Saturday 2nd May 2015.

A break from the essay writing, to attend a pre-wedding party in Peckham Rye. I was at Caroline & Lesley’s civil partnership a few years ago, and now they’re doing the upgrade to a proper marriage. The apple tree blossom is out in their garden, though the weather is too chilly to stay outside long. There’s a buffet of all vegetarian food, including what looks (and tastes) like salami, but is obviously some kind of meat-free substitute. Carnivores would never know. There was a scandal a year or two ago where horse meat was found to be in supermarket beef burgers. The implication was that it was the wrong kind of cruelty. I wonder what the reaction would be if a range of burgers was discovered to contain a vegetarian substitute.

* * *

Sunday 3rd May 2015.

Into the editing of the last essay, on Angela Carter. I take a break to read through the Sunday Times. A column by Rod Liddle on wolf-whistling has the headline ‘A whistle is far from harmless in the company of wolves’. Ms Carter gets everywhere.

Evening: I see Far From The Madding Crowd at the East Finchley Phoenix. A new adaptation with Carey Mulligan. She is perfect for the main role: capable and independent, yet still child-like enough for Michael Sheen’s character to go on about wanting ‘to protect’ her. The Gabriel Oak actor – a specially-imported Belgian, like the chocolates – is similarly well-cast: lunging around the scenery, brawny in just the wrong way, like an American footballer who needs no padding. The film feels properly cinematic: Thomas Hardy better suits film rather than TV serialisations. The viewer needs to feel cut off from the world, to feel the isolation of the Wessex characters. A TV serial would feel too much like one could come and go. Film – if seen in a cinema – is still a medium that forces the narrative into one, unavoidable burst. The cinemagoer is a volunteer captive. As a character in the film says, ‘Imagine having choice!’

* * *

Monday 4th May 2015.

I spend the bank holiday working on the third draft of the Carter essay.

* * *

Tuesday 5th May 2015.

Fourth draft of the essay. In the Barbican Cinema Café, I am the only person not staring at a laptop. The man at the table to my left is in the process of buying a house. He has a huge stack of paperwork and makes umpteen phone calls. I can see on his laptop what the house looks like – several bedrooms, Ealing. £999,000. An incomprehensible life, for me. But then, it’s currently beyond the reach of many who do comprehend it.

* * *

I read an article in the TLS on two memoirs by bass players. One book is by Kim Gordon, of Sonic Youth. The other is by Stuart David, of Belle and Sebastian. The reviewer refers to Sonic Youth as ‘the New York band’, while B&S are ‘a gently eccentric Glaswegian band’. It’s the choice of the indefinite article that fascinates me. The assumption that the average TLS reader has heard of one band, but not the other. These days, the need to second-guess your reader’s knowledge is more redundant than ever. If your reader has not heard of something, you can assume they have heard of Google.

* * *

Wednesday 6th May 2015.

Fifth draft. Poring over the MHRA style guide. Today it’s for the correct rules on using em-dashes in bibliographies. When listing several sources by the same author, you’re meant to put in a long dash rather than repeat the author’s name. The MHRA guide says this should be a ‘2-em’ dash, as in a double length dash, while other guides say it needs to be a triple-length dash. So I spend far too long checking the length of my dashes.

I know this is all trainspotting stuff, yet I’m terrified of getting it wrong. I worry there are markers out there who make Lynn Truss look laid-back.

* * *

Thursday 7th May 2015.

I vote Green at Jackson’s Lane Community Centre, opposite Highgate tube station. Still the stubby little pencil, still the bit of string. Still the bits of paper to post in boxes. In 2015. It’s a kind of comforting Ludditism.

Then into Bloomsbury for Birkbeck’s library, for the final draft of the essay. I panic while typing up the last revisions, suddenly seeing paragraphs that can be improved, or so I think. It’s the feeling that it’s all coming to an end that’s really to blame. It feels like reaching the edge of a cliff.

I get to a point where I’m clearly fiddling with the essay for the sake of it, rather than actually doing any good. After two hours of this, I force myself to let go, and upload the essay to the college website. Then I spend another half an hour checking and re-checking that it’s definitely uploaded. All this time spent – I wonder if it shows in the work.

Then I email a copy to myself, and print one out, which has to be deposited in the slot in Gordon Square. No feeling of ceremony as I’d hoped – I’m too anxious. Unable to believe it’s over.

