Dear Diary,

I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t taken on this job. Everybody is being mean to me while I’m just trying my best to fulfil the will of the people. If only I knew what that was. The numbers and facts are so confusing. I thought it would be easy. But it’s not. It’s so hard! Hard Brexit. That’s all I meant by that.

And now everyone is pushing me this way and that. I’m heading down a one-way alley and I think I might get a kicking at the bottom of it.  Tackety boots are looming and my kidneys are turning to mush. I can feel it in my water.

Everything I said before is coming back to haunt me. Quotes that made sense then being used against me now. As if a lady can’t change her mind. I mean, that’s a foregone thingy. We get to do that. Look at Ruthie. She does it all the time. And nobody picks her up on it. Except those pesky Nats. Always wanting to clarify what was said then with what’s being said now. Things change. Don’t they, Diary?

I mean, if I flip back through your pages, I know that there will be a few things that are difficult to explain. But that’s the nature of politics. We fabricate. Embroider a bit. Lie occasionally. Sometimes a lot. Everybody knows that. I don’t know why some people are making such a fuss about it. Even people on my own side. Infamy! They all have it in for me. Such a carry on!

I think the EU have their knives ready too and I’m going to be carved up as soon as I say Article 50. It’s not looking good, Diary. I feel like I’ve been prepped for a feast and I’m the main meal. It’s not meant to be like this. It was meant to be glorious. Like back in the day. You know, empire and all pulling together under difficult circumstances. Vera Lynn and a singsong. Everybody was meant to rally!

Maybe I should resign. Leave it to those cads that buggered off after the vote. Let them wipe up their own jizz.

What to do, Diary? Tell me. Please. I’m not kidding. I don’t know who to trust any more. Gideon’s gone and got another job and I think he might have it in for me too! Little shit that he is. Probably penning hate mail as I write. What will I do? I don’t know if I can cope with any more facts from my own people. Bad enough the Others getting at me across the floor – bastards, I owe Angus Robertson one for that screeching comment – but having to fend off your own people is too much. Maggie didn’t have this in the beginning. Everybody sucked up her jacksie. I’m being hung out to dry!

I wasn’t all that brill as a home secretary but I thought I could get away with this role. Everybody would support me. Lots of people to back me up and make me look good. But they don’t. Even when I tell them the colour of Brexit some people insist on being obtuse. I need to keep saying the same things over and over and over and over and over again to get them to understand. And still they make out that I’m not being clear. I mean, how clear do I have to be? I’ve practically drawn a picture and coloured it in. And they just don’t understand that the colour is so important. It has to be red, white and blue.

And now that awful woman, with the fishy name, is threatening to take the blue out of my picture. It’s beyond the pale. Just who does she think she is? Anyone would think that she was the leader of a country or something. Instead of the leader of that shower of separatists who want to split my precious. How dare she! I am the ring keeper. The guardian of the one that binds us all. It’s my job. My privilege. I have been chosen. Well not chosen, exactly. I volunteered and the rest were woeful. Chosen by default. Anyway, I’m it. And I know I can do this. I just need to keep repeating positive mantras, try not to say say ah and um too often and I might get away with it.

Diary, I think I need to go call on some friends and get the word out  here and there that the Scots are splitters. Poor splitters at that. Poor I tell you. Incapable. Such a drain on us. Unappreciative of the gracious bounty we bestow on them. Willing to jeopardise my our glorious Brexit. Unwilling to be used as collateral. I don’t even know why we keep them around. Well, obviously, I do, but that shall be our little secret, Diary. Yes, I know that our credit rating looks dodgy if they leave but they don’t know that, do they? Do they? They do. Oh, shit! Back soon, Diary. Wonder if Gordon can remember his lines.

 

Dear Tess,

Don’t take this personally but I can’t cope any more with your mental meanderings. Word to the wise. Stop. Don't write anything else down. Don't speak. Just stop. 

Don't look for me. To save you from further embarrassment, I've thrown myself onto a bonfire.

Good luck. You're gonna need it. 

Diary

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Bean Talking

On occasion, it is desirable to reward yourself with chocolate.

Not obligatory.

If it were obligatory, I’d refuse.

If it were obligatory, I’d find reasons not to eat it.

