A batshit ramble through politics, debates, first dates, shagging and spurious correlation.
It does what it says on the box. Substack's hard when you're messily exiting a long relationship and all you can think about is that.
Last night, just before the Kamala v Donald podium-showdown got going, a man I may or may not be interested in I’m not sure if I’m ready yet [IMOMNBIINSIIRY] texted to ask me whether I was going to watch the American presidential debate. It was a ‘poke’ as we used to say in the early days of Facebook. He digitally poked I think because he’d not say no to some IRL poking at me. American politics was the opening gambit.
Interesting, I thought. For there was a spurious link here, a romantic precedent, the sort of Hmmmn that could spark an entire Adam Curtis documentary - if Adam Curtis was a solipsistic middle aged newly single woman living in Notting Hill who just noodled about linking global politics to his love life. The correlation between this and how my recently blown up relationship had begun was, as Trump would say, “Yuge” “Great” “Incredible.”
Let me explain for it is eerily uncanny. On April 10 2010, on the night of the televised leader’s debate before the parliamentary elections that May, I agreed to the now ex-bfs then complete stranger’s invitation to go for a quick drink. I said no, then as the debate palled I texted him (from my dear old sturdy Blackberry), “OK, let’s do it because I can’t be arsed with this”, and we met for a gin and tonic at Julie’s. Our first date, I guess. The rest is history. Like the relationship. Also history, though it lasted significantly longer than my parents marriage
The Tory government lasted almost exactly the same number of months (170 months) as my months with him (174). This really spoooooky correlation got me thinking. It’s got me thinking because I am low and it’s soothing and reassuring finding correlations between two unconnected things, like the spurious link between political debates and my love life, or changing governments and my love life. These correlations are what superstitious magical thinkers look out for to make some comforting order in the chaotic experience that is living in this time and in this dimension.
Spurious connections, or what more statisticky-minded people call correlations, are two facts or events that happen simultaneously, like lipstick sales and skirt lengths during recessions, although it’s not clear if there is causation but they can appear connected to the point there is an economic hemline index theory (explained here by NASDAQ).
Correlations, even really spurious ones, often parcel up conspiracy theory and really bad wellness ‘science’ and, perhaps, it is true, my love life.
Conspiracy theories make everything nice and easy to understand, and give you signposts as to the direction you should go in when you actually can’t find the mettle or material to figure it out for yourself.
Do you receive messages from the universe? I do. It’s so tempting. But is it any way to run a life?
Conspiracies always have some root in fact somewhere, all the extra bits that are Enid Blyton for grown ups who can’t think like one, conspiracists cling to the sturdy oak fact and weaves all sorts of wonder from it.
But back to correlation. I take a vitamin, I don’t get sick. Hey, it must be the vitamin. But how do you know? At a scientific level this has got really epic with vitamin D. People who eat a lot of food with that vitamin in, don’t get a lot of diseases as much, but you can’t prove vitamin D is the reason. But perhaps, also, you have a strong immune system, don’t travel on public transport (where germs be rife), and sleep, take exercise and eat well (the greatest aids to good health there are) and spend lots of time outside. We are entering vitamin D season now, every health dementor out there is urging me to take a supplement, and yet, despite countless vitamin D studies, “To date, there is no foundation for recommending that healthy people should take vitamin D supplements.”
What even was the message from the universe about political debate and this [IMOMNBIINSIIRY]? I skidded about in my mind, trying to find one. It’s so hard to ignore a pattern once you’ve spotted it. That I cannot get sex unless there is a political debate on the telly? That debates make men want to sext. That politics connects us all? That the guy I may or may not be interest in [IMOMNBIINSIIRY] is a serious person who thinks I might be one? That I matured into big adulthood at the same time as him during the Twitter era when everyone had a view on politics even idiots like me who usually write about frivoles. Maybe it was nothing.
The more I thought about the way I clung on to this uncanny echo from the past, man+debate= date x sex x love the more I realised that I had really drunk the sloppy magic-seeking spiritual kool aid (or more likely celery juice). Grasping around in the dark for meaning and signs and portents like it was 1500BC not several hundred years in to the Enlightenment.
I reflected some more, I prayed to Deepak Chopra, went to Stonehenge, had a magical think, I drank some more celery juice and then it came to me. The greatest extrapolation from these two events was that perhaps I have become significantly more disengaged from politics in the last 15 years.
Close to midnight when [IMOMNBIINSIIRY] slid into my DMs (is that what you’re meant to say about these sorts of things IDFK) the BBC was preparing to go all out with four hours of coverage either side of the actual debate which started at 2am BST (a more civilised 9pm in Pennsylvania, where it took place). Of course, this Harris Trump meeting is an important one. Harris and Trump are neck and neck in the polls. They’ve never met before. The Biden one was tragic. There are a lot of worrying wars that need sorting - Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine. Who will lead the free world is YUGEly important.
