It's a new dawn, it's a new day

Spoiler alert - we did

After Adam's heartfelt (and beautifully written) demolition of the Tories yesterday I realised, as starkly as I've ever realised, that my hatred of the Conservatives and everything they've stood for over the last fourteen years, is as nothing compared to how Adam and millions more like him have been directly affected by them.

So after a very long night (I personally stayed up till 5:30am this morning) we have all woken up to Day 1 of a five, if not ten, year Labour plan. What pitfalls lie ahead can only be best guessed as I'm sure the recently departed blue rosetted cunts have left many, many UXBs along the way.

James O'Brien threw out a left field question this morning: "Do you feel euphoric?" To which I thought the best reply, paraphrasing massively, was: "Not yet. We've just escaped from a 14 year abusive relationship. Euphoria, I'm sure, will follow. But, right now, it's a massive sense of relief coupled with a large helping of guarded optimism." It's also how I feel. You may feel totally different. But, you know what, I am feeling good. Ask me again in 3/6 months and I'm sure I'll update you...

... 

Just for one day

Book exchange

They say you should never meet your heroes. So who are they, exactly? Well, despite it being one of the most hackneyed & bandied about expressions that everyone just blurts out, it was, I'm led to believe, originally attributed to the French writer Marcel Proust: "We only see our heroes from very far away. What we see is what they want us to see and we never have really looked into their actual life."  And I get that; I've had one or two dodgy experiences in the past. OK, so let's not dwell on my Brian Connolly experience in 1990. Instead, I'd like to fast forward some thirty four years, yesterday to be precise, and my delightful encounter with James O'Brien. He was in conversation last night with the wonderful Robin Ince at Nottingham Playhouse talking about his new Sunday Times bestseller - 'How They Broke Britain'. A forensic charge sheet detailing the events that have brought this once great country to the precipice we currently find ourselves. And he's got the receipts. Anyone who listens to his morning show on LBC (as I have been since 2018) you'll know that he does this sort of thing brilliantly. If you call him up and don't have the facts to back up what you're saying then it's not gonna end well.

Unlike last night, when, after spending a couple of hours hanging on his every word I was then in the foyer shaking the great man's hand and telling him what a brilliant human being he was. We talked about bridges (he loves 'em) and Battersea Power Station (ditto) as I gave him a copy of my book (fair exchange is no robbery after all) and bade him goodnight. File under 'Bloody good bloke'.

Hancock's Half Hour

Apparently NHS 111 is creaking: listening to James O'Brien on LBC this morning, concerned callers - who may or may not have Coronavirus - are, in some cases, taking over 30 minutes to get put through to a human being. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise. Will the NHS be able to cope with a global pandemic? Systemic starvation of funding to our health service over the last decade was never going to end well, was it? Then again, when you look at the clown heading up the department, you'll wonder in amazement that the NHS is still 'a thing'. Given his (and his paymasters) way the whole kit and caboodle would be replaced in a trice by shiny stars & stripes, pay as you go, Recovery Hotels available only to those earning telephone number salaries.

But I digress. While you're at home self isolating and wondering if and when things will ever get back to normal*, you could listen to this:

Todd Rundgren - Influenza (1997)

* They won't