TADS #43:Bognor Regis to Arundel (or Bugger Bognor).

In the late eighteenth century, East India merchant, hatter, knight, magistrate, sheriff, and Member of Parliament for Southwark Sir Richard Hotham began to develop a seaside resort on an undeveloped sand and gravel coastline sixteen miles east of Portsmouth and twenty-four miles west of Brighton.

It featured in Jane Austen's final, and unfinished (she died while writing it), novel Sanditon (1817) and later took the name Bognor and, finally, Bognor Regis. In the early twenty-first century it would become the starting point of the 4th TADS walk of 2021 and I am sure you will agree that each of these events are equally significant in the town's history.

 

The day had started well for me. I had had three consecutive early, and booze free, nights and was up bright and early, and raring to go, on Saturday morning. As I checked my e-mails, social media etc; I listened to a proudly eclectic mix of Little Simz, Iron Maiden, Penderecki, and an Analog Africa compilation of garage funk from Cameroon and I headed down to Honor Oak Park station.

Where a miserable rail employee nearly ruined my day. The wallet I carry my railcards in has been increasingly threadbare so I politely asked for a replacement. The grumpy fucker huffed and puffed, almost threw one at me, and then moaned that I had too many cards in there - and it should carry two cards maximum.

Considering a recent train journey to Ruabon and back involved no less than eight cards that is hardly practical. Considering the exorbitant prices paid to travel on UK trains (last week's trip to Llangollen by car worked out 25% of the price it would have cost by train) I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that each new wallet is gold plated and presented to me on a velvet cushion while a brass band plays a fanfare to celebrate the occasion.

Oh well. Not to worry. Miserable gits are part of life. The trick is NOT to let them ruin your day and this one certainly didn't. From Honor Oak Park I met Pam (whose photos I have included in this account and, as ever, thank her for) at East Croydon (she'd been at the Wide Awake festival in Brockwell Park with Belinda the previous day watching Idles, Squid, Snapped Ankles etc; but seemed pretty clear headed) and we took the train to Brighton, Barnham, and, finally, Bognor Regis where Adam was waiting.

With only three walkers, and following last weekend's Welsh extravaganza, there was always a danger that things may feel a bit 'after the lord mayor's show' but, instead, it felt like a homely acoustic gig following a large stadium tour. I even joked it was a top team talk but for that we'd have needed Shep (still out with a broken ankle) and Teresa (at a family bbq).

Our first stop was Macari's, a venue Shep and I had visited in 2014 when we walked from Bognor to Littlehampton and - unbeknownst to us at the time - began formulating the concept of TADS, where I took chips, beans, bread and butter and a mug of tea. It was good. As, I believe, was Pam's veggie breakfast. The only minus points came because the ketchup was in sachets rather than bottles.

The interior of Macari's felt like a Butlin's canteen (appropriate) and they had an inordinate amount of cakes for the elderly punters (Pam was probably the youngest person in there and I think I was the tallest). Not that all of them were happy. One woman, who spoke like Phyllis from Coronation Street, complained to Pam about the rip off prices of the cakes quite vehemently. If rather amusingly.

We ventured down to the 'front' and my gluttony still not sated (how different to last weekend) I had a 99 with a Flake which proceeded to melt very very quickly but still tasted pretty good. Following Hotham's arrival, and Austen's tacit endorsement, the next big event for Bognor was the arrival of the railways in 1864. 

Bognor had been growing anyway but things started to move faster. Another boost came, in 1929, when George V's advisors chose the area as a base for him to aid his recuperation (this giving us the blog title:- George V's famous riposte, "Bugger Bognor", when asked if he'd like to visit proved, possibly apocryphally, to be his last words.

Nonetheless his patronage was enough to earn Bognor its royal suffix and gain it yet more popularity. Billy Butlin has opened his first holiday camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire in 1936 and, looking to expand his empire, added Bognor Regis to his portfolio in 1960. He had already been in Bognor though, where he ran one armed bandits and dodgems as well as a zoo that featured polar bears, kangaroos, and something, or someone, called Togo the snake king.

Of its time I guess! As was Butlin's. As a kid I used to love going there. Snaffling sweets and chocolate bars, going on the monorail, spending hours in the swimming pool, and skidding on my knees on the smooth dance floors as my parents and their friends were drunkenly entertained by Redcoats.

