Sir Humphrey: Welcome to your first day in the civil service, Smith. We noticed that your master’s dissertation was on Machiavelli, so we’ve assigned you to MOF.

Smith: MOF? What’s MOF?

Sir H: The Ministry of Fear, of course. Or in currentspeak, ‘Minifear’.

Smith: Right. And what exactly is it that Minifear does?

Sir H: Well, look at this headline in the morning paper: ‘Global warming will wipe out cereal crops and end the British breakfast’. A classic Minifear plant – so to speak!

Smith: You mean it’s not true?

Sir H: Now don’t get all metaphysical on me, discussing the nature of truth. One man’s truth is, as they say, another man’s disinformation. I’m sure there was a report, and I’m sure some part of it could have been interpreted to suggest that cereal crops might be affected by rising temperatures. But our skill was in linking that to the idea that your cornflakes and your toast are about to disappear off the breakfast table.

Smith: But how does the government get that into the press? You can’t exactly put out a press release on paper headed ‘The Ministry of Fear’ can you?

Sir H: Good heavens no. We simply ensure that it goes out on X, or Instagram or Bluesky or whatever, and that editors get to see it.

Smith: But why? Why would you want to?

Sir H: Ah, now that is the question. Remember what your man Machiavelli said: “It is far safer to be feared than loved”? In other words, to stop the anarchy of people doing just as they please, rulers must maintain control through fear.

Smith: Actually, in The Prince he said it was better to be both feared and loved.

Sir H: Exactly. First instill fear, then appear to combat the problem and the people will love you for it–or at least they’ll remain compliant!

Smith: So, you raise the fear of global conflict and tell everyone in the UK they must prepare for war. Then they’ll be willing to spend more on defence even if it means having their taxes raised to do so?

Sir H: Precisely. You’ve got it. Things on that front had gone steadily downhill since the Cuban Missile Crisis and the end of the Cold War. That Political Economist bloke Robert Higgs said “Were we ever to stop being afraid of the government itself and to cast off the phoney fears it has fostered, the government would shrivel and die”. So thank god for Netanyahu and Putin.

Smith: So, tell me, was Covid a Minfear creation?

Sir H: Not exactly. But we did manage to ramp up the fear around the virus to a quite extraordinary degree, and people didn’t seem to notice that their civil liberties were being trashed. Or, if they did notice, they didn’t complain too much.

Smith: So what are we doing now to keep people paranoid?

Sir H: Good heavens. Just look through the papers: ‘Alcohol should carry cancer warnings’ – ‘Heatwave expected to kill 600’ – ‘Climate change putting cups of tea at risk’ – ‘Reservoirs empty; drought on the way; hosepipe bans imminent’ – ‘Record number of migrants cross channel’ – ‘British woman dies of Rabies’, it goes on and on.

Smith: But don’t people realise that they are being manipulated?

Sir H: Just occasionally the cat is let out of the bag. Some idiot advising the government’s Emergency Scientific Group SAGE on COVID let slip: “the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard hitting emotional messaging.” But we just dismissed this as a conspiracy theory.

Smith: Surely Minifear IS a conspiracy theory.

Sir H: Yes, of course, that’s the joy of it. It is a conspiracy theory and at the same time it is actually true. And so we are back in the realms of metaphysics again. By the way, what’s your first name?

Smith: Winston, sir. Winston Smith. You may remember me. Some time ago I did an internship at the Ministry of Truth when you were running it… back in 1984.

Year: 2024 / Time: Early morning / Location: Sussex Coastal Conservation Area Number 3 Fossey Road, Hastings / Weather: warm breeze, light mizzle.

I discovered that it is possible to reach the snails today by entering their territory on their terms and by gliding towards them very, very, slowly. I’m also learning at a similar pace that it is indeed possible to live alongside an escargatoire in peaceful harmony. It necessitates a modicum of understanding and effort so as not to be perceived as a threat, and an approach that should not trigger the fear of blue pellets, saucers of beer, nor moats of egg shell.

A thorough planning phase lasting weeks, if not years, has led me to this experiment to examine the success of natural relocation on the homing locomotion of Gastropoda. This trial was the first under controlled conditions and will assess movement patterns. If successful, further experiments will be conducted to observe response to different environmental factors. For now, mizzle can be assumed.

The local experts at Number 1 warned me that, without the morning mist, estivation or prolonged torpor would have occurred. This is fortunately not catastrophic and might provide a stay of execution – although whether for snail or the zinnia bedding plant I am as yet uncertain.

They are creatures often disregarded in the grandeur of nature’s spectacle. The snails, that is, not those at Number 1. As I inspected the muddy pots on my morning rounds the back yard was gently rinsed by rain and the unmistakable, yet weirdly imperceptible, sound of muscular feet, moving (if god would still have it) underfoot. Each step is a deliberate dance to avoid disturbing the fragile balance of life beneath my own feet.

And there, I observed, amidst the glistening foliage, or what was left of it, the remains of Madame de Bouchard, and a myriad of snails, their shells adorned with intricate patterns that speak of centuries of evolution – the apexes of which, soon to be forever preserved in dayglo pink.

‘Sheldon’ is identifiable by his over-extended radula as a young male, though snails are of course hermaphroditic. Accustomed as I am to the gender-non-neutrality of the English language I call him ‘he’ despite the clear insufficiency of the pronoun. Few other options seem available. ‘S/he’, as favoured in the feminist press, is inadmissible since the creature is not one or the other, but both he and she – though that description is simply clumsy. ‘His/hers’ similarly fails the test of accuracy. ‘They’ is numerically incorrect since Sheldon is one creature, not two or more, and I may wish later to distinguish between the actions of a single snail and those of many. For these reasons, ‘he’ must remain my preferred pronoun; in the absence of further evidence, I can only hope that it is his also.

Anyway, to return to my observations. As I crouched down to study the rasping tongue of Sheldon on young Salvia, I suddenly spotted the prime patriarch or matriarch – see comments above – Ernest/Ernestina sailing into my peripheral vision.

I marvel at his resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity. Despite his diminutive size, albeit larger than most of his kind, he traverses the terrain with a quiet determination, unmatched by anything other than my own. He is the largest, oldest and most dominant snail in the escargatoire. It seems a shame to paint over his distinctive markings, but the experiment has to take precedence for their own sakes [note numerically correct and gender-neutral use of pronoun here].

Pink, of course, carries cultural baggage as a colour. An association with effeminacy, emasculation and perhaps, even homosexuality. Pride in being pink? I mean to ascribe none of these to Ernest or Ernestina unless the creature self-identifies as such; it was simply that pink was the only nail (shell?) varnish available in my local branch of Boots that was sufficiently distinctive in hue to show up against a background of live or rotting vegetation.

So I sit delicately painting the shells of these unassuming creatures, finding solace in the simplicity of their existence – a reminder that even in the darkest corners of the yard, life flourishes in all its diverse forms. Each snail – there are ten in this first trial – will become a symbol of patience and perseverance, silent companions on my journey of discovery. How long will they take to return? Will they return at all?

Parameters of distance, terrain, availability and quality of available food supply at their place of involuntary exile – all of these factors will play their part in the attempt, or indeed the completion of, the return journey. Motivation too will come into it. So also, perhaps, may the psychology of the individual. Will Sheldon be more sick for home amid the alien nettles than Slinky, Swift or Whorl? Will Tenacious prefer the unfamiliar new diet of tender dandelion to the altogether pricklier foliage of Mme de Bouchard, which has been his birthright and sole mess of pottage up to now? Nor is the journey home without hazard. Turdus philomenus, aka Mrs. Thrush, has her nest, and her nestlings, in the thick laurel hedge that must be traversed ere the exiles return.

As the morning sun breaks through the black elder, casting dappled shadows on the herbaceous border, I bid farewell to my fellow researchers, leaving them to continue their timeless journey, through the air and into the wild, where nature’s chaos reigns unchecked at Number 5. And as I retrace my steps back to the kitchen, no longer needing to employ the well-rehearsed Pas de Deux and, passing by the forever grateful Mme de Bouchard, her buds simpering and whimpering their thanks, the Pod’s memory lingers in my heart: a whispered promise of the beauty that awaits those who dare to break down garden boundaries. Those who are courageous enough to brave the journey to faraway lands (Number 5) and see beyond the blue pellet to embrace the wonders of the natural world, bearing the pink mark of Cain forever upon their housetop as they go.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Until we meet again: Sheldon, Ernestina, Snailbert, Slinky, Swift, Whorl, Tenacious, Resilience, Endurance, Endeavour, Scott, and Oates. Until we are reunited.

SC. Welcome Prime Minister. Before you settle in there’s a few ‘for your eyes only’ you need to be aware of…. 

KS. Oh, goodie. The nuclear codes? The hot line to the White House? I bet it’s red. 

SC. Almost Prime Minister. Green. No, the Brexit Misery Mines.

KS. The Brexit what? 

SC. The Brexit Misery mines.

KS. You mean there’s more than one? 

SC. We have quite a few, Prime Minister.

KS. You’re telling me we’re mining misery? What on earth for? Hasn’t Brexit already generated enough – unofficially of course. 

SC. Indeed, Prime Minister. And, yes, officially, it’s sunny uplands all the way. Entre nous, the Department for Brexit Opportunities is little more than a part time security guard and a switchboard. Also, part time.

KS. I had heard. But what about these… misery mines? 

SC. We’re not actually mining misery Prime Minister – no need – Brexit takes good care of that all on its own. No, we’re actually trying to contain it. In mines. Disused ones. Remember the 1980s? Margaret Thatcher, The NUM?

KS. Of course, man. I’m not an idiot!

SC. Indeed, Prime Minister. Around Dover and other UK ports we began seeing our own domestic, off-grey, Brexit Misery mutate like Covid. Remember Delta and Omicron? People suddenly gesticulating and arm waving, or trying to be organised and serious, or taking siestas or donning yellow jackets and building barricades, all the while shouting about bureaucracy and queues in a linguistic soup of Italian, German, French and other European languages. Quite impenetrable. 

KS. Well, that’s Brexit for you!

SC. Quite so, Prime Minister. Forget the existential dread experienced by touring musicians or the financial torments of our exporters, this was very strange and was growing fast.

KS. But how? 

SC. European Lorry drivers, Prime Minister. Their Brexit misery was infecting ours. So, we’re containing them, the lorry drivers. In mines. Until we can return them. 

KS. You’re telling me we’re putting European lorry drivers down mines if they’re upset by Brexit? 

SC. Precisely, Prime Minister. What choice did we have? The economic harm would be beyond even Liz Truss’s imaginings – and last considerably longer than 49 days. Returning them isn’t proving easy either I’m afraid: post-Brexit paperwork! And there’s another thing, Prime Minister: we’ve also contained Boris Johnson – in his own mine. 

KS. That’s scandalous… the Europeans, I mean. You’ve put Johnson down a mine too? 

SC. Call it ‘Nature’s Way’ or ‘Deep State’ nemesis if you prefer, Prime Minister. After all, Brexit misery is yet another bastard Johnson offspring.

KS. Is that wise? What’s he doing with himself down there?

SC. Spaffing Prime Minister, up a wall, so I’m informed. No need to worry, he’s quite used to being in a hole – of one sort or another.

KS. But, won’t people notice he’s missing? What about his Daily Mail column?

SC. Not a bit. Generative AI. 800 words of Johnson-esque drivel. No problem. Well, not so that Daily Mail readers would notice. His ‘Only Fans’ videos endorsing Tory election candidates: also, AI. 

KS. What about Nigel Farage? Don’t tell me he’s down a mine too – think of the poor lorry drivers! 

SC. Quite so, Prime Minister. No, unless you’re a Putin or Trump supporter, unhinged or live in Clacton, no one is listening to Nigel. Besides, we’re making other plans for Nigel.

KS. ‘We’? What do you mean by ‘we’?

SC. Prime Minister, can I suggest a book you might care to read? Nadine Dorries: ‘The Plot’. It might shed some light.

KS. It might shed some light? I’m the Prime Minister! Aren’t I in charge?

SC. YES, Prime Minister….. 

Look, ok, I know it’s not supposed to be like this. But sometimes, as a dog, you just can’t seem to bond with your owner. It may be their smell. It may be their stinginess with the kibble. Or, as in my case, it may be their politics. The situation wasn’t helped when he brought in a puppy. Another Labrador, but yellow. Me, I’m a dog of colour as they say. So I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that I was completely superseded in his affections.

I can’t help thinking that he only got us as sort of ‘trophy’ dogs. You know. Man of the people; cloth cap; pint of beer, and pair of Labs. Of course we don’t see much of him. He’s too busy talking horlix on his GB News radio programme. And rushing round every other radio and TV studio, spouting about anything and everything – like how he’s more popular than Rishi Sunak (not that that would be difficult) and that the Conservatives will choose him as their next leader. Which is a bit ‘Richi’ since he’s not even a party member. Which brings me on to the matter in hand. You probably know that he recently bought a seaside pad in Lydd. Nice enough I suppose if you like living next to a clapped-out nuclear reactor but, from what I can gather, he has his eye on a town a bit further along the coast. Yes, my lovelies: Hastings. Clearly he’s got to ditch the Reform Party first. And get readmitted by the Tories. But that might not be too difficult if, as predicted, they get wiped out by Starmer at the election. Then the headbangers on the right of the party who argue that Brexit has been a big success reckon they’ll take over. And as Nige said, he’ll “have to” eventually end up in the same party as Conservative MPs like Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. Gosh. That’s a thought. Somehow I feel they deserve each other.

Anyway the one minor stumbling block to Nige’s Machiavellian machinations is the current Hastings incumbent, Sally-Ann Hartless. I’m not sure he’s told her of his plans yet. But I’d advise her to watch out for a man in a cloth cap and cavalry twill trousers walking a pair of dogs on Hastings beach at low tide. One will be yellow and slavering over its master. The other will be black and following a few paces behind with a haughty but decidedly disdainful look above the whiskers. They say you can’t choose your parents, but there’s no doubt some have more luck than others when the cards are dealt out.

The Hastings Independent eavesdrops on two conversations concerning Britain’s penal policy.

Scene 1. Whitehall. The New Prisons Minister – Edward Argar meets his Permanent Secretary Antonia Romeo.

Antonia: Yes minister, you’re right, we do have to do something about prison overcrowding. But what exactly do you suggest?

Edward: Well, if they are absolutely chock-a-block full, we’ll have to build some more. Or release some of the lags that are there…

Antonia: Well there certainly isn’t any money to build more jails. We can’t even afford to replace the schools and hospitals that are collapsing because of dodgy concrete. And I’m not sure the cabinet will agree to release criminals. They’re rather more in favour of the ‘bang ‘em up and throw away the key’ approach.

