A couple of enlightened souls have suggested, knowing about the book I'm writing and my continuing preoccupation with the topic generally, that I would look back on the Eighties more happily if I'd had more fun at the time. That maybe I wouldn't have taken such a dim view of everything at the time, even, if I'd had more sex and I'd gone to more parties.
It's an interestingly philistine view, in my opinion. Do ideas always have to be the consolation prize for those without what is called "a life" ? Do we only follow politics or read books if we don't have someone to go out and get drunk with? Do we only care about what's happening to our neighbour if we have no one to fuck?
Actually, if anybody is reading this, I had a lot of fun in the Eighties, although I was pretty messed up emotionally at times; I'm not going to justify myself here by detailing the fun I had, but rest assured, ye masters and mistresses of erectile and cocktail bar oneupmanship, I had my share. I just happened not to like watching miners and rainbow travellers and the unemployed getting their heads cracked open for the crime of disagreeing with their Government. I just didn't appreciate the legislative persecution of homosexuals. I'm funny that way.
Many English people only acquire a sense of responsibility for the direction their country is travelling in, of course, when there's a dark-skinned or foreign-speaking community to persecute.
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