At last, a fleeting break from the bile of political discourse
Do you remember a national sentiment more positive than discontent? The notion was so alien as to have slipped my mind entirely until this week when, thanks to a series of ball-based victories, our collective mood rose from the depths in which they have been mired. The sheer thrill of Liverpool’s win over Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final on Tuesday night was palpable well into Wednesday morning, boosted further by Tottenham’s subsequent one that evening: triumphs that could not dampen what were patently objective causes for celebration even for (most of) these clubs’ ardent rivals.
For the football-adjacent like me – nonplussed by the game itself, yet perpetually surrounded by fans – there is always a clear shift when success transcends merely the team it concerns. And after Arsenal and Chelsea completed a finals full-house for England on Thursday night, with their own European victories, suddenly the unlikely brilliance of last summer was back on our streets all over again, even if the sun wasn’t: a headiness that cast a big enough glow for it not to matter.
Distraction, just for a moment, from what has been lurking in the shadows. Or at least used to. This week, the
Labour MP Jess Phillips tweeted that, on leaving parliament one night, a man had run after her to question why the electorate – those who, as he helpfully pointed out, “pay your wages” – should be refused the right to joke about her being assaulted.
It was a reference to Carl Benjamin, the Ukip candidate who in 2016 opined that he “wouldn’t even rape” the Birmingham Yardley MP, following up with an apology for “crimes against political correctness” and other comments so vile that printing them would feel like an offence in itself. He is currently the subject of an investigation by West Midlands police; another
Ukip election candidate has withdrawn from the race on the grounds that Benjamin’s alleged invocations have besmirched the party’s reputation for being “reasonable, responsible and credible”.
I’ll say. Because loath as I am to give airtime to those afflicted by a lack of decency or brain cells,
Benjamin’s words encapsulate the kind of once-shocking language that is becoming perilously close to de rigueur. Where politics is concerned, apathy has bred apoplexy: valid fears over referendum-inertia have brewed the kind of gnarled discourse we would never have dreamt of throwing around so carelessly before. Whether it’s at one another, MPS or anyone who has a view different from our own, the issues raging within our borders are now far more troubling, long term, than those outside them. Endless reports blame the 2016 result for a rise in divorces, health woes and general life dissatisfaction – the inevitable by-product of a three-year exercise in dividing without conquering. The ever-unfolding Westminster debacle has shown that no one is really in control. Still within our jurisdiction, though, is the most quintessentially British thing of all – our conduct, the integral aspect of our being remarked upon by nations the world over.
No, good cheer will not get us a good deal. Yet this week’s games are a much-needed reminder that good feeling reaches new heights when shared; that when we forget – even fleetingly – the allegiances to which we have inextricably bound ourselves, and look objectively at a situation, things are immediately clearer, better. It will never be summer all year round. But we needn’t force ourselves to live in a perpetual winter, either.
If a G&T feels like the only appropriate response to the above, good news: juniper is being planted apace in Britain. Fears over Brexit-induced trade blockages mean that producers are trying to move more of the process onto our shores to contend with our unquenchable thirst for craft gin. But you’ll be waiting a long time if you decide to grow your own, as the trees take 16 years to reach full maturity. Indeed, it is only then that the berries may begin to play their starring role in the nation’s most popular spirit.
We’ve all had unreasonable waits for a drink at the bar, but a decade and a half does seem a tad excessive. Perhaps this will have the dual effect of both improving patience and reducing booze consumption; both of which are good. But not better than a delicious drink being available – promptly – on tap.
If the tap is your bag, you could always go for water, I suppose. Such a rudimentary beverage choice may make you a target for ridicule, though, as the range of water options on offer has moved on from the analogue glass or bottled stuff to an iteration called “Liquid Death”. This week’s addition to things-siliconvalley-“entrepreneurs”-pretend-tohave-invented-and-then-putludicrous-names-on is not, as the name suggests, some kind of gasoline and bleach infusion served intravenously into your eyeballs – but water. Sorry, water in a can. For the highly reasonable price of £1.41, you can “murder” that parched throat with a solitary sip, “forming a rope of veins that will wrap around your Thirst’s head and strangle it”. Right.
For hydration of the less visceral kind, you could make like Superman actor Henry Cavill, who has just been announced as the face of No. 1 Rosemary Water. Which is far more advanced than just shoving an errant sprig from your garden plant into your glass, obviously, as it is, in fact, a “unique botanical drink inspired by the age-defying and memoryimproving properties of the herb”.
Cavill will be filming a documentary about this in the summer. It doesn’t quite sound as action-packed as a superhero epic, viewing-wise. Though in these plant-powered times, perhaps the two worlds might combine sooner than we think.
Michael Deacon is away FOLLOW Charlotte Lytton on Twitter @charlottelytton; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion