BACK TO THE FUTURE
STEP this way ladies and gentlemen, your DeLorean for a trip back to the future awaits. Now, would you like to return to the 1970s with Jeremy Corbyn, or the 1950s with Theresa and Philip May?
Those were the choices at the end of a week in which it was revealed that the Labour manifesto will include plans to nationalise the railways and tax the rich, and that the Mays split domestic chores into “boy jobs and girl jobs”.
No prizes for guessing which journey back in time went down better. The leak of Labour’s draft manifesto inevitably had certain papers conjuring up visions of the three day week, power cuts and strikes. For a population that supposedly went through hell in the decade that started with Wilson and ended with Thatcher we don’t half like to reminisce about it. Good old Blighty, one foot forever stuck in the past. No wonder our most successful export in recent years has been Downton Abbey.
One way you can measure whether people lived through the 1970s is whether they still have “emergency candles” in a kitchen drawer. None of your fancy Jo Malone scented numbers; we’re talking thick, white, and strictly functional. Ah, what times we had, sitting in the cold and dark, scratching our chilblains. During the day youngsters could pass the time counting the number of bin bags piled up in the road, or the rats running over them. Such larks. Indeed, if there’s a entrepreneur out there who would like to create a 1970s holiday park where all these experiences could be recreated, I’m sure they would do a roaring trade.
Back into the DeLorean, folks; next stop the 1950s. This was the era that came to mind when watching the Mays on BBC’s One Show. Just after Philip May revealed that he took the bins out (yes, it was that thrilling an interview), Theresa May explained that, “There’s boy and girl jobs you see”. Out in Twitterland was one Kezia Dugdale, Scottish Labour leader, who responded: “I despair”. You have to hand it to Kez. Given the state of Labour at the moment, to have the energy to despair over a One Show interview shows a talent for multitasking that borders on Olympic gold-winning standard.
The Scottish Labour leader was not alone in her outrage, however, with many more accusing the PM of sexism. A rash of articles appeared, asking couples if their household was run on ancient or modern lines. Doing the quiz was inevitably a girl thing, men being too busy earning more for doing the same jobs.
Most people would agree that there is a division of labour in any relationship. It is not between boys and girls, though. It is between the messy and the tidy. The former do one or two things to show willing (the bins, the grass) and everything else falls to the tidy-minded because they cannot stand it otherwise. It’s not about gender, it’s about giving in to the inevitable.
Mrs May was not done yet making the political personal. On LBC, she spoke about her faith and how it had helped her through tough times. In a grinding change of gear worthy of the One Show (“So that’s the looming nuclear Armageddon explained. Now, has Britain fallen out of love with hanging baskets?”), the interview then turned to her love of cooking and what she would make for Donald Trump should he pop round for dinner. Slow-roasted shoulder of lamb, apparently. That will be the vegetarian vote in the bag, then.
Jeremy Corbyn has been invited on to the One Show sofa, though it is thought his wife, Laura Alvarez, will not be joining him. In the same way that Tony Blair was advised not to “do” God (not that it stopped him), Mr Corbyn does not do personal if he can help it.
For that at least he should earn the nation’s thanks. If there is one thing that should be brought back to the future from the past it is interviews that do not require politicians to speak about their domestic lives in a bid to make them seem more “human”. The results are inevitably cringeworthy and toweringly dull. Though I would like to know if the rumours that Willie Rennie has a petting zoo in his back garden are true. Mr Rennie?
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S PRESS
ONE fancies the PM would be wasting her time with plans to cook lamb for Donald Trump, seeing as the US president’s current favourite dish is barbecued FBI chief with a side order of pickled spite.
Just when you thought The Donald had left the craziness behind he sacks James Comey. He should have been able to do so without causing all heck to break loose and the W word (Watergate) to circulate. There was recent precedent in Bill Clinton firing an FBI chief, and Democrats were hardly Comey fans after his reopening of the Clinton emails probe before polling day. Republicans could have been persuaded that this was just more new broom stuff, even if Mr Comey was only four years into his ten-year term. Instead, the US president appears churlish and badly rattled by the FBI inquiry into alleged collusion between Russian hackers and the Trump campaign. Worse, he looks like that most despised DC creature – an amateur.
Once again, Mr Trump has left reporters reaching for their big book of hyperbole, with my favourite coming from the BBC’s Jon Sopel, who said: “This feels like House of Cards on steroids.” That would be the House of Cards known for its lashings of sex, blackmail, and murder? Calm down lads, there are four more years of this to go.
A LIFE ON THE RUN
ONE week on from the decision to take a boarder at Miss Rowat’s School for Well-Behaved Pooches, how did it go?
To recap: the school’s first client was a three-year-old working cocker spaniel who liked to run. Everywhere. All the time. Every minute he was not sleeping or eating. The past seven days have therefore been spent as if executing some duff remake of Treasure Hunt in which an unfit blonde of a certain age runs red-faced and puffing up hill and down dale, picking up poo instead of clues.
Still, one of the pleasures has been becoming part of the dog-walking fraternity again, membership of which entitles you to speak to complete strangers without either of you thinking it weird or scary. And what flapdoodle, at least to outsiders’ ears, we must speak. Tales of what this dog did and this dog did not. Who are the new pups on the block and who has gone over the Rainbow Bridge (ask a dog lover). Dog people never know each other’s names, but they know everything about the animals.
In summary: exhausted from all the running and juggling of schedules, poorer in sleep and in pocket, house in utter chaos. Would I do it again? Definitely, but only after a nice lie-down.
About two years should do it.
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