Good times. Butlin's now is more a place for seventies and eighties music weekends and, I would have thought, is frequented by stag and hen parties but I can still imagine them to be a lot of fun if you leave your preconceptions at the door.

Another claim to fame that Bognor has is its annual birdman contest where people jump off the pier in Heath Robinson contraptions and attempt, badly, to fly. It started in Selsey in 1971 but moved to Bognor seven years later and is usually held on the first Saturday of September. The very day we we there. The pier, however, was conspicuously free of birdmen. Covid, it seems, does not even respect Bognor's birdman community.

It's a pity. Richard Branson once took part and the slim chance of seeing that greedy self-serving tosser injure himself plunging into the sea would have made our day out even more enjoyable. Other notables associated with Bognor include Cynthia "Madame Sin" Payne (born in Bognor, 1932), the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (who worked in Bognor, 1875-6), and James Joyce who is said to have written some of Finnegan's Wake in the town in 1923.

We passed along the promenade looking inland at Butlin's, ramshackle holiday homes, fancier joints, and teeming cafes and outwards at vegetated shingle and clear blue sea beneath grey clouds that soon gave way to an unexpected twenty minutes or so of driving, if not torrential, rain.

Heads down, we marched on and the rain began to abate as we reached Felpham. Felpham is notable, to me at least, as the only place outside of London that William Blake ever called home. It is where he had his infamous altercation with a soldier and it is also where he wrote of "England's green and pleasant land" - Jerusalem.

We passed through Middleton-on-Sea and Elmer, occasionally having to come inland to look at impressively large (and sometimes architecturally impressive too) homes, often with swimming pools, manicured lawns, large areas of decking, and spacious balconies.

Property envy, of course, is a real thing but many of those who lived there, Adam pointed out - correctly, would have spent most of their lives in offices and not even been able to enjoy their homes. 

Still, nice though. As was the beach of what had now become a surprisingly sunny day. Very few people make it this far out of town so the small groups of picnickers were able to enjoy almost unimpeded views of the vast coastline as well as looking out to waters that, under the afternoon sun, shimmered in turquoise hues.

Rotting groynes, sea kale, and moss covered stones gave the coast a deliciously careworn feel no matter what direction you looked in and as we followed along a path of baked earth towards Climping Beach Cafe it was time to turn away from the seaside. Pam and Adam were happy with a change of terrain but I have often felt the sea is in my heart and when I depart the coast it is, for me, like bidding fond adieu to a lover.

Not that that is something I do these days. Occasionally, when we'd come inland briefly, we'd pass nice houses but, at one juncture, we passed through some kind of Florida style retirement community that had a postbox (a priority one, snobs) that looked as if it was on holiday and even one of those barriers they have in NCP car parks so that non-residents cannot drive through.

Walking, it seems, is permitted. I have no gratitude towards those that allow me to walk upon the land to which I was born and it angers me that so much of Britain has been given over to private land and pettifoggery and whose infrastructure is scarred by unsafe housing and Balkanised rail networks.

To take a walk in the UK in 2021 is to both escape politics and to have it thrust in your face. The two, to me, are interchangeable. Other than one Art Deco example I was mostly unimpressed with the dwellings that made up the coastal retirement community. Most of them were no more imaginative than the speed bumps that slowed the minimal traffic as it trickled through.

But Climping and its environs was a different matter. A reasonably long straight road took us past flint cottages with gardens festooned with flowers and the sad, and oh so of its time, sight of an abandoned pub. The Black Horse (which I had planned as a stop until discovering only a few days ago it was permanently closed) looked like it'd have been a nice pub too. For both locals and visitors like us.

Just after The Black Horse we turned right into a field, passed a large group of walkers with six almost identical dogs (same breed, all siblings apparently, I was unable to make a correct identification), and, with fresh country smells lingering in the air, cut south of St Mary's Primary School, crossed the busy A259, and turned right into a footpath that was signposted as such but was seriously overgrown with prickly bushes.

You don't need to move far from the beach in West Sussex to find yourself in a totally different rustic, rural, almost pre-Industrial vibe and that is where we found ourselves. When we weren't flanked, and Pam getting stung by nettles under her leggings, by prickles we were nearly waist deep in the long grass. 

