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Quantum entanglement

Northern lights

‘What sort of guy do you think you’ll end up with?’ ‘Someone like you.’

Northern lightsI’m an echo. A ghost haunting a dead body.

I’ve hurled myself against the world, and haven’t left a smear. Nothing I do seems to matter.

I’m glad R cancelled our film night. I’d rather drink alone anyway.

It probably means I won’t go for that swim tomorrow, but … What’s the point? The only people who see me naked these days are the guys in the pool changing room.

***

The cold is definitely colder when you’re alone.

***

Shouldn’t have bothered coming to this. I mean, I like the night and I like the people, but B usually ends up making me feel shit about myself and I just end up bitter about all the luminous beings I’m too old and ugly to fuck.

Ha. Bet she’s a handful. Edgy, flirty, naughty. Not my type at all, mind. Bloody cocksure, as well. That would get old really quickly.

She’s quite fun to talk to, though. Anyway, I’d better leave her to her work. She’s –

“No, keep talking to me. I like it.”

That was sweet. And forthright. And a little bit patronising.

And actually, that might not be a terrible bum. Still. Definitely no spark there. Plus, she’s too young. And has tattoos. And lives in a squat.

***

How fucking cool and brave is that, living in a squat? And now that I think about it, the tats kind of suit her.

***

So having cancelled our last meeting at the last minute, P asks me to see an exhibition at the National Gallery with her … and then fails to show up. She “forgot”, her text says. At least she’s honest.

“Don’t take it personally,” people say when these things happen. How else are you supposed to take it exactly?

Thanks to my stupid work hours and my friends all getting married and moving away, I barely get to make plans any more. And when I do, they either pull out at the last minute or fail to show up altogether.

Mind you, what am I missing? I hardly ever enjoy myself anyway. I can barely remember the last time I felt anything approaching joy. I get the occasional kick out of playing Magic; sex is still OK, when it happens; and writing something I’m proud of still feels pretty good.

The solution would be to stay in and write. If the ideas hadn’t gone.

***

So, what do we reckon the chances are of her showing up? 40%? 30%? Yes, she wants me to look at her stuff, but a) any fucker with a basic grasp of English could do that and b) the rules of basic courtesy apparently don’t apply to meetings with me.

Wow, she made it. And on time, more or less. Those leggings are … interesting.

This is more fun than I expected. It’s easy being me when I’m with her. Don’t get that a lot.

But nah. She doesn’t fit the template. She’s no Kath or Elinor or Becky or Charlotte or Kate. And she has a boyfriend. And that’s before we even address the question of whether she’d be remotely interested in me in a million, trillion years.

Wouldn’t mind hanging out with her again, though.

Bless her soul, she has like twenty quid to her name and will not stop offering to pay for things.

***

What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t be getting sweaty and dizzy after a short, brisk walk. I’m not tired or out of breath, per se, just … dizzy. Clammy. Fuzzy. And it feels like … there’s a coating on my lungs. If it’s a cold, it’s a persistent bugger. That’s two months now.

***

I killed myself 13 years ago, when I pumped myself full of coke and wine and tobacco and jacked off to porn every weekend for two years in an attempt to block out the pain. I succeeded, but in the process, I blocked out the pleasure, too. Now life just sort of … happens.

Christmas. The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine. Writing stories, making models, chasing girls, driving fast: everything was just so sharp and bright. What happened?

***

Beer in the afternoon. Before work! Haven’t done this in ages.

She’s so open with me. This is only the second time we’ve met properly and already she’s telling me she’s cheated on her boyfriend. I feel compelled to be open with her, too.

God, that laugh. Somewhere between a purr and a scrappy gear change. I want to make her make that noise all the time.

And apparently, I can.

***

All right, so I fancy her a bit. But it’s not a problem. It doesn’t get in the way. And for fuck’s sake, it’s not as if I’m ever going to act on it.

***

E’s being very chatty and complimentary tonight. Five years I’ve been coming to this pub and she’s always been pleasant, but now she’s … obsequious, almost. Yeah, sure, let’s be Facebook friends.

***

Woah. That’s the third time I’ve woken to a stonking erection in one day. E? The girl in the cafe? Painkillers? Relief at finally finishing last blog post?

I actually want to go for a swim today. That’s five in a fortnight and no massive benders. Might be able to look at myself in the mirror again one day at this rate.

Fuck’s sake. I invite J to the radio recording, get no reply for 3 days, invite W instead, and then 5 minutes after she accepts, J replies in the affirmative. So I uninvite W, and five minutes later, J messages to say, a propos of nothing, that she has a boyfriend.

***

Am I doing the right thing posting this? It’s pretty raw. I can see this losing me friends, and it’s not as if I have them coming out of my ears these days.

But it’s true, and I think there’s some important shit in there that people should be thinking and talking about. (Plus it might go viral and get me a book deal.)

***

Phew, I guess. Just the one friend down. Most people took it as it was intended and responded positively, supportively. And who was the most positive and supportive of all? What a detailed, considered, thoughtful, articulate, honest email. I respect her, and thank her, so much for that.

***

Not sure if it was right to invite her to this. She doesn’t know anyone. It’s cliquy. She’s not a comedy writer. And we’re not even reading out one of my scripts so that she can see how fucking hilarious I am.

But … she’s fitting in all right. And enjoying herself, I think. God, the bitch can literally talk to anyone.

M looked a bit jealous. 🙂

***

Now I know I’m prone to misinterpreting signals from women, but surely this counts as a promising message? “You are really really interesting and funny … Let’s go for coffee.” OK then, E, you’re on.

Ooh. Now it’s beer.

***

“Thank you for helping me, I truly love spending coffee time with you or just exchanging emails, makes me feel nice!”

***

Old Mother Hubbard II
After two weeks of peace, neighbours called the police,
Who broke down the door and discovered
Rex, full of vigour,
And marginally bigger,
And no trace of Old Mother Hubbard.

“Honey, I’m comin’ home!”

I’ll put the kettle on and sacrifice a goat.

“A little boy, please!”

***

So we’re meeting for this beer that E wanted so badly … and she turns up (on time) dressed to kill and kisses me far too close to the lips … and then she sits down and tells me she’s pregnant with her fiance’s child.

Yay. Another friend.

James Thurber’s One Is A Wanderer is basically a portrait of me.

***

Wow, a kiss on the neck? She sure is bold, this one.

and she loves the bikini and she loves the pill in the ring box and ok so the comedy’s a bit shit but basically this is cool

god did i really say that that was actually quite funny well she seems to think so anyway ha

the MC’s just asked if we’re together that’s hilarious how could anyone think we’re together she’s like … loads younger and hot and cool and shall I say we’re together fuck it, yeah I’ll say we’re together GOD NO THAT’S THE DUMBEST IDEA EVER SHE’LL KILL ME – “Yeah, we’re together” –SHIT OH SHIT OH – thank god she’s going with it and no one in the audience has given us a funny look or anything

i guess if we’re together i should probably put my arm round her

and now i guess i should hold her hand because she gets me and i get her and it feels right and it must feel right for her too cos she’s holding it back

don’t go for the kiss though it’s tempting but that’s not what this is about

i don’t think

***

La da dee, la da dow. La da dee, la da dow. La da –

What the fuck? I haven’t sung out loud since 1998.

***

“Smooch … from my scandalous mouth.”

***

“I don’t want to hear about anything to do with other women!”

***

I’m actually having ideas. For things to do. I want to learn the piano, I want to write a screenplay, and I want to go on a cruise and see the Northern Lights.

But I don’t want to go alone. Who …? Yeah. She’s crazy enough. Not crazy. Open. Free.

Fuck it, why shouldn’t I ask her? OK, sure, so she’s taken and she’s poor and she’ll probably run a fucking mile, but … It hardly costs any more for two than it does for one anyway.

And I don’t want to go alone.

***

“I love it!!!

“I’m already so excited I can’t get to sleep!

“I just need a warm jacket and shoes.

“Yes!”

I knew she’d say yes.

***

“Hey, listen, I’m gonna say it because I am thinking about this trip of ours.

“1. I like it. 2. I like you. 3. I understand you like me

“BUT

“I know I am super flirty chatty and open towards you, but whatever we do together or don’t do together I really would like us to be in a friendly relationship which would exclude sex at any point under any influence. Seriously, I like you in my life and you know I’m in a sort of complicated relationship but I would really appreciate if we could have this cleared out and keep it that way.

“Also I would like to be a bit more honest towards my boy and not behave like a bitch as is my usual approach to people in general, even though I like them very much.

“So that’s me … Simply don’t take me for holidays if you want something to happen because i would like to avoid this scenario …

“Uuffff … So serious … Hope you understand this and as ridiculous as it may sound I just wanted to say it.”

This was never about the fucking. I mean, sure, if she held a knife to my balls and demanded that I service her, then maybe I’d consider it. And it would probably be great.

But it’s not IMPORTANT. It’s so far down the list – way below the fun we have together, the quantum entanglement, the spontaneous conversations, the freakish detours … There’s no way I’d jeopardise any of that for the sake of a quick legover. My penis doesn’t get a say in this one. It’s too important.

I will cope just fine with my friend without benefits because the friendship is amazing.

Besides, it’s highly unlikely that I’d be able to keep up with her.

***

“Andy, I don’t think I can go.

“I mean, for a coffee I can, but not on the trip. I’m sorry.

“I hope you understand. I have thought about it a lot and wanted to tell you in person but I realised that its not a good idea. I am with a guy I love and I intend to stay with him. I think I have sumthin to return to you and if you wanna continue being my friend and work together on fun stuff then I’m super happy, but I’m feeling a bit pressured by the way you are towards me. As much as I am warm towards everything and people in general there is a line I don’t want to cross.

“I’m just tellin’ ya how I felt and at these moments I tend to run away, so it’s better to say it, not run, and be mates:)”

I knew she’d say no.

