Webcam whimsy

With each passing day we’re becoming accustomed to seeing all sorts of politicians, personalities and pundits speaking to us directly from their homes.

Surely I can’t be alone in finding this trend absolutely fascinating. For while the online contributors imagine us to be hanging on to their every word, in reality we are busy conducting a detailed inventory of their furniture, light fittings and choice of curtain fabric.

There are very few of these domestic backgrounds that have nothing to offer. It is simply a matter of taking the time to look carefully. A few examples will suffice to illustrate what I mean.

Firstly, here is a still from a recent interview with Chris Hopson, CEO of NHS Providers.

I can’t quite put my finger on it but I get the distinct impression that he’s doing the interview from his mum’s house. One doesn’t require Sherlock Holmes’ powers of deduction to arrive at this conclusion - the evidence it right in front of you.

To start with: where is he sitting? Behind him we can see two easy chairs arranged so as to suit watching TV, but judging from the camera angles Chris is clearly sitting at a table or desk. Furthermore, the short sections of wall to left and right are strongly indicative of the kind of home conversion that consists of ‘knocking through’ the wall between lounge and dining room to form a larger space. This isn’t the sort of living space you would normally associate with the chief executive of a major public body. If he were in his own home, he would surely be doing the interview from his private office. No, Chris is in his mum’s house, having requisitioned her dining room table as a place to put his laptop.

And then there’s the other evidence: that lamp, for example — the sort advertised in those leaflets that fall out of your Sunday paper and aimed at ‘the serious reader’. That is an old person’s lamp and those easy chairs look like old people’s chairs. Of course I might have it all wrong; Chris might just be an old-fashioned kind of guy.

By way of a complete contrast let’s say hello to the physicist Carlo Rovelli in his home in Canada.

Here, Carlo has clearly opted for the bookshelf theme and, it has to be said, has done it with a degree of enthusiasm. His books, furthermore, are not organised by size, style of binding etc. - as is so often the case with those of more modest intellectual abilities - but in accordance with an entirely different organisational principle - albeit one that is not immediately apparent to the rest of us.

Of course, without being able to examine the titles we can’t be absolutely sure that his library does not include such classics as Cosmology for Dummies or Fun Pictures on your PC in 3 days. Unfortunately, the webcam used is of lamentably low quality so, for now, we must grant Mr Rovelli the benefit of the doubt.

David Liddington’s method of organising his library couldn’t be more different.

He appears to be in the habit of storing his books in piles, which is oddly disturbing. I don’t quite know why — but I find it impossible to shake off the impression that his office is in a converted garage. There’s a hint of trouble here. Has he been banished from the main part of the house and forced to take his clutter with him -- and in a hurry at that? While we’re unlikely to know, it doesn’t stop the imagination from getting to work.

And it is not always a matter of what is there; it can be equally intriguing to speculate on what is absent. Here is Shami Chakrabati pictured against a neutral, whitish background - blank except for the small, brass picture hook behind her, demonstrating that it is possible for there to be something even emptier than a featureless wall.

But the prize must go to a recent Newsnight interview with Ian Duncan Smith, which has since achieved cult status on account of the fact that, in it, IDS appears to be literally incandescent.

This video has since given rise to a whole wave of comments on twitter to the the effect that he had forgotten to activate his cloaking device and so on. Quite apart from the startling appearance of the principal character, the image has many more small jewels on offer including, to the right of IDS’s head, a disturbing picture reflected in the mantlepiece mirror. This would appear to be a picture of someone laughing - or are they screaming?

Of course, all good things must come to an end and it can only be a matter if time before people in the public eye get themselves set up with anodyne home studios. So we have only a brief time window in which to enjoy this rich field of study.

When it comes to choosing a setting for my own videoconferencing, I am considering an entirely synthetic approach in which I contrive to be pictured in front of a raging sea or some other dramatic backdrop, chosen to suit the occasion