A brief wrong turn had us heading pack to a ploughed field that proved to be one of the most difficult terrains we've ever crossed (at least, unlike the Groombridge disaster of 2016, it wasn't raining) and one that would, ultimately, lead us to being defeated in our attempt to reach Arundel entirely by means of foot.

Eventually we reached the west bank of the river Arun (the longest river, at 37 miles, entirely in Sussex and one which flows from Horsham to Littlehampton) and we were closer to Littlehampton, and further from Arundel, than I had hoped. The Arun was once called the Trisantonis which is thought to be a Bythonic word for 'trespasser'. Relating to the fact that the river would regularly flood.

That will explain the tall man-made banks on either side which we would pick up and follow on a meander north for the next hour or so. I marched on ahead as Adam and Pam joked about the quality of my walk planning and even went so far as to suggest a team of elves planned the walks while I slept soundly in my bed.

Legs, and feet, were getting tired and the sight of Arundel in the distance was comforting but still looked a long way away. We we were due to reach The Ship and Anchor pub in Ford for about 5pm (and did) but that pub did not open until 5.30pm and, even then, looked as if it was mainly for campers, one in an almost triangular caravan, and may have sneered at passing walkers. Certainly the path that would have carried us into the pub was marked 'private'.

We ignored it. A minor infraction of a bylaw a price worth paying to prevent a two mile diversion. It was the part of the walk that is now so familiar for me. I had to make, with consultation, an executive decision. So I did. We'd hop on the train at Ford, walk into Arundel, have a pint, and take a curry earlier than normal so we could all get our trains home in time.

It would have been lovely to complete the walk on foot but these events are supposed to be fun and we put in a decent stretch (I'd clocked up 32,568 steps by the end of play) before resting up. I always feel I need to justify these changes/modifications but what I really need to remember is we're there to have a nice time - and walking on in pain (or missing out on meals and drinks) actually mitigates against that.

So, we hopped on a train at Ford, took the short ride to Arundel, and walked into the town. It's a small place so even though the station is out of town you find yourself quite central very quickly. We'd missed Ford Open Prison (where I once visited an old school friend - Richard 'Nelly' Nelhams - who was doing 'bird') and the pedimented Dutch gables and Gothic windows of St Andrew-by-the-Ford church in Ford but we were afforded a rather splendid view of Arundel's more impressive edifices.

The most obvious, and most commanding, sight is Arundel Castle. It's exactly how you want a castle to look and dates back to Xmas Day of 1067 when it was established by one of William the Conqueror's chief counsellors, Roger de Montgomery.

Damaged in the English Civil War it was restored in the 18/19c and is now owned by the Duke of Norfolk. In 1380, it hosted the wedding of future king Henry VI and Mary de Bohun. Mary died before she could become queen but Henry married again, this time to the Spanish Joan of Navarre.

Just along from it, and even higher up so more imposing from a distance, is the Roman Catholic Cathedral Church of Our Lady and St Philip Howard. Built in the Gothic Revival style in 1868 by Joseph Hansom. A man more famous for his invention of the Hansom cab.

They now both sit proudly over a small and handsome town that is, surely, worth further investigation one day.  I'd visited twice, I think, before. Once after a camping weekend in which my friend Bugsy was caught on camera displaying his inimitable, and now sadly never to be seen again, road crossing technique and once, in 2011, when I walked from Amberley in another walk which would go on to become part of pre-TADS folklore.

This time our priority was food and, first, drink. We'd passed a permanently closed pub and one that wasn't open yet and although Arundel, surely, has a selection of pleasant hostelries we were impressed with the first one we found. The White Hart was no great shakes indoors but had a very pleasant beer garden, served a tasty pint of Harvey's, and had a friendly pub dog called Herbie.

Who, thankfully, didn't go bananas when I, completely soberly, accidentally smashed my pint on the ground. Somebody else had done just that a few minutes earlier and we'd remarked how good it was to hear that sarcastic pub cheer reverberate around after so long. Of course, I received the same courtesy and the friendly bar staff laughed it off and cleared up the mess with no fuss.

