Facebook Memories is at it again. It’s now charmingly informed me that seven years have passed since I took this photo.
Apart from any sort of long-distance travel being a memory now, this has also reminded me that the day I visited the Eiffel Tower, was also the day that I saw somebody use a selfie stick for the first time.
On the viewing platform at the top of the tower, somebody clipped their phone into such a device and stuck it through the wire of the protective cage, as I watched with a giddy mix of puzzlement and trepidation. If the phone had fallen from that height, it could probably have wiped out a football team before continuing on through the earth, towards New Zealand.
As far as I can recall, such a woeful incident didn’t affect my visit. But I do find it slightly head-scratching that something as banal as a selfie stick is tangled up in my memories of visiting one of the best-known buildings in the world.
Is there anybody out there who can say ‘Oh, the Taj Mahal – that’s where I ate a Twix for the first time’ or ‘I was unacquainted with the simple pleasures of Fuzzy Felts until my trip to the Lost City of Machu Picchu’?
We should form a group to share our slightly dull associations with really magnificent places. It could while away some time until that whole travelling thing starts up again.
It could also keep Facebook Memories busy for another seven years.
Mark Trevor Owen 