The end of the Roman Empire was brought about by its military power falling into the hands of non-state actors. We all know that – well, apart from people like new House Speaker, Maga-ic Mike Johnson* who thinks it’s because everyone inside the Roman Empire was too tolerant of homosexuality**(see below).
Think about that in the context of Melon Husk’s ‘loan’ of his Starlink satellite to Ukraine at the start of this conflict – a de facto sovereign intervention by a private individual. One who later proved that he was no more than a mere man, by his capricious withdrawal of the same facility when he didn’t like a particular aspect of Ukrainian policy. Does it herald the end of the Western hegemony; or the final days of the United States as the arsenal of democracy? We’re not across all the news here, but if Melon next takes his mini-submarine to the subterranean tunnels of Gaza, I’d say, we were headed for trouble.
Add to this, a potential re-election of The Trumpanzee, who would gift to Putin, and any other megalomaniacal nut-job in the region, the US’s voluntary withdrawal from NATO. After which, we might reasonably ask, “What is the world, if not a free gift to any despot who makes the best job of courting an AI-enabled mega-maga-billionaire?”
We each know, from the lite-versions we’ve witnessed in our own countries and close neighbours, that this world-endgame sees resources and assets transfer swiftly to connected cravenals – just as the whole of Russia was gifted to a handful of apparatchiks; and the coronavirus ravaged UK, when in crisis, revealed its only true loyalty was to billionaire party members; or the United States, where only a Christian nationalist agenda is tolerated by about half the nation, and where those that lead that revolution have publicly declared their intention to dismantle democracy asap after accessing power. We are close to a time when future settlements will be decided by power, money and enablers. And unlike the past, as similar as authoritarians were, we at least played out a nominal game of Right versus Left mediated through the centre. Now, everyone’s roughly the same sort of mutually supporting fascist.
Do you know what a cravenal is? No? I’m not surprised, because I just made it up. It is what seven-foot, man-boy, Richard Osman (UK TV person), in his hubristic efforts to stay current, would call a word-smash. It’s actually properly defined as a portmanteau word; in this case created by making one word out of craven and venal. Do you like it?
“I might use that,” the journalist said to us (we were being interviewed by someone wearing a protective helmet and a flak-jacket with PRESS written on it) – you know, like he was doing us a favour – I’ll just use that original new idea, and henceforth own the copyright in it. That sort of thing.
Friend John and I exchanged looks, “No you won’t,” I said.
“Why,” he replied, “What are you?” Like we had to justify to him who we were before we were allowed to use the new word we’d invented.
I must admit, with our belongings in a wheelbarrow, wearing lounge-lizard circa 1970/80s velvet suits, we didn’t cut the sharpest figures, and in the moment, I thought it felt wrong to tell him that we were on our way back to the UK to reshape the middle ground of politics by bringing in a new radical movement, which would save the UK from destitution and eventually the world from itself, so I said, “I’m a writer.”
He sort of chortled to himself, and asked, “What have you written?”
I told him that I hadn’t written anything yet.
I think my forthrightness, in a matter which would have embarrassed others, put him off his stride.
He reflected for a moment, then said, “Oh, what have you been doing, then?”
I told him that I had never had a proper job, nor really done anything that remotely looked like one, and left it at that.
He shrugged, and made as if to get up and leave, but in doing that, he got his hips caught on the arms of the chair, and tried to make it look like he was just shifting in his seat to make himself more comfortable. He didn’t speak for a while, just sipped some drink or other out one of those robust flask things that joggers use, occasionally looking at us, as he did. We remained. Truth be told, we’d agreed to be interviewed on the promise of a cup of tea and a sandwich, which til then, had still to arrive.
“May I ask,” he said, you know, in the way that some arsehole in an office might begin a sentence with, “I’m confused, could you just help me understand what you’re saying…” then he paused to let the smirk settle on his lips, “Why is it that you say you’re a writer?” You know, him being one and all that – albeit one that has to nick other people’s newly minted words. It’s one of those deliberately open-ended questions, which the asker knows can be relied upon to have the person asked fumbling and tripping over his words as he tries to formulate a coherent answer. As I once would have done myself. But times is changed. I am going to be a new MP that rips up him rulebook, and destroys the old way of doing things. He expected the old, I’ve always enjoyed writing, it’s my preferred method of communication and people have always said that I have a way with words, and can turn a phrase – you know, like some cove like Borrey Johnson might say, so I said, “Well, when I meet someone new, I examine until I’ve found out what it is I hate about them.”
He laughed like it was a joke, expecting me to go on, and explain the statement. But I didn’t. Instead, I locked my stare onto his, and never let him go.
Eventually, Friend John broke the spell by saying, “We’ll have our sandwich now, please.”
He nodded his head, and said, “Yeah, you sound like a writer to me.” Then he put his hand up to summon a waitress. “Give them whatever they want,” he said to her when she arrived.
Then I thought he was going to do that Chew-Chew thing, and allow us to eat as his guest while he sat and watched. So, I said to Friend, in the Anglo-Russe with which we communicate, “Don’t forget, we’ve already despatched a twat like this. What difference does another make?”
And I don’t know why, but we both sensed a frisson of excitement as I said the words – as if we’d both become epiphanised at the same moment. He’s not having that one ВТШ. But yes, it was most epiphanic.
“Is that Russian, you’re speaking?” he asked.
