The first coming of Prudence the Presbyterian ( or Holy Shit, I was on Newsnight!, News 24, Radio 4, 5 and the Guardian!)
It’s an odd sensation, being (albeit tangentially) within the news rather than merely viewing it, but Wednesday night I was called by Gary, a friend with deep connections to the Labour party; asking if I wanted to go to London on Friday. Frankly I wasn’t in the mood to talk, I was cramming for my Law of Evidence revision and tried to hastily end the conversation, but politeness and curiosity wanted more; it turns out that the nations accountant, Prudence the Presbyterian was announcing her coming out, and would it be possible for us to go up as groupies?
I had promised myself that I’d stop staying in each night like a boring old (young) fart and experience some new things (apropos of which, I’m going skiing for the first time in a few weeks) and this had a strong whiff of the historical to it, so why not, eh? ‘Smart casual’ he said, so when my exam had ended (and I’d had three pints of Guinness) I tried to work out what the hell that meant.
I woke up at 6:45am, (Handy benefit of living literally across from the train station) showered, shaved and realised that it was 7:10, the train was leaving at 7:17, and despite being across the street, I was still stark naked, hungry, thirsty and groggy from sleep. Then the phone rang.
Stumbling shambolically into the station, thrusting my diary, a bottle of water and my now battered copy of I, Claudius into my satchel, I collapsed onto the tickets desk and asked for a ‘single return’ to London. The corpulent woman behind the plexiglass gormlessly stared at me, waiting for the lardy posh-voiced fool to discover his mistake.
Leaping over the barrier I collapse into a rear-facing seat (The Judas’ had taken the front facing ones there and back) and steal Gary’s copy of the Guardian as they pour forensically over the ‘Blair Years’ insert. I’m doing my best to be funny whilst tired and not hurl over the increasingly crowded carriage.
We arrive at 9ish at Charing Cross, the press-conference starting at 10:00 at the Imagination Gallery behind Tottenham Court Road. Knowing the area well but having never heard of the place, we walked from Charing cross past Centrepoint and back and forth along Tottenham Court Road, because Gary had omitted to remember where we were going. At breakneck pace, we found the side-street, and walked into a large police presence, a small gathered mass and some media. Scarily, we strode confidently past the police, and after a security check at the door (Yes, I do look like my drivers licence, but no, that isn’t plastic explosive, it’s suntan lotion) the party faithful (as we would be portraying today) were ushered into what most of the papers described Nuremburg inside a Victorian prison. I can see where they were going, the open five story space held two massive banners, one with a flag-shaped swirl, and the near orgasmic faces of multiethnic children, one a simple white affair with ‘Gordon Brown for Britain’, I’m sure someone at Taaschen would wet themselves if they could see it.
Bad coffee and awkward mingling (Gary being an upandup, mingled with the best of them, several of us hunched into a corner) before being wafted past with the greatest plate of Hors d’eurvres ever. The world’s smallest bacon roll, in a coarse French (or Chibatta) bread, the size of a postage stamp yet enormously tasty. I threw one down me (still no Breakfast, remember) and necked the sour coffee and a biscotti (I should come to these things more often) and we were ushered to the other end of this great hall, where a string cordon penned off the media. As we tried not to look rattled since we were the barrier in between the media throng and the rest of the faithful, fanboyishly we spotted Nick Robinson, Jon Snow and others, trying to get shots of them in our backgrounds without drawing their satirical ire and a caustic mention in the following day’s press.
As we chatted amongst ourselves and met a nice chap from the Fabian society, several more Labour youths, a painfully thin, silver haired chap in a beige flashing mac, which flapped around his body, salaciously (perhaps predatory is a better phrase) beckoned over the nearest person in earshot, that of Steve, but before he could get a soundbyte, a man in a suit came over and told him to back down, giving us a stern look that meant that in no uncertain terms could we speak to the journalists, even if it was to stare in awe at Nick Robinson and ask him how he felt about being so popular that he was being parodied on Dead Ringers et al. (Turns out that our predatory journalist was the Financial Times’ Matthew Engel, and the incident would form a large part of his story here . We were told to make sure that we were ready for 10:00, but at 10:05 I jogged through the throng to ask for the bathroom – up one flight of stairs and behind some double doors, whilst there I noticed that the Gallery is less a gallery, more an industrial design studio for blue chip companies, wondering what relevance that had to the first post-New Labour prime minister.