My jeans were still wet when we arrived at the India Gate for food but that was the only downside of the experience. 6pm was earlier than we'd normally eat but it meant we weren't too heavy with drinks (Adam had only one pint all day) and soon poppadums with lime pickle, mango chutney, and salad were being washed down with Cobra.

Ostrich tikka was eschewed in favour of a paneer makanwala (for me), channa masala (for Pam), and a dansak for Adam while rice and breads were shared. It all tasted good and the restaurant itself was surprisingly swanky, almost like a hotel bar. I'd feared it'd be costly but it proved very reasonable and the staff were friendly, prompt, and obliging.

Even the chocolate mints after dinner were great. No complaints whatsoever. We returned to The White Hart for a couple more drinks, Adam shot off, and Pam and I took a convoluted route home that involved a train to Pulborough, a longish wait (with unhelpful bus drivers) for a bus connection to Three Bridges in which we wrestled with The Guardian crosswrod, and another train to East Croydon where we split.

I carried on to Honor Oak Park, my tired legs took me uphill to my flat, and I got home and went almost straight to the bed. The walk had not worked out exactly how I'd planned it but it had been yet another lovely, life affirming, day of walking and another page in the ongoing book of TADS history. Next month we're walking from Merstham to Croydon in a walk I'm calling Into Happy Valley. Shep and I passed through on the London LOOP a few years back and he ended up covered in mud after slipping up and I was hoping he could put that ghost to bed. Let's hope his ankle is recovered because if I could have changed one thing about yesterday's walk it would have been having the Bangla swigging bastard there with us.

Michael Armitage:Stranger Than Paradise?

A pesky poultry pilferer runs away in front of a background of what appears to be luminous discs and melting playing cards while being pursued by what looks like some kind of simian wearing a burning pair of flares. In Michael Armitage's world, a place of giant toads, child kings, grown ups playing leapfrog, and sexually provocative baboons, it's an almost prosaic piece of work.

The Chicken Thief (2019) 

But in its bright and bold use of colour, its powerful characterisation, and its irregular but firm narrative it is not atypical of the work of the young (not even forty yet - it's so unfair) Kenyan painter. When I saw Armitage's show at the South London Gallery in February 2018 I remarked how I was looking forward to seeing more of his work.

That show was Armitage's first show in a London gallery and, three and a half years later, he's showing, at no less an institution as the Royal Academy. Although the show, Paradise Edict, features other East African artists (from Uganda and Tanzania as well as Kenya) they are there to complement Armitage and to show what influenced him. It is, to all intents and purposes, a solo show.

Born in Nairobi and trained in London, Armitage explores the culture, society, and politics of East African society in his work by combining traditional East African styles (for instance, and as mentioned in my previous correspondence on the artist, using Lubugo bark cloth as a canvas) with more celebrated, and renowned, names from European art history.

Pathos and the twilight of the idle (2019)

Gauguin, perhaps, is the most obvious and the programme makes claims for Goya and Titian but I am also reminded of Bosch, Raphael, and, most strongly of all, El Greco. The hallucinatory colours and bodies extended into almost ghostly apparitions of themselves seem to owe something to the man born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete in 1541.

That's not to say Michael Armitage is not his own man. He very much is. It's not always easy, and sometimes darn impossible, to fully understand what Armitage's paintings are about so the notices pinned to the walls of the galleries, and handed out at the door, are helpful. Paintings like The Fourth Estate come from a series made during the 2017 Kenyan elections when Armitage joined a television crew filming in Nairobi's Uhutu Park and was impressed with the carnivalesque scenes he witnessed.

The banner of the toad, not the only toad in the show, it is suggested, represents political deceit while in Pathos and the twilight of the idle (sic, above) a man in a denim skirt and bright yellow bikini is a depiction, possibly with some artistic license, of a protestor paid to stir unrest during the election. It's not just his dress that is intended to provoke but the slingshots he carries through the crowd with, we assume, intent to harm or at least scare people off.

The Fourth Estate (2017)

The promise of change (2018)

The Accomplice (2019)

Further violence is both threatened and enacted (this time with what appear to be both machetes and good old fashioned kicking) in The Accomplice, watched over - as so often - by sinister baboons, and The Promise of Change sees a hobgoblinesque boy king in red robes speaking into a microphone. It may be just me but I can't help seeing this one as a critique of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

What's occurring in Mkokoteni is anyone's guess but to me it looks like one man is being put to use as a human ox, yoked to some kind of plough while the original ploughmaster (that's definitely a word, yeah) has been either leapfrogged, or more likely ploughjacked (that's one too) by an even more violent usurper.

