.
The night was hot and still, sultry and dark. It triggered memories of similar nights long ago in Nairobi, New York, Dar Es Salaam, and various Mediterranean cities. Only here, at home, there were no crickets or cicadas buzzing, sawing and cheeping, only silence in the darkness. People came and went slowly on the streets, languidly; dressed in their lightest clothes, buttons mostly undone, shoes without socks, dresses without tights, low cut tops, sleeveless teeshirts.
Over in the local grocery Old Kali was starting to pack up. It was a quiet day, he said. Lots of people gone away on holiday already. Lots of unsold newspapers to be bound in piles and returned to the wholesaler. Mad Kev came in for his cigarettes, and disappeared without a word. Steve the Greek looked on from his usual resting place, propped up in the corner, at the end of the counter. He wasn’t ready to go home just yet. He smiled a small tired hello, and carried on leafing through a tabloid paper. Nothing worth reading. Nothing happening. Prime Minister in Deep Shit. So what?
“Gonna win the lottery?”
“Sure am. One of these days. Got to.”
“See you later.”
"Yeah, later."
Rosie the Ranter passed by and waved. She stopped and waved. She yoo-hooed and waved. Thank God she didn’t come in. Big Brother on TV. Can’t miss that. Gotta see that. It’s summer - innit! S’exciting. Innit. Nah’t a’mean? S’funny. S’a laugh. A right good laugh. Head cases. Luvvit. Me? No. Never seen it. Never have. Never will. S’bollocks. Boll - locks. Kali nods in agreement. Bollocks. Yeah - but it’s a laugh - innit!
I love evenings like this - so very rare in this country. Down at the Princess of Wales the outside tables were full. People sat by the river in the semi-darkness, talking and laughing. Inside there was no live band. This weekend was karaoke. Please! The young woman running it belted out a couple of her favourites, to lukewarm applause, and then urged the rest of us to get up and sing.
Two girls eventually, bashfully, did a duet, followed by an older guy who did some country rubbish. Half way through the next one I had to leave. Some poor guy, obviously not playing with a full deck, sloped on and incredibly laid into ‘Puppet On A String’- murdered it, gratuitously kicked its already pathetic little head in, and was about to disembowel it in the FLATTEST and least appealing voice I’ve ever heard when I had an irresistible urge to run screaming out of the place, downing the remains of my pint as I did so. Fucking Jesus - it was just unbelievable. I had no idea it was possible to ‘sing’ so badly and murder a naïve innocent little song so cruelly and callously. I wish I’d recorded it. An all-time classic of awfulness. Shit - I should have whipped out my phone and videoed it. Something as rancid and bad as that deserves to be on YouTube.
On the way out I bump into John the Labourer - the local ward secretary of the local Labour Party, who sees me leaving and comes out on to the pavement. Still hanging in there after all these years. He’s interested in my retirement, says I’m looking well, and ever-hopeful starts into asking me whether this means I now have the energy to get involved again, but stops himself almost immediately, realizing that it’s not going to happen. Not now. Not ever again.
I tell him he’s doing a very noble thing - a man of his principles and political persuasion, still organizing meetings, still going to meetings, in spite of all the New Labour arseholes who have ruled the roost for the past 10 long years, wasted years. Fucking hell, John, I tell him - they’ve even lost Glasgow! They’re fucked! They’re Thatcher Lite, they’re scum - people have had enough. People want revenge. They want to see them go down. It’s what they deserve. Two wasted landslide victories. Fucking Iraq. Letting the bankers and property inflaters do what they like. Holding down the minimum wage. They introduced it? SO WHAT! That what Labour’s FOR! It’s what they’re SUPPOSED to do.
John knows I’m right. He knows. But it’s a waste of time discussing it. He’s halfway through a game of pool in the bar. Must get back to it. See you. Yeah, take care mate. He’s a good man. Patient, caring, kind. Too good for the local New World Order Labour Lapdog tendency. Motto: Anything you say Tony - sorry, Gordon. Right On Message.
I remember one time being at a ward meeting and listening to someone we’d invited to speak - to liven up the meeting. A fucking New Labour clone if ever there was one - young, aspirational, on a trajectory towards Parliament for sure, having made the Cabinet locally, already. A man entirely wrapped up in his own ego, and without a single principle, unless you call defending globalisation and ‘the markets’ a principle. I laid into him about Iraq, the ‘war on terror’, American imperialism and the government’s failure to distance itself from a single American policy, including the continuing blockade of Cuba. His response? If he had his way he’d launch an invasion of Cuba and depose Castro immediately. The fucker was SERIOUS as well. How did I not at least suggest he needed his head kicking in for even entertaining the thought that a sovereign country should be invaded and however many lives lost - for what? This guy is a vile, sleazy joke. He’s a centraliser, an organization man, and clearly didn’t understand that in this country the Socialist party, as such, has no ‘National’ prefix. To read other people’s views on this git go to http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/2008/06/idea.html .
Read the comments by rachel, bishop hill, bobthedog and bob bob, and go on from there. Rachel’s term ‘patronizing muppet’ could as well serve for Hazel Blears and the rest of the current cabinet, as could bob bob’s ‘Zanu-Lab dimwit’.
Rachel’s blog is always worth reading - http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/
I went to bed feeling hot, and taking comfort in the thought that the best outcome for the next election would be a hung parliament - no party in overall control. I want New Labour to LOSE, but can’t really stomach the idea of Cameron and Co having a mandate. I want there to be NO mandate for anything, and everything needing to be properly debated and argued over, not just pushed through on the whim of a prat like Blair, or a drone like Brown.
I want proportional representation. I want the country to be governed for a spell by a coalition of the able, with the current discredited New Labour idiots sent on their way like the failures they are. Maybe the party can then be repossessed by a coalition of social democrats and socialists, as it needs to be if we’ve ever to have a progressive government. Two wasted landslides! 10 years of dross! Never again!
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