Escape From Reality

          The season is changing. One by one, the boats in the yard opposite our window are being lifted back into the water, floating off to who knows where. We’ve turned off the central heating and can now leave the curtains open to the longer hours of light and sometimes magnificent sunsets. The downside, however, is that the wintry evenings cosied up to watch movies at home have come to a natural end. La fin! This means that I’ll never clear the backlog on my list. And, to some extent, the same applies to reading novels, as that is a pleasure I’m still not comfortable indulging until after dusk.

          But, before shutting up shop for the summer, I did manage to read a couple of Patricia Highsmith novels and to watch Plein Soleil, the 1960 French movie adaptation of one of her Tom Ripley stories, in which all the main characters are young, slim, attractive, dressed by Pierre Cardin and dedicated to gambolling aimlessly in the sophisticated but relaxed Mediterranean milieu that predated mass tourism. If that was all you ever saw of that era, you might imagine it to be paradise – as long as you kept clear of Ripley.

          Meanwhile, in the everyday real-life world of the here and now, where sports- leisure wear passes for fashionable garb and poverty is in the face of every city-dweller, it is polling day for the local elections. The emphasis in this household is on supporting independent hopefuls so as to overcome the problem of major party candidates being torn between loyalty to their factional interests and delivering on their constituents’ actual priorities. But, mindful of the epithet “Society is like a stew. If you don’t keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top”, I encourage anyone who will listen to make use of their franchise, regardless of their preference. Local election turnout is too often woefully low – as if the majority of electors has no interest in the outcome or believes itself powerless to influence it – yet the incumbent government has chosen to address this democratic deficit by making it worse. It has introduced a new requirement for voters to produce photographic identity at the polling stations, knowing that this is unnecessary and that it will discourage those, such as the poor or otherwise marginalised, who may not have the documentation. Little by little, government finds ways to ensure that the scum remains undisturbed.

          Even if the elections do produce some changes, we have the coronation to remind us of who is really in charge. We face the prospect of a nation rejoicing in its heritage of subjugation to a monarchy that imposed itself by force and now seeks to cling to its privileges by means of a cunning mix of patronage and the appeal of patriotic nostalgia. Not that I am totally against patriotism, nostalgia and a figurehead around whom we can unite as a nation. It’s just that I would prefer a cheaper, less extravagant version and, since I am not confident of being able to explain this point of view at our residents’ planned coronation garden party, I’ve opted not to attend. Instead, I shall gather my dissident pals for a picnic in the park, where conversations might develop around topics such as a cost-effective monarchy and the fight against privatisation of public goods (like parks, for example). With the police busy keeping an eye on the crowds at Westminster and Windsor, we shouldn’t be too much at risk of arrest under the newly and hurriedly sanctioned Section 14 laws.

          Of course, I don’t expect a whole season of unremitting exposure to such bleak realities. Summertime in Britain is bound to bring the odd rainy day – perfect for a temporary escape to the alternative worlds of films and novels.