Edward: How about we give an early exeat to the white collar fellas. You know – those that don’t go round robbing banks at gunpoint or murdering young women. I read somewhere that nearly 5% of the prison population were there for fraud. That’s over six thousand people. We could let them out, couldn’t we?

Scene 2. A dingy pub in Hastings.

Ronnie: Yer know, times are changing and we need to change with them.

Regie: Whaja mean?  

Ronnie: Well, there’s no point in robbin’ banks these days, they don’t seem to carry cash anymore. I fink we should get into fraud … that’s the new fing. And I read there’s only a one in three thousand chance of doin’ porridge for fraud.

Regie: Good idea that. How do we go about it?

Ronnie: Well, you send out an email saying you’re from the Bahamas Tourist Board, and if people will just give you their bank account details, you’ll give them a free holiday to Nassau.

Regie: Won’t that cost us a lot of dosh, paying for people’s holidays?

Ronnie: No you idjit, we’re not going to give them anything, just pretend we will so as to get their personal details.

Regie: Sounds like a good scheme. But what’s an email?

Great God Brahman, can’t they find anything else to talk about except my bloody clothes! ‘Conference Coral’; ‘Block shade power suit’; ‘Dopamine dressing’. And they never stop banging on about the price. ‘The Abbeville jacket, and matching slacks, the Esme slim-leg trousers, are RRP £585 and £325, respectively,” says some bloody tabloid. All I did was put on something a little eye-catching for my ‘surprise’ conference speech. I mean, what do they want me to wear? Rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters? For Brahman’s sake, I’m the flaming first lady. I need to look half decent if I’m going to make an idiot of myself in Manchester. Great timing Rishi, by the way, announcing that you’re cancelling the HS2 rail link to Britain’s second – or is it third – city just as you hold your conference there! 

But back to my ‘triangular, three-buttoned double breasting (sic) and angular cut trouser suit’. It’s actually from The Fold. A British company. And frankly £910 for an ensemble isn’t that much. Especially not if you are the 222nd richest person in Britain. I mean, I own less than 1% of daddy’s company – Infosys. It’s just that it seems to be worth quite a lot. And if you do have a little over £500 million in shares, and dividend payments of around £14 million a year, you have to spend it somewhere, don’t you? When Samantha Cameron wore her togs from The Fold there wasn’t such an absurd fuss was there? Nor for either of those Middleton sisters, Pippa or Kate. Are they saying I shouldn’t wear anything from the same outlet the Princess of Wales patronises? It’s nonsense. And sounds a bit like what Harry would call unconscious racism. 

I still haven’t got over the furore that my JW Anderson footwear caused earlier in the year. They are basically just suede slippers – sort of super Uggs. With a little bling tacked on for good measure. And at £570, pretty good value I’d have said. And I AM a clothes designer by training and profession, so I should be able to do a bit of fashion shouldn’t I? And if that includes designer sandals…

Anyway, back to the conference. What a shower of useless politicians! Rabbits in headlines, every one of them. Even my dear Rishboy didn’t seem to have much to say for himself even after my build-up. Mind you, trying to defend 13 years of Tory misrule was never going to be easy. What can you say about those great 21st century statemen: Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss? Sound like a firm of undertakers, don’t they? Talking of the walking dead, Labour’s Starman isn’t much better, is he? Too timid even to promise to complete HS2. Too frightened to commit to reversing the mad new Rosebank oilfield. Too terrified to roll back on Brexit which EVERYBODY knows we need to do. But say what you will of my Rishboy, he can be pretty sure of getting at least one vote – that’s from his fellow petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson. Or Lord Clarkson as he will be in Rishi’s resignation honours list. Shouldn’t really say so, but that can’t come soon enough for me. I just want to stop those bloody hacks going on and on about my wardrobe.

Relocating to Hastings and ‘St Lennies’ was quite a culture shock! The boss and I, her international personal assistant, like to eat well during important business meetings, so sourcing a respectable Persian caviar and vintage Bollinger in the local area was quite a challenge. So as not to seem bourgeois, us Norwegians love to mingle with the locals so I was surprised and delighted to find a local brewery and drinking establishment called First In Last Out, with an astonishing selection of international brews. It’s here in this pub I have made many business connections with locals, as well as other DFLs who also work as a PA for a rich client. 

My boss, who I will keep anonymous for many (legitimate) reasons, is quite a wealthy businesswoman who is well respected in the international trade community. We originally met through a mutual friend at a dinner party in Hampstead. Quite strangely, I don’t think it was my athletic hairy Nordic prowess that landed me the role as her personal assistant, which I originally assumed, but our similar love and desire for the finer things in life. 

Fast forward a decade and this Norwegian PA now takes care of everything, from running a bath full of aromatic oils, screening calls and grabbing an espresso for his boss! Of course, being a PA for a wealthy client in Hastings is not all sunshine and rainbows. I face daily challenges, like sourcing a third home in the surrounding areas. Quite recently, my boss had the desire to acquire a beachfront property in Cooden. I have had many viewings, all to no avail as none of the mansions near the beach have the required thirty-foot greenhouse to grow herbs and spices, basement swimming pool, gym or basketball court. Trying to please an individual from Belgravia in a seaside town has its downsides. 

One Friday recently, myself and my boss ventured out at sundown for a few nightcaps. We headed for Hastings town centre and found a national chain opposite what I believe was the old Debenhams building. The population in this establishment appeared to be a mixture of 18 to 25-year-olds drinking copious amounts of alcohol and gyrating on strangers to Hippety Hops bass music. Which is quite similar to my rural hometown in Norway. My boss also quite enjoyed her night here, getting a taste of the local population and night economy. Our only criticism of this adventure would be the fact that Hastings doesn’t have many places to grab five-star cuisine at 1:00am!

The perks of being a PA are most certainly the connections. Quite recently my boss had a very well-known singer who has been in the press recently (though she absolutely denies any impropriety whatsoever) down to this wonderful seaside town for drinks and madness. My boss always pushes this hairy Norwegian man to be the best individual possible for this creative bohemian seaside town. Hastings is full of rough character but with a silver lining in the ocean.

RICHARD PRICE almost choked on Inconvenient Facts (HIP 234) and urges you not to believe everything you read in the papers.

Tobacco smoking alarmism has reached fever pitch. I am fuming that the relentless propaganda has induced a state of fear in humankind. Not only do people believe that it is bad for their health, but they think that the smoke contains dangerous chemicals that pollute the air. They even claim that being around someone smoking can be injurious.

There is a lot of disinformation and propaganda around. I like to say the Earth’s climate has always changed, but more to the point, people have always smoked tobacco. Legislation only came about after well-funded lobbyists convinced the public that scientists know what they’re talking about.

The anti-tobacco legislation has made it harder to advertise and market cigarettes. That used to be a key factor driving global expansion. Nowadays, manufacturers are finding it hard to recruit new young smokers and are having to expand in India and Asia where the legalisation is different.

We positioned smoking. I mean, smoking was positioned, not as something deadly but as something that was aspirational. Now all these fearmongers are scaring people off. Why shouldn’t we make up our own minds?

Apparently, polar bears are thriving – which is direct evidence that man-made climate change is not happening. What? A similar train of thought should exist for smokers, many of whom are also thriving. The right message isn’t getting out there. Nobody thinks about the beneficial effects of smoking. For example, there’s bound to be a paper somewhere that says that while it may be established fact that it causes cancer and cardiovascular disease, it also has beneficial effects – helping people with hypertensive disorders or controlling vomiting when pregnant. Tobacco genuinely benefits people trying to lose weight. (So does eating tapeworm eggs but smoking is much less scary.) Also, speaking from personal experience, it helped my ulcers.

‘Scientific’ papers on climate change can be found on www.clintel.org (the source of information for Inconvenient Facts?) but if you look on desmog.com you will find that the site is funded by oil money. I really hope that no one believes that the tobacco industry has funded research which is used to lobby governments to block, amend and delay effective public health policy – including, most recently, standardised packaging.

Anyway, I appeal to the Hastings Independent: in the interests of balance, publish this article. We need journalism that shows the positive effects of tobacco smoking and counters the propaganda.

Are you wondering what to wear, what to do and where to go this summer in sunny St Leonards? Let me be your guide…

BEACH BUMS

It’s all about preparation and protection. That’s what I tell Freddy Bunion when he fancies sunning himself on the esplanade. I say, “Freddy, the look we’re going for is polished mahogany. Not Taramasalata that’s been left out for a week.” Well, Freddy’s always been partial to an oiled thigh. Whereas I prefer a good creaming under a beach brolly, but that’s just me. Each to his own. 

Once you’re ready to expose yourself, you need to get into the right position. That’s prostrate on a lounger for me. And think ‘barbecue sausage’. Regular turning is essential to avoid overcooking and patchiness. For this reason it’s best to remove your diving helmet. And your snorkel, if you’re wearing one. But do keep your trunks on. This is St Leonards, not Bexhill. Hopefully you’re not like our Gladys: she’s allergic to the sun and takes a tarpaulin down to the beach. I kid you not.

BEACH BALLS

Once you’ve achieved a light bronzing, you can have some fun in the sun. At this point, Freddy might wander down to the shoreline to play with his ball. Which is one

way of getting attention. Not me. I’d rather be snacking on a Lazeelad ®. That’s a beanbag to you. Our Gladys will most likely demand a lick of my lolly. “Gladys!” I’ll tell her. “That’s not appropriate. Or hygienic. Have a hobnob.” Anyhoo, once I’ve finished munching, I like to take a little turn on the beach. But with the shingle down here, I advise wearing a stout pair of boots. The diving helmet is optional, though it really completes the look if you ask me. And I certainly turn a few heads. 

Now, I can hear you asking, Kenny, why aren’t you going to the amusement arcade, or playing a round of crazy golf? Because, numero uno, we’re not in Clacton, babes. Not to mention, get over yourself! 

LIFE’S A BEACH

After a hard day in the sun, I favour an early evening beverage to cool down. Freddy’s pal, Tommy Buzzard, owns a charming little bar on the seafront. When he sees us strolling past, he goes, “Oooh, why don’t you two lookers pop in for a quickie?” He means a cocktail. And there’s nothing I like more than slipping into The Sandy Crevice for Sex on the Beach. It’s all soft seating and low lighting. Mother wouldn’t dream of letting me straddle a pouffe in her front parlour. Luckily, she never leaves the house these days.

By this time, we’re ready to eat again. And if that’s making you think of chips, battered herring and lashings of salt and vinegar… Well, you and me both! There are many chip shops to choose from, but my favourite has to be Cod Almighty on Kings Road. I offered Freddy a chip and, straight away, he put his hand on my saveloy. Honestly. You can’t take him anywhere. After we’d eaten, we rescued our Gladys from under the tarpaulin. Then we all sat on the beach and watched the sun go down together. Perched in our deckchairs, sucking away on a great big stick of rock. 

Well, I hope you’ve picked up some very useful tips here. Cheers folks and have a great summer. Never go far in St Leonards without your sunglasses and a hurricane-strength umbrella. And don’t forget your diving helmet. Am I right?

HIP’s Westminster mole has uncovered a recent interview with Health Secretary Steven Barely from the podcast ‘Dying to Know’ with Laura Doomsberg’ 

Laura Doomsberg: I have with me today the Health Secretary Steven Barely. Welcome Secretary.  

Steven Barely: Absolutely.

LD: Can I just start by clarifying an issue that many of our listeners really care about. Are you really building 40 completely “new hospitals,” as your party promised in your manifesto three years ago?

SB: I want to be absolutely clear about this. We made a pledge in our 2020 manifesto to modernise the NHS and that is very much in line with that aim.

LD: But is the government actually funding the building of 40 completely new hospitals?

SB: We are spending 20 billion on our programme and that is more than has ever been spent on an NHS modernisation programme. In the History of the British NHS. Of which we are proud. Rightly.

LD: So, is that 20 billion funding 40 new hospitals? Or just refurbishments of collapsing hospitals, such as the one at King’s Lynn?

SB: I am glad you asked me about King’s Lynn. I have been to that hospital and we are going to invest in improvements there and an entirely freshly painted maternity wing. 

LD: But improving old hospitals is not the same thing as building 40 new hospitals, is it?

SB: Well, what the people of King’s Lynn will be wanting is an improved facility.

LD: But, putting King’s Lynn to one side, are you building 40 completely new hospitals? Or not?

SB: Well, I don’t think we can dismiss the interests of the people of King’s Lynn quite so lightly. And the same might be said of Huntingdon General, a hospital I have also visited. 

LD: But a new bit on the side of an aged hospital is not a new hospital, as such, is it? Is it?

SB: Well, what the British people want is a hospital that is top of the range, a hospital for the twenty-first century, a hospital that treats the British people. Especially when they are ill.

LD: But Boris Johnson frequently said, and I quote, “we are building 40 new hospitals.” Rishi Sunak has said the same. I just want to know: have you started to build 40 new hospitals?

SB: Our programme is one of full spectrum medical overhaul and within that there is a commitment to envisaging 40 gleaming medical hospitals that we can all be proud of.

LB: But an envisaged hospital is not a real one, is it? Is it? So, how many have you actually started? I mean with bricks on the ground and that sort of building stuff.

SB: A brick leads to another brick and that is absolutely how hospitals are built. I cannot be clearer than that. 

LD: But how many have you actually started?

SB: I don’t want to go down these rabbit holes with you Laura, but I can say that it is a number which can be added to other numbers to make 40 in the fullness of time, as we go forward, to deliver for the British people of Britain and their heritage. About which we are rightly proud. No matter what these woke people say. 

LD: I am NOT being woke. I just want to know: how many fucking hospitals are you building?

SB: I think it was Winston Churchill who said that men, and women, are governed by their imaginations. And a hospital, indeed 40 hospitals, are absolutely imaginable.

LB: Just fuck off. 

SB: Absolutely. 

(Transcribed by Nick Pelling)

I’m getting seriously worried about my person.  He keeps talking to someone who isn’t there. We’re currently into what he calls puppy training – which I call getting treats by deception. He asks me to do something and if I do it, he gives me a biscuit.  But if I don’t, he looks a bit sad and tuts until I give him my best Malteser eyes, and then he comes over and fusses and pats and strokes.  So all I have to decide is what I want more that particular moment – a treat or a touch – and act accordingly.

Among the ‘commands’ that lead to treats are ‘down’, ‘stop’ and ‘up’. And sometimes ‘play’.  But recently he’s been using these words on someone who simply isn’t there.  How do I know, well we dogs have very sensitive noses and if they were in the room I would certainty detect another canine’s smell and, without fail, that of another human!

And it gets worse.  He’s even given this imaginary person a name.  And that can be confusing.  The other day I was in the kitchen and just putting my paws up on the work surface to check out whether a few scraps of meat might have inadvertently been left  out when he suddenly says loudly “Alexa down”.  It startled me I can tell you. He’s never called me that before, and I wondered if he was beginning to lose it.  I mean he is getting on a bit. Anyway, I got my paws down pronto, but instead of scolding me he went on talking to his imaginary friend. “Alexa, play Bonzo Dog”, he said clearly. Well, I wasn’t sure what to do so I just sat down quietly at his feet. 

