Roberta Antonia Wilson is a writer. She is the writer of this book. She was born in 1926, which makes her fifty-eight years old at the time she is writing it in 1984. She drives a Brough Superior Motorcycle. She wears a Belstaff Panther women’s motorcycle jacket, Halcyon goggles and a white silk scarf. She is writing this book in a cottage at the northern tip of the Isle of Jura in Scotland. Fish Farm, her first book, was a runaway success. Disney is adapting it for the silver screen. Her second book, Uganda, was panned by the critics and ignored by the paying public. After dropping a tab of acid on the completion of 2023: Book Two, she had a complete mental breakdown and was sectioned by her sister and has spent the last nine months in Saint Crispin’s lunatic asylum, near Northampton, in the English Midlands. While there she has blocked out the real world by listening to the BBC World Service and The Shipping Forecast.
George Orwell is the nom de plume used by Roberta Antonia Wilson. She does not know why she ever decided to use it.
‘Sailing By’ is a piece of light orchestral music that is played each night before the late Shipping Forecast is broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
The Shipping Forecast is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 00:48 every night – for ever. The late Shipping Forecast is the last thing several million people in the British Isles hear before drifting off to sleep. It marks the end of the day and the beginning of another kind of life.
The early Shipping Forecast is broadcast several hours later at 05:20. This marks the beginning of the new day.
Saint Crispin’s Hospital is a classic Victorian lunatic asylum built on the outskirts of Northampton, England. It opened for the care and incarceration of the insane in 1876.
Dog Ledger, or rather Douglas ‘Dog’ Ledger, is Roberta Antonia Wilson’s literary agent. He will survive.
Postscript: I can hear the Twenty-Three Sparrows chirruping from the hawthorn bush outside my barred window. I will get this book written by the end of the day. Then I will make my escape.
2: WELCOME TO THE DARK AGES
08:17 Sunday 24 December 2023
Arthur Scargill is sitting at his kitchen table eating his cooked breakfast in his retirement bungalow in Grimethorpe, Yorkshire.
The radio is on.
The Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
There is a tear making its way down his left cheek.
John Humphrys is interviewing William Hague about the race for the leadership of the New English Tory Party. As of this morning it is a straight contest between William Hague and the former rank outsider Henry Pedders.
Arthur is hardly listening to what they are saying. He has too many emotions flowing through his body to take things in at any sort of intellectual level. He is not even bothered who this Henry Pedders lad is. All he knows is that he is not from Yorkshire and William Hague is, so he wants Hague to win.
Henry Pedders is a changed man since he led the mob all the way down Kingsland Road and through the City and over London Bridge. And they did burn the Shard down. But that is all history now. That was months and months ago. And if you are counting – nine months to the day. But so much has happened in the world since then; the complete destruction of the Shard is only a blip on the horizon of history compared to all that other stuff.
As for William Hague, he may have had a long and distinguished career, but to many he is still the original Tory boy from the 1977 conference.
The black pudding is as good as it ever was. And she still knows how to do the mushrooms just how he likes them.
If Arthur were pushed, he might admit it would be better if Brian Redhead were doing the cut and thrust with Margaret Thatcher. But you cannot have everything. And Arthur seems to have got most things he could ever have dreamed of.
Less than twelve months ago the last coalmine in England had been closed; he had been thrown out of his apartment in the Barbican; the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) had stopped paying his pension; and Anne, his ex-wife, still refused to remarry him.
Whereas now the picture is very different. Since September fifty-seven deep colliery mines have been reopened; the industry has re-employed over 43,000 miners; Anne has remarried him; he has moved back to Yorkshire; and the NUM has invited him to be their General Secretary once again.
Unbeknown even to his conscious self Arthur is already harbouring fantasies about leading a strike. A national coal strike. It will be called in a couple of months’ time on 12 March 2024, this being the fortieth anniversary of the official beginning of the last one. But this time they would win. He would show Anne he could still deliver the goods. And Margaret Thatcher will have to turn in her grave.
There is another reason why Arthur is feeling good. And that is because earlier on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, it was announced that it was odds-on the Christmas Number One is going to be by The Grimethorpe Colliery Band. They are going to be on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops. They are sending a chauffeur-driven Roller to pick him up so he can be in the audience when they record the programme later in the day.
Arthur Scargill is unlikely to feature in this book again, but for the sake of those who are not of a certain age or not from these islands, he was the last powerful trade union leader in this country. In his day he was as famous as any of the leading politicians.
People adjust.
Life carries on.
FUUK-UP crashes into Earth. These things happen. The Age of the Internet is over. Many ages have come and gone. It takes less than a week for nearly every teenager in the world to throw away their iPhone23s. Almost immediately people find other ways to communicate. They never got rid of the pillar-boxes around what used to be called the UK. Admittedly they have become curios from another age but, within a month, there are postmen emptying them and delivering letters like it is 1999 all over again.
There has been more sex – real, physical, consensual sex – going on around the world in these past nine months than in the previous twenty years. People are holding hands again. Hands were not for holding when there were iPhone23s. Hands existed then only to hold iPhone23s.
