The rich are different

And The White Lotus doesn't always get them right

Like most of the world I have been hooked on the third season of The White Lotus. But with one added attraction: having stayed at the Four Seasons Koh Samui (where  the show is mainly set) I take particular pleasure in identifying familiar locations. For instance, the villa I stayed in with my husband is featured as is the restaurant where we ate most of our meals. 

But as I watched the third episode of the third series I couldn’t help but reflect on all that series gets wrong about luxury properties like these and the people who holiday in them. 

First up, no millionaire — or more accurately, billionaire — would dream of arriving at a resort like this in a communal boat that he or she has to share with other guests. The one thing money buys in these quarters is absolute privacy. So, if there wasn’t a private plane in the mix there would most certainly be a private boat for transfer to the hotel. 

I guess it is important when it comes to advancing the plot to make the guests gather around the main swimming pool where they can interact with and irritate one another. But in my experience, the main swimming pool in properties such as those featured in The White Lotus tends to remain empty because all the guests are living in villas that have their own private pools. And they would not dream of venturing forth to share a swimming pool with strangers when they could be happily skinny dipping in complete privacy. 

One of the more jarring inconsistencies revolves around the character of Belinda, the spa manager who features in the first season and makes a reappearance in this one. Even though she is a member of staff and is only here for training purposes, she gets to stay in a guest villa rather than in staff quarters — which would never happen in real life. And what’s more, she also gets to eat in the restaurants (again an absolute no-no for staff members) with other paying customers. I guess that was the only way to ensure she bumps into a character from a previous season (don’t worry; no spoilers here) to potentially blow his cover. But nonetheless the inconsistency jars given the strict no-fraternisation-with-guests policy in most such resorts. 

What the show does get right is how loath guests at these hotels are to interact with one another. There is an excruciating scene where one female character reminds the other that they met at a baby shower some years ago only to met with steely indifference and a studied lack of recognition. And the resident Lothario at the property spends all his time getting snubbed by the women he tries to hit on. 

But I guess when it comes to shows like The White Lotus, they are not looking for verisimilitude. Instead they are offering us the chance to escape into a world that bears no relation to our day-to-day reality. The truth, however, is that our escapist fare is the reality of the .01 per cent who populate resorts like The White Lotus. And that’s what makes shows like this so fascinating, despite the minor discrepancies. 

The Harry and Meghan Show

It’s the royal soap opera; and none of us can turn away…

 

The key thing about understanding the dynamic between Harry and Meghan, still styled as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, despite flouncing out of the royal family many years ago, is that they are coming at the fame game from opposite ends of the spectrum. Prince Harry, the second son of Princess Diana, has spent his entire adult life trying to lower his profile, dodging the media, and hiding from the paparazzi. Meghan Markle, C-list actress from a cable show (which is as far from Hollywood as you can get), on the other hand, has spent her entire life trying to raise her profile by getting the media interested in her. And by marrying Prince Harry, she has certainly got more than she bargained for. 

 

But as you watch Harry and Meghan, the Netflix show on the pair’s life, you realize that instead of Harry elevating Meghan to the A-list, she has succeeded in dragging him down to the C-list. Consider this for a moment. Can you imagine any other A-list couple – think the Obamas or the Clooneys, on whom the Markles clearly model themselves – agreeing to let TV cameras into their lives to this extent? Can you see them revealing the early text messages they exchanged, intimate photos of their dating days, pictures and videos of their children? Do you really think any A-lister would offer up their life for public delectation as Harry and Meghan have? I think not. The Duke and Duchess of Netflix, on the other hand, have no problem whatsoever in invading their own privacy in spades – all the while complaining about the media intrusion into their lives. 

 

As the series unravels you can tell that Meghan is in her element; she is finally playing the lead in a show, rather than a supporting part as she had done throughout her career. And it is the role of a lifetime – more so because it is her lifetime that is being examined, burnished and then presented to what she hopes is an adoring public. It is Harry who has been reduced to playing the supporting role, nodding along to her more outrageous claims, and looking angry and helpless in equal measure as she dissolves into tears. But whatever the truth of all their claims of ill-treatment by the royal family, one thing is without doubt: this is Meghan’s world; Harry just merely lives (and whines) in it.

