Cup Final

Mum and Dad had gone to Knowlesbeck when I got up at 11. I'm sickened by the Daily Mail’s blood and guts drum-beating: “God-speed To our Fighting Heroes,” “The British Are Back!” etc. Dad might be right when he says that Satan is abroad in this country: he's alive and well and living under the guise of patriotism and nationalism, the ‘them’ and ‘us’ rhetoric. In reality it's only ‘them,’ the faceless grey people who blunder, miscalculate and exhort the innocent to go off and die for their mistakes. Why do the teeming masses support them with even more callous jingoism? The public must be so shallow.

Sometimes I feel so frustrated. What's the point?

Robert and Carol arrived early afternoon to watch the Cup Final in colour. The game wasn't very distinguished although it was quite exciting at first, but the open end-to-end football soon degenerated into incoherent and structureless play. Near the end Spurs turned on the style, and overall they were better, QPR looking completely outclassed. Extra-time for the second season running, both sides attacking, Hoddle giving Spurs the lead with a few minutes to go but Fenwick equalising minutes later.

The news from the Falklands again dominates everything: thousands of British troops ashore, HMS Ardent has been sunk with twenty lost, film of Marines chatting to ‘liberated’ Falkland islanders, Thatcher, odious and sugar-voiced, her face looming into the camera. “Our troops were magnificent.”

Robert mouthed off about his opposition to the war, how he admires the bravery of conscientious objectors and Tony Benn, and his belief that the Ministry of Defence is lying. Dad's classed apart now, and being in the same room with him during the news, especially with Robert here, is fraught with tension and suspense. He really has got worse.

Gloom again, somehow.

I got my grades for my ‘A’ level mocks: A 'C' in Art, 'E' in English, 'D' in History and a 'C' in General Studies. This lead to a depressing conversation with Mum about my Uni. prospects. She's pessimistic about finances and says I'll be poor. . . .