The Laughing Clowns

Our enemies comprehend only the language of blood… the time for the pen has passed and we enter the era of the sword…words are dead…

Snarling, evil, angry little men; they’re everywhere. You may not know them, but you’ll know their type; products of our time, made possible by the undercurrents of hatred and aggression that blow us kind souls like flotsam in the wind. We who believe in love are anathema to males whose idea of debate is to proselytise their dystopian demi monde, where discussion is at the level of a set of mentally ill drunks in Help for Heroes hoodies screaming incoherently about their bets at 10.00 am in a Wetherspoons.  All they offer is violence. Theirs is a world where a rigorously imposed screed of authoritarian populist beliefs, praising conformity and obedience above all other values, are imposed by those who see the Sleaford Mods as role models.  Tolerance and individualism are considered the dangerous touchstones of Saboteurs who they tried to crush to ensure Hard Brexit, take back control, reclaim the borders, get justice for Big Al and kick all the Muslims out.

Podgy, bad-tempered short blokes; pugilistic alpha male wannabes. Their Tinder profiles list “pognophobic hate crime” as a hobby and an aphrodisiac. They have threatened me with physical violence in 2017, to the complete and utter indifference of Northumbria Police.  To be crystal clear about this, one other person has publicly announced they would “set about me,” but as he suffers from serious mental health problems, I don’t propose to inflict any further suffering on his poor family by discussing him or his conduct here.

Those unfortunates who sought conflict and confrontation with me may work for the cops, or they may have improvised ACAB tattoos, fading now, once etched with ink and compass at the back of an uproarious classroom. I’ve no evidence either way, but I do know the law works such men; Gepettos with warrant cards, toying with unsophisticated loners, in receipt of benefits or precariously employed, dwelling in dank, unpromising social housing developments. Men whose lights are going out. Men whose validity has expired. Men whose otiosity runs through them like the resort’s name in a stick of softened seaside rock.

They hate me you know. They hate all of us who think and can see the madness in our area. They fear our rejection of violence and the ways in which we embrace charity and affection. Not for us the flag of St George, the on-line betting app, Carling lager or the perennial poppy. The refusal to be cowed by moral absolutes creates cognitive dissonance in the mental vortex inhabited by violent heterosexual men. What would Tommy Robinson do in this situation? Or Farage? Or the bad Bootle UKIP meff? Fight peace with violence. Blades, boots and headbutts be thy name.

Saturday February 25^th. I arrived in town around 5.30, having seen my beloved Benfield lose to Dunston UTS.  Coming up St. Andrew’s Street, I saw a dreadful commotion outside Rosie’s; the peelers were cramming several hotheads from the banks of the Tyne and the Avon into the backs of large vans. Apparently the 2-2 draw hadn’t been enough of a contest for the Magpies and Robins, so they’d arranged a bout of posturing. Honestly, what do these rough sorts get out of such antics? Arousal?

I ploughed a solo furrow between by-standers and snarlers. There were friends from over the water in the Irish Centre I wanted to meet. Together, with more enthusiasm than knowledge, we watched the boys in green defeat France in the Six Nations, then went up the stairs to the Gallowgate Lounge to meet more pals. It was good. It was fun and we decided to carry on across the road in The Newcastle Arms, which is where this little old fella in an orange anorak started throwing shapes. I honestly don’t think I’ve exchanged two words with him, but his Twitter feed with a couple of other ageing toughies kept up a constant narrative about my alleged similarity to David Bellamy. Now, as I hate plants, I’d have preferred the more usual comparisons to Sadaam Hussein or Charles Manson, but these things happen, often for a reason. I didn’t know what the reason was and I was keen to find out.

The short, elderly lad was surrounded by a few of his pals, so I said hello as an opening gambit that could offer him the chance to say his piece about me. I think he was a little bemused by my friendly sincerity. He told me I was intelligent, dangerous and a cunt, then he threatened to “fuck” me. I’m fairly sure he meant it metaphorically, but he was so agitated by this point I thought I’d let him say his piece in the hope it enabled exorcism of his pent-up frustrated rage. His associates, who spoke little during this exchange, didn’t seem that keen on conversation either, as none of them responded to my friendly greetings. Strange sorts.  They seemed tense. Weak failures bereft of emotional intelligence. I think the idea behind their conduct and stumpy’s oath-edged peroration was to intimidate me into silence. Make me fearful of a tap on the shoulder on a dark night. Submit to their will. It didn’t work. It just saddened me that such violent heterosexual men are still around, symbiotically feeding from a mythologised, imagined past.

Friday April 14th. Arriving back in NE3 after celebrating the start of the cricket season at Chester Le Street, I alighted from my lift on the High Street. My intention was to walk through the park then down to South Gosforth and train it back to the Coast. In the end, I did, but not immediately. You see I was waylaid on the corner of St. Nicholas’ Avenue by a coiffed and complacent young drunk in the company of a taller, imbecilic posh stooge, who decided to comment on my facial hair. Rather like the tubby old lad in The Newcastle Arms, this shortarse seemed to find my beard worthy of unsolicited disdain. He called me “Isis” and asked if I had a bomb in my rucksack; a strange question for a Good Friday I thought. Perhaps his eyesight was failing, because he then called me a “Turkish fuckwit” and an “Arab prick.” I turned round and explained I’d been born on Tyneside, when things got surreal.

Without further speech, he reached up and put three of his fingers in my mouth, pulling at the back of my lower front teeth. It wasn’t a punch, or a slap, but a bizarrely invasive gesture. Clearly I recoiled, then disengaged before asking him what his game was