***

Northern lightsYou get me. I get you. That hardly ever happens. I have so enjoyed the things we’ve done together: emails, coffees, writing, drinking. So have you. I’d like to try doing a bunch of other stuff together, because I think we’ll enjoy those too. Comedy. Photo shoots. Holidays. And one day we’ll overstep the boundary and we’ll stop because then we’ll know what the limits of our friendship are, and we’ll have had a shitload of fun finding out.

Regardless of how I feel about you today, regardless of how I feel about you tomorrow, I swear to you that you will always, always be able to trust me, absolutely.

***

“Hey hon,

“Everything you say is right, everything I said was wrong 😉

“Now lets go back to fun!”

***

When you’re young, you have passion and energy to burn, and no technique or wisdom. When old, you have plenty of technique and wisdom, but you’re all out of passion and energy.

Is there any point at which the two phases overlap? If there is, I must have missed it.

***

Weird. You still look like my dad. But you stopped being my dad, what … 20 minutes ago?

I don’t know what you’re supposed to think at this moment.

Yes I do. You worry about Mum. That’s what you’d want, right?

Why am I asking you?

***

I want to talk to someone. Someone who isn’t my mother. I mean, of course I want to talk to my mother, but I have to be strong for her. Just … now, right at this moment, I would like someone to be strong for me.

***

So, we’ll just organise one fuck-off party and then, if one of the guests just happens to be a priest …

“Then we’ll see what happens!”

This marriage joke is getting out of hand. Excellent.

“And I do quite like your surname!”

***

So my mum’s got cancer and my dad’s dead and I’ve been diagnosed with arthritis and my job is driving me insane and my flatmates are a nightmare and my sitcom’s been rejected and my last four dates have all wanted to be friends but what’s the point in more friends when all the ones I have keep letting me down and now this –

This fucking infection. Why won’t it budge? The sweat, the lingering burning smell, the fug. And I keep getting flashes of pins and needles all over my body – especially in my head. Might as well take some of Dad’s antibiotics. He won’t be needing them.

***

“You can be so sweet sometimes.”

***

coffee walk food flirty chat and now we’re having a massage together this is an adventure and oh now she’s in her pants and she’s turning round to show me her tattoo and …

yep

OK

and jesus this masseuse has touched my balls like 48 times in 20 minutes i wonder if hers is touching her up too oh dear lord i might actually be smiling

she’s like the rain on my face

i like her bum but i love her eyes hungry eyes darting flirting daring staring fuck-you fuck-me eyes

***

“Read most of what u sent me, a few things made me laugh out loud, but boy the thing that you got in a few of ’em that you ain’t good enough for the girl, that’s just bollocks!

“Cant wait to read one about me, lol!

“Xxx”

***

Does every pregnancy have to destroy a friendship? First A, then W, then C, then D, now J. Is there some sort of “life for a life” rule I don’t know about? Is this Dunbar’s number in action? Am I the 151st friend? Or do you just have to build a new friendship on new terms? Would it help if I had a child of my own?

***

i feel terrible cos I hardly spoke to her all night because i was working the door and she was with her friend but this is nice now just me and her and her bike walking and smoking and chatting how can someone be relaxing and exciting at the same time

i need a field of corn to run naked through

***

“I do not give a fuck who thinks what. I am more than happy to be there for you. But for fuck’s sake, gimme a bit of breathing space when we are together!

“Or am I such a flirty stupid bitch that I’m asking for this?”

***

Maybe it’s bronchitis. Let’s see … I have half the symptoms, but … no rattle, no cough, no shortness of breath. Diabetes? Immune disorder? I should probably see a doctor. If I really want to get better, that is.

***

this might not work i mean i wanted to come and i wanted to come with someone and there’s no one i’d rather come with than her but im not sure this is her scene

who am i kidding every scene is her scene

its so hard talking to people when its just me but when its me and her were like fucking magnets chocolate-coated diamond-tipped sex magnets

***

you youve bought me an inflatable cactus for my birthday that’s insane and rubbish and thoughtful and dumb and i shall treasure it for ever

so were shopping now were waitrosing this is so fucking easy you should hire yourself out as a personal shopper babe youd make a killing

or a cooking buddy you could be a cooking buddy cos cooking with you is a fucking blast too

we’re in the zone that zone where either of us can say anything and it will be OK so so what kind of guy do you think you will end up with

“Someone like you.”

you amaze appal impress depress confuse abuse and delight me youre the onion to my cheese the burdock to my dandelion

fuck where the fuck are M and M no text no call no nothing I so wanted you guys to meet fuck

hey babe why arent you joining in poker is the whole point of the night talk, baby, shine! fireball, explode!

and now theyve all gone and youre back again and we’re going on another adventure and we’re drinking in a scuzzy pub and oh fuck we’re trying to get into a strip club and oh fuck she just smashed a wine bottle into a scaffolding pole are you all right babe? and I don’t care that you’re being a bit crazy because we’re a fucking team again

this isn’t chemistry chemistry is dry and rulebound and predictable chemistry is formulae on a blackboard and buchner flasks and bunsen burners thisismagic

***

EAT MY WAKE, REASONABLY FIT 40-YEAR-OLD WOMAN!

Fuck yeah. That’s three swims and two long walks this week. And I’ve had loads of ideas for blog posts and language articles and I’ve started to think I can work my sitcom idea into a really good film.

We’re going to read Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time together and go to the Canal Museum and do a bondage shoot and a thousand things I haven’t thought of yet.

Except we’re going to do none of those things, because you’ve cancelled them all.

***

The bronchitis – if that’s what this is – is becoming unmanageable. I can sort of function normally, I have no problems breathing (although my airways are constantly sticky), and I can still do 10 strokes underwater and swim 40 lengths without a rest, but just walking at normal speed gives me the sweats, and at least once a week my heart becomes a nest of vipers, and the pins and needles are nails and bread knives, and now bits of my head are falling off and I look like a police mugshot after a Saturday night brawl in Rotherham.

I don’t think this is going to go away.

***

“I love you too, Andy. I have no fucking clue how you can stand me.”

***

And everything’s OK. One coffee, one shitty Costa coffee, and everything’s OK. Even after two months, and all those awkward emails and protestations and no-shows, the knife just slipped straight back in the sheath. You’re full of plans again and you want me to help and that means the world to me, even though that is actually a shitload of work and i don’t really have the ah what the heck

and now we’re charity shopping i hate shopping i hate shopping alone i hate shopping with mum i hated shopping with k and l and c and I hate charity shopping more than anything but

not with you

***

“Do you think cheating is bad?”

Yes, I do. Well, no. I mean, it depends. If your relationship is up shit creek and it’s about to end anyway and you just haven’t got round to telling him yet and he’ll never, ever find out, then it’s probably not a hanging offence. But if you’re just feeling a bit horny right now and will feel awful in the morning and have a guilty look on your face when you go back to Arhus and he senses something’s up and you end up confessing everything and you ruin what was a perfectly good relationship, then yes, on balance, I’d skip it.

Granted, you have a piercing intellect and a wicked sense of humour and you’re fantastic company and smoking hot and 18 years younger than me and you’ve been the undoubted highlight of this trip and I haven’t been fucked in for ever … But I have no idea what state your relationship is in, and I’m on my seventh double vodka, so I can pretty much promise you that whatever we manage to get up to will not be worth the potential fallout.

So, even though I knew, the second I put my hand on the small of your back to steady you on the boat to Gozo, that this might be on the cards, and even though I’ve spent every waking hour with you since vaguely hoping that this moment might come, yes, I think cheating is a bad idea.

WHY DID YOU JUST SAY THAT, MOUTH? WHY?

***

You told me you weren’t coming to the book launch an hour before it started. Sorry, you said; we’ll go for a swim on Monday instead. On Monday morning, you cancelled the swim. Sorry, you said; now I can only do coffee on Wednesday. So I cancelled lunch with my friend, because it was my last chance to see you for weeks. And now here I am, with my coffee, alone.

I assume you still want me to edit that thing for you.

***

Just the two swims this week, then.

Fucking hell, that’s a lot of blood. How many samples do you need?

***

I’ve been asked to appear on a TV show on behalf of the Remain camp. I’m pretty confident. I know my looks have faded but I know my shit and I’m sharp as tacks. My emphatic victory is bound to win me the adulation of some starstruck little leftie.

Why can’t we start yet? I’m itching to start. Just a couple more hours.

Boris looks glum. But don’t take pity on him. Put the unprincipled motherfucker in his place.

Back to base for final preparations. Who chose a flying suburban house as our HQ? Let’s step outside for a second – that woman out the back wants a chat. No, we’re taking off again.

Last-minute briefing with the campaign director. This group has a creepy, cultish quality, but it feels like family too.

This one seems keen. Sexy, cool, funny, wicked. She’s … familiar. Like you, but not you. Someone to mess around with.

She wants me to kiss her breast. She wants to be my girlfriend even though she has a boyfriend.

“See you around, I guess,” she says.

“See you around, I guess”? That’s no way to say goodbye.

“Er … I love you?”

And then she laughs, and I realise she’s joking. And in that second, I fall in love for the first time.

***

“Slap my ass if it’s too much, not my face please!”

***

So, there’s nothing wrong with me, huh? All the tests came back negative and there’s no rattle on the stethoscope. And yet here I am, slick and trembling after climbing two flights of stairs, head consistent with a journey through a plate glass window, lungs drowning in their own mucus (don’t they say drowning is the best way to go?), Morse code heartbeat, allergic to myself.

I know I’m dying; I just don’t know how fast. Might be tomorrow, might be in 10 years.

Not that I give a shit, really. I’ve done most of what I wanted to do. Sure, it’s a shame that I’ll never cradle my own daughter, that I’ll never write my own book or sitcom, and that I’ll never throw a massive wedding party for all my mates, and it sucks that I’ll probably never see the those unearthly, swirling lights. But I don’t have any dependents, or world-changing plans in train, or unfinished business, and it’s not as if the calendar was brimming with things to look forward to.

