The Digested Twenty-first Century

by John Crace

  No, seriously guys, this is going to be well different. How many other world leaders use so many exclamation marks! And it is as a world leader that I’m writing for you about my journey. And what a journey! When I started in politics I was just an ordinary kind of guy. And you know what? I’m still an ordinary kind of guy – albeit one who has become a multi-millionaire and completely destabilised the Middle East!

  You know, I had a tear in my eye when I entered No10 for the first time in 1997, though it wasn’t, as the Daily Mail tried to claim, because I was choked with emotion at how far I had come since I was a young, ordinary boy standing on the terraces of St James’ Park, watching Jackie Milburn play for Newcastle. It was because Gordon had hit me. Ah, Gordon! He meant well, I suppose, in his funny little emotionally inarticulate way.

  I guess some of you will find it hard to believe, but I never really wanted to be a politician. But sometimes courage is about taking the difficult decisions and when Cherie said, ‘God is calling you to fulfil your destiny’, I knew I had to listen. So it was with a heavy heart that I outmanoeuvred Gordon over the leadership of the party after John’s death – and whatever Gordo says there was never a deal struck at Granita where he could definitely take over after my second term. Because I had my fingers crossed!

  The first year in office was pretty exciting and it was great fun having my old mates like Anji in the office. (I’d tried to get in to her sleeping bag once when I was 16 but she kicked me out! Her loss!) The death of the People’s Princess came as a blow – I always found the Royal Family a bit freaky! – but I had a real sense the public were willing me to succeed. A pity the same couldn’t be said for the media, who were only too willing to see the worst in the Bernie Ecclestone and Peter Mandelson affairs. Looking back, I feel bad about forcing Peter to resign. But at the time it was him or me. So what the hell!

  I find also that Mo Mowlam’s part in the Northern Ireland peace process has been rather overstated. So to put the record straight, it was all down to me. The talks had reached an impasse and I said to Gerry and David, ‘Look guys, we’re on a journey,’ and they said, ‘Cool Tony, we’re with you.’

  If only Iraq had been that simple. I know there are some of you out there who want me to apologise, but life isn’t that simple when there’s a war crimes indictment at stake. Look, I feel the deaths of our servicemen every bit as keenly as if the bullets had pierced me like stigmata, but sometimes one has to just stand up and do the right thing even if the evidence isn’t there. OK, I will admit I did have a bit of a wobbly – Cherie had to give me big cuddles, know what I mean! – when it turned out Saddam didn’t have WMD, but I honestly never lied about them. It was just one, small, teeny mistake and everyone tore me to pieces! Give us a break! And for the record I didn’t always have a plan to go to war. The first I heard of it was when Statesman George – Top bloke! Top thinker! – phoned to say US troops were going in!

  I was pretty fed up when everyone failed to see what we had achieved in Iraq, but an audience with the Pope, who said, ‘It is you who should be baptising me’, soon cheered me up. And I felt a sense of duty to protect the country from Gordon’s incompetence. ‘You’re just waiting until everything’s about to go pearshaped,’ he would yell. As if ! It was only my darling John Prescott’s desire to be out of the limelight as my deputy that prompted my resignation. Selfless little old moi!

  Yet, though I feel proud of my achievements and sad at the direction the Labour party is now taking, my journey is not over. It continues ever onwards into farce. May my blessings rain upon the Middle East!

  Digested read, digested: A journey … along the path of self-righteousness.

  Life: Keith Richards

  (2010)

  Man, I only sleep two hours a day so I’ve been conscious for several lifetimes. Shame I’ve missed most of them by being completely out of it. But hey, this is my best guess at what happened so you cats better chill and come for the ride. It ain’t free, but we’ve all gotta pay our dues to the Man, man.

  Dartford. Town of short sentences. It was hard, man. When I got kicked out of the school choir, I thought, ‘Fuck these cats.’ That was me done with authority. My guitar. I slept with it, man. You’ve gotta. It’s like running a whorehouse. Fats, Muddy. Music, I was on the black side of town. Mick. He was the greatest R&B singer I ever heard. And I don’t mean maybe. Charlie, Bill and Brian. When we were playing Alexis’s club it was like we were on another planet. We moved to Edith Grove. Man, that was poverty. Pooftahs living above. Bank robbers below.

