Here I Go Again, On The Moan continued (2/3) By Silver Fox

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3)

It occurs to me that being stretched out on an examination table fearfully contemplating my mortality while a not notably over-lubricated hand rummages around in my fundament was a fairly good analogy for life in Mcunited Kingdom plc; a painful, uncomfortable, frightening experience that seems to last a lot longer than it actually does and is rife with the most awful uncertainty.

And it is the uncertainty that reminds me of the aforementioned probing. I spoke of the relief of being found to be only a few distended capillaries away from being in the rudest of health, but I have often wondered how I would have felt if the news had been worse.

Obviously, I'd have freaked out (I have an exceptionally low threshold for both physical pain and the attention of my relations), but I still feel that I'd have felt better for knowing exactly what was what. Given definite knowledge of my situation, I could have - as I Chaplin-walked home - begun to assimilate the facts, consider the implication of treatment etc - to adjust, in short. And I think that that principle holds true in all cases, and so, it was with a similar sense of having come through a disorientating and baffling ordeal to arrive at a definite conclusion that I made a discovery of a highly disquieting nature.

I'm not happy about it, but at least it gives me a clearer idea of what we're all dealing with.

It turns out, despite the convincing arguments and reassuring rhetoric of our current Prime Minister, that the Class System is still very much alive and well. Good news, I suppose for some of you, but a right pisser for the bulk of us.

The stark fact is, www.catsandkittens, that there is a world of difference between them - John Lennon's folks on the hill - and us. However far we feel we've advanced over the centuries, even if we devote the rest of our lives to stuffing ourselves with pesto and foccacia, we are still (in essence) a lumpen mass of feculent proles; all scurvy and forelock-tugging. It's quite possible that you may find this view rather heavy going on the old oesophagus; after all, there will be those amongst you who feel they know their way around a wine list, know which fork to pick your nose with at dinner, and all that. Balls.

We're as divided a nation as we were in the days of Watt Tyler; dying of scrofula and not having the vote aren't the only indicators of being an oppressed peasant class, not by an Aldermaston mile. If you want evidence, just look at the events of the last seven days.

Any of you with an interest in social unrest will have been aware that two extremely divergent causes were out in force during the previous week. In the red (or at least, darkish pink) corner; the Reclaim The Streets campaign - a loose collaboration of hippies, anarchists, environmentalists, and Luddites; and, in the (true) blue corner, the Countryside Alliance - a collection of tweed-clad genetic defectives braying about their inalienable right to hunt foxes.

These two movements are different not only in their aims, but also in their methods. While the horsey set fight to preserve their ancient prerogative by causing massive traffic jams, storming the House of Commons et al, the RTS collective - at least its Hull representatives- have an altogether alternative plan of action.

It seems that the cause of civil disobedience is best served by wandering around Prince's Avenue under the watchfully contemptuous gaze of a few rozzers and then adjourning to Pearson's Park for an afternoon of drinking/toking/subjecting defenceless children to the ordeal of having their faces painted. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not more sympathetic to the blood-sports crowd than I am to the Utopian fantasists of RTS; not a bit of it - long may their penny whistles assail the ears of The Man with shrill folksiness. It's just that their somewhat ramshackle organisational skills and lack of a clearly-defined agenda do rather leave them open to a wee bit of ridicule, poor dears.

Which only goes to reinforce what I've already said; it's all down to class. The backbone of the Cuntryside Alliance (my spellchecker tells me I've dropped a clanger here, but I know what I'm doing) is made up of the landed gentry element of society - squires, Earls, Dukes and what have you - and RTS (and many other equally worthy causes), frankly, isn't. And while it's true that these twisted aristo freaks are often a lot less financially secure than the guilt-ridden middle-class liberal types, that, in itself, means the pointy end of fuck-all sharpened.

What they do have - bred into them, it appears - is an arrogance and an assurance in the justness of their perception of themselves as the Leaders of the Nation that is incomprehensible to most of us. It's an attitude that they pick up at public school, I expect; there's probably a class for it - Lording It Over The Peasantry 101 or something. Whatever it is though, it gives these people an invincible sense of superiority over the mass of us.

Continued on www.thisisUll.com...... Here I Go Again, On The Moan continued..

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