I stayed up until about 1.30am watching the American election, but had an early start and so went to bed after Obama Bin Laden had taken Ohio (I think it was - why do they have so many states? Surely they can lump a few together, no-one would notice) and looked pretty certain of victory.
I had a very peculiar and vivid dream about Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross doing a show together on Radio 4 (I remember thinking it might be a mistake to get them back together so soon), but just as they started, masked gunman burst into the studio and put bags over their heads and abducted them. I don't know if my subconscious was satirising the over reaction to the recent news or in fact suggesting that kidnap and humiliation and probable murder would be a fitting punishment for their silliness. I did recall wondering if Brand would keep in character if he was locked in a basement by terrorists or whether he might stop his (for my money, rather enjoyable and intelligent) Dickensian whimsy. It was very real and very frightening (even though I was only a detached observer) and perhaps Charlie Brooker would like to take the idea and turn it into a successful drama series. Or Al Qaeda might take the idea and turn it into a campaign - it would be painfully easy to kidnap celebrities and make them do little videos before killing them. And if they get that much publicity for just saying they've fucked someone's granddaughter then imagine how many column inches you'd get if you cut one of their heads off on the internet. I'm not really trying to give the terrorists more ideas, though I am sure they have thought of such things themselves. But it would be easy, which is perhaps the underlying paranoia behind this nightmare.
Anyway I woke up from the dream, with Brand gibbering a little in his hood, as his revolving chair was wheeled down the corridor (my dreamscape not taking into account that he seems to do his shows standing up). I was quite affected by the clarity and realism of it all. But saddened that it was over as it had been like watching a very exciting film.
It was about 5am. I turned on the TV to see if BOBL had won (as despite all my hilarious japery yesterday, I sincerely wanted him to). Even though it had looked certain when I had gone to bed and in fact for weeks before the actual election, the paranoid part of my brain was still active and I was scared that some terrible reversal of fortunes might have happened. After all the American public have chosen so badly the last two times, admittedly aided by somewhat dubious electoral practices. The TV in my bedroom is a bit blurry anyway and my eyes were still unfocused and half asleep. The figures on the screen seemed to say that McCain had two hundred and something votes, whilst Obama was still in the hundreds. My heart leapt into my mouth. Surely not. Surely America hadn't danced on the fringes of history and then turned their backs on it.
Indeed they had not. My eyes and my fears had deceived me. In fact as my vision unblurred it became clear that Obama had a massive and winning lead. This was a relief.
But then I fell back asleep and extraordinarily also fell right back into the exact same dream about Ross and Brand. This almost never happens. All the shattered dreams that you desperately want to return to when next you close your eyes, but which have flown into the ether, but now one that thought nothing of the interruption of reality and just picked up where it had left off. I was now in the studio and the staff were concerned that the terrorists were still on the premises. They had not left the building. Would they be coming back for the rest of us?
Alas I awoke again before there was any resolution or conclusion, but thankfully the Obama result had not turned out to be a dream. Even if it was kind of part of Martin Luther King's dream. It was definitely real.
It is an extraordinary result, considering the country's recent history and attitudes to its non-white citizens. Less than fifty years ago black people were being lynched and laws were in place to prevent mixed race marriages and people who dared to argue were shot down where they stood. And further back in the past the crime against humanity that was slavery had flourished in this land. And now a black man will be in the White House.
Though I am excited and astounded by that, as we all should be, and just pleased that America hadn't voted for the pair of dicks this time round, my hopes and dreams were tempered by memories of 1997 and how that had felt like the dawn of something new, but had turned out to the dawn of something barely different.
It would be terrific if this was a turning point for America and a step away from the bullying and violence and hatred that the last President seemed to favour. If only America could use its power and predominence to show the rest of the world what was acceptable behaviour. Not to slap people down and kick them til they couldn't get up again, but to show them that democracy and freedom can mean fighting aggression with words and not bombs, with good deeds and not counterattack or preemptive strikes, with the calm dignity of Andrew Sachs, rather than the fury and hatred of the Daily Mail.
I hope we can still all feel as excited and happy at the end of his presidency as we do at the start. Like Blair he has a mandate and popular support. Unlike Blair he has the opportunity to make some real differences on the world stage. Will he do it?
I have a dream....
But then let's hope not all my dreams come true.
And what the fuck is all the waiting til January for him to take over bullshit? Come on America, you've voted someone in. Don't let the last guy stay in for another 75 days, just to fuck everything up for our new Messiah. It's a month and a half for all the right wing nut jobs to get a chance of killing the guy before he's even had a chance to step through the door. That's just badly wrong. You've voted him in, now let him get on with it. The excitement will probably have worn off by next year. George W Bush has had his chance - twice- and look what he's done with it.
And speaking of history I loved reading this piece about the amazing
Harry Patch who is in fact 110 years old. It's incredible to think that there is still someone alive who was in the trenches of World War One. We are fingertip to fingertip with the last few people who can actually tell us personally what that experience was like. It confirms not only my theory and career plan that staying alive as long as possible eventually confers a kind of importance on you, but also that we should talk to our forebears about their lives and record what they say. I always meant to do this with my grandparents, but never got round to it and now three of them are dead and one of them lives, like Harry Patch, in a nursing home in Wells (the same one?) and doesn't know who I am or where she is. Ironically she probably remembers more of the past than she does of the present, but it is too late now to unlock whatever secrets she had left to tell. Talk to them before it is too late.
There are only a few stragglers now, like Harry who breathed the air of the 19th Century. Yet maybe some of you will remember having read Harry Patch's story or the election of Obama Bin Laden as you breath the air of the 22nd Century. Can't think that I'll be there with you. This is the amazing vaulting span of history. Something that stuck me last Christmas as my (then) 97 year old grandma ate her dinner alongside my (then) 17 year old niece. In eighty years time, she herself might be dining with her own great grandchildren and be able to tell them actual memories of an ancestor from five generations before them. That's almost as awe inspiring as a black man being president.
