The Home Straight
For the love of God, please, please, please let this be over soon
Only another week to go of this shit. That’s what I keep telling myself.
The “highlights” for today so far, at lunchtime: the betting scandal stuff rumbles on, in the oh-so-entirely-predictable way we suspected it might when it first came to light; there’s coverage of a somewhat unedifying slanging match involving David Tennant and Kemi Badenoch; Oswald Binjuice¹ himself is now weighing in saying that Ukraine should “sign a peace deal with Russia”, because he’s probably had his one time pad out, scribbling away, listening to the ghostly, suspiciously Slavic sounding numbers stations that carry his latest programming. Just another day in Totally Normal-land.
Tonight there’ll be yet another airless, pointless leaders’ “debate” that will achieve precisely nothing, because even though there are apparently many people who don’t know exactly who they’ll vote for yet, it’s pretty clear who they’ll be voting against. I’ll probably find something else to do. Anything else, because frankly I’ve only got so many more breaths left, and I’m not wasting any on that.
If Sunak thought the polls might narrow over the course of this campaign his finely tuned political instincts have struck once again: all that has happened is that the dislike of the incumbent government has hardened, and we all just want this shit show to finish. Not that there’s any pity for those clinging on. I think there’s a definite taste for some people to have their arses handed to them in a very public way, so they can experience just a little of the pain and humiliation heaped upon the country over the last 14 years, in a mix of general and specific terms for people ready to place their cross. I am hoping for a few “Portillo” moments, and for those on the end of them to behave in the graceless way one might expect to complete the fun.
But then, let’s talk about election night itself. I was considering following at least some of it on Channel 4, what with BBC’s coverage being fronted by Laura Kuennsberg, who has the pinched, constantly irritated look of a small, disgruntled terrier being force-fed nettles infused with cat piss. Then yesterday, 4 announced that they were bringing in Nadine Dorries, of all people, as a talking head. For any number of reasons that has pissed me off no end, not least of which is that some wag of a commissioning editor that it would be “japes” and “bantz” to get her in to comment on the possibly unfolding carnage. Let’s not forget that this is the woman who, in an act of political revenge provoked by Channel 4 News asking too many awkward non-deferential questions, tried to privatise it to please the Prime Minister whose arse she spent so much of her time assiduously kissing. Thankfully, because she was not only dense enough to attract orbiting planetary debris, but also cataclysmically unable to actually do her job², it didn’t happen. With the probable change of government, it’s not very likely to happen any time soon either. Someone then thought that, in the era of politics as a convenient replacement for Blankety Blank in the schedules, that this would be a right old lark, an’ no mistake, guv’nor. I think would rather deep fry my own bollocks in yak butter and feed them to the local seagulls³. Stop treating the governance of the country as a branch of showbusiness, you utter, utter arseholes. That does leave me ITV, but we all know that’s not a great option. I may find myself flicking around during the course of the night, playing Whack-A-Twat in reverse as I go.
Like I said, only one more week of this shit …
¹ Nigel Farage, obvs. After listening to a riff from the podcast Pod Save The UK last week, where no one’s favourite Roderick Spode cosplayer was roundly mocked, I’ve determined that from now on, farage (pronounced farridge), will be defined as the evil smelling bin juice left behind after the general waste bins have been collected.
² I mean, if you’re going to privatise something, and want to rant about how it being publicly funded is a a waste of money, then actually understanding its funding model properly, and not performatively shitting your pants in front of a Select Committee when you’re being asked about it would help, wouldn’t it? In the village of the village idiots, she was, and remains, the eternal village idiot.
³ For comparison, I generally hate the flying, shitting rats of the air, especially when they shit all over my car, so I’m not normally inclined even to offer them the steam off my piss. This would be a major jump for me.
