Buon Viaggio!

Well, I have been neglecting you recently - unfortunately I've been rather busy. As well as having to work for a living (how rude is that?) I've also been entertaining the Red Army in my apartment. They're a rowdy bunch - they don't eat much, but by god, do they drink! The man down at the bottle bank has given me a season ticket now. I had to throw them out in the end (the Red Army, that is, not the bottles).

Then, I spent the whole of Saturday stage-managing the fabulous 'Star Factor' show which was exhausting, but huge fun. Everyone enjoyed the most spectacular display of son et lumiere and some really enthusiastic singing (yes, there is a euphamism in there). Anyway, the evening was a huge success and we succeeded in raising almost £3,000 for cherry-tee.

Can't write more, dear reader, as I'm about to leave for Italy. We're going to my nephew's wedding which should be a most elegant and joyous occasion. Luckily, the entire family is gathering on the shores of Lake Garda which hopefully might put my Great Aunt Dolores (with whom I'm travelling) on slightly better behaviour than usual. She's always a bit quiet when presented with members of (as she calls it) the 'better side of the family'. I still don't think it will stop her from slipping a Mickey Finn to the priest and trying to look under his cassock. Her usual trick, when in the company of men of a religious bent.

Full report on my return. Arrivederci!

It's Our Fault, Of Course

What happened to the revolution? Only a couple of weeks ago the entire British public seemed to be baying for the blood of our dearly-beloved elected leaders. By the way that the audience of BBC's Question Time was behaving towards the spluttering apologists on the panel – with sneers and jibes and angry, derisive barracking – one could be forgiven for assuming that the mood in the country was one of such fury and such scepticism, that a proletarian uprising was only just around the corner.

But what happened instead? Well, who knows what happened? The mutiny collapsed just as quickly as it had inflated itself. Within days of the howling masses threatening to tear down the vaulted walls of St James's Palace, everything went silent. Now, two weeks later, do you hear the bellowing of the enraged mob when you stand by the photocopier? Do you witness the clamouring masses, armed with pitchforks, heatedly calling for justice in the saloon bar of your local pub? No, you don't. And why is this?

Well, this is because of a lot of things. It could be that we have been told that the recession may be over; it might be that we have anguished over the tragedy of the doomed Air France flight; perhaps it's because we have rejoiced in the somewhat ridiculous fact that our brave boys managed a spectacular win over a football team from a small town in Hampshire (England 6, Andover 0); or is it because we have basked in the early summer sunshine which has presented to us many a burnt shoulder or a reddened cleavage? Can any of these events have caused us to dilute our revolutionary fervour? Well, maybe – but there was something far, far worse that probably caused us to back gingerly away from the barricades with our tails between our legs. Something that frightened us into submission in a way that we foolishly hadn't seen coming.

Thinking that we could give old jowl-features Brown a good old-fashioned "British bloody nose", we accidentally (in our smugness) elected two BNP monsters to the European Parliament. Oops – we suddenly realized that we had inadvertently let Jack out of the Box; we'd let the Genie out of the bottle. Far from the us being merely subdued in our revolution by some good news (or even by Gordon's bullying of the Parliamentary Labour Party), the appalling realization that we had unwittingly unleashed the Bogeyman, stunned us to retreat rather speedily from the brink of the abyss.

The irony of this situation is that the very institution that we always thought would save us – our Great British Democracy – had failed us. We have been shocked rigid by this aberration of our shallow attempts to bring down the system, and like the defeated cur that we are, we have slunk back into our dismal lair and in our subservience, are pathetically licking our seeping wounds. How pleased Gordon must be.

Like A Circle In A Spiral

Oh dear, blogging seems to have gone out of the window for a while. There's just too much to do, and now that I'm a fully-paid-up member of the working classes, so little time in which to do it. I have an ever-growing 'to-do' list which fails dismally in its efforts to reduce itself. I've taken to adding things like "Empty the bins" or "Get drunk" or even "Go to bed", just so that there's at least something I can cross off in the mornings and so that I get at least some sense of achievement. But it's not very fulfilling doing that – it's just like my dear mother always used to tell me when I was at school: "If you cheat in your exams son, you're only cheating yourself." So I never did.