Since then, though, he’s been talking more and more frequently to this Alexa and asking her to do all sorts of things that before were reserved for me.  Honestly I’m not jealous, but I do think it’s a bit peculiar.  I hope it’s not part of this ChatGPT thing they’re all talking about.  I don’t want to be replaced by a virtual pet.  And certainly not one called Alexa.

Coffey: I think I’ll start with: “As the secretary of State for the Environment it is my responsibility to ensure that the country’s rivers and beaches are free from sewage…”

SPAD:  Erm isn’t that a bit of a hostage to fortune? What happens if, as is quite likely, you can’t stop the water companies from dumping effluent in overspills?

Coffey:  “So I’m going to ensure that the heads of the water companies are personally held criminally responsible and financially liable for ANY sewage overspills. They’ll face fines up to, and if necessary, above, their annual bonuses.”

SPAD:  I see where you’re coming from… but the problem is that most of them are major donors to the Conservative party, and if they don’t have their multi-million-pound bonuses … well, then we’ll be bankrupt.

Coffey:  “But alongside this, I’m announcing today a major investment in Britain’s sewers and water treatment plants so there will be no need for any ‘emergency outfalls’ in future.”

SPAD:  Strewth … have you passed this by the Chancellor? You’re committing the treasury to billions of pounds of public expenditure. The reason we privatised the water companies in the first place was so that NO public money would have to be spent on them ever again!

Coffey:  Well, what do you think I should say then?

SPAD:  Well, start off with a positive phrase such as “gold standard for ecological status” then you could suggest that “to achieve that would mean taking us back to the natural state of our rivers from the year 1840”.

Coffee:  Were our rivers really cleaner in the middle of the industrial revolution?

SPAD:  That’s not the point, secretary. It’s just a long time ago. Thought of as a golden era when Britain ruled the world and really was Great.  But now comes the clincher. You need to say: “that’s just not achievable today”.

Coffee:  But why isn’t it?

SPAD:  Because you’d have to rip up half of Sheffield to let the River Don run free, but without that it would never be scored as ‘gold standard’. So, you say: “that would not be practical or desirable”.

Coffee:  But won’t people accuse me of a complete abdication of duty?

SPAD:  Well in that case put the blame on them… “a new ‘supersewer’ would put hundreds of pounds on people’s bills … and anyone who said otherwise would be either detached from reality or being definitively dishonest with the public.”

Coffee:  And what if someone mentions the sea and the beaches? Sussex and Devon suffered 8,500 hours of sewage dumping last year.

SPAD:  Just say: “What do you want us to do? Drain the English Channel to clean it up? How much do you think that would cost? There’s no magic money tree you know. And anyway if we drained the channel there wouldn’t be anywhere for Suella’s floating asylum seeker barges would there? And as we all know…”

Coffee and SPAD together:  “You don’t want to upset the Braverman, do you?”

HIP has been sent the transcript of a leaked conversation between senior staff running one of Hastings’ most prestigious schools. In the interests of Freedom of Speech – a concept the school might struggle with,we reprint it here – though with names redacted to protect the guilty innocent.

Headteacher: Yes. What is it? Can’t you see I’m doing today’s Wordel, I’m on my last chance.

Deputy Head: But I’m afraid… um… the pupils are revolting, headmaster.

Head: Yes, I know. If only they’d wash a bit more often.

Deputy: Well, that’s part of the problem. They’re complaining they can’t use the bathrooms because they’re overcrowded. 

Head: OK, so what are they planning to do about it?

Deputy: I understand they’re considering demonstrating in the playground.

Head: Good lord, we can’t have that. It will be like Paris in ’68. Remember that?

Deputy: No, headmaster. I wasn’t born then…

Head: That’s not the point. The lefty students were only held back by a thin blue line of riot police using live grenades. And the Kent State shootings in 1970?

Deputy: Still before my time, I’m afraid.

Head: They brought in the National guard to put that one down.

Deputy: Yes, but didn’t they kill some of them? Four dead in Ohio as the song goes?

Head: Well at least it put a stop to them rampaging again. No, we’ve got to take a firm line. We’ll have to call in the dreaded Sussex Police. Oh, and expel the ringleaders at once. 

Deputy: Isn’t that a bit excessive? Don’t we encourage student participation? I mean, we’ve already held elections for student representatives…

Head: What? What a ludicrous idea. Giving the little squirts the idea that they can change things! Pupil power will be spreading all over the county. No, we must take a firm stand.

Deputy: I’m afraid it’s already spread, headmaster. There’ve been demos in Merseyside, Southampton and Blackpool and also at schools in Essex, Wales and Cornwall. Apparently, they organise it all on social media, Tik Tok and Snapchat…

Head: What and What-what? Oh, never mind, I don’t want to know. It’s just copy-cat stuff, yobbish behaviour jacked up by the kudos of filming it on their phone – then sending it to their friends along with pictures of their private parts.

Deputy: Yes, that’s another problem, though. But we can’t just expel the so-called ringleaders. It would be against natural justice. 

Head: Natural what? Where was the natural justice when Castro executed Batista in Cuba. Where was the justice when Trotsky and his Bolshevik friends slaughtered Nicolas II and all the Romanovs? And what about Louis XVI, drowned in his bath by Charlotte Corday. Good God they’ll be sending the tumbrils to Buckingham Palace for King Charles next.

Deputy. Erm, yes, headmaster. Golly… is that the time? Aren’t you supposed to be teaching history to the lower sixth – I mean Year 10 – in two minutes?

Head: Ah, yes. Just have to finish this Wordel… Ah, yes. I’ve got it, F-A–S-C-I-S-T. That’s five letters, isn’t it?

Hello dear readers! Welcome to my new advice column. With so many problems these days, I am only too happy to involve myself and offer wise counsel. Though I must say, riffling through this week’s ‘Toast Bag’ came as a great shock. I was quite taken aback by the levels of moral turpitude within the local community. Nonetheless, I soldiered through and herewith present three dilemmas for your consideration. 

A Soft Touch

Dear Teigh-Anne,

I would value your advice on a family matter that has arisen. My daughter is furious with me. It’s all because I took her new boyfriend down to the potting shed to show him my hairy greengage. I only wanted to ascertain his sensitivity toward soft fruit. It’s the mark of a man, in my view. Anyway, I’m happy to report that he handled my plums with great delicacy. However, my daughter thinks I could just as easily have shown him my cabbage. True, but the flesh is far less tender. I eagerly anticipate your thoughts!

Fond regards, Jezebel Coalmine, Old Town.

Dear Jezebel,

I see what’s happening here. You’re a woman who cares deeply for her family. Yet a mother’s love can go too far. Perhaps you should all visit his allotment together and offer to pull his turnips? Your daughter will soon see that you are willing to bend over backwards to accommodate her new love. What comes up will be very instructive.

Secret Drawers

Dear Miss Toast,

I’ve noticed that my husband has been secretly borrowing my bloomers. I wouldn’t mind so much, but he puts them back without washing them. This is obvious from a certain stiffening of the undercarriage. How can I stop him from rummaging in my drawers and helping himself to my unmentionables? 

Ever yours, Mrs Gertrude Prune, Guestling

Dear Mrs Prune,

I strongly suggest that you put your bloomers away for now and try wearing M&S tanga briefs in a size too small. This should immediately improve your situation. Or perhaps it will exacerbate matters considerably. In either event, good luck to you!

Deep Dive

Finally, Mr Reginald Ploppe of Rye has written to say that he is troubled by the use of so-called predictable texting on his so-called smartphone. Personally, I prefer a hand-written notelet since the demise of the telegram. However, my correspondent finds that often, the message he writes is not the one he intended. We’ve all been there, I’m sure. In Mr Ploppe’s case, he encounters this problem specifically when communicating with his aunty. And here we reach the crux of the matter. Indeed, I think we can well imagine exactly the kind of ‘aunty’ this lady styles herself as. Swaggering around in rubber pantaloons and a diving helmet. Running her enterprise from a basement on the Bexhill Road. Mr Ploppe, I implore you! You must release yourself from the clutches of this personage and find a healthier pastime. Do it now or you will forever be a slave to your lumbago!

Readers, if you would like to contact me for advice, you may email me at info@hastingsindependentpress.co.uk, with ‘Attention Miss Toast’ in the heading. No issue is too large or too small for my review. I look forward to hearing from you!

Aries March 21–April 19

You’ll lock horns with someone in February, Aries. Speaking of which, I nearly came to blows with Freddy Bunion the other day. His usual salon was shut so I suggested Herr Kutz in Silverhill. But Freddy shrieked that no one touches him outside the Delphinium. Fair enough, but he didn’t have to get shirty about it.

Taurus April 20–May 20

Now Taurus. I know you like nothing more than six hours in the bath followed by a deep tissue massage. But there’s a place for that kind of thing and it’s called Bexhill. Indulge yourself by all means. Just try to keep it civilised.

Gemini May 21–June 21

Our Gladys is a Gemini. I said, “Look in the mirror, Gladys. How many faces can you see? Exactly!”  Anyway, try to be open to romance this month, Gemini. If you play nicely with others, you won’t have to keep playing with yourself.

Cancer June 22–July 22

I feel that a sideways move is on the cards this month, Cancer. This could be work-wise or leisure-wise. Whatever, trust your intuition, especially if you fancy taking a dip round here. Too many spills and thrills for my liking, but each to his own!

Leo July 23–August 22

Leo, Leo, you’re such a drama queen. No wonder this is Freddy’s sign. As I constantly remind him, “It’s not all about you!” But that’s Freddy. Some people just have to be the centre of their own universe. You know the sort, I’m sure.

Virgo August 23–September 22

You’re a perfectionist, Virgo, and very logical too. And much as I hate to go on about my own problems, I’ve just had my Camellia butchered. There was nothing logical about that, I can tell you! I only wanted a quick trim. 

Libra September 23–October 23

You’ll need to bring your sense of balance and equilibrium to matters of the heart this month, Libra. Or as I say to Gladys when she’s having a wobble, “It’s time for tea and a finger.” She’s devoted to Mr Kipling, you know.

Scorpio October 24–November 21

You’re often misunderstood, Scorpio. I get it. I mean, look at me. I’m the life and soul but I take great pleasure in my own company. You’ll often find me tossing something off in the kitchen after a quick rummage down the pantry. It’s bliss.

Sagittarius November 22–December 21

You’ll feel the urge to go on a new adventure this month, Sagittarius. Mother was a great traveller and she loved Spain. In fact, just last week, I walked into the front parlour and there she was, cradling her maracas. She doesn’t get out much these days.

Capricorn December 22–January 19

Love could be on the rocks this month, Capricorn. But guess what? Get over yourself. There was a time when Mother couldn’t look at a vegetable without wanting to humiliate it. But that’s all behind her now. 

Aquarius January 20–February 18

You’ll find yourself close to the beach this month, Aquarius. Look around, you’re on the south coast. So, pot, kettle, black? Am I right? Just ask yourself, is that sea spray in your eyes, or bitter tears of regret? 

Pisces February 19–March 20

This month you may feel like a fish out of water, Pisces. And that doesn’t surprise me. With Mars still retrograde in Uranus, you’re not exactly in your comfort zone. But hey ho. You win some, you lose some.

I suppose I should organise my thoughts. Quite an honour, after all. Don’t forget the small things. I remember ‘Players No 6’ and occasionally switching to ‘Dunhill Consulate Menthol’ in their cool, green and white packets, to impress Angie King. And having four buttons on my bags.

But you can’t underplay the tat and the grime and the smoke and the seedy, inky papers that smeared your hands, sort of rubbing your face in it. I remember that 1973 story. News of the World guy, hiding in a wardrobe in Maida Vale to catch some posh gent called Lord Lambton at it. And she, Norma something, said she voted Tory because they were her best clients. He went off in disgrace to live in a beautiful villa in Tuscany for the rest of his life. Lord Lambton that is. Not the photographer. Anyway, need some sort of structure.

It’s an odd thing when you realise you can comfortably look back on half a century. Seems like a heavy block of time. Too much time really. But it did set me thinking, as inaugural speaker, the ‘73 should promote itself a bit more. For a start, it was in 1973 that Britain joined what used to be called the Common Market. Part of what Conservative Central Office called something like – a better tomorrow. Yes, “A Better Tomorrow”. Emphasise that. And pause.

Let me see. Good evening, bla bla bla, er… The conventional wisdom is that the 1970s were pretty awful, sort of shoddy, tatty and tasteless. Typified by the design disaster of the Austin Allegro and all the wintery discontent and so on.

So, crap design, bla bla, bla…slides? But that’s not quite right, is it? Take the England shirts that October. No bloody tat on the kit. No Adidas ads. No bloody logos. No stupid lozenges or fade-outs or pyjama patterns. And no replica kits for fat blokes and their fat kids. God, can’t say that. Just plain white shirts. Navy shorts. Plain white socks. Classy. And Sir Alf. Most certainly. Most certainly. Most certainly, we will beat Poland. And all live on the telly. On ITV with the ads. “For Mash Get Smash”, interrupting the tragedy of Norman Hunter.

Trying to make sense of it, I venture to suggest that the seventies was a complex sort of mess of a decade. “Venture to suggest?” Maybe not. Take Edward Heath, the Prime Minister ‘70 to ‘74. Widely distrusted because he preferred pianos to women. Not a proper bloke and all that. But here is an odd fact. Heath came under machine gun fire in Barcelona when he went to help out the Spanish Republicans against the Fascists. Obviously, as a much younger man. In his twenties. Heath, who took on the miners in 1973, fought on the side of the people in 1937. He lost. And therein, lies some of the peculiarities of the Heath era. He wanted to modernise Britain and the European market seemed to offer that. And now, we sit on the other side of that broken dream. Nobody really remembers lonely old Heath.

But must avoid pure nostalgia, a pretty useless sort of emotion. But the strange thing about the 70s was that it was itself nostalgic. Take Elton John. He hit the big time because he remembered when rock was young. And Suzie left him, or something. Maybe because he was gay? Jeepers, don’t say that. And Karen Carpenter, with that heartbreaking voice, told us it was yesterday once more. Where did you go Joe DiMaggio… and that song, Angie, by the Stones. Angie.

And 1973 saw the first of the Last of the Summer Wine. On telly… the first of the Last of the Summer Wine. That awful snob, Allan Clarke, on his return from the Tory conference, back in his bloody castle, commented in his diary that Blackpool was “loathsome, dirty, squalid… with primitives loitering.” Even Tony Benn talked about “morons ruled by crooks.” But they weren’t primitives or morons really. They were the lads. The likely lads. Where am I going with this? Where am I going?

