I want to focus this month's dispatch on the idea of the 'club'. It's not everybody's cup of tea to give their free time to a club or society. For some the idea of weekly gatherings, in-jokes, and sometimes bizarre ritual is repugnant. However, for others special interest is an
important diversion from the stresses of everyday existence.
Personally I revel in the decay that is London, and I can't bear to hear people bemoaning the grime and misery of this great city. We have a colour here. It's a sort of grimy brown. In fact (and I will digress here for a moment) there is always that worry about 'brown in town', - some say it can only be done at weekends. I remember seeing Howard Hughes striding down St James' St W1, in a three-piece fawn cavalry twill suit sometime in the late seventies. An inspirational moment for me, and I think it was a Thursday.
A club is perhaps wrongly seen as a very English endeavour. I'm not widely travelled and I can't think of any exotic examples to disabuse anybody of that idea. Let us say 'yes, the club is a very English pastime' and revel in such unity.
My own society is a secret one, and I can divulge little of what we get up to. In fact I'm not exactly sure what it is we do myself. I know that it involves assembling in my friend Sir Nicholas Blackthorn's garage, drinking Gatorade and wearing black (Society motto - NO HORSE NO WIFE NO MOUSTACHE). But darn the detail. It's that feeling I get when I'm on one
elbow propped on the chaise-lounge contemplating the society gatherings. I know I belong somewhere. In the past my 'clubs' haven't been so good.
Let me explain. Sometime back in the late Nineties I was looking for a reason. I found only beautiful women, electoral success and deep deep psychological happiness everywhere I went. This wasn't for me. I needed more torture in my life.
So, in some desperation, I decided to form a revolutionary political
party. This is a difficult pursuit. Made perilous by the interest of the secret-police, and I couldn't use a telephone or the internet to
attract potential members for fear of capture and incarceration. I advertised the Party in the local press under the classic assumed name of 'The Palmers Green Workers Gymnastics Club'. It would be necessary to carry this tag right throughout our campaign and probably to the precipice of government.
Palmers Green is a quietly uncoiling rattlesnake of revolution. Behind the twitching nets of N13 is a hotbed of unrest and deep suburban dissatisfaction. Having nothing to complain about is an unutterably crass cross to bear, and the people of this postcode are perpetually in a state of near-uprising. They needed a leader. As a community we needed more suffering. This would be at the top of the Party's platform for change.
The two inaugural members were Kirsty*, an expert on the Horse and our first Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport; and Dirk - a man of many talents. Dirk* was a confidence coach and mystic. He would be our Spokesman on Home affairs. He was a tall man from Hertfordshire (the same as me, oh! How we would talk long into the night of the flat hills of our homeland). I fell in love with Dirk. I have absolutely no intention of revealing the innermost trauma of our affair. Suffice to say that a lasting and rewarding relationship cannot be played out against a background of burgeoning revolution and social change.
I can remember Dirk's first word to me. "Why?"
Kirsty was a similar lost cause when she arrived on my doorstep. "I'm just so comfortable. I have absolutely nothing to worry about. Do you have any mats?" It's currently impossible for me to tell you any more about the Party because of the sub judice laws. Hopefully, when the court case is all done and dusted I'll be able to fill in the gaps.
It is my intention to lift the Harbinger Dispatch from a mere
journalistic endeavour in to the realms of Reportage. I'll try again next month with a report from the south-west of England and my new hobby, crop-circling. Right now I must stop, I crave the solace that George Bernard Shaw speaks of when he says 'God is alone'.
*name changed to protect the participant's identity.
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