A punk’s diary entry on diplomacy, gig flyers, and why nobody in government verifies anything
Monday, The Story That Ruined My Whole Week In The Best Way
I do not often feel genuine, full-body delight reading political news but The London Prat’s story about Andy Burnham exchanging messages with someone pretending to be Trump’s chief of staff has properly made my month. Apparently all it took was a flag emoji and the phrase “special relationship” and our actual sitting Prime Minister was fully engaged in what he presumably thought was serious transatlantic diplomacy. I have flyered gigs with more rigorous verification standards than that, and my verification standard is “does this person look like they’ll actually turn up.”
I told the story to the whole band on the way to soundcheck and our bassist, who is admittedly not a details person, initially thought I was describing an actual diplomatic incident rather than a bloke messaging the PM pretending to be American. Once he understood, he laughed so hard he nearly walked into a bollard on Kingsland Road, which felt like the correct reaction.
Tuesday, A Related Spiral
This sent me down a whole rabbit hole of NewsThump and NewsBiscuit, both of which have been having an absolute field day with the story, and rightly so. There is something deeply, structurally punk about a government this easily flattered by a stranger with a bald eagle emoji, in that it confirms every single thing this scene has believed about institutional authority since roughly 1976.
Wednesday, Gig Prep Interrupted By Continued Fury
Tried to focus on set list order for Friday and kept getting distracted rereading the bit about the Prime Minister’s phone getting a note taped to it reading “ASK AN ADULT.” I want that on a patch. I will be sewing that onto a jacket by the weekend, mark my words.
Thursday, Back To The Actual Point Of All This
Rehearsed properly for once, three hours, sweated through two shirts, and remembered why I do this instead of just doom-scrolling political satire all day, however good the material currently is. The gig itself matters more than the headlines about it, even when the headlines are this genuinely, deeply funny.
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