Blindsided by the light…

“Excuse me, you wouldn’t do me a favour and give me just a minute of your time?” I asked yet another person, my voice trailing off as, once again, they let their unbroken stride do the talking.

‘That must be why they call them passersby’, I thought, as I watched my latest miss climb steadily up Market Street.

I was roaming around the town conducting something that the UH‘s top brass refer to as a ‘vox pop’.

With its v and and x and plosive and two nicely balanced syllables (one of which is pop!), doing a vox pop nearly sounds fun. Right?

Well, it’s not.

In fact, in my mind, there is no such thing as a vox pop: There is only Operation Accost Absolutely Anybody. And, yesterday, I was tasked and dispatched to carry out orders for the second time in less than a week. (I know. I must be in the bad books.)

Anyway, I was to find five people who would answer my question of the day: Stormont Ministers are expected to give the green light to the A5 project later today (Wednesday). What do you think of that?

When I was done collecting some views on one of the most important local issues of our time, I was allowed to go for my lunch.

The challenge was accepted, and I actually got some very interesting responses. However, that content can be caught elsewhere in the paper (page 6).

This column is about what happens when you are asked to try to stop strangers on the street and quickly convince them to listen to your proposition. And here’s my little anthropological analysis of the different behaviours I observed on the streets of Omagh yesterday.

The most frequent reaction is for the panicky pedestrian to stop, allow you to talk for no more than ten seconds, all awhile slowly shuffling away, before saying that they, for one reason or another, are not the best person to answer your question.

The next most regularly-received response is a kind of non-response. Completely contrived tunnel vision. These people pretend they are deaf and blind and training for the speedwalking event in the next Paralympics.

Then you’ve the ones that give you an excuse right off the bat.

Generally, this means either invoking the threat of the dreaded traffic warden, making reference to some kind of appointment, or, for those too lazy, uncreative, ignorant or honest to come up with a specific against-the-clock scenario, just blurting out something like ‘wile busy’, ‘in a hurry’ or ‘cant’ talk’.

Mothers with prams are about 50/50 in terms of stopping or zooming by.

Some pause and listen with a kind, maternal ear.

Others say something about the child and bull on, which is probably fair enough.

Yesterday, one mother just pointed at her baby without slowing down, a gesture performed with a conviction that suggested an implication that should be self-evident. I didn’t quite get it though.

Does the mere fact you are pushing a child in a buggy mean you can’t stop to speak? Do some children spontaneously combust if the wheels of their pram stop turning? Or is legitimate to just point at a buggy-bound baby and expect a harassing local reporter to back off? I suspect it’s the latter, which, for the record, is exactly what I did.

But the distinction of oddest interaction has to go to a tall, swarthy-skinned man who told me that I might be the first man in Ireland to ever have hair over his ears, to which I replied that Rory Gallagher (blues legend, not the other one) might have beaten me to it.

He took a pull of his white-filtered fag, then told me that he’d actually seen Rory perform in London in 1971, before quickly changing tack and informing me that he used to go with my late auntie back in the day.

“Aye, I know your ones,” he said.

Thinking we’d now established an rapport, I told him what I was looking; namely, his opinion on the A5 announcement.

“Don’t get me started on philosophy,” he said. “I won’t,” I assured him. “But what do you make of the A5 being approved?”

He ignored my effort to exert some control over our conversation and said, “I’ve been thinking very deeply recently, reading a lot of books, and I think I’ve made finally made a breakthrough…”

Intrigued by what was about to come but scared of how long it might last, I made the decision to bid him goodbye before he started to expound.

To the five who stopped, spoke and consented to having their pictures taken, thank you.

To the random woman in her 60s who asked ‘what rubbish are you chatting today?’, that was rude, but funny. And to the man whose profound breakthrough I never got to hear, write it down and send it into the office. Don’t make me live the rest of my life in regret of the life-changing enlightenment I might have turned by back on.