Cultual Bazaare

Many people argue how multicultural London is. Some say it’s New York that has the greatest blend of cultures.

On Sunday I found myself in the most culturally diverse location I have ever found myself in. In just a few minutes more cultural backgrounds passed me than you’d find on your average Census form. There was the Penelope Keith-alike upper-class wannabe women with her husband who wears Levi jeans and a faded polo shirt because he secretly likes pretending to be working class. There were the football hooligans emblazoned with pigment-permanent testaments to former loves like ‘Tracy’ and ‘Dawn’ scribed indelibly on their forearms whilst their football heroes are replaced seasonally on their teams colours.There were the Indian family carrying a two small children in their arms. There were the young trendy twenty-something Graphic Designers complete with matching thick plastic-rimmed glasses as if they were a walking Specsavers advertisement, in stark juxtaposition to the soon-to-be Etonians with the starched collars of their rugby shirts turned inside-out.

So where was I? Times Square? Piccadilly Circus?

Hilton Park Services (Southbound) on the M6. Quite possibly the greatest debaser of class on the planet are the motorway services. They reduce us to our basic human needs: toilet necessities and a hunger for crap coffee.

This must leave a tough marketing decision for the people at Muzak central. Supermarket muzak can be ’80s pop aimed at the Shirley Valentine generation, who buy greek yoghurt in the hope it will whisk them off to some far-flung beach. Sports shops play all manner of 120bpm dance ditties to remind them of the gym as they all walk around in time to the music looking like participants in some John Inman-esque ‘mincing’ competition.

So what did we have in Hilton Park? Leaders of the world have spent decades trying to unite the classes, to break down cultural divides and national boundaries, but it appears the one thing that must unite us all at some base, natural, primordial level is a mutual admiration for Canadian Pop Princess Celine Dion.

Marvelous. The Planet Earth: demographically proven to like Celine Dion.