A Secret Fuel Tank Appears
Jenson Button is a man who drives cars a lot. After the San Marino grand prix the other day it was discovered his car had a secret second fuel tank...and officials gathered round in a circle and thrashed Button with sticks until he gave them him wallet.
This is all tied up with his car being underweight when drained of fuel, but this is all bad gibberish in a sport that is nothing but a thousand page rulebook growing fatter by the day. As far as I can see the future of Formula One is going to be identical cars driven by clones and raced on giant Scalextric tracks at constant speeds. The winner would be decided by whoever has raised the most sponsorship cash. Trebles all round!
The idea of a secret fuel tank is intriguing, however, and has a future now as a dubious political metaphor. Labour would not have fitted one. Many people suggest that it was in Labour’s interest to play the election as low key as possible, stirring up apathy to prevent any potential protest voting. The last thing they wanted is for the oppositions to whip up the country into a nation of banshees, screaming for Tony Blair at every turn. But the Conservatives were unable to strike any such chords with their shrieking and empty campaign. So Labour could coast to victory; they would not need a reserve fuel supply to keep them going later on with unexpected revelations and promises. Even doddering ex-satirists agree...David Frost said today that William Whitelaw once told him that “the Labour Party is stirring up apathy all over this country.” Nice phrase.
The subject of the war was the Liberal Democrat’s secret fuel tank, and when they began pumping that gas they were able to build on their burgeoning visibility and, along with the serendipitous Goldsmith revelations, were soon tearing down the straight and burning sweet rubber on the trickier corners.
And what of the Conservatives? Well...they ran out of gas after the first couple of weeks and went skidding off into the hay. Even now Michael Howard is being hosed down with water as he throws his helmet to the ground in disgust and self-pity.
Ah, if only the real election had been so arresting.
Hold on, hold on...something doesn’t feel right. We have been nodding and tapping our noses knowingly for weeks now about how this election campaign is a writhing hell of tedium stretched to breaking point by lacklustre campaigning and cynical name-calling. But we are taking this to mean far more than it does, as if a “boring” election means the politicans are failing somehow to campaign properly. What the hell do we expect? The greatest show on earth with fire-breathing monkeys, a glittering parade of celebrities stripping off and a thousand elephants?
The implication we see here is that there have not been spectacles, fights, confrontations. But these things should not be engineered. Bear in mind that both main parties have much in common, a large overlap somewhere around the centre right. It may not be the campaigns themselves but the fact that many aspects of the election feel worn and second hand. The strange rumblings over postal vote fraud feels tiresome because this was the key theme of the US elections. Furthermore the fact that we are on a slow march towards a Labour victory – a predicted tiny majority that last time became a respectable landslide – also bores us. This is hardly a stick with which to beat the parties. And why are we trying to find fault here anyway? Local politicians are campaigning the usual way, whilst the government put out posters and make speeches designed to catch the leering eye of the news. It is not the politics that is creating a vacuum...it is simply where we are today, the confluence of society, media, demographics and recent history.
We have been heading this way for a while. Just as religion in England began to fade in the latter half of the twentieth century, so did the division between right and left. No...that’s not quite right. It is more the way the popular right and left have needed to compromise to achieve success. People no longer consciously place themselves on the left or the right, so the parties have adapted to this more pragmatic frame of mind. Extremism always peters out in the long run.
Or perhaps the attitude conveyed in the popular media has rubbed off on the public...if they say it is boring, we agree. Our perception of the election is generally governed by the media, and so the luxury of their seen-it-all-before ennui becomes our dinner party argument.
Meanwhile, we keep hearing that we should vote to give Blair a bloody nose. Balls. What happened to voting for or against an actual party? If you disagree with how Labour run the country, vote them out. Voting for or against Blair is ridiculous...why vote against Blair despite wanting Labour to stay in? It is nonsense and practically academic since the smart money is on Blair only staying around for a couple more years.
Okay, that’s it. No more sound and fury on the long road left to holler into the void. Another drunken swim across the surface of a strange pond, with no direction and no purpose. I do not care. I was unable to go in any deeper this time because of circumstance. So let us leave it at that. Tomorrow I will be abroad and I would consider it a great favour if I could get to the airport without finding out who won. That shit can wait until next week.
