Resist.
Posted: July 13, 2018 Filed under: Catastrophes, Conspiracies, Corridors of Power, Events, London scandals | Tags: Brexit fiasco, Brexit the Game Show, Impeach Trump, Joke nation, peaceful protest, Trump blimp 4 Comments
Ah! What a beautiful day for having a cup of tea in your garden, watching the birds scatter in fear at the approach of a convoy of US military aircraft. Fran Isherwood, after the late Ken Dodd.
I’m not sure who is going to be reading this, as I have totally neglected The London Column this year. My lack of attentiveness is down to a combination of factors, but can be roughly summarised as: 70% personal crises; 20% working on a different version of this material; and 10% depression at the state of the subject under discussion.
However …
It is Friday 13th and Donald Trump is in town. This morning’s news headlines make for a bleach-in-the-eyes experience and one struggles to think of historical parallels. How about Suez ? That’s a humiliating episode of Britain’s history that isn’t part of the national myth (a bit of a downer between winning the war and the Beatles) and showed the extent to which we were constrained by American power; but at least Suez showed a U.S. president acting sensibly by reining in Anthony Eden’s anachronistic imperial folly.
No, the current mess has a toxic dynamic all its own. A fragile PM attempting to carry out a pitiful act of national self-harm (trying to limit the damage whilst maintaining the preposterous rhetoric to appease the loons in her own cabinet) is hosting a gleefully destructive, authoritarian president who openly despises her weakness.
Clearly, Trump despises lots of things – including the mayor of London and the multi-culturalism that the city represents. But, proving that a decent joke – or even a puerile one – can reach the parts that sober analysis cannot reach, a giant Trump baby blimp has taken to London’s skies this morning. The fact that people have been worried about how this inflatable cartoon will impact Caesar’s mood is a black joke in itself.
Anyway, there’s a real summer festival mood this weekend, what with the Wimbledon and World Cup finals, the continuing heatwave (due to end soon), The Latitude Festival in Suffolk (where a good friend is performing Brexit – the Game Show) and a host of anti-Trump protests to choose from up and down the country. So let’s enjoy the summer whilst we can; a joyous pleasure cruise to the edge of the abyss. DS.
Dalston, 9 November 2016.
Posted: November 10, 2016 Filed under: Catastrophes, Corridors of Power, Lettering | Tags: American election, Dalston, Jody Porter 3 Comments
Photo © Jody Porter.
The Day They Left.
Posted: June 30, 2016 Filed under: Catastrophes, Class, Conspiracies, Corridors of Power, Funereal, Health and welfare, London Labour, Pavements, Tall Tales, Vanishings | Tags: Brexit, Katie Hopkins, Nigel Farage, Tim Wells, United Voices of the World Comments Off on The Day They Left.
Surrey Steps, off Strand Lane, north of the Embankment, November 2014.
The first thing I noticed was that the beigels had gone
and there was a run on fried egg sandwiches.
Katie Hopkins became a nice person.
The free newspaper on the bus had actual news in it.
It turned out there actually was £350 million for the NHS.
Farage said he’d buy those of us left a pint,
which was fortuitous ‘cos Wetherspoons had cut their prices.
No more forelock tugging for us, Squire,
‘cos what with all the empty houses
each and every one of us got a luxury flat,
each of which came with a rent cap.
The radio could have been better. They’d decided no Kate Bush,
no P.J Harvey but there was a hell of a lot of Coldplay.
Employment was a doddle. I’d always wanted to be a doctor,
or a plumber, or have me very own fish and chip shop,
and these days all the education was free so it was
certificates all round. Gilt edged ones with a crinkle cut at that!
At the job my working day had been halved, pay doubled,
holidays extended. The light began to dawn.
© Tim Wells. Written after the United Voices of the World picket of 100 Wood Street, 29 June 2016.
The lights are going out all over Europe …
Posted: August 4, 2014 Filed under: Architectural, Corridors of Power, Events, Interiors, London Labour, London Places, Vanishings, Wartime London | Tags: August 4th 1914, Britain's entry into World War One, lights going out all over Europe, Sir Edward Grey, start of World War One Comments Off on The lights are going out all over Europe …
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. © David Secombe 1993.
A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week — he thinks it was on Monday, August 3rd. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below on which we were looking. My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time’.
From Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916 (New York, 1925) by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, formerly Sir Edward Grey. Sir Edward Grey was British Foreign Secretary in August 1914; Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th.
The London Column 