I know what you were expecting: a diatribe about the brazen burglary committed by Alistair, Darling last week (I’m sorry but I can’t think of his name without inserting a comma). Well, you know, imitation is the sincerest form of etc etc, and I think recent events will have convinced most people of the difference between a policy enacted from core principles – because a party wants to reduce the tax burden – and one yelped out through fear as a panic-stricken response to a resurgent Opposition. Organic policy growth versus the chattering of a machine, if you like. The difference is authenticity. I don’t think we should care a bit about Labour copying our policies, or the legion of dead-eyed Brown spawn that appear on the news to shriek about how our nummas don’t add up (all numbers add up – it’s one of their basic properties – you don’t need a doctorate in mathematics to know that. Although, I remember an interesting group theory lecture … well maybe another time).
To be serious. Our opportunity arises from our contrast with Brown. Unlike Blair, who had some palpable if mislaid fragment of decency buried deep within his chest, the Fist is hollow. Nothing drives him other than power. I suspect that his self-impressed coterie – the Ed-James-Burnham-Purnell-Andy-Balls creature – can you tell them apart? – really do think that by appearing on C4 News and shouting loudly they will create the impression that Tory policy is ill-thought out. Since our spokespeople have discovered the authority that comes with being calm and unflustered, I advise simply: more of the same please. Every Brown MP on telly is another marginal in the bag.
*
We had a big meeting at work on Wednesday, which meant I had to get to Brentford, so my day started with a trip from Hackney to Waterloo, to catch the train. I got the no.26 from outside my flat and it took me all the way south of the river. Who designed these bus routes? They’re quite amazing. If you’re ever wondering how to pass an hour in London, I recommend the no.26 route. Start with tea at Graeme and Mr Keith’s ground-floor luxury garden apartment (ha ha), then proceed along the Hackney Road, oohing at the City Farm (morning pigs, morning sheep). Peer down into the Columbia Road flower market. Turn left onto Shoreditch High Street and try not to cut yourself on the edginess of Hoxton. Proceed across Norton Fullgate (what?) into the City, past Liverpool Street (our most beautiful mainline station) and right onto Threadneedle Street. Poke the shoulder of the passenger in front to tell them that the building they’re gazing at on their left is not the Bank of England, which is in fact that nondescript thing on the right. Close your eyes as the bus manoeuvres itself across the Bank junction, keep them shut for 45 seconds and open them again in time to see St Paul’s soar up beside your upper deck, recently cleaned and shining like a beacon. I can’t see St Paul’s without getting a burst of optimism. Across Ludgate Circus and up Fleet Street where the pang of regret you feel about the march of progress – no latter-day Bill Deedes scribbling out his copy in The King and Keys – is masked by the glory of the Art Deco splendour of the old Daily Express building. Down past Somerset House, where I once saw the best Belle and Sebastian concert ever, and where another time Mr Keith and I lay under the stars watching The Outsiders on a big open-air screen. On past the Royal Courts of Justice – I think they’re ugly – then you swing onto Waterloo Bridge and oh my goodness, if you time it right, as I serendipitously did last Wednesday, suddenly the river swirls under you, thick and fast and glinting in the early morning sun. The City thrusts up in the East and Westminster squats on the north shore, up West. The same landscape for centuries, bar the odd tumescent gherkin dotted here and there. You can’t beat it. All for a quid on me Oyster (don’t you like oysters?). I still had to go to work though.
*
I have a list of things I’d like to do before I die – nothing dramatic – swimming features largely – I finally swam in the Hampstead pond this summer. Was OK (morning ducks, morning geese) but not a patch on the Lido in London Fields. I bullied Mr Keith into swimming in an outside pool on the shore of Garda last week – unheated – he’s still not speaking to me. Largely through the physical shock the cold engendered. I ticked off another objective on Thursday, and visited the Ironmonger Row Turkish baths, just behind St Luke’s on Old Street in Islington (Islington! I know. But it’s just over the border from Hackney so I feigned an air of nonchalant disconcern). Now that our Turkish baths in Bethnal Green have been converted into an oop-market spa experience, I wanted to do the real thing before the last shard connecting us with prewar East End life is gone. Have you read The Book of Dave by Will Self? It’s an amazing novel, which I could not begin to summarise aptly, but one passage which struck me was Dave’s descriptions of how as a child he accompanied his father to sit with other cabbies in an east end Turkish bathhouse, so I went to try it for myself this week. Wonderful. A succession of rooms, each hotter than the last, the final one so hot that you feel each cell in your lungs expand, and a plunge pool to shock yourself back to a normal temperature (try not to worry about cardiac stress). You can stay as long as you like, there’s a full size swimming pool, and the strongest impression my visit left me with was one of peacefulness. There is an air of hush throughout – speaking, though not forbidden, is gently discouraged. Mobile phones are banned. I thought: men have been doing this since the Romans came to London. A refuge from their jobs, their lives, their responsibilities; an hour or two where they relax and forget about life and its many harnesses, and recharge themselves for re-engagement. It’s probably illegal under some New Labour law or other, but it seemed to be doing the men of Islington a power of good. (Women of Islington should not feel excluded: the genders take it day about, and one day a week is mixed).
