A calamitous beginning to the day. For a start, my sleep had been disturbed: I had been dreaming that a chamber orchestra was playing outside my window in the small hours of the morning. I had gone out to remonstrate with the conductor. “What is this rubbish anyway? Heaven forbid you might play anything by Alban Berg,” etc. It turned out that I had fallen asleep with Radio 3 on. (Through the Night, specifically, which is one of their finest programmes, although they could play more music by, oh, I don’t know, Alban Berg.)
So I wake to a freezing flat, for it is still perishing here, and put the kettle on. Nothing.
My world reels. As if things weren’t bad enough already. Ever since I suffered my first bout of tachycardia after drinking too much coffee, I have stuck to tea. And among the disintegration of my life, the tea upon awakening has been the one constant, the one fixed ritual, which stops me from collapsing into total despair. I make it in a pot, with leaves (Assam, Waitrose; cheaper and, surprisingly, better than Twinings); after mashing, it goes into a pint-sized Sports Direct mug.
Recently, I feel I have become more dependent on the staples of childhood, and the trappings of Englishness. I am not sure why this should be, unless it is a reaction to the state of the world. I looked down at my shopping basket the other day and had something of a revelation. I like playing Sherlock Holmes with the people at the till in front of me. I look at their ready meals, their tins, their reduced-fat items, and do not judge: but I construct a life around them. It is often more than I can bear, and by the time it is my turn I am often in tears. (I might be exaggerating a teeny bit.) And what would one judging me by my basket say? “Here is a borderline alcoholic on a very tight budget, probably as a result of his borderline alcoholism. Hell, what’s with the ‘borderline’? He’s a sot. Look at that own-brand whisky, for starters.”
The last time, though, I looked at my basket and I staggered back in horror. What do we have?
A pork pie. Sausages. Non-fancy cheddar. Baked beans. Black pudding. (Whenever I buy black pudding I think of Withnail’s cry of frustration after he gets sick of the stuff. “I want something’s flesh!”) A Scotch egg. Tongue. Tongue? Am I catering for a cricket club’s lunch? That’s the only other place I’ve seen it in the wild, and that was in the 1970s. Branston pickle. Branston sodding pickle? This is the third jar I’ve bought this year and it’s only March. How do I get through so much Branston pickle?
In short, anyone looking at my shopping would conclude that I am one of the more suspicious kinds of Englishman: one who hates foreign food, not to mention foreigners, uses the word “foreigners”, a lot, thinks Nigel Farage talks a great deal of sense and certainly voted for Brexit. There are no vegetables to be seen, so doubtless the amateur supermarket detective will be able to draw certain conclusions about that. The shopping basket bespeaks a poverty not only of the wallet, but of the imagination. And it is too late to go back and get some halloumi or something just to show that I recognise that there is a whole other world out there.
No one would suspect that I can make a very decent couscous and that I once owned a wok. (During my homeless years, I was preparing the Christmas meal in the family home. My ex-wife took the wok out from the cupboard and asked if I wanted it. I replied that as I didn’t have a fixed abode at the moment, I couldn’t really take it; and then the mischief entered me and I said – and the children, who were there to see this, could see the scene developing in all its horror – “Despite Lou Reed and his excellent advice to take a wok on the wild side.” But I digress.)
The Americans say that the British still eat as if it’s the Second World War. And we retaliate by saying that they eat as if they have healthcare free at the point of need. The damage has been done, even if what they say is not even true. But in my case it is. My shopping basket is out of the 1950s. I have a Ford Prefect in the garage, my children have started ripping up cinema seats to the sound of Bill Haley and I am wondering if rationing is ever going to end. No one would imagine that I speak three languages and think Lee Anderson is a tosser.
After the tea disaster I simply went back to bed. It needed but this, I thought, as I contemplated the end of the world. I have a brief nap, which leaves me for some reason even more tired and depressed than I was to begin with. I trudge back to the kitchen to see if there is anything I can salvage. Like an idiot, I press the switch on the kettle again. Madness is trying the same thing again and again expecting a different result. But… it works! The little orange light comes on! God is just and merciful. There is no other explanation. I reach into the cupboard. I have run out of tea.
[See also: Murder in the care home]
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This article appears in the 12 Mar 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Why Britain isn’t working