Saturday 26th April 2014. I’m re-reading Joe Orton’s diaries. When I was a teenager, I read them for the sex. Now, I read them for the comments on Evelyn Waugh. All books are mirrors.

* * *

Monday 28th April 2014. The last class of the Romantic Age course is rather subdued. One of the final year students who shared the same classes as me, Rajal Patel, died suddenly over the Easter break, after suffering a pulmonary embolism. I never socialised with her, but we often chatted before and after the sessions. She was friendly and enthusiastic and was clearly very good at her studies. She was weeks away from graduation, and can’t have been much older than me.

* * *

I fail to get to a cinema this week, but instead watch a fairly new film on my home PC: About Time. Despite being written and directed by Richard Curtis, it’s not quite his standard good-hearted romcom with posh English people swearing (though it does have that). Towards the end it becomes a fairly serious fable about the reality of death, and indeed the helplessness of getting older. Its basic message may be an obvious one – enjoy life and your loved ones while you can – but it’s sincere about it, and it’s enough to make me cry through the credits.

* * *

Wednesday 30th April 2014.

The GP sends me off to the Whittington Hospital for routine blood tests. On the ground floor is a newsagent’s, where I buy a small bottle of apple juice. At the till the shop assistant waves his hand over a pile of sweets arranged on the counter – tubes of Mentos, Polos and so on. ‘Any three for a pound?’.

This sort of thing is quite common in branches of WH Smith, where your transaction is similarly impeded by an unrequested offer of Haribos or Toblerones. But I tend to resent it, being a wary, ditzy and distracted sort of a person, who finds life confusing enough without these extra little interrogations. I’ve even reacted badly to nice surprises.

Impulse buying is fair enough, when shops position sweets and cheap goods right by the till, hoping people will be tempted. But forcing shoppers to say no to further things, when they clearly just want to pay for what they’ve selected, seems the height of bad manners.

And in a hospital, where you might be reeling from a diagnosis of diabetes, the sudden waving of sweets in your face surely can’t make your day.

* * *

Thursday 1st May 2014.

Last proper class for the 21st Century Fiction course. We discuss Lara by Bernadine Evaristo. It’s a family saga about mixed race identity, told in verse.

Race, or rather racism, is as big an issue as ever this week. One news story today is about the TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson having to apologise for using the n-word, while another is the debate over whether UKIP is a racist political party, or merely one that attracts people who say racist things (the latter is certainly true). It reminds me of the way Boris Johnson was accused of racist comments just before he was elected London Mayor – something about ‘piccaninnies with watermelon smiles’. It still didn’t stop over a million Londoners voting for him.

The UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been appearing on Have I Got News For You, just like Boris J did, happy to laugh along with all the jokes made at his expense.  It’s proof that public ridicule can be turned to one’s advantage, as long as it makes you look lovably flawed. It’ll be interesting to see how that affects the May 22nd elections. I’ll be voting Green as usual. I admire Russell Brand and sympathise with his idea of non-voting as a protest but while the Greens are still an option, I have to disagree.

* * *

Towards the end of Lara, the main character talks about ‘Great Britain with the ‘Great’ Tippexed out’, in the sense of how tiny it is on the world map, as well as how it’s getting over its imperial past.

But what’s also been ‘Tippexed out’ from a lot of adult lives is Tippex itself, the white correction fluid used to paint out mistakes on paper (I think it’s also called White Out in the US). It’s now more of a classroom product, at least while schoolchildren still have to use exercise books. For adults who write, though, Tippex has gone the way of manual typewriters. One problem was that painting over something was not the same as erasure, and the product invariably left unpleasant white lumps on the page. Or, as the student next to me says today, ‘it made your work look like it was covered in bird droppings’.

* * *

After the class, I walk through Gordon Square to get to Euston as usual. Tonight, though, there’s some sort of commotion in the middle of the road, around the north-east section of the square. I stop on the pavement and watch. There’s a crowd of a dozen or so young people standing in the road with flags and banners, surrounding a large, important-looking black car. They are chanting and singing at whoever’s inside. ‘Happy May Day To You, Happy May Day To You.’

Standing around them are students and tutors who, like me, are on their way home and have stopped to ask what’s going on. It’s half past seven in the evening, but being May, it’s broad daylight. This gives the protest a slightly surreal, even cheery feel. The square is quiet: the rush hour traffic has died down, and the road is quite wide, so the protesters are not even getting in the way of other cars. And there’s no police about – yet. The only person who is having an unhappy time here is the one in the car. The vehicle has been effectively ‘kettled’ by the protesters, as in hemmed in by bodies, and it’s not going anywhere until they move.

‘It’s David Willetts!’ shouts a passing Birkbeck tutor to me, grinning. And it all makes sense.

Mr Willetts is the current Minister for Universities and Science. Two years ago he oversaw the rise in student fees from £3,000 per year to a staggering £9,000. More recently, he cut the DSA grants which helped students with disabilities or learning difficulties. It’s fair to say he’s not very popular around universities.

My curiosity sated, I carry on walking home.  Later I learn that – as expected – a police squad soon arrives to drag the students away from the car, allowing Mr Willetts to drive off and resume his unkind life in peace.

Two pleasing things about this event. After so many instances of protesters being kettled by the authorities, it’s heartening to see it the other way around. What made it unlike a police kettle, sadly, was the short duration.

The other pleasing thing is that it’s reminiscent of a scene from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. While Clarissa Dalloway is shopping in Bond Street, a mysterious chauffeur-driven car breaks down outside, causing the pedestrians to gather and speculate about the passenger. They think it’s either a politician or someone from the royal family.

What’s even better is that this real life version happened in Gordon Square, once home to Woolf. And today Gordon Square is full of classrooms where people indeed study Mrs Dalloway (along with Orlando, and A Room Of One’s Own and To The Lighthouse). Or at least, they do so until their funding is kettled away by Mr Willetts.

Tags: about time, bernadine evaristo, david willetts, joe orton, rajal patel