The only thing that really bothers me is that, as things stand, my last kiss will have been that fucking awful night at N’s place, when she decided two minutes into our first kiss that our first kiss was going to be our last. My last act of passion denounced as an act of aggression.

I just … I want to know that she knows. I’ve told her, but words are just words. She’ll find out, I guess, how she’s been the single best thing to happen to me in the last five years, maybe ever, how she’s helped me imagine and enjoy and hope again. But what if I don’t wake up tomorrow? She needs to know now. How can I tell her in a way that she can’t fail to understand?

***

Some guys get drunk and send the girl they like a picture of their willy. I got drunk and sent you a picture of my will.

***

“This feels like blackmail.”

I’m so sorry. That’s not what I intended at all. I just wanted you to tell you that you rock my world motherfucker and I don’t know how long I’ve got and I would like to spend as much of that time with you as possible and somehow I haven’t seen my best friend in three months –

“Give the motherfuckers who rock your world a bit of time and space and things will fall into place!

“X”

Sure, babe. I’ll make sure my death fits in with your schedule.

***

You’re all take and no give. You’re a vampire. You suck everything of value you can get out of someone, then toss aside the husk.

Hm. Maybe that’s a bit harsh.

Promise me, some day, that you will let someone love you. It doesn’t have to be me. But for your own sake, ask yourself this question: if you run away from everyone who likes you, who are you going to end up with?

And that’s a bit wussy.

***

Erenow you were the universe
A galaxy of blazing suns
And now you’re just like everyone
(Though monumentalised in verse)

The fireball has become a squib
Once capital, now lower case
A plain and half-remembered face
Goodbye, Eve; ahoj, surplus rib.

***

We could have conquered the world, you you you she you you she you she and I. Or at least, for a couple of hours a month, unhappiness. Which is more or less the same thing.

Only one swim this week.

There’s still gas moving through the pipes, but the pilot light’s gone out.

***

It’s turning cold.

***

dandelion and cheese

Northern lights

68 dumb-fuck reasons for leaving the EU

Brexit illo

‘I did it to put everyone else in the shit’

Brexit illoThe UK’s vote to exit the European Union has created many uncertainties. Will the country be better off, or worse? Is the UK a xenophobic, retrogressive nation, or a brave, proud, forward-looking one? Can the Conservatives and Labour remain united in this time of turmoil? Will anyone be able to afford to go on holiday again?

The result has made one thing crystal clear: the UK is a bitterly divided nation, along lines of age, race, region, class, wealth and education. If we are going to begin to heal these divisions, it is crucial that we try to establish exactly why it is that 51.9% of those who voted decided that being outside the European Union was better than being in it. Once we have a better understanding of these grievances, we can address them and – hopefully, one day – resolve them.

To this end, I have begun compiling a list of reasons given by Leavers, gathered from Twitter, Facebook, comment threads, discussion forums and friends.

1. “Because of all the EU laws that we have no say in.”
“Name one.”
“Erm …”
“Come on, what are these laws are that you won’t have to obey any more that made you vote for this short-term economic hit? Can you name one?”
“I wouldn’t be able to, no.” (Caller to James O’Brien’s LBC radio show)

2. “As a protest vote.”

3. “Because I want it to be a close result.”

4. “It [Sunderland] already is [a giant jobcentre]. That’s why I voted Leave, to put everyone else in the shit like us.” (Twitter)

5. “To stick it to the toffs.”

6. “To give Cameron a bloody nose.” (Express website)

7. “To give Cameron a better negotiating position.”

8. “Because the EU closed the coalmines.” [The EU had nothing to do with the closing of the coalmines.]

9. “Because I thought we had been in long enough.”

10. “Because I had the hump.”

11. “Because now our lads will get out of prison, cos there will be jobs for them.”

12. “The main reason I voted out was because the EU parliament aren’t elected representatives. The second is, they pass laws that affect us, but we aren’t given a say. Third, we need to sort our own house out.” (J, on Facebook, giving exactly the same – factually wrong – reason in three different ways)

13. “Because I felt uncomfortable when a group of brown people got on the bus the other day.” (Family member)

14. “Because the EU made them change Marathons to Snickers.” [That was Mars’s decision, not the EU’s.]

15. “Because they banned our bendy bananas.” (Express website) [The EU introduced a law stipulating that bananas should be given different classifications depending on their curvature. No fruit was ever banned – it was just a different classification system.]

16. “Because fishermen now won’t have to throw fish back in the water and Muslim women will no longer be told by their husbands not to wear make-up.” (Caller to LBC) [The exact effect of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU will have on fishing waters and quotas must wait until negotiations are complete, but we will still need agreements with our neighbours, and limits to prevent overfishing, which our neighbours will probably wish to remain broadly the same.]

17. “Because I’ve lived here all my life, and when I was growing up, that street over there was filled with shops.” (TV documentary)

18. “To stop the Muslims immigrating here.” [Migration is unrestricted within the EU. But individual nations are responsible for setting their own limits on immigration from non-EU countries, such as those where the majority of citizens are Muslims. Leaving the EU will have no effect on the number of Muslims coming to the UK.]

19. “Because I want our old lightbulbs back!” [The EU has placed restrictions on the sale of old-style incandescent lightbulbs in a bid to reduce energy wastage and slow global warming.]

20. “Because vaccines should not be mandatory.” [The EU has never passed any law making vaccination mandatory, even though vaccination is widely regarded as being a pretty good idea. Some European countries have done so of their own volition.]

21. “Because the Queen said.” (Pro-Brexit Facebook group)

22. “Because we should not be signing up to TTIP.” [TTIP is a trade deal between EU and America, which the EU has just put on hold. After the UK leaves the EU, most commentators believe it will sign up to a similar deal with the US, probably with fewer checks and balances.]

23. “Because we are like Germany, and Germany isn’t in the EU.” [Germany was a founding member of the EU.]

24. “Because the country is full.”

25. “To annoy my wife.”

26. “It will be an adventure!”

27. “Because the value of the euro is going to go down.” [Even if it were true, this would not have a marked effect on the UK’s economy. Since the vote, sterling is down 18% against the dollar and 15% against the euro.]

28. “So that I can get cheap photovoltaic panels from China.”

29. “Because otherwise, 7 million Turks will come over here.” (LBC caller) [Turkey would never have been able to join the EU so long as Britain used its veto.]

30. “Because I am fed up with being ruled by unelected bureaucrats.” [The EU parliament is directly elected in regular European elections. The European commission –basically the civil service – recruits its own members.]

Screenshot of online conversation
The people have spoken.

31. “Because I didn’t want my sons to have to join a European army.” [The EU would never have formed an army so long as Britain exercised its veto. Even if it did, conscription would be a political and practical impossibility.]

32. “Because there’s too many Pakistan people in Glasgow.” [I repeat: EU membership has no bearing on immigration from outside the EU.]

33. “Because it takes more than 5 litres of water to flush my shit away.”

34. “Because EU taxes are making our petrol more expensive than everywhere else in Europe.” [No, those would be taxes imposed by the UK’s government. The EU plays no part in setting national tax rates.]

35. “To send them women in the headscarves back home. One of them stole my mum’s purse.”

36. “Because I don’t like what the EU is doing to Africa.”

37. “Because I’m scared of black people. They’re so physical.” (mother-in-law of member of Facebook group) [The mechanism by which leaving the EU will rid the UK of black people is unclear.]

38. “I don’t want to send money to Greece. I don’t care about Greece.”

39. “Because the EU does nothing for us.” [Estimates of the value of EU membership to the UK vary from £31bn to £92bn per year.]

40. “Because the EU has devoted 26,911 words to the regulation of cabbages.” [Seems quite a minor thing to sacrifice 20% of your pay packet for, but in any case, it’s bollocks. There are at present zero words in EU legislation specifically governing the production or sale of cabbages.]

41. “Because our prisons are full of Polish rapists.” [As of March 2016, there were 965 Polish nationals in British prisons. That’s out of a total Polish population of just over 800,000 — so 0.12% of all Poles here are convicted criminals. The total number of prisoners is around 95,000; about 0.14% of the population as a whole. I can’t find any figures broken down into both ethnicity and crime.]

42. “Because the roads in Oxfordshire are full of potholes.” [Technically, such matters fall within the local council’s purview.]

43. “Because the EU is anti-semitic.”

44. “So that we can go back to the way Britain was in the 50s.”

45. “Because they sold off the water, gas and electricity.” [Once again, that would be the work of the UK government, not the EU.]

46. “Because I couldn’t decide, and my boyfriend voted Remain.”

47. “Because schools are no longer allowed to hold nativity plays in case they offend Moslems.”

48. “Because the EU spent £13m on art last year.”

49. “Because they never vote for us in Eurovision.”

50. “Because if we stop all the immigrants using the NHS, it will work properly again.”

51. “So we don’t have to queue at the doctor’s.” [There is no clear consensus on the impact of immigration on the health service. Undoubtedly, more people in a country means more people to treat. But it is widely agreed that migrants to the UK are on average younger and healthier than the local population, that inward migration is good for the economy, which gives us more money to spend on the NHS, and that without migrant workers – 24% of doctors and 12% of nurses were not born in the UK – the health service would collapse. Besides, the ageing resident population is by far the biggest strain on health services.]

52. “Because I want a more powerful hoover.” (Facebook group)

53. “Because the EU is going to ban toasters, and I love toast.” (BBC interviewee) [The EU has never threatened to ban toasters. It is, however, considering a limit on the amount of energy that household appliances can use, in a bid to reduce the effect on the environment.]

54. “So we can have our electrical sockets low down by the skirting rather than have to put them little higher up the wall.”

