Always feeling a sneaking temptation to cast furtive glances into other people’s houses as you walk past them

Sneaking? Furtive? Why be so secretive about it? Serves them right for having see-through windows. Whatever became of the net curtain? And if they leave the door open ,well, isn’t that’s just an open invitation to admire the paintwork in their hall? So what’s stopping you except that fear of being caught at it by somebody staring back ? The ‘inner-voyeur’ is at work in a lot of Quot and the furtive glance is its operating system. It’s such fun and the best time is at night when the curtains are left open and you’re out in the dark where it’s even safe to linger awhile and watch their television .What is the underlying motive these furtive glances anyway ? It can’t be that one’s on the lookout for something novel or different because then no one would have sent in ‘ Always peering into any open bedroom doorways when you walk along hotel corridors’ ( Marcia Figgis, Orpington ) as all the rooms are identical and anyway there won’t be anything worth seeing going on in there – not with the door open. If it’s the thrill of intruding on a private space that is contradicted by ‘ Always looking at your own reflection as you pass shop windows ‘ ( Mitch Moult, Knutsford) when you have full entitlement to do so. You know what you look like but somehow you still feel you’re worth checking out. ( Although even that is contradicted by ‘ Always failing to recognise yourself when you catch glimpses of yourself on shop or bank security screens’ (Tom Button, Framely) . This is not to say that there is never good reason to deploy your instinctive skills with the furtive glance. It comes in useful in restaurants when somebody says ‘ Don’t look now but I think the woman on the table behind you is a man ‘ or for exam cheating and other more prurient uses. 

(Dinsdale Hicks, Crawley) - QQQQ*