 

That said, it is easy to feel sorry for the artist formally known as Prince. In some ways, he is still the 12-year-old trapped in the trauma of losing his mother in a tragic accident and then being made to walk behind her coffin in front of weeping crowds. So, it is entirely understandable that he constantly compares Meghan to his mother and insists that they are essentially the same person. You don’t need to be a psychiatrist to understand why he wants to turn his wife into his mother – this way, he can finally save her. (Certainly, Harry himself is Diana incarnate in this ‘docu-series’: hurt; seeking revenge; throwing grenades into the heart of the royal family; attacking his brother; accusing his father of untruths; and the royal family of racism, or what he kindly refers to as ‘unconscious bias’.)

 

Sadly, for Harry, there are some ways in which Meghan is exactly like his mother. No, not like the Sainted Diana of Fond Memory, who has now taken over the public imagination, but the media-savvy, manipulative, vindictive Diana who has been conveniently airbrushed from history after her death. This was the Diana who was not speaking to her mother, Francis Shand-Kydd, when she died, having frozen her out and returned her letters unopened (Thomas Markle, anyone?). This was the Diana who would leak stories to favoured news outlets and sneak in her favourite journalists into Kensington Palace by hiding them in the trunk of her car. 

 

It was not privacy that either Diana or Meghan aspired to. It was control of the narrative. And that is something that Meghan and her husband have certainly achieved in his six-part series. The Duke once compared life in the royal family to being ‘a cross between the Truman show and a zoo’. Well, he’s now gone and made his own Truman show, starring in it along with his entire family.

 

I hope the money was worth it.

Face off

Why the unmasking of Elena Ferrante makes us all so uncomfortable

It was in the February of this year that I last wrote about Elena Ferrante. The English translations of her books were being launched in India, and it seemed as good an opportunity as any to write about one of my favourite authors.

The central theme of that column was how it helped that we didn’t know who Elena Ferrante actually was when we got lost in her fictional world. And how the author’s decision to hide behind pseudonymous anonymity was not just a writer’s caprice or a brilliant publicity stunt set up by her publishing house. Ferrante’s anonymity had a purpose: it allowed her the freedom to write about stuff that we struggle to acknowledge to ourselves, let alone say aloud to the world. And it was this liberty that allowed her voice to soar as high as it did; and to speak to the rest of us.

Well, today it is my unhappy duty to inform you that the veil of anonymity that Ferrante wrote behind has been rudely ripped apart by an ‘investigative journalist’ called Claudio Gatti, who discovered her true identity or, more accurately, invaded her fiercely-guarded privacy by rummaging through her financial and property records. And that he ‘outed’ the author in no less authoritative a journal than the New York Review of Books.

Well, be that as it may, I am not going to play Gatti’s game. I am not going to refer to the author of the Neopolitan Quartet of novels as anything other than her chosen nom de plume, Elena Ferrante. That is how she wishes to be known to the world. And it is not for us to decide otherwise.

Nor is it necessary to know the ‘real’ woman to appreciate what an enormously talented writer she is. That kind of autobiographical detail actually detracts rather than adds to an author’s mystique. The relationship between a writer and a reader is essentially one of imagination and a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. Sordid reality plays no part in this social contract. If anything, it takes away from the reading experience rather than add to it.

So I, for one, am not going to enquire too closely into who Elena Ferrante ‘really’ is. I don’t want to know where she grew up. I don’t care about her romantic life. I am not interested in whether she is married, divorced or single. It doesn’t bother me if she identifies as straight, gay or bisexual. And I certainly don’t need to know whether her political beliefs verge to the hard right, the liberal centre, or the extreme left.

This is not a decision I make lightly. No, it is a decision born of bitter experience. Over the years, I have lost count of the number of authors whose books stopped speaking to me when I found out too much about their personal lives or even political beliefs.

It all began when I made the decision to study English literature in college. Once I had signed up, it was not enough to just read texts – poetry, prose or drama – and appreciate them for what they were. No, we also had to learn about the author’s, their lives, their beliefs, and all that had influenced them in the course of their literary careers.

Well, given that I was the bookish, nerdish type, I entered into the enterprise with all the enthusiasm at my command. I had no idea how badly this would go.

It began with T.S. Eliot, a poet I had always admired, some of whose passages constantly played in my mind like the lines of a much-loved song (“I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”). So you can imagine my despair when my research into the person led me, somewhat inevitably, to the discovery that he had been something of an anti-Semite.

