God, was it really awful?'
'Let's just say I was all for putting a pencil between your teeth, stop you biting your tongue off.'
I laugh self-deprecatingly, and shake my head, in an I'm mad-me kind of way, but she doesn't smile so I say, 'You know, life's taught me two things; Number One is don't dance when you're drunk!!!' ...silence ...'Actually, I wondered if I could take a leaflet?'
She looks at me quizzically, intrigued by my hidden depths.
'You're sure I wouldn't just be wasting paper?'
'Absolutely not.'
'So are you already a member of any political parties?'
'Oh, you know. CND!'
'That's not a political party.'
'So you don't think defence policy is a political issue?' I say, enjoying how it sounds.
'Politics is economics, pure and simple. Single-issue groups, pressure groups like CND or Greenpeace, have an important and valid role to play, but saying that whales are big and nice, or a nuclear holocaust is nasty, is not a political stance, it's a truism. Besides, in a true socialist state the military would be disenfranchised automatically . . .'
'Like it is in Russia?' I say.
A-ha!
'Russia isn't truly socialist.'
Oh...
'Or Cuba?' I say.
Touche!
'Yes, if you like. Like in Cuba.'
Urn...
'Oh, so I suppose Cuba doesn't have an army then?' I say.
Nice recovery.
'Not really, none to speak of, not in terms of Gross National Product. Six per cent of tax is spent on defence in Cuba, compared to forty per cent in the USA.' She must be making this stuff up. Not even Castro knows this stuff. 'If it wasn't under constant threat from the USA it wouldn't even need to spend the six per cent. Or do you lie awake at night and worry about being invaded by Cuba?'
It seems a bit too school-playground to accuse her of making stuff up, so I just say, 'So do I get a leaflet or what?' and grudgingly she hands me one.
'If it's too outspoken for you, the Labour Party's over there. Or you could just go the whole hog and join the Tories.'
She says it like a slap, and it takes me a moment to take it in, and then while I'm thinking of what to say, she turns her back on me, just turns around and carries on handing out leaflets. I want to put my hand on her shoulder, spin her round and say 'Don't turn your back on me, you prissy, bigoted, self-righteous little cow, because my dad's job actually killed him, more or less, so don't lecture me about Cuba, because I've got a better sense of fucking social injustice in my little finger than you and your whole gang of bourgeois, art-school boyfriends have got in your whole complacent, smug self-satisfied bodies.' And I almost say it, I really do, but in the end what I choose to say is, 'Of course you do realise that if you shortened your name, you could just become SocSoc!'
She turns to me, quite slowly, narrows her eyes and says 'Look. If you're really committed and passionate about opposing what Thatcher's doing to the country, then you should come along. If on the other hand you're just interested in making a whole load of sixth-form jokes and banal comments, then I think we can probably manage without you, thanks very much.'
She's right, of course. Why do I always sound facetious and unconvincing when I talk about politics? I don't feel ironic about it. I think about trying to convey this to her, just by having a proper intelligent adult conversation, but a skirmish has broken out between one of the skinny boys in black denim and someone from Class War, so I think better of it, and move on.
QUESTION: Devised by the German psychologist William Stern, what controversial measurement was originally defined as the ratio of a person's mental age to his physical age, multiplied by 100?
ANSWER: IQ.
I walk back upstairs to Meeting Room 6, where a tall, fair man is setting out tables and chairs in exam formation, thirty or so, with an air of bureaucratic officiousness. He's clearly a lot older than me, twenty-one or twenty-two or something, tall and fit in an official burgundy university
'Let's just say I was all for putting a pencil between your teeth, stop you biting your tongue off.'
I laugh self-deprecatingly, and shake my head, in an I'm mad-me kind of way, but she doesn't smile so I say, 'You know, life's taught me two things; Number One is don't dance when you're drunk!!!' ...silence ...'Actually, I wondered if I could take a leaflet?'
She looks at me quizzically, intrigued by my hidden depths.
'You're sure I wouldn't just be wasting paper?'
'Absolutely not.'
'So are you already a member of any political parties?'
'Oh, you know. CND!'
'That's not a political party.'
'So you don't think defence policy is a political issue?' I say, enjoying how it sounds.
'Politics is economics, pure and simple. Single-issue groups, pressure groups like CND or Greenpeace, have an important and valid role to play, but saying that whales are big and nice, or a nuclear holocaust is nasty, is not a political stance, it's a truism. Besides, in a true socialist state the military would be disenfranchised automatically . . .'
'Like it is in Russia?' I say.
A-ha!
'Russia isn't truly socialist.'
Oh...
'Or Cuba?' I say.
Touche!
'Yes, if you like. Like in Cuba.'
Urn...
'Oh, so I suppose Cuba doesn't have an army then?' I say.
Nice recovery.
'Not really, none to speak of, not in terms of Gross National Product. Six per cent of tax is spent on defence in Cuba, compared to forty per cent in the USA.' She must be making this stuff up. Not even Castro knows this stuff. 'If it wasn't under constant threat from the USA it wouldn't even need to spend the six per cent. Or do you lie awake at night and worry about being invaded by Cuba?'
It seems a bit too school-playground to accuse her of making stuff up, so I just say, 'So do I get a leaflet or what?' and grudgingly she hands me one.
'If it's too outspoken for you, the Labour Party's over there. Or you could just go the whole hog and join the Tories.'
She says it like a slap, and it takes me a moment to take it in, and then while I'm thinking of what to say, she turns her back on me, just turns around and carries on handing out leaflets. I want to put my hand on her shoulder, spin her round and say 'Don't turn your back on me, you prissy, bigoted, self-righteous little cow, because my dad's job actually killed him, more or less, so don't lecture me about Cuba, because I've got a better sense of fucking social injustice in my little finger than you and your whole gang of bourgeois, art-school boyfriends have got in your whole complacent, smug self-satisfied bodies.' And I almost say it, I really do, but in the end what I choose to say is, 'Of course you do realise that if you shortened your name, you could just become SocSoc!'
She turns to me, quite slowly, narrows her eyes and says 'Look. If you're really committed and passionate about opposing what Thatcher's doing to the country, then you should come along. If on the other hand you're just interested in making a whole load of sixth-form jokes and banal comments, then I think we can probably manage without you, thanks very much.'
She's right, of course. Why do I always sound facetious and unconvincing when I talk about politics? I don't feel ironic about it. I think about trying to convey this to her, just by having a proper intelligent adult conversation, but a skirmish has broken out between one of the skinny boys in black denim and someone from Class War, so I think better of it, and move on.
QUESTION: Devised by the German psychologist William Stern, what controversial measurement was originally defined as the ratio of a person's mental age to his physical age, multiplied by 100?
ANSWER: IQ.
I walk back upstairs to Meeting Room 6, where a tall, fair man is setting out tables and chairs in exam formation, thirty or so, with an air of bureaucratic officiousness. He's clearly a lot older than me, twenty-one or twenty-two or something, tall and fit in an official burgundy university
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