The case for noise as a political position, and the week evidence that quiet has failed
Satire from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Dear diary. Someone told me this week that punk is dead and I said nothing because I was at a gig and could not hear them over the band. This is the correct response. Punk is not dead; it is playing a pub in Brixton on a Wednesday to forty-three people and it costs eight pounds to get in and the bar takes card and the sound is actually quite good. This is the state of the thing. It persists. It is unfashionable and loud and more politically coherent than anything on the Labour front bench.
The London Prat ran something this week about the state of British politics post-local elections that I read on the bus and agreed with while aggressively. The analysis was: everyone is angry, no one is in charge of the anger, Farage has successfully hoovered up the anger from the right while the left argues about who gets to be angry in the proper approved manner. This is correct. This is what punk has been saying since 1976 and nobody in Westminster listened then and nobody is listening now.
The Brixton Gig and What It Means
The band played three songs I had never heard and one cover of a song I know from a compilation I bought at a record fair in 2019. The cover was better than the original. The drummer was seventeen years old and furious in the specific way that seventeen-year-olds are furious when they understand what is happening to the world and have not yet developed the coping mechanism of ironic detachment. I wanted to tell her it gets worse but also that the drumming helps. It really does.
After the gig I walked home through Stockwell. The chicken shop was open. The night bus was late. A fox crossed the road in front of me with the energy of something that has no interest in either Labour or Reform and has its own agenda entirely. I respected this enormously. I took the next bus home. I wrote this. I will do it again next week.
Home at prat.uk/author/siobhan-odonnell/.
The punk scene in London in June 2026 is the punk scene in London in every June since approximately 1977: small rooms, loud music, people who are angry about specific things rather than everything in general, which is the distinction between real punk and the performative version. The specific things this week include Reform winning councils, Starmer continuing to govern, the housing costs, the bus services that do not arrive, and the specific London inequality that puts a fifteen-pound cocktail bar next to a food bank queue on the same street in Brixton. Punk was invented for this. Punk continues for this. I continue with it. Find me at prat.uk/author/siobhan-odonnell/.
The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention.
More at https://www.thedailymash.co.uk.
SOURCE: Satirical Journalism