It’s not really over till I get the grade, though. By early June I’ll receive provisional marks for the last three assessments, including the dissertation. Then in mid-July I’ll have the finalised marks, along with the actual degree grade.

Until then, I can take a bit of a break and reflect on the course.

Most of all, I’m proud that I made every single deadline over the four years. And that I stuck with it till the end. Not bad for someone with a history of giving up.

* * *

By way of a treat, I go to the ICA cinema in the Mall, for the absurdist Swedish film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. It’s essentially a series of slow, surreal tableaux, where a single shot can last for fifteen minutes. Some moments are funny, some nightmarish. Lots of subtle white face make-up, recalling Samuel Beckett on clowns. There’s a vague plot involving two travelling salesmen trying to sell practical jokes from a suitcase. Otherwise it’s more like a dark sketch show – part Monty Python, part Eugene Ionesco. I love the scene where a young king from the 18th century invades a modern bar, along with his entire army, some of whom are on horseback.

* * *

Friday 8th May 2015.

The election feels like a bout of national masochism, with no safe word. I think Mr Miliband really meant ‘Hell? Yes.’

* * *

In the end, everyone got it wrong. Even the people who organise the Queen, as she apparently had to be quickly transported to Buck House in time for Cameron’s audience.

It was assumed that today would be devoted to cross-party deals and negotiations for another coalition. Instead, just like in 1992, the Tories secured an outright win. Even David Cameron was surprised.

As with previous Tory wins, I’m mindful of the scene in Patrick Keiller’s London (1994), where Paul Schofield’s fictional narrator witnesses the 1992 victory by John Major. Keiller suddenly breaks into a splenetic rant, if a beautifully phrased one. The words seem more apposite than ever:

‘It seemed there was no longer anything a Conservative government could do to cause it to be voted out of office […] There were, said Robinson, no mitigating circumstances. [… ] The middle class in England had continued to vote Conservative because, in their miserable hearts, they still believed that it was in their interest to do so. Robinson began to consider what the result would mean for him. His flat would continue to deteriorate, and his rent increase. […] He would drink more and less well, he would be ill more often, he would die sooner. For the old, or anyone with children, it would be much worse.’

One silver lining is that there’s more fans of Keiller’s film out there than I previously thought. Today, the YouTube clip of this scene is being passed around on Twitter (https://youtu.be/v84byeueCBI). It was actually me who edited and uploaded the clip. I did so back in 2008, on the day that Boris Johnson got in as mayor. It’s rather gratifying to see the clip take on a modest life of its own. I also like that it remains the only video on my YouTube channel. I have to succumb to ‘vlogging’.

Other results: the Lib Dems lost a shocking amount of votes, UKIP were reduced to their Clacton seat, the Greens increased their majority in Brighton but didn’t gain any more MPs. Nigel Farage, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg all resigned – and all suspiciously quickly, before the election had properly finished. In the past an election defeat was not necessarily reason enough to quit – Kinnock certainly hung on through a few.

I hope the replacements for Miliband and Clegg will try to be themselves a little more, and be like Mr Blair a little less.

* * *

In the evening: a celebration of a less controversial victory – VE Day. It’s the 70th anniversary today. I go the Phoenix in East Finchley for a specially-timed preview screening of A Royal Night Out. The film is a loose retelling of the story that on VE day, the teenage princesses Elizabeth and Margaret went out incognito in London, and joined in with the revelries.

The Phoenix cinema has turned the screening into a 1945-themed event. The building has reverted to its 40s name, The Rex, the staff are in vintage costume, there’s Union Jack bunting, facsimile ration books on the cafe tables, Glen Miller on the hi-fi, and braised beef stew on the menu.

The film itself is suitably jolly and nostalgic. A little slight perhaps, but no less well made than The Young Victoria, a few years ago. The production design is impressive, particularly when the action moves to Trafalgar Square – so many costumed extras, in a location that’s so hard to close for filming. Parts of the story are a little unlikely, and there’s a lot of blatant homage to Roman Holiday, with a princess enjoying a short, chaste spell of romance with a commoner. But the young actresses playing the princesses ‘Lizzy’, and ‘Mags’, as they call themselves, really carry the whole thing off. It’s a sweet film, and eschews any purely royalist messages to make one about the importance of common humanity. One can only hope that’s something the new government thinks about.

Tags: a pigeon sat on a branch and reflected on existence, a royal night out, birkbeck, far from the madding crowd, general election 2015