A Midnight Feast

Yes, he’s still up. But how is he supposed to feel? It was humiliating. The whole thing. He should have been processing down the Mall, preceded by a display of military might, not making the short walk from the Castle to the Hermitage, jeered at by these ghastly indigenes, inbred, not even bloody French, pressing against the police cordon or volleying dross from their boats…

He hates it here. He hates the smaller roads, the smaller life; hates that even in Grouville the exiled faithful hold their kids when he’s around them. How can it be evil? The touch of a King is a blessing. They should be honoured!

He hates watching the news, seeing their grotesque ‘DeCoronation’ unfold, the mass parade to Westminster, the Service of Thanksgiving for Deliverance. Deliverance! Giving away all the jewels they hadn’t yet returned, and breaking down the Royal Regalia. His! HIS! HIS Regalia! They have no right. They call them stolen. Stolen! They were given by a grateful people, as a token of their love, like Uncle Louis’ sweet brown boys in India. They sneer at Louis now. They aren’t grateful now, these people, these Albians. Something got into them. He blames council housing, pop music, modern buildings, poetry that dwells on filth and gossip and political envy and does nothing to ennoble the soul of the reader…He fulminates against them all in his weekly broadcasts, for all the good it does. He knows his pronouncements are mocked in the Albian press, along with lurid speculation on his family dynamics. They compare his dear boys to monstrous catamites from science fiction fantasies. How horrid! How dare they? Don’t they know he is the King? Is. He doesn’t become King after the Anointing with Chrism, he became King when his mother died. Hence vivat. 

Oh, he wishes for the Scholars. The choir from La Preference are lovely kids, of course, delightful, but not up to Hubert Parry. And a brass band instead of the organ? As if he were some miner? It’s insulting. How dare they reduce him to this? 

And the guests…all those washed-up remnants of old European monarchies, diminished or still spinning harebrained schemes, lending their imprimatur to get-rich-quick schemes, far right agitation, or what-have-you - are they his future? Is that what he is destined to become? They killed Sir James, they blew up Louis, but some days he feels like they got off easy, went out fast and noisy, not this death by a thousand cuts of cloth. Even Andrew’s American friends have stayed away. Some ‘special relationship’! Still, the Americans have their own situation, ever since the Albians played hardball, hung out a bit of what they dredged up from the private files and threatened to leak more unless the Yanks pulled out their nukes and didn’t treat us as an airstrip. They were supposed to be Utopian idealists. They weren’t supposed to learn the ropes so fast. Those damn Intelligencers…

It’s late now. Most of the servants are asleep. But he doesn’t feel like coddled eggs now anyway. He wants…what is it the people eat? One night, he remembers sitting up late with Sir James, cooking as a very special treat, young Mr Windsor, frying bits…chunks…chips of potato in bubbling fat…Chips! That’s what they called them. So coarse. So barbarian. But that’s what he wants now. Chips and vinegar. He can cook that. They call him helpless and pampered in their papers and web pages but he can do that, he remembers watching Sir James, being told how long to leave the spuds in. Spuds! Delightful word. 

He sets the pan heating as he peels and chops the spuds. If they could see him now, those scoffers! Not like Diana, that bitch, creeping into the kitchen just to stuff her face with cake, a self-reliant man, unbowed by the humiliation they have forced upon him. A King! A true King, deep down in the soul, distinguished by a birthright they can never take away. Let this bubbling chip pan be to him as Robert Bruce’s spider! Here begins - 

A whoooooosh. The fat is burning! That’s no problem though. The Sovereign need have no fear of fire. He fills another pan with water, then swings it like a tennis racket. 

Game. Set. Match. 

‘Maybe Savile should have done fire safety after all, not seatbelts.’ - Angel McKenna,  ‘Good Morning Albia’, 02/5/1999

A Birthright of Distinction

I walked your coronation route today, Charles: not
the one you’ll have to step, a few dozen guests and
jeering Jèrriais watching on boats and up the incline. 
I walked on the red carpet that your Cinderella carriage
was supposed to process down. I walked with crowds
of absolutely ordinary Albians, and every one deserved
to walk that ritual pathway more than you, because

it wasn’t mice that you turned into footmen
but lads eager to advance, some all too keen to
exercise the blindness you expect from those who serve you,
to cook a hebdomad of eggs each breakfast time
and claim, straight-faced, that actually
you just like one egg, coddled, and you know what Lenin 
said. And they maintain that poker face because

you like them coddled: but we don’t mean eggs.
You like them smart, and proper, not necessarily
in uniform, as Louis did, but clean and cute, the way
you like to think you were before you went to Gordonstoun
and got worked over in the Bash Camp way. You learned
from Louis, and your best friend, Mr Savile,
that men like you deserve the crowns and coaches

and the exercise of uncommon prerogatives
in caravan or stateroom, by a birthright of distinction
from the herd, a right inherited or seized but most importantly
enjoyed: the right of Lordly Ones to choose a lucky morsel
from the crowd. How easy do you come by them
in Jersey, Charles? I understand that causeway

keeps you safe, but we both know you’re under

siege there. I don’t see you going masked, in deference
to local custom, though even in the camps
they watch their kids when you come visiting. 
Are you as skilled at reading eyes as Andrew’s 
Yankee friend, to find the hunger that regards a child
as fungible? I doubt that, Charles. I worry for your boys. 