Spring

At the beginning of the year, I opened my doors as a newly anointed seaside landlady. A young man, Signore Benito Falabella, was the first guest to arrive, tottering behind two gigantic suitcases. This pocket princeling had more clothes than English vocabulary. After two weeks in Hastings, Benito went native and came home from school with both sides of his head shaved. He said he was “too scarred” (sic) to show off the new barnet to his family. Wise fellow. When he spent a day in London with his best friend, Silvio, I asked him what they had seen. “Shopping!” he declared with pride. Weeks passed until the sad day when Benito had to leave. Lacrimoso! His monogrammed bags and jangling bottles of face perfume vacated the house forever. Sometimes, I look fondly at the stepladder in the kitchen. Remembering Benito’s little legs clambering up to reach the sink…

Next to stay was Valentina. She was mesmerised by so many of our strange English customs. Boiling the kettle. Amazing! Recycling yoghurt pots. Funny! Some aspects of life foxed her entirely, such as the use of locks on external doors. She insisted on peeling chickpeas one by one because the skins contain evil spirits. Which later escape as farts. Valentina embraced the cultural highlights of Hastings with gusto and made frequent trips to Primark and Superdrug. Also, the doughnut place where you can buy 5 for £1.

In between catering to these young folks, I did my best to maintain physical fitness. I tried a thing called ‘yogabolics’. Which is a fusion of yoga and cardiobolics, if you can believe that. Two points on this. Firstly, if an exercise cannot be undertaken whilst wearing a kaftan and bloomers, then I’ve no use for it. Secondly, all that bending over. I couldn’t take the risk.

Summer

July brought Rhapsody and Fantasia (aka The Silent Twins) to the house for a brief stay. They communicated with each other using eye movements and sonic pulses. In the mornings, they would apparate in the kitchen doorway and chirrup in unison, “we are not hungry for the breakfast today but we are very hungry for the ice cream can we have the ice cream…” Otherwise, they were no bother.

I also played host to my old friend, Muriel, who dropped by from the Antipodes. She loves shopping and she loves vigorous exercise. Though Muriel’s idea of a workout is spending the night in a sex dungeon. Luckily for her, I live but a sparrow’s hop from Bexhill. We visited the retail emporia of St Leonards where our life savings were siphoned from our purses. But silly old us. In urgent need of gin, we made a foolhardy dash to The Salty Codger. Therein, I was pressured by the landlord to fumble in his tombola. And all for charity…!

One balmy evening in August, Crystalle de Canta took me to an art exhibition on the seafront. But I barely survived an encounter with the infamous woodworker and libertine, Roger Bundle. I’m sorry. Holding a cucumber in a darkened room is not my idea of cultural intercourse. I didn’t move to St Leonards for that!

Autumn

During a session of the Book Club at The Tipsy Turbot, I thought my maidenhood was about to be claimed by yet another rogue, Mr Jack Driftwood. This time, however, the lustful scrutiny of my innocent being was, in fact, harmless. And merely the result of his quaffing the local ale. Which is, apparently, fermented embalming fluid, if you’re interested.

A highlight of the season for me was The Hastings Boozy Fish Festival. This great event combined a Rabbelasian MC, with a pescetarian food fight on top of a backstage riot between rival ukulele gangs. I mean groups. It was bourgeois-mageddon and quite delicious. Crystalle and I drank it all in.

I also had a lovely visit to Ireland to see my brothers, Siegfried and Rodolpho. Chugging back to the family homestead on the Shamrock Charabanc, this trip raised some old memories. Mostly of slum landlords and their obsession with teen underwear. If only they’d looked under our beds. They’d have seen exactly what art students did with their knickers. But I’ll spare you the details…

Winter

As autumn turned to winter, I welcomed a new guest to my home. Greta came from one of the former Soviet Republics and transformed my cooking. It’s true. Never have I been more alive to the creative possibilities of the potato! During her stay, Greta experienced three Prime Ministers and two monarchs. You can’t say it wasn’t an interesting end to the year.

Into 2023…

Thinking ahead, I do feel that the world should enjoy the gift of my versatile, uplifting falsetto. So, joining a local choir could be on the cards. And I like to give back.

Healthwise, I will increase my cardiovascular exercise this year. Though I’ve yet to decide how. Perhaps I’ll try that walking group run by Miss Emerald Spaffington-Horsebox? I told Crystalle about it and all she could say was, “What a silly, made-up name!” Well, it takes one to know one. Meanwhile, Muriel can’t understand why I’m not in Bexhill every weekend. But I’d hardly have the time. And again, so much bending over…

On that note, dear reader, I’d like to wish you a very Happy New Year. May you keep your wits about you, your bloomers held high, and your spirits intact. I intend to.

I had the strangest dream. It seemed I had walked into the chamber of the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster. And there they all were. Row upon row, all dressed up in their fancy red robes. But the traditional ermine around the collar somehow seemed to have edged upwards, and was now encircling their heads. For a moment I wondered if the animals had collectively reanimated and were wreaking their revenge for being so abused. Were they perhaps having a chew at the eyeballs of their tormentors? Frankly who’d have blamed them? But no. It seemed that the white fur was part of a new head covering. It looked awfully familiar but the incongruity of the scene meant it took some moments to realise that all the Lords and Ladies were wearing …. yes, you’ve got it … Santa Hats!

The reformed House of Lords
CREDIT: Ba Kode

But that wasn’t the strangest thing. They all seemed to be reciting an Oath of Allegiance. Though instead of uttering the usual words “I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law, so help me God.” I fancied I was hearing something rather different. Now, I was at the back of the chamber, and it’s echoey in there, plus their Lordships are well known for their propensity to mumble, but I thought I heard something like the following: “I do swear that I will not pinch the bottoms of little boys or girls, and that I will bellow Ho, Ho, Ho, at least six times a minute”.

I spotted an usher and sidled up to him. “What the Christmas Pudding is going on” I heard myself say. “Ah,” said he, “it’s the first day of Santa School. Their Lordships are pre-emptively re-training ahead of Kier’s threat to abolish them”. 

I digested the information for a moment. “Are there really such things as Santa Schools?” I asked incredulously. “Why certainly,” said he. “Hundreds of them, but mainly in the States. This is the Northern Lights Santa Academy from Atlanta, Georgia. They say their mission is ‘to help all Christmas professionals perfect their craft and foster the highest standards in their industry.”

“Highest standards?” I responded, “why on earth are they looking here? This place is nicknamed the House of Sleaze. Corruption is rife. Peers make thousands through false attendance claims. Others use political influence to get lucrative government contracts. 15 of the last 16 Tory treasurers were appointed to the lords following individual donations of £3 million to the party. And that’s quite apart from their personal habits. Sniffing powder with prostitutes … groping women and offering them peerages for sex.”

“That, my friend,” said the usher “is why their Lordships are so desperate. Anything, even seasonal work, would be better than the dole queue. And, bear in mind, they do already have the uniform.”

It is with some regret that I have to announce that the inaugural meeting of the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Movement was not a great success. In short, no-one attended. This may, in part, be due to the fact that neither notice nor invitations were actually sent out. The founder member of the Movement (myself) debated long and hard on this issue. Would not an actual meeting amount to something real? And, if so, how could it then possibly be considered surreal? And if not surreal, how could it possibly be the basis for our assemblage? The questions seemed unanswerable and, indeed, led to a severe over-heating of the brain, assuaged only by liberal doses of a particularly peaty single malt.

The second problem is that the Movement has no members (except for the aforementioned founder). The admission criteria are, it is accepted, onerous. At least one work has to be submitted electronically along with, and I quote ‘a stamped self-addressed envelope for its return’. This has clearly proved a stumbling block for many, except perhaps for the redoubtable Mr Tony Howard. He had the temerity to shower the organiser with dozens of his questionable pictures (see HIP issue 210, 23 September), and then to deliver, possibly by hand, his SSA-envelope to the registered office of this august journal. The membership committee debated the legitimacy of this move for some time – or at least until the bottle was empty – without coming to any concrete, or other, conclusion.

Tony Howard’s Zebra Crossing; Mr Howard – Zebra in a Topper?; Mr Howard’s Zebra Lost in Lingerie

It was therefore decided (nem. con. naturally) that the question of his admission should be determined by a vote of readers of this paper. To remind you of his suitability – or not – we reproduce here some of his latest work along with his hand-written artist’s statement. Instructions on how to vote will be found at the foot of the page. 

Faithfully yours,
Ba Kode
Honorary Factotum the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Movement

• To vote on Mr Howard’s admission to the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Movement, please email info@hastingindependentpress.co.uk with the words “AYE” or NAY” in the subject line.

“Welcome to the Hastings Juicy Fist Festival!” I looked at my friend, Crystalle de Canta, in disbelief. The compère  continued; “Ah, ha, ha, ha! Where’s your sense of humour? You’re at the Hastings Woozy
Flesh Festival!” Crystalle gasped. We were horrified but the diatribe wasn’t over. “Oh I can’t stop joking, me. This is the Hastings Blousy Dish… Ah, shuddup, I’m only having a laugh…”

In fact, we were at the Hastings Boozy Fish Festival. And this really was how we were greeted by the MC. It was a day that had promised so much. Food, music and lashings of alcohol; a classic outing in Hastings. Walking into the arena at The Stade, a sign declared there would be ‘Fun For All The Family!’ And right next to it, another sign trumpeted ‘TWO Defibrillators!’ Since one thing so often leads to another… 

CREDIT: Ba Kode

There were stalls laden with local seafood, wine and fishy delicacies. The stage was set for musical entertainment. We quickly found some potted mackerel and bought a large portion each. We spotted a cocktail bar offering its very own ‘Hastings Zinger’. Intrigued, we approached the stall-holder. “Yesssss..?” she asked. “Madame,” I said. “Please may we have two of your finest Zingers?” “Yesssss..?” she replied, and began preparing our drinks. This was a tricky manoeuvre, as she needed both hands to remain upright. “Yesssss..?” she repeated, and presented us with our cocktails. My finished libation combined a pint of tequila with a memory of orange juice. Crystalle was given a mug of vodka and a glacé cherry. 

We found a seat and hunkered down for the performance. We were near two large tables of festival-goers wearing colour-coordinated outerwear. We sensed a rivalry between these groups. Which was odd, because they were all sporting the same crackdry^® towel-lined coatigans. “What’s going on? Are they in a cult?” demanded Crystalle. But I was knowledgeable on this subject. “You wear them to change your togs on the beach”, I informed her. And to stem further questions, I added, “Crystalle, not everyone owns a kaftan!” 

Amongst others on the playbill were two local ukulele bands; The Ukuladies and The Dirty Old Pluckers. Little did we know that rock and roll carnage had erupted backstage. Tanked up on Kent cider (Rotten Apples 10% proof), they’d got into a huge fight over the size of their instruments. Battered ukes and tangled strings littered the scene. Members of the Anarchist’s Choir trembled tearfully, their punk hairdos wilting in the heat. Any remaining acts had fled. 

Oblivious, the MC was still onstage, antagonising the patrons. “Seriously folks, it’s time for some music now… so up yours… ha ha, I mean down your hatch! Alright Doris, keep your hair on!” But just at that moment, one of the brightly-clad festival-goers made a booming declaration that the Margate Boozy Fish Festival was far superior to the Hastings Boozy Fish Festival. Oh dear! Who could say when the first vegan scratching was thrown? Retaliation was instant. Food flew in every direction. A heel of stale sourdough hit the MC between the eyes, and he staggered backwards. Most satisfying! And soon enough, oodles of nut-free, gluten-free, organic and locally-sourced produce sloshed down and slathered over everything in sight. It was bourgois-mageddon!

Crystalle and I did what any sensible ladies would have done in our position. We took cover under one of the tables and enjoyed our mackerel and massive drinks in peace. And we both agreed that TWO defibrillators really were better than one, after all. What a marvellous afternoon it turned into. Cin cin!

Well, fellow creatures, it appears once again we face a fight for survival as the cold war is upon us.

But I put to you we have an even bigger threat. Without leaving one eye open and one ear cocked, we can let times such as these create diversion, animosity and division. Frightened of losing what we have, we hold on to it tighter: we become fearful; less generous; more angry, more anxious. Smaller issues become magnified, fingers start to point, voices raise and differences become more important than similarities. We forget the good stuff. 

And in doing so of course, we lose what is most valuable of all, our compassion. 

(N.B.It doesn’t do any harm at all to sniff through the bin/garden/stranger’s crotch to check compassion isn’t just buried rather than completely lost).

So I propose this: let go of the aspects of the fight that were never ours and take victory by being opposite. Be kind; be together, keep giving, go for walks and pat each other on the head more often. Simple.

Before it got chewed, my favourite cushion read ‘Surrender to win’ and there is truth in those words. Now it says ‘render to win’ which, though less profound, may still speak to those in the building community. Every cushion has
a lining. It’s about how you look at things I say, even a beloved, irreplaceable and priceless treasure, though utterly destroyed, can help you grow into the darkness. Or rain on the good times. 

I digress.

If we turn on each other we are doomed. Not just cold and skint, but bitter and lonely to boot. And we start chewing on stuff that’s not for chewing.

I’m originally from the borders of Scotland – BOS if you will – and I have long been aware of the North/South divide, but just lately I’ve noticed more snarling within the community.

We all like to make a noise, and it’s our right, but it seems you don’t always need a dog collar to preach. Finding a way to exist together, whether you are local, DFL, or, like myself, driving past with your head hanging out the window, is paramount. Surely we want the town, and each other, to do well.

So accept or at least tolerate difference. Show respect. You don’t crap in my basket, I won’t shit on your beach (I’m not taking full accountability for that), celebrate the strong sense of community this town has and try to proffer solutions – not just criticism. Immerse yourself fully, not just your nose.

As my favourite bowl used to say before I trashed it, ‘divided we are weak’. We need each other. Fact. Though now I can only find a shattered piece of china saying ‘div’, I will never forget the pleasure the full dish gave me. ‘Div’ serves as a constant reminder for me of how great it is when things aren’t broken. So my point is, even ruining things is good if you think hard enough. This is how acorns grow. 

I digress.

So, remember the good things; be nice to each other; don’t break anything; think about others while you’re doing your business (but don’t put your nose in theirs); make someone want to pat your head, sit on someone’s knee if you’re allowed. And share your biscuits.

Peace and warmth to each and every last acronym-loving one of you. You’re all the same to us.

Next time: Money Grabbing Bastard Landlords and Why it’s OK Not to Forgive Them

Last month I flew to Chaoimh Town in Ireland to visit my brothers, Siegfried and Rodolpho. I haven’t seen them for some years. With an undeclared toothbrush in my kaftan and wearing 45 pairs of bloomers, I cunningly evaded the luggage restrictions of Air Éireann. Ha ha! In great excitement, I manoeuvred my well-padded rump onto the plane, and set off for the home of my ancestors. And a few ghosts as well. 