I thought I would be okay with Philip Larkin, the writer of such immortal lines as “Sexual intercourse began in Nineteen Sixty-Three (which was rather late for me). Between the end of the “Chatterly” ban And the Beatles’ first LP”. And yes, it all seemed to be going rather well until the 1992 publication of The Selected Letters of Philip Larkin.

That’s when the essential banality of Larkin’s existence was laid bare, with its judicious mix of racism, classism, sexism and misogyny. Sample quote: “The lower-class bastards can no more stop going on strike now than a laboratory rat with an electrode in its brain can stop jumping on a switch to give itself an orgasm.” Ah, quite.

Since then, I have steered clear of getting too up close and personal with writers I admire. But I thought I was on safe ground when I picked up a biography of one of my girlhood favourites, Georgette Heyer. This was a woman who had made her reputation with Regency Romances that I had read so often that I knew the punchlines and plotlines of each by heart. And what do you know? She turned out to be a fan of Enoch Powell (yes, he of the “rivers of blood” fame)!

So, thanks very much, but I am not taking any chances with Elena Ferrante. All I need to know about Ferrante, the author, lies within the covers of the many books she has written. Everything else belongs to the private person behind that name; and that person is entitled to her privacy, keeping it safe from the rapaciously prying eyes of the world.

  

Drawing the line

Your privacy is worth protecting; even at the cost of being thought rude

So, there I was in an airport lounge, sitting quietly in one corner, minding my own business. My husband, who was travelling in a wheelchair, wanted some water so I went to the buffet counter to get it. Barely had I reached into the fridge, than a voice behind me said, "Excuse me." I turned around, thinking it was a staff member offering assistance. But no, it was a complete stranger, smiling brightly at me. "Yes," I asked.

"I just saw that your husband is in a wheelchair," he said. "What is the problem?"

I suppose the easiest response would have been to explain that he was suffering from a bout of sciatica. But I was so appalled by the blatant disregard for my privacy (not to mention my husband's) and the barefaced effrontery of asking about a stranger's medical condition, that I had to pause while I got my temper under control.

So, I counted to ten and then asked in the most icy tone I could summon: "Are you a friend of his?"

Impervious to my annoyance, he responded cheerily, "No, no, I was just wondering what had happened to him."

I could have made the obvious comeback: "How is that any business of yours?"  But my manners got the better of me. "He is in pain," I said tersely and moved away.

But he was not done. "Anything serious?"

That's when my reserve of patience ran out. I turned my back to him and went back to my quiet corner, fuming all the while at the intrusiveness of strangers.

Thinking back on the encounter during the flight, I began to wonder why I had been quite so annoyed. After all, as an Indian, I have grown up in a culture where the concept of privacy doesn't seem to exist. Where even the most personal matters are the subject of public discussion. And where intrusiveness is such a fact of life that most of us cease to even notice it after a while.

Growing up, as the youngest of three kids, with a brother and a sister who were more than a decade older than me, I lost count of the number of times I heard people joke about how I must have been an 'accident'. After all, my parents had 'one of each' so the third one could only have arrived because of a failure of contraception. It was probably said good-naturedly but ever since I began to understand what it meant, it always came as a shock to hear that I had never been wanted in the first place.

More recently, I have seen much the same scenario unfold with a friend of mine. She has three daughters, all born with a year or two of one another. And every time she goes anywhere with all three of them -- whether to a PTA meeting, a family function, a birthday party, or even on a routine trip to the dentist -- she is sure to get one of the following three responses (and sometimes all three). "Three daughters? Oh, you must have been hoping for a son." "Is the shop shut? Or will you try one last time for a boy?" "How lucky, girls are the best. But doesn't your husband want a son too?"

I can only imagine how those three young girls feel when they hear these careless remarks thrown about within earshot. Do they feel worthless because, apparently, a family is never complete without a son? Do they wonder if their parents are disappointed in them because of their gender? Do they feel like failures for no fault of their own?

But somehow, everyone feels entitled to comment on other people's personal choices, or even query their life decisions. Here is just a random sample of questions that you grow up being asked in India -- not just by parents, family members, neighbors or friends; but by complete strangers in doctors' waiting rooms, on the train, and yes, even in airline lounges.

* How come you are not married yet? Divorced? Oh, what happened?

