The Slow Slide

Saturday, 20^th June 2020

This blog post is a meditation on water and amphibians and The Wind in the Willows. It may or may not make any sense.

I

Is it just me, or does Boris Johnson increasingly resemble the character of Mr Toad from The Wind in the Willows. To confirm my prejudices in this regard (because I only like to have them confirmed – usually by myself – and not dismantled), I found the 1984 stop-motion animation series on YouTube, produced for Thames TV, and randomly chose an episode to watch.

This was television from a gentler time, without the garishness and noise and hectic cutting of current children’s television. By chance, Episode 4 was called ‘The Compleat Bungler’ and it began, as all the episodes began, with Mr Toad reading or writing his memoirs:

‘Another week crammed with events, which yet again has demonstrated the wit, courage and nobility of we Toads. Sad to say, then, that the family has not always appreciated it, as it should be.’

All weeks are crammed with events but some weeks are more crammed than others. Our very own Mr Toad has this week recklessly driven his jalopy only to miss several important junctions prompting all those slamming on of brakes and sudden U-turns as he misses the signs reading, ‘Public Opinion.’ For our Mr Toad, there is something simply marvellous about driving the chariot of government at full speed towards the sunset which is always just over the horizon. He would really really like to get his Fiat Punto of a government up to top speed, fast enough to leave public opinion and truth and responsibility in his rear-view mirror, bibbing his little horn to get those annoying members of the public out of his way.

Episode 5 (the more I looked, the better the similarities got) begins with Toad reading from his diary and asking himself the following:

‘Is triumf spelt with two fs?’

To which I wanted to reply, ‘No, it’s ffss: For Fuck’s Sake Stop! You’re a menace to society and, sadly, also in charge. Pump the brakes, Toad, and get out of the fucking car!’

Each episode ends with a little ditty:

‘The clever men at Oxford

Know all that’s to be knowed

But none of them know half as much

As clever Mr Toad.’

And with these comparisons drawn out for all to see, M’lud, I rest my case: Toad is Johnson; Johnson is Toad.

 II

1.       Drift (verb)

In Grand Prix (a sport I would loathe if it wasn’t so boring that loathing it would be pointless) racing, drift is the locking of the front wheels in the opposite direction to the direction of travel around a bend. The driver is said to be in control but at the same time, little control is available. It is a furious way to move a car round a bend and risks the car flipping sideways.

2.      Drift (verb)

To be carried slowly by a current of air. Invisible little particles of plague moving along, with no intention, no desire, no will. Out in the world, free and uncontainable, a last escapee from Pandora’s Box.

3.      Drift (noun)

The continuous slow movement from one place to another. A tendency, repeated by many, to move in one direction as in, ‘There was found, in the government’s messages to the public, a slow drift away from the truth towards an imaginary land where speaking solemnly was more important than the words themselves.’

4.      Drift (noun)

The general intention or meaning of someone’s remarks. As in, ‘I think this government’s response to the virus has been world-beating, truly exceptional, quite extraordinary, if you get my drift.’

5.      Adrift (adjective)

i.                    (Of a boat or its passengers) Floating without being moored or steered.

ii.                 Failing to reach a target or winning position

The good ship Blighty is a whaling ship. Brexit is Moby Dick. You can’t take the great white whale down without sinking the ship. But your mind is fevered and the white whale floats through your dreams, stirring your ambition, which only makes your mind more fevered. You can’t go back and you know it; you’re Captain Ahab with your wooden leg almost part of the boat. You’re Donald Crowhurst, alone on the wide Sargasso Sea.

‘There is nothing – absolutely nothing – so worth doing as messing about in boats.’

Unless you’re meant to be steering the bloody thing…

 

III

Drift: unmoored from the old reality. The unreachable past receding behind you and the future unknowable, a sea fret obliterating the horizon, your eyes hurting from trying to discern something, anything, ahead of you.

When the end of the world is nigh, who makes plans?

A puzzle sits untouched, the box unopened. I am no longer learning Russian. My son and I have not ‘booped’ each other on the nose for weeks. The novel I was writing waits like a patient old dog for some attention. We have not dragged the two half pallets out onto the driveway to play ‘little tennis’ for a fortnight. Nor have we played cricket in the garden, hoicking balls over the neighbour’s fences when we got bored with a wild swing of the shoulders. Just to see something happen.

Adrift. Having no destination, no driver, no captain. Wondering if you are still alive. Wondering if things will change. Wondering how it came to this.

 

IV

‘But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, but can recapture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty in it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties.’

 

Latest data for the UK (as of 12pm):

Infected: 303,110

Deaths: 42,589

Celebrity deaths: Beginning to wonder why I am still including this bit. Not sure what I was thinking, either. Did I think it would be funny if some famous people died or was it meant to be hubristic or even mean to show that Covid-19 was going to affect everyone equally? That is clearly not the case; as usual, the poor and the disadvantaged and the minorities of the world will be worst affected.

People I know who are infected: 0

Song of the Day: ‘Aqua Profunda’ – Courtney Barnett