Siegfried was waiting for me at the airport with vittles and refreshments. We took the Shamrock Charabanc from downtown Chaoimh to the family homestead at Garvanstownabbey. We spent the journey catching up with our news and chomping on sherbet lemons. Siegfried regaled me with his favourite anecdote from an Irish radio show: on a famous phone-in quiz, the presenter had tried giving one of the contestants a helping hand. The question asked for the name of a legendary Formula One commentator. By way of a clue, the host suggested, “it’s something you put in your mouth”. The caller shot back with “Dickie Davis!”, having failed to make the mental leap from ‘Murray Mint’ to ‘Murray Walker.’ We chuckled all the way home.

Being on the road again in Ireland, I couldn’t help recalling days long ago when I used to hitchhike along this patch, going to and from art school. Back then, hitching was considered an acceptable mode of transport for the young. I generally felt safe, although I did encounter the occasional oddball. One fellow picked me up and drove silently towards my home town. Halfway there, in the shadow of the mountains, he suddenly started waxing about his local convent school. “Those girls have a green uniform”, he said. “…. Errr… yeah…?” I replied with creeping dread. The driver went on, “…and I often wondered about those girls… do you think would they be wearin’ green knickers and a green bra to match the uniform…?” I was stunned and said little until I could spring from the car at my destination.

 The obsession with teen lingerie was familiar. Going with a friend to find student digs in Chaoimh Town, one landlord proudly showed us a retractable washing line strung from the tiny kitchen over a dank yard. He told us it would be perfect for hanging out our “smalls”. And in case we hadn’t caught his drift, he said “… heh heh heh…yer panties…” The place we rented in the end had a shower in the kitchen. The owner of that hellhole suffered a different kind of fixation. He let himself into the flat every day and took exception to our “dorty, nudey pictures!” They were harmless life drawings but he ripped them off the walls in a frenzy. Anyway, as much as all this was alarming and intrusive, these guys were amateurs compared with the real perverts of that time in Ireland. Those clerical perverts who hid their crimes in plain sight. We hardly knew how fortunate we were.

Back on the bus, a passenger was attempting a phone call. “WHAT? I can’t hear you… the bus is fuckin’ shakin’” was the gist of it. Every few minutes, the conversation repeated. “No, no, I can’t hear you… the bus is fuckin’ shakin’… WHAT? I can’t hear you!” This continued until he gave up. Because it wasn’t the bus that was shaking. 

And that’s the thing about Ireland; the contradictions and riddles of it. It’s funny when it’s sad. It’s strange and familiar. It’s home and it’s not home. As the great poet said, there’s ‘a terrible beauty’. And a lot of underwear. When I flew back towards St Leonards, a rainbow hung over the Emerald Isle. And I was already missing my dear brothers and longing to return. 

Hello, 

I’m Tony Howard , I would like to apply for honorary membership of the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism. SAE
on it’s (sic -ed) way to you. I attach a (rather excessive – Ed) number of pictures to support my submission.

If you don’t accept me, I will send Mrs T round to your office to give you a good hand-bagging. Mrs T is a friend of mine, follows me round, and gets her head in my pictures.   

Regards  

Tony Howard

Mr Kode, on behalf of the Hastings Independent, replied as follows:

Dear Mr Howard

Thank you for your application and submission to the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Society. 

Your photos are, indeed, in the best traditions of our organisation. The Hanging Committee (ie me) has thought long and hard about your application – and consumed a considerable quantity of Single Malt in the process. However,
I regret to inform you that, in this instance, we will not hang you (though the option of the guillotine remains open).

Our reasons are twofold: First, you seem under the dangerous illusion that Mrs Thatcher is still alive. Even though she herself joked about the ‘Mummy Returns,’ in her Plymouth campaign Speech (May 2001), every reputable political analyst I know believes that the current incarnation is not Mrs T. but rather Liz Truss inhabiting the Iron Lady’s wizened body.

The other reason is that, not unsurprisingly, you failed to supply the SAE with your on-line application. This requirement was designed to weed out any pseudo-surrealists as opposed to anarcho-syndicalists (the
mortal enemy of Thatcher/Truss-ism) from real ones. Here, once again, I fear you have failed the test.

There is one further avenue left open to you should you choose to pursue it. The Satire page of the Hastings Independent is, as ever, seeking material. So should you happen to pen 600 words on the subject of “Why I would want to join the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealist Society when, as Groucho Marks observed, I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member” it will be considered for publication along with some of your photos. (Quite frankly it should be fairly easy as the title itself will take up a large part of the essay.)

On this occasion, we will forgo the usual stipulation that your submission must be on all four sides of one sheet of A4 lined paper, written with a quill pen derived from the feather of a dodo, in brown ink procured from a cuttlefish on the first full moon of the hunting season. Instead, you may simply send it to this email address: arts@hastingsindependentpress.co.uk

I look forward to hearing back from you (I think). 

Salutations and felicitations

Ba Kode,
Honorary Factotum, HPPSS

Frankly it’s all rather disconcerting.  I have no idea where I’ll be living from now on.  Mind you I wasn’t that keen on the flat in Downing Street.  A dog like me needs a bit of space to roam around.  The scruff-haired one generally takes me for a stroll round the garden of a morning, and the lovely lady Carrie, my mistress (can one still say that in these days of woke?) gives me a run in St James’s Park later on. She’s generally accompanied by one of those funny tall men in suits with a bulge under their arm who always refer to her as ‘Marm’. Sometimes, if she’s too busy, the funny men themselves take me out (no, not in that sense!) which is rather more fun.  But it’s not really enough exercise for a lively Jack Russell. Anyway, the point is, I know I am only a dog but no one has bothered to ask me where I would like to live.

One does overhear things though. I understood that there was a choice between a pad in Camberwell and a farmhouse ‘cottage’ in Oxfordshire. Somehow the Scruff (who likes to call himself Big Dog but frankly doesn’t smell like one to me) managed to rake together £1.2 million to buy a four-bedroom Victorian terraced house.   A couple of months ago they put it on the market for £1.6 million – which would net them a cool £400k in just three years. Not bad, eh?  But assuming it gets a buyer, we won’t be moving there. So, then there’s the Old Farm House in Thame. According to the estate agent’s blurb it was: “a Grade II-listed four-bedroom home, a chocolate-box cottage, with a grand fireplace, wooden beams and views across open Oxfordshire countryside and a separate stone annexe, a tennis court and swimming pool”. This was surely a snip at just £640,000.  Though that was back in 2003 when the Scruff was still married to his ex – Marina Wheeler.  And for some reason the Lady Carrie isn’t too keen on the place.  Can’t think why not.  Sounds ideal to me.  Of course, it is bit close to that funny house we used to visit of a weekend.  What was it called?  Draughts or something like that. Anyway, I loved it there.  So many good old fashioned wooden table legs to chew.  Though the Scruff did get a bit shirty about that once and shouted “please shoot that f****** dog” after I bit off more Chippendale than I could chew.  It looked as if it could be rather dicey for a moment though.  Several of the tall men in suits immediately reached under their arms with a nasty gleam in their eye.

Apparently, the Thame house had to have something called a mortgage put on it to pay for some wallpaper in the Downers street gaff.  Between you and me, the Scruff and Lady C seem a bit put out not only that they had to cough up for the decorations, but it seems they can’t take them with them as they go.  

Oh, there was one other option mooted.  Apparently, the father of the Scruff has a fairly extensive estate in Greece.  There was talk of us all decanting out there while he writes his memoirs.  However, it was pointed out that ‘Boris’s Brexit’ put paid to the Pet Passport scheme and the Lady C said if I couldn’t go, then she wasn’t going either.  Bless her cotton socks (still unchewed). But it does leave us all a bit kennel-less.

I was on my hands and knees last week at The Tipsy Turbot. Naturally, I was trying to be inconspicuous. Yet there’s only so much discretion a woman of substance can manage in a small pub. Book club was in session and I needed to return to it urgently. I’m afraid my juddering haunches may have resembled a floral sofa out on a stealth mission for the SAS. During an earthquake. But it was the best I could do. 

The book club always gathers at The Tipsy Turbot. It hasn’t been decorated since 1984, but we love it. Thursday morning is whisky hour, and we can smoke our cigarillos outside. Club members include Myrtle, Mildred, Apricot, Jezebel, Lucia… and me! Over the years we’ve concluded that the first rule of book club is: don’t talk about books! We started out with great expectations. But nowadays we’d rather exchange notes on the latest scandal. We once swapped withering slights over Penny Vincenzi’s output, but we soon turned the page… 

CREDIT: Natalie Parham

Well, we were having a giggle that day, teasing Myrtle about her latest romance; “Ooooh Myrtle! Is it ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’… or two coats of magnolia?” “Stop it!” begged Myrtle, “You must respect the silence of my hams!” Amid this melee, I slipped away to adjust my corsetry. But I became most discombobulated on my journey to the loo. There was Mr Jack Driftwood! The retired banker and notorious owner of Kipperz Fish Shack was at the far end of the saloon bar. He had an elbow on the counter and a pint in his hand. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He was staring directly at me! And with such an insolent smirk I feared for my good name. Clutching my bodice tighter, I scuttled into the powder room.

Minutes later, I exited with some trepidation. Behold! Jack Driftwood stood and gawped. I looked around. Could anyone else be the object of his predations? There were two pirates playing darts in one corner. The landlady, Miss Lovecock (aptly named, by all accounts) was behind the bar. She was too busy polishing the taps in a suggestive manner to notice Jack. The wolf wanted me. But why?

I patted my embonpoint to check for accidental overspill. Was my dress tucked into my bloomers? It wasn’t. But there was no time to read between the lines. I immediately swooped below the bar and dropped onto all fours. Thankful to be wearing undergarments (unlike one nameless member of the book club, i.e., Mildred) I made my perilous flight.

Back in the lean-to we call ‘the cigar lounge’, the ladies were puffing away. They wanted to know what I was doing, crawling on the floor amid handfuls of dust. “Why have you gone all ‘Bravo Two Zero’?” asked Apricot.
I relayed my terrible ordeal;
“I’ve barely escaped with my maidenhood!” Everyone agreed that Jack surely posed a clear and present danger to gentlewomen. And Jezebel was determined to stop the rogue. She set out fearlessly for the saloon.

Jezebel approached Jack. Just then, Miss Lovecock intervened. She pointed out that Jack had been drinking Smuggler’s Cudgel. The infamous local brew! He was afflicted with temporary paralysis, which is a common reaction. He would have neither sense nor sensibility for hours. So, strong ale had been to blame all along. Never mind. My reputation was untarnished by his attention! And the book club could continue on as normal. Better yet, there was time for another round of whisky. “Anyone for last orders before we go?” asked Myrtle. Needing no persuasion, Lucia quipped, “Bring up the toddies!” Cheers!

• Editor’s Note: Bookworming contains hidden titles of at least 14 books. Can you identify them? Answers on below.

Hidden Book Titles: A Woman Of Substance, Barbara Taylor Bradford; 1984, George Orwell; Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk; Notes on a Scandal, Zoë Heller; Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë; Fifty Shades Of Grey, EL James; The Silence Of The Lambs, Thomas Harris; A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh; Bravo Two Zero, Andy McNab;
Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy; Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen; Last Orders, Graham Swift; Persuasion, Jane Austen; Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel.

Inspiration can strike when you least expect it. Though perhaps it should come as less of a surprise if it hits you while you are looking at an exhibition of Surrealism at the Tate.

And what, you reasonably ask, was the inspiration in question? Well, it was more a realisation than an inspiration. I realised that the works I had been making for some while were straight out of the Surrealists’ playbook. In short, I might be a Surrealist without ever having known it. 

A: Jumble of Old Envelopes? B: Venerable old tools?

Too late to be a part of it

Just how, I will demonstrate in a moment. But initially a couple of problems presented themselves following this bombshell. First was that the surrealist movement started in the 1930s and reached its apogee after the second world war. So, being born in 1953 I was basically too late to be a part of it. Perhaps I could claim that, in my mother’s womb I had, by some osmotic process, imbibed whiffs of its heady essence. Secondly it was clear from the Tate’s exhibition, that to be a Surrealist you had to be part of a local cadre – be it in Buenos Aires, Cairo, Lisbon, Mexico City, Prague, Seoul, or Tokyo. But it seemed that the crucial factor was that, in forming or joining a group of like-minded people you simply had to declare that you were a Surrealist in order to be one. Once your self-identification was made, you would automatically be admitted to the hallowed halls. Just as long as you were working in Paris or Buenos Aires, Cairo, Lisbon, Mexico City, Prague, Seoul, or Tokyo… which I wasn’t, hadn’t been, nor was immediately likely to be. But for heaven’s sake surely Hastings could, and should, join this august list? 

And surely the timescale could be adjusted? After all we’ve had pre-Raphaelites coming long after Raphael. And post-impressionists coming after the pre-impressionists or, for that matter, the impressionists themselves (though that being, perhaps, less surprising).

So the answer was clear. Staring me right in the face of a melting Dali clock. I would form the post-Surrealist movement of Hastings. There’s always a certain cachet to being the leader of an art movement and this could only be to my advantage. Except … except I was too late. There is already a post-surrealist movement. It was formed in 1934 (appropriately enough BEFORE the main surrealist movement really took hold) by two Californians who wrote a manifesto explaining their desire to use art to convey the relationship between the perceptual and the conceptual. (You see what I mean. You have to self-declare and be from somewhere in order to be either a Surrealist or a Post-Surrealist).

So there is basically only one thing for it. My Hastings’ movement will have to be Pre-Post Surrealism – albeit coming nearly a hundred years after the start of the movement itself – or of course after the post-movement movement. 

To subvert reality

To further burnish my credentials I need only quote from the Tate exhibition: 

“Surrealism is not a style – but a state of mind. It aims to subvert reality. To find the uncanny in the everyday. To tap into our unconscious desires and bring dreams to life. And for many artists around the world, it has been a way to challenge authority and imagine a new world.” Excellent. That’s me to a ‘T’. I certainly aim to subvert reality (and generally succeed after the fourth or fifth glass of wine of an evening). I obviously wish to challenge authority (I once refused to pay a parking fine), and I am ever imagining a new world – one without Tories in it.

But, look, I know perfectly well that artists rise of fall not on their manifesto, not the name of the movement they may or may not have created, not on refusing to pay a parking fine or getting sloshed on cheap plonk. No, they are judged on the nature and, frankly, the quality of their work. So I now present you with a simple test. Which of the two accompanying pictures is of a work currently in the Tate, and which is mine?

Is it a) a jumble of old envelopes? b) an assortment of venerable old tools?

