Monday 11th March

Big secret – today is my birthday.  As a child I thought  – what a co-incidence, two famous Prime Minister’s born on the same day – as it was also Harold Wilson’s birthday, and in my mind there was little doubt that I would be Prime Minister too.  Well, there is still time I suppose.  And talking of my birthday I don’t think I have ever known it so cold.  Once or twice there have actually been flurries of snow in the air, but I really cannot recall such an icy wind.

On Saturday night we had a nice meal in Frinton but had to park the car a hundred yards away.  My God, was it cold walking back to it.  We were in a thick snow-storm, big wet sleety flakes that stung your face as they hit, we arrived like two abominable snowmen.  And then driving back on Sunday the temperature barely got above freezing.

Sunday afternoon walking to my writing class and it was so cold, absolutely icy.  So what exactly is happening to the weather.  Some scientists are saying that this is all down to global warming, and if it is heaven help us, because in the midst of this global financial crisis the last thing that Governments are thinking about is Global Warming, which is bound to cost money and be a long hard fight.  And with the discovery of shale gas and ‘fracking’ it looks like oil will still rule for a long while to come.

On Newsnight a couple of years ago there was a scientist who was really optimistic about new fuels and technology making oil obsolete. When Jeremy Paxman pointed out that there were still vast reserves of oil on the planet he said, ‘Listen, the stone age did not end because of a lack of stone.’  I thought that this was brilliant at the time, but of course conversely it means the oil age will not end until a far better technology comes along.  And that doesn’t seem terribly likely.  Maybe it will need an ecological disaster of mammoth proportions before we change our ways.  In the meantime, just how bad does the weather have to get before we wake up and smell the CO2.

Sunday 10th March

For whatever reason Saturday is rapidly becoming the best day of the week.  Walking the dogs on the beach, even in a fine drizzle, out to Clacton for a bit of shopping, in and out of all the charity shops, a trip around Wilkinsons and the 99p stores, M & S for undies and something nice for tea, breakfast in a café.  Then Frinton and popping in to all the high street shops and buying very little, a new deli just opened, afternoon tea in ‘The Hat and The Mouse’ is just perfect, and home in time to watch the footie results on the telly.  In the evening a nice pub meal and a glass or two in ‘The Lock and Barrel’ and home to catch an hour of telly.

Simple things, nothing sophisticated, the weather cold and a bit damp, the shops nice and warm.  Buying bits and bobs for France, something nice to eat, and when you get home that perfect cup of tea.  You don’t need to be a millionaire to enjoy the simple things of life.  My grandfather was a communist, a member of the Bolshevicks and he used to insist that the millionaire in his mansion couldn’t enjoy his pure Ceylon tea out of a bone china tea-cup any more than my Grandad could his PG tips out of an old mug.  And he was right of course. Chasing money is the biggest folly of all in life.  Despite what people might say what most of us want is just enough not to have to worry, enough for food and our housing costs, occasional new clothes, enough to buy birthday presents for the Grandchildren, enough to have a meal out occasionally, some nice things to eat and a good book and a new CD occasionally.

Despite the weather, despite the dismal economic news and despite our own sense of inadequacy life can still be good.  Even a drizzly Saturday can be just lovely.

Saturday 9th March

I have just finished reading the most wonderful book.  It is by Rachel Joyce, and it is her first novel which she developed from a play.  She has been a successful playwright but people around her persuaded her to turn a short play into a novel, and thank goodness she did.  This is a very English novel, and I cannot imagine it being a big hit in America, it is just too ordinary.  In fact in places it is just too ordinary for England too, and at one point I was tempted to put it down, but if you persist with it that very ordinariness becomes the structure, the essence of the book.

It is about an ordinary and boring couple who deep down are desperate to re-discover the love they once had for each other, but cannot find the means or the language to do so.  One day a letter arrives and stirs up memories of the past which Harold thought he had successfully buried.  He sets off to post a letter and after a conversation with a girl in a garage he suddenly decides to walk almost the entire length of Britain.  The book is about both Harold’s journey and his memories and those of his wife, and they too are ordinary really.  But underneath this patina of ordinariness is real pain and suffering and eventually redemption.

And running through the book is this vein of compassion and understanding that is heart-warming and uplifting.  This is a book I wish I had written.  In fact if I could write half as well as this I would be happy.  A rare nine out of ten I think.

Friday 8th March

Another day, another song.  John Lennon, that most quixotic of creatures, on his last album ‘Double Fantasy’, his triumphant if literally short-lived return to recording in 1979 had a wonderful song on it ‘Watching the Wheels’.

And I am watching the wheels too, as I sit in an old-fashioned café near Baker Street station. The traffic slows down for traffic lights and then speeds up again, and mostly all you can see of the passengers are dark shadows, but watching the wheels turn is quite hypnotic really.  And strangely comforting too, the familiarity and mindlessness of silver car wheels turning in the rain.

