It’s good to keep talking!

Some people reading this latest blog may already be in deepest Tier 3 Covid lockdown whereas for me in London, for the time being at least, I’m luckily only in Tier 2 so I can still meet friends albeit in outdoor settings. I’m still enjoying local brisk walks with friends (no more than six!) and this week, a very fresh al fresco supper on London’s South Bank. But the cancellation of a couple of indoor meet-ups, plus repeated postponement of weekend breakaways, has lately generated a sense of drift. Yet I know how important it is to keep your loved ones close – even from a distance. Now is the time to pour our energies into staying connected. 

For me, the good old-fashioned telephone has been a great source of support during lockdown. Not only has it kept me in contact with family and friends, but calls with not-so-close acquaintances have sometimes become really enjoyable exchanges. Thanks to the work I do with the Archive of Market and Social Research https://www.amsr.org.uk/ I was reminded of the 90s BT advertising campaign, ‘It’s good to talk’ featuring the late Bob Hoskins. A complex advertising strategy was developed based on research into then-current British telephone culture, which segmented ‘big talk’ – important, information-bearing, serious, usually typified by men talking to men and ‘small talk’ – trivial, discursive chat, seen actually by both sexes in the research as the province of women talking to women. Of course, nowadays, such gender differences do not apply. I agree with my colleagues that especially at these times of Covid, it’s not big talk nor small talk now, but both that count.