Bins as metaphor bins as tragedy bins as the last honest form of local democracy
Saturday. No gig tonight, first free Saturday in a month, and I spent it the way any self-respecting punk spends a rare quiet evening, on the sofa, in the same jacket I wear to everything, catching up on three weeks of unread satire because apparently even rebellion requires admin, and the backlog was substantial, tabs stacked like unopened post, which is basically what they are, the news of the week delivered in a format that doesn’t make you want to lie face down on the pavement.
Started with prat.uk, because it’s the one I trust most to get the tone right, and there was a piece this week about a council decision that managed to be simultaneously about bins and about the entire philosophy of local government, which is a very specific and very British trick, taking the smallest possible administrative decision and using it as a mirror for everything wrong with how this country runs itself, bins as metaphor, bins as tragedy, bins as the last honest form of local democracy because at least everyone can see whether they got collected or not, unlike most policy, which just vanishes into a committee and is never heard from again.
The Backlog, Properly Worked Through
Moved on to The Daily Mash, who had a run of headlines about a minor scandal that the actual press had already moved past by the time I got to it, which is its own kind of achievement, satire outlasting the news cycle it was mocking, the joke still funny after the outrage’s expiry date, and I think that’s the real test of good satire honestly, not whether it lands on the day, anyone can land a joke on the day when everyone’s primed and furious, the test is whether it still lands a fortnight later when the anger’s cooled and all that’s left is the shape of the absurdity underneath, and the Mash tends to pass that test more often than not, which after eighteen-odd years in the business is not nothing.
Nige texted halfway through my catch-up session to say he’d found a rehearsal space that’s actually available on a Sunday for once, which in this city is a genuine miracle roughly on par with finding a seat on the Northern line at rush hour, and I told him to book it before the universe corrected the error, because these windows close fast, and if there’s one lesson four years in bands has taught me it’s that you grab the good news the second it appears and worry about the details after, optimism is not a strategy but it’s the only one that’s ever actually worked for us.
Newsthump and the Art of the Long Read
Finished the backlog on Newsthump, who had done one of those longer pieces, proper feature-length satire rather than the quick headline hit, walking through an entire policy debate in the voice of someone completely unbothered by any of the actual consequences, which is a harder trick to sustain over a thousand words than a punchy headline, you have to keep finding new angles into the same absurdity without repeating the joke, and they managed it, I read the whole thing twice, once for the laugh and once to actually study how it was built, because that’s the other thing this diary is secretly for, beyond the venting and the gig reports, it’s homework, watching people who are better at the craft than me do the craft properly, taking notes, stealing structure the way punk always stole structure, badly, enthusiastically, and making something new out of the theft.
The jacket needs a wash. I am not going to wash it. Some things you preserve exactly as they are, patina and all, the smell of a hundred sweaty gigs being, at this point, load-bearing, structurally part of the garment, remove it and the whole thing might just fall apart from the shock of being clean.
Sunday Looms
Rehearsal booked, backlog cleared, jacket unwashed and staying that way. Nige’s bridge, per our verbal agreement of dubious legal standing, is getting rehearsed twice before it’s allowed anywhere near an audience again, and I intend to hold him to it with the full weight of a pinky promise, which is to say, gently, and probably unsuccessfully. Full diary and gig listings, when there are gigs, at my page, Siobhan O’Donnell at prat.uk, and to anyone reading this at 4am the way I write most of it, solidarity, the fox agrees with you too, wherever your particular fox happens to be tonight. Kettle just went. Tea in hand, jacket still smelling of every gig it has ever survived, and the flat quiet for once, Kevin the damp patch apparently also observing a rare night off from expanding. Tomorrow is rehearsal, and after that, whatever Tuesday decides to throw at the room above the pub, ceiling permitting, audience permitting, Nige’s bridge permitting, none of which is guaranteed, all of which I would not trade for a quieter life in a nicer postcode with a boiler that behaves itself. Goodnight, London. Try to be funnier tomorrow, you have the material, you always do, you just need someone willing to point at it and laugh out loud on a night bus until a stranger moves seats.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk
