Freed from the tyranny of lists

I have lost my Filofax – half the population will wonder what that is and the other half will be surprised that there were any still left in existence. I didn’t do any of the things you’re supposed to do with it like keeping track of my very busy diary or storing the addresses of key contacts. I don’t live in the 1980s and all those things are now done on my phone. Essentially, it was a glorified book of lists.

Some may recall that the Filofax was a badge of honour in the 1980s, used (among other things) to signal how busy and important you were and how much vital information needed to be kept at your fingertips. Unlike the enormous mobile phones of the day, it was a dinky little binder with a sleek leather cover.

Unsurprisingly, my Filofax was covered in flowers and, rather than signalling how busy I was, it suggested that its owner actually had all the time in the world. Rather than belonging to a yuppie, it was obvious that this Filofax had fallen into the hands of a flâneur – possibly my favourite French word. If you look up the definition of a flâneur it is a man who loiters in streets, an idler and a loafer. The word was coined by Baudelaire, a 19^th century French poet, and definitely refers to a man since a completely different word was used for women who loitered in the streets. I have decided to reclaim loitering for women and long to be a flâneuse, and I think this might be easier now that my Filofax has vanished.

The flowery cover might have indicated flâneuse- like tendencies, but its contents certainly didn’t. My Filofax contained nothing but lists. Shopping lists, Christmas lists, job lists and, ashamed as I am to admit it, detailed and numbered lists of every book I have read for the past 15 years. I’m now wondering why I needed to document all those books. Maybe it was to compensate for the fact that my books are so frequently organised out of the door. Even though I may have heartlessly got rid of the book, it had been allowed to linger, ghostlike, on a list. But a lot of other things also lingered, ghostlike, on those lists and the time has come to dispense with the lot.

I won’t be buying a new Filofax or list book of any sort and I won’t even be making an effort to find the one I’ve lost. For one thing, that flowery cover really was pretty hideous and for another you cannot idle properly while being tied to a book of lists. I have just looked back at the first blog I wrote and it specifically said ‘no lists’. I really should follow my own advice.