The Conservatives are a defeated army in vindictive retreat, robbing the museums and cathedrals as they head for the hills; setting fire to, and laying waste to, every institution in their wake; poisoning the rivers and destroying the food supplies; leaving only a barren mess for the incoming Labour government to shoulder the blame for. Jonathan Gullis has found a lacy French bra in the rubble of a fine mansion and is wearing it as a hat, laughing and touching his genitals; in an abandoned dentist’s waiting room, Bill Cash has eaten an entire tank of tropical fish; Suella Braverman has made oven gloves out of the corpse of a dead cat; and, having ruined a hospital, Mark Francois is now asleep, naked, in an incubator.
At least the scorched earth policy of the second world war armies only scorched the earth. The Conservatives, and their divisive Brexit, burned the soul out of Britain. We recognise the nation we used to know, but only as Charlton Heston, in Planet of the Apes, recognises the stuffed corpse of his former crewmate Dodge, eviscerated and mounted by apes in a museum, a glass-eyed taxidermy cadaver of its old self.
Every April, I used to go camping on the Wye for the first wild river swim of the year, but this month I have saved money by just shitting and pissing into my own bath and then splashing around in it naked, while wearing a paper mask of the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey. After I get out, and before towelling down, I issue a misleading statement about how our rivers have never been cleaner to my own bathroom mirror, even though I can still see my own filth tangled in my hair, to the delight of shareholders, and the disappointment of former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey, unexpectedly emerging from punk cult status as The Most Decent Man In Modern Britain ™ ®. There’s no threat of a fine from Brussels any more and Defra is without teeth. Pollute away, polluters!
And so no spring river wild swims for me. Instead, I spent Easter taking my mind off the state of the nation by walking through the ruins of cultures and societies that once thought they would last for ever. In Oxfordshire, I drank a flask of black tea on the green flanks of Wayland’s Smithy, a Neolithic long barrow where once, they say, the Germanic blacksmith god Wayland shod the horses of other deities. Wayland would even shoe a mere mortal’s horse for a sixpenny bit, making the mythical tradesperson slightly better paid, allowing for inflation, than a modern junior doctor, though not as well remunerated as a Pret a Manger sandwich pusher.
Today, the Gods’ Horse Feet Maintenance sector is as distant as the possibility of being a touring British musician. Indeed, if you are a drummer trying to clear your paperwork and operate within the 90-day limit, you may choose to consider an equally viable sideways move into being a Footwear Specialist for Mythical Equine Beings. But do bear in mind, the Germanic gods that once patronised Wayland’s Smithy will not come here post-Brexit, as only 37% of Germans have passports.
From hillfort to hillfort – Uffington Castle, Liddington Castle, Barbury Castle, Cleeve Hill, Crickley Hill and Uley Bury – I traversed ancient trackways, representing nearly a 1,000-year period of trade between communities, and only the occasional genocidal massacre. Today, it’s not even worth me ordering a secondhand vinyl seven-inch that costs 50p from a dealer in Belgium because of post-Brexit postage, school trips can’t get out of Calais on their coaches thanks to us removing our own freedom of movement, and European schools are sending their kids to practise English in Ireland and Malta, rather than in England, where English was invented. Another Brexit bonus. French children will be saying “feck” instead of proper English swearing. Are you happy now Dan Hanananananan?
On a not entirely unrelated note, it was as I shouldered my pack and headed up to the Uffington White Horse that I heard about the BBC 6 Music evening show reshuffle. Marc Riley and Gideon Coe’s shows are to be conjoined, a land grab on the sound and attitude that have given the station credibility and purpose, reducing the hours of new alternative music on the BBC weekly from 20 to eight. Here’s the BBC’s press release, verbatim, errors intact: “Two of our finest curators, Mark Riley and Gideon Coe will come together to play they music loves from every era and genre.” It doesn’t even make grammatical sense. Decades of service and they give you an illiterate sendoff.
That derided word, “curators”. Those evening session shows shaped a generation of tastes, broke the new bands that justify a publicly sustained broadcaster, encouraged a community of devoted listeners to sustain local small venues and, in the pandemic, saw those late-night broadcasters become friends, the Wogans of post-punk, lifelines in the dark times.
The British music industry was once, like James Bond and football, vital to our soft global diplomacy. And the British music industry, beleaguered by Brexit, will tell you those BBC 6 Music evening shows sustained it. Streaming platforms mean no one gets paid for music; energy costs close venues; Brexit ends touring; and the withdrawal of cheap housing and squats, and cheats like Thatcher’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme, mean social mobility is reversed in the arts. For years 6 Music helped stem that, with the evening shows’ open door.
But I’m sick of trying to understand all this. I’m 55 now. The stormy weather of decision makers’ decisions rages around me. I stand still and hope I am still standing when it subsides. The rivers are dead, customs is clogged and now there’s less I want to listen to on the radio. Why, I find myself saying, why can’t we have nice things?
• Basic Lee tour dates are here, including six performances at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in June and July
