Monday
The only thing any of us can be certain about is that we will die. Most of us – myself included – only manage to cope with this knowledge by burying it deep into our subconscious and living each day as if we and those we love are immortal. I’m much less of a hypochondriac than I was 20 years ago and I’m still not sure if that is a sign of improved mental health or whether my levels of denial about the inevitability of death have dug in deeper.
Rachel Clarke should be essential reading for all of us. A few years ago she wrote Your Life in My Hands, an account of her time as a junior doctor. Now she has written an even better book which I was lucky enough to receive as an advance copy. Dear Life is the story of her work as a palliative care doctor at a hospice in Oxford. It is in part a love letter both to her father, whose life and death she describes with great tenderness and unflinching directness, and her patients, but it is also a touching and profound meditation on what it means to be human.
If it sounds depressing, it isn’t. Rather it is uplifting. We can’t all choose the manner of our death – some will be gentle, some violent, some quick, some prolonged – but we can choose how we live with that knowledge. As Clarke writes, the only difference between the dying and the rest of us is that the dying are aware just how little time they have left. It is the love that we choose to invest in each other despite the inevitability of the accompanying grief that really counts. It is a remarkable book. Pre-order it now.
Tuesday
There can’t be many worse days to hold a book launch than on the night in half-term when the government chooses to hold votes both on the second reading and programme motion of its Brexit withdrawal bill and when Spurs are playing against Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League.
At one point, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to turn up to my own launch myself. I spent most of the day in a state of near panic worrying that there would be just me, the publisher and a few bemused stragglers who happened to be shopping in Daunt’s bookshop in Marylebone for the party to celebrate the publication of my latest collection of sketches, Decline and Fail.
When I wrote I, Maybot a couple of years ago, it never really occurred to me there would be a Brexit sequel. Now it’s rather looking as if we are two books in to a trilogy. Or possibly a tetralogy. As it was, I was touched that so many friends turned up and the place was rammed, despite many lobby journalists and Spurs fans being otherwise engaged. Even I had to admit that it was a success, though it wasn’t without its stresses as I had to dash off to a pub at the end to watch the two votes and subsequent points of order on playback so that I could complete the day’s sketch. I then discovered that Spurs had beaten Red Star 5-0. Maybe I should stay away from White Hart Lane more often.
Wednesday
Boris Johnson has been in power for the best part of 100 days now, but today was only the second time he had to face prime minister’s questions. It’s not hard to see why he is so keen to avoid these set-pieces. What consistently strikes me is – for a man who comes self-billed as a star public performer – just how bad he is at the big occasions in parliament.
The messed up hair, bumbling demeanour, Latin phrases, bad jokes and morse code delivery just don’t cut it in the Commons. You can see that even some Tory MPs are beginning to wonder if they have staked everything on a dud. Johnson’s lack of detail and the ease with which he lies are breathtaking. Borderline pathological.
At one point in PMQs he managed in the same sentence to both insist that the UK was still going to leave the EU on 31 October and that Labour was blocking him from doing it. He also didn’t appear to have a clue who his environment secretary was.
That was possibly more excusable, though, as not even the dead-behind-the-eyes Theresa Villiers seems to know she is the environment secretary. Later in the afternoon, Johnson avoided further scrutiny when he scribbled a “dog has eaten my homework” note saying he couldn’t be bothered to appear before the liaison committee. Taking back control clearly means the freedom to dispense with democratic accountability.
Thursday
Rather unexpectedly, I find I am rather loving the rugby World Cup in Japan. Largely because I have almost no interest in the sport, often have no idea exactly where the ball is or which side is in possession and only the most basic grasp of the rules.
With football and cricket, my personal investment is so great that each match can only end in tragedy or triumph. Each game is an endurance test and I’m a nervous wreck by the end of each competition or tournament. My relationship with rugby is far more healthy. I can want England to win, safe in the knowledge that if they do lose then I will be completely over it within a matter of minutes and can get on with the rest of my life.
There will be no long period of celebration or mourning. No anguished post-mortems with friends on social media. This means that I can watch the games with much the same pleasure as I get from the new series of Spiral and the Anglo-Japanese thriller, Giri/Haji. Both of which I enjoy immensely, despite not always knowing precisely who everybody is or what exactly is going on.
I’m only four episodes into Spiral – Laure has to be one of the greatest TV cops and how long is Josephine going to spend in prison? – and two into Giri/Haji, so it’s possible that all will become clearer by the season’s end. Which is more than I can ever say for the rugby.
Friday
The prospect of another general election is doing nothing for my wellbeing. Not just because of the possible outcome – imagine Boris Johnson as prime minister for another five years – but because the five week campaign will entail me not knowing where I’m going to be on any given day until late the night before at the very earliest, a lot of travel and the worry that I’ve ended up in the wrong place because the best action has taken place elsewhere. On top of that, I have to try and be funny about it. No wonder I wake up most mornings in a panic.
Not that it is yet clear whether Labour will embark on a possible suicide mission and oblige the Tories by giving them the election they want. Generally speaking, the first rule of politics is to not choose the course of action that your opponents want you to, but with Labour you never know.
The official line is that Labour won’t agree to an election until no deal is taken off the table. That could be interpreted as wanting to ensure the UK does not crash out with no deal at the end of the transition period in December 2020 – something that is still well on the cards. If the opposition parties do vote against a Christmas election – and why would Labour and the Lib Dems choose a date when their student voters are away from the universities where they are registered? – then Johnson has threatened a major sulk by insisting the government will go on strike. The ironies write themselves. Not least that if he hadn’t wasted several weeks on a pointless prorogation he might have had time to get his Brexit deal through parliament by 31 October.
Still, it could be worth it for the LOLs of seeing the cabinet put themselves on zero-hour contracts and then Johnson moving out of Downing Street into temporary accommodation. If the country is becoming a joke, we might as well have a laugh. Or else we’d scream.
Digested week digested: The Incredible Sulk
