Doris Day was singing Que Sera Sera in my local on Tuesday night. Well the tape or CD or Spotify selection seemed geared to the older clientele. Whatever will be, will be sang Doris. The future’s not ours to see, she continued, as if she had heard Donald Tusk berating the likes of Boris the Spider for their support of the biggest divorce in our history, without a plan.
The vitriol poured upon Mr Tusk for his ‘special place in Hell’ jibe seemed linked to the recent condemnation of Liam Neeson for telling the truth of his feelings and actions, some 40 years ago, following the rape of a dear friend. Both Donald and Liam knew what they were doing, I suspect – one calling out the conniving idiocy of politicians who should be serving a nation’s interests rather than their own; the other promoting a film, which may not be a context best chosen to expose the raw personal memory of the vicious feelings he harboured a lifetime ago. Whatever the case, the PC police were onto them.
Liam Neeson won the support of those supping beer at the bar. All were white, a combination of Brits and Rumanians; the former supping ale, the latter serving it. John Barnes was mentioned as the black bloke who had got things in proportion. Brexit has gone off the local agenda to be replaced by the more general and chuckleworthy gossip of national interest, along with the vital local issues: traffic, potholes and all the bloody housing which is going up despite virulent and unanimous protesting.
The truth is that money talks. Boris, the aforementioned Spider was born into money, educated with it and throughout his glittering academic career barely rubbed shoulders with the prolerariat. In January he was paid £51,000 for a speech by an Irish company, Pendulum Events, in Dublin. I wonder if he was paid in Euros? Whatever shit he has stirred up, and whatever chaos and economic decline is about to ensue, he is protected by money and the irony that large organisations will pay him handsomely to talk about the chaos that he and the rest have caused.
As for Donald Tusk, I rather like him. He grew up modestly in post war communist Poland and was a student member of Solidarity. He co-founded the Liberal Democratic Congress and became Prime Minister. His politics seem to have shifted to the centre-right but he famously said that ‘It is best to be immune to every kind of orthodoxy, of ideology and, most importantly, nationalism.’ He has admitted that his early life under communism was boring and monotonous with no hope of change. ‘I was a typical young hooligan who would get into fights. We’d roam the streets, you know, cruising for a bruising.’ Shades of Liam Neeson, but not of Boris Johnson.
As Doris’s voice faded, Nantes F.C. cropped up in the conversation. The general consensus was that they have been rather quick off the mark demanding their cash from Cardiff before bodies and wreckage have been recovered. Money dominated the next few minutes. We agreed that money is more important than justice, honesty, integrity, kindness etc Root of all evil and all that. Someone mentioned poor Theresa but he was shouted down. Someone else asked if anyone had seen Kirsty and Phil on Love It or List It. This seemed to be the cue for the smokers to trudge outside with their pints of San Miguel.
I remained with the virtuous and sipped my Harvey’s. Reno, behind the bar, asked what que sera meant.
simplysorro 