Hands Out Of Pockets

[smokingboot]

This tickled me, particularly after 0:27 when the tune changes.

https://twitter.com/TheToriesOut/status/1506961505597759499

I do wonder where his mother was in all the mess of his life; whether or not there was ever anybody who said: 'Hands out of pockets darling! Don't shuffle your feet!'

BJ: 'But, mother, no-one will talk to me...'

Mother: 'Well no, darling, that's what happens when you tell lies. What was that nonsense about Brexit being like the war in Ukraine? No wonder they won't play with you.'

BJ sticks lip out.

Mother: 'Get that lip in before nanny sets a tea tray on it. Why don't you go and talk to that Jo Biden chap? He seems nice, and they say he can't remember much.'

BJ: (brightens) 'He would be a perfect friend for me!' (darkens) 'But stoopid Macron keeps getting in the way! Stoopid Macron, shaking everybody's hand! Making me look like no-one wants to talk to me!'

Mother: 'In fairness darling, it's not just a look, is it?'

Other people are standing around looking a little hopeless too, it's just that the UK govt spin machine can't stop trying to persuade people that we are leading the way on Ukraine, the endless absurd world-beating trope, the delusion that every nation is gathered around us looking for leadership. It's nice to see it mocked.

Tropes, oh tropes! Here we are living through an ancient cliche, the Time of the Men of Destiny. I suspect that ever since a rock first bounced off a head, a sense of destiny has been the sign of a dangerous ape. Johnson's been obsessed with Churchill all his life. Now Zelenskyy is embodying that whole archetype, the statesman, the orator, the one holding his country together, the leader in the great battle, earning the respect of an applauding world. Doubtless there are things wrong with Zelenskyy, there certainly were with Churchill. But it must be strange for Boris to meet his own fantasy of apotheosis exemplified while he becomes a creature of burlesque, strange to be a bit player in a moment of history so like the one he tiresomely invokes. Johnson is immensely trivial, but vanity and education have given him a strong sense of posterity. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, they say. Here is the hour, and where is he?

'Hands out of pockets darling! Don't shuffle your feet!'

Comments

[benicek]

This UK exceptionalism thing is getting so tired but I see no end in sight. I’m so bored of being told how ‘lucky’ we are to have the NHS, like we struck Saudi-quantities of oil in 1948 or something and now live in some paradise.

[smokingboot]

Oh it is nonsense beyond nonsense. Everything we have is treated like a gift our benign rulers granted us, as opposed to rights we had to demand and insist upon, and work towards, even though that shouldn't have been necessary. The social conditioning in this country is still rampant. Exceptionalism acts as a real buffer for those at the top; the poorest in this country are encouraged to pat themselves on the back for some bizarre illusion of superiority towards those outside the tribe; works like a charm, especially if they then blame those outsiders for undercutting them!

But the world order is changing, and maybe we will change too. BJ is too obvious a buffoon to last, I hope.