It is raining again, drizzling after a few fine cold days, that clammy wet and dreek weather has returned.  But at least it is noticeably warmer today, even if Spring still feels a way away.

And I think about my life and what I am doing with it.  All I am doing is watching the wheels go by, but I am not really engaged at all.  I am simply freewheeling along, letting the current take me, drifting from one week to another, limping from holiday to holiday with no discernable purpose.

There must be more to life than this.  Repetition, monotony, watching the wheels go by. And I am watching my life go by too, watching as the days turn to weeks and months into years, and Christmases come and birthdays too and you do begin to wonder if there is any purpose in any of it.  Outside people are buttoning their coats and hoisting up umbrellas against the sudden squally rain.  Another day, another working day for so many.  Because they (we) have no choice but to keep on keeping on.  Because if we all decided not to, then the wheels would stop turning and what would I watch then.

Thursday 7th March

As a nation we seem to have lost our way.  Nobody knows where we are going, but this no Magical Mystery Tour I am afraid.  Almost every section of society is simply treading water.  Maybe we can make an exception for the traders, the currency speculators, the financial product boys whose bonuses are in the realms of lottery wins; at least these guys know where they are going, and conversely they don’t give a fuck where their activities are taking the country.

The poor have no time to worry where they are going, as they are shifted from bedsit to hotel room and shortly from town to town in a downward spiral of cost-cutting, with only a few fags and maybe a two-litre bottle of cider to relieve the tedium; theirs is a wholly pointless existence with no direction at all.

The young have no idea where they are going; is it to University where they may end up wasting three years, coming out with a degree which no-one is impressed enough by to give them a job and a loan that seems disproportionate to the years of effort, or do they rush out and just get a job stacking shelves in Tesco, or as a kitchen porter, or some other unskilled job where the minimum wage will also be your maximum ever wage.  Or do you simply vegetate in your bedroom, because you will never be able to afford your own house, and cannot see yourself moving out until you are thirty.   And so you waste whatever meager money you have on computer games and mobile phones that at least occupy your boring evenings because downstairs your mum and dad are couch potatoes who watch one soap after another or celebrity quiz shows,  because they don’t have the imagination to go out or even to switch the darned tv off occasionally.

The old are stuck indoors too, watching as their savings dwindle and the price of petrol goes higher and higher, and they read the Daily Mail and tutt about how immigrants from Bulgaria are waiting to invade our island home.

And our leaders do not know where we are going either; more years of the same austerity, or a not very convincing and unspecified financial plan from the opposition.  No leadership, no vision, no hope – welcome to Britain.

Wednesday 6th March

There are some songs which I just love, not only for the music but the words, especially if they are clever and pick out a mood, a feeling, an essence of what it is to be alive.  Shared experience is all that Art really is; the attempt to discern beauty in the everyday, and make it memorable of course, that is the hard bit.

The Monkees were fun, they were stupid and happy boys romping around, often speeded up, an American attempt to emulate the Beatles, but they also sang.  And though their songs were written for them they were well chosen and the Monkees became huge.  One of their number was Mike Nesmith, who actually was a musician of merit, and when the band split, as they had to when the constant pressure for hits took its toll, went on to have a respectable if somewhat subdued career, releasing a series of brilliant and mostly country albums.

He had one big hit ‘Rio’, which hit a sweet spot with the public.  It had a lovely latin melody but also the most apposite and flippant words to express exactly how we all feel sometimes.

‘It’s only a whimsical notion, to fly down to Rio tonight.  I probably won’t fly down to Rio, but then again I just might.’

Sheer brilliance, and though I have hardly been out of Europe, let alone to Rio, every time I hear the song I think I just might too.

And you never know, the Olympics and the World Cup are both in Rio next, so its time has truly come.  For now I will just enjoy the thoughts of Rio , carnival, samba and all – I probably won’t fly down to Rio, but then again I just might.

Tuesday 5th March

So soon it comes round again, that Monday morning feeling.  Sometimes I really don’t know how I am going to face another week of this.  And yet what else is there?  I am at that point where the idea of retirement is more than just an idea, but a reality I must confront at some point soon.  I could just flunk it and stay working for another three years, or even longer if I wanted to, and wait for events to decide for me.  But more and more I feel that I should take charge and sort things out myself.

I have all these dreams of writing and painting but more often than not I waste my Friday writing day anyway, squandering the rare moment of freedom, continually putting off the moment I should start, making excuses, rather than buckle down and just start writing.

And every so often I lose confidence in the whole process, realizing with a sickening clarity that I am not a good writer at all, and wondering why I have wasted so much time on my story anyway.

And would I have that Friday desultoriness every day if I were retired, with no work to get up for, no daily routine decided for me, would I just vegetate.  Would I waste even this, my precious retirement?  So, in an awful way this depressing Monday morning feeling is reassuring, comforting in its familiar routine, even if it means four days of fairly mindless slog again.  And all the while time is marching on, and soon I will be like my parents, worrying about the parking charges at the car park, eking out an existence punctuated by occasional days of family and friends, watching far too much telly, and understanding less and less of the world as it drifts by.