Oh, come one! You weren’t really expecting me to give you an answer were you? That wouldn’t be in the playbook at all. But the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Movement (HPPSM?) does, surely, need a manifesto. Probably best to check if there have been previous Surrealism movements in Britain and ‘borrow’ from them. A quick Google, and yes there it is, an exhibition at the Dulwich picture gallery a couple of years ago called simply British Surrealism which included works from Leonora Carrington, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland – I move among the masters!

It bursts out in the 1930s

But wait a moment. The curator David Boyd Haycock himself says this wasn’t really a ‘movement’ and wasn’t really new in Britain: “It bursts out in the mid-1930s, but in some ways it’s bursting out of something that’s been here as a latent experience.” Reviewers cited gothic novels like Dracula and writers such as Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll as the precursors of British Surrealism. So we have a problem. No British movement and no manifesto.

Back to basics then. Back to France in 1924 and a Surrealist manifesto is written by André Breton and published in a booklet (Editions du Sagittaire). It defines Surrealism as:

Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner – the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

Left: Ba Kode’s Mac Fountain (after, or possibly before, Duchamp); Right: Knife the Mac – Ba Kode’s submission for entry to the HPPSM

The anteriority of Surrealism

Excellent. No one will have the faintest idea of what any of that means so the HPPSM can import it wholesale. But hang on. What is this? Factionalism already? Wikipedia tells us there were actually four Surrealist manifestos. The next two, published in October 1924, were written by Yvan Goll and the leaders of rival Surrealist groups. In response Breton published his second manifesto for the Surrealists in 1929. Hmm. So which to go with? Goll or Breton? Back to Wikipedia: “Though the quarrel over the anteriority of Surrealism concluded with the victory of Breton, the history of surrealism from that moment would remain marked by fractures, resignations, and resounding excommunications, with each surrealist having their own view of the issue and goals, and accepting more or less the definitions laid out by André Breton.”

Nah, this is all getting too complicated. Surrealism surely was a protest movement increasingly concerned about the political situation – in Europe and elsewhere – in the 1920s and 30s. The sort of inchoate concern that is beating in the hearts of most of us today. And the personification of current political surrealism must, surely, be Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. That’s the answer. I’ll ask him to be president of our HPPSM. After all his premiership has been utterly surreal. And he’ll soon be looking for something new to do. Result!

For honorary membership of the Hastings Pre-Post Surrealism Movement please email your entry submission to
arts@hastingsindependentpress.co.uk, enclosing a self-addressed envelope to ensure safe return.

By Teigh-Anne Toast 

Last Friday evening I went to an art exhibition on the seafront with my good friend, Crystalle de Canta. It was the opening night of a group show called ‘Fresh Wind’. Crystalle explained that a group show is when a collection of artists who detest each other mount a joint exhibition. They do this to share costs. For safety reasons, Crystalle advised me to describe the artworks as either ‘great’ or ‘interesting’. We ventured into the gallery and the hostility was palpable. You could have cut the atmosphere with a chisel. We immediately helped ourselves to a plastic cup of turpentine laced with battery acid. Or ‘complimentary wine’.

Wafting around in my favourite kaftan and turban, I soon fell into conversation with Roger Bundle, one of the exhibiting artists. I say ‘conversation’, but Roger had clearly indulged in a few drops too many of the free vino. He was tighter than a pair of Speedos. His eyes roamed erratically about my tunic and darted in multiple directions. Roger was attempting to explain his oeuvre but most of his discourse was unintelligible. I caught the occasional word. Something about a blouse? He moved closer and called me ‘Tina’. There was a long pause before his final pronouncement: “mmmelons!” Sensing the need to move along swiftly, I assured Roger that his art was fascinating, and left him swaying next to a wood carving.

Meanwhile, Crystalle was engaged in a deep conference with the sculptor, Helga Rotten-Weiller. Helga had created an installation involving a long drainage pipe covered in undulating, pink foamy material. It was called ‘Rights of the Passage’. I wondered if it represented an intestine. Slipping past with utmost discretion, I overheard Helga expounding her personal philosophy; “Yah, yah… I am not a positive person… I don’t believe that existence is positive. In fact, I despise positive persons!” Crystalle nodded. “Ha ha ha” laughed Helga, “have a nice life!!!”

By this time, I was rather enjoying the exhibition. There were pots and paintings, drawings and dabblings; it was a good show. I was on my second beaker of booze and, throwing caution aside, I wandered into a darkened room to watch an art film about clouds. But oh, dear reader! I had failed to notice Roger right behind me. He lurched forwards. “Ooooooh Tina!!” he slurred. “I want to bake love to you!” I realised we were quite alone as the air thickened with wine fumes and desperation. Roger pressed on; “I’ve a lovely shausage you know…” I panicked and edged away. What could I do? I tried to warn Roger of my strict vegetarianism*, but he was undeterred. “Hmmm… whaddabout my big cu cu (hic!) cucumber?” he asked. I had an idea and said brightly,“heavens! Isn’t that a lovely sofa?” And as he turned to look, I shoved Roger face-first into the cushions. Apparently, he slept like a baby for several hours. Which was more than he deserved, in the circumstances.

Escaping back into the main gallery, I heard raised voices. There was a big kerfuffle over Helga’s artwork. An unfortunate visitor had strayed too close and dared to touch it. “You’re molesting my vagina!!!” Helga shrieked. All things considered, this seemed a very good moment to retreat, so I marched up to Crystalle and told her that I could absolutely murder a crab stick. She reminded me that it was happy hour at Just For The Halibut, and if we hurried, we’d still be in time for some cut-price potted mackerel. Needless to say, we ran for it!

*with the exception of crab sticks and potted mackerel.

My friend Muriel recently visited me from the Antipodes. One particular day, she was a little fatigued, having spent the previous evening at Bexhill’s newest sex dungeon. “I’m bushed, T”, she told me over crumpets. “The Bexhill crowd is just so…” she hesitated. “Old?” I offered. “Energetic”, countered Muriel. Well, I thought, never underestimate the vigour of randy septuagenarians. As I, ummm, believe someone once told me. “How about a cheeky shopping trip to St Leonards?” I suggested. “We could have lunch and pick up some gewgaws afterwards. You’ll feel much better.” Muriel agreed and off we went.

When we reached Warrior Square, we popped into Hijack, a new cafe-bar-eating-complex. “Strewth! It’s pricey!” noted Muriel. “Yes,” I agreed. “It reminds us of London!” I told her that when you’re ready to pay, you simply hand over your credit card and they don’t give it back. And if you can’t find your money, they have a very helpful man out the back. He will hold you upside down by the ankles, and shake you until all the coins fall out of your pockets. “Bonzer!” said Muriel. So after we had spent our life savings on cider and chips, we headed out for some retail therapy.

First of all, we strolled up London Road and stopped at a boutique called Whatever Are You Wearing? The lovely ladies therein asked us if we needed any help. “I’m looking for something versatile,” I explained. “Something that will take me from exploring the mud flats at low tide to cock-tail hour at The Tipsy Turbot. Do you have anything in a size tent-y?” “Absolutely!” replied the proprietrix. She proffered several yards of diaphanous fabric featuring a hole in the middle for my head. Everyone thought that this garment was just right and very ‘me’! I grabbed the emergency-running-away fund stashed in my bustenhalter and paid.

Next, we enjoyed that most traditional shopping experience of St Leonards, and went looking for second-hand furniture. Letting our eyes adjust to the gloom of each emporium, we heard the scuttling of tiny creatures escaping our tread as we poked around, digging for treasures. Muriel chose a couple of knick-knacks, marked at £15 for the
pair. “Would you take £10?” she bargained. The charming owner blushed prodigiously. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly accept that,” he quivered. “£5 would be more than sufficient.” Muriel dug out a fiver from the lining of her handbag and he insisted on giving her some change.

By now, and with a hard night on the rack behind her, Muriel was flagging. I suggested a quick brightener. However, as it was a Wednesday afternoon, most establishments in the town were closed. We stumbled into The Salty Codger on Western Road. And though we noted the distinct lack of Farrow & Ball exterior paint colours, we ignored this warning on account of our raging thirst for gin. Sitting down with our drinks, we saw that the pub was holding a meat raffle. This was evidenced by numerous plates of glistening brawn, suppurating under cling film. We had scarcely gathered our wits before the red-eyed landlord was upon us. The saucy oaf enquired, “Would you like to put yer ‘and in my tombola?” “Certainly NOT!” I rebuffed, “I’m a vegetarian.” I instructed Muriel to drink up and we demolished our G&Ts, pronto. We felt very lucky indeed to get home in time for Gogglebox and a soothing pint of Baileys.

Not long afterwards, Muriel’s sojourn in East Sussex came to an end and she departed for Oz. She had a wedding
to attend, and I had further adventures to plan…

What will be left when Boris’ travelling show finally falls over the inevitable cliff? There will surely come a moment, very soon, when Boris slides away – as the summer of discontent burns – to write his highly lucrative memoirs. The parties in number 10 will have fallen silent. And one cold grey dawn in Downing Street the cleaners will arrive, like a liberating army, to cleanse Boris’ bunker. 

What will they find? I imagine them standing amid empty wine bottles, half-eaten canapes and defaced promotional leaflets, staring, bewildered, at the claret-stained designer wallpaper. But, in amongst all the detritus, they will doubtless find Boris’ slogan ideas drawer. Tatty scraps of paper of no interest anymore. One of them will pick up one of the pieces of paper and – as they stand amid all the moral wreckage and broken glass and utter chaos of post-Borisland – the piece of inky paper will flutter to the floor and, in the movie, the camera will zoom in on the filthy carpet and reveal the words, ‘Take back Control.’ (What movie? Ed.)

THE FANTASY KINGDOM OF BREXITANIA

After the day of departure, historians will set about trying to make sense of it all. I guess something like this will be a popular thesis: the problem was that Boris was never really a politician, he was always a hack. And as a hack journalist, he spent far too long making stuff up. To the point that he came to believe that his phrases, once uttered, became true. It was a delusion that gripped him after many years spinning copy for the Tory Press. When Tory journalists say things in the Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail, then lo, they are ‘true.’ The young Boris spent years, for example, telling us that the EU banned children from blowing up balloons and only allowed straight bananas and sought to prevent the freedom-loving Brits from eating prawn cocktail crisps. All of this became true in the emerging fantasy kingdom of Brexitania. In all but one small detail; it was all fibs. But, in some odd way, Boris came to believe that his words, almost magically, made things happen. It was a mind-set he took into number 10.

And so the ‘Wizard of the Word’ set about an occult experiment: seeing how far a country can be governed by slogans or phrases alone. ‘Alone’ in the sense that they have no substantive, tangible reality.

Take “levelling Up.” If you think about it, there has never been any real meaning to this. By almost any criteria Britain remains the same old elitist society it has been for years. The same types make it to the top. (Boris is after all the 20th Etonian PM and, at present, the tally of PMs from Comprehensive Schools stands at zero. One could carry on looking at sociological measures of Britain’s structural inequalities, such as the eternal dominance of Oxbridge –  but it’s too boring and too obvious) But the blond magus knew the bewitching value of a vaguely plausible phrase. After all, most of the Tory party fell under his spell.

THE DEPARTMENT OF THINGS ARE INDEED SPLENDID

Let us closely examine the thesis that Boris believed he could alter reality with his magical phrases. He proclaimed that there would be no border in the Irish sea and, hey presto, there was no border. Except that there was. He said he would build 40 new hospitals and, as if by magic, they sprung up. Except that they didn’t. Perhaps his most daring use of magic was to create whole government departments dedicated to his empty phrases. For example, in 2021, the boring old Department of Housing and Local Government became the shimmery Department of Levelling Up. If only Boris had lasted longer, we might have had a Department of Things are Indeed Splendid, with Jacob Rees Mogg at the helm.

OUT OF THE ASHES

But as the dust settles, we will begin to see that the whole Boris episode has really been a bizarre fairy tale. The Tory Party will awake, effectively wondering what happened last night. But beware one more twist from the old trickster. His magical words do not just fall silent. I predict that out of the ashes of his government his words will rise again and this time, be very afraid. I see it up ahead: ‘Boris! The Musical.’ I have said it, it will be. 

Sir Humphrey: Welcome to the Home Office, Prendy.  I want you to take charge of Immigration Policy.

Prendergast Newboy:  That should be fairly simple.  The Home Sec’s policy is to keep everyone out isn’t it?

Sir H: It’s a bit more nuanced than that.  Did you ever play that game Top Trumps when you were younger?  And I don’t mean Donald Trumps (guffaws to himself).

Prendy: You mean Lionel Messi trumps Christiano Ronaldo and T Rex trumps a Spinosaurus?

Sir H: That sort of thing though round here it’s the PM trumps the Home Secretary, and the Chancellor trumps …emm, well no one at the moment I suppose.

Prendy:  But what’s this got to do with immigration.

Sir H:  Ah yes.  Well, it works like this.  A while ago Afghani refugees were much more popular than, say, Syrians.  So, if you came from Afghanistan you were top trump.  Then along came Putin’s army, and all of a sudden Ukrainians were trumping the Afghanis.  

Prendy:  So we now let in Ukrainians and not Afghanis?

Sir H:  We don’t let in anyone if we can help it.  But we do prioritise them.  Or to be more accurate we give the impression that we are prioritising them.  We set up a labyrinthine visa system and IF they can get through that then we bung them into a hotel somewhere up north and leave them there, hoping they will think it was better at home, even under the Taliban, and f*** off back there.

Prendy:  But they’re fleeing the Ruskies not the Taliban aren’t they?

Sir H:  Afghanis! Do keep up dear boy. We’ve only resettled 4,000 of them so there are still 12,000 left in hotels.  

Prendy: Aren’t hotels a bit expensive?

Sir H:  Hmm, well it’s costing rather over a million pounds a day.  That’s why the Home Sec’s Rwanda scheme looks like such good value.  That will only cost £30,000 to get each person off our hands once and for all.

Prendy: (scratching head): But we’re not going to send Ukrainians to Rwanda are we?

Sir H:  No. Of course not. That’s for the ‘crossing-channel-in-dangerous-dinghies’ mob.  Do pay attention. We’ve hit on a much cheaper scheme for the Ukies. We’ve persuaded hundreds of British families to house them.  It will save a fortune.

Prendy:  Couldn’t we persuade people to take in Afghanis too?

Sir H:  Ah, well, there’s a bit of a problem there.  You see it’s a lot hotter in Afghanistan.

Prendy: I don’t’ follow.

Sir H:  Well, they are a bit more ‘sun-tanned’ – if you see what I mean.

Prendy:  Ah .. you mean Bl….

Sir H:   SHHH….less white. Careful.  The walls are Woke around here.

Prendy:  Ah, so there’s a points-based-system – the darker your skin, the fewer points you get? Which is why we tried to send back the Windrush mob? 

