If I boil my biggest pot once and the kettle three times there’s about enough hot water for an enervating if mildly underwhelming splash in the bath. I dread to consider the cost in gas and electricity. I’m wondering if this boiler explosion will eventually allow me to get something a little more environmentally sound than the gasfucking monstrosity that has chuntered and loured in the corner of my kitchen for so long. It was installed by the boyfriend of a friend of a girl I was seeing many years ago. His name was Stewart Walkely. He stitched me up like a kipper. I can be too trusting. He even took my old immersion heater, which would’ve provided hot water for us now. He sold it for copper and charged me for the disposal. “Fuck him,” he must’ve thought. “He lives in Chelsea. He’s loaded.” I’d like to track him down and make him wear my socks.
Over the last ten years I’ve tried to force myself to understand that not everybody is lovely. Because I wouldn’t stitch anyone up I find it a mystery that other people do. It still shocks me when someone does it to me. I think I’ve got better at looking out for it now. At accepting that some people are able to sell themselves fictions about other people that allow them to serve their own needs and hurt others in the process. It feels like the world is shifting back to giving permission for that. Back in the eighties it was all the rage. “Greed is good.” Now with this cruel selfish manipulative egomaniac at the helm of Usacorp I suspect his rapacity and simple binary worldview will give permission to similarly minded individuals the world over to take what they can.
“Them and us” though. We’re all guilty of it. Maybe I’m wrong to think Donald Duck is a bad thing. Maybe I’m missing the point. If I could switch off my empathy maybe I’d find a peculiar happiness. I’ve already shifted my worldview once, having grown up Tory. My mother was brilliant, and full of love and heart, care and kindness. And yet she would periodically bang her hand on the table and say “Bring back Thatcher.” I can’t say that made her bad, even if I’ve shifted my spectrum wildly from where I started. There can be no debate if you just think the “other side” is plain wrong. I like to think everyone wants the best for the greatest number of people. But perhaps that’s another aspect of life where I’ve duped myself with my own worldview. Maybe there are just lots of extremely frightened people seeking safety from nebulous others. Maybe I’m one of them. I hope not.
There’s an election coming up in the UK, and we need to think about the decisions we’ll make. For a start it will directly affect how and when a lot of us die, as well as how comfortable or abrupt the dying process will be. However much I hear “strong” and “stable” repeated in the new political language of bad neurolinguistic programming, I can’t associate those qualities with someone who is tightly controlling her media access like this. But similarly, shouting “media bias” about Corbyn while laughing at the idea of media bias about Littlefingers? That’s a double standard. Are those on the left going to be too nuanced and split their vote again? Are those on the right going to be too complacent and assume it’s a sure thing? We don’t have long, but Christ we need to try to be as educated as we can be about what we’re voting for here, county to county, borough to borough. And be willing to examine our own assumptions. This was my morning reading today, by the Oatmeal. Spot on as ever, and despite part of his argument being anchored in an American concern it still carries.
Hmm. I very quickly went from writing about a boiler installer scamming me to sounding off about my clumsy politics again. But it’s election time. It’s unavoidable. Vote.
Here’s a photo of a grey May day in London. This weak May Sun has me longing for change. May should be better than this. I wish this May wasn’t so unstable. etc #BadNLP.
AlBarclay 