  Andrew Oldham threw Mick and me together. Said, ‘Write songs, dudes.’ Man, my guitar was a mangling, dangling, tangling kinda thang. Tuned it to C. Played a couple of minor breaks. Bobby twiddled some knobs. Charlie hit some back beats. Bill stood in another room. Guess you kinda had to be there.

  Satisfaction. Wrote it in my sleep. Then it was hard to tell. They don’t make downers like they used to these days. Mandies, reds, Tuinal. Yeah! And the acid. I was tripping with Johnny Lennon. What a lightweight. The chicks. Anita was some sexy bitch. She made the make on me. Then Mick and his small cock made the make on her. Couldn’t resist. He was like that. So I had the boinky-boinky-boing with Marianne. I guess we’re quits. And she never had the Mars bar. Get me, brother?

  We’d had enough of Brian. Long before he died. We heard later some motherfucker said he killed him. Who knows? But even if he did, it would only be manslaughter. Cos Brian was a whining son of a bitch. He could take his narcs, mind. Heroin. Man, it was all around. Gram Parsons. You couldn’t find a nicer cat to do cold turkey with. Then, like, it was we gotta get out of town. The pigs were out to bust us. The Man wanted all our cash.

  France. Mick was starting to fuck us all off. He got off on flattery. I got off on smack. And how. Exile was epic. Anita looked after Marlon. Yeah, I had a kid. Cool. Perfect accessory for stashing my drugs. I had discovered open tuning. So I played these chords. Mick would sing something in the basement. Bill and Charlie would be in the kitchen. Someone else would be twiddling knobs somewhere. Then someone would move a mike a quarter of an inch. Yawn.

  The 70s were hard, man. I hung out with rastas. It is because I is black. And Toronto. Man, what a fuss about an ounce of smack. And it ain’t like I was mainlining. Strictly skin-popping. Bill bought me some gear in Canada. One and only time he did anything. It was emotional. Late 70s. Had to stop the heroin. Killing me, man. Luckily, I still had the coke, spliff and Jack Daniels. So I still didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

  The Stones almost died in the 80s. Mick and me weren’t talking. Mick was sucking establishment ass. Anita was just being heavy. So I dumped her. First time I met Patti was in Studio 54. Surrounded by faggots. I was trying to escape Britt Ekland. Nice chick. But Britt, my agenda is full. With Patti I felt safe. It takes a special kind of chick to put up with a rock star only really capable of thinking about himself.

  Mick and I kinda made up in the late 80s. Though he’s basically still a tosser. And the last 20 years get written off in just a few pages: we haven’t made a decent record in years, and the Stones have become kinda dull. But I’m still that dude. Fighting authority. Playing with guns and knives. Hanging out with crims. Counter-cultural in the way only some tax-exile stoner with several hundred million in the bank can be.

  Digested read, digested: Inside every ex-junkie… is a trainspotter waiting to get out.

  Bird House

  by Annie Proulx (2011)

  Driving through the wind-blown volcanic ash of Wyoming, it seems impossible not to ask why anybody would live there. I live there. The best way I can describe the otherworldliness of the river by Bird Cloud, with its towering 400ft cliff, is to invoke Uluru in Australia’s red centre. Where else could a woman who carries centuries of Native American tradition in her little finger set down her roots?

  During the 1980s, my sister and I were kept talking by a man in a shop and avoided being possibly involved in a fatal car accident as a result. It turned out th
e man’s name was Proulx. It turned out he was no relation. I have since done a lot of research into previous generations of people named Proulx and none of them are relations either. Ah well.

  I have lived in many of the wildest and most spiritual parts of North America. I had to leave Newfoundland when the local restaurant stopped serving turbot cheeks and I now find myself drawn away from Centennial because many of the inhabitants are too working class and watch American football on the television. So it is to Bird Cloud I am drawn, to create a sensitive eco-mansion with a $10,000 Japanese soak bath. All for just me.

  There were difficulties finding an architect capable of realising my vision in the backwoods of Wyoming, as most could not conceive of anything but the most basic lumber dwelling. Eventually, I came across Kevin McCloud. ‘Annie has a dream,’ he said. ‘She wants to create a defiantly modernist Bauhaus structure that will breathe in the ancient spirits of the region. And with the reclaimed metal sheeting on the outside walls, that glows in the same blood-red of long dead Sioux warriors during the three hours of annual sunlight, I think she might achieve it.’

