There is a curse – I think it’s supposed to be Chinese – that goes: “May you live in interesting times”. I now fully appreciate the sentiment of this. What a week it’s been… Just to recap: in a face-palm moment of epic proportions, the UK shocked itself and appalled the world by voting to leave the EU. Sterling has of course since dropped through the floor. Sinn Fein is calling for a united Ireland. David Cameron has resigned, and fellow Tories are suddenly not so sure they want his job any more. The Labour party has imploded spectacularly, as only it knows how. It wont be offering any opposition to anything but itself for the foreseeable. Anything else? Oh yes, Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish Nationalist Party is organising a new independence referendum to take the United out of the Kingdom once and for all.
Were the stakes not so high, I’d describe the current state of UK politics as comedic. As it is, I’m not laughing. I could write about Brexit for days but it would soon make me want to kill myself, and in any event, there’s no point analysing it. It was a biblical scale cock-up that never even came close to being logical. We are now officially the laughing stock of the planet. Well done, Dave. Good skills.
There are lots of panicking politicians, lawyers and civil servants frantically scrabbling for a way – any way – to undo the catastrophe of Brexit before it’s too late. Be it a second referendum, a Scots veto, a vote in parliament, a general election, protection of citizens’ rights, or simply by doing nothing to enact the result, it being non-binding. I would obviously love for any them to succeed, but I can’t see it happening. The out vote was a protest vote from a country of angry people. Ignoring the will of a majority of voters would be akin to trying to put out a fire with petrol.
The result, while close, can’t be contested, but the manner in it was achieved was nonetheless highly dubious. The out campaign realised they couldnt use facts, so used fear and lies instead. And very effective this proved to be. It was disgusting and depressing, but totally unsurprising that within 48 hours of victory, they reneged on all their major campaign promises. Suddenly it wasnt possible to spend our EU membership fee on the NHS instead (“that was a mistake”). Nor, suddenly, would leaving the EU affect immigration. They quietly deleted their website within hours of winning, like a child sheepishly hiding an ornament it broke, to avoid a scolding.
The most crushing upshot of the result was perhaps “Bregret”. According to a post-referendum survey, around 1.1 million leave voters now regret their choice. So convinced were they that remain would win, they voted leave just to take a kick at Westminster. Many even phoned their councils asking if they could vote again. I’d quite happily see all these people culled. They’re taking up valuable space and obviously have nothing useful to contribute to society. Along with those morons, I would also cull the 12 million people who didnt bother voting, a majority of whom are reckoned to have been remain voters. Thanks, you apathetic bastards.
To be fair to the Bregretters, I’d be angry too at having been duped by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. But then again, what the hell did you expect? One has made a career out of lying and the other is a twisted racist. (Thinking about it, those descriptions could both be applied to either man). The most crushing titbit of all about the vote was what the nation googled on the day of the result. Our #1 search was “what happens if we leave EU”. This was followed by “what is the EU” in second place, then “what does brexit mean”. Shame no-one thought to ask these questions prior to actually voting. Once the nation had absorbed the full horrors of what it’d done, the 4th most popular search was, inevitably, “How do you get an irish passport?”. So, the public voted blindly, blessedly unencumbered by facts, and was lied to at every turn. What a victory for democracy…
The most chilling result of a campaign that stoked up prejudice in order to win has been a reported 57% spike in hate crime incidents since the result. And it’s not just Europeans in the UK that are being targeted but Muslims, Pakistanis and anyone else who isn’t whiter-than-white. Racism has just been officially sanctioned by the government. I have to say I feel very alienated from, and ashamed of, my home country at the moment. In a year that began with the death of my personal God, and in which seasons have been replaced with a one-size-fits all climate of grey skies and interminable rain, the referendum outcome couldn’t have been otherwise. All we need now is Trump to be elected in November and the disaster is complete.
So all-consuming has Brexit coverage been that it was easy to forget that France is still in a sorry state as well. We got a highly annoying reminder of that this week, a week we were due to be spending with my parents. They got as far as the aeroport on Tuesday morning before disovering that all flights to France had been cancelled due to air traffic control strikes. The unions organising these strikes represent just 8% of the workforce and yet they are bringing the country to a standstill. Depressingly, the strikes have also neatly stamped out the small green shoots of economic reovery that were just begining to sprout up here. It makes me livid. So, Mum and Dad have now rebooked for next week. There’s no end in sight for these strikes, so I’m still not convinced they’ll make it over any time soon. Can somebody just wake me up when it’s 2017, please?
Right, I’ve done a lot of ranting and little recounting so I’d best remedy that. On saturday, we had our final concert with Musique en Herbe. This was the paid event, in association with the dance school in Nontron. It was held in a concert hall at the back of the cinema, with a capacity of 250 people, and it was full. We were understandably very nervous, but all told it was a success.
I was relieved during our dress rehearsal to note that the dancers’ performances weren’t exactly flawless. They all knew their moves, but rarely were they all in time with one another. Knowing that made me more relaxed about Musique en Herbe’s own lack of polish. Having spent all of Friday and Saturday afternoon doing sound checks, the gig was the only one we’ve done with them where we had no sound issues at all. We could all hear ourselves, nothing broke, and there was no feedback or other unwanted noise. This is all fortunate as not only was the hall full, but the gig was also professionally filmed. We’ll get our hands on a copy of the DVD at some point and find a way to share it with you. So our Musique en Herbe career ended on an unexpected but welcome high.
There’s not much else to report really. Work’s slowed down for Matt and remains too slow for me. We’ve had 2 band practises this week with Céline (one of our 2 new singers) for our final gig of the “summer”, at our friend Benoit’s. This is happening tomorrow. Roxanne is unfortunately not free, but Céline was OK to do the majority of the songs we did at Jenny’s so we’ve rehashed that set-list. That should end up being a fun gig. Assuming of course, it doesnt rain.
In other news, we’re celebrating our new-found freedom from Musique en Herbe by hosting a curry night here tonight. We’ve invited the usual crew over, including Manu and Mathilde, whom we hope to be able to see a lot more of now we have our Fridays back. And that’s all from me. Until next week.