55. “Because they are building houses for Filipinos and it’s blocking the view from my kitchen window.”

56. “Because I don’t understand politics. This is what my friends suggested.”

57. “Because there’s too much traffic in Sittingbourne.”

58.“Because they tell me I need scaffolding to clean my guttering.” [Really not sure where this information came from.]

59. “Because I fancied a change.” (Caller to Radio 4 programme)

60. “My uncle voted Leave because his sister told him to.”

61. “Because the European Parliament building is the same shape as the Tower of Babel, which is anti-Christ.” (Facebook group’s family member)

62. “So all the fucking Chinks will leave.” [China is not in the EU.]

63. “Because the ensuing recession is going to bring house prices down, and I can’t afford to buy a house.”

64. “Because I want to buy sweets in ounces, not grammes.” [The UK converted to the metric system two years before it joined the EU. Further, retailers can still sell in imperial units, alongside the metric ones, if they so desire.]

65. “Because they don’t pay for NHS prescriptions in Wales and Scotland, and that’s not fair.” (Manchester woman) [Again, precisely diddly squat to do with the EU.]

66. “So that I don’t have to pay the bedroom tax.” [The bedroom tax was imposed not by the EU, but by … oh, can’t you fucking guess by now?]

67. “Because I’m fed up of the French burning our lamb.” (Frank, Twitter)

68. “Because I want to use my teabag twice and the EU won’t let me.” (Aunt of friend of commenter) [Another falsehood peddled by Boris Johnson]

Thanks for contributing and helping to turn a sad list into a truly depressing one. I’m turning comments off here now because I’m getting spammed to death, but you can still add your gems to the version on Medium if you like.

24 thoughts on “68 dumb-fuck reasons for leaving the EU”

  2. A friend apologetically told us that she voted Leave because she couldn’t decide and her boyfriend voted Remain so…

  3. An interview on TV with LEAVE voters produced this gem. A bloke thought that the EU was a ‘waste of taxpayers’ money’ ……..’I mean, they spent € 13 million on art last year, so that just shows you. …….’

    Perhaps the saddest of all reasons for voting LEAVE.

    2. This is obviously from someone who’s never ventured as far as Maidstone? Traffic would be the last of my worries if I lived in Sittingbourne. In fact it would provide my means of escape.

  8. Oh, and another one from a relative:

    “Because schools are no longer allowed to hold nativity plays in case they offend Moslems.”

  9. Because our prisons are full of polish rapists – heaving with them
    1% of prison population is Polish – don’t think they were all I there for rape either

  10. In a comments thread argument, one woman told me that Britain (read England) was so much nicer before we joined the EU. Ummmmm no- bankrupt, poor, rolling strikes, restrictions on food, stronger class structure keeping the poor in their place and so on. What was she talking about

  11. Because the roads in Oxfordshire are full of potholes.
    Because there are insufficient funds made available for mental health within the NHS.
    And finally from my home town ‘Owa many darkies.,.’

  12. My wife was a headteacher in a primary school with a 90+% Muslim population. Every Christmas there was a nativity play. The Muslim mums were just as delighted for their children to be in this and if a daughter was chosen as Mary, they were delighted. There were never any complaints.

  14. “Because the Queen said.” Taken from a leave EU Facebook page and still being laughed at by 1000’s of us in our pro remain groups!

  15. “So we can have our electrical sockets low down by the skirting rather than have to put them little higher up the wall” – we are all Physiotherapists and the value to the elderly of not bending do far did not appear to have been considered – no further reasons for leaving were offered

  17. Someone voted leave because they would not have voted to join if we hadnt already.

    Then there is to ‘take back control.

  19. A colleague of mine said “so we don’t have to queue at the doctor’s”. Last time I checked, nothing had changed there whatsoever. But then “we haven’t left yet”…

  20. “Because I want to buy sweets in oz not grams”
    -42 year old man said this, and its wrong anyway.

    “They make me fill in extra paperwork at work” -60 year old painter decorator. When pushed he named the legislation and it was 1 page of a4 tick boxes, scope of work, start date, end date, any dangers to other people, and location of toilets. Sort of stuff he should do anyway!

    “Because of the new motorbike test” -actually specd by DVLA, to the strictest interpretation of EU emergency stop law. Could have been a lot freer and easier.

  21. A guy where I was working at the time said he was voting leave as “then all the f*cking chinks will leave” I explained that china was not in the EU but he just repeted “they’ll still leave” so I gave up

  22. The best I heard was the day after the referendumb. It was a woman from Manchester who voted leave because they don’t pay for NHS prescriptions in Wales and Scotland and she thought it was unfair that she had to because she lives in England.

Comments are closed.

Down and out in Paris and Le Mans

A wabbit

Material of unexpectedly graphic sexual nature on TV at 7.30pm! Maybe France not all bad.

A wabbit
Do not grow too attached to this character.

Adrian Mole turned 50 last weekend. While we’re not exactly contemporaries, the day I was given The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 and Three-Quarters, I was aged exactly 13 and five-sixths. So Ady and I go way back.

While no one would describe Mole as an aspirational figure, I did find him inspirational – he motivated me to start a diary, which I’ve kept ever since. 

To begin with, and indeed for most of its duration, it was shit, but it did come to life for brief periods. The first time this happened was on my school exchange trip, to Le Mans in France, in April 1984. (Apologies for the artlessness, but this is more or less as I originally wrote it.)

Day 1

Left school 6am. Coach journey: predictably riotous. Ferry journey: ate, lost all money on machines, force 7 storm, vomited. Still, was one of last to succumb and managed to keep pullover mostly clean.

As a result of storm, coach arrived four hours late in Le Mans. Was lined up like criminal in identity parade, picked out and dragged into Renault 11. Treated on arrival to cup of “real English tea”, which turned out to be Earl Grey. Drank it anyway.

As we went to bed, M Broussard remarked on funny smell. Turned out to be chicken Mum packed me for lunch that I never had a chance to eat.

Day 2

Fabrice – for that is my exchange partner’s name – bounded into room to wake me for breakfast at 7am, seemingly having forgotten that we had retired only four hours previously. Forced to deliver something to a friend of Mme Broussard. Fabrice deliberately didn’t tell me what “Chien mechant” meant on the sign.

Out to play on French pinball machines. Not as good as English ones. However, turns out 2p coins are exactly same size as 10 franc coins, so we can play for ever basically for free.

Back for first lunch: unspecified meat, hard lumps rumoured to be pommes de terre, and grated carrots in butter.

Back to town to play more pinball. Get feeling cultural scene in Le Mans not wide and varied.

Home for tea. More grated carrots in butter, plus chicken Mum packed me for lunch yesterday. French seemingly unaware chicken is not like wine and cheese and does not improve with age.

TV after dinner. Material of unexpectedly graphic sexual nature at 7.30pm. Maybe France not all bad.

Day 3

Swimming 7am. Are they in a different time zone here? Might have had good time if had been more than a quarter awake.

Having had sneak preview of dinner, did best to cram myself full of tolerable pre-meal crisps.

Bicycle ride with Fabrice. He almost hit one old lady, two joggers and a dog.

Discovered to horror that entire family are Formula One fanatics, and was thus forced to watch cars driving round in circles all afternoon.

Kidnapped and driven 30 miles to see les grandparents. Not most exciting of hosts, despite endlessly fascinating vegetable garden. Things perked up when they introduced me to their collection of cuddly rabbits. “Which one do you like?” they asked. I pointed to a perky-looking white one. At which point they pulled it from its cage, wrung its neck and presented me with that evening’s supper.

Next, the pigeon coop. “Well,” I thought, “at least we won’t be eating these!”

They’re the main course on Monday.

Day 4

First day at school. Never been so glad to see English classmates. First lesson English. Now know why Fabrice barely speaks a word.

Tour of Le Mans racing circuit. Totally dead and deserted and all in all, great value for money (entrance free).

Biology lesson interesting, not so much because of activity (dissecting hearts) as because of one of people performing activity (lush brown-haired French girl).

Dragged into school dining hall where was confronted with yet more lettuce. Clearly, this country needs more rabbits. Still, probably not even rabbits can face the stuff when it’s drowned in vinaigrette.

The Broussards’ bath contains a rubber mat, the ostensible purpose of which is to stop bathers sliding around in the bath, but the actual consequence of which is that you have to physically get out of the bath and back in again every time you want to wash a different body part. Exited bath with beautifully patterned back to find household asleep.

Day 5

Thumper Day.

Now, have never exactly been gourmet. Prior to arrival here, had tasted little beyond roast beef, fishfingers, and Jason Parker’s fist. So rabbit flesh, for the likes of me, was asking a lot.

But got it down, and kept it down! (Although if anyone mentions Watership Down in next 24 hours, will not be accountable for consequences.)

Little fascist bastard beat me at chess. Must have cheated – he is idiot at everything else. Bundled into bed at gunpoint at 9.30.

 Day 6

Typical French: think they are modern industrial nation and haven’t even discovered flavoured crisps yet.

Thrashed pants off Grand Master Broussard at chess. Knew last night was a fluke. Also helped him with his homework. His French homework.

More pinball. 2p coins now like gold dust.

Yesterday, the family, apparently concerned I am not finishing my dinner, asked me what I like to eat. “Most kinds of meat,” I said. Which presumably explains today’s 100% vegetarian meal.

Day 7

School this morning brought the perfect opportunity to impress ravishing Gallic goddess Sophie. No one could solve the chemical equation on the board. The class was paralysed and in despair. But then, out of nowhere, Sir Andrew Bodle galloped to the rescue, snatching the chalk from a hapless student’s hand and filling in the solution with no little panache. The classroom fell silent in awe. Until little brat Fabrice piped up and told everyone I’d already solved it the night before.