This is all tied up with his car being underweight when drained of fuel, but this is all bad gibberish in a sport that is nothing but a thousand page rulebook growing fatter by the day. As far as I can see the future of Formula One is going to be identical cars driven by clones and raced on giant Scalextric tracks at constant speeds. The winner would be decided by whoever has raised the most sponsorship cash. Trebles all round!
The idea of a secret fuel tank is intriguing, however, and has a future now as a dubious political metaphor. Labour would not have fitted one. Many people suggest that it was in Labour’s interest to play the election as low key as possible, stirring up apathy to prevent any potential protest voting. The last thing they wanted is for the oppositions to whip up the country into a nation of banshees, screaming for Tony Blair at every turn. But the Conservatives were unable to strike any such chords with their shrieking and empty campaign. So Labour could coast to victory; they would not need a reserve fuel supply to keep them going later on with unexpected revelations and promises. Even doddering ex-satirists agree...David Frost said today that William Whitelaw once told him that “the Labour Party is stirring up apathy all over this country.” Nice phrase.
The subject of the war was the Liberal Democrat’s secret fuel tank, and when they began pumping that gas they were able to build on their burgeoning visibility and, along with the serendipitous Goldsmith revelations, were soon tearing down the straight and burning sweet rubber on the trickier corners.
And what of the Conservatives? Well...they ran out of gas after the first couple of weeks and went skidding off into the hay. Even now Michael Howard is being hosed down with water as he throws his helmet to the ground in disgust and self-pity.
Ah, if only the real election had been so arresting.
Hold on, hold on...something doesn’t feel right. We have been nodding and tapping our noses knowingly for weeks now about how this election campaign is a writhing hell of tedium stretched to breaking point by lacklustre campaigning and cynical name-calling. But we are taking this to mean far more than it does, as if a “boring” election means the politicans are failing somehow to campaign properly. What the hell do we expect? The greatest show on earth with fire-breathing monkeys, a glittering parade of celebrities stripping off and a thousand elephants?
The implication we see here is that there have not been spectacles, fights, confrontations. But these things should not be engineered. Bear in mind that both main parties have much in common, a large overlap somewhere around the centre right. It may not be the campaigns themselves but the fact that many aspects of the election feel worn and second hand. The strange rumblings over postal vote fraud feels tiresome because this was the key theme of the US elections. Furthermore the fact that we are on a slow march towards a Labour victory – a predicted tiny majority that last time became a respectable landslide – also bores us. This is hardly a stick with which to beat the parties. And why are we trying to find fault here anyway? Local politicians are campaigning the usual way, whilst the government put out posters and make speeches designed to catch the leering eye of the news. It is not the politics that is creating a vacuum...it is simply where we are today, the confluence of society, media, demographics and recent history.
We have been heading this way for a while. Just as religion in England began to fade in the latter half of the twentieth century, so did the division between right and left. No...that’s not quite right. It is more the way the popular right and left have needed to compromise to achieve success. People no longer consciously place themselves on the left or the right, so the parties have adapted to this more pragmatic frame of mind. Extremism always peters out in the long run.
Or perhaps the attitude conveyed in the popular media has rubbed off on the public...if they say it is boring, we agree. Our perception of the election is generally governed by the media, and so the luxury of their seen-it-all-before ennui becomes our dinner party argument.
Meanwhile, we keep hearing that we should vote to give Blair a bloody nose. Balls. What happened to voting for or against an actual party? If you disagree with how Labour run the country, vote them out. Voting for or against Blair is ridiculous...why vote against Blair despite wanting Labour to stay in? It is nonsense and practically academic since the smart money is on Blair only staying around for a couple more years.
Okay, that’s it. No more sound and fury on the long road left to holler into the void. Another drunken swim across the surface of a strange pond, with no direction and no purpose. I do not care. I was unable to go in any deeper this time because of circumstance. So let us leave it at that. Tomorrow I will be abroad and I would consider it a great favour if I could get to the airport without finding out who won. That shit can wait until next week.
posted by Jamie at 4:29 PM
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