And so "the world's most miserable and unsociable Man" (copyright Basil Creese Sr) undertakes a prolonged period of travel to far-flung corners and strange locales affording him the opportunity for reflection and self-analysis.
Chelmsford:
I complete the bulk of my journey on one of those leaning Virgin Pendolino trains. The word Pendolino is itself derived from two words; Dolino, as in Niña Dolino - a Filipina actress. She was one of the finalists of MTV's VJ Hunt in 2005. And Pen from the Greek number 5 (pente), referring to the number of times, on average, those of a delicate disposition will throw up before the train reaches London. I looked out of the window at one point and where the sky should have been instead were rolling green fields and yet to be slaughtered livestock. Freaky!
The hotel itself was located in a remote service area just off the A12 lending the establishment a distinctly gloomy Gulagian air further reinforced by the presence of a lifesized, inanely grinning Lenny Henry cardboard cutout. The online blurb for this hostelry boasts of "an integrated restaurant serving a mix of traditional and contemporary dishes." 'Dish' would appear to be stretching the point somewhat and their unwritten mission statement appears to be:
"Your standards will be compromised."
The steak I encountered had the consistency and taste of well worn brake pads. My jaw harrumphed a decidedly pissed off "Fuck this..." midway through the mastication of: The. Most. Gristly. Piece of meat ever offered for human consumption and thus I returned to my room to watch the fascinating spectacle of Andrew Marr fellating Tony Blair live on BBC One. I'm speaking figuratively, of course, but the subtext of the interview seemed to be "Please cum on my face, Tony!"
Tony: There can be circumstances in which it is legitimate to intervene even in another country's affairs where the oppression of the people is so cruel and where you can't simply say well, unless our national interest is directly threatened in a very specific way we're not going to have anything to do with it.
Marr (choosing NOT to challenge this vile assertion, but instead agreeing): So you can topple tyrants because they're tyrants, not because they immediately threaten other people. And so to Afghanistan. Another piece of nation-building.
Perpetual war in the hizzouse! The perfect illustration of "us against them" came a few days later when Tony had to abandon his book signing tour having been subjected to far more criticism and invective from the general public than any journalist - who jubilantly cheerled the invasion and equated those who opposed it to Islamofascists, before later deciding it might have been a little bit illegal (David Aaronovitch and Johan Hari take a bow) - could ever muster.
Manchester:
I hosted the Co-operative Bank Customer Service Awards at the Midland Hotel eschewing the Jean Paul Gaultier black leather kilt in favour of a subtle, understated, grey three-piece suit. I sashayed my way to the stage employing Barry White’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby” as my theme. It went pretty well (“Before we kick this baby off, can the owner of a white Popemobile…”), although an insecure, needy, extroverted introvert like me could have done with a more public display of gratitude for my services: y’know like a special ‘Basil’ award just for me being so ineffably me.
Leek:
The venue here is a jumbo-sized, labyrinthine Portakabin. Lovely! The taxi driver on the way back to the hotel (which sits near the local Odeon, a Marina and a Retail Park featuring a celebrated footwear store who quite cheekily ask for your postcode prior to purchase. I'm a very private person and so offer SW1A 1AA and smile smugly to myself as the sales assistant punches it sulkily into their database. Google it. See what turns up) provides a running commentary as we weave our way through the streets of Hanley: "That used to be a Garage," "There used to be a school over there," "That's the most popular club in Stoke-On-Trent." He uses my name for the first time as he points out, "Here you go, Basil. This is the red light district."
"I beg your pardon?!?!" I splutter in affronted response, making a mental note of the name of the road for future reference.
My Moat House Hotel room contains 4 beds in total: two twin beds and a set of bunk beds. I spend my week sleeping in a different bed every night, just for the goof, which incidentally seems to be the impulse behind Nick Clegg (whenever I see him with David Cameron I think "There's a conservative, with a little 'c'") stating that the recent budget cuts are “fair.” "This is completely different from the budgets of the past," said Little Nicky after the emergency budget. And he’s right, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the measures brought in by the new coalition are "generally regressive" – that is, hitting the poor much harder than the rich. If you are in a family with children at the bottom of the ladder then you come out worst in this government's reforms, with your income cut by more than 5%. The poorer you are, the poorer you will be under this new government. Haven’t we been here before?
Indeed the budget was so “fair” that the Fawcett Society has filed papers with the High Court seeking a Judicial Review. Not that you would have heard about this anywhere. No. Everyone was up in arms about the Pope's shoes, that woman putting a cat in a wheelie bin, or Wayne Rooney, or Anne Widdicombe on Strictly, or the ongoing spat between Dannii and Sharon, or Chantelle and Preston. Rather than that or, say, the obscene increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah which now officially exceed those experienced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Just read that last sentence back to yourself and weep.
That’ll be the depleted uranium then (see blogs passim).
I sat back in my seat in the Moat House restaurant having demolished 2 Bacon, Mushroom and Goat's Cheese filo baskets on a bed of rocket leaves (not quite as nice as a homemade Thai Green Curry, but still...) and cast my detached gaze about the diners - all texting on iPhones or tapping away on swish laptops and I wondered if anyone had stopped to consider the following, as summarised by Bill Blum:
"... the nation of Iraq, the society of Iraq, has been destroyed,
ruined, a failed state. The Americans, beginning 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, killed wantonly, tortured ... the people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their
physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives...""More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized,
in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up ... an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the American invaders; they left the country more militant, hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East,
Europe and Central Asia ... a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again."
I sighed, trudged up to my room, swung himself onto the top bunk, powered up my MacBook Pro (tm), accessed 'Demand Five' and watched Neighbours.