But was it really important that I witness the orange-skinned one talk his nonsense, “[Democrats] have abortion in the ninth month… the previous governor of West Virginia [said that the state “decide what to do with the baby…In other words, we’ll execute the baby.”
As long as Harris was a smart, informed lawyer she could not fail to beat the orange-flava Mr Whippy
I told the guy I may or may not be interest in [IMOMNBIINSIIRY] that I was not going to watch and instead wait for the memes. Executing babies, some crap about illegal immigrants eating cats and dogs, and “concepts of a plan” about what would replace the affordable healthcare he wants to axe. Is this a good use of time, staying up all night listening to the former POTUS who grabs em by the pussy etc. Is this politics, showbiz, or the back page of the National Enquirer.
Back in the day, enjoying four hours of all night high stakes political content was a kind of excuse for a party. The night Obama got elected I stayed up all night like I once previously had for peak boxing matches, superstar DJs and envelopes of street stimulants and empathogens. Politics was important serious interesting and usually verging on sensible. We all engaged in it to some extent or another.
Often it was only to the extent that I sent a few tweets and then got hammered the night of the 2016 US election at a massive party at Dinerama, the street food market in Shoreditch. It was my brother and my nephew’s birthdays but I chose to instead dress up as Donald Trump with a group of strangers at a fancy dress party and drink a lot of weighty American red wine. I purchased some whoopee cushions with Donald Trump’s face on as meagre comfort for my cousin in New York who was completely devastated that it was increasingly apparent Trump was going to win.
As I tried to get myself back to west London at three in the morning I can remember my uppermost thoughts, beyond, ‘shit, I’m smashed, and it’s only Tuesday’, were, “This isn’t gonna be good but it will be interesting.” And, “Anyway, how bad can it be. Who are all these hysterical cry babies obsessing about how he will be the end of humanity as we know it.”
A few months earlier on the dawn of the first morning after the Brexit referendum, my internal political monologue had transcended coherent thought and gone instead into the realm of pervasive visceral gloom. A feeling compounded by the nature of the company, a group of hedge funders whose personal and professional fortunes depended on Brexit going in their favour. By the time I left, birds tweeting, sun long up, they were all hunched over their phones watching the zeros disappear. Less hedging their bets than crying over spilt milk. It was horrible.
Since 2016, I don’t know about you, there’s been a distinct fade in my interest in politics. It’s all pretty mental. As I don’t need to tell you. For some time its major players didn’t seem to semaphore hope, efficiency or even sanity a lot of the time. The Suellas, BoJos, Jezzer Corbyns, I secretly admired grandpa Biden but his dodderyness was toe-curlingly sad, and of course, all those distressing misogynistic bizzarros that have risen to the top of the GOP with their incredibly weird views on abortion and cat ladies.
Hey look, this Substack isn’t the New Statesman. I won’t go on. But it’s all a bit, “Can’t look”. It can all be summed up in a single emoji - 🫣 (You can see why I was a non starter out of the political commentary gates).
But back to the vapid 21st Century post-political me with her habit of referring all important world events back to her own little life in the third person.
Quite how much I have changed is evident. The night I first went out with my very recently exed boyfriend (see stack passim) was on the third and final election debate. I’d watched the other two, and dutifully tweeted throughout them. Tweeting was hot back then. It’s how my boyfriend found me. On Twitter. Interestingly, he must have really liked the idea of who I was back then. Today, what I am seriously offends him.
April 10 2010 was the last debate before the election that would see the Tory party’s win over the old order of New Labour (who are now, technically, old Labour). If you’re a writer, I hope you don’t ever write a sentence as baffling as this. If you’re a reader, well done for getting to the end of this appalling paragraph.
Back in 2010, the natty thing to do was to sit watching Newsnight or other important political telly like Question Time, and then post smart ass comments to Twitter and measure your clever popularity in the numbers of likes and retweets you got. It was such a thing that the brilliant portrait photographer, Chris Floyd did a series of portraits of his favourite Twitter people, mostly clever dick accounts, not the biggest followers accounts, just the snappiest and best at arranging wordsiest people that Chris interacted with.
Called 140 Characters (see the image at the end of this substack) it included Caitlin Moran, Grace Dent, Graham Linehan (comedy writer, IT Crowd, Father Ted who was yet to be all but entirely cancelled for his anti-trans views - The Glinner Update), there were loads of female Guardian journalists ofc, and I can’t remember who else, erm, Peter Serafinowicz (@serafinowicz). As Chris said of the project, “Where Facebook might be considered as the place in which you tell lies to all the people you went to school with, I had begun to think of Twitter as the place where you tell the truth to all those that you wish you’d gone to school with.”
How things have changed. If you went to school with everyone on Twitter now you’d probably be in an asylum, or considering whether you should take the whole school out and you with it as a noble service to mankind.
