Geoff Clams is fixin’ to die

By PRSD, on Monday, June 15, 2009

The weekly column from the world of Geoff Clams

Given the media tumult surrounding the Iranian presidential elections, accusations of stolen votes and an inflammatory cultural split, one might be tempted to say that, by comparison, political passions in Britain are either dying, dead or extinct.

Contrast how tepid and lazy we look next to these guys. They don’t feel that the winning ticket is representative, and so they invest their hearts and risk their lives by taking to the streets in their thousands to say so. By comparison, and after decades of being ideologically shunted between the centre and the far-right by two illusory red and blue factions, we just roll over and present our behinds and our livelihoods to whomever is brandishing the lube tube.

Granted, this wasn’t a general election and most are turned-off by Europe because, in all honesty, too few of us are truly informed enough to understand the real implications of the Lisbon Treaty as it stands. What’s more, can an economic bureaucracy like the European Parliament ever look like an arousing or alluring phenomenon? Isn’t there something else on? Can’t we all gawk at some terminally-ill celebrity undergoing chemotherapy instead?

Europe aside, this creeping voter apathy will probably gain momentum, as more and more of us resign ourselves to abject powerlessness and/or misguided protest votes. The recent MPs’ expenses debacle has certainly tickled our anger buds (evidently, it seems that the British are more prone to hate a scrounger than a war criminal/torture apologist/authoritarian creep) but the consensus is, that our ruling elite will soon roll out some new, corrective legislation and the nation’s boiling blood will inevitably cool. What a shame that would be. If we do get the election the majority of us so vehemently demand, can we even trust it to be free and fair? Will we all go back to sleep after the dust has settled and give the Tories a blank cheque mandate?

It is worth taking a retrospective look at our recent elections, now that we have the distance of hindsight. Not just for what the results tell us about the perceived rise in fascism or the death of the New Labour project or whatever else, but to examine the conduct of the polling itself. As more and more political bloggers seem to be invoking the term “Dark Arts” in their analyses of June 4, it seems that a disconcerting picture could still be emerging. Therefore, I would like to relay what happened to me the week I went to the polls.

I live in a very quiet road in Preston (Paignton), tucked away behind the Shorton Valley within a friendly and supportive community. We have many neighbors who are elderly and, who by-and-large, are passionately-engaged voters who still cling to the lifeboat ideal of democracy. It was, after all, their generation’s young men who truly fought and died for this abstract concept. Since polling day, my partner and I have had many over-the-fence conversations with our neighbours and we’ve been able to compare our recent experiences with them. If what we seem to be uncovering is a country-wide phenomenon, then ‘We The People’ are indeed entering the realms of the truly fantastical.

On Monday the 1st, I was returning from a meeting with Project Duvall out in Buckfastleigh. As I mentioned last week, they are a Devon-wide arts committee who meet every fortnight to discuss cultural projects and to lobby for potential funding. Overall, it had been a productive meeting up until my being very publicly sick again. Hence, I was feeling a bit jittery after an unpleasant and introspective drive back to Torbay.

As I pulled into my road, which is a cul-de-sac that branches off from a deathly steep hill, I forgot to drop gears and the car stalled. While fumbling with my keys in the bluish nine o’ clock twilight, I noticed an intense buzzing noise in the near distance. I couldn’t ascertain at first whether it was a far-off lawnmower or a close-by hornet, but it was indescribably high-pitched. Looking up the hill, where the local polling booth had just been erected, I noticed something no larger than a small suitcase suspended in the air and silhouetted against the bruising sky. It promptly zipped out of view with a weird serpentine confidence before I had any chance to get a lingering look. Dismissing the object as either another hallucination or an oddly-shaped night bird, I restarted my car and trundled to my driveway. As the night got thicker and followed me to bed, so too a sense of malicious, creeping dread.

In the earliest hours of the following morning, whilst I was shifting and turning in the throes of sleeplessness, the noise reappeared. Much, much louder this time. Opening my eyes, I watched a singular red dot of light centering itself on the bedroom curtains. It turned green momentarily and then back to red. I leaped from the bed and hurtled towards the window, yet, again it hurried off and the buzzing soon became distant. Elusive. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a further wink and decided to get up at around seven.

On my way back from the newsagents that very same morning, I was invited to share a cider (Al fresco) with my good, kindly neighbour Hugh, who lives at number four. Hugh is a pensioner, originally from Rotherham, who served in the RAF for thirty or so years. When he retired from the ranks, he went into local-level politics as a Conservative councillor and spent four years there before leaving to work on his garden. A great conversationalist who never beats about the proverbial bush, Hugh managed to surprise even me when, after a short, comforting summer silence and a sup of cold apple gold, he asked: “So, have you seen The Drone yet?”

“Drone?” I replied, unnerved. “What’s that then?”

“Noisy bloody camera that’s been buzzing around the streets at night,” he wheezed with the corners of his mouth downturned. “Whatever next, eh?”

“I saw it last night. Twice. It’s a camera?”

“A floating, talking camera, aye. Did you not get the leaflet? The local Police are doing a trial with it.”

“Why here? Unless of course they finally caught up with you nicking cuttings from Mrs. Frattelli’s Lobelia every summer.”

Hugh gave me the leaflet to study at home, which I did. The Drone is an unmanned CCTV camera with inbuilt facial recognition technology and sonar-based capabilities. Remarkably lightweight and agile, it is remotely accessed and controlled by the Police themselves and employs a series of tiny propulsive fans to hover about six feet from the ground. The Drone has been designed to combat anti-social behaviour, and is being trialed in six other counties up and down the land. Tossing the leaflet aside I went to my computer to write an email to the Devon and Cornwall Police Constabulary to air my concerns. I have since received a reply, effectively referring me to the IPCC. What’s the point?

Judith and I saw The Drone again that night. This time it was scanning the opposite side of the valley, hovering busily past a succession of living room windows, doing it’s red light/green light thing. Looking through walls no doubt. Perhaps not surprisingly, we both dreamed about the floating camera that night. I was so tired I slept right through.

Come Wednesday o’clock, and with the heady buzz of intimidating synthetic Police fading in our minds, we awoke to a loud and forceful knocking at the front door.

To be continued next week…