  It was also hard to find the right craftsmen. We tried Idle Ian and Bodger Brian, but it was clear when they arrived on site five minutes late that they were not up to my exacting standards. Eventually, Kevin found Patronised Pete and Put-Upon Paul, and the build got under way in late 2005. I had to go away to Capri for the winter and didn’t return to Bird Cloud until the following spring. I was horrified. Not only were the tatami prayer mats made of unsustainable rice-straw, but the window in my bedroom had been positioned three inches too far to the left and my view of the eagle’s nest was blocked by the cliff. It took three tonnes of dynamite and several hundred thousand dollars to rectify that problem.

  The subsequent three years followed a similar rhythm. I would go away somewhere important and glamorous for the winter, while Patronised Pete and Put-Upon Paul would work round the clock in the snow, and then I would come back and scream at them for having got nearly everything wrong. Imagine my fury to discover that the concrete floor sloped 2mm from the door to the wall and that it was not the precise shade of umber I had specified. That cost a further $70,000 to put right.

  Worse was to come. My Japanese soak bath flooded the downstairs living area, ruining its recycled teak flooring, the cupboard drawers didn’t open noiselessly, the temperature control for my library was faulty, the deer antler door handles had not been polished and the Polygal windows arrived with the wrong kind of non-abrasive dirt. I couldn’t write a word for weeks.

  During the rare lulls between catastrophes, I would take to the outdoors, removing the cattle that had wandered on to my estate and communing with the sublime, while giant eagles soared above me, repeatedly yodelling, ‘Thank Christ someone as deep as Annie has come to live in this Godforsaken land’ as they patrolled the desolate skies. And then, disaster once more. Not only had Moron Martin, the landscaper, planted non-native species of chenopodium throughout my 700 acres, he had used non-organic compost to do so. I had to remove three feet of topsoil throughout to avert an environmental disaster.

  In 2009, after an agreeable six months in Germany, the work was complete and I was able to soak in my Japanese bath after a tough hour searching for prehistoric relics from the 19th century, congratulating myself that the project had only come in $4m over budget. And then Patronised Pete called to remind me that they didn’t bother to clear the snow from the minor roads in winter, so I had really just built myself an expensive summer house. So my restless spirit must move once more. Luckily, Kevin has identified the perfect plot in the Yukon.

  Digested read, digested: Grande Dame Designs.

  Mud, Sweat and Tears

  by Bear Grylls (2011)

  The air temperature is –20. I’m clinging on to the mountain by my fingernails. Beneath me a vertical drop. A camera comes loose. I tumble 1,000 feet on to the rocks below. Another close shave. I pick myself up. There is work to do. I love my life.

  My great-great-great grandfather was Samuel Smiles who wrote the first self-help book. The gene pool has been rather diluted since then. I can only write in trite aphorisms. God helps them who help themselves. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. That sort of thing. It works for me.

  I was always a bit wild as a child. That is posh for a bit thick. Luckily that didn’t stop me going to public school. Why would it? Eton seriously lacked girls. But that was good for me as I had already decided I wanted to remain a virgin until I got married. My faith has always been very important to me. I have a very simple belief. If you ask, so shall you be given. God has never failed to find me a parking meter. Note to self: no need to pray after 6.30pm.

  My mother found my constant need for attention quite tiring. But my Dad totally got me. He said, ‘Bear, you are a Bear with a very little brain. So go out and do Bearish things like climbing on to the school library roof.’

  I was seriously broke when I left school. University didn’t appeal so I went travelling. Because I’ve always believed that life is out there to be lived. And I wanted to go out there and grab it. India was amazing. I saw some incredible sights and met some truly awesome people. I came home feeling truly humbled. I’ve learned never to grumble about anything again.

  On my return to England I was even more seriously broke. But I still didn’t get a job because I wanted to take on a bigger challenge. I planned to join the SAS reserves. The training was brutal and there are aspects of it I can’t mention due to the Official Secrets Act. You will probably wish there were more bits covered by the Act after you have read more than 100 interminable pages about wandering around the Brecon Beacons.

