Weird Times
Nick Pelling
In these weird times it is very easy to feel that the whole world is sliding towards something awful. The apocalypse narrative is everywhere. The planet is burning up, the Middle East is devouring itself, Russia has a madman at the helm, Artificial Intelligence is going to turn into the ultimate Frankensteinian monster and Rishi Sunak thinks he is the ‘change’ candidate. It is very easy with this menu of horror simply to say, “a plague on all your houses” and maybe take up pottery.
Killing The Helephant
And below this atmosphere of mega-crises there seems to be a low blizzard of petty irritations. One of the more micro-grievances that has been recently getting on my nerves emerged during the recent slow death of the white elephant formerly known as High Speed Two or HS2. During the endless painful debates about this poor beast, it began to become clear that no one is sure exactly how to pronounce the letter aitch. Some go for ‘Haitch’ and some for ‘Ay-tch.’ How can we expect to run a country if no one can agree on how one of the letters of our alphabet is actually pronounced? Personally, I think it should be pronounced with an A not an H. Try saying ‘NHS’ to yourself. Other nations such as Ireland or France may make their own linguistic arrangements, of course.
And there is the tedious debate about when the next election might be. Who really cares? But for info: all the elections since Thatcher won in 1979 have been in spring or early summer, except one. The odd one out was, of course, Boris Johnson’s December election in 2019 when the whole nation was so drunk it voted for the Christmas Con-man. But, normally, governments seem to believe that early summer is the time when people might feel an idiotic sunstruck optimism and vote for the status quo. So, Sunak will surely, similarly look for the sun.
Rocking With The Undead
And on top of all this, the Rolling Stones still stagger on. What are we to make of this? Maybe it’s just another omen of oblivion. But honestly, what is the point of these wizened millionaires clunking out some more rock cliches? On the other hand I suppose, it is kind of all of a piece with our out-of-sync times: what could be weirder than that these trailblazers of youth rebellion should now be the undead rocking us into the end times.
Obviously, we have no saviours to turn to. But even despair has time off. In a moment of weakness last week, I began to wonder if, just possibly, there was a man.
SOMETIMES THERE’S A MAN
As the voiceover says in the Big Lebowski: “Sometimes there’s a man.” And, as improbable as it sounds, possibly that man is Keir Rodney Starmer. I know that this very dull but worthy bloke is no one’s idea of a revolutionary, but then, maybe, as the youthful Stones said: “Sometimes you get what you need.” We need a decent person who does not lie, does not make up shit on the hoof a la Boris and who may be genuinely concerned to help ordinary people. To believe in service. Maybe. On the other hand, I can personally vouch for the fact that there is a great pottery course at Mudworks on the London Road.
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