* How many kids do you have? Just the one? He is 5 already? Isn't it time you had the second one. You know, only children can grow up to be selfish and lonely.

* How long have you been married? No children? Any problems? You know, I can recommend a specialist. He helped my cousin conceive -- not once, but twice!

And then, there are the questions that are asked so that you can be placed in the social order:

* Where did you go to school?

* Did you go to college in India or abroad?

* Where do you live? Do you live in a flat or a house? How much did you pay for it? Oh, your parents left it to you? How much do you think it is worth now?

* What car do you drive? Do you drive yourself or do you have a driver?

* Where did you go for your summer holidays? Where are you planning to go for Christmas/New Year?

The questions just pile on and on and on till the intrusiveness becomes such a part of your environment that you don't even register it, let alone find it offensive.

But then comes a moment when a complete stranger walks up to you and asks you about your husband's medical condition as if he has a perfect right to do so. And that's when you begin to lay down boundaries in your own head. And promise yourself that you will safeguard them even at the cost of being seen as rude. Because, sometimes, offence is the best defence.

I spy

Is it ever a good idea to snoop on your children?

It is a scary time to be the parent of teenager. You don’t just have to cope with the ready availability of drinks and drugs, though that is hard enough. With the virtual mainstreaming of porn (available to anyone at the click of a mouse) sex is also a danger zone. Sexting, or sending sexually explicit pictures via phone texts, is rampant among the teenage population. Peer pressure forces kids to become sexual players long before they are ready for sex at an emotional level.  Sexual predators lurk in chat rooms and social media sites to prey on the young and the vulnerable. And the real world is scarcely safer, with reports of rapes and molestations coming in every day.

Combine this with the natural inclination of all kids to turn into monosyllabic creatures of mystery as soon as they hit puberty and you have a huge problem. Just when your children seem to be most vulnerable, their world is closed to you. And the only way to get even a glimpse is (not to put too fine a point on it) by snooping.

The good news is that spying on your kids has never been easier. You can use the GPS on their mobiles to track their whereabouts throughout the day. There are apps that will allow you to monitor their on-line activity – which sites they visited, what software they downloaded, etc – without their being any the wiser. And you can lurk in the corners to check out what they are posting on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (or get someone else to do the lurking for you).

But just because something is easy, should you do it? And what will you do with the information you glean? There is no way you can use it without admitting that you have been spying. And once you admit that, what will be the repercussions on your relationship with your kids? Will they ever forgive you for invading their privacy? Will they ever trust you again, given that trust goes both ways? What if they rebel against this helicopter parenting and become even more secretive than before? Given their competitive advantage in matters of technology, this is one battle you may never win.

Yet, there is no denying that our children are vulnerable on the Net. Cyber-bullying is rampant, and is sometimes so ferocious that it leads kids to kill themselves. Girls as young as 13 are pressured into sending ‘sexy’ pictures of themselves to their boyfriends; who then circulate them among their friends when the ‘relationship’ ends. And you only have to read reports about the Steubenville rape to see how Instagram, Twitter and other social networks are used to humiliate and shame.

So, when it comes right down to it, would you spy on your teenager? And does it ever turn out well?

Well, the jury is out on that one. I know parents who predicate their relationship with their teenage kids on trust and allow them their space. They respect the boundaries their kids put up and their children respond by being open and sharing their lives with them. But this hands-off attitude doesn’t work for everyone – and may even be downright dangerous for some.

On the other extreme, there are parents who believe that knowledge is power and maintain a constant surveillance on their kids. And while their kids may stay safe as a consequence, their relationship with their children does not exactly flourish. The kids resent the constant interference; and the implication that they are not to be trusted.

So what is a parent to do? It’s a tough one. You can’t really abdicate all responsibility for keeping your kids safe on the grounds that they are entitled to their privacy. On the other hand, you don’t want to be so intrusive that they shut themselves off from you forever. It is a fine line that separates caring from smothering; and parents will find themselves on the wrong side of it one time or another.

But the perils of prying work both ways. In one of my favourite episodes of Modern Family, Claire Dunphy joins Facebook and badgers her two teenage daughters into accepting her friend request in the hope of keeping tabs on their lives. But the tables are turned when an embarrassing photo of Claire – in her wild college days – is posted on Facebook by one of her old friends. It is Claire who is left red-faced as she tries (and fails) to delete the image. 