  The disappointment I felt at not making the grade was intense. For a while I was at a loss what to do next. Then I remembered my faith. Had God not said unto me, ‘Go forth and learn how to kill people?’ So I went back with my good mate, Trucker – top bloke, the best bloke a bloke could ever want – and told the recruiting officer, I wanted another go. The beasting was almost unbearable. Yet I was determined not to break. It was the proudest day of my life when I was given my beret.

  I was seriously, seriously broke by the time I had finished my training. So I went to South Africa, as life is about taking the chances on offer. I was determined to grab any that came along with both hands. Then my parachute failed to open properly. My back was broken in three places. It was a low point. For months I was lost in self-pity before I remembered the story of Lazarus. ‘You can get it if you really want, but you must try and try,’ God said. And on the third day I rose again.

  It was around this time I met Shara. She is the light of my life. I couldn’t do without her. Like my Dad, she is seriously not bothered by how dim I am. I needed to be with her, but I had other things to do. ‘You are my rock,’ I told her. ‘But I must climb another rock.’

  Everest is seriously high up. It can get bloody cold and dangerous up there. Apparently some people have died there. I came close myself. I had to push myself to the limit to reach the summit. But that’s what life is for: pushing yourself to the limit. So that’s what I did.

  I was seriously, seriously, seriously broke when I came back from Everest. I prayed for guidance. And I got it. A producer said, ‘We’re looking for a thick bloke to take a lot of unnecessary risks.’ ‘You’ve found him,’ I replied. I see I’ve already written 400 pages, so I’ve run out of space to tell you about the bits of my life that might have been more interesting. I will just say I forgive those who claimed my TV shows were put-up stunts and that I stayed in five-star hotels. Everyone needs a little quality time with their family.

  Digested read, digested: Do Bears bullshit in the woods?

  A Walk-On Part

  by Chris Mullin (2011)

  1994: John Smith is dead. To London for tea with Tony Blair. He is seeking my support for his leadership bid. ‘It would be great to have you on board, Carl,’ he said. For some reason, I got the feeling my political career was over. But I will back Blair a
s there isn’t anyone better. To Sunderland, where a constituent asks if I am still on holiday. Why does everyone assume every MP is just having lunch? I have worked tirelessly for the past three months to get new windows for the local community centre. It’s not my fault nothing has happened. To Blackpool for the party conference, where Tony has taken on clause IV. I fear we’ll be out of government for another generation. I wrote to Tony asking him to make sure my campaigns to limit Murdoch’s media empire and expose the Masons in public office will be a priority for a new Labour government. ‘Of course, Keith,’ he replied. Maybe we aren’t doomed after all.

  1995: To Sunderland for a constituency surgery. No one comes. It appears I’ve turned up on the wrong day. The opinion polls suggest we have a 41-point lead. They are quite wrong of course. We will be lucky to get a single figure majority. Anji Hunter calls to say Tony will be ringing me soon so will I stay by the phone? I don’t move for five days. It turned out he wanted to talk to Charles Clarke. I am still very hopeful of making headway with my bill to limit the Masons. To London for a meeting with Michael Green, who was waited on hand and foot by a pushy, fresh-faced public schoolboy called David Cameron. If ever there was a man going nowhere, it’s Cameron. To the House, where John Major puts in a good performance at PMQ. I get sixth question and ask what he proposes to do about the Masons. I get a good laugh and am invited on to Loose Ends but somehow I can’t help wondering if I’m wasting my life.

  1996: The Economist predicts we will have a 45-seat majority. They are wrong, of course. The best we can hope for is a hung parliament. Much discontent within the party about the influence of Peter Mandelson. I fear we are in danger of alienating our supporters by trying to out-Tory the Tories, but I’ll keep my powder dry for now as I am increasingly hopeful of getting Murdoch and the Masons at the top of Tony’s agenda, having written to him once more. ‘You’re at the front of my mind, Charles,’ he said. A respectable showing in the elections for the shadow cabinet, but somehow I get the feeling that the post of ‘Token Left Winger Who Can Be Bought Off With Promises of a Big Office and Lots of Lunches with Tony’ has been earmarked for John Prescott. To Sunderland, to sign some Christmas cards. Unfortunately I left them all in London.