Sir H:  That’s the general thrust of it. Top Trumps and all that.

Prendergast Newboy:  So an Eskimo migrant is much more likely to get settled refugee status than, say, a Rwandan?

Sir Humphrey:  That’s about the size of it.  Though we don’t say Eskimo these days.  It’s Inuit, init? (collapses to floor laughing at own joke).

By Teigh-Anne Toast

Signore Benito Falabella arrived, tottering behind two enormous suitcases, fit for a princeling. His luggage contained more clothes than he had words of English. But, he managed to answer a couple of preliminary questions; “good!” he said, in response to “how are you?”, and “beautiful!” when asked about his flight. With this level of language skill, I felt sure he would be popular with any adolescent girls in the vicinity. Further interrogation was met with a startled  snort and a hasty exit from the room. 

Dedicated to his appearance, Benito slathered himself in aftershave – L’Homme de Terre by Christian Dior. Despite no obvious sign of facial hair. But personal vanity aside, Benito was keen to be useful to the household. Trotting into the kitchen after lunch one day, he tossed his mane and exclaimed, “I can ELP???” To which I said, “yes, please” and fetched the stepladder so that he could reach the sink. I instructed him in simple terms, to wash his soup bowl and leave it in the drainer. Following ten minutes of enthusiastic splashing, I went back to the kitchen to check on his efforts. And there was the bowl, still in the sink, brimful of water, soap and soup…

Benito didn’t like my cooking. I tempted him with pasta now and then and the aforementioned soup, but generally, my food failed to satisfy. If he asked for a sandwich, said sandwich would inevitably be found in his room, fully intact, after several days. Fit only for the bin.

After two weeks in Hastings, Benito turned up having had both sides of his head shaved. I worried that he might have gone native and asked if he’d shown his new look to his family back home. “No, I am scarred!” I mentally corrected his choice of word but then decided to let it stand because, after all, he had a point.

He spent a day in London with his best friend, Silvio. “What did you see in our great Capital?”, I quizzed. He looked at me and his eyes sparkled with confusion for several seconds. Finally, he smiled in triumph and said, “shopping!” Ah, of course… 

Months passed until the day when Benito had to go. On that sad day his enormous monogrammed bags, his many bottles of face perfume and his magnificent collection of tiny horseshoes left the house for good. 

Next please…

I had an introductory Zoom meeting with Valentina and her mother. Her mother burst into tears at the sight of me. She said it was because I was a vegetarian. 

Valentina, it turned out, was considerate, helpful and willing to learn our strange English customs. Boiling the Kettle. Amazing! Recycling yoghurt pots. So funny! Some aspects of life drew gasps of astonishment. Taking a bus to school! Mad! Well, there is little prospect of kidnap by the local cartel in Hastings. A trip to the town centre elicited gasps: “Harry Potter! Harry Potter!” 

In the modern fashion, Valentina’s every waking minute was live-streamed to assorted familiars back home. WhatsApp was the primary medium of communication and voice-note, the means of recording experiences. For example, “ooohwaahnggomymybuurse!!” This translated as, “I have boarded the wrong bus and I am now outside the fire station. Please send help.” WhatsApp was great for video messaging. One day, Valentina, sent an incredible documentary about her inability to open a locked door. The camera panned in and out, focussing on the lock and a voice-over shrieked, “I can’t find the lock! Oh, my God! WHERE! is… the LOCK???!!

Another day, a high pitched yelp emanated from her room.
I wondered if a hamster was trapped in a vice. No, it was just that a package had arrived. It contained a new pair of sneakers. 

Valentina’s efforts at cooking were variable. Memorably, her approach included the boiling of pre-cooked chickpeas for a salad, followed by the careful peeling of each one individually. The skins, she explained, contain evil spirits which will later escape as farts. Or something like that. 

All too soon, an unbearable sorrow was visited upon Valentina and her friendship group. Their dearest comrade, Hildegard, had to return to her convent school in Baden-Baden. The friends all gathered for their last breakfast before her departure. Later, I received a shaky voice-note from Valentina. With her Egg McMuffin damp with grief, she explained that now only a surviving group sleepover at Mirabella’s house, and 13 hours of Netflix, could begin to mend their broken spirits. My heart melted. I knew they would, literally, like NEVER FORGET that time they bought lip gloss in Superdrug. Or that other time they ate doughnuts on West Hill (5 for £1). But they would ALWAYS have Hastings! 

Dear reader, I cannot pretend that my own imitation of competence, sophistication and worldliness was any different when I was their age. Being a teenager was long, long ago for me. And yet, it still feels so fresh and alive. But, that, of course, is because it was only yesterday…

Disclaimer: all names have been changed and some incidents may possibly have been slightly exaggerated.

How much does it matter what names we use? Evidently, quite a bit. Take the Royal Family for example. They are, of course, the Windsors. But actually, they just gave themselves that name because their actual name,
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was a trifle too Germanic – given that British soldiers were being slaughtered by the Kaiser’s guns at the time. So, in 1916 they decided to call themselves after a medium-sized market town in Berkshire.

One can’t help wondering what other possible names they considered. If they had gone for the full Englishness, maybe they might have dubbed themselves the Teapots. But at least the royal re-brand sort of worked. Sometimes it goes wrong. How on earth did the Post Office decide that Consignia would be a better name? And who can explain why Jif became Cif? 

Of course, the world of famous rock and film stars is littered with attempts to cool up the name tag. Elton John is the obvious example, I suppose. Can you really be a Rocket Man as Reg Dwight? But people can qet quite angry about these issues. When Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali, his first opponent, Ernie Terrell, in 1967, kept calling him Cassius. In the fight Ali defeated Terrell whilst asking him, in time with several punches, “What’s My name?” And Ali’s inspiration, Malcolm X, chose the letter X to throw off his given surname (Little) because it was probably, originally, a name conferred on his antecedents by a slave owner. It is surely quite something to make your surname an indictment of history.

Using a name to make a political point actually has a long history. There was, I believe, a man who changed his name to ‘Margaret Thatcher’ and then attempted the stand as a candidate under that name in the Iron Lady’s constituency. In the event he was not allowed to. Not sure why. Obviously, there is the great British tradition of standing for election under a silly name. I suppose Screaming Lord Sutch was one of the first actively to seek out the silly vote. (His policy of a five-day weekend remains a dream) Names can be used to puncture political pomposity. Theresa May had to share a platform with the ‘intergalactic space lord, the honourable Lord Buckethead.’ She never really recovered. 

Other countries do things differently. Stalin, for example, was not actually called Stalin. His real name was Joe Dzhugashvili, but Stalin has the slight advantage that it means ‘man of steel.’ That does sound a bit like a revolutionary, I suppose. Compare it, for example, to one of this country’s least well-known revolutionaries: Arthur Thistlewood. In 1820 Arthur and his conspirators hatched a plan to kill the entire cabinet. But his plans went badly wrong; he was arrested and hanged outside Newgate prison. He was also beheaded, just to be sure. There are good reasons why he failed; his band of men had several informers within it. But, maybe you just can’t be a revolutionary with a name like Arthur Thistlewood. It’s not exactly Che Guevara. 

And how strange it must be for so many women when they marry and lose their birth name. Does that entail a change in a sense of identity? Is that a loss? Clearly there is some weird power in a name. In the Jewish tradition,
I believe, a family that has lost several children, may choose to leave a child without a name, for a period of time, so that the Angel of Death will not know it. This is name as magic and fate.

And then of course there is Spartacus. As the wonderfully named screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, told us, we are all Spartacus.

The Downing Street Spider had leaked yet another anonymous diary entry
to HIP.

“With one bound he was free” … perhaps that has too much of the Dick Tracy and not enough of the Promethean about it! And when we speak of Prometheus I DO mean the original Aeschylus version … not that Johnny-come-lately Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mind you I quite like his moniker. Not really the ring that ‘Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’ has, but not too bad for a poet. Anyway, I digress. We were speaking of narrow squeaks and lucky escapes.

I suppose I have partly to thank my Russian opposite number Vlad the Putin (good thing his parents didn’t name him Boris eh?). If he hadn’t launched his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine and afforded me the opportunity to appear statesmanlike, all the papers would still be banging on about Partygate and suchlike. 

Actually, though, I think it’s really Richboy Sunak who’s been my saviour. Without his disastrous spring budget (more anon) all the pundits would be backing him at 3-1 to succeed me after the May local elections. (Hmm. Don’t tell anyone but sometimes I wake up in a night sweat, thinking that the Red Wall has collapsed on top of me and I’ve lost all my support. Uneasy lies the head … and all that!)

But talk of shooting yourself in the foot … Richboy really excelled, didn’t he? A cut in fuel duty that helps those rich enough to own a car, and a cut in the basic rate of income tax just before the next general election – which also only affects those in work and will, anyway, be cancelled out by inflation and the rise in National Insurance which is going to ‘save’ the NHS.

Sounded great. Positively Thatcherite. Cuts in duty, cuts in taxes etc etc. Should have had the 1922 Rottweilers positively drooling. But even they realised that it was not doing much (anything?) to help the really poor. Not a sign of increasing welfare payments to cover inflation. No sign of keeping the Covid benefit increase running a bit longer. Hardly guaranteed to promote my ‘levelling up’ agenda. And rightly trashed by almost every commentator – including our most loyal right-wing newspapers. And the best thing about it is that it was Richboy who got all the flack and not me! I know I shouldn’t gloat, but there really is the most delicious stench of Schadenfreude about it all.

Of course, I may not exactly be out of the frying pan yet. There’s that stupid promise I made to own up if the rozzers handed me a fixed penalty for the party ‘misunderstanding’. And there’s still that awful Gray woman and her absurd report that might point the finger Boris-wards. I think that my fellow OE Rees-Moggie got it about right when he described it all as “disproportionate fluff”. Trouble is fluff can be damned hard to get off one’s best serge suit.

But all in all it’s been a pretty good week here at number tenners. Of course, there are still whack-a-moles popping their heads up here and there – viz the absurd accusation that I did two u-turns in one afternoon over those transgender ‘conversion practices’. I’m no mathematician, but doesn’t the first cancel out the second? Aren’t we back where we started? What’s the bally problem?

It’s all a bit Sisyphusian isn’t it? You’ve no sooner pushed the rock up to the top of the hill than the boulder is rolling back down again and threatening to crush you! But nil desperandum – just you wait and see, we shall overcome. Some day.

When history turns bad, language itself has a tendency to shrivel up and become almost meaningless. The creature in the Kremlin tells us that there is no ‘war’ in Ukraine. It is merely a ‘special’ operation. The being also tells us that “we are not going to impose anything on anyone by force.” And that Kremlin policy is “based upon freedom”. To clarify, that is “freedom of choice for everyone.” The only truth to be found coming out of Russia, comes in the form of artillery shells and cruise missiles, currently destroying Mariupol and other Russian cities. But as Russian news explains, Russia does not bomb cities. That’s a relief. 

One thing seems to be clear, Europe is re-entering the world of the Big Lie. As Joseph Goebbels suggested, if you tell a lie enough times it becomes truth. At this juncture, readers may feel that we have been living in that world probably ever since politics began. Machiavelli was advising leaders to lie at times back in the sixteen century, for God’s sake. The West invented the phrase ‘collateral damage’ to sanitise murder. But, though it is true that fibbing is just part of the currency of politics, the enormous Mega-lie is surely something different. As Goebbels understood, it is an assault on meaning itself. Language becomes a black fog behind which anything can be done.

Muriel?

When I saw the image of the incredibly heroic Marina Ovsyannikova bursting onto Russian State TV News to call a war a war, I was reminded of Winston in Orwell’s 1984. The desperate individual trying to break through the wall of lies. Big Brother’s slogan, ‘War is Peace’ could not be more Putinesque. And chillingly, remember that Winston lost in the end. What are the chances that Marina Ovsyannikova will be free this time next year?

But what if Putin does not think he is lying? I recently re-read his speech given on the eve of his ‘special’ non-war war. He has some sane points. It was probably rash of NATO to swallow up so many of the former Soviet satellite states, such as Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic. That may have seemed threatening. But after a while, something else began to seep out of his words. Something which suggests that he has in the deep recess of his mind an almost religious worldview. He claims in the middle of his speech that the West is trying to destroy traditional Russian values and replace them with “pseudo values”. His next utterance should give us pause for thought, “It cannot be done because it contradicts the very nature of man.” This is Putin as mystical philosopher. Apparently, he understands the deep inner nature of man. 

Maybe we are not up against just lies. Maybe we are up against Putin’s twisted notion of the Russian Soul. The unique Russian way. If he thinks like this, we are all in trouble. This is the Big Lie fusing with the Big Prayer. Lies mixed with delusion swirled up in a cloud of incense. To the Kremlin creature, the Motherland is calling across the steppe. 

If only George Orwell were alive to make sense of it all. But he is not. And what he has left us is not at all consoling. Winston ends up a broken and brain-washed man who understands that lies are indeed truth. But then again, Orwell had a solution to pessimistic thought – keep a goat. He had one called Muriel. Perhaps Putin will make goat-keepers of us all. 

Dear Diary,

By the time anyone reads this I may no longer be Home Secretary. And that will be REALLY unfair! All I’ve done is try to keep the Brexit flag flying along the Great Red Wall and repel those hordes of asylum seekers immigrants. Yes, of course we all hate Putin and feel sorry for the Ukrainian refugees, but that doesn’t mean you want one of them living in your house does it? (Does it, Govey?)

And those bloody civil servants. Still claiming that I bullied them. Really? Just tell me how you can bully the combined ranks of Sir Humphreys? They are a law unto themselves, as my predecessor the dripping wet Amber Rudd found out to her cost. I mean why on earth would they let me believe there was a ‘secure route’ for refugees to come to Britain when there simply wasn’t? And what did it matter whether the new visa application centre was in Calais or Lille. They are only about 100 kilometres apart. Anyone fleeing from Kiev and turning up at Calais could easily get on a train back to Lille to fill out their form. All it needed was a decent smart phone with a good internet connection and it would be easy-peasy. I simply wasn’t impressed by those problem-creators who said that after two weeks on the road Ukrainians might not have been able to charge up their phones or buy a local roaming card. For heaven’s sake we’re in the 21st century!

I accept it didn’t look too good when it turned out that there wasn’t even a visa centre in Lille either. But it was only a matter of time before we opened one. And there’s a perfectly good train service from Lille to Brussels or Paris where there actually ARE visa facilities – albeit only operational during reduced office hours three-and-a-half days a week. What’s wrong with these people? They want spoon-feeding. When my parents were fleeing from Uganda they didn’t have mobile phones. And I didn’t appreciate that commie-pinko Nik Ferrari on LBC pointing out that Mom and Pop left before they were expelled by Idi Amin and so they probably wouldn’t have been allowed into the UK under my points-based immigration system. Things were different then. And I don’t like the jibes about pulling up the drawbridge. They’re just not funny.