If it were obligatory, I’d eat celery instead – at a pinch.

After having just scoffed a slab of daughter’s chocolate birthday cake followed by a peppermint Fry’s Cream – because who can drink tea without something? – I’m left mulling over this idiosyncracy.

Try to force me to do something, not a chance in hell.

I’d put the chocolate in the bin first.

Fortunately, no one is forcing me to eat chocolate.

And, bizarrely, because no one is forcing me to eat it, and because I don’t feel obliged to deny myself it either, I don’t feel compelled to scoff it all the time.

I feel, tonight, chocolate, in all its dark splendiferousness, has revealed some wondrous truths about business, politics and the state of the world in general. Not to mention my personal outlook on any notion of diet fads.

Or is that just the cocoa speaking?

 

May Music, Day 15 – Yes! Perfectly Caledonian – with some Dignity

I’m one of these annoying buggers that sing along to a lot of songs. Sometimes even just the ones in my head.

But, singing along and singing along can mean quite different things depending on the occasion.

For this one, think party, people, alcohol imbibed in sufficient quantity to be somewhat reckless in demeanour (pished), end of the night, dj with a smart sense of how to wrap up an evening. Everybody loves everybody else. Oh, yes, everybody loves everybody else. (Except for that wee shite over there that’s asking for a belt in the mush.) Arms around shoulders, linking one to another. Think, swaying in time with stupid grins plastered. Think, starting slowly and then trying to keep up, arms and legs flailing while singing (shouting) along. Timing becomes nothing. Participation is all. Ach, you’d have to be there. And we have, Runrig with ‘Loch Lomond’.

Quieten down for a more melancholy sort of pished and we have, Dougie MacLean with ‘Caledonia’.

Speaking of pished. Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve) and we have, Eddi Reader with ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

And I can’t include Eddi Reader here without including one of my favourites of hers from when she sang with Fairground Attraction. And it’s a different sort of pishing down here. ‘Perfect’.

I had no idea when I began Twindaddy’s 25 days of music challenge how difficult it would prove to be. For a number of reasons. Nor that it would create a monster. I am currently incapable of choosing one song only. But, if you all only listen to one, listen to Dougie MacLean singing ‘Caledonia’. It’s perfect. Yes, for home.

And maybe some ‘Dignity’. Because the two of them kinda go hand in hand.

There’s more to Scotland than all portrayals. Including mine.

 

 

 

Alchemists

‘Base,’ they said.

Of no worth,

Leaden,

Heavy,

Insupportable,

Poisonous shot.

‘Let’s change,’ they agreed.

Stoned on

Philosophy and

Empirical prowess

Gold grew

Above ground.

Egrets To Lions

So falter wings in earthly graven state,

Tarred those feathers; glued by base endeavour.

Transcendence beckons still at heaven’s gate,

Lamentations lost beyond forever.

Deny the lie that floats on surface seen,

While sonar echoes muted far below.

Fowl of seas and all living in between

Cast off the nets, surfactant bubbles blow.

Puddled splashes, a permit to enjoy,

Though shallow’d pools hide relinquished ocean.

Submersion energising; to employ

Depth charge in propulsion, an explosion

To electrify Aurora’s ions.

Aerate atmosphere, egrets to lions.

Sometimes……

For every moment there is a rightness;

Sometimes that moment is now.

For every question there is an answer;

Sometimes that question is, ‘how?’

For every problem there’s a solution,

Though sometimes found without aim.

For every man there’s a woman;

Sometimes the question’s the same.

Changes

Changes wrought,

Conversions,

Disarray.

Confusion bought.

The price

We have to pay.

Magnitude of

Wielding

Heavy hand.

Changes,

Homes then

In our land.

In Dream Quest

I am restless

And the night hangs heavy on my limbs.

Stuttering self-belief

Demands

Answers

To all

But sleep evades.

No possible solution

Suffices

To alleviate

Desire

And explicit

Wanting.

There is nothing.

Nothing.

Only a soul will invite

Indulgence.

A lost soul,

Seeking recompense

And insight.

Searching

Aimlessly

In the night,

Wondering.

No worry….

For all answers

Reveal

In dream quest

As sleep descends.