my knowing?
Britons, as if we didn’t know, love to mock. They like anything that takes the mighty down a peg or two, no matter how windmill-tilting that gesture might be. We don’t like to be told what we need, we don’t like to be told we are #reeling. Think you can change that? My arse.
