5099/18019
Still sick to the stomach about the events of this week and this year I allowed myself to fantasise that Trump might have been putting on an act in order to get votes and once in office will be a kinder and less psychotic man. But I know that’s not realistic. Even if he was to die (and it seems he is not a healthy man and the strain he must be under is intense, plus you know, lots of peopel have lots to gain if he's not around any more) the Republicans not only have the power to do whatever they want to do, they also have the knowledge that empty nationalist rhetoric is enough to swing an election your way. The French will be put to the test next. And who are the British to criticise anyone. We got the whole shit show on the shitty tracks.
It’s very hard to see this going anything but horribly, horribly wrong. People on Twitter are saying stuff like, “We’ve got through worse than this and we’ll get through this too.” But I don’t really doubt that humanity will survive (though I don’t know what kind of planet will be left to live on), but saying that we got through plague and war as a species is rather a glib dismissal of the personal suffering that has gone before us. It may well have happened anyway, as economic and environmental troubles are bound to spring up, but this hate-fuelled election of a man with no sense of humour, no experience of the job, an inflated idea of his self-worth and a lack of empathy is not going to help. You should still have been scared if Clinton had won, but if you’re not scared now that Trump has won you are as delusional as I attempted to be at the start of this blog.
If nothing else his denial of climate change is enough to see off the planet.
If you're young (and why would you be reading this if you were?) you need to get engaged with politics and use your power or all these old fuckers are going to fuck everything up for you.
This afternoon I wrote my valedictory Metro column. The paper and I were always unusual bedfellows (but I quite liked the fact that we were at odds and that I was still able - on the whole- to write anything I wanted), but finally we have come to a fairly mutual parting of the ways. But after five years and 242 columns (I never took a week off, as you might expect having followed this blog, unless there was no paper published - I mean I am not insane) the longest running job of my life is over. And I think that’s a good thing overall. And though it’s slightly sad in some ways, the minute it was decided I got a phone call with some good news about one of my other projects. So as one door closes, I have managed to press the ejector seat just before the plane blows up. Now to see if the parachute is working. Never has before. But the law of averages says I have to get lucky some time.
And tonight I was handing out awards to people working in the financial sector doing work I don’t understand involving risk management. It must be tough to do that in a world where everyone wants to take risks. I joked that I wished I was hosting next year’s awards as they will presumably be held in Paris. I got some laughs from the polite crowd, but again experienced the unfamiliar sensation of on stage nervousness. It’s only during corporate gigs and appearances on Pointless that my throat constricts and my voice starts to waver and the words sometimes don’t come out (though at least I wasn't close to tears this time). It’s weird because I am never feeling that nervous, but my brain is deceiving me. I managed to settle the ship and rescued things with the Ferrero Rocher routine which seems to appeal to the mathematical minds of people working in finance.
The stand up bit is always a slight worry, but I am good at the awards bit. And when I say good, I am fast. But that is what these things need. I raced through the 20 or so awards in about 35 minutes. But that just meant that everyone could get to their cocktails a bit earlier. And no one was going to complain about that. Again I enjoyed doing a gig that challenged me and was glad to both develop this skill.
So anyway, some stuff to feel positive about and a bit of time freed up in my week to catch up on the stuff I am way behind on. You can read the last column on Wednesday - it will be up on this site as usual.
The column started just before our wedding. I don’t think anyone would have predicted that the marriage would last longer than the column. Or that the column would have lasted longer than six weeks.
And I suspect the blog will continue. We’re just two weeks away from the 14th anniversary of the start of this thing. And only another four years til I have documented over one third of my life.
What a waste of a good education.
