Imagine my surprise to receive e-mail notification that my moribund weblog had been the subject of a trackback. Once I researched a little and found out what a trackback was, I was intrigued as to who had decided to link their weblog to mine. What might have been of such interest to another blogger that they felt driven to point people in my direction? One of my treatises on the nature of religious belief, perhaps? One of the posts which attempts to provide a cerebral insight into the visceral impulse of football fandom? Possibly one of my consciously over-analytical examinations of song lyrics?
It could be only one subject.
Number plates.
The link came from someone deriding the pointless and mind-numbing activity longtime readers will recognise by its acronym CNPS - Consecutive Number Plate Spotting. Now, I don't have an issue with anyone deriding CNPS. Careful readers will have already noticed me referring to it as pointless and mind-numbing, which it undeniably is. It is also compulsive, time-consuming and obsessive. I like to think of it as less of a pastime and more of an affliction, and if someone else feels inclined to agree with that assessment then I for one will not be taking issue with them.
Except. Here's the twist. The person making this judgement is an enthusiast of something even more lamentable. Something I have previously described here as inexplicable and absurd. The woman who fails to understand the call of CNPS is an aficionado of its preposterous bastardised offspring - the personalised number plate.
It's a sweet irony I think. She probably imagined that of all people, a CNPSer would understand her interest. As you'll see here, she can countenance the idea of someone spotting "interesting or unusual ones in the supermarket car park", but not someone wanting to see them in ascending order. Further down the post she expresses surprise at having found "whole blog posts" on the subject. Now, a couple of thoughts struck me here:
1) There is no such thing as an interesting number plate. They are inherently dull. They are just combinations of letters and numbers. The only way a number plate can be remotely interesting is if its number is one higher than another number plate, and even then it really isn't interesting at all.
2) Isn't it a bit rich to be taken aback by someone writing a post about CNPS when one's entire blog is devoted to personalised number plates?
Because it is. Every last post on Ms Littlemango's weblog is concerned with personalised number plates. Which I imagine is because she deals in them, but even so there seems to be a level of personal dedication to the subject which is, frankly, completely mystifying to me. Take this post for example, an account of a get-together which would make trainspotters chortle mockingly. When it comes to CNPS, at least I have the defence of awareness of the innate worthlessness of my pursuit. Something tells me the Fox family of Leicestershire with their Fox number plates are not so enlightened. Because, let me make it clear, I think personalised number plates are (with a very small number of exceptions which actually work) a witless embarrassment. In another entry Ms Littlemango refers to "gems that get snapped up quickly", citing as an example FA57 CAR. This, apparently, is supposed to say FAST CAR. But it doesn't. It says F A FIFTY SEVEN CAR. That's just what it says, unless you're illiterate (or possibly innumerate, I'm not sure) or make a conscious effort to misread it. And if you've got to make a conscious effort to misread it, what's the point? It's rubbish. As almost all of them are. And that's without even getting into the psychology of why anyone in their right mind would want to have such a number plate on their car anyway.
To summarise then, Ms Littlemango and I share an interest in number plates. Mine is sad and pathetic and I know it. Hers is sad and pathetic and she doesn't. I'm not sure which of us comes out of this worse. Is it me for pursuing something I know to be inane, or her for not knowing she is doing the same? Answers on a number plate please.
