The glory of ordinary

Every time I walk past Marks and Spencer lately, I feel my hackles rising.

Is it because the first five out of six ingredients in a Percy Pig are various forms of sugar? Is it because their multipacks of underpants go saggy after only half a dozen washes?

No. Although both of those things are true. What’s bothering me is their current advertising slogan that has been plastered across their windows for over a year now.

Anything but Ordinary

 What does this even mean?

Are they saying their products are the opposite of ordinary? According to the dictionary, the opposite of ordinary is abnormal which could potentially mean a jumper with three sleeves.

And what exactly is wrong with being ordinary? Most of us are ordinary and a lot more of us are noticing it.

In particular, the wonderfully ordinary (or ordinarily wonderful?) Marriage on BBC1. If you haven’t yet spotted this, it’s a four-part drama about Emma and Ian, played by Nicola Walker and Sean Bean, and the ups and downs of their very long marriage.

It opens with a hilarious, yet wince-inducing, argument in a public place about why Emma didn’t ask at the counter for the jacket potato Ian wanted and instead just got them both chips. There are scenes where you just watch Emma loading the dishwasher or Ian putting a squishy tomato on, instead of into, the food recycling caddy.

Some might say that watching Marriage is like nipping next door to watch the neighbours having their tea and doing the washing up. I can’t entirely disagree yet I am all for this breakthrough in showing the most ordinary of ordinary lives on television and in books.

You see, it’s all very deceptive. I’m going to hazard a guess that this same-shit-different-day* in Marriage will turn out not to be as boring as you think. OK, I’ll admit it’s unlikely it will turn out Ian is a secret bigamist or that Emma married him after she changed her identity under a witness protection programme.

But it’s a mistake to write anyone else off as ordinary where ordinary is an insult. I find that seeing other people being ordinary, instead of their best selves, is wonderfully liberating and lets me think of that most reassuring of phrases.

It’s not just me then.

Isn’t that what we sometimes crave in life? To see ourselves represented on television, in books, in film and in the news whether it be related to your sex, gender, ethnicity or your plain ordinary everyday self.

Other examples of the wonderful celebrations of being ordinary include R C Sheriff’s The Fortnight in September which is about the Stevens Family’s annual two weeks in Bognor Regis – the worries about packing, checking the gas is off and the doors locked, what to do when away, how you will get on with your fellow holidaymakers and the simple joy of a change of scene. Written in 1931, it has the dual purpose of being an archive of what day-to-day life used to be like. Different but the same.

Then there is The Royle Family. Played for laughs, it tells the truth that in the 1990s, families sat around and watched television together. Actually in the same room as each other. And bickered. And talked at length about the most mundane things.

It’s not just us then.

What can be more real and ordinary than that? Gogglebox. It’s where friends and families –of all different shape and sizes – do still sit around and watch television together while we watch them doing it. Its creators thought of The Royle Family when they dreamed the series up and explains why Caroline Aherne and then, Craig Cash, who were Denise and Dave Royle, provide the voiceovers.

And if we needed any more confirmation that we crave seeing the ordinary celebrated, it’s the fact that ‘normal’ Gogglebox is so much more popular than the celebrity version.

There is even a fancy skincare company called The Ordinary because it wants ‘to celebrate integrity in it most  humble and true form.’ It’s a rather high falutin’ way of expressing the wonders of being ordinary but I will take it.

So you see, Marks and Spencer, there is nothing wrong with being ordinary. Being Anything but Ordinary is being wilfully extraordinary all the time. Just think how exhausting that would be.

Is there really anything wrong with being ordinary? I don’t think so.

* Thanks to the random Virgin Media customer who introduced me to this phrase many years ago when she called up to change her name after her wedding. ‘Congratulations!’ I said, as in those days, all call centre operators were encouraged to build up rapport with callers. ‘What’s married life like?’ to which she gave this reply.