French dinner ladies on strike so trudged back to Broussards’ for another 20-course battle with various drowned vegetables. First radish division moved in and neutralised my tongue; then Secret Tomato Service carried out all-out assault on throat. Finally, horde of kamikaze cauliflowers mopped up what was left of taste buds.

Afternoon: guided tour of West FM Radio. Two offices, two microphones and collected works of Barry Manilow. Very popular station, apparently.

Dinner: lettuce in weedkiller with rare consolation side of sauteed potatoes. Seriously. What’s happened to the meat?

Day 8

Up 6.30am again. Whoever drew up timetable for trip should be boiled alive in vinaigrette. Reason: day trip to cold building filled with old towels (tapestry museum), followed by cold building with “bifurcating flying buttresses” (Le Mans cathedral). Original plan was to tour third cold building, a castle, but no one could find way in.

Stop four was a stable, which, as expected, offered horses and some hay. Final destination was vineyard, which might have been interesting but for fact we weren’t allowed so much as a sniff of the produce.

On return was for some reason denied access to almost palatable-looking tomato soup-flavoured pasta everyone else was eating and instead served another portion of lettuce in napalm.

Day 9

Lunch: grated carrots in butter, which had to deploy stupendous feats of imagination to keep down, plus beef and chips. Have now worked out why the French words for animals are same as for meat from those animals; because they barely do anything to it before chucking it on the plate.

Eight hours chez les grandparents. No ritual sacrifice this time, at least.

Day 10

(Because this was a physical diary, it was subject to the depredations of the physical world, and day 10 sadly went missing at some point.)

Day 11

New personal worst. Up 6.15am. At least in good cause: off to spend the day in France’s grand capital. Coach journey took three hours, which looked like it just flew by for Andrew Rogers and Collette, Damian Cullen and Jeanne-Marie, and Fabrice and Michelle Wilkinson.

Sacre-Coeur: photographs and annoying tradesmen.
Pompidou Centre: “art” and lunch.
Shopping: bought cheap tat for presents.
Notre Dame: photographs.
Arc de Triomphe: photographs, toilet.
Eiffel Tower: too late for final ascent. Photographs.

Might have been bit more excited about today if hadn’t visited every single one of these places 12 months ago.

Back to Le Mans 8 o’clock for another grisly encounter with a pasta swamp.

Day 12

Resolved to end bathtime misery by removing rubber bath mat. Succeeded in doing so after titanic struggle, only to replace immediately upon seeing caked-on grime underneath.

“Boum”, or “party”, at Sandrine’s house. All could manage was peck on cheek from Sophie. And this is FRANCE, where people peck one another on cheek 50 sodding times a day.

Back by 6 for dinner of unidentified fluid and what I hope was a sausage in bog of beans.

Day 13

Blessed morning without Fabrice, as he had to go to dentist. Not sure what he had done, but he still has way too many teeth for his face.

Final pinball session. 2p coins now exchanging hands for 50p.

Dinner: grapefruit, some sort of fish, rice, and … drum roll … will it be lettuce or grated carrots today? … PRAISE THE GODS, IT’S LETTUCE!

In hindsight, wish had loaded up little more on it, cos have since been informed that farewell dinner tomorrow will be … snails. SNAILS. Spent rest of evening trying to work out how to fake own death.

Day 14

The smell was the worst part. When stench of roasting mollusc first wafted in from kitchen, was all could do to stop self bolting. Creatures accompanied by beetroot and, quelle surprise, grated carrots, which have never looked so appetising.

But plan worked. Close eyes, swallow whole – no chewing – and immediately follow with copious quantities of bread and wine. In this manner managed to get 10 down before palate and stomach revolted.

Afternoon trip to Alpes-Moncelles. Hiked for what seemed like 70 miles before returning to Mystery Soup and the soundest sleep of the fortnight.

Fabrice packed Michelle in. Little tosser.

Day 15: le jour du depart

Coach arrived outside school 9.15. Made maximum capital out of French custom of bisous by getting two lots from every girl and three from Sophie.

Coach stopped at Arromanches and Bayeux en route to ferry – first bit of real heritage/culture of whole visit. Had about three minutes at each.

Crossing quite choppy again, but managed not to decorate toilet bowl this time. Clearly, after what it’s been through these last two weeks, stomach is now made of cast iron.

(Post scriptum: I feel obligated to point out that my raging xenophobia subsided somewhat with age.)

Helicopters in the stomach

Me age 13 on bike

Every time she smiled, my heart tried to jump out through the top of my head

Me on a racer aged 13
I got the racer two weeks later.

“He was so afraid of girls that he made a secret study of them. But the more he studied them, the more he feared them.”
Opening dialogue card, Harold Lloyd’s ‘Girl Shy’, 1924

Until that Monday, I minded my own business. I went fishing for minnows at the weir with Heath and Jez. I threw myself into my history homework with borderline pathological zeal. I got thrashed at contract whist by Mum and Dad and Nana Martin; skidded down the grassy slopes of Barbury Castle on old cardboard boxes; counted down the hours to the next episode of Doctor Who. In short, I enjoyed innocent, uncomplicated passions that I thought would last for ever.

Until that Monday.

She wasn’t what you’d call classically gorgeous. In fact, no one else seemed to have noticed her. She was quiet, slim, average height, with hypnotic, sparkling grey-green eyes, hair like burnt Shredded Wheat, and what seemed to be a giant steel girder attached to her face.

Yes, she wore a dental brace; one of those terrifying Disneyland monorail affairs going all the way round her head. But every time she smiled – even through all that scaffolding – my heart tried to jump out through the top of my head.

For the first few weeks, I contented myself with gazing across at Kerry in Geography, ignoring the teacher’s dronings about the formation of terminal moraines and wondering how it was that no one else could hear the tom-tomming of my heart and the Lynx attack helicopters circling in my stomach. Until that Monday, I had always been the first to raise my hand when the teacher asked a question. Now I waited for my beloved to raise hers, in the hope that her sleeve would slip a little and expose just a couple more inches of heavenly forearm.

With every passing week, the helicopters grew louder and the throbbing more intense – but I still had only the dimmest notion of what they meant. There was a rumour that Steven Foster, a loud, scruffy boy in my tutor group, had been seen holding hands with Lizzie Stutters, a skinny, spotty girl in the year below. And I’d heard other children talk about “fancying” girls – but somehow the word “fancy” didn’t quite cut it. After all, when people say, “I fancy a cup of tea”, it means they’d quite like a cup of tea, but it won’t be the end of the world if they don’t get one. But I knew it would be the end of the world if I didn’t get Kerry.

So, the day we broke up for half-term in February 1983, during afternoon break, I sought out Sharon Penney. Sharon was no great shakes at English or Maths; but when it came to Other People’s Business Studies, she was top of the class.

She was uncooperative at first, but an offer of two lots of maths homework soon loosened her tongue. Kerry lived on the main street in Broad Hinton, she said, a village five miles from mine.

So three days later, trembling with excitement and dread, I put on my only remotely trendy pair of trousers, gave my bike a thorough clean, and set off.

Five miles wouldn’t normally be much to ask of an able-bodied 13-year-old on a bicycle. But there were complicating factors. First, my chariot wasn’t exactly state of the art; it was a three-year-old Raleigh Grifter, a sort of bulky proto-BMX with none of the BMX’s ruggedness or manoeuvrability. Second, I wasn’t entirely sure how to get there. And third, it was -7 degrees C, and we were well into our third consecutive day of heavy snow. But somehow, two hours later, a pitiful snowman on wheels dismounted outside 76 Green Lane.

After I’d brushed off all the powder, I took a minute to catch my breath, and thought about what I was doing for the first time. I liked Kerry, but would she like me? I’d never really considered whether I was good-looking or not. Nana Bodle always called me her “handsome boy”, but she was biased. I was skinny. And ginger. And, according to Steven Foster and his mates, a nerdy swot. On the other hand, I was a nice boy from a nice family – well spoken, fairly intelligent. And I was wearing my trendy drainpipe trousers.

Oh well. There was only one way to find out. I screwed up my eyes and knocked.

After 20 agonising seconds, a young girl – a good two years younger than the one I was expecting – answered the door.

“Hello?”

“Um … h-hello.” With the cold and the nerves, I was juddering like an arrow in an archery target.

“What do you want?” Very self-possessed, was this 11-year-old.

“Is this Kerry’s house?”

The doorman sneered. “Yeah.”

I had rehearsed everything up to this point. But it now dawned on me that I had no idea what was supposed to happen next. Should I ask to come in? Should I ask if Kerry wanted to come out? What if she was busy? My mind was as blank and skiddy as the country lanes I’d just cycled over.

So I mumbled, “OK, thanks,” jumped back on my bike, and rode the five miles home.

I’ll never know what would have happened if I’d had the courage to say something that day. But it presumably wouldn’t have involved the entire population of the school laughing at me for a week.

♥ Charles Darwin hated peacocks. “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!” he wrote to botanist Asa Gray in 1860. 

The previous year, Darwin had published Origin of Species, setting out his theory of natural selection – a theory 20 years in the making. His idea, with all that it implied for the story of the Creation, had been greeted with predictable howls of rage from the church, but its reception in the scientific community and the general public was much warmer. No one could point to anything that seriously undermined his simple, elegant argument. 

Except for the peacock. 

If Darwin was right, and all the traits of modern animals were adaptations that had evolved over millions of years to maximise their chances of survival, then what was this ridiculous bird doing strutting around showing off its elaborate, brightly coloured feathers, which are not only useless and cumbersome, but actually reduce its chances of survival by making it more visible to predators?

In fact, natural selection struggled with sex differences generally. It couldn’t, for example, explain the southern elephant seal, the males of which are five to six times heavier than the females. It couldn’t explain deer antlers, which are good for nothing but fighting other deer with. And it certainly couldn’t explain the green spoonworm, a type of marine worm in which the male is a glorified, brainless pair of testes that spends its entire life inside the female’s genitals.

