What difference does it make?
TRACK 7 Cambridge, Swansea and everything INXS
"Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in." — Isaac Asimov
On 17th October 2024, the Cambridge Union held a debate entitled: This House Would Make Vaccines Mandatory. Given that these people are likely going to be ruling over us in the next decade, the results of the vote should put the fear of God into every heart:
Ayes: 159, Noes: 133, Abstain: 57
If you can bear it, you can watch all the speeches for and against the proposition here
Why have I chosen to open this track in such a random way, I hear you ask? Let’s rewind back to 1987 and my A Level days. A couple of my teachers suggested that I apply to read Russian (and Italian) at Cambridge. It was expected of me; I was ‘awfully bright’ you see. My reading and comprehension age was unusually advanced, apparently. But I was a lazy fucker, or, more precisely, an indolent one.
I recall writing an essay for my mock O Level exams about E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. I hadn’t read the book properly, so just before the exam I asked my friend Alex to give me her crib notes. To my astonishment (and secret delight) I came top of the class. The English teacher took me to one side and said it was an ‘excellent’ essay because it was entertaining and looked at Foster in the round. I think I was the only student that had alluded to his homosexuality and how that reflected in his work. I was singing classical music in various languages at 14 years old. But, above all I was curious about the world and in particular what makes human beings tick. There are photos of me as a toddler, wearing a kilt and tiny red Wellington boots with a constantly perplexed look on my Celtic potato face.
Around my last years at school, I discovered Michael Hutchence and INXS. After Elvis, Hutchence is one of the most charismatic frontmen ever to have lived.
I digress… (not like me)
During my interview at Newnham College, I spotted a Jenga like stack of bright red Royal Opera House programmes in the corner of his study. I had been singing classical music for most of my teenage years. I had already gained grade 5 in piano and grade 8 in singing, but as anyone worth their salt knows, like being funny, musicality cannot be measured in tests. After university, it was the plan to train as an opera singer. I had also had a part-time job working in the press office at the ROH, so I had a really good glimpse into the mechanics of how a theatre runs. I often watched the rather stiff, grandiose productions and barely stifled sniggers as the distinct sound of velcro could be heard echoing round the theatre as a cloak was being ripped off Iago. I saw the premier of a sublime, haunting piece, The King Goes Forth to France by Aulis Sallinen.
Don’t get me wrong, I was extremely fortunate to be drenched in ‘high culture’ from an early age. But, I was never a snob about music. Only the mediocre are snobs about music, or comedy, because they can only thrive in the pre-programmed, exam-passing, learning-by-rote matrix. With their falsely superior assumptions, they believe they’re outside the box looking in, but, the truth is, they are very comfortable being inside the box.
According to my housemistress, my Cambridge interview had gone so well (apparently it was the best interview he’d conducted because I’d asked him about the ROH opera programmes). Cambridge made me an unconditional offer. Most applicants are given a conditional offer which means they have to achieve three As at A level. An unconditional offer meant that, depending on your interview, they accepted lower grades into account.
Darling reader, of course, I royally fucked up my A Levels. I wasn’t a cookie-cutter-exam-taker and I was in love with my first serious boyfriend, Steve (the son of the German teacher). I was nuts about him and vice versa. Sexually speaking, it was beautifully innocent and uncomplicated. There was lots of endless snogging that made me dizzy with desire, and over-the-jeans handjobs (my bad, I had yet to learn the fine art of those jobs).
My memories of Steve are forever associated with Simple Minds. I actually ended our relationship before going on a pre-university family trip to California. According to a mutual friend, Steve got so drunk he knocked himself out on the wall outside the pub. I still have a terrible sinking feeling of regret about the way it ended, and how happy those days were. This has happened a few times in relationships where I have been persuaded by others to do the ‘sensible’ thing when my heart disagreed.
In truth, my ‘disappointment’ at not getting a place at Cambridge is not actually my own disappointment at all, but the sneering, insecure disapproval of those who are part of the establishment they claim to oppose. Neither Oxford or Cambridge want mavericks who are true outsiders, They don’t encourage critical-thinking creatives, they breed rule-followers and rule-makers. It’s taken me till quite recently to understand that rather than being a huge missed opportunity, failing to get a place at Cambridge was one of the best things that could have happened to me.
The man who interviewed me that afternoon would have had hundreds of prim, proper, yes sir, no sir, cold, robotic, exam passers; with automaton responses. In my case, he was struck by someone who was genuinely interested in his hinterland. The hinterland that, as it turned out, we shared. The land beyond the curriculum, where the transcendent lives. Any beige drone can learn ‘facts’ by rote and regurgitate them, but the art of true exchange, and the pursuit of a shared joy and clarity is not something anyone can get a degree in.
I ended up in Swansea, land of my fathers.
I read Russian, Italian and hedonism.
My memories of Swansea University are very happy, hazy ones. After bunking up in halls for the first few weeks (they had an accommodation shortage), I then lived on Marlborough Road in Brynmill. There was a corner shop opposite owned by Siân, a fabulous, filthy-mouthed broad. She used to close the shop am and pour me mugs of peach schnapps. I’d stumble home, steaming, and watch Going for Gold. Every Saturday night we’d all go to Cinderellas, an old school nightclub, with red velvet seats, and a small black and white checked dance floor, at the end of the Mumbles. The Mumbles Mile was a long row of pubs along the coast leading to ‘Cinders’, as it was affectionately known. Every term, there would be a three-legged race along the mile. One year we dressed as aliens. My great pal Lisa made the outfits which consisted of turquoise t-shirts covered in silver stars, and deely boppers.