So for now writing this blog on another cold Monday morning and not really looking forward to the working week ahead, at least I know what I have ahead of me.  It is that void of unknowingness which terrifies me.

Monday 4th March

Why, oh why does the day after a good day seem to bring you down with a bump.  Not that there was anything particularly wrong with today – it just wasn’t yesterday. And out of sorts I was, though it all started off fine, gradually as the day progressed I got worse and worse.  I suppose because it was directionless, and with nothing planned – the day, full of opportunity dissipated into a wasted day.  We normally know days in advance what we will be doing, especially at the weekends, but all our efforts were on Saturday and somehow Sunday never figured in our planning.  And though I have happily frittered away so many Sundays, today it seemed such a waste to just waste it.

There was a bit of tidying up, moving the furniture back, then a bit of a gap, a hiatus until my writing class, where I feel I am not learning anything new now anyway.  And so the day disappeared.  At school, years ago our headmaster used to have this little homily : “Here hath been dawning another blue day.  Think, will thou let it slip useless away?”  to which a little voice in my head would pop up and say, “Yes, probably”.  Terribly funny back then, but now as one watches the years fly past a wasted day is almost a crime.

And now the day is nearly over and despite our best efforts we don’t seem to have rescued the day at all.  At least Spurs won today, so my daughter will be happy.

Tomorrow is another day, and another chance for a perfect day too.  Hope I don’t let this one slip useless away too.

Sunday 3rd March

Sometimes in life everything just goes perfectly, and today was one of those days.  It had all been arranged somewhat hurriedly and I was slightly wary that things might go wrong.  It has become a sort of tradition that I celebrate my birthday with the family.  Two years ago we were in Wales, and I put them up in a hotel, then last year it was at Walton and the Marina for lunch.  But Walton is almost as out of the way as Wales, and for some a lot further than London.  I also had the added complication of my son Justin working in Hospitality and getting the time off, and sure enough my actual birthday weekend coincided with Mother’s Day so we had to bring it forward a week.  Then I had to consult the football oracle as Tottenham, my daughter’s team were bound to be playing.  And yes it was Arsenal at home on Sunday (today) so it had to be Saturday.

Almost by accident we stumbled on a really nice Thai restaurant not far from the house, and we booked it.  Then we decided to add four friends too, so sixteen adults and five children sat down for what ended up being a really excellent meal.  The grandchildren were very well-behaved and the whole day went off with no upsets or incidents at all.  In fact it just goes to show that sometimes minimal planning works better than a micro-managed affair.

Strange how I can always find plenty to say about the things that go wrong, but have less to say when it all turns out fine.  But there we are, a perfect day, and now a good memory to unwrap and enjoy every so often.

Saturday 2nd March

In the end it wasn’t maybe the shock we were all expecting, but it was a shock after all.  The Lib-Dems held the seat, despite Chris Huhne’s guilty plea, and the Chris Rennard revelations, or should we say hung on to the seat.  This was one of their safest seats; they had done an incredible job building on their by-election success in 1994.  Over twenty years they had managed to hold every single council seat and seemed rock solid secure.   Labour, despite the proximity of Southampton had a very low share of the vote – just 10% which they just about managed to hang on to last night.

But this used to be a Tory seat for years and years.  And it was one of their target seats for 2015, where if they are to ever govern on their own they will need seats just like this.

The shock of the night of course was that UKIP came in second and beat the Tories into third place.  The election was called with unseemly haste, just 21 days to select and canvass and get their message across to the electorate.  Most commentators think that if the campaign had lasted a week longer then UKIP would have won the thing, and on the day they did get most votes, it was the well-oiled postal vote machine which won it for the Lib-Dems.  And good luck to them.

Both the Tories and the Lib-Dems lost over 14% of their 2010 vote.  So, it seems an anti-coalition vote, with a gathering coalescence around UKIP as the preferred alternative.  Which is a warning which Labour cannot totally ignore either.

Famously by-elections are notoriously bad bell-weathers for the ensuing general election, and the big three parties will all dismiss this as just another freak result.  But you never can tell, especially in elections.  It is just possible that we are seeing at long last a break-up of the grand coalition that the Tory party has become.  At one time they commanded over 50% of the electorate, but now opinion polls put them regularly at only 30%.  The Tory party is almost an anachronism, there is the hard core of old-fashioned right wingers who are really in the wrong party, and may well defect to UKIP if the bandwagon rolls on, there is also the soft middle who see the need to modernize the party, but cannot really find a theme that distinguishes them from either labour or Lib-Dems.

We will just have to wait, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the local elections in May produce a big surge in UKIP support.  And that could be a problem for every party.  In 2015 we may look like Italy does today.