That boredom, the apathy, those mean fucking hatreds. That whiskey, those headaches.
The long fork, badly hidden in the hand of the girl as she climbed into bed alongside you, swearing she had nothing. Swearing there was nothing to worry about.
Running away that same cold night, through the streets of London, happy to have escaped alive and be alone again.
Days reading, doing very little. Rising desperation and rot.
That dangerous mix you’re lucky to get though.
Find the lost thread
What has gone past since the last time? I’m not certain, but I think it was the Tory conference. I think I was going to write about that, back in October or whenever it happened. I can’t be sure but I’d guess nothing came of the intention.
Yep, I think it was the Conservative Party conference, up in Blackpool that sapped my spirit and left me with only enough strength to Get Through, not a drop more.
Then long days of nothing new. Talk of Blair versus Brown, soon eclipsed by the on-going, endless public suicide of the Tories. Iain Duncan Smith, now gone and forgotten and never once missed even by those who knew him. Just another bald man with bad posture and no sense of right and wrong.
I was standing in the longest corridor in London, the committee floor in the Commons, when the coup happened. Votes cast and so soon Michael Howard smoothed in as a replacement. Op-Eds about resurrection of yesterday’s man. Return of Thatcher’s Vampire.
No one I see really knows how it happened or why it didn’t happen sooner. It was exciting for a while - all the talk of plots which never were - and then fast became tedium.
I interviewed one of the key players just after his man had become King and all I learned is that I was taller, he was better dressed, richer and most probably unpleasant.
That, and the fact even when these Conservatives were publicly standing firm behind their crippled drowning General, in secret they were deciding what to do when he fell from sight a final time.
Contingency planning, something any sensible politician does to secure their future and the future of their senseless parties. The King is almost dead and needs a push to get there. Long live the King.
Now a changed mood in the Commons. Blair up against a better man. The pall that hung over Duncan Smith evaporating and life returning, slowly and horribly to the halls and chambers. Higher stakes in the real game.
Mr Prime Minister getting kicked around a bit. Looking foolish more often, vapourous more often. The New Labour Prime Minister outflanked to the left by his right-wing opposition on asylum. Shows how far he has moved from the days of Labour. To feed the growing unease in the backbench ranks that all is not well, that their man is not the man they hoped he’d be but the man they feared he was.
Then George W Bush flew over my head in a Marine helicopter, the first night of his state visit. Heading towards Tower Bridge. Powerful engines, black silhouettes against a black sky.
He was asked live on TV if he thought so many across the world hate America because its government and their forces have for years been killing sons and daughters and fathers and mothers and others. And he said in answer “I love freedom”. He paused a little first. He smiled his secret smile.
Anti-war protestors in London, sending out the clear message they are as helpless, hopeless and two-faced as the rest of us. They could have marched right into Downing Street and made their point, or at least acted angry. But they marched past instead, pulled down a statue they’d put up then drank and went home. Stop Bush. Well, too late Honey. The lid is off.
With bombs in Turkey and the animal stupid comments of a foreign secretary who stumbled through the debris not looking for a cause and found not a cause so made one up which pleased him and helped none of us.
Is it legal under international law for Iraqi fighters to kill American troops occupying their country? Are you allowed to fight against an invasion?
I stood on some waste ground in Baghdad during the war, early in the morning. Talked to a man from I think US 82nd Airborne. Maybe 101st Airborne. He’d fought up from the south and was happy speaking about blowing shit up. There was a rocket launcher on his jeep he said would set fire to that house, right over there.
He pointed. The place was ricked with bullet holes. A southern kid, could be Alabama. He thought the Iraqis were fucking cowards ‘cause they didn’t put up much of a fight as the Americans mooched on through to glorious peace and famous victory.
He told me; “These people don’t do nothin’, If some army came rolling into Arkansas or California, I don’t care who they are, I’ll fight them till I’m dead or they’re dead. No one could invade America ‘cause we wouldn’t have it.”
EPILOGUE
Now all the talk is top-up fees and will that defeat Blair. This is uncharted territory for his government, facing genuine possibility of public, unavoidable humiliation.
Or has he only staked so much on the outcome of this because he know’s he’ll win – because he knows even Old Labour prefer New Labour to New old Tories? Probably, and that will be that.
Anyone who thinks our Prime Minister will lose is wrong. They’ve just forgotten Blair KNOWS he’ll go to heaven. And I know he’s right, at least if God is anything like I imagine Him to be.