Untethered, and totally wasted, we ended up at Ritzy nightclub. I ended up going home with someone who insisted I reminded him of Miranda Richardson. I may or may not have whispered “Percy, who’s Queen?” seductively into his ear later.
The music that I danced my arse off to is so varied that I’ve selected just a few that take me back for the time being. Get your lugholes round these beauties:
Londonbeat (I've Been Thinking About You)
Getting ready to go out with my Swansea friends we’d listen to, amongst others, the sublime Hot House Flowers and Soul 2 Soul
And we’d regularly get stoned (the crumbly resin days) listening to Tracey Chapman
It may surprise you to know that I was quite a late bloomer. I lost my virginity aged 19 to Jason, who fancied himself as a rockabilly. I’d gone back to his room, and he played the guitar for me. Which was enough to convince me. A few months later, Jason ditched the slick, rockabilly, 50s hair and short-sleeved plaid shirts, and became a surfer dude. I remember thinking it was a really weak thing to do – changing his look for a wetsuit.
As I write this, in a hotel lobby, I realise that I never really did that. I had friends who were goths, hippies, squares, punks, rockabillies, and Levi 501 girly-girls, but I didn’t change who I was depending on who I ran with. It was the same at school. Despite my peers wearing their uniform Sloane Ranger pearls, high collars, and 501s, I often wore a yellow and black dog tooth checked coat or a black and red leather jacket with rhinestones and a rearing horse on the back.
God, I loved that jacket.
Darling reader: never give your favourite clothes away.
You know the phrase work hard; play hard, well, unfortunately I never got the memo for the first part. I already spoke pretty much fluent Russian, so I was a year ahead and I was only on the three year course. Three years of dancing my arse off; drinking, enjoying lots of sex; meeting incredible people from all walks of life; beach parties; arguing about politics; talking absolute shite all night; taking drugs, and getting a degree in Russian at the end of it.
But, the degree I barely got was the icing on the hash cake.
Gareth was one of my first loves: Tall and blonde with pale blue eyes, he wore faded Levi’s, and looked like Rutger Hauer. He’d dropped out of Swansea and was working in McDonalds. My mother wasn’t impressed. His mum came to London once and she presented me with a whole cooked chicken wrapped in foil as a gift. We were sitting in Trafalgar Square. Gareth made me laugh like almost nobody before, or since, and the sex was hot as newly spewed lava. The Smiths were Gareth’s favourite band. We went to see Batman on our first date. After a few months, I ended it and then later changed my mind. Too late. That ship had sailed back to a previous girlfriend.
By fuck did I love him, and his pale Welsh eyes.
The Smiths - What Difference Does it Make?
Gareth took me to see The The in Newport - Johnny Marr was playing lead guitar with them and doing vocals on their third studio album, Mindbomb. One of the greatest bands to grace the earth, in my opinion.
The The - Good Morning Beautiful
One of the most vivid memories I have is walking to one of my last written exams. The sun was shining and I didn’t really give a fuck about any of it. At the bottom of my essay on Stalinist policies, I wrote: ‘In summary, Stalin was a Marxist cunt who is responsible for the murder of millions and millions of his own people. He makes Hitler look like an amateur.’
I’m guessing that’s probably what took points off my degree, which I only passed because my written and spoken Russian was so good.
I was listening a lot to this song on my canary yellow Sony Walkman in those days. The drum hi-hat and bass intro is so tight, and the pitch of the vocals is perfection. Bear in mind, these were the days before ghastly loops and Auto-Tune.
December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)
Just think, if I’d worked a bit harder and been a goody two-shoes, boring swot, I could have been rubbing shoulders with future M15/6 spies, and dawdling along the hallowed cloisters of an institution that spawned those who are responsible for terrorising the population; lying to them; locking them up; muzzling them; murdering them with various end-of-life drugs, and injecting them, and their children, with a dangerous gene therapy.
In summary, this house believes that you can shove your bootlicking, cowardly, duplicitous, establishment-fucking robots up your bauble-chasing, forelock-tugging, book-wanking, condescending, mediocre, gilded hoops.
PS I’m always editing and adding extra bits to all the ‘tracks’ as and when….for the final book.
MORE TO COME…
A great bit of writing as usual Abi! Very much looking forward to buying the book! 😊 💖
Excellent reverie of uni days, sparked a lot of memories of Glasgow university where I did vagina studies with a minor in weedology. For the first time in a ages I remembered the stress of the approach of those two or three modules for which I had done fuck alll beyond the first lecture. Was Aristotle a Conservative? Politics exam question,plus Machiavelli which I had read the night before but got near the top mark. An aptitud for legitimate analysis was labeled conspiracy theory and all that means. How delightfully naive it was. A time when the academy was respected as a maker of truths to power. How that has fucking changed. We see the real role...factories for future enforcers for the elite. But creepy socialist worker was never an option, those pompous shits who ruled student politics actually went on to rule us,, fucking hell how could it be? Connections and cabals. so we must create a new movement. I blame Abi for this mini reverie but thanx!