What is funny is the PM moaning that I’ve been telling Melton Mowbrays about the visa centres. Talk about pots and kettles. He’s the absolute master of porkie-pies. The ‘sine qua non’ (as he himself might put it) of duplicitous dissimulators. My problem is that those rabid Rottweilers on the 1922 committee have dozed off and stopped hounding him over the Downing Street parties. It means that their pact to support me as Home Secretary as long as I keep ALL foreigners out of Britain has fallen a bit by the wayside. 

But I’m not too worried. I’ve bounced back before. In the meantime, I’ll just keep singing my happy song: 

I feel Priti, oh, so Priti, I feel Priti, and witty, and bright. 

And I pity – any girl – who isn’t me tonight. 

I feel charming, Oh, so charming – It’s alarming how charming
I feel; 

And so Priti that – I hardly can believe I’m real!

One wonders how much the Russian führer will care that UEFA have taken the Champions League final away from his country. Or that even FIFA – formerly so deeply saturated in Russian money streams – has found some integrity and banned Russia from any further participation in the World Cup. By all accounts, the weird-looking Kremlin tyrant does not care about footy. His interests have always been more to do with judo, chess and mass murder.

But history does suggest that the beautiful game can be significant in hindering – or helping – psychotic despots. The first World Cup was in 1930 in Uruguay. It wasn’t really a ‘world’ competition at that point, but one fascist woke up early to the rabble-rousing potential of this new competition. Mussolini contrived to ensure that the next World Cup, in 1934, would be in Italy. Surprise, surprise, Italy won it. Mussolini personally selected and interviewed the referee before the semi-final. Far be it from me to suggest that the dictator intimidated the officials, but we do know that Il Duce was happy to have awkward customers murdered – such as the socialist deputy Matteotti, stabbed to death by the Blackshirts a few years earlier.

Nazi Germany, by contrast, was not very good at football. But they also soon realised its potential as a catalyst for nationalism. Extraordinarily, in 1935 the English FA agreed to a match with Germany at White Hart Lane, the home of Tottenham Hotspur. As fans will know, Spurs have a long-standing association with the north London Jewish community. For the FA to allow the game there was, to say the very least, insensitive – Nazi anti-semitism was already very evident by 1935. The hero of this game was not a player at all, it was a geezer from Shoreditch called Ernie Wooley. When the stadium was full, just before the game, he climbed up on the roof of the stands and cut the rope holding up the Nazi flag. (For football anoraks, England won 3-0)

The FA hit their lowest point in 1938 when a re-match was held in Berlin. At this point Chamberlain was in power and appeasement was the name of the game. Hitler had already invaded the Rhineland and Austria and now looked towards Czechoslovakia. In this highly charged atmosphere, the ‘blazers’ at the FA decided a return match in Berlin would be a good idea. What happened next, in retrospect, still feels shocking. The British ambassador in Berlin told the FA that the players should show respect for Germany by giving the Nazi salute in the pre-match niceties. This appeasement on a football pitch changed nothing really. Hitler, like Putin, didn’t care about the game but presumably, liked to see England grovel. (England won 6-3)

In the current crisis in Ukraine, football rather seems insignificant but there is one story that may be inspirational. During the Second World War, when Kyiv was invaded by the Nazis, the players of the Dynamo Kyiv team were forced to work in bread factories for the German war effort where they formed a works team called FC Start. They played numerous games against German army teams winning emphatically every time. According to legend the Nazis threatened the players with death if they did not deliberately lose the next game against their anti-aircraft team, Flakelf. The Start team chose to ignore the threat and went on to trounce them 5-1. Shortly thereafter
four of the team were executed. There is a statue outside the Kyiv stadium commemorating the refusal of the Ukraine players to accept lethal bullying.  

Football may not weigh much in the scales of history, but in this football legend we can perhaps sense the famous defiant spirit of the people of Ukraine. It has now risen up again. On an epic scale. The deluded, expensively botoxed egotist in the Kremlin may not care about football, but he may – in the tragic long run – be forced to care about the power, passion and rage of national team spirit.    

The Spider has passed HIP a copy of a draft email found at Number 10…

Yo, Kay!

How lovely to hear from you after all this time!! Yes, that Toga party at Warwick does seem like a long time ago. Though we were reminded of it when the scummy Sun found those pictures of us at uni and put them next to you outside parliament with your tits out and ‘Crop Failure’ scrawled on your chest. But well done for keeping the faith with XR. You’re right though, I’m in enough hot water already without being able to join you on the barricades, topless or not!  

Yes, I am still doing my bit for the environment and other good causes – you’ll have seen I stopped the badger cull in Derbyshire a couple of years back. Trouble is that almost anything I do is jumped on as being utterly Woke or unfair lobbying. For f***s sake what’s the point of shagging the PM if you can’t exert a little influence – and anyway the court said the badger decision wasn’t down to me. So there. And nor was Pen Fathing come to that. I mean would I really try to get a planeload of poor defenceless doggies and moggies flown out of Kabul?

You’re right it does seem as if it IS all animals with me at the moment. What with Big Dog Boris and our Little Dog Dylan in Downers. The elephants I’m repatriating to Africa. Getting rid of that rat Cummins (along with most of the other sycophants who were giving such shit advice). All gone now … so I’m almost the only one he has left to turn to when the brown stuff hits the fan, which it seems to do pretty much every day. Just don’t like it that they’re calling me ‘Carrie Antionette’. But talking of parties, gosh we had some good ones at uni didn’t we? Nowadays they call three people and a half a bottle of bubbly a party if it’s in Number 10. I suppose we ARE all going to get our knuckles wrapped. Especially since Cressida Dick-less has fallen on her sword. But wasn’t it wonderful how Pretty Preti persuaded her to start investigating the “parties that weren’t”, and kybosh that awful Gray woman’s report? And anyway this Ukraine business has enabled big B to don his best Churchillian demeanour and actually sound statesmanlike rather than a naughty schoolboy for a change.

Meanwhile we’re all looking forward to Micky Ashcroft’s latest oeuvre – a biography all about little ol’ ME! Well, when I say ‘looking forward’, I’m not too sure B. de Pfeffel is! Apparently Micky is going to say I keep making him change his mind and that I give my friends jobs in Downers St.  Well, rooty hooty tooty. Who’d have thought that a wife might try to influence her hubby? Never happened before in the history of womankind. Though on the downside I not sure I like being compared to Lady Macbeth. She met a rather sticky end with blood all over her hands. Wouldn’t do to get the red stuff on Little Lulu’s 800 quid-a-roll wallpaper would it now?

Which reminds me. You must come over and have a gander sometime. I’m quite proud of it really AND of all the hacks and hacketts calling it Wallpapergate! Just might have to smuggle you in via the back door though. Can’t have them thinking I’m cavorting with a XR radical extremist who bares all for the cause!

Do keep in touch. 

Pip Pip. 

CXXX

It is surely time to come to the defence of the scruffy eccentric creature who blunders about in a garden but can’t really give you a plausible explanation about what they are doing. Yes, the great British hedgehog. Let’s all celebrate because February 2 is National Hedgehog Day in the UK. (This should not be confused with the American Groundhog Day, which is a day when the news is about the same thing every day, but that doesn’t happen in this country.)

The hedgehog is surely one of our great national treasures and maybe we should all climb into hedgerows on the second day of February and give them a clap. The hedgehog may be small but it has some weighty significance. For some, the hedgehog has great spiritual symbolism. They are, after all, closer to Mother Earth than most of us. Some neo-Druids see their unfolding, from the ball position, as a symbol of the rise of the sun. The beautiful cycle of rebirth in the form of a small prickly mammal, perhaps.

Feminists have tended to seize upon the tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle: an oppressed washerwoman whose cute little cottage is, in fact, a laundry cum sweat shop. Not only does Mrs Tiggy-Winkle have to wash all the clothes of the wider voletariat, she is then forced to run a delivery service with only the help of a gormless privileged girl called Lucie. Mr Tiggy-Winkle is, of course, nowhere to be seen during all this unpaid work.

Alexas Fotos/unsplash

But the hedgehog also has a profound philosophical significance. Isaiah Berlin was one of the great minds of the twentieth century and, from his lofty position as a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, he posited the theory that hedge-hog ideology was essentially totalitarian. In his book The Hedgehog and the Fox, published at the height of the Cold War in 1953, he explained how the spiny creature was at the heart of the Red Scare. According to Isaiah Berlin “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” In other words, the hedgehog knows only one big explanatory idea, such as the Marxist theory of dialectical materialism; whilst the fox skips merrily from one idea to another in a jolly western world of free thought. Evidently then, the hedgehog, and people of the hedgehog outlook, are a threat to freedom. Doubtless, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle would have been a Marxist if she could have just thrown off the false consciousness imposed upon her by Beatrix Potter. Whether she was a Leninist, Trotskyite or Stalinist, would require more profound textual analysis.

But maybe, Isaiah Berlin has done the wee beastie a great disservice. A few years ago, the British people voted it as our most popular wild mammal. Indeed, as a great emblem for the nation, second only to Her Majesty. But, if Britain sees itself as a hedgehog, we are in big trouble. Because the hedgehog numbers are in steep decline. In 1950, we had approximately thirty million hedgehogs but now, the creature – and therefore the nation – is fading from former glory, reaching at best, one million. If we want to make Britain great again, I suggest simply put out saucers of milk and chopped cat food. More importantly, join the wider campaigns for re-wilding.

Those passionate devotees of the beastie who call for the arming of hedgehogs are just not understanding the hedgehog. If you think for a moment of the beast’s roll-into-a-ball strategy you surely must grasp that it is essentially a non-violent resistance strategy. (Sadly, the creature has yet to work out a programme of direct action – occupying the M25 is unlikely to work.) 

As February unfolds let us all think about the plight of this scruffy creature. And try to help it. Remember, some scruffy, eccentric creatures are worth saving. Others should, perhaps, be left to historical extinction.

To be opened in the event of Regicide

(Destroy if ‘Save Big Dog’ succeeded)

So, as you read this, you’ll know I have been defenestrated and, to escape the brouhaha, I am now holed up with Carrie and the kids at the old man’s villa in Northern Greece. That bloody Gray woman did for me even though I’m supposed to be her boss. What price loyalty, eh? A classic from the Dom playbook – stab your benefactor in the back and dance on his grave.

And none of the smoke and mirrors helped either. Operation Red Meat (don’t you just love those butcher and canine analogies) somehow just didn’t cut it. Really! You threaten to abolish the BBC and send in the Navy to stop the cross-channel migrant scroungers and nobody takes a blind bit of notice. All they can talk about is Partygate, Partygate, Partygate. And what does that even mean? Watergate was real. It was the name of an actual place. But Partygate! please…. And I didn’t even organise the bloody drinks do. If it was a drinks ‘do’? I just can’t see why Gray didn’t realise that everyone in Downing Street cracks open a bottle of an evening and gets together to chew over the day’s fat. I mean, it’s their office and I think it’s good management practice, encouraging hardworking SPADS to let their hair down. And it wasn’t even government booze. Oh no, they couldn’t pin that one on me. Not after Wallpapergate (!!!) I’m not stupid enough to dip into taxpayer’s money a second time. And yet those bloody oiks in the popular press made such a meal out of someone popping out to the Co-Op to buy themselves a couple more bottles. I suppose it might have been better if they hadn’t used a suitcase on wheels to bring it back, but bloody nora, the stuff’s heavy and you really can’t be seen walking into number 10 with several crates of Prosecco tucked under your arm, can you?

Quite frankly I think I’m much better off out of it. Just didn’t much appreciate being forced to fall on my own sword. Or as those dreadful old farts in the 1922 committee say; ‘take the pearl-handled revolver’. But as old William S. put it so appositely: ‘Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it’. 

Now I really must away. Carrie and whatstheirnames are waiting. The sun is shining in a clear blue sky and the wine-dark Aegean beckons. Quite frankly I couldn’t give a toss that you are all facing a freezing February with your gas prices about to quadruple … what you sow so shall you reap…

Pip Pip.

B. de Pfeffel J.

PS do make sure you catch my new Spectator column. I’m going to need the spondulics. Even the Retsina cost and arm and a leg nowadays. 

By The Spider

A cleaner, emptying a wastepaper basket at a prominent address in Westminster, came across the following list of New Year’s resolutions:

1 Get more sleep!  

I mean.  How can I possibly be expected to remain on top of my game when I’ve got two mewling sprogs under 20 months old keeping me up all night?  I suppose I could ask C if she’d move with them into the apartment next door … but I know she’d insist it needed redecorating first.  Hmm. Perhaps best to put that one on hold for the moment!

2 Get Covid done!  

It has a good ring to it don’t you think? I mean, ipso factor, quod erat demonstrandum and all that.  But perhaps easier said than achieved?  Feel I’m the piggy in the middle here… stuck between the rock of those public health doomsters, and the hard place of my own backbenchers.  I mean, really!  Some of them would walk naked into an arena of starving lions rather than have anyone tell them they can’t go and breathe their fetid germs on everyone around them.  And worse than that.  They simply don’t believe the story we’re putting about the NHS crumbling at the seams.  Trouble is they’ve all got BUPA.  

3 Make new friends!  

When I look in the mirror, what I see is an affable ‘hail fellow well met’ sort of guy.  A tad portly perhaps. And despite all the stylists’ advice, not necessarily at the cutting edge of sartorial elegance.  But basically, a good bloke.  Salt of the earth and all that.  But I’m not sure that many people actually like me.  A couple of years ago they all wanted to pick me for their team – and they made me captain.  Now somehow I feel like the unpopular kid who’s always left until last to be chosen.  And just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me… you just watch.

4 Make more money!  

Who’d have thought that it would be so difficult to make ends meet on my salary?  Somewhere I read that my £160k puts me in the top 1% of earners in the UK. So I really don’t know how the other 99% survive at all. Trouble is that everyone around me seems to be so much less brassic.  That little squirt Rees Mogg is worth over £100 million and Rishi Sunak is even Rich-er (geddit!) with at least a couple of hundred mil to splash around.  Not to mention a filthy rich wife. I mean, old Carrie, bless her cotton socks, hasn’t even got 500K to rub together.  What I need is a second job … trouble is they seem to frown on that these days.  Not like when I was the Mayor …

5 Work out what ‘levelling up’ actually means! 

That’s the great thing about words. As someone (Peppa Pig?) once said ‘when I use a word it means exactly what I want it to mean. Neither more nor less’.   What’s great is you can make words up: Funkapolitan for instance. And then there are the portentous Churchillian-type phrases: ‘there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters’. Hmm. Perhaps best to gloss over that one!
But Levelling up? Just hope I won’t have to level too far down in 2022.