Virginia Blackburn

I’ve just had new bookshelves put up in the hall, a whole wall-full of them, and for the first time in years, books that have been forgotten are finding a home. There are far more books than there is shelf space, so I’ve had to select which ones to display, and I’ve discovered a surprising amount about myself. Anyone coming into the flat will see them and make judgments on my literary tastes and so most of my new library is pretty erudite stuff. Martin Amis is getting a good show. The chick lit is banished to the spare room. But that’s not even the start of it. I am in possession of quite a number of books that I loathe, but that make me look well read.

It was when I was going up in the lift that it struck me. The elevator stopped, the doors opened and a giant 'ding dong' filled the air to announce that we had arrived, the kind of thing that would amuse a five year old because it was nothing like the more usual 'ping' that you would expect. But this one was not filled with toddlers, it was filled with senior copywriters, wearing their onesies and clutching their giant over-sweetened coffees flavoured with vanilla and cinnamon and other babyish condiments. And it was then that I realised. No matter how old you get, we are living in a generation of children who will never grow up. No one grows up any more, or at least precious few do.

It was an averagely OK evening at one of London’s smarter restaurants: the food was edible, the wine wasn’t vinegar, the company was quite adequate and I managed to return home without actively wanting to shoot myself, which is always a plus. But a mere 12 hours later these feelings of nondescript non-satisfaction turned into a boiling rage, because it had happened yet again: an email pinged into my inbox. ‘Rate last night’s experience at London’s finest,’ it urged. ‘Were you a) Extremely impressed with the restaurant? b) Quite impressed? c) Neither impressed nor distressed...’ And so it went on, pages of it, because you cannot do a blinking thing these days without being asked to fill in a customer satisfaction survey.

It’s become a given: we are all stalkers now. Thanks to Google, Twitter, Facebook and the fact that absolutely nobody seems to have the faintest idea about privacy settings, it is easier to keep track of people on the other side of the world than ever it was to snoop on a village neighbour from behind the safety of a lace curtain. But a strange and sinister new phenomenon has begun to emerge. Call it secondary stalking. Even the stalkers are being stalked now. This was brought home to me the other night when I was having dinner with one of my closest friends, who I will call Andrew (gay, as it happens, so no romantic implications in what follows).