Everything English Is The Enemy, Part 2

One gets more right-wing as you get older, they say. I don’t really agree¹, but I have found myself mellowing a little in recent years towards institutions I previously railed against. The House of Lords, for example, is a towering anachronism at the heart of Britain, something that in the 90s I believed should have been liquidated.

These days, I haven’t so much changed my mind as come to terms with the idea that yes, it is a laughable mockery of democracy, but strangely often manages to check the actual democratically-elected arm of Parliament better than the official Opposition. And while it’s a cynical view, it seems good to have the Lords there as a reminder for all the battles of 1911 onwards, they’re still there, still with their power after all these years.

As for the Royal Wedding, well, it’s not my thing, but who am I to rail so hard against somebody who lost his mother at an early age thanks to a group of people that hounded him for all the years following? It’s not a life he chose, after all. And obviously, seeing Harry excoriate the royal tabloid press for being the racist, classist scum that they are was incredibly entertaining.

(but the idea that ‘the Royal Family will pay for the wedding’ is a complete fiction. Aside from them not paying security costs, which dwarfed all other expenses, where does their money come from? The state, of course, or land that essentially is owned by the state through the family.

Given my ambivalence towards the wedding, I am therefore turning my ire onto the real enemy: Americans. Reactions here to the wedding seemed to fall into two types:

• ‘OH MY GOD, YOU’RE ENGLISH DID YOU WATCH THE WEDDING?’ - this said to me in the middle of an American supermarket where all the cashiers were wearing tiaras. I mean, you fought a war to get rid of us; have a bit of self-respect. Even if the country is a dumpster fire at the moment.

• ‘Flint still doesn’t have water! #royalfamily’ - if you’re going to do performative woke statements, you could at bloody least tailor it to the country in question. What about Windrush? Grenfell? The on-going disaster of Universal Credit and the humiliation of ESA check-ups for disabled people? It’s not always about you, you know…

Aside from the wedding, been a tough and long week that I’m glad to see consigned to history. But the blackcurrants in the back garden are flowering, I’m meeting one of my favourite pastry chefs today, and my friends are on their way.

Next week: if I finally get the documents signed and sent off tomorrow, I will no longer own my house in Durham by the end of the week…