Jonathan King is standing looking at himself in his full-length mirror in his apartment in the Borough, South London. He is looking good. The gym and the running are paying off.
‘Fifty-eight fucking years and I am back. I showed the proles. You can’t keep genius down.’
Jonathan King had been talking to his reflection in the same mirror for a lot longer than fifty-eight years. In fact, this mirror was in his bedroom when he was only two years old. It has been with him ever since. It has been his ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall’. The mirror that can always be relied on to tell him the truth.
As for the fifty-eight years, that is the distance in time since he was last on Top of the Pops singing ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Moon’ to now. Back then he was a Cambridge undergraduate. Between then and now he has been one of the most successful hit-record producers of all time. And then he did his time. And then the world did not want to know. But things are different now.
He then does the thing he has done for decades – he pretends to interview himself, while standing and looking in the mirror.
‘So tell me, Mister King, the world has always known “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” is one of the greatest songs ever written and you are its writer, but what gave you the idea to re-record it with The Grimethorpe Colliery Band?’
‘Well, back in the ’80s during the miners’ strike, I had a lot of empathy for their situation. They were outcasts from respectable society. Then, after the strike ended, they started to close the mines down. The world had turned their back on miners. It was those miners that had fuelled our industrial revolution. Our Empire would not have existed without those men, young and old, down there at the coalface so our ships could sail the seven seas, our trains could take us from one end of the land to the other in less than a day, so our homes could be warm on Christmas Day. And after all the mines had been closed and we thought we could create energy with those stupid wind turbines and the sun, they kep
t their colliery band going. Just like I kept going.’
‘So you saw this day coming?’
‘Of course! Anyone with any intelligence knew the Age of the Internet was only a passing phase. We knew it would not last. Coal is for ever. Like a good tune is for ever. As they used to say, “Coal is King.”’
‘Very good! Very good! But tell me, Mister King, when you approached them about recording a version of “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon”, how did they respond?’
‘They were honoured. They thought it a brilliant idea. At least half the band were old enough to have bought the record the first time it came out.’
‘I have to say, it has to be one of the greatest Christmas Number Ones of all time, up there with—’
‘No, don’t spoil it by comparing it to some other—’
‘No! No! Of course not. But it is wonderful that Top of the Pops is back and you are on it and at number one, with a song you wrote when you were eighteen. A record you produced and sang on. And here you are again looking as youthful as ever at the age of … How old, if you do not mind me asking, are you now?’
‘Well, that is the beauty of not having the internet any longer. This time last year, you could have just looked it up on Wikipedia on your dismal iPhone23 and known exactly how old I was and whatever other useless information you might have needed. Now we have got back to just knowing what we need to know. But I have to remind you I am not officially number one yet. That will not be announced until just after the stroke of midnight.’
‘Yes, but surely that is a mere formality! Everyone knows you have been outselling every other record this week by something like a margin of two to one. I mean, the bookies stopped taking bets on it on Monday. And we won’t mention that terrible record by M’Lady Gobshite, will we? Finally, all the best with your performance on Top of the Pops this afternoon. When does it air? Tomorrow?’
‘Just after The Queen’s Speech.’
The imaginary interview between Jonathan King and himself is now over. The actual song being sung by Jonathan King, backed by The Grimethorpe Colliery Band, sounds as good as Jonathan King would have the world believe.
As with Arthur Scargill, this might be the last time Jonathan King makes an appearance in this book. When the complete and final History of Pop Music (1901–2023) is written, it will look favourably upon his remake of ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Moon’.
As already mentioned somewhere else in these pages, Nina Simone recorded a version of ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Moon’ too. Maybe the unseen power of Nina Simone is pushing her into becoming a character in this story. Maybe she is in the prison cell next to Winnie and Yoko Ono the Younger. Maybe she is sharing her cell with Lady Penelope. Or maybe not.
It is obvious to all that when FUUK-UP crashes, the world is fucked in a way it has never been fucked before. It seems like there is no one alive on Earth who knew it could all end so quickly. And all so suddenly! And when it does there is nothing that can be done about it. It seems everyone thinks it is all backed up somewhere else. The whole thing, the whole Age of the Internet, relied on one machine: there was no back-up to the back-up of the back-up.
Mankind never learns that the good times don’t last for long. There is always the comedown. However pure the cocaine may be on a Saturday night, the one who is snorting it is still going to feel shit on Monday morning.
After the Seven Good Years there will always be … does no one remember those Bible stories? It is like when people believe they are some sort of financial genius because the value of their flat doubles in six years, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we as a society are just not building enough homes.
And how soon we all start killing each other. And millions die from famine and pestilence. But that can be discussed in a future chapter.
Once the New Big Five were swept away, it was back to tribalism. And then those tribes made up stories about themselves and their relationship to the land and God. And from that nationalism grew and took root. And these new nations with their stories will be vaguely based on the nation states we had before everything had been sorted for ever and ever. Seven years, that is all we had of it between 2017 and now. Just like it says in The Bible.
And as for religion, there are more religions in the world than there have ever been. Churches that have been empty for years are now packed every Sunday morning. Religions fuelled by hate as well as love. Religions for all races and religions just for you alone.