There is a lesson for us all there. Just as there is some stuff you don’t want your kids to know about you, there is some stuff that your kids don’t want to share with you. It’s all a part of growing up, becoming their own person, inhabiting their own world. And whether it is real life or the virtual world, you have to learn to let go.

That said, I have to admit that spying by parents can teach kids a valuable lesson: that nothing you post on the Internet, no matter how well you monitor your privacy settings, is ever private. Each photo, Facebook post or tweet will live on forever in the ether. The only way to keep things really private is to keep them off the Net. But to delight of spying parents everywhere, that’s one thing Generation Next seems incapable of doing.

Public figures; private lives

It’s time to make the case for privacy, as social media creates public personas for us all

So, once more we return to that old chestnut: are public figures entitled to keep their private lives private?

This time, the question is prompted by recent media reports on the state of a chief minister’s marriage. So relentless was the speculation and so vicious some of the rumour-mongering that the chief minister had no choice but to issue a statement to set the record straight – which, of course, only gave a further fillip to the coverage. Now all the newspapers which had ignored the story ran holier-than-thou pieces on how the fine line between public and private lives had been transgressed by the media – quite ignoring the fact that they were just as guilty.

I am aware that I am laying myself open to such criticism as well, but now that the issue is on the top of most people’s minds, I think it’s worth risking opprobrium to make a few points.

And so, back to our question: are public figures entitled to private lives? Well, there’s no easy ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to that one. But there are some rules that the Indian media have, on the whole, adhered to all these years. And for the most part, they have served us well.

First up, there has always been a clear distinction between how we treat politicians and other people in the public life. Film stars, models, singers, sports stars have always had their love lives scrutinised, their marriages and affairs reported, their break-ups gossiped about. But politicians and, to some extent, businessmen have always been granted a measure of privacy as far as their love lives are concerned.

And no, there was no double standard at work here. The logic was that film stars and other entertainment celebrities had no problems discussing their private lives in their interviews. They happily talked about their boyfriends/husbands, dished the dirt on their break-ups, and announced their engagements/weddings with much fanfare (think John Abraham and Bipasha Basu or Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya). So given that they themselves opened the door to their homes, in a manner of speaking, they had no right to complain if we all turned into Peeping Toms.

But when it came to politicians, the game was played according to different rules. As long as politicians didn’t bring their wives and families into the public domain, we steered clear of reporting on their private lives, no matter how tangled they might be. As long as their private lives didn’t impact on how they performed their public duties, we took the line that it was no one’s business but their own whom they did or did not sleep with. In other words, if a politician was dating someone, it wasn’t a legitimate news story. If his girlfriend was using him to make money, well then it was.

In this respect, the India media took their cue from the French press rather than the rabid British tabloid culture, which has made a fetish out of dabbling in the stuff of other people’s souls. We may have known full well which minister was having an affair, which one was unhappily married, which one was homosexual; but we chose not to report this on the grounds that none of this was in the slightest bit relevant.

All of this seems to be changing now. The old rules are in the process of being junked as the tabloidization of our media continues apace. Now, it seems that even mainstream publications have no problem running speculative stories about the private lives of politicians, all of them brimming over with unproven rumours and unverified gossip.

And that, if you ask me, is a pity.

The argument used to carry such stories goes roughly like this. Anyone who enters public life should get used to the concept of public scrutiny at all times. If you are a public figure, well, then your entire life should be lived out in public. And the public has the right to take an interest in whatever part of your life they see fit. In other words, public interest is defined as anything that the public is interested in.

To see just how dangerous this concept this, just extrapolate it outwards to include all those who exist on the fringes of public life. And in this age of social media, that would include you, me and all the several thousand people who follow you on twitter or read your blog.

To that extent, most of us are public figures now because we have a presence on social media networks and platforms. Journalists, bloggers and just regular folk who like to post their wisdom on Facebook or Twitter – all of us have created public personas for ourselves. We are constantly blogging and tweeting about our spouses, our kids, where we went on holiday, what we ate. And in that sense, we are opening the door to our private lives on a public forum.

But in doing so, have we forfeited all our rights to privacy? Are our private lives fair game as well? Should our marital problems be published on Facebook for all to see and snigger at? Should our divorces become trending topics on Twitter? Should our shouting matches with spouses/partners be posted on YouTube for the amusement of the world?

