Coming Home to Story

Prompted by the front page of the Daily Mail today, I did something this evening that I’ve been meaning to do for a some time: made out a monthly standing order to support the Guardian. Because, by Christ, we need some decent journalism to stand up to the despicable rantings of the Daily Mail and its like.

I don’t object to the fact that it’s crap journalism, there’s a lot of that about. It’s much more sinister and calculating than that. At every conceivable opportunity the Mail seeks to divide, diminish and demonise. It’s a skidmark on the underpants of our society and those that work for it produce the stain. I say one word to all those who read, buy or work for it.

Stop!

Do you really want to enable this rag to continue? Think about it for a moment. Let’s take today’s story. With cynically manufactured outrage, the front page accuses of treachery and betrayal the 11 Tories who supported Dominic Grieve’s amendment to oblige the government to acknowledge the sovereignty of Parliament (our most fundamental constitutional safeguard from arbitrary government) by allowing it to debate and vote on whatever EU Brexit deal David Davis can lash up by March 19 2018.

Proud of Yourselves? the Daily Mail asks the ‘rebels’. I hope they are because they should be. I, for one, am proud of them for standing up for a vital democratic principle.

It matters not which side of the Brexit argument you favour, we are a parliamentary democracy with elected representatives whose duty is to exercise their conscience on our behalf. It’s not perfect but it’s what we’ve got and it’s still pretty much the envy of the world. So, Brexiteer or Remainer, what could possibly be a rational objection to Parliament making the final decision?

Rational… there lies the rub. Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre (currently on a £2.5million profit-related salary) who likes to think of himself as the people’s friend, has not the slightest interest in rational argument. It’s not difficult to sell a lot of newspapers if you pander to our baser instincts. It’s not difficult to peddle porn or drugs either, and for similar reasons.

Hereditary billionaire, Viscount Rothermere, who owns the Mail, declares that he never interferes in the editorial control of his newspapers. Well, Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harmsworth, if you want Santa to fill your stocking this Christmas, it’s about bloody time that you did. Also, how can you in all conscience claim the privileges of being a peer of the realm whilst also avoiding UK tax by conveniently arranging non-dom status?

Ah yes… conscience… there’s the other rub.

I recently came across the last written words of Victor Hugo, inscribed on 19 May 1885, three days before he died. Aimer, c’est agir.

To love is to act.

His words were both a statement of belief and a kind of epitaph. Victor Hugo was a humanitarian, a supporter of the common man, unafraid to join the political fray, risking his reputation, his livelihood and even his life for his beliefs. Twice a member of the National Assembly, he was exiled in 1851 for denouncing Napoleon III as a tyrant.

Love leads to action or it is an empty gesture.

It’s a deceptively simple idea, difficult enough to enact in our private lives but especially challenging and complex nowadays in the public sphere. On social media for example, does taking a stand against certain people and issues merely feed them the oxygen of publicity? Are we just talking in an echo chamber? Does clicking yet another petition make any difference?

In an era in which reason and truth are paid scant regard by politicians and the press and in which they both increasingly pander to the lowest common denominator, how can we contribute to serious debate – and does serious debate matter any more?

Margaret Thatcher famously said that there is no such thing as society and although few would now agree with that rhetoric, her legacy is a poorly regulated, self-serving, capitalist economy in which the public commons are sold off for private gain and the primary (if unspoken) duties of the citizen are to produce and consume. In the face of what seems an unstoppable competitive race to the bottom, how is an ordinary person of good conscience to act?

Because I still cling to a belief in the power of positive narratives, I write stories, articles and occasionally books that seek to uphold and promote the values and qualities to which I aspire: love as the wellspring of life; reason enriched by the power of the imagination; individuation of the self integrated with a sense of responsibility toward others in the more-than-human world.

It’s not enough, of course.

But it’s something.

In the valley, the hours drift slowly by,
unmarked but for the passing of the sun.

New-hatched flotillas of Water Boatmen
scud like Roman galleys over the pool,
locked in a constant, swirling free-for-all,
the vanquished swept away by the current
into the mouths of waiting trout below.

Pinprick beads of sweat trickle down my neck
as I bathe my feet and doze in the heat.

A pair of indigo-stained demoiselles
dance a sarabande at the water’s edge
while solitary dragonflies sunbathe,
glittering wings outstretched, on the bare rocks,
a necklace of priceless jewels on the shore.

High above the mountain, an eagle soars;
dark shadows tumble down the valley wall.

Butterflies flit to and fro seeking mates;
Swallowtails and smaller Clouded Yellows,
Painted Ladies and White Fritillaries
grace this vale with their short and precious lives
as I sit, rooted – tree-like – to the spot.

The long afternoon slips through my fingers
like a handful of water from the stream.

And who am I that watches all of this?
I am no more than these, nor any less perhaps,
a fellow creature, sprung from the world soul,
grateful for my time on earth, knowing that one day
the river will rise up and sweep us all away.

Sant Aniol, Catalonia
23 July 2017

The casting couch is nothing new.
Men like me we claim our due
from all those hopeful little tarts
who come to us for walk-on parts.

Their accusations are quite hateful;
the bitches really should be grateful.
It’s obvious they are pre-menstrual,
all that happened was consensual.

Fat sweaty men are all the fashion;
we are the very height of passion.
And standing there all tits and arse,
it’s plain they’re begging for a pass.

I think you really must agree
the victim here is poor old me.
I’m hoping for a second chance
(they do it all the time in France).

For folks like me life isn’t fair,
it’s hard to be a billionaire.
It’s not my fault I was begat
with morals like an alley cat.

A week in rehab should suffice
to show the world that I am nice
and if you say that isn’t true,
I’ll track you down and I will sue.

But my P.C. right-on profession
demand I make a frank confession
and apologise in full to you
for all those things I didn’t do.

So mea culpa, sorry, soz
I’m not the man I thought I was.
See – it’s not hard to put things right.
I just need to seem contrite.

© 2017 Geoff Mead