I shuffled up next to all the 140 characters on Chris’s poster. Some of those Twitterfolk are pretty big somebodies now (Dolly Alderton for example). Social media was their springboard to fame and writing success. It wasn’t mine. But it was nice to be in there. Words had not yet become the worthless flood they are now.
These days I love Chris, he is a granite friend. I knew him back then but not so well and was touched to have a proper big time photographer WANT to take my picture because of words I assembled.
We are such good friends now we have a special language of mangled words and silly voices. (I also love his wife, Alice, she too is a friend and women who let their husbands have female friends are the best women.) Chris had a book out last year, Not Just Pictures, a hefty coffee table jobby that tells stories about shooting his subjects. He sees things other people don’t see in famous people, including Bowie and McCartney. Yay for Chris. His observations truly are quality.
Anyway, where were we?
Politics was not quite so repellant then, across the political divide it looked more or less palatable, Obama, New Labour, one nation Tories…all that.
That night of the third debate I probably sent a few tweets, please don’t make me dig them out it takes ages and you probably need a blue tick to get near your own data now. Mostly snarky clever journalists and snarky clever comedians were the big stadium bands of the 2010 Twitter scene. Twitter was something different back in the noughts. Gary Lineker was some retired footballer. That’s all. Elon who? Trump was just a bloviating billionaire on the telly box. It all feels so quaint and old fashioned now, doesn’t it. Clever tweets, thoughtful word composition, heated debates without lies or cancelling. Conspiracy theories, a marginal interest for people who’ve smoked too much skunk.
Those days are over.
I don’t even know how to write a Tweet now, my Twitter muscle has withered away. I couldn’t lift a feather with it, let alone drop an insightful political tweet. Instead, I write huge unedited batshit rambling reams here. Say what you think in 140,000 characters.
Freshly single, attention of unattached intelligent males required, should I go back out to the new relevant social media site - not Twitter, but TikTok I spose. Don’t mention Threads, so so tragic. Have you seen all the clueless nice middle aged people responding angrily to AI bots with 3 followers commenting on Kate Middleton’s chemo hair. Should I start flailing around and drawing attention to myself again?
My Twit career declined because I didn’t want to spend too much time watching loads of political telly and post copious competitive tweets to see who would win the handful of clever snarky words competition. It was quite difficult. I guess I should have practiced more. Been a bit more engaged in the greasy political poll dancing scene. Built up that Twitter muscle. But there were already a lot of people who were very good at it. And already, in 2010, when that final election debate was going on, I was nodding off at the sight of Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron headlining.
What’s interesting is how much has changed since that debate/first date night. Like, I wear glasses now. And politics has swung right. Today, to get a boyfriend, or some sex, you are supposed to do things like Hinge, Bumble and The League. I can’t, won’t. I’d always resisted the early iterations of those dating apps. I hate them. It felt too much like work and too emotionally draining. I didn’t have an iPhone back then, so couldn’t swipe anyway. And why on earth would I want to sit around staring at my phone if I wasn’t actually working anyway? (Please advise if you don’t get the irony of this statement.)
Bitcoin prices are down since the debate, which according to Nate Silver implies a loss for Trump whose followers love investing in make believe money and the orange felon convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records is really keen to get the crypto crowd on board. He’s also more than flirted with the Q-Anon crew, who turned out for him on 6th January. Conspiracy theorists are generally pro-Trump and pro-Putin. He’d end the war in Ukraine apparently and Victor Orban is his homeboy.
Why would anyone vote for this awful individual? WHY?
Isn’t the fact that he implies Democrats murder babies as soon as they exit the mother’s birth canal enough to put anyone off him?
Well, time to wrap up. The night before Brexit I told Ed Davey ‘remainers have it in the bag’. I thought the smarter candidate would win the 2016 US election. I even predicted Rishi Sunak would beat Liz Truss. My political punditry is crap. It’s as good as my reverse parallel parking. Which is to say I kerb the wheels all the time - it might even have been on the ex boyfriends comprehensive list of the many things that are wrong with me and render me FIRED, which was his utter heel’s device for exiting the relationship.
So don’t listen to me.
Dear God. What lies ahead. More insane people running and ruining the planet. Singleness. Drawing attention to myself on social media by trying to be clever. Sex. I can’t even think about it. Thinking about the future appeals to me as much as taking a public enema (which, now I think of it, I actually did once in a C4 documentary called Superskinny Me: Race to 00.)
Where am I going with this?
Nowhere.
Yours, living in the moment, sipping her celery juice. Kate x
Please, please, more batshit rambles. That was fucking beautiful.
“Enid Blyton for grown ups who can’t think like one.”
Beautiful.
Indulging in a second comment… I don’t feel adequately qualified to comment on US politics but I value your musings- thanks. The world shifting to the right (since I started birthing sprogs at the end of noughties) is an observation I’d made too. What does it all mean??