I was looking across at Putney Bridge in London with a friend when she pointed at the river and said, 'Sparkles.' I followed her finger to see the light bouncing off the water, each point of light looking like a diamond bobbing on the surface. She explained that she'd liked things that sparkled ever since she was a kid, especially the sun on the river.
Things that sparkle. I thought about it. It was a beautifully innocent remark from a person who hadn't lost contact with the child within. Me? That's a different matter. I've always been suspicious of things that sparkle. I associate them with the meretricious. A few diamonds around a woman's neck looks elegant. But that only makes me think about the history of the necklace. They've been discovered in prehistoric times. Nobody can be sure why women started wearing them. But the necklaces were often buried with the body. So they could well have been status symbols, reinforcing my cynicism.
What about people? J.F.K., he sparkled. The smile dazzled, the speeches conveyed passion and intelligence. He was a new breed of politician, aware of the power of the media. But seemingly sincere. Yet sweep aside the glittering veneer and you find that L.B.J. passed more civil rights legislation and Nixon conducted the withdrawal from Vietnam. That said, his heart was in the right place, wasn't it? It was tough back then. America hadn't even started to tackle the issues of racism properly. The first steps out of the cabin into a cold environment are always the hardest to take. But when I think he's retained his lustre, I remember the lust. Poor Jacqueline. She sparkled.
Princess Diana. She sparkled more than the celebrities that still swim in her wake. She carried out a lot of charity work, changing attitudes to AIDS and landmines in particular. But she also withdrew her patronage from a lot of charities when her personal life hit the skids. She manipulated the media - courting them when she wanted them to tell her side of the story about her marriage - then complaining about press voracity when she'd personally finished feeding the beast. I'm not trying to diminish her achievements. She was more of a saint than most of us. But she could sin with the best of them too. She was a real person.
Who sparkles today? To be honest, I can't think of anybody. Movie stars? No. Too concerned with their career paths, appearing in the latest franchise, to stand above any other group of thrusting professionals. Politicians? Too giddy from spinning to locate their own beliefs. Musicians? The ones that might sparkle with talent are made invisible from the glare of talent shows that exhibit starlets who twinkle for about as long as their songs last. You rarely find sparkles on TV. I once wandered into a bar in the Latin Quarter in Paris, drawn in by the heartfelt gusto of a torch singer, her voice echoing on the cobbled stones outside. She sparkled but only in and around that bar. She didn't reach a million living rooms.
And perhaps that's the point. These days, when the careers of the stars are managed as assiduously as their diaries, we shouldn't look in their direction for our sparkles. Or to the politicians, or to the princesses, or anybody we've been told to respect. Instead, we should keep our ears open when passing a bar. Or our eyes on the river at just the right hour of a summer's morning. That's where we'll find our sparkles.
