Monday
My least favourite weekend. The one where the clocks go back an hour. It’s the same every year. I can feel my anxiety levels rise as the nights get longer. The sense of dread and despair becomes harder to shake off. This year is no exception. The never-ending existential battle to stay afloat. To manage the unmanageable.
The government always talks a good game about wanting to improve the nation’s mental health, but it ignores one very simple thing that would make a difference to many. Why can’t we just stay on British Summer Time? Would that be so hard? Given the choice of darker mornings or afternoons, I’m sure most people would choose darker mornings. At least then there’s the promise of daylight. With the days closing in there’s just more darkness upon darkness. And I get that it’s different in Scotland. So let the Scots choose their own time zone. There have got to be some advantages to Brexit so we might as well live the daylight hours we want. Though hopefully Rishi won’t move the clocks 12 hours forward so we can synchronise with our new friends in the CPTPP.
Anyway, it really would be no problem if Glasgow was an hour behind Manchester. The Americans and the Australians cope with the difference just fine. And there would be other benefits aside from the psychiatric. There are fewer accidents when the afternoons are longer. People tend to use less electricity and heating in daylight hours. Crime goes down in daylight so there will be fewer burglaries that the police won’t get around to investigating. People also exercise more so you’ve got a healthier population. All these things may be marginal gains. But remaining on BST is also a marginal tweak to how we live. So let’s give it a go.
Tuesday
Late to this, I know, but we were stuck for something to watch on TV last week so decided to give the Beckham Netflix series a try. I ended up gripped and got through all four episodes over the course of two nights. Obviously it was an in-house operation so David and Victoria allowed themselves the benefit of the doubt on all tricky potentially life-changing moments, most of which others before me have written about so I won’t bore you here.
But two things struck me. One was the absence of any mention of Victoria being a global brand in herself, arguably a bigger brand than Becks these days. She is also clearly the brains of the operation. But there was no sense of that in the series. Rather she was just this rather shadowy presence who popped up from time to time to acquiesce in one of her husband’s many decisions to up sticks and move the family abroad. “Er … we’re moving to LA darling. You and the kids don’t mind, do you? And if that doesn’t work out then I’ll try my hand in Italy. Or maybe Paris.”
And all the while, we’re asked to believe that Victoria just sucked this up. Sure, don’t worry about me and my worldwide clothing business. I’ll just pack the suitcases and sort out the kids. Then there was Becks himself. When not reminiscing about the past he just looked a bit lost. As if he still hasn’t really worked out what to do with himself when the cameras aren’t focused on him. He just seemed to keep pottering around the garden of his Cotswolds house and cooking the odd snack. Before obsessively cleaning up after himself. We were also expected to believe he was still living the dream as co-owner of Inter Miami. I doubt that. He might have bought Messi but the club is still a rubbish team in a rubbish league. Miami are currently second from bottom. Still, there’s no relegation to worry about. Just endless nothingness.
Wednesday
Indulge me, please. Just this once, as I may never get the chance to write these words again. Spurs are two points clear at the top of the Premier League. And not just after a lucky few games but with over a quarter of the season played. I’m in dreamland. Tottenham haven’t made this good a start since 1960 – in the season when we last won the league. I was four then so can’t make any claims to remembering how that felt.
It goes without saying that no one I know thinks this run of good form will last. Sooner or later the Manchester City Abu Dhabi juggernaut will grind us under their wheels. That’s why we’re all determined to make the most of it while we can, why the end of every game is party time. Another three points safely in the bag. The good times roll for at least another week. And there’s been so much to enjoy about the way we’ve won our fixtures. Fast, attacking, engaging football. Quite unlike the dross we’ve had to endure for the past few years. It already feels as if we are on borrowed time.
Fans from other clubs text me quizzically. Still there? They can’t believe we’re still top either. It’s just not very Spurs like. Where is the catastrophic injury time mistake that costs us points? Where is the unlucky spate of injuries that exposes the fact that there is little real depth to the squad? Where are the spectacular self-inflicted own goals? Surely it’s only a matter of time before the chairman, Daniel Levy, sacks the manager, Ange Postecoglou? “I’m sorry, Ange, but it’s just not working out for you at White Hart Lane. You’re just too nice. Too reasonable. The players like you far too much. Worst of all, you are much too successful. I didn’t bring you in to take the club to the top of the league. I hired you to be an expensive failure like José Mourinho and Antonio Conte. This club has a proud history of internal division and chronic under-achievement. You’ve let the side down badly.” But until then, long may it last.
Thursday
Having dispensed with the services of Laurence Fox and Calvin Robinson, GB News has just hired Boris Johnson. Though the former prime minister may not be received there with the adulation he hoped. Though Johnson did secure Brexit, which will forever secure him the affection of some on the right, he’s way too socially liberal for most of the current Tory party, which is veering ever further to the right. Johnson actually believes – really, he does believe in something after all – in climate change and is appalled by Rishi Sunak’s recent flirtation with fossil fuels. GB News viewers won’t like that.
Nor were they happy with his imposition of lockdowns during the pandemic. They were much happier letting the elderly die and the young carry on doing what they liked. Even though the deaths they were pining for were in most cases their own. But there is something quite fitting in GB News becoming Johnson’s last resting place. He wanted so much to be loved, to be recognised as a great global statesman. Now his brand is totally contaminated and he’s a washed-up end-of-the-pier entertainer whose sole purpose is to provoke in the hope that the 80,000 evening viewers are still awake.
What was left of his reputation has taken a battering this week at the Covid inquiry where the key witnesses, all deeply flawed themselves, have queued up to say just how useless Boris was. That he struggled to take the virus seriously, couldn’t make up his mind about anything – that’s when he was paying attention at all – and probably contributed to many thousands of deaths. No amount of GB News money can wash their memory away. And my money’s on GB News giving him the elbow within a year or so. Once they realise he doesn’t take anything that seriously. Not even TV that almost no one watches.
Friday
Happy publication day to me! My new book, Depraved New World, came out this week and we had a launch party at Daunt bookshop in Marylebone High Street. Come the morning I was dreading it as I was sure no one would turn up but we managed to pull in a wonderful crowd of friends. This is my fourth collection of political sketches. When Faber published the first, I, Maybot, back in 2017 I thought it might be a one-off. That nothing in British politics would ever top the absurdity of Theresa May being taken over by Amstrad malware as she tried to convince the country she knew what she was doing about Brexit. How wrong I was.
Then we got Boris Johnson, the ongoing Brexit nightmare and Covid. Depraved New World trumps the lot, starting with Partygate and continuing with Liz Truss, the emergency budget and the car crash that is Rishi Sunak. I knew Truss would be comedy gold from way back but she confirmed it at her leadership launch event when first she couldn’t manage to find her way into the room. And then tried to exit via a window. It’s the basic motor functions that are sometimes so telling.
Then Sunak. The prime minister the Tory party hadn’t wanted but then decided it did after all. Sort of. He was was sold to us as a safe pair of hands, but has proved to be anything but. Imagine going all the way to your party conference in Manchester to cancel HS2 to Manchester. Or coming up with the catchy slogan: “I am the change candidate. The Tories have been a disaster for the country for the last 13 years, so vote Tory in 2024.” Somehow I don’t think we are done yet. Maybe there will be another volume in two years’ time …
Depraved New World by John Crace (Guardian Faber, £16.99). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy and save 18% at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