When I returned, two of our female cohorts were dragged off by a press secretary, who required them to ‘balance a photo’ they were doing. We waited around, a little longer than expected, when suddenly we were given the nod. It was time to celebrate, for he had arrived.
Of course I make this sound as if it was excessively stage-managed, the truth is that the whole event was under-managed, if anything. Had Cam’ron done similar, I’m sure everyone would have been handed out Blackberries which beeped when he was within 15 feet, at which point you would have to bow down and start praying in the general direction of Smythson’s of Bond Street.
Obviously the papers describe this bit better than I do, the young labourites exploded into applause as their soon to be new leader conducted a walking tour, taking a little extra care than expected to speak to the students, some of whom had listened to the instructions of ‘dressing casually, this thing hasn’t been planned or staged, so be natural’ and others making us feel all to underdressed.
When it was our turn (Handshake #1), myself and the person to my immediate left (a pun, surely?) responded ‘Law’ to the question ‘So what are you Studying?’ and with that, his head swiftly moved on to greener pastures. I sense that after the last 28 years working with a Barrister at law for a friend, boss and enemy, we weren’t going to be winning any of Prudence’s Hearts and Minds.
After the tour had ended, we were thrown upstairs, all the time I was wishing I hadn’t been so damn modest and polite and not taken a second bacon roll. My rumbling stomach remained unsated as were told to fill the outside seats of each of the rows in the top area of the Gallery, a roof balcony which had been converted using a similar canvas as on the Millennium dome, all steel wire, canvas and glass. As we sat down as edge fillers, directly in the line of sight of the cameras, we enjoyed the cool breeze from the open French windows and watched the secret service bods wander around (I wonder if those are as similarly talented as the ones at HQ, or if you have to be especially clever / stupid to be asked to take a bullet for a head of state). Then more party faithful were ushered in to the seating area, before the Journalists were pushed at the back (Look! There’s Michael Crick!). Then arrived Gordon and whump, we applauded.
Having been an avid fan of the E Network during the first year we had Sky, I was aware at how awful photographers can be, pushing, shoving and punching their competition out of the way in order to get the best shot, so whilst Gordon delivered his speech I spent most of the time watching out of the corner of my eye the running battle between the UK’s Stars in Your Eyes, Stavros winner 1989 – 1994, the hairest man you will ever see (and BO to match) and a thin looking man who seemed to be far too aristocratic for such a lowly job, working for Getty images (How did I know? The logo was all over his lens). I spent some of it imagining them all getting down the stairs and tripping each other over as the first one to an internet terminal / blackberry would win the £1000 prize, leaving the rest in the dust.
As the speech and questions ended (Which Prudence handled with aplomb, delivering a two hander of pre-written soundbyte first, personal answer second, never before have I seen a politican end his scripted avoidance of the truth, only to come back with a direct statement). Again we got to see the various cool cabal of journos, accompanied by much head creaking to get the best view of John Snow. That’s two Channel 4 news peeps I’ve been in the same room as now, it’s just Krishnan Guru-Murphy left and I have the set (Sod Sarah Smith, who the hell watches anything before the Daily Show on More 4?)
The heat was appalling, the security people had closed the French doors before Prudence had arrived, and I was slowly evaporating there. Gah.
As we left, we were given the nod to stand and ovate once again (Actually not something that was needed really, he did a good show and deserved some praise, but the Journos suggested we had treated him like a messianic figure. I know I wans’t, merely delivering credit where it’s due.), and he came down to shake all of the specially placed student’s hands (Handshake #2) and depart, whilst we all tried to squeeze out whilst a mini riot between photographers had broken out. Of course as we exited, we were accosted by someone from ‘The World at One’ from Radio 4, asking us for questions on Brown. Despite a zealous trend and a want to be in the spotlight, when a microphone was pointed in my face my brain shut down, I was pleasantly surprised that what came out of my mouth not only made it to air but also wasn’t utter gibberish.
As we left we were handed a copy of the speech by a stunning girl I forget the name of, and exited the building. We walked out into a wide media parapet (cameras and photogs lined up ready for the exit of Prudence) and sheepishly inched past them, wondering if we were slow enough, we’d wind up on the live coverage in a slow news second. We tucked ourselves behind the cameras in order to see the exit, our part over.
Or so it seemed, as we discussed what went on, a chap from the Guardian came over and asked us for our thoughts. Three of us provided quotes, none of which wound up in the paper proper, but I suppose you have to try. I received a text message telling me I had been visible on News 24 during the broadcast, which was cool, and I’d receive one at Midnight that night telling me I’d been on Newsnight too.
As we spoke to the Guardian journalist, Gary received a phone call. ‘Where are we? We’re behind the media parapet!’. Whoever was on the other side of the phone spoke in hurried tones, pleading with us to get back inside. We edged past the policeman, hoping confidence and brazenness would avoid a showdown, and walked past the photographers and cameras we’d edged barely minutes before, and walked into a side door.
I hasten to add here, that by this point, the outside of the Gallery’s driveway was surrounded by public and media. Walking across this meant that every eye was on us. Which didn’t bode well for what was to come. We went into the door on the left of the main entrance were greeted by a handler, who told us that our part was certainly not over, and that after we had dropped our bags off, we were to exit the front entrance (as casually as nothing had happened, hopefully the cameramen and assorted media types had the memories of Goldfish) and line up on the way from the Door to the car (an Audi, how tasteless). I was second in line and was told that when I got an elbow to the kidney, begin to clap.
Prudence came close to the door, elbow was made, I began to clap. Prudence dashed back to speak to someone else. Clap had to be ‘transformed’ into a way of me keeping my hands warm during the chill. In the middle of a bright summers day with the sun beating down on us.
Second time, happens again, this time I have to disguise it with the pretence of a trapped nerve. I’m an awful mime and am fooling no-one. I’m aware that because I am only following orders, I feel morally content, but am aware that as the man in front of all of the cameras, all eyes are on the clapping moron.
That, I am sure, is a metaphor for Politics in general.
Third time, Prudence does emerge, but is met with initially lacklustre clapping because everyone expects a false start, but he and his wife emerges, (Handshake #3) and after a short ‘Good luck’ and a thousand cameras on us, he does the round.
Many things are going through my head. I’ve had three (not one, not two but THREE) chances to speak to the next man to run the country and yet at no point did I ask him any of the things I wanted to. It’s the scene in Taxi driver where he’s about to kill the Senator, but something stops him. At every turn, ‘Give us a job!’ , ‘Hey, why don’t you repeal the Liz Longhurst law?’. ‘Stop fucking up the legal services!’, ‘ID Cards are flawed’ ‘Why don’t you sort out the NHS properly’ and ‘OI! STOP PERSECUTING FAT PEOPLE AS IF WE ARE THE SOLE PARIAH OF SOCIETY’S ILLS’ were on the tip of my tongue, and something stopped me as it had done clipping my local MP with my wing mirror during a driving lesson because he had voted for Tuition Fees, the bastard.
We went back inside to a handshake from Jack Straw and a short chat, before we were on our way to find some food, I didn’t know about anyone else, but I was close to vomiting across several important politicians for the entire morning. As we walked down toward Leicester Square, a hari Krishna followed us (the general throng, not us specifically) banging his tiny cymbals between his fingers every three seconds (I can’t remember what they are properly called but I remember being told to use them ad nauseum in GCSE music) and as we were walking, the sun blotting out my eyesight, a tall man with glasses blotted out the view long enough for me to realise I’d just walked past Danny Boyle. Meeting Prudence was nothing to walking past the man who had directed two of the best films of the last decade. Because I’m aware that this was London, you have to be slightly more restrained, because these people are living breathing people who have jobs (BRILLIANT ONES!) and put their trousers on, one leg at a time. So I didn’t chase after him and offer him a blow job for Sunshine, (2001 for the 2001 generation, if you’ve not seen it, you are missing out), but I couldn’t restrain myself from exploding ‘Fucking hell! That was Danny Boyle!’.
Interestingly, this theory was proved true when my Girlfriend who was in London the next day saw Stephen Fry at Borough Market and get very irritated at a couple who wished to speak to him, and it’s good practice for when I move there next year. Don’t talk to celebs.
We got the train back, and fatigue began to weigh down upon us all, very little food and the early start (lest I not tell you, I had a hangover in the morning as well) and so I collapsed into the train seat and lolled about until we got back home.
All in all, a fairly interesting day.