By the rules of natural selection, males and females ought (sexual organs aside) to be identical. After all, they face identical challenges: they share the same habitat and the same diet; they have the same predators, succumb to the same illnesses. Adaptations that are useful to one sex should be just as useful to the other. 

Sex, Darwin realised, was the key. The ultimate test of evolutionary success is not how good you are at surviving, but how good you are at reproducing. From a genetic point of view, it’s better to live a short life and produce some offspring than it is to live to a ripe old age and have none. 

The peacock’s brilliant plumage may work against its survival – but because big, showy tails happen to appeal to peahens, they increase its chances of mating. The same is true of the male elephant seal’s bulk, the male deer’s antlers and, in theory, the small male human’s trendy trousers. 

Darwin presented his theory of “sexual selection” in The Descent of Man, in 1871 − and was roundly ignored. The biologist RA Fisher revived the idea briefly in 1930 with his book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, but it was another 40 years before anyone realised just how powerful a light this insight could shine on human relationships – and on human nature in general. 

Cometh the hour

Wheatsheaf pub

A sea shanty about the night in 1987 when I lost my virginity

Wheatsheaf pub
Where boys become men, apparently.

“What people say they find attractive does not always correspond with their actual sexual behaviour.”
– Sign at ‘Sexual nature’ exhibition, Natural History Museum, 2011

When I was a young lad, no sorrows to drown,
At weekends we’d paint the town red;
We’d head to the Wheatsheaf in old Swindon town,
And drown our tomorrows instead.

One fateful night three companions walked in,
Corina, who kept glancing at me;
Nancy, not quite as attractive as sin,
And Rob, a tall bloke with bad acne.

Oh fair Corina, Corina my love,
Why couldn’t you be my first?
With your laughing green eyes and your stonewashed Levi’s,
You would have rocked my universe,
Oh, you would have rocked my universe.

We talked, laughed and danced, and we shared a cigar
I downed eight pints of ale, then upped nine;
And after three more they called time at the bar
And Corina said, “Let’s go to mine.”

Once we’d arrived she took Rob to her bed
To embark on a night of romance.
Then Nancy she yawned, cracked her fingers, and said,
“Well, come on then, take off your pants.”

Oh fair Corina, Corina my dear,
Why couldn’t you be my first time?
With your soft golden hair and your pert derriere,
We could have been partners in crime,
Oh, we could have been partners in crime.

Now I’d spent five years with my flag at full mast
In readiness just for this day;
Now it was called for, the stiffness had passed
But she put it inside anyway.

(sotto voce)
It wasn’t the ale, nor the Marlboro Lights,
Nor my first sight of a lady’s doodah;
Twas the thought of the angel I’d prayed for all night
Being jackhammered by Freddy Krueger.

Unfair Corina, Corina, you cow,
Why couldn’t you be my first chick?
You left me with Nancy, who I didn’t fancy,
And slept with that pizza-faced prick,
Oh, you slept with that pizza-faced prick.

♥ There is a conflict at the heart of the human mating system.

The optimal mating strategy for males (and thus their more “natural” behaviour) is to take lots of short-term sexual partners. The optimal mating strategy for females is to have one (or  few) long-term sexual partner. Clearly, when men and women hook up, something’s got to give.  A compromise is called for; and it turns out that, surprise, surprise, it’s the least  attractive people who do most of the compromising.

Individuals of higher mate value – more attractive people – are more likely to achieve an arrangement closer to their preferred strategy. So desirable men (looks, money, high status) are  more likely to play the field; desirable women, meanwhile, are more likely to insist on commitment (and on a longer courtship period before sex, of which more anon).

Conversely, men  of low mate value will more willingly accept a long-term relationship, while women of low mate value will more often accede to requests for casual sex.

As Herold and Millhausen put it in their 1999 study, most women adopt a “restricted sociosexual strategy” – ie, they prefer long-term relationships – but there are some who prefer an unrestricted strategy.

 

Ode to Brexit

Fucking terrifying picture of Theresa May, as most of them are

The UK may well end up hopelessly broken – but no turning back now! The people have spoken!

Ode to BrexitI

A ham-faced PM (one of Bullingdon’s worst),
On deciding that party, not country, came first,
Promulgated, to silence a sceptical few,
A vote on our membership of the EU.

So everyone picked a side: Leave, or Remain –
Some on principle, others for personal gain.
In a landslide the like of which no man has seen,
Leave triumphed by seventeen points to sixteen.

When Hamface stepped down, we were short of a Tory
To guide this now unshackled nation to glory.
Johnson? Gove? Leadsom? No; I was the Don
(Cos no one was quite sure which side I’d been on).

Brexit means trade with the whole human race!
(Apart from the neighbours we slapped in the face.)
Brexit’s a vow we won’t break – but hey presto!
We’ve scrapped all the pledges in our manifesto.

II

Some want a new vote. They say Leavers told lies!
Well, perhaps one or two comments were ill-advised:

The lawmakers in the EU are elected,
Passporting will be adversely affected,
Turkey’s not joining, we can deport crooks,
The EU’s accountants aren’t cooking the books,
We could have controlled borders (if I’d been arsed),
Leaving might reignite strife in Belfast,
The UK’s rebate isn’t going to be cut,
Gibraltarians might well get screwed in the butt,
We’re not bailing Greece out, we don’t get outvoted,
And bendy bananas? Well, he was misquoted!
The UK may well end up hopelessly broken –
But no turning back now! The people have spoken!

Brexit means Brexit, means fields of spun gold!
(With no one to pick it; migration’s controlled.)
And fishermen, able to fish as they please!
(Till 2019, when they’ve emptied the seas.)

Twat

III

Of course, for such marvels, a price must be paid;
There will be some downsides to our bold crusade.
But so what if some students from France are deterred
And tuition fees rise from insane to absurd?
Never mind if the banking jobs move to New York
And you pay a quid more for your leg of roast pork.
Meh, so tourists get spat at for speaking their tongue
And holidaymakers to Europe get stung!

Big deal if your freedom to travel is dead –
Just look at the sovereignty you’ve gained instead!
Don’t be sour that some millionaires sold you a pup;
Get over it! Move on! You lost! Suck it up!
Who cares if we’re furthering Putin’s agenda?
We took back control! Let’s go on a bender!

IV

We’ll get the best deal cos we’re strong and we’re stable.
Just look at the team that we’ve sent to the table!
There’s Johnson and Davis, disgraced Liam Fox!
(Forget, for the nonce, that they’re all massive cocks.)

I’ll show them who’s boss! I’ll be stable and strong!
Cos 17 million folk can’t be wrong!
I’ll give you the freedom to excoriate
The 1.6 billion Muslims you hate!

The SS Britannia will unfurl her sails
(But without Northern Ireland and Scotland and Wales)!
Brexit means mind-blowing plans for the nation!
There’s only one problem –

The implementation.

1 thought on “Ode to Brexit”

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You, me, and the EU Tree

Gnarled tree

And the people on the far east of the street … well, they just hated trees

Gnarled treeOnce upon a time, there was a street; and in the middle of the street, there was a tree. And the name of the tree was the EU Tree.

 

The EU Tree wasn’t perfect. Parts of it were a bit rotten, it cost quite a lot of money to prune and water, and its roots were starting to scrape against the foundations of some of the nearby houses. But by and large, people loved the EU Tree. It produced fruit for those too poor to buy food, its low branches allowed people to climb from one garden to the next, and it held the soil together when it rained.

 

But some people did not love the EU Tree. The people on the far west of the street were nostalgic for the days before the tree, when it was just a big field, and they said it starved smaller seedlings of light. And the people on the far east of the street … well, they just hated trees.

 

So the people from the west and the people from the east got together, and hatched a plan. They started talking loudly about the bad points of the tree, and telling fairy stories about how much better the street would be if it was gone. And then one day, in the middle of the night, they sneaked into the park in the middle of the street, and chopped the EU Tree down.

 

When the rest of the people in the street woke up to find a charred stump where the EU Tree used to be, they were sad and angry. The far westerners looked the other way and whistled; the far easterners laughed. As the people who loved the tree trudged miserably back to their homes, the westerners turned to the easterners and said: “We’re just going to go and get some new seedlings, to plant in the space where the EU Tree used to stand.”

 

And so the westerners left to find some seedlings to plant on the lot. And when they returned, they found that the easterners had built a fucking Starbucks on it.

A fucking Starbucks

Exclusive! – a teaser. Sorta

Couple at dinner

“But I want some variety while I’m still vaguely young
Like something with a kitten heel, or a slightly longer tongue.”

Couple at dinner
“You go first.” “No, You go first!” “All right then.”

Currently, when not slogging through the night on the paper, I’m working on a film script about a couple trying an open relationship. The idea was taken from my last sitcom proposal – since that’s now dead in the water and I have lots of great characters and jokes with nowhere to go, I thought I’d stick them on the big screen instead. 

Films are very different beasts from TV shows, so I’m making a lot of changes. The scene below, for example, has been axed. In the film, the couple have been married for 10 years; in the sitcom pilot, they weren’t married – the idea was for Greta to suggest an open relationship just as Marcus was about to propose. And since Greta is a (wildly unsuccessful) bespoke poet, she’s decided to make the suggestion as only she can …

Sorry about the crappy formatting. 

GRETA
I finished a poem! It’s called A Big Step. Would you like to hear it?

MARCUS
Of course, babes.

                                                                       GRETA
Ten years ago, I found a shoe. I liked the look of it;
It pinched a bit to start with, but quite soon it stretched to fit.
I love my shoe; I always will – I’m anxious to inform,
It supports me and protects me, and it keeps my tootsies warm.

Though it’s scuffed around the edges and the stitching’s come away,
It’s comfy and reliable – I wear it to this day.
But once, our walks were joyful. They were wild, and action-packed;
And lately they’ve grown samey – pedestrian, in fact.