Mkokoteni (2019)

The Dumb Oracle (2019)

Whatever. It doesn't look fun to be involved with but it is compelling to look at. Which could equally be said of the embittered yet proud face subject to the admonishments of a host of unsolicited palms and fists in 2019's The Dumb Oracle.

It'd be great to say that the room of the show devoted to Armitage's East African forebears could shed some light on why he makes paintings the way he does but it doesn't really. Nonetheless it is enjoyable and interesting. Some of them (Asaph Ng'ethe Macua, Elimo Njau, and Theresa Musoke) attended the first art school in East Africa (the School of Fine Art at Makere University in Kampala, Uganda) while others (Sane Wadu, Meek Gichugu) are primarily self-taught and reliant on a loose collective they formed in reaction to the university educated artists to get their work out there to the wider public.

Asaph Ng'ethe Macua The Genocide (undated)

Meek Gichugu - No Erotic They Say (undated)

Meek Gichugu - No Erotic They Say (detail) (undated)

It's a mixed, but enthralling, bag of work. Much of it inspired by Christian belief or at least the East African iteration and interpretation of it. Most striking, for me, is Macua's The Genocide which conjures visions of a Dantean fall from grace as if imagined by a contemporary of Hieronymus Bosch. It's as unnerving as it is engrossing.

No Erotic They Say, Gichugu's work seems to have been named by Fela Kuti, is rather fantastic. Evoking medieval plague masks, Heath Robinson, and even, and maybe this is just me, Joseph Beuys although I wasn't sure if the legend (zoomed in on above) "Brother wise hooking wisdom $ freedom" had been intended by the artist or had been added by a sympathetic, or perhaps unsympathetic, visitor to the RA.

Sane Wadu is not his real name. He took the name Sane after his neighbours mocked him, calling him 'insane', for leaving a safe career to pursue art. His Pregnant Man may be a somewhat obvious, even crude, way of making people in his community consider gender but it is an effective one nonetheless. Accidental Enmity (Fallen Tree After the Storm) and My Life are both pictorially stronger but, again for me, Theresa Musoke's work tops them all.

Sane Wadu - Pregnant Man (undated)

Sane Wadu - Accidental Enmity (Fallen Tree After the Storm) (1980-1990)

Sane Wadu - My Life (1980-1990)

Theresa Musoke - Untitled (undated)

Looking initially as if an abstract piece, further inspection reveals a small number of antelope looking somewhat pensive or, more likely, wary - as befits antelope and their place in the food chain. Musoke was one of the first women to graduate from the Makerere School and animals, animals of East Africa such as buffalo, tend to feature heavily in her work.

Often blending handsomely with the background as if camouflaged. The Tanzanian artist Elimo Njau is, we're informed, best known for murals of biblical scenes and others paying tribute to those who lost their lives in the Mau Mau Uprising of 1952-1960. He founded the Paa-Ya-Paa ('The Antelope Rises') Gallery in Nairobi in 1965 and his Dream Landscape reminds me of some of Paul Nash's war paintings in that it depicts a beautiful landscape but one that has been despoiled almost into abstraction by man's lust for power, hateful behaviour, and avaricious desires.

Elimo Njau - Dream Landscape (1968)

Sheath (2016)

Numbers (Mau Mau) (2014)

Baboon (2016)

The inclusion of these older artists add depth to the exhibition and a greater understanding as to where it is that Armitage is coming from but they don't explain a painting like 2016's Baboon. A strangely human like ape poses naked with only a large bunch of ripe bananas to hide his, or her, modesty. If it's a him one can only assume he's a big lad.

Perhaps that's the point. But it seems there's probably more going on. Especially if you consider 2019's Mydas which plays on the classical legend of King Midas who wished for the power to turn all he touched to gold. The story of Midas is normally told as a warning about greed (you can't eat gold, that kind of thing) but Armitage has delved a little deeper.

