spinoff

According to a poll (ed. – I thought we’d agreed never to start pieces like that) Kenneth Clarke is the joint front-runner in the Tory leadership race, along with David Davis. This is nice for Mr Clarke. It is also nice for Mr Davis. It is not surprising that, just as the leadership contest is hotting up and the Conservative conference getting under way in Blackpool, a rather unpleasant story has cropped up in the media concerning Mr Clarke.

 

The story is interesting. It maintains that Mr Clarke, who works for British American Tobacco (BAT), lied to a Commons Select Committee about BAT’s operations in South America. The firm was accused of smuggling cigarettes into South America to get more people hooked and boost sales. Clarke denied it. Today however, a legal document circulated amongst BAT top brass – of which Mr Clarke is one – implies that the firm knew all along contraband tabs were getting into South American markets. The implication is that Mr Clarke lied.

 

There are several forces at work within this story, and two of them are interesting. The first is that of the media – how crass it has become, how predictable and repetitive. The Mail and Telegraph bleat on about political correctness, house prices, immigration, what a bastard Tony Blair is and how fat, lumpen members of the proletariat are stuffing yours and my tax money up their arses in the form of benefits; while at the same time the Guardian parps on about how awful America is, how fat men in suits are trying to take over the world, how right wing Christian extremists are trying to drag us back to the twelfth century, and how hideous and awful and wrong about everything the Tories are. And that, pretty much, is it.

 

And so, with predictable ferocity, the Guardian has launched itself at the throat of the Clarke campaign. I mean, come on; the timing of this one is nothing short of miraculous. If this story wasn’t being held back by the Guardian as a Tory Conference spoiler / Ken Clarke derailer, then this Spinoffite is a monkey’s uncle. What we have therefore is a case of the media sticking its oar in and trying to knobble one of the runners. But do we want the media sticking its oar in, especially when it uses as its weapon a case which was the subject of a 4 year enquiry that concluded nothing untoward had been done at all? Not really, no. A judge, perhaps. A select committee, or perhaps even a panel of Tory grandees. But a newspaper?

 

The second of these forces at work is that of the mythic, almost pathologically feared, unseen fat men in suits who secretly run the world with the help of vast global corporations. Western Europe is highly secularised. We have little truck with notions that god is up there overseeing things, a trend of thought manifested in the rapidly-dwindling numbers of bums to be found on the UK’s pews. But although intellectually god has been cast out of the window, the god-creating urge within the human animal to seek out and elevate individuals and organisations above the rest has not. We still, in effect, worship, but instead of worshipping a god this urge has found satisfaction in football teams, celebrities, pop idols, contestants in ‘reality’ television shows and, in some cases, cricket teams.

 

But although these objects of worship are provided, what is not provided is an explanation for the machinations of a seemingly chaotic and random world, an explanation that the Christian god used to provide. And so now, we worship gods, but gods that are, in effect, supine. Will Young for example provides a splendid basis for a million and one posters, t-shirts, videos, interviews, PR splashes and is in many ways the consummate pop idol. However, it would be an altogether deluded individual that would savage Young for the growth of global warming, or the continuing famines in sub-Saharan Africa. Completely wide of the mark.

 

So we are left with idols that have no power to influence our lives. In other words, there remains a god-shaped gap for most western Europeans – for though we have idols of all sorts, these idols have no substance other than in their superficial, surface idol-ness – and it is into this gap that the image of the evil men in suits, the Bilderberg Group et al., fit. And they fit so perfectly, so comfortably, in doing so picking up the reigns of power which were dropped by the Almighty after Nietzsche so unceremoniously bumped him off in the late nineteenth century. And it is into this gap that British American Tobacco slots so perfectly, and into the role of, ‘First Fat Man Wearing Suit,’ that Kenneth Clarke falls, apparently without any effort at all.

 

In short, the BAT story plays on this psychical replacement of god by big business, by showing Clarke up as a secret overlord of the murky, geo-capitalistic, fascistic world of third world-exploiting, child murdering, world-running, sweatshop-owning bastard-ness. Not, in other words, the kind of chap you want heading a major political party, or for that matter, the country. The Guardian has brought this to light because Clarke is a serious contender for the Tory top slot and they reckon that, by doing so, they can damage him.

 

Two conclusions arise from this. Firstly, it is vital to keep in mind at all times that ‘news papers’ are nothing of the sort. Secondly the human animal requires a god, and if no such god is forthcoming, then some form of substitute is required. As Voltaire put it, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” These inventions are, on the whole, best ignored.

 

Yours etc.,

 

Spinoff.

Death is banal. Who expects it? Nobody. And everybody. The people murdered three weeks ago in London, and the many more people killed in Iraq that following weekend or Egypt this weekend could not predict their own deaths. Everybody continues their lives not considering how or where they might die because it so terrifying to contemplate as to be almost meaningless.

 

The people who die in suicide bombings are on their way somewhere, to meet a friend or a date, to get to work, in a pissed off mood, annoyed at a colleague. And so are the people run over randomly in the street, the people who have a sudden heart attack. What goes through their heads as they die? Their lives? Family? Regrets?