So I’ve decided I would like to walk the next few metres
In a range of different loafers – ones that don’t need Odor Eaters.
See, in this decade past, I haven’t touched another sole,
Though quite a few have asked me if I’d like to take a stroll.

But I want some variety while I’m still vaguely young
Like something with a kitten heel, or a slightly longer tongue.
I don’t want to go barefoot; I don’t want to go solo –
Just to find out how it feels to slip on a Manolo.

And while I’m out there pounding other footwear in the street,
You, dear shoe, should seize the chance to try some other feet.
I know you’d only held one foot before our 10-year march
(And that one had an ingrown toenail and a fallen arch).

It’s not a final parting, shoe – we’ll always be together;
But after years of canvas, I quite fancy trying leather.
(Don’t worry, I won’t catch infections from some Birkenstock,
Cos every time I try another shoe, I’ll wear a sock.)

And fear not, I won’t get attached to some old Dr Marten,
Cos when all’s said and done, it’s you I’ll put my body part in.
Although you’re made of canvas, I hope you can be suede:
I just want a kickabout before I’m an old maid!

MARCUS is oblivious, gazing into the distance, mouthing the words to his proposal speech.

GRETA
So, what do you think?

MARCUS
Well … very clever, hun. Really subtle use of imagery, as usual. I really liked the use of  at the end of the second stanza. And was that a sneaky enjambement at the end of the fourth … ?

GRETA
There is no subtle imagery. YOU’RE THE SHOE, YOU COLOSSAL WANG.

Battling the Brexit barbs

Lovely cartoon

“Why don’t you fuck off to North Korea?” “I don’t need to. You just voted to turn my country into North Korea: insular, xenophobic, a pariah in its own neighbourhood …”

Lovely cartoon
© Satoshi Dáte – @satoshidate

The result of the EU referendum came as a blow to a lot of people; a bitterer blow, certainly, than I expected, and I gave quite a lot of thought to the matter in advance. Why did it hurt so much?

  • It was a close result. 51.9%-48.1% is hardly a mandate for seismic change.
  • And seismic change may well be what we get. As well as a probable recession, higher prices and fewer jobs, many of us now face reduced working and travel opportunities around the globe, the loss of friends for whom staying in the UK is no longer practicable, the prospect of the breakup of the UK, renewed trouble in Ireland, huge cuts to research funding, and the knowledge that our country’s standing in the world just took a hit from which it might never fully recover. And for what? A protest? An illusory “sovereignty”?
  • Most of the time, when an election doesn’t go your way, you get another chance within a few years. Not this time. This is for keeps, at least as far as people my age are concerned.
  • With every passing day, another one of the Leave campaign’s claims unravels. Many pointed out the deceptions at the heart of Johnson and Farage’s campaign, but few took notice. When Olympic athletes are exposed as cheats, they are stripped of their medals. Why should lying politicians be any different?
  • Leave’s principal rodents, having gnawed through the power cables linking us to the continent, have all slunk back into their sewer. Because they never intended to take a scrap of responsibility for their actions, and they have no intention of being anywhere near the public eye when the public eye eventually wakes up to the damage they’ve done.
  • We know, we know. Not everyone who voted Leave was racist, or even mildly distrustful of foreigners. But judging from the crowing on their websites and Facebook pages, there’s little doubt that all the racists voted Leave. The far right, emboldened by what they see as a glorious victory, are now taking their hate out into the streets. Depending on what figures you believe, racially motivated attacks are up between 200% and 500% since June 23.
  • Many more of those who voted Leave weren’t really voting to leave; they were voting to give the establishment a bloody nose. And many of those who did want to leave seem to have reached their decision entirely on the basis of Daily Mail headlines.
Someone being a twat on Facebook.
Twat.
  • The Leavers have no plan for what happens next, and never did. The few sketchy “plans” I have heard make Wile E Coyote look like a master strategist, relying as they do on best-case scenarios, wishful thinking and downright false assumptions. (Some seem to think, for example, that the EU, a body whose survival now depends on making the prospect of leaving as unappealing as possible, will somehow be falling over itself to offer us the best possible terms for exit. Try cancelling your Netflix subscription and asking them if you can still watch their best movies, and see how far you get.)

None of these are unreasonable objections. It should be possible, therefore, for our vanquishers to begin to understand why we’re disappointed, or even a little angry. And yet, if we express so much as passing discontent with the outcome of the referendum, any Leave voters in the vicinity (virtual or otherwise) descend on us like a pack of harpies.

The interesting thing about the Gloat Leave digs is that they seem to be restricted to five or six stock phrases, no doubt lifted wholesale from some Britain First leaflet. And most of them, funnily enough, are entirely without substance. I’m sure most of you are perfectly capable of coming up with your own retorts, but for those who are too busy, or not confident enough with the issues at hand, here are a few ideas for possible countermeasures.

“It’s called democracy, mate. Ever heard of it?”

(This one crops up most often with reference to pro-remain marches and the petition for a second referendum.)

  • Democracy isn’t about 52% of the population tyrannising 48% of the population and ordering them to do the exact opposite of what they want. Democracy is about working out compromises that keep as many people happy as possible.
  • The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right.
  • Democracy, as applied in the UK and most other civilised nations, means choosing elected officials – well-informed, well-advised elected officials – to make big decisions for you; not making big decisions for yourself.
  • There is considerable disagreement among politicians and academics on whether referendums serve democracy well.
  • If people who moan about a vote going against them are clueless about democracy, where does that leave people who menace brown people on the streets, screaming, “Why are you still here? We just voted you out!”?
“Quit your scaremongering. The FTSE 100 is already back to pre-referendum levels.”
  • Only the painfully naive could think that the economic consequences of this decision would peter out after a couple of weeks. We are going to feel the fallout from this decision for years. The true test will come if and when we strike a deal with Brussels on the new terms of our relationship, and the early signs are that those will not be favourable. The UK has very little leverage in those negotiations – never mind a chronic lack of people qualified to conduct those negotiations – and the EU has everything to gain from making the terms as punitive as possible.
  • The FTSE 100 is full of multinational companies, most of whose revenue comes from outside the UK. Its health is more a reflection of the state of the global economy. The FTSE 250 is a much better barometer of the health of the UK economy, and that’s still taking a kicking.
  • There’s another reason the FTSE 100 companies aren’t suffering too badly: the unprecedented weakness of the pound. Because they take most of their revenue in foreign currencies, but report it in sterling, the fall in the pound means their figures are artificially inflated.
  • Most economists are agreed that 10-year gilt yields, the interest rates on UK government bonds, are the best indicator of financial robustness – and they’re lower than they’ve ever been, and still falling.


source: tradingeconomics.com

“Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out!”

  • I won’t. Because I, and others I know, am now actively looking into leaving the UK. I do not like what this country has become; I would rather live and work in a tolerant, open-minded place, where difference is celebrated over uniformity, and where cooperation is favoured over suspicion. I speak a few languages, so I have a pretty wide choice of places to go, although Canada seems most appealing at the moment.
  • You’re more than welcome to your small-minded, backwards, bigoted rump of a former world power, ruled over by a government that despises you and lied to by a press that despises you more.
“Why don’t you fuck off to North Korea?”
  • I don’t need to. You just voted to turn my country into North Korea: insular, xenophobic, a pariah in its own neighbourhood, and doomed to serve under the same dynasty of corrupt, nepotistic zealots for ever.
“Stop whingeing. We all have to pull together now to make this work.”
  • In other words: I have no idea how to make this work. You do it. So, let me get this straight. You seriously expect the people who voted against separation from the European Union to come up with a plan to separate from the European Union?
  • If I’m sharing a house with someone, and they burn it to the ground, I’m fucked if I’m going to be the one to rebuild it. The government may have an obligation to execute the will of the people, but I sure as hell don’t.
“You lost!”/”Stop being such a bad loser!”/”Suck it up!”
  • Firstly, as will become increasingly clear over the coming years, we weren’t the only ones who lost.
  • Secondly, why should I suck it up? Many of those who voted the wrong way in the Common Market referendum in 1975 bellyached for 40 years, so I’m damned if I’m going to quit after a fortnight.
  • Thirdly, good losers don’t learn from their mistakes. Good losers don’t get fired up. Good losers don’t practise, train, improve, identify their enemy’s weaknesses and work on eliminating their own. In short, good losers don’t come back and win next time. And we intend to win next time.

The UK is not Beyoncé. It’s Bez

Bez and Beyonce

Britain needs to have the humility to admit that it’s better off being part of something great than trying to be great itself

Bez and Beyonce
The UK out of Europe: 24-hour party people – or crazy in love?

Here are my thoughts on the UK’s referendum on whether to stay in the European Union. Why should you care? Well, I’ve read and thought about it quite a lot, I guess. Judge the argument on its own merits, not mine.

I’m not going to heap statistics upon you, for three reasons. First, you won’t read them. Second, others have already handled that task better than I could. Third, there are so many variables involved that no one can hope to make predictions to any useful degree of accuracy. I just want to look briefly at some big-picture stuff.

(By the way, if you can’t abide geopolitics or statistics – sure, they’re the only real clues we have as to the likely outcome of an exit from the EU, but who the hell bothers with informed decisions these days? – just hit control + F, then type “pop music”. Return.)

The regularity with which history repeats itself borders on the tiresome. One of the most frequently retold stories might be titled “The Country That Went It Alone”. From time immemorial, the most isolationist and protectionist nations have been the poorest. Look at Albania in the mid-20th century, or Cuba or North Korea today. And America’s flirtation with protectionism in 1920s and 1930s was a major aggravating factor in the Great Depression.

Meanwhile, the most prosperous and longest-lived civilisations have all had one thing in common: size. The Egyptian dynasties, the Roman empire, the Byzantine empire, the Pax Mongolica, the (first) Islamic caliphate, the Spanish empire and its British successor all derived their wealth and influence from their geographical reach and head count.