"Midas was a ruler with such good intentions. His wish wasn't just about greed. It was about helping his people in a time of drought". Armitage's Kenyan Midas/Mydas, underwater with some kind of leopard in his menagerie, is his imagining of a man from modern times attempting the same drastic, yet ultimately doomed to failure, act of alchemy in one final hope for the salvation of him and his people.

Mydas (2019)

Leopard print seducer (2016)

Antigone (2018)

What, ultimately, it feels is happening with Armitage's art is that he is giving a group of people, in this case East Africans, who have not been included in classical myth the dignity of being elevated into it. It's debatable they need to be part of this story, they have their own rich and complex stories to tell, but it does make for intriguing and unique art.

Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, he is saying, may look like paradise and may be full of wild and exotic animals like baboons and leopards but that is to view it in a reductive fashion. The UK is more than the Lake District, Snowdonia, Cornwall and squirrels, deer, and badgers and so is everywhere else. People make a place as much place makes a people and here we can see that writ large and writ proud. 

Antigone, named - you'll be getting a feel by now - for a Greek tragedy explores the pressures that African women face to marry in order to secure social status but it could equally address Western ideas of African female sexuality. Either way, Antigone herself ain't blushing. She looks out us in almost confrontational fashion as if to dare us to question her authority.

That a man painted it only mildly detracts from its message. Perhaps most emblematic of the show, and thus the work giving it its title, is The Paradise Edict. It could almost be one of Henri Rousseau's imagined jungles (painted from the zoological gardens in Paris I seem to recall) and evokes a tourist brochure idea of the region but look closer. There is violence lurking within the landscape and, for Armitage, violence always lurks within paradise. It doesn't really make sense but he's trying to make sense of it the best way he can.

Another triumph. Once again, I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next.

The Paradise Edict (2019)

 

Kakistocracy XXI:I Don't Fancy It Just Yet.

"I don't fancy it just yet" -  Allegra Stratton, COP26 spokesperson on being asked if she intended to upgrade her diesel car to a more carbon friendly electric model.

Hmmm. There's lots of things I don't fancy that I have to do (and there are a lot of things I fancy doing that I am unable to) but you'd think if you were the UK spokesperson for the United Nations Climate Change conference (to be held in Glasgow in November) that maybe at least making some token measure towards improving your own personal carbon footprint would be the least of expectations.

But this is a government that asks us to do as they say, not as they do. Witness Alok Sharma, the President of COP26 and the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, flying thousands of miles to over thirty countries, six of them Covid 'red zone' countries - Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Qatar, Turkey, UAE, in an era when the whole world knows just how easy it is to carry our work out over Zoom or MS Teams.

At least one person who has kept his carbon footprint down is Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab who left it late to fly back from his holiday in Crete when Kabul, as predicted almost everywhere except by his own 'intelligence', fell, disastrously for the world, to the Taliban. Since returning he has squirmed, equivocated, sweated, scratched his head, and made lame excuses for his woeful behaviour during this humanitarian crisis and, in doing so, proved he is a worthy member of the government of Boris Johnson.

Raab, who famously didn't understand the importance of the Dover to Calais border regarding trade between the EU and the UK - something he'll presumably gather next time he goes for a non-existent pint in Wetherspoons, a non-existent chicken dinner in Nandos, or a non-existent milkshake in McDonalds (all places he's bound to frequent regularly, eh!?), seems to be, along with Joe Biden - whose honeymoon period is truly over, one of the few in the world who couldn't see this coming.

He did, as many remarked, have a nice tan though. Since I last wrote one of these Kakistocracy blogs (my attempt to hold this egregious administration up to at least some scrutiny) the fall of Kabul and the worsening situation in Afghanistan has, rightly, dominated the news and the government haven't come out of it well. But, nor have our previous governments, Conservative or Labour, or other Western governments, be they Trump's Republicans or Biden's Democrats.

For that reason I'm not going too hard on them. It'd be a hopeless situation even if we didn't have a hopeless government. But that doesn't mean we should simply accept our hopeless government, its lies, and its culture wars. Anything but. When Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities Dawn Butler called Boris Johnson a liar, something he demonstrably is, in the House she was thrown out.

