Friday 27 March 2015

Sickbed Doodles, Sickbed Logic





I drew this one at 5.30am when I'd finally given up attempting to sleep and decided that I might as well do something more productive with my time. I'm not going to claim it's satire or art when it's really just the feverish scribbling of a man stick of listening to the dawn chorus. I think I should have spent more time on the chin. It's too fat, though that's what I wanted but not to this extent.

All I can say is that at least there are no spelling mistakes. It's a sign of how little sleep I had last night that the heading to my previous article was 'Becow' instead of 'Bercow'. Sounded more like an abbreviation Bart Simpson might use...

The oddest thing about it is that I actually quite like Prince Charles, though I know you're not supposed to mutter such confessions too loudly. It's the old Jeremy Clarkson syndrome: I know I should have plenty of reasons to dislike the man but there's something that holds me back.

My attitude to the monarchy swings with every argument that's made. My mind tells me that I'm a Republican because I don't like systems in which elites hold an advantage at birth. Yet, at the same time, I'm not so naive to assume that all Republics are without their elites. America, our supposed great model of egalitarianism, is regularly ruled by dynasties at all levels but the Roosevelt, Bush, Adams, Kennedy, and Clinton dynasties are the most memorable. A constitutional monarchy feels like a good compromise. If we're going to have a ruling dynasty, we might as well stick with just one and strip them of all power. You could argue it's a cruel duty to impose on somebody but, really, there are far more cruel duties that life imposes on all of us.

In that sense, I'm generally in favour of our monarchy and the alternative would be a dozen times more irritating. It's rare the Queen does anything to piss us off and even if Charles is a little too quick to offer advice to governments, it's a damn sight less headache inducing that having a system like America where there'd be an elected second trough around which we could line up twice as many high-priced pigs.

Even if you accept Charles' meddling, there are other reasons to dislike him which I'm sympathetic to but largely choose to ignore. His support for holistic medicine is one. Another is the nonsense about defending all faiths, given that half the world is in flames because of faiths contesting for the soul of every Joe Pigfarm scraping a living out of the land.

So, yes, Charles is a somewhat bonkers relic of an outdated system which perhaps doesn't represent a modern nation. Yet human life isn't always run by logic alone. There should always been room for a little craziness in the world. We all have to take a one too many nips of the cough syrup and start to draw pointless things at 5.30 in the morning. Charles is anti-modernity, he's never been hip in his life, and he wants to be highbrow and believe in highbrow things. He's a bit like Clarkson: likely to piss of a lot of people who don't believe in his values. Yet it's good to know that there are people who still believe in certain things like British engineering and a kind of rebellious swimming against the tide. It might make us uneasy to defend people like that but he alternative would be a rush for the bottom and a wholesale ubiquity.

2 comments:

  1. Got a bit behind so I'm putting it all here :- Bercow Hague Cameron PoW etc.

    The Bercow thing: The basic idea, i.e. that if people are voting about who has power over them they should be able to do it in secret, I would support. Trying to sneak it in at the last minute agains a particular person when you think his supporters won't be there? WANKERS!!!! But typical of this high-handed "We are the ruling class" Old Etonian government. The only surprise is that William Hague got involved. I thought he was better than that but...

    Cameron: I once thought that he was a decent, one nation, Wrong but Wromantic, Gentleman of the Shires, good Tory. Then (within hours of first hearing of him) I learned that he was a braying ex-Etonian Bullingdon never worked a day in his life (except in PR, same thing) how dare you cross me (even if you are the Speaker) I'm Right, You're wrong typical fucking arsehole that has been in charge for the last 35 years with a short break for GB to get his eye in. So it goes.

    And Prinny? Basically he has no idea or too many ideas. Needs to get a life. Should have done National Service like his Mum did. God Bless Her. Not that I believe. In God. Not his Mum. That's Prinny's Mum that I don't not believe in, not God's.

    Sorry but just to clarify.
    Things I don't believe in:
    God
    God's Mum (not at as obvious as you might think. Miscarriages or abortions could have led to the existence of God's Mum without the existence of God but I still don't believe. It's a matter of choice)
    All God's other relatives ( see above)

    Things I do believe in:
    Queen Elizabeth II ( as a person who exists not as an idea or princile or exemplar [of the monarchy])
    Prinny's Mum (see above)
    Prinny (for obvious reasons)
    Constitutional Monarchy on the basis that I'd rather have my Head of State inherit it than have to cheat, lie, steal, kill or generally park their tanks on someone elses lawn.

    Jeremy Clarkson is probably the most popular person in the UK now. Who would you rather have as Head of State, JC or Charly Boy?

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  2. Wow. One of the all time great comments. Where do I begin?

    You summed it up well. The problem wasn't the secret ballot but the way they went about it. I think Bercow is probably a bully and many would be happy to see him fall. It just made Hague look bad and Hague deserved better.

    Incidentally, though: it always makes me laugh about our 'secret' ballot. I never understand why more people don't protest about the way every ballot paper is marked with a unique code which means that the ballot isn't secret. Government could quite easily figure out who every one of us votes for and I'm not sure (or would even be surprised) if they didn't do that every time we put our 'x' in the box.

    Cameron: can't disagree with any of that. In fact, I've just written about Cameron's claim to be a One Nation Tory when he's really a Etonian Thatcherite, telling us all to get a job whilst not actually every struggling for anything in his life. The lectures from the likes of Cameron and Duncan Smith would be bad enough without knowing that they're both examples of people whose employment histories are, how shall we say, 'unique'.

    LOL @ Prinny.

    Good point about having the head of state. I agree. At least with our monarchy, all the nasty shit happened centuries ago.

    As for your last question. Tough one. The idea of Clarkson being monarch is so damn funny that it starts to become extremely attractive. It would be like the R rated version of 'King Ralph'.

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