A barely functioning hand writes
Oh my dear goodness. I am actually surprised, really, no shit, that my arms are functioning well enough to work this keyboard; I started stuffing envelopes on Friday and today I stopped and it feels like several years. The story is this; that I went for coffee (assiduously counting calories in the cappucino froth) with a couple of Marxist friends and was rude about the Labour Party for an hour or so, then took the scenic route home. On the way I passed the flat I used to live in in my third year, which was a bit of a shithole (the flat and the year) and saw no. 78 Buccleuch St covered in Labour posters. I am a Labour Person. I wouldn't leave the Labour Party if national conference voted to cut little babies' throats. I'm certainly not leaving it now. My feet automatically walked me through the door.
"Any leaflets to stuff?" I asked a woman jocularly.
"Yes."
In the back room were a few people and some leaflets. More than a few leaflets. We're talking large numbers of boxes here. Seriously large. I found a place at the table (not difficult) and settled down to be told the Rules; one pre-folded (thank christ) leaflet to each envelope, of course, and put in a certain way, so that the first thing people saw when they opened it was Alastair Darling's lovely face. (I am absolutely certain that I will see Alastair Darling's beautiful face in my dreams for many, many nights to come. The top half of it, rather. The bottom bit was cut off by the way it was folded over.) I got a pile of envelopes and a pile of leaflets, and started.
My god, what did I get myself into? The short answer, of course, would be "stuffing fucking envelopes. Of course it hurts your arms. Everyone does it, you moaning twat." But it was much more complicated than that.
All right, it wasn't. And occasionally we (being more people every day) did have a good time, chattering on about how Michael Foot had stayed in one woman's bed (audience: ohhhhhh??) which her father, then an MP, used as a spare room while she was away at college (audience: ohhhhh), and the Jeremy Paxman interview with Michael Howard. I never watch Jeremy Paxman interviews because they're so frustrating; if the politician gets to finish one sentence, let alone one answer, s/he's lucky. It's just a symptom of the current simplistic political debate; we want Answers Now No Obfuscating (nobody says obfuscating, but you get my drift), which is entirely understandable but doesn't allow for the fact that some issues really are more complicated than 'yes we did' 'no he didn't' 'but they are' et cetera ad nauseam. And then he complains that people don't understand politics... At any rate, I didn't catch Michael Howard, being engaged in more rewarding pursuits eg picking my toenails, but the only other Michael Foot fan in the village said that he (Howard) looked "really as if he was - mentally ill.' We asked, naturally, for evidence, and she talked about the way he kept pulling bits of paper out of his pockets to illustrate his points rather than giving an answer of the real sort. Everyone pulls bits of paper out of their pockets, I do it all the time and I'm not mad. (Well I am, but it's got nothing to do with little bits of paper.)
Put like that, though, it does sound a bit crackers, simply adding to his resemblance to Alec Guiness in "The Ladykillers."
Stream of consciousness rubbish. My hands are getting better, you can see.
But he does. I think it's the teeth.
"Any leaflets to stuff?" I asked a woman jocularly.
"Yes."
In the back room were a few people and some leaflets. More than a few leaflets. We're talking large numbers of boxes here. Seriously large. I found a place at the table (not difficult) and settled down to be told the Rules; one pre-folded (thank christ) leaflet to each envelope, of course, and put in a certain way, so that the first thing people saw when they opened it was Alastair Darling's lovely face. (I am absolutely certain that I will see Alastair Darling's beautiful face in my dreams for many, many nights to come. The top half of it, rather. The bottom bit was cut off by the way it was folded over.) I got a pile of envelopes and a pile of leaflets, and started.
My god, what did I get myself into? The short answer, of course, would be "stuffing fucking envelopes. Of course it hurts your arms. Everyone does it, you moaning twat." But it was much more complicated than that.
All right, it wasn't. And occasionally we (being more people every day) did have a good time, chattering on about how Michael Foot had stayed in one woman's bed (audience: ohhhhhh??) which her father, then an MP, used as a spare room while she was away at college (audience: ohhhhh), and the Jeremy Paxman interview with Michael Howard. I never watch Jeremy Paxman interviews because they're so frustrating; if the politician gets to finish one sentence, let alone one answer, s/he's lucky. It's just a symptom of the current simplistic political debate; we want Answers Now No Obfuscating (nobody says obfuscating, but you get my drift), which is entirely understandable but doesn't allow for the fact that some issues really are more complicated than 'yes we did' 'no he didn't' 'but they are' et cetera ad nauseam. And then he complains that people don't understand politics... At any rate, I didn't catch Michael Howard, being engaged in more rewarding pursuits eg picking my toenails, but the only other Michael Foot fan in the village said that he (Howard) looked "really as if he was - mentally ill.' We asked, naturally, for evidence, and she talked about the way he kept pulling bits of paper out of his pockets to illustrate his points rather than giving an answer of the real sort. Everyone pulls bits of paper out of their pockets, I do it all the time and I'm not mad. (Well I am, but it's got nothing to do with little bits of paper.)
Put like that, though, it does sound a bit crackers, simply adding to his resemblance to Alec Guiness in "The Ladykillers."
Stream of consciousness rubbish. My hands are getting better, you can see.
But he does. I think it's the teeth.
posted by helen @ 9:57 PM
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