When last we met, back in mid-lockdown May, I was banging on about Covid knackering my attempts to do a bit of the old ultra-activism. As I said back then, if ever there was a time for some proper solid do-gooding it’s in the middle of a deadly pandemic. What I didn’t anticipate about this particular deadly pandemic is that I would be personally attacked by the motherfucker.
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I decided to spend ten days off my tits with fever, and then most of March struggling to breathe, and then half of April self-isolating while I downgraded my cough from persistent to lingering to socially awkward. It’s been frustrating. But I’ve been up and about for a few weeks now, and the old nagging feeling that I should be doing more is kicking back in.
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I was a true believer back when the allegations first hit. I loved Michael Jackson with the bone-deep intensity only teenagers get to feel, when music feels important. When it feels tribal. When the heavy metal mob splits from the goths, when the indie kids look down on manufactured pop fans. I spent the next couple of years in second-hand record stores, car boot sales and memorabilia fairs building a collection so obsessive it could have scored me a diagnosis and a decent whack of DLA.
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Well… We lost the fuck out of that one, didn’t we? After Christine Blasey Ford’s heroic testimony, after Jeff Flake’s ego-driven dithering, after a week of two Republicans pretending to struggle with the ethics of the thing, we had Trump mocking Dr Ford while his disciples laughed uproariously.
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It feels like about eight years ago now, given the outrages since, but last week Donald Trump flew in, was rude to everyone, indulged in a bit of white supremacy, played golf for the 121st time since he barged into the White House, and fucked off to his Russian handler to dabble in a bit of light treason. All pretty standard for him. But this time he was met with a bit of resistance.
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I’m back with another pile of old shite, making this a very definitely sustained comeback. To be fair to me (full disclosure: I am me) I’ve not been entirely inactive, putting together a fundraiser that got five grand for a children’s home in Nepal, but given I can’t get any credit for that on an anonymous blog I’m starting to wonder why I bothered.
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Cards on the table, gang: I’ve spent most of the last 18 months off my tits on painkillers. Not to a Jacko/Prince/stomach-pump degree, but enough to take the edge off my do-gooding and let evil have its way with the world. It’s no coincidence I was out of it when Brexit Brexitted and Trump trumped, when white supremacists showed their faces again, when Nazis rebranded and all manner of clusters were fucked.
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Whoosh! That was the sound of a Lost-style flashback there. We’re cutting back to a key moment in my retirement, one that will initially seem unrelated to present events but will gradually connect to my A story to a point where you go, “Huh. Okay”.
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So we’re Brexiting, and at least two of the horsemen of the apocalypse are saddling up. We’re now so deep in shit Nick Clegg is the voice of electoral reason, Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband are slagging a Labour leader for not being up to the job and we’re actually relieved Theresa May’s pitching in as our unelected prime minister.
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As you’re no doubt aware I mothballed the grand Zero project a couple of years ago, having solved every available problem facing us and other species. I kept myself busy, securing Scottish independence, writing a spectacularly unsuccessful screenplay to be read by no one, and ending a spectacularly unsuccessful relationship to devote more time to dying alone. All was going swimmingly. Until Thursday.
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You’ll recall I’ve often said you’ll recall us banging on about the bedroom tax, the government’s effort to reduce the housing benefit bill by giving less housing benefit to people who need it. Here, people lose 14 percent of their benefit for having a spare bedroom and 25 percent for having two spare bedrooms, with the definition of spare rooms including those inhabited by children under the age of ten. It’s a quality piece of work from the people who brought you the knackering of the NHS and the deranged misery of the Atos assessments.
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You’ll recall the bedroom tax is the government’s latest wheeze to screw over the people who dare use the welfare system designed for people exactly like them. It looks to hurt a disproportionate number of disabled people, this being Iain Duncan Smith’s consolation for failing to turn 101 cancer patients into that fancy coat he wanted.
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