Dedicated Followers Of Fascism (From The Argus)

Dedicated Followers Of Fascism

12:39am Thursday 1st October 2009 in Blogs By Quentin Delahunty – Liberal. Creative. Brightonian

Give Peace A Chance. Give Hummus A Chance. Picture by breezeDebris from Flickr

I usually try to spend as little time as possible lurking ‘round the lanes and twittens of our liberal idyll at this time of year but that’s not because of the increasing nip in the air or the returning students (I dig their anarchic vibe), but rather the arrival of Nu Labour’s neo-con con merchants for their annual extended dirty weekend of illicit backstabbing and seedy u-turning by the seaside.

Indeed, it pains me to see the shiny black jackboot of state fascism stamp all over our beloved city, with the menacing ever-present helicopter drowning out the cheeky squawk of the seagull and the sub-machine gun replacing the bucket and spade as the toy du jour on the seafront.

However, with work in London slowing down (I think it’s a seasonal thing), and Jocasta away (at another tantric sex course in Crawley), I was once again in charge of Lex and Nimsie, and thus forced to choke on the all-encompassing Orwellian smog enveloping the city like a big smoggy envelope and watch as my hometown was once again turned into little more than a coastal kitty litter tray where Westminster fat-cats could excrete their soulless stools and deposit of a mountain of fecal policy.

By the way, in case you’re worried about the state of my media career, don’t fret – my new theatre project - The Angina Monologues – in which the performers discuss their own moving experiences with heart disease, is already whipping up a bit of interest in the big smoke (Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Kelsey Grammer are rumoured to be interested).

Anyway, after dropping off Lex and Nimsie at Middle Street one morning, I chitted and indeed chatted with a few fellow parents, outside the school gates, about the over-bearing Nazi-gloom which was exterminating the usual liberal vibe. We, the liberal heart and soul of this fine coastal paradise, the actors, writers, web designers and interpretive dance teachers all had a proverbial monkey on our back, and not a cute little marmoset or a capuchin, but a 10-tonne barrel-chested jaw-quivering Scottish ape – Gorilla Gordonus Brownus. And this particular King Kong of the de-forested British political jungle, now on his last legs, was striking out at our freedoms as he metaphorically scaled the Brighton Conference Centre (which is admittedly not very high) with the last remnants of our country’s hope in his hairy paw.

One other Dad, Jasper (he was the bass player in seminal late 80s indie combo Small Boy’s Trousers) wondered if I wanted to join him in a protest down by the heart of darkness itself, and despite having scheduled in a unicycle lesson in the Level, I decided to tag along. Protesting and raging against the machine had been my lifeblood in my twenties and thirties. Indeed, when it comes to climate camps, anti-capitalist marches and eco-jaunts, I’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, worn the shirt, worn out the t-shirt and gone back to buy two more t-shirts (in case one gets worn out again). And with my most of my forties ahead of me, I was planning to buy a whole wardrobe full of new proverbial t-shirts ASAP.

By the way, in case you’re worried about the state of my media career, don’t fret – my new theatre project - The Angina Monologues – in which the performers discuss their own moving experiences with heart disease, is already whipping up a bit of interest in the big smoke (Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Kelsey Grammer are rumoured to be interested).

However, as we moved closer to the security barriers, and weaved our way through the never-ending sea of chanting pensioners and outraged students, and as Jasper started to get more and more vocal, hurling abuse at the plods and unveiling an (admittedly mediocre yet very wide) banner which said “There’s only five letters’ difference between Labour and Failure”, my gaze was drawn towards one young policeman who was at the frontline, a stab-vested foot-soldier, a human wall between us and them. And beyond the snarling face and waving truncheon, I could see fear in his eyes. He looked at me briefly before re-focussing on the braying mob in front of him and I wondered if maybe he too was really just one of us? Another victim of these cruel times. Were the two of us simply the same sides of a different coin? Maybe in different currencies?

Just at that very moment, I realised that I had forgotten to give the Lexmeister his lunch bag and that I was still carrying it in my hand. And there and then, I decided to throw the apparently un-pc PC a Quentin-shaped curveball.

As I offered the bobby in question one of Lex’s organic hummus wraps (my take on a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall classic, although I eschewed the wild quails’ lungs garnish, obviously) I felt like a Chinese student standing in front of a Tiananmen tank, armed with nothing more than a wish for peace and a tasty vegan snack. And even when the policeman threw my offering on the ground and told me to “frig off, you smart-arsed friggin’ motherfrigger” (he must have been American), I stayed calm, smiled, and went on my merry way.

Maybe he didn’t get the message there and then. But he would.

I had given him food for thought. And food.