If your answer to any of the questions above is a horrified ‘no’ then think long and hard before you dip into a story about a chief minister’s marital problems. There, but for the grace of God, go you...

I’m sorry, but that’s private

No, that’s not a phrase that goes down well in a world gone mad on over-sharing

Like almost everyone else on the planet who is in possession of a mobile phone, I am haunted by spam smses. Not an hour goes by without my being exhorted to buy a flat; get a car loan; upgrade my water purification system; dine at the all-you-can eat buffet at a local restaurant; and most worrying of all, lose weight with a magic sauna belt (now, how could they possibly tell?).

This is irritating enough when I am in the country. But it drives me insane when I am abroad and end up having to pay several thousand rupees for the privilege of receiving offers I have expressed no interest in and will never ever take up.

The same goes with email. I can understand being inundated by nonsensical mails on the email id given below this column, because honestly, what else do you expect if you offer yourself up like the proverbial sacrificial lamb for slaughter by spam? But, more mystifyingly, my private email id which is shared only with friends and family, is also routinely clogged with importune messages from people I don’t know and organisations that I have never heard of.

I don’t know about you, but I find it incredibly annoying when my privacy is breached in this manner. Is it too much to expect that your phone number and email id be kept private by your service providers? Isn’t confidentiality part of the deal when you sign up with a phone company or an email service?

Well, you would think so, wouldn’t you? But within days of signing up, your information mysteriously leaks out into the public domain – and from then on, it’s only a matter of time before you’re spammed into submission.

Clearly, having even a reasonable expectation of privacy as you go about your life is asking for too much in this hyper-connected world. There is nothing that a dogged telemarketer – or a determined stalker – cannot discover about you in the digital universe.

Mobile numbers and email ids are small change in this world and finding out your address mere child’s play. Your credit card details are no longer out of bounds. Information about your purchase decisions is bought and sold by large corporations. What you wear, where you holiday, what you eat, how you relax, what you read, your choice in music – it’s all out there, waiting to be discovered by various interested parties.

So, given that so much of our lives inadvertently end up being lived out in the public domain, is it even possible to lay claim to a private life any longer? Well, I am old-fashioned enough to hold out for privacy but it seems to be an endangered concept – an idea that is rapidly vanishing under the concerted assault of social media and aggressive marketing.

But then, how could the concept of a life lived privately survive when all of us are complicit in invading our own privacy? I have become used to be being laughed at – good-naturedly, but still – by friends because I don’t post my vacation photo albums on Facebook or Twitpic my latest culinary adventure on to my Twitter page.

Why, they ask, am I not willing to share my experiences with the world? Why this pathological insistence on keeping my private life private? What harm can a few pictures possibly do? Why am I so secretive? What is there to hide?

Frankly, I can think of no better route to mind-numbing boredom that being forced to view pictures of other people’s holidays/weddings/children/pets, so I wouldn’t dream of inflicting my own personal albums on an already-suffering world. But more than that, I have a peculiar horror of sharing my private moments with people on a public forum; making my personal life public property, as it were, by posting it on the Internet. And yes, there a difference between ‘secret’ and ‘private’ – as anyone above the age of 18 should know.

But from what I see around me, I seem to be part of a minuscule minority. The overwhelming majority is made up of people who see nothing amiss in sharing every moment of their lives – be they ever so banal. It’s almost as if they don’t believe that any event has truly occurred until it has been shared with the world via the internet – and someone has pressed the ‘like’ button or posted a comment.

Take a look at your own Facebook page or Twitter feed and you’ll see what I mean. You will be inundated with stuff you never needed – or wanted – to know. Your old school-mate’s child has had a fall in the schoolyard (‘poor baby’); your cousin in America is ‘partying hard’ in Las Vegas (don’t forget to click on that ‘like’ button); your former colleague has landed a dream job (grrr...); well, you get the drift.

Why do people post such a great detail of personal information in the public domain? I guess it’s comes down to a combination of a number of factors: a honest desire to share; a propensity to show-off; a certain degree of self-aggrandisement; sheer vanity; or just plain gormlessness.

But it certainly seems as if people want validation for every moment of their lives – and they can only get that by sharing every detail of their routines online.

In such a world, what price privacy? No, you can’t buy it for love or money. And, if you ask me, more’s the pity.