And Friend answered using the same hybrid language, “Yes – Every time I go to New York, I eat a Big Apple.”
He heard, “да,” and a Russian sounding version of “New York,” and seemed convinced that we were, between us, bilingual.
How would we like to earn “a few dollars” he wants to know. Well, you’ve seen the togs, you’ll have noticed how eager we were to earn a sandwich, and you can’t help but see the wheelbarrow. But again, Friend John, beats me to the response, in the tone of the new us.
“For what?” he asks.
“Some translation, some bits and pieces of writing.” He looks at me as he says the last bit. I say nothing back, because I don’t know how it works or what to say, and even if I did, I don’t know how to negotiate. So, I adopt our newly found putative MPs persona and stare at him for a bit, as if I hate him.
Eventually, he says, ‘What are you working on? At the moment.” And when I don’t respond, he says, “Your writing?”
I answered in the first-person plural again, to make him feel like he’d entered the world of a weird new movement that, by his indolence and outmoded ways, was out of bounds to him.
“Well,” I said, “We have a piece about how a marriage of convenience between Putin, Trump and AI, the world will end within fifteen years.” He crumpled up his face as if to say that it was a bit old hat.
“It’s got a lot of new words in it,” Friend added, but the idea was never going to get him moist.
“And the Monkees…” he tried to add, but I was already talking, saying, “And, you know how Christian, right-wing, white-man ideology dominates business, law, and state in the US, and that its proponents constantly quote from either the constitution, an 18th Century document, or the bible, written by would-be oppressors of the Bronze Age?”
He nods.
“…well, we have wondered what a bible, written by a cravenal American white fascist of today, might look like.”
And he says, “Reminds me of that time I had Chlamydia.”
I don’t know whether that means he likes it or not, so I add, “You know, human liver-burgers, and churches for prostitutes?”
Friend John turns to me, and in our special language says, “Why don’t we tell him about running away from Chew-Chew and Scrubber’s Haircut?”
We talk it over for a moment, until he interrupts to ask what is so interesting.
And we find ourselves in the same conversation, but somehow now, including him. It’s as if he asked in the right way, and we suddenly accepted him as a friend and confidante. I don’t know, but in that moment, our relationship changed. Him now an avuncular presence in our story, interested, engaged, slightly airing to the mentor – giving off this vibe that with him, we were safe, without him, we were on our own in the desolation.
We tell him that there was an accidental expiry to which were proximate, and that an unhinged violent sociopath, who can connect us to it, may, motivated by the desire to cause trouble in as many places as possible, as much as the desire to extort from us, may be on our trail. We spotted a shock of dyed blond hair on the horizon the other day, under which stood the body of an angry boxer. And when all is said and done, progress has been slow and we’re only a good walk away from where we set off.
What, he wonders, could she expect to extort from you? – casting his eye again towards the wheelbarrow. We shrug, unwilling to tell him about our stolen credit card.
“What would her expectations be?” he directs his question towards Friend, seeming to tune into the fact that he is the one with the real connection with her.
“Usually,” Friend replies, “after I’ve met with her, she expects a least two alco-pops and a gift voucher for Amazon. Last time, she settled for a tray of Pot Noodles.”
He laughs over Friend, as he tries to add, “The new flavour, Chilli Chicken.”
“She might come in a little more expensive for covering up a death,” he says when he stops giggling.
I start to tell him that she probably has a stronger connection to the deceased than we realised at the time, but he’s moved on from the story.
“How about this,” he says, “You write a column, about real life here. But real, real life – horrible stories like that, ones that the war pushes under the surface. Like Bridget Jones Diary, only not as shit, and a bit dirty.”
“Fancy it?” he asks, and before we can answer, he adds, “You’ll get the byline, and I will get a share of the syndication for looking after you. I will also give you ideas for you to work up.”
We look at each other, and nod to indicate that we agree, but before we can answer him, he speaks again, and says, “And for that, you will be my interpreters, wherever and whenever I need you. And you’ll have to look after your own accommodation.”
Unlike every charlatan politician that ever lived, we have given away our negotiation before it even started, so we agreed again, and shook hands.
We are sufficiently cowardly and corrupt to enter the ranks for a while. The way I see it, we will learn the ways of such people in a way that will open-up the life into which we intend to enter; or, the world will end soon anyway, and it won’t matter. Less likely, but not to be discounted – this way we may get our hands on some military hardware, and bring events to a conclusion all on our own. Yes, it may yet reveal itself to me a truly epiphanious moment..
Footnotes/Bibliography
Dickie White's Diary 
I wonder if anyone looked at me, many years back, and thought, That’ll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark about hell and that, or having to hide what you think of the priest. He and his lot will all go down the long slide like free bloody birds.
For all the Anglican atheists
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Are dad was always going on about the gays, how they were always on the tele trying to convert people over to be like them. That’s why he wouldn’t let me audition for Fiddler on the Roof. He reckoned they had this language and that they set out to turn people like me, who was nice and that. He was a choir boy – always going on about, how they went three times to church on Sundays, sometimes more on big days. We reckon he must of got fingered by one of the priests when he wasn’t ready for it an it put him off for life. We’d have dreaded telling him if we was gay, he would have chucked us out he was that against it. I think, cos I looked nice and that and was shy, that someone called me a faggot one day, what he heard, and he spent the rest of his life shitting his pants that I was. He’d have had me on one of thos conversion programmes if I was – provided it was free LOL.
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