Warming Up

Oh man, the final round of Pointless today included the category, “People mentioned in Matthew, Chapter one”. If only I’d been on and got to the final round I could have made up for all past failures.

I just wished I’d been one of the 100 people they’d asked and then I could have ruined it for EVERYONE!

Why does Osman taunt me like this?

I had to go into London early this morning for another writer’s meeting for the sitcom I am working on, but this time it was just me and the producer, going over the scenes that we need to cover in my episode. I don’t think this is a sign that I have not done very well so far and so needed a special meeting and think that they have just realised that this is a more efficient way to work. 

We were up in an attic room away from everyone else at Avalon. Even though the offices here are sprawling I thought I had been everywhere in this building, but there was a secret corridor of small rooms where I imagine some murders have taken place. 

But we got some good work done, I think. There are lots of different kinds of producers in the business, but it’s rare to meet one with a proper writers’ sensibility, but in a business where often younger people with no experience of coal-face comedy try to tell me how to do my job, it is pleasing to be working with someone who is much younger than me, but who I feel I can learn from. To be fair, he’s made a lot more TV than me and maybe the weird thing is that not everyone is this good, given the competitive nature of the industry. I’ve mainly been writing alone of late and we weren’t exactly writing today, but it was a good collaboration.

We’d finished by lunchtime and I drove back home listening to Radio 2. Jeremy Vine was doing a phone in about whether people voted Brexit for economic improvement or whether it was not about the money, but the principle. He seemed to be quite heavily pushing the idea that it wouldn’t necessarily matter if we were worse off post-Brexit because that wasn’t what we were voting about.  And he seemed to get quite a lot of phone calls backing this up from people who were happy to take the hit as long as they had their sovereignty back because they had just voted to Leave.

It felt like a weird and Orwellian rewrite of history. I seem to recall that economic prosperity was definitely part of the argument - we’d be better off because we weren’t paying money into the EU and so could give it to the NHS (wasn’t there a bus or something - I forget now) and that a good deal of it was about stopping freedom of movement so Hungarians couldn't come over here and take our jobs any more. Now, as it becomes apparent that nothing will give us a good a deal economically as just staying in the EU, people seem to be re-remembering their motivation. The callers to Vine, who he didn’t really challenge effectively - he might have pointed out that May’s deal actually gives us less say about what is going on than what we currently enjoy- seemed to be saying that they always knew that there would be a period where things would go badly for us, but they had never minded taking that hit as long as they got out of the EU.

Now maybe some people did feel that strongly and as there were people saying all kinds of shit on both sides and no official line, maybe that came out sometimes, but my memory is very much of Remain largely warning of economic repercussions and Leave not saying, “that’s true, but this isn’t about the economy” but more saying, “That’s Project Fear, mate. We’ll be better off out and we can spend the extra money on the NHS.” 

If 600,000 people were persuaded to vote Leave instead of Remain for the NHS money, which seems pretty likely, then the vote was won for economic reasons.

I reckon 600,000 people probably voted Leave “for a laugh” or “to see what happened.”

But no one knows why anyone else voted for anything. Some people don’t even know why they voted, on the evidence of Jeremy Vine.

I’m not saying this as an argument that we shouldn’t leave or that we should leave. I’m just a bit bedazzled by what appears to me to be all the bullshit that’s being said and then parroted. If anyone can find me evidence of Leavophiles saying they were ready to take an economic hit BEFORE the vote, then please let me know. We were certainly warned about the possibility, but by Remoaners who were not given any credence by the Brectums who claimed we were sick of experts.

It’s interesting to be living through so many unshrouded examples of Orwellian doublethink and historical rewrites. But surely someone should be on hand who doesn’t care about what happens, but is ready to point out when people are just lying. 

Christ knows what will happen. In fact, he could step in and stop it if he wanted, but he’s very much a sit back and spectate kind of fella and probably understandably after the shit he got when he tried to intervene last time.

Oh what’s the point. If there’s a shit storm on the horizon you don’t rush out and bathe in the shower of shit. You sit inside and look at it through the window. Until the windows are so covered in shit that you can’t see outside any more. And you die of dysentery.

I’ve heard people claiming we have to go ahead with Brexit or it will invigorate the right wing who might rise up against the rest of us. But not only should we not be making policy based on the likelihood of idiots starting an insurrection (the thing that bamboozled me most about that horrible appearance on This Week was that Farage threatened revolt and implied violence if he didn’t get his way and no one challenged him on it at all), but also a half-arsed Brexit is just as likely to annoy those people who want to fight on the streets, as is a huge economic downturn.

Will anyone be brave enough to take control of this and do the best for the country, rather than thinking of their own career, or investments or party? Because from what I remember about the rise of the Nazis was it was self-serving politicians who allowed it all to happen.

Gonna get some windscreen wipers for my windows and will watch with interest.

It’ll probably be OK right. We all knew what we were doing when we voted.

Here’s a thoroughly enjoyable RHLSTP with the brilliant and award winning, Rose Matafeo, one of seemingly hundreds of guests who have lived in the house behind the one I used to live in in Shepherd’s Bush

It’s on video here - youtube

Or audio here