Sunday 29 April 2012

David Cameron

What is the point of David Cameron? There must be a purpose for the leader of the Coalition, otherwise that expensive Eton education and Bullingdon Club initiation were all for nothing. (Poor Dave couldn't walk straight for weeks). Wasps, for example, are often demonised by angry picnickers and beach-goers as being utterly pointless pests that ruin humans' leisure activities. Yet without wasps no fig tree could reproduce and we would be overrun by spiders. So, does David Cameron play a vital role in the pollination of a fruiting tree? No. Does he lay eggs inside spiders, keeping their numbers in check? There's no mention of it in the leaked emails about the BSkyB takeover.

So what he is for? As the allegations swarm around both Cameron and Osborne like flies around the proverbial, there must be something in mitigation. Don't worry that he picked Andy Coulson as his communications chief, a choice only marginally less wise than Myra Hindley, don't concern yourself about those dinners with Rebekah Brooks, she of paediatrician witch hunt fame, don't fret about deals done on mobiles between James Murdoch and Jeremy Hunt, because at least the Tories have got the economy going again. They might be corrupt but they get the job done...oh...whoops. Why isn't the world working the way Hayek said it would?

Cameron considers himself born to rule; sadly he doesn't know why. On reaching the highest office in the land, no one, neither David nor the electorate, know what he's there for.  Perhaps that explains the lousy election result. Tories spin doctors call that win, in the manner of an England sports team (take your pick they are all equally pitiful) explaining why going nil-nil to the Christmas Islands was a decent result under the circumstances. In the depth of the deepest recession of all time and the worst banking crisis in centuries, facing a Labour leader who may actually have gone insane, Cameron blew it. Short of Gordon Brown being caught on camera interferring with one of the Queen's corgis, the Conservative Party leader could not have asked for a more favourable pre-election scenario.

Finding Cameron leading the country is an experience similar to anyone who used to order products from the Innovations catalogue. On the page, he looked useful, a moderate Conservative who had rebranded the Tories with an oak tree. Then he arrived, you got him out the packaging and realised he was totally useless. I had a similar experience when I ordered a de-ionsier, to purify the air in my bedroom. No one wants ions floating around in the air, do they? Take it from me, you'll get more value out of the cardboard box it came in. The Tories might well have fared better if they followed their rebranding to its logical conclusion and run with an actual oak tree as leader. Everyone, from squirrels to citizens, likes an oak: it has a solid, dependable, English reputation with a touch of the Robin Hood about it and you never need to worry about it saying the wrong thing.

But then it occurred to me, David Cameron does have a point or purpose in life. His role is to make us feel better about ourselves and our own judgement.  He came to power after a banking meltdown that devastated the UK economy and has potentially bankrupted us for generations. Any normal, average intelligence person in his position would think the first  priority of government was a wholescale reform of the banking industry. Not Dave, he didn't want to rush into things. For a man who believes in his own destiny, he should take more care about the judgement of history. Cometh the man, misseth his moment.

So in these troubled times, remember this heartwarming thought: you probably would have done a better job than this empty vessel.

Saturday 7 April 2012

Village People

Recently I posted a parcel to a most unusual address in London, a strange and magical place known as 'Wandsworth Village.' If you check Google Maps, the Post Office or Wandsworth council websites' you will find no trace of this mystical hamlet. Although I can recommend the council's handy interactive maps which allow you to locate your nearest grit salt bin. If there is another overnight freeze or your street is invaded by giant flesh-eating slugs neither black ice nor carnivorous gastropods need worry you again.

There are some hints of this so-called village of Wandsworth: local businesses that call themselves bizarre affectations such as 'Cafe du Village Wandsworth', an eaterie that has recently closed. No doubt it fell victim to the crippling contradiction of giving your restaurant a fake Gallic name that includes a letter, 'W', that is not found in the French language.

So other than linguistically-challenged cafe owners, why had the my parcel's recipient insisted on this odd address, when normal folk would use the simple borough and postcode combination. Technically you don't need to use the borough at all, postcode and house or flat number are all that you require, but it seems alien to have only alpha-numerics designate our homes as if we were all robots or drug controlled slaves in the dystopia of THX 1138. So let's stick to boroughs.

But my parcelee had not stuck to boroughs when he emailed his address; nope he was freestyling his location. It's most baffling when the city in question is London, which in my totally unbiased opinion as  Londoner born and bred who has lived here his whole life, is without a doubt the greatest city in the world. (And yes I've been to most of the other contenders. Sydney, for example, is wonderful city sadly filled with Australians. Paris is crammed with French people, alas).

It's as if living in one of the greatest cities on the planet is not enough and these lovers of the village suffix have to carve out their own little corner, signally to the world that they are not like the rest of us vulgar city dwellers. To an estate agent, the word 'village' tacked on the end of an area means a bump on the sale price, because it is also a code. It's a way of white middle-class, educated people telling others like themselves that there is a part of town where you are likely to find a second hand book shop, overpriced organic cakes, brand new furniture for sale that looks battered and broken on purpose and nightlife revolving around cheese tastings or mandolin recitals. There is also a one in two chance of a decent theatre.

As we have all been thinking about the dappy, delusional dame Samantha Brick last week, one phrase springs to mind: get over yourself. Cities are exciting and interesting places to live, precisely because they are not exclusively filled with rich, white folk who left to their own devices create environments so mind-numbingly dull you end up secretly craving a higher crime rate just to liven things up. If you want to live in a village populated with people exactly like you, go and live in the Home Counties; if you live in a big city, celebrate the fact. To quote Groove Armada, 'if everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other.'

Large cosmopolitan cities such as London are one of humanity's greatest inventions, alongside Wikipedia and enormous but affordable flat screen TVs. To all those villagers, be  glad you're part of something bigger than yourself and drop the village people act.