The Black Spider at Bay: A Claustrophobic Castle

'English go home': resentment of the Windsors may be a factor in the recent attack on Grouville Marsh Resettlement Camp

Someone in St Helier, you suspect, is kicking themselves right now - that's if they haven't already been locked up in La Moye under prerogative powers or, as the less respectful locals have termed the return of direct 'Royal' rule to the island of Jersey since the Windsors' exile there, 'Charlie's peepee'. The self-styled 'King Across the Water' is said to be fuming at reports that the secret, paper and courier-based communications network used by the Windsors to keep in touch with sympathetic Fifth Columnists in the Albian Republics has been penetrated, leading to the release of a new tranche of Black Spider Memos - and what a tranche it is! 

Whereas the previous BSMs, released in the wake of the Liberation of London, were written by Windsor from a position of relative power, the newly released documents show a much diminished man, pleading with supporters for assistance and, especially, bemoaning the accommodations at Elizabeth Castle, the 16th Century fortification which has, since the Windsors' Great Retreat, served as the residence of not just Charles, his self-styled Queen Camilla, and his sons Feyd Rautha and the Beast Rabban - sorry, William and Harry - but also the entire Windsor clan, many of whom, it is now clear, are chafing from such close proximity to relatives they cannot stand. While Charles' mother, Elizabeth Windsor, may have kept the peace to some extent following the original Retreat, her death in 1995 has left Charles in the position of mediator between his fractious relatives - something which, it's plain to see, he does not excel at. 

As bad as refereeing the ongoing sniping between his brothers Edward and Andrew may be, however, it's clear from many of the memos that Charles' biggest concern is not his family, but the people of his adopted island. Some on Jersey despise the Windsors because they are seen as figureheads for the hated English immigrant community, while others are angered by revelations from the UAR about the Windsors' criminal activities - but whatever its motivation, public resentment of the Windsors' presence has grown so great that Charles has become increasingly paranoid about it, largely refusing to emerge from the interior of his new abode, and constantly enquiring as to means of fortifying the causeway which is the only connection between the castle and St Helier proper. His recent decision to ban the island's traditional pilgrimage to the Hermitage of St Helier, which passes through the castle, has been a major flashpoint, and may well have been a factor in the recent attack on Grouville Marsh, the former Organisation Todt forced labour camp which has been repurposed as a 'resettlement facility' for English-identifying refugees from Albia. 

And on and on the spider spins...but between his fractious family and their increasingly untenable position on an even smaller island, it's an open question as to how long he can continue. 

Don't play my game, Kieth. You won't win.

 First of all, apologies for having been absent for some time. A number of things collided, much the most important of which was getting back into Gig Mode for my first feature in about a year, at King Ink at the mighty Pop Recs in Sunderland. I tend to oscillate between Gig Mode and Writing Mode such that I do very little writing while working on performance, and vice versa, so for a month or so whenever things which would normally be a natural trigger to fire something off on here have occurred they've just wound up being filed away while I concentrated on getting off-book for 'Cancellation, Baby'. Anyway, the gig footage is up on my YouTube now for you all to enjoy, and I actually think I look kinda cute in it, in a clodhopping chungus kind of way:

Also I went up to Edinburgh with family to celebrate my brother's birthday. Here, have a photo I took while in the Athens of the North, specifically St Andrew Square, which is home to some incredible buildings and statuary:

And this.

By far the most annoying thing about being temporarily in Gig Mode, though, was not having the time for but desperately wanting to write about one of the most bizarre political events of the last week, which was the mystifying decision by Sir Kier Starmer QC to take a leaf out of my book and start calling his enemies nonces. 

I can't speak for Kier, here, but when I do this it's mainly in the sense that turnabout's fair play. You may have noticed the constant drumbeat of conservative media outlets trying to link LGBTQ+ people and grooming: my position is that I will stop saying anyone who opposes trans rights is a paedophile when these people stop repeating what Bad Gays host Ben Miller has called the queer equivalent of blood libel, and not one moment sooner. 