This reminds me of a time when my Great-Aunt Dolores (she who was run down by a lorry and yet survived, and who later took up playing the xylophone) made me spend a summer with her in Paris. She'd been in a disastrous run at the Comédie-Française playing the lead role in Racine's Phaedre. It was nothing short of vanity acting – she'd paid for the production herself so that she could take the title role – and believe me, she was no Sarah Bernhardt. Her performance was laughable really, and the only reason that nobody ever told her that was because she bribed everyone to say that she was good. She'd have been better off at Les Folies Bergères where at least people could have laughed at her without guilt.

However, as a result of her efforts, we were invited everywhere that summer. Dinners and soirées in all the best places in town. We met everyone from presidents to pop stars, from divas to whores, and it was an endless round of champagne, caviar and les huîtres. One day, when there was no matinée at La Comédie, I suggested to my great aunt that we should take a trip out to the Bois de Boulogne and enjoy some sunshine. "Don't be ridiculous, boy," she said as she slapped me round the head with her bone-handled parapluie, "we don't even have time to fart today, let alone piss around in some fancy park. Now get your skates on, we're expected for tea at La Contessa di Cenapesce's hotel in an hour. I'm trying to set you up with her daughter – ugly as fuck, but loaded. Though knowing you, you wimp, you'd probably prefer her footman. I'll never get you married off at this rate."

I was exhausted by the whole thing, I can tell you. I've never been much of a party-goer anyway, and this interminable circus of salons and suppers at Maxim's was taking its toll. To be honest, it was harder work than when Dolores and I walked the Pilgrim's Way to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. Even though she insisted that I crawl the last half a mile on my hands and knees while she beat me with a donkey stick ("Good for your soul, boy"), I still preferred that simple trip to having to dress up and be polite to the glitterati of Paris.

However, I had the last laugh that year. Oh yes - La Contessa di Cenapesce's daughter turned out to be her son, in drag! Was Great-Aunt Dolores's face red then!

Ah, Madame!

It's strange how life goes, don't you think? I have these very well-meaning intentions to behave myself and have early nights and not go out on the town etc., and then it all goes wrong when I receive more invitations than I can cope with. Tonight I went to this year's launch of the Nottingham Creative Business Awards. You will remember that two years ago we (The Nottingham Writers' Studio, that is) were runners-up n these awards, and we're still debating whether to enter the competition this year. Notwithstanding that, I decided to attend this evening's launch party – after all, there was lots of free booze and food in the glittering and palatial ballroom of Nottingham City's Council House.

But what of the morality of all this? While there are people living on the breadline in this city; people who struggle even to feed their children or to pay their rent or rates – we, in our privileged position of Arts Council grants and other nefarious funding; we, with our well-paid jobs and extravagant dividends from the shares that we hold – we don't even have to pay for our drinks when we turn up for parties like this. It does seem to me that there is something inequitable about this arrangement, but the shaming thing about it is that we forget that simple fact when someone offers to top up our glass, or force upon us another mini-quiche or stick of satay. I almost feel like a sleazy MP.

But then again, I pay my own rent; I pay my own Council Tax, electricity & gas charges. I pay for my own food, my own accountant's bills, AND I pay for my own charity donations (whether given in church or not). I don't expect – or receive – state reimbursement for any such items. So although I do sometimes stuff my snout in the trough, I pay my way too. I've always done that – unlike our present politicians who only seem to feather their own nests without any regard for public accountability.

What pisses me off is this: These people who are now resigning from their self-indulgent sinecures are bleating that these latest revelations are damaging their health and their families?? They should have thought of that before they began to stick their fat engorged tongues into the bowl of soured cream. The most annoying thing about all of this is that for the likes of Jacqui Smith (and the odious – truly loathsome – Patricia Hewitt), they'll skulk away from Parliament into some hugely remunerative directorship of an equally grasping and excessive sort.

Yep, I think it's time for a revolution – but please, just because of my little party tonight, don't put me in the tumbrils first!