Saturday, April 2 [2005]
The Pope has died. The BBC went into complete tribute. The highlight was that the Pope had defeated communism, as if it were a personal victory.
The fact that he'd opposed the Falklands War when he was in England, the fact that he opposed the Gulf War, that he opposed the Iraq War, were all just skated over. Indeed, the fact that he went to Cuba and said that capitalism was a brutal system was skated over. They did just mention the fact that he was against fighting Aids with condoms, he was against abortion, he was against homosexuality, he was against women priests, but that was all minimised.
So I felt it was just another attack on socialism in all its shapes and forms, and a restoration of religion and religious obedience to the centre of the political scene. I say this with some regret, because he was a good man. He was a committed guy and he worked hard, but this idea of Papal infallibility sticks in my gullet, and also the idea that the duty of Christians is to take orders.
Saturday, April 9
It's very, very cold today, so I put on my woolly underwear. Partly out of curiosity, having watched the Pope's funeral, and trying to understand the country I live in, I watched the wedding of Charles and Camilla.
You saw the guests arriving, and a few, rather straggly people outside, who'd been issued with Union Jacks, waving them in a desultory way.
I'm not saying anyone wishes ill to the couple, but I wouldn't have said there was any sense of excitement.
Then a Rolls-Royce arrived, and they went back to St George's Chapel at Windsor for the blessing. I really do feel we've been taken back to Edwardian Britain. Under Blair, we've gone back 80, 90 years, all these toffs in fancy clothes.
No one's embarrassed about wealth any more, and the general public just stand there, with the police watching them, with flags, just waving. They're treated like idiots and imbeciles and servants and slaves.
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