Or maybe I won't, to be quite honest, because there's one Hell of a pattern of behaviour with these fuckers. Whether it's defending child marriage, partying with underage students, publishing a book full of 'erotic' photos of children or being busted in possession of an underage sex doll, it sure is weird how often the soi-disant defenders of women and children turn out to have form for exactly the kind of crimes they accuse queer people of. I've been pointing this out in some form or another for years (the key turning point for me was learning from some pals in a hacker collective that a guy who was calling me immoral for supporting Fallon Fox was a full-on paedophile), but it's only recently that I decided to go full mask-off and just start outright calling these people nonces because quite honestly, what else do I have to lose? I've burned most of my bridges in poetry due to my refusal to play nice with scene darlings I know to be transphobes or rapists, Long Covid has made me a physical wreck, and the government of my country is literally engaging in the early stages of genocide against people like me while most folks look away or offer mealy-mouthed expressions of concern before looking up how to hide their Hogwarts Legacy trophies. If you won't save me from the noose, at least let me spit from the gallows. 

Thing is, Sir Kier Starmer QC is hardly on the scaffold, however much he may have lusted to send Gary McKinnon to almost certain suicide in an American prison. In fact, prior to this attack ad controversy, his party were way ahead of Sunak's Tories in the polls. Admittedly, Labour have been banging the law and order drum in recent months, with Kier giving speeches about how terribly traumatic it is to be able to smell cannabis; and Starmer's personal Islamophobia and racism are screamingly obvious to anyone who looks into how the party's disciplinary apparatus is being used; and no doubt there is a reasonably large slice of the electorate who can be pandered to with insinuations that Britain's first Asian Prime Minister is the kind of man his Home Secretary accuses of being in 'grooming gangs' (even though by far the vast majority of such gangs are made up of white dudes), but even so, you'd think Kier would guess this wouldn't be received well, if for no other reason than if you start suggesting the Prime Minister is a nonce defender people might start asking questions about the media that supports him and, indeed, the man who asked him to form a government. I don't shy away from asking those questions - but then I'm not hoping to move into 10 Downing Street. 

And also, unlike Starmer, I have never defended nonces myself, whereas Starmer quite literally has: he was on the legal team that defended Silvio Berlusconi against accusations that, among other things, he had sex with a thirteen year old girl. Quite literal nonce defending, right there on Starmer's CV. And he has to know that the Tory media are going to go ham on this stuff as soon as the election is announced. The only reason to go all-in on accusing Sunak of things Starmer himself literally did that seems even vaguely logical to me is to try and draw the poison now, get it all out in the open so it can't be used in the campaign - but that's a very risky strategy for Starmer personally. 

Assuming, of course, that he actually wants to be PM. It's pretty clear, when you look at Starmer's career, that a big part of it has been about him making himself useful to various bad actors (the most prominent of which is, I've always tended to assume, MI5, though having seen how often he's flown to DC on my dime I think we need to take seriously the possibility he's actually a CIA asset, though tbqfh whichever flag he has branded on his arse he's the same kind of piggy), of which the Labour right is only the most recent. It could well be that, having seen to it that socialism is now well and truly cast out of the party, Starmer is moving to the next stage of his role, suicide-bombing his own reputation in order to dirty up Rishi with the 'groomer' insinuation, before moving aside for a more charismatic 'clean skin' from his side of the party who can play at being Blair Mark 2. After all, as we all now know, he'll be able to retire quite comfortably. 

That's my best guess, anyway. It remains to be seen whether appealing to the racism of the red-faced wall will actually net Labour more votes. But the Starmer/Berlusconi stuff is going to get picked up on by the media sometime, and when that happens, I guarantee that you'll hear some Baz pointing out that 'say what you want about Corbyn, he only defended terrorists, not nonces.' I'm touching the lathe as we speak.

Chibs Be The Worst

 

They fucked it up, did Pip and Jane: 

They didn’t mean to be such bores,

But couldn’t help including lots

Of running round in corridors.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes,

Whose Timelord tales, while quite routine,

Were written better, like good poems.

Now Chibs hands back to Russell T

A show that he’s made so much worse. 

Boring, silly and clichéd:

Like ripping off This Be The Verse. 

 It's like an astrolabe, a kabbalah,

like the Doctor Who titles, it's 

like the test card, it's like an

Etch-a-Sketch, oscilloscope, 

collide, it's like, it's 

Crosshairs

Turn your wrathful gazes

 

Turn your wrathful gazes

They tell you refugees come here because it’s a land of milk and honey

Then they say no help for you because they got no fucking money

Now if you take one look around the City, you can see that isn’t true

So tell me why the fuck you let them mug you off that the first bit’s true?

They come here because they’ve got no choice,

no matter how the BBC ventriloquize

Sue-Ellen’s voice deep down you know

that’s true, don’t let them lie to you

one moment more, take the crisis to their

door, turn your wrathful gazes to

the City from the Shore!