Thursday, June 9, 1983

Never mind the bollocks


 I stayed up all night reading and taking notes on The Awakening. I finished it at 3.30 a.m.: I enjoyed it and I can see why it was considered shocking and outrageous when it was first published. Barry and Russ stayed up all night doing work as well. By 5.20 a.m. it was broad-daylight out, and we pottered about enjoying the coolness of the morning before setting off to vote.

This was a ‘cut and run’ election sprung by Thatcher with only a few weeks notice, and for days now the result has been a certainty, the Tory press proudly gloating over the latest poll figures, a landslide predicted for the Conservatives and utter defeat for Foot and co. It’s been a bitter election campaign and I think it could be an important one in the future.

Election fever hasn’t really percolated through to campus and although the usual forest of leaflets and notices adorns the walls and trees, a general lack of contact with TV has ensured our immunity. As the minutes ticked away until seven, Russ and Barry and I hung about the deserted polling station in Watermouth Hall until finally we were let in, the first, perhaps the very first voters in the country.

I scrawled “Bollocks” on my ballot paper and popped it in the box. Russ did the same and Barry spoiled his paper too. The first three votes cast, the first three votes ruined. We came away satisfied.

At nine I went to my American Lit. tutorial which was a quiet, weary and subdued affair. Miriam had a dig at me for not reading Freud’s Essays on Sexuality. I almost fell asleep I was so dead-beat. I have four essays to write for Tuesday, and one Black Americans essay to complete for Monday. Impossible.


Gareth and Stu left early in the morning for Paris and the Bowie concert; they’ll be sleeping in cemeteries and no doubt at this very minute will be knocking back the booze in some café.

I went to bed at mid-day and got up about half-eight. Just a few people about. The radio said that the turnout had been high. I stayed up into the early hours to watch the results come in and it was quite obvious early on that the Tories were going to be re-elected with a big majority. Tony Benn lost his seat, as did Bill Rodgers of the SDP. Some conservative oaf behind me cheered when it flashed on the screen that Watermouth/New Lycroft was a Tory seat for another four years. Labour lost Easterby West—Dad’ll be pleased.

It’s a black day for the Labour Party. The Liberal/SDP Alliance held a handful of seats, but it’s another Thatcher government for four years. One step nearer the one-party state, and there’s more unrest to come for sure. Perhaps this will encourage dissenters to look outside the narrow, archaic world of parliament to the streets and cities where the real action will begin.

Tonight I feel thoroughly pissed off, I don’t know why. My world feels narrow and stifling and I feel trapped. Just lately I hate this narrative. It’s so useless trying to record the things I do, for my writing is so constrained and limited and I scarcely explore the possibilities a journal offers.

I have nothing to look forward to over the next few days except a hard slog to try and get some of these essays out of the way. Tomorrow too I have to find £50 to pay the deposit on the flat. I’m getting the money transferred from my NatWest deposit account at home.

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