But people love it. It makes them feel alive. People need to hate people, as much as they need to love people. At least they can go out and make arseholes of themselves and not have to worry that the whole world can see what an arsehole they are via FaceLife and the rest.
‘I have a good mind to sack you here and now, Parker.’
‘Yes, M’Lady, very understandable.’
‘But you said it would be a guaranteed Christmas Number One.’
‘Yes, M’Lady, but that is the nature of the beast. We cannot control everything.’
‘But you should have known that pervert – I mean genius – was going to do this. And he thinks now that we do not have the internet, we have all forgotten about the terrible things he has done to young people.’
‘Yes, M’Lady, but the fact is he has been selling more records in the past week than you—’
‘Well, I want him dead.’
‘Yes, M’Lady. Right away.’
If an explanation is needed, this is it:
When streaming was over and the music industry folk realised they could get all the mothballed pressing machines back into service and start selling actual records again – real vinyl records, and not just to hipsters, but to everyone – they knew they were on to a good thing. And what people wanted to listen to was music that made them feel nostalgia for those far-off times before the internet. When everything was secure and safe. Even the ones who had never known anything else wanted to hear the likes of Cliff Richard sing ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’, or something. And, of course, Jonathan King singing ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Moon’ with a brass band backing him is perfect. Genius, in fact.
When M’Lady GaGa came up with the idea that she should do a cover of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, and it being the fortieth anniversary of the original record being recorded and getting the Christmas Number One slot, it also seemed like a genius move.
All she needed to find was some starving Africans to feature in the video. And for her to be seen handing out food to them. What record-buying sucker would not go for that?
Parker sorted it out with his old friend and fellow lag in Fernando Pó – remember the island off the West Coast of Africa? – for M’Lady GaGa to fly out in her Learjet to the island to do the film clip of her handing out food parcels to the ‘starving’ children.
The reason why the word ‘starving’ in the last paragraph is in inverted commas is because the children in Fernando Pó were anything but starving. Parker’s unnamed old friend and fellow lag was none other than the nameless witch doctor who had put his bamboo needle through the five dolls that represented the five women who were the bosses of the former New Big Five.
Fernando Pó had been, prior to 2017, the world’s leading tax haven. In fact, Fernando Pó was where all of M’Lady GaGa’s businesses were officially registered. The unnamed witch doctor had been and was now again her primary tax advisor. Since the Fall of the Age of the Internet, Fernando Pó has once again risen to become the tax haven of choice for most of the wealthiest in show business. Fernando Pó is one of (if not the) wealthiest nations in the world, so although the children are African, not one of them is starving.
The English tabloid newspapers soon cottoned on to the unseen flaw in M’Lady GaGa’s promotional video and exposed her for what she supposedly was – an uncaring, self-absorbed … etc., etc.
While we’re on the subject of English tabloid newspapers … one of the first political fallouts after the abrupt end of the Age of the Internet was th
e In/Out referendum in England. England voted to leave the former United Kingdom, whereas in the Irish referendum they voted to rejoin. The United Kingdom is now made up of Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, Cornwall, Scotland and Sark. Other than Sark, the other Channel Islands voted to stay with England. As did the Isles of Scilly.
This referendum was soon followed by the Yes/No one about reinstating the Royal Family. The Yes vote had a resounding win. The next election was to see who would be the His or Her Majesty. It was a straight contest between the Duchess of Cornwall and Princess Kate. Kate won by a landslide. Queen Kate Middleton reigns supreme in our island’s hearts and souls – but not England. England has a different Queen.
Since the Fall of the Age of the Internet, the circulation of actual printed newspapers soared and soared. Print workers are now almost as powerful as coalminers. Which union will go out on national strike first will be known in only a matter of weeks. While Arthur Scargill is still tucking into his black pudding, Tony Dubbins, the leader of the Print Workers’ Union, has long polished off his jellied eels and mash.
Fleet Street is still history, but Wapping is where it is all happening. In fact, the Sun ran a campaign demanding the English should not be outdone and should elect Kate Moss to be their Queen. Two Queen Kates on one island?
As for M’Lady GaGa, there has been enough negative tabloid press on her over these past few days to put off a significant number of people from buying her version of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ And it looks like Jonathan King and The Grimethorpe Colliery Band are going to have the Christmas Number One.
Just for the record, all the children in Fernando Pó do know it’s Christmas. As a matter of fact, Santa Claus has his villa there, and so of course that is where all his various companies are legally registered. Did you know Santa Claus owns Lego and Candy Doll?
What neither Jonathan King nor M’Lady GaGa nor even Arthur Scargill have taken into account is that there are still several hours of record-selling before they start the count. It is now almost 9:00 on Christmas Eve and HMV and Woolworths record shops are about to open across the land. They will then all close at 18:00 this evening, when all the sales in all the shops will be totted up, phoned through, and the final Top Forty of the year will be announced sometime after midnight. So there is still one day’s sales yet to happen. These sales could be crucial.
2023: a trilogy (Justified Ancients of Mu Mu) Page 22
