Monday
Finally back home after two weeks of living out of a suitcase in hotel rooms in Manchester and Liverpool. I find the party conference season exhausting. God knows how those who drink and spend their evenings going from reception to reception cope. I much prefer to spend my downtime having a meal out with colleagues. The Labour conference was understandably overshadowed by the atrocities in Israel and Gaza but Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were well received both in the main hall and by the media in general. Everyone was very careful not to take things for granted – calling Starmer “the next prime minister” was banned – but it did feel as if we were watching a government in waiting. The Conservative conference meanwhile was glorious chaos. Almost as much of a shitshow as the previous year when Liz Truss was prime minister. The main auditorium had to be moved to a side room as they couldn’t be sure of getting the numbers. On the first afternoon there were barely 200 in the hall for the opening speeches from cabinet ministers. And those that did go wondered why they had bothered. Most of the action was taking place on the fringes where dozens of Tories were launching their leadership bids for when Rishi Sunak loses the election. The biggest queue was for Truss, who seemed to think that what she had got wrong was to not cut taxes further. Then we had Suella Braverman talking about a “hurricane” of refugees. The Conservatives seem to be on a death march to the far right. It was also touch and go whether I would be allowed into Sunak’s speech, despite the convention that sketchwriters are always admitted. The Tory press office initially insisted the Guardian could only have one space, which was reserved for political editor, Pippa Crerar. And no I couldn’t use her ticket. I was not welcome. It was only after I made a fuss on Twitter – now known as X – that I was allowed in. And yes, there were plenty of seats. O brave new world.
Tuesday
Who would have guessed that cuts to the criminal justice system might have consequences? Back in 2019, the then justice secretary David Gauke proposed fewer criminals receive short-term prison sentences on the grounds that most of those who were banged up went on to reoffend. Gauke resigned five days later and, to the delight of the Tory right, Boris Johnson reversed the decision. Now Alex Chalk has had to do a U-turn on the U-turn. Not because he was suddenly persuaded that rehabilitation of offenders was best done outside prison but because the prisons are full and falling to bits. He is also considering the possibility of paying to send some offenders to prisons abroad. Presumably not to Scandinavia where prisoners are treated well, but to countries with dubious human rights records. One person who might consider himself lucky to avoid spending time in the nick is the former Formula 1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone, who last week pleaded guilty to a £400m tax fraud. In return, he was given a 17 month suspended sentence. I may be missing something, but this sounds quite the deal. One that could almost tempt the law-abiding into a life of white collar crime. For it suggests, on a pro rata basis, that for every £785,000 of any fraud you can only expect a one-day suspended sentence. Which doesn’t sound like a great deterrent. Hell, I’d almost be tempted to go big and double up for a £1.5m fraud and risk a two-day sentence. It would sort my pension worries out at a stroke. So if any readers have any too-good-to-be-true Ponzi schemes they need help running, give me a shout. I’m all ears.
Wednesday
It was about this time last year that Pete started to feel unwell. Initially he thought it might be the side effects of a new diabetes medication but his symptoms persisted. The doctor sent him for an X-ray which showed potential lung cancer. It wasn’t. It was worse than that. A subsequent scan revealed stage four inoperable pancreatic cancer. Pete never moaned about why him. He just got on with the hand he had been dealt. He started chemo but after six sessions the doctors concluded it was having no effect on the cancer so he stopped and decided to let the disease take its natural course. Pete was a very special man, not just to his wonderful wife Jill but to the many of us who were lucky enough to count him as a friend. I got to know him through our mutual support for Spurs, though he made me look like something of a part-timer. He would go to youth games, organised walking tours around Tottenham and served on the supporters trust board. We would often meet before games and go to away games together. Our most chaotic trip was to see Spurs play Juventus in the Champions League. There were no direct flights to Turin so – for reasons which now escape me – we decided to fly to Nice and hire a car. Spurs went 2-0 down inside the first 10 minutes and it looked as if it was going to be the usual shambles but somehow we clawed it back to 2-2. We were both ecstatic. So much so that I bought the last half and half scarf on sale outside the ground at the end of the game. Pete was horrified. He thought half and halfs were a crime against humanity. We drove back through the snow and at about 3 in the morning arrived at Nice airport where we both fell asleep in the car before getting an early flight home. Mad. No way for men in their 60s to behave. I last saw Pete in early August when several of us visited him at his home near Stevenage. He was in a hospital bed and heavily sedated but seemed pleased to see us as we watched Spurs v Brentford together. Pete died a couple of weeks ago. I miss him. It feels as if my life has just got smaller.
Thursday
Amazon have announced that they will be making some Christmas deliveries by drone. I only hope they haven’t chosen my bit of Tooting for the experiment. Because I can confidently predict things are almost certain to go wrong. Let’s just assume for now – almost certainly wrongly – that the GPS data is entirely correct and that the drones can be programmed never to deliver to the wrong address. Good luck if you are living on the second floor of a tower block. Now let’s imagine that the drone is hovering above my house waiting to deliver a package. Good luck with flying in, because the whole of the front garden is covered in a mass of tropical vegetation. Palm trees, large ferns and loads of giant banana leaves. It would be simply impossible for a drone to fight its way through without hacking a path. So what is it going to do? Just drop it from a height of about 20 feet and hope for the best? I guess I may or may not find it somewhere in the front garden. But we live and hope. So now let’s assume I have cleared part of the garden to create a drone flight path to the front door. Will the drone be able to read the note I’ve left saying I won’t be in and can Amazon leave the delivery behind the green wheelie bins? And will the drone come with little arms that can move the bins so it can fulfil my request? Because if the drone can’t do all these necessary tasks, I’d rather suggest it would save a lot of potential problems to not have someone programming and flying the drone and give that person a van to make the deliveries in person. God, I hate myself sometimes. I’m becoming Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells who can’t engage with the modern world. But we are where we are.
Friday
I’m going to a party tomorrow. A very unusual party. The kind to which most people will never be invited. It’s a party for the Class of 83. A very select and statistically improbable class. A party being given by five people who came into recovery in 1983 and have remained free from drugs and alcohol ever since. Forty years clean. What a stunning achievement that is. Lives transformed. I should add that I am not one of the Class of 83. I did not get to Narcotics Anonymous until 1987. I can still remember my first ever meeting. It was genuinely transformative. I had never before met addicts who had been able to come off drugs and stay off them. That had always seemed like an impossibility. Yet here they were laughing, crying, being human and living unmedicated. Telling stories similar to mine. I was not alone. The feeling of relief, of finding a home was overwhelming. Almost certainly, one or more of the five people throwing the party tomorrow was at that meeting. It was one of the largest meetings of the week at a time when there weren’t that many in London. NA was only seven years old in the UK at that time and it was still possible to know almost everyone who attended meetings regularly. Old-timers – that was anyone more that two or three years clean – generally had acquired nicknames. So that Class of 83 were my heroes. My gods. People who had achieved the unachievable of staying clean for four years. They were my inspiration. They kept me clean. One even took me in and allowed me to stay with him when I had nowhere to live. I owe them all so much. I never imagined anyone getting to four years clean, let alone 40. Once we were young. Now we’ve grown old together. Not everyone has been so lucky. Many couldn’t hack recovery and relapsed. Far too many have died. Aids, cancer, heart attacks, overdoses and suicide. But for some of us, miracles do happen.
Depraved New World by John Crace (Guardian Faber, £16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, pre-order your copy and save 18% at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
