Tuesday, August 11, 1981

M(o)u(n)d


 We set off for St. Delaward village. It looked like being another good day.

The atmosphere I detected last night at the castle was gone. The milling hordes of tourists–of which, I suppose, we are two–were everywhere, polluting and cheapening everything. Crap. It sounds pretentious I know but I hate them, the tick-it-off-the-itinerary types who rush through in half-an-hour. We wandered on to Polglyn in incredible heat to see the mound. I rang Mum, and then we walked back through the village. I was spending money like confetti, and a combination of the heat and the crowds made us both irritable and short-tempered.

As we waited for the hostel we sat and talked about everything. It was as if our bottled up feelings spewed out all of a sudden. I don’t know; with one breath I utter communistic oaths, slogans almost, yet with the other I express my hatred for people. They are just ordinary, everyday people yet possess none of the proletarian virtues Lenin spoke of. People, working people, are the most racist, bigoted, narrow-minded and prejudiced of the lot. And they don’t even care. Everyone is so predictable. But perhaps it’s not the people themselves I should hate, but the fact that their attitudes are moulded by junk media, warped from birth by the preceding, equally manipulated generation.

My dreams of becoming politically involved are empty in today’s situation. Parliamentary politics, the jacket-and-tie, ‘order, order’ atmosphere; it's all so restrictive. Westminster MPs are totally out of touch with reality; they just talk and talk and talk. There isn’t hope of any direct action, just empty words and the occasional earth-trembling vote. It's a careerist’s paradise. I have a real desire to actually do something concrete, do something to show my feelings. But what? Join the SPGB? What Grant said about the ‘left’s’ petty factionalism is true; joining the SPGB would achieve nothing. Yet there must be some way. . . .

Grant made self-described “feeble attempts” at conversation with two girls which really made me cringe because I could see myself in him. It was painful, and after this I was plunged into self-piteous personality analyses and thought about how bloody difficult it is to know what to say or do with anyone, especially when it doesn’t come naturally.

Another fine sunset over the sea–but I’ve just thought; here I am wallowing like some self-indulgent hippo in the mud of self-pity. I take so much for bloody granted!

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