This past few days has seen women march in almost every country on the planet. These marches were barely even days after President Trump’s inauguration. And yes, I understand that I am from the same stupid country that voted for Brexit, but I still didn’t believe that the American people would want this man as their president.
I am aware, of course, that he did not win the popular vote, which gladdens me to a degree. Even so, it was still a close margin and still culminated in the same sticky end.
I lent my voice on twitter, stating my support of the women marching. I did not march, but not because I wouldn’t have.
I’ve sent an email query or two today. This is after receiving an email rejection from an agent. As much as this isn’t what I wanted, I am glad that the literary agent in question got back to me as quickly as she did. In fact, I’m just glad that she got back to me. I appreciate that agents are busy people and that they might not be able to get back to everyone, but sometimes just the impersonal rejection letters are appreciated. After all, that means they’ve definitely looked at it and that it hasn’t somehow been missed and overlooked. That’s perhaps one of the things I worry about most. I also feel bad for those people who are rejected just because they have no idea how to write a proper query letter. I admit that I was one of them and without joining twitter and following agents and writers I would still have absolutely no idea. I also admit that I’m terrible at writing letters. I always spend time worrying how I come across in them. With snail mail, this worrying is prolonged. At least with email, I have the chance to redeem myself quickly with a response and an apology for my cackhanded (this means dreadful and is probably a colloquialism) approach.
On another note, the computer mouse is aptly named. One of my cats, Baby (he’s a boy despite his name), enjoys watching the mouse on the screen. It’s quite amusing. He likes to follow it with his eyes. He’s very much a laptop cat. Sometimes he even sits with his paws on the touch pad and watches the mouse move as he moves his paws. He also likes youtube videos of other cats.
I must also apologise to the readers of this blog. I am aware that I have gotten slightly carried away with the political things going on in the country at the moment. That’s mostly because nobody seems to know what the hell is going on. Even the politicians are stumped. Still, I promised a new flash fiction piece and I shall certainly be writing one soon. My intentions were to write one before now, but I have regrettably been quite busy. I started writing Absolute Power and I am getting rather excited about it. Absolute Power is a critical book in regards to the series. Lots of things are due to happen in this book and I am going to relish them all.
(Lyrics in the title are from Paranoid Android by Radiohead… but I prefer Sia Furler’s version)
Conservatives or Lib Dems? That seems to be pretty much the only two of the three large parties left. My friend, Natalie Powell, put it perhaps more aptly, “The only way Labour could win now is if Gordon was assassinated.”
Basically, I got downstairs to find my dad laughing, today. He told me that Gordon Brown (that’s our current Prime Minister and Labour leader) had shot himself in the foot. Now. my dad is a pretty big Labour supporter, so for him to say that is a huge thing. We argue about politics a lot. He’s one of the reasons why I said I wasn’t going to vote. I get bored of the arguments. To be perfectly honest, this has made me want to vote, though. And I’m pretty sure that vote will be for David Cameron (Conservative leader). Not only will this irritate my dad quite a lot, but I’ve been leaning that way a long time. I don’t care what the Conservatives did in the past and quite frankly I don’t think they did that badly anyway. It’s what they’ll do now that bothers me.
Anyway, to return to the story…
Gordon Brown was doing his campaign thing and got into a discussion with this old woman, Gillian Duffy (a 66 year old widow). If I’m completely honest, she seemed like one of those fairly bossy types that’s used to telling people what to do and getting her own way. Either way, I wouldn’t have described her as the Prime Minister did. He was perfectly kind to her on the street. He answered her questions and even managed to convince her to vote Labour again (she was a lifelong Labour supporter) and then he got into his car. This is where the trouble started for Mr Brown. As much as it also makes me laugh at the fact that it really is a huge fail totally worthy of the ‘ph’ spelling that you normally only give to noobs on forums, it is actually quite serious in the grand scheme of things for Mr Brown.
He forgot that he was wearing his microphone.
If you’re in a political campaign and you forget you’re wearing a microphone: it is not a good thing… especially when you make the remarks that Gordon has made. This a transcript: “That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It’s just ridiculous…” He gets asked what she’d said. “Ugh everything! She’s just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour. I mean it’s just ridiculous. I don’t know why Sue brought her up towards me.” You don’t have to believe what I’ve written, though, because there’s a youtube video below which shows the moment that it was played back to him on the BBC’s radio show. You can even see him put his head in his hands and I bet you he wanted to groan something along the lines of, “Oh god…”
He called the woman to apologise (this was probably around the time that I was watching an interview with Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, on his thoughts about the matter – he seemed pretty amused but as if he was trying to be serious). She’d said she wouldn’t vote for anybody after hearing his remarks in the car about her. Of course, the apology over the phone didn’t work so he turned up at her house and stayed inside for 45 minutes. My friend commented that the old woman had probably knifed him or similar. At one point I said that he was coming out, then tried to rectify that in case she thought I meant he was gay whilst she asked whether he was alive or in a body bag. As you may realise, this has caused us intense amusement.
Gordon Brown came out of the house smiling and said that he’d apologised, was ‘penitent’, she’d accepted and then he practically ran away. It was quite funny. I’ve personally never seen him move so fast. Shortly afterwards, one of the Labour press officers came outside and told the reporters that Mrs Duffy wanted them off her driveway and that she’d said she wasn’t going to talk to them. The press asked him if she’d accepted Gordon Brown’s apology and the guy said he didn’t know.
Anyway, this is my amusement for the day. Feel free to tell me what your views are.