 

Whateverit is, you can be sure they never expected that moment to be the end. One minute, thinking ‘drat, I meant to pick up some peanut butter’, next minute squashed by a bus. A quick, surprising end.

 

Are these people who are surprised by death therefore lucky? This Spinoffite assumes so. Several weeks back, the obituary of a man who was an inspiration to us all was published on this site. He died in a way that nobody would wish to die. He had a long and terrible illness, which was more painful for him than he would ever let any of us know.

 

But his family was grateful to get to know him before he did pass away. He had been an ephemeral figure for them, travelling for much of his life, and during the last months many members of his family said how they valued spending time with him at the end of his life. 

 

Death is inevitably banal. This Spinoffite is just trying say, late on a Tuesday night, that life might feel banal sometimes. But it is never more banal than death.

 

Make as much of it as you can.

 

Yours etc.,

 

Spinoff.

 

(The author of this piece takes the tube from Edgware Road tube station every morning.)

It is not difficult, as you can probably imagine, to wind up a Spinoffian. We are people of strong views, strongly expressed, who refuse to let other people form our opinions for us unless we have argued them out in some depth. Things like representative democracy, social justice and equality matter to us (as does, for some reason, the welfare of animals fluffy and scaly, cute and ugly. Though we like the cute fluffy ones best. Especially the funny ones).

 

This particular Spinoffite, as part of fulfilling his socialist duty to the glorious motherland, coaches a patient support group for an unpleasant and un-talked about condition (and it’s not the clap, thank you so very much).

 

There is a distinct crossover between the big political issues, and coaching the ill: most obviously in the blatant social injustice of the attitudes of the politically well towards the politically sick.

 

But this is clear and obvious. Society and commerce are structured around providing for the well and young, not the ill, so available role models, as well as workplace and social settings, are geared towards affluent, well consumers. It’s the same for any disadvantaged group: the world is not built for you, and anything you want or need must be fought for.

 

But the more insidious and unseen evil is the way that we internalize this ostracism, and in doing so, hurt ourselves. ‘I am ill and therefore not the same, therefore the world hates me’ is a conclusion that is understandable, but also wrong. It is only when people realise that this internalized hurt is our own doing that things will change – and the first step is to be both proud and defiant in the face of the well world.

 

There’s an easy mantra here (well, there are two, actually, but “Sod the lot of you” doesn’t really count as a mantra, I suspect), and it’s this:

 

“You can’t hurt me because I won’t let you”.

 

When the well world smacks you (again) in the face, repeat it twice; and realise that, in many cases, mental hurt is the consequence of our willingness to be hurt: and that conquering that willingness is the first stage in forcing the world to meet you face-to-face – not, as it so often tries to do to the sick, as if we were in the gutter.

 

Yours etc.,

 

Spinoff.

 

 

 

The Spinoff crew lost one of their dearest friends last year, to a particularly nasty cancer (compounded, it has to be said, by the intermittent incompetence of his doctors). We knew, as did he, well beforehand, since he took a long time going; but many days since then it has seemed as if he is only just around the corner.

Take last week. Going through old emails (well, there is nothing else to do on a rainy Wednesday apart from work and seriously, who wants to do that?), a Spinoffian found an email from our friend, written at about the time we all came together. Kind, aware, achingly funny, it was Paul’s voice, echoing through all our heads once more.

This weekend, the present writer was at work (yes, some of us work weekends), and listening to a Pete & Dud sketch, when our friend’s voice echoed round the room. A brilliant mimic, Paul’s take on Pete & Dud (as well as Derek & Clive) sketches was as good as having them there. None of us can hear the word ‘lobster’ again without a certain sense of nervousness about what’s coming next, frankly.

And today, when I was commuting into work, and my sleep-befuddled brain took me onto the wrong train, what did I hear? Paul’s voice, high and clear in the back of my head, saying “You nit, Eccles – what did you do that for?”.

Pete & Dud, the Goon Show, any Monty Python sketch you care to name, most modern novels and a good portion of plays written after Shakespeare, as well as his own writing and his own comic creations, Paul was a goldmine of words and stories. And he thought – he looked at the world around him with a surprisingly clear vision, mediated by nothing but an intuitive understanding of how people relate to each other, and how the world really is, rather than how we would wish it to be.

His own work reflected his attitude to life – generous and funny (the only time I have seen an actor corpse on stage was in one of Paul’s plays), but aware and challenging. Never prepared to let people get away with weakness, he was always prepared to let them be good – if only they’d try.

We buried him, typically, to ‘Always look on the bright side of life”. But for those of us lucky enough to work with him, there did not seem to be much of a bright side in Paul’s death. Until we discovered that he’s not gone. He’s in the back of all our heads, all the time. We use his name for any number of things. We’re still laughing at his jokes; and still using his lessons to help us live our lives, and do our jobs.

He is, in many ways, one of the founding spirits of Spinoff. He’d be writing for it now, bombarding us with copy, telephone messages in silly voices, thoughtful and considered comment and criticism. We like to think that, even without him, he’d think we’re doing alright. After all, it’s his voice that frequently gets to the page.