The liar himself escaped punishment. There could, in my mind, be no starker illustration of how badly we are failed by our political system than the fact that lying is not only allowed but rewarded and that pointing out lying is punishable. The guys behind Led by Donkeys could see that quite clearly when they projected the image that fronts this blog on Westminster following the Butler farce.

The rare acts of decency sit in alarming contrast to the dishonesty that has become standard or, as political observers like to call it, "baked-in" under Johnson. When Health Secretary Sajid Javid caught Covid he sensibly, and as recommended by his own government, self-isolated. When Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Suank got pinged they decided the rules didn't apply to them before, yet again, making another u-turn following public outrage.

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government Robert Jenrick, fast becoming the new Matt Hancock when it comes to fronting up to make lame weasel like apologies for Johnson's behaviour), rocked up on Andrew Marr to speak on Johnson's behalf and justify the PM's decision not to self-isolate. Only to find, one hour later, Johnson had made him look like a prick by changing his mind.

Johnson, of course, lied that he was never intending not to self-isolate. Though as bullshit, and bullshitters, evolve he added the little twist that he had, for a teeny tiny moment, briefly considered it. Throw a bit of confusion into the mix, get us all arguing about it, and move on to the next catastrophe for Johnson's government is nothing if it is not one built on exploiting catastrophe and division

The fact that Johnson, Sunak, and Javid were forced, willingly or not, into isolation on the much trumpeted Freedom Day didn't look good for the government - and neither did it look good for the country at a time that the UK was having the highest rate of new Covid infections in the world. Which, thankfully, has not yet translated into the horrifying number of death rates seen in the spring of 2020 and over the last winter.

I'm not sure I'd have been quite so cavalier about opening up as this government but, like everyone else, I have been enjoying being able to get out and about more (though also wary that we may (or may not - nobody knows) find ourselves stuck in again soon) and it's even meant I've been so busy I've not had time to slag the government off as much as usual. 

Don't think I've forgotten about them. Over the last few weeks I've been to an Eileen Agar exhibition at the Whitechapel and a Michael Armitage one at the Royal Academy, attended (online) a Skeptics in the Pub talk about exoplanets and alien life, met Valia and Vicki for drinks in various pubs, had a works meal with my lovely colleagues at Barton's Mill in Basingstoke, and caught up with Pam, Gary, and Doug K on the Queen Elizabeth Hall rooftop. The latter to a live soundtrack from Dennis Bovell with Janet Kay swinging by to sing Silly Games.

That was lovely. The solo walk round SE22 didn't go quite so well but SABTHEFY (Shep's Annual BBQ That Happens Every Five Years - this time after a six year wait) at Adam and Teresa's was quite a boozy do and so was my trip to the opening of The Mart Inn in Tony and Alex's garden in Kintbury. At least the relatively sedate midweek Mooney BBQ didn't result in a hangover for me.

I'm getting too old for them (truth be told, have been for a long time). The attendees at these events (and the people I have chatted to over the last few weeks have been too numerous to mention) but perhaps the most enjoyable events of all have been my Hampstead Hike with Shep, Pam, Valia, Mo, and Dave F, a brilliant TADS two-dayer in and around Llangollen with Michelle, Pam, Kathy, Adam, Teresa, Darren, Cheryl, Tommy, Luca, Neil W, Tina, Neil B, Belinda, Catherine, Justine, and Betsi and a short holiday in Hafan y Mor holiday park (the former Butlin's Pwllheli) on the Lleyn Peninsula (or Llyn Pen if you wanna go Welsh) with Michelle and Evie. It was the first time I'd seen my cute, clever, curious, kind, and funny god-daughter for FIVE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN DAYS and of course I am now missing her again as much as I did before that trip.

We built sandcastles, played in rubber rings, watched Scooby Doo, went on swings and climbing frames, and ate pizza as well as meeting crabs, shrimps, and jellyfish. Like the walks, BBQs, exhibitions, talks, and pub visits it reminded me of the good things of life so why don't I just forget writing about the government, its lies, and its failings. I guess, like Allegra Stratton, I don't fancy it just yet.

 

Stephen:The Long Wait For Justice?

On the 22nd April 1993, eighteen year old Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racist attack in Eltham. It was three years before I moved to South East London but I remember the news well. I remember the now iconic image of Stephen with his thin 'tache, raised fist, and black and white striped MASH sweatshirt - now frozen in time - and I remember how he had hopes and dreams of becoming an architect.