Most of these utopias, of course, were achieved through conquest. Suffice to say that route is frowned upon these days (and not a hugely viable option for the nation with the ninth strongest army in the world, after Italy and marginally ahead of Turkey).

Fortunately, killing and enslaving people and robbing other countries of their riches is not the only way to boost your stature. The wealthiest country in the modern era, the only success story comparable with the behemoths of yore, is the United States of America. While it clearly has no problem with war, it has largely attained its status by different means. The United States got big by trading, by welcoming migrants from all over the world, and by – the clue’s in the name – uniting.

The Divided States of America would be a pale shadow of the force the US is today. The Divided States of America wouldn’t sweep the medals at the Olympics or lead the world in technology or produce one-third of all the maize on the planet. The Divided States of America would never have intervened decisively in Europe in the second world war (California and New York might have had a pop, but there’s no way Kentucky or North Dakota or Wisconsin would have sacrificed a generation in someone else’s fight).

But since most people seem to prefer whimsical analogies to actual historical precedent, let’s talk about pop music. (Welcome back, history-haters!)

Think back to the moment when all the great bands – the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Spice Girls – split up. Not once did any of their individual members ever go on to enjoy anything like the success of the collective. The list is endless: Oasis, Blur, Pulp, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, Eurythmics, Take That (Robbie came close, I’ll grant you).

It usually goes something like this: one of the lineup thinks, “I’m sick of you losers holding me back – I’m the real star of this group. I deserve more glory and more money, so fuck you and your input and your constructive criticisms,” and then they leave, only to discover on the release of their first solo album that, lo and behold, their God-given genius wasn’t what was carrying the band after all. The band was more than the sum of its parts, even if some members may have been more talented than others.

The same goes for all collaborative enterprises. Nothing the members of Monty Python achieved alone has touched the heights of Life of Brian or Holy Grail. The cast of Friends were a riot together, but can barely raise a giggle as individuals. And we all know what happens in horror films the second one of the characters says, “Hey! We should split up!”

The lesson should be clear to even the densest of the dense: bigger is better. Collaboration is a good thing. Cooperation trumps competition.

There are, it’s true, a handful of exceptions: Wham’s George Michael. Rod Stewart. Michael Jackson. Beyoncé. (Although it is worth remembering that none of these people truly struck out on their own; they took with them talented and loyal teams of songwriters, producers and managers.)

But – and this is the absolutely crucial point – the UK is not Beyoncé, whose career in Destiny’s Child was just a springboard to global domination. It is not even Kelly Rowland. No, the UK is more like Bez, with delusions of Beyoncé: a likeable enough chap who was a fun addition to the Happy Mondays lineup, but whose greatest achievement after they disbanded in 1993 was winning Celebrity Big Brother.

The UK sort of was Beyoncé once, for a bit. It had an empire, it had naval superiority, it had global influence and power. It led the world in science, in engineering, in literature and the arts.

But Britain’s era of dominance (which in any case it did not attain in the most honourable fashion) is a distant memory. The coal and the oil and the steel and the fish are all gone. The two institutions of which we can still be slightly proud, the NHS and the BBC, are in the process of being torn apart by the Tories. The last rites are being administered to the UK press. Just about the only industry in which we still lead the world, banking, will crumble once Britain ceases to offer investors easy access to the largest market in the world. And the supremacy of the English language – which, by the by, has a lot more to do with the achievements of America than anything “Great Britain” ever did – is also threatened by the act of Brexit itself. How long is English going to remain the lingua franca of an economic union that contains just one English-speaking member [Ireland]?

Germany is richer than us. Denmark, Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg are happier than us. Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and even Greece all work harder than we do. And Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg are all less corrupt than we are. The UK is fast becoming a nation of feckless narcissists who consider jobs like cleaning, plumbing, construction, bar work and nursing beneath them (thank God for those pride-free immigrants!), and dream only of becoming writers, rock stars or footballers.

The Brexiters, with their rallying brays of “Take back control!” and “Make Britain great again!”, would have us believe that in 10 years’ time, the UK is going to be “running the world”, posting pictures of its Hamptons summer home on Instagram and raking in millions from perfumes it had no hand in designing. Whereas, as anyone with a speck of humility or realism knows, it’s far, far more likely to be losing its teeth in a bare-knuckle brawl and passing out with its pants round its ankles in a pool of its own puke.

To finish, a few bullet points that I’m sure someone else has already made somewhere, but I haven’t personally seen or heard yet.

  • If anyone’s thinking of using this referendum as a protest vote, as a means of giving Cameron a bloody nose, remember: this is not a local election, or a European election, or even a general election, the damage inflicted by which can be reversed in five years. This referendum is, for the purposes of all those voting in it, permanent. If we vote out, and decide we don’t like it, we can’t just tap Angela Merkel on the shoulder and say: “Terrible boo-boo, Ang, we’d like to rejoin now, please.” The EU doesn’t want to lose any more members, so it’s not going to make leaving and rejoining easy. We will have to live with the consequences of this decision for at least 50 years. (Even if they do let us back in one day, they’ll hardly be falling over themselves to restore all our preferential terms. No special rebate, no opt-out from the Schengen travel agreement, or the euro, or the charter of fundamental human rights. We’ll rejoin, if we rejoin at all, on their terms.)
  • Leavers do like to bang on about “unelected bureaucrats”. “We want our sovereignty back,” they wail. “No one is accountable!” In a word, bullshit. Most of the EU is elected, in the European elections. This is what MEPs are. It’s true that the members of the European Commission are unelected, but a) they are instead appointed by governments, which we did vote for, and b) the EC is basically the European civil service. When was the last time anyone voted in a civil servant?

We don’t elect the House of Lords, we don’t elect the judiciary, we don’t elect the head of the military, or the police. There has, to my knowledge, never been an election to determine our representative at the United Nations. These people are appointed by bodies that we did vote for. It’s too time-consuming and expensive to have elections for everything – we have to trust the government (however loath we are to do so) to do some things.

  • I keep hearing, from those who remember, how “Britain coped just fine” before it joined the EU. (Whether the three-day week, universal drink driving, houses made out of 90% asbestos, corporal punishment, widespread child abuse and rampant homophobia, sexism and racism count as “coping just fine” is a question for another day.) But times were rather different. For one thing, we still had the vestiges of an empire, and the advantages that conferred: cheap imported labour, access to resources, control of trade routes. For another, there was no internet. There was little international travel. There were no highly organised and sophisticated terrorist groups that wanted us all dead. There was no economic competition from China, or India, or Japan. There were no huge global corporations with GDPs bigger than small countries who were accountable to no one.

We may no longer have any immediate worries about an attack from Russia, or China, but in this era of globalisation, it’s not countries we have to worry about so much as corporations. Banks are already “too big to fail”. The UK can’t hope to stand up to the likes of Google or Facebook by itself. We need strength in numbers. Allies. Not to sequester ourselves on our little island and daydream of a halcyon, foreigner-free age that never really existed.

  • The four horsemen of the apocalypse (Johnson, Gove, Duncan Smith and Farage) have repeatedly laughed off warnings of a new recession if the UK votes to leave, but it’s the closest thing to a certainty we have, purely because of the uncertainty. Investors don’t invest in risky conditions. Banks don’t lend in risky conditions, and employers don’t employ. Whatever you think are the long-term consequences for Britain (and personally, I think they’re dire), for the next few years, it’s a copper-bottomed certainty that we are looking at higher unemployment, static pay, more tax rises, and more austerity. For no good reason. And all on the watch, more than likely, of a self-aggrandising Etonian clown.
  • Virtually every piece of evidence the Remain camp has produced has been met with a swivel-eyed jeer of “Scaremongering!”. In fact, it’s been pretty much the Leave camp’s only rebuttal. The value of our pensions might fall. “Scaremongering!” Trouble might resume in Ireland. “Scaremongering!” Our higher education system might suffer because of lost revenue from foreign students. “You giant mongers of scare!”

A few points here. One, describing the manner of someone’s argument does nothing to invalidate the content of their argument. If I warned you that walking naked into an Arsenal pub with your balls painted in Tottenham colours would get you castrated, I’d be scaremongering, but I’d have a fucking point. Two, this is a binary debate: stay or leave? The only choice campaigners on both sides have is to depict the positive consequences of voting their way and the negative consequences of voting the other. Remain are rooting for the status quo, so there’s no point in their spelling out the advantages of remaining: they’re staring us in the face. All they can realistically do is draw attention to the potential pitfalls of leaving, thus opening themselves to the charge of scaremongering. What the Leave camp should be doing is not describing how Remain are shouting, but explaining why what they’re shouting is wrong. Three, I’d rather be a scaremonger than a hatemonger any day.

And four, scaremongering is, as far as I’m concerned, an entirely legitimate tactic, because I am genuinely fucking terrified of yet another recession, of a sterling crash, of a government in the buttery grip of Boris fucking Johnson, of chronic labour shortages alongside mass unemployment, and generally of the prospect of living in a country that stands as a joke candidate in general elections, throttles its ex-girlfriend, and is declared bankrupt not once, but twice.

1 thought on “The UK is not Beyoncé. It’s Bez”

  1. Totally agree about Scaremongering, Andy. Many accused of such are making valid points about the danger of leaving. This even includes Cameron’s (albeit sometimes hyperbolic) warnings of post-Brexit disaster. But the point that needs to be put to him over and over again is that the genuinely scary prospect of a future outside the EU is only possible because of him. He alone is responsible for the uncertainty that even now is damaging the country and for the horrific possibility of an isolated, recession-hit Britain lurching towards increasing intolerance and austerity under the leadership of the only ex-Eton Tory with fewer principles than Cameron himself. (It goes without saying that principle had nothing to do with the decision to call the Referendum – a choice borne out of a misguided analysis of Conservative Party political expediency.)

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