I've done my homework this week, which included re-watching the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow movie that popularised the phrase sliding doors moment. I'm going to assume you're familiar with the movie (but if not, just google 'Sliding Doors 1998 film' or search out the synopsis on Wikipedia). I've seen it a few times and it still holds up well, even though my opinion of Ms Paltrow took a dive when she married the Coldplay frontman in 2003, and seriously plummeted when she set up Goop (for all the weird pseudo-scientific lifestyle fads it spawned).
Sliding doors moment is a phrase which attempts to capture that seemingly inconsequential instance that nonetheless profoundly alters the trajectory of future events. As such, it is loosely allied to the fork in the road and the roll of the dice. It does have at least one interesting precursor in the world of the arts and that is J.B. Priestley's play 'Dangerous Corner'. In it, a chance remark at a dinner party, and the insistence of one character that the truth should always be told, leads to a (slightly improbable) series of acrimonious revelations and confessions by six of the seven present that reveals embezzlement, lying, unhappy marriages, secret love affairs, attempted rape, manslaughter mistaken for suicide, and culminates in a real suicide. After the curtain falls, it rises again and the opening scene of the play is re-enacted without the chance remark, with all seven characters happily talking and enjoying an after dinner dance to music from the radio - truths concealed and dangerous corner averted.
Moving away from chance remarks, and fanciful glitches in the flow of time and destiny, real sliding doors (and I've lived with a few) are normally expedient devices inside smaller dwellings where space is at a premium and the turning space required by a hinged door would take up too much precious room. They are sometimes installed as dividers when two rooms have been opened up into one. The cottage I had in Berkhamsted featured two sets of sliding doors off the living-room: one was to the kitchen and one was to the stairwell. The living-room was so small that hinged doors would have wasted a quarter of the available space. I believe they are also quite popular in conservatories - and of course they are almost ubiquitous in the world of lifts (or elevators for my US readers).
Mention of Berkhamsted, through which the ribbon of the Grand Union Canal threads, reminds me that canal boats (and by extension many other water craft) have sliding doors, often more correctly called sliding roof hatches - per the illustration below - for the same reason that space is at a premium.
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| sliding hatch door on a canal narrowboat |
Boaty McPeople
Out of the blanket of morning mist ghostly ducks
serenade the sides of narrow boats tied on the tow.
Mostly deserted this coldest of seasons, a low row
of leaky barges hugs the margin of ribboned water
and inside one, Donna and child shiver together in
their condensed berth while Joe's off on his bicycle
looking for any work that might buy food, warmth,
pay the rent, alleviate their straitened circumstance.
Several hundred miles away in the south of France
where luxury yachts of billionaires ride at anchor
in the sparkling sun of Sant Tropez Bay, a baroness
can sunbathe nude on the deck of the 'FU', paid for
by a shady scam while her other sloop named 'FU2'
is full of Tory cronies cruising Caribbean islands in
pursuit of fun and tax havens. It wasn't mere chance
this disparate parallel, it's the way things are rigged.
Joe and Donna had a simple dream but were always
the mortgaged poor, and when redundancy's sliding
doors snapped their unremitting jaws they were out
of luck, home repossessed, economic flotsam, babe
in arms. It wasn't just that women couldn't afford to
buy fancy lingerie anymore. Brexit pulled the plug
on livelihoods across the land and you can't feed a
family on promises of a brighter tomorrow. It says
'Dreadnought' on the stern of Joe and Donna's boat
but that's a laugh for they know they're sinking fast.
Thanks for reading, S ;-)
16 comments:
Don't know the film but have always been fascinated by 'sliding door moments' (even more so after reading Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Cafe). Love the poem.
Remarkably topical, your Mone piece. I see she went and spilled her guts to the Kuenssberg woman this morning. The impression I got from the BBC piece was that Mone will not have done herself any favours in the current climate.
Laxmiben Hirani
Real to life, how we are all struggling, having our homes taken away and next left with nothing just a burge to call home, while the rich put their noses up and care about no one but themselves and even if they had poor family members, cousins, even friends they would be too high and mighty to give them a caring, understanding, respectful hand while they roll in their millions to billions it is a pretence they say they care, they love you, they only care about their life, status but use you. Great heart touching poem Steve, never expect anything less from our one and only Steve! 🙌🏻
I vaguely remember the film but I loved your poem, with its subtle nativity message and its not so subtle Tory-bashing moral. ❤️
"There but for the grace of God etc...."
Mone has had two years to concoct her story. She has come to represent all that is seedy in Tory politicking. Her record of attendance in the House of Lords was pathetic and token even before the scandal and her extended 'leave of absence'. I hope she gets thrown out. Beyond that. I enjoyed your blog and poem very much. Well done. 👏
What a great read. Loved the poem too.
Yes maybe we all have those 'what might have been' moments. Clever introduction of the sliding door into your poem. Mone has got some cheek! FU and FU2 was very funny.
Well said. And we have our own Tory sleaze right here with Scott Bentone MP!
I remember the film being quite cleverly done. I didn't like Paltrow's cheating boyfriend or that American hussy he was two-timing her with, so I hope it all worked out the best for her in the end with John Hannah.
Sliding Doors was never a favourite with me but I enjoyed your blog and the tangent it took you off along - it's a powerful poem.
I loved your Boaty poem, almost a parable for our times.👍
I agree with Ailsa about most of us having sliding doors moments.
Really enjoyed the flow of the article from GP to MM.
A nativity poem for our time.
You nailed that Steve. I see that moaning Mone is claiming she has been made a government scapegoat for the failings of its PPE procurement programme - and she's £60m richer by it? 😂
Powerful stuff, Steve. Someone has to say it, and you say it well. xx
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