*
I was sat with my friend Ben in a London Fields hostelry on Friday afternoon, planning an article we’re going to contribute to EastEight magazine about the wonderful pubs in our manor. Our conversation was interrupted by a fistfight that broke out between two men, I think to do with the affections of a woman. I’d like to tell you that I jumped into the melee to help restore order, but my contribution was limited to plucking somewhat ineffectively at the arm of the victim, to help him rise from the floor (he’d landed at the table we were sat at). Ben was more authoritative than myself and helped pull back the protagonist. We agreed that the editor of EastEight, who’d charged us with describing the good things that happen in Hackney pubs, with a focus on the conversations about politics we might overhear, probably won’t print a verbatim account of our Friday exploration.
*
I just heard some Andy-Burnham-Balls-Brown creature or other announcing on the radio that he’s always been in favour of tax breaks for married couples. Of course you have Andy! Your sense of integrity is palpable. I wonder what you see when you look in the mirror?
Lovely tour of London there Graeme! As far as the unheated lake-swimming experience is concerned - I do not blame Mr Keith in the slightest as I wouldn't be speaking to you either if you made me swim in freeeeeeezing water!
On a serious note however - you are absolutely right to stress that the key to our continuing success is to emphasise our DIFFERENCE to Brown!
Posted by: Sally Roberts | October 14, 2007 at 09:21 AM
Wonderful description Graeme, but it wont make me leave West Yorkshire!! We should have a spring conference here. How about Huddersfield Uni, then you can walk on the moors. (Harrogate is North Yorks!)
Posted by: Annabel Herriott | October 14, 2007 at 09:57 AM
I might try the no 26 next time I am up in the smoke. It sounds like a life changing experience.
"shouting loudly they will create the impression that Tory policy is ill-thought out."
Most important though is to not let them get away with a single bit of spin. So for example Brown says he would have won the election on competence. We need to be ready to bang off a big list of incompetence under this lot e.g lack of prison spaces despite endless new criminal offences, closing hospitals despite billions in extra funding, foot and mouth being caused by a government lab, flooding exacerbated by not enough flood defence spending etc etc.
Posted by: voreas06 | October 14, 2007 at 10:24 AM
Graeme - love to read your comments about life in Hackney, I lived there as a little girl after the war and although so much has changed, it still feels like reading about 'home'.
Posted by: sjm | October 14, 2007 at 04:09 PM
Great to hear that you're a fan of B&S! I hoped there were a few of us on ConHome, and have always thought Stuart Murdoch's lyrics are profoundly conservative. Well, most of them...
Posted by: Derek L. Piper | October 15, 2007 at 12:10 AM
An excellent description of the No. 26 bus route. Not a word out of place. Hackney/Shoreditch/City is such a great part of London.
Posted by: steve | October 15, 2007 at 01:17 PM
Hello Derek -- I think Belle and Sebastian are completely above politics. They are beyond politics. They are the pure life force. They are the definition of beauty. They are [... tails off into frothing Belle and Sebastian lovefest. Best not to look].
PS what's your favourite. The State I Am In, Stars of Track and Field, Sleep the Clock Around and Lord Anthony: my life in four songs.
Posted by: Graeme Archer | October 15, 2007 at 03:26 PM
Graeme, You're right, I shouldn't attach a poli angle to those lyrics, but I have to say that S Murdoch's themes and implications fascinate me to no end, themes that get bolder with each record it seems.
Songs? Well I love most all, but those early EPs really get me these days - especially the three slower numbers on the 3.6.9 Seconds record (Century of Fakers...). I must stop before I fill up a page here.
Posted by: Derek L. Piper | October 15, 2007 at 05:41 PM
Did you buy Push Barman... , the EP collection? I think that first sequence of songs is unbelievable. "She asked me do I need to lose a bit of weight? And we said, no don't be stupid, cos you're looking great". I know it's silly but that makes me cry. Century of Fakers is great, you're right. What about Beautiful? the perfect B&S song, down to the beautiful horn section. Do you know the name of the guy who plays the trumpet in the band? I think he is *amazing*. Have you seen them live? Un-believable.
Posted by: Graeme Archer | October 15, 2007 at 07:40 PM
Yes those are all killers. I understand exactly what you mean with String Bean Jean. And I've seen them three times, all here in NY. The first had Isobel still in the band and the last was a great free show in Battery Park in July '06.
Trumpeter Mick Cooke started out as an occasional sideman before joining ft right around their third album....
Now, if only I could tie the above into why we should bring back the hereditary peers.
:)
Posted by: Derek L. Piper | October 16, 2007 at 07:05 PM