I also remember that the police failed, initially, to catch the suspects even though there, by most accounts, seemed to be very compelling evidence pointing to a group of five local thugs. I remember that the Metropolitan Police were corrupt, violent, and institutionally racist in the eighties and nineties too. I even had personal experience of their violence when one of them punched me in the face and made homophobic and abusive comments to me in the back of a police van after arresting me for a jumped up and ludicrous 'crime'.

What I didn't remember was the public inquiry that found the police to be racist and incompetent (though maybe that's because that would hardly have been a revelation) and nor did I remember if anyone was ever convicted of a heinous and unprovoked crime. So ITV's Stephen (directed by Alrick Riley and written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce) would not only teach me more about the case and the police failings but also remind me if any of the murderers were ever found guilty of their actions.

If the Lawrence family ever received justice. Steve Coogan (who is good at straight roles but it does take a while before you get past the Partridge thing) plays DCI Clive Driscoll who, in 2006, finds several boxes of abandoned documents pertaining to the case at a former Deptford police station and asks Cressida Dick (Sian Brooke plays the now Commissioner of the Met, then merely a high ranking officer) if he can take on the case.

Driscoll believe's he can use "common sense coppering" to get a conviction and by that he means reviewing evidence, speaking to witnesses, and actually carrying out forensic tests (Sam Troughton as Ed Jarman and Nancy Carroll as Angela Gallop are particularly good in the white coat roles). All the stuff that should have been done first time round. All the stuff that murder police are supposed to do anyway. Driscoll believes that the Met should be "more than a match for a gang of racist thugs" - and so they should be.

Or at least would be if they weren't hindered by corruption and racism from within their own ranks. There are some, many even, in the Met who don't want the case reopened. Revelations even come forward of one of the suspect's fathers paying off bent coppers to stall the investigation.

As Driscoll and his team - DI Shaun Keep (Jonjo O'Neill), Peter Birdsall (Jay Simpson), Tricky (Graeme Hawley), and Derek Reid (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr) initiate a thorough and correct procedure, we see Stephen's parents continue to fight both for justice for their son as well as to find peace in their own lives.

Neville Lawrence (Hugh Quarshie) is trying hard not to be consumed, understandably, by hatred for the people who killed his son while his by now ex-wife Doreen (a great performance by Sharlene Whyte) is more focused, determined, and even business like about bringing the killers to justice and even going on to fight wider injustices within the British legal system.

She is often seen accompanied by her lawyer Imran Khan (Adil Ray). In a programme that is two parts police procedural, one part courtroom drama the viewer is never allowed to forget that these horrific events were real and there are as many moving scenes as there are upsetting ones - not least Stephen's friend Duwayne Brooks (Richie Campbell), who was with Stephen on the night of his murder and was even wrongfully accused of being responsible for it, giving evidence in court the morning after his father's death.

Driscoll's job is to bring the killers to justice but to do that he has to win the trust of several people who have been given a lifetime of reasons not to trust the police. He must also prove to Neville, and especially Doreen, that he is not like the incompetent and corrupt officers who have failed them so badly in the past.

Coogan's Driscoll is a peculiarly old fashioned bobby. He has five kids of his own (one, he topically mentions, serving in Afghanistan in a war that the UK would go on to lose), does everything by the book, and, when he's not at Craven Cottage supporting Fulham, hosts cockney joanna singalongs at old people's home.

He is, fundamentally, a decent man. He asks, of himself and the institution which he works for, if the Met can't be bothered, or don't want, to solve murders then what even is the point of their existence. These are questions the Lawrence family have long been asking themselves as well as, sadly, far too many others.

The reason so many of these stories (Anthony, Uprising, Steve McQueen's Small Axe) are being made now isn't because, as you may imagine Oliver Dowden to suggest, because ITV and the BBC have been hijacked by "woke" leftie culture warriors but because they should have been told years, decades, ago. 

The commissioning and making of this powerful series, much like the tale it tells, is an attempt to correct past injustices. In that it is better late than never. But, as a society, we still have far to go. A radio playing in the background during one scene of Stephen mentions the rise of the racist London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson.