Gotham Diary:
D & D
7 May 2013
Iain Sinclair in the LRB, catching glimpses of a recent state funeral whilst tootling about the mouth of the Thames:
Rarely can such an Alice in Wonderland charivari of local stereotypes have been assembled, some of them (like Dave and Samantha Cameron) quite obviously having a good time, with smiles and quips and cute photo-op hand-holding. The front rows were a woodpeckerish blizzard of Judas kisses, blood enemies forced to prod stiff lips towards cold cheeks. Toothless foxes sniffing at dead chickens. They were all there: from the well-rehearsed formaldehyde rigidity of senior royalty to the public faces of smug and comfortably suited former cabinet colleagues, along to be sure she was really in the box. To broken bullies blinking back tears under an unruly thatch of eyebrow. To the shameless court of right-opinionated entertainers still at large. To ennobled perjurers, medal-snaffling athletes, arms dealers, coup plotters, financial bagmen, wounded veterans, and such morally compromised foreign dignitaries as could be persuaded to take a mini-break to springtime London.
Too bad the lot of them weren’t in the box. It will be a long time before the embarrassment of Thatcher’s funeral will be entirely forgotten. I should have counted on British self-restraint to prevent such an orgy of unmerited respect, but then the Iron Lady emerged from the American Zone — the suburbs — and raised up others of her type. In the suburbs, everyone comes from anywhere, and the past is of no interest or account unless it is scandalous. Itching with suburban ambition (the most hypocritical form of discontent), anyone with enough push can become the leader of something that involves overseeing the unimportant people who do not live in the suburbs. Lead the right thing, and you may get to oversee a war effort, and nowadays, with leaders of all types ensconced in a grand bubble in which other leaders are the only company, war is as entrepreneurial as advertising. It offers the opportunity to succeed in an exciting venture — however ignoble. And a woman, properly coiffed and gowned, will trail the scent of virtue and rectitude in a triumph of cosmetics that no bemedaled field marshal could hope to equal.
To bury Thatcher as a military hero was to celebrate an undeniably pathetic disgrace. One can only hope that Britain’s fight to retain possession of the Falklands was the dying gasp of native jingoism. Perhaps the misbegotten honors of a state funteral were a necessary distraction from the much larger horror of Thatcher’s anti-political régime.
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Further thoughts about democracy and voting — if democracy is the least-bad political system, then voting for the least-bad candidate ought to be the objective, good enough to motivate every voter — are blunted by the prospect of an afternoon of dentistry and doctoring. Such fun. What shall I read during the Remicade infusion? I wish the new book about the Profumo affair had arrived; it’s due any day. Watch: it will arrive this afternoon. Just as the new bench for the balcony arrived yesterday, and completely without fuss. I’d been told, by an email from the seller, that I would be taking delivery of the crate “curbside,” and I was not looking forward to loitering near the service entrance waiting for “an eighteen-wheeler” to squeeze down along 87th Street. When I called to make arrangements with the freight dispatcher, I was told, in a lilting brogue, that the bench had already been delivered, and, sure enough, there it was, in the package room. Now, thanks to Ray Soleil’s flying visit, it’s in place on the balcony, awaiting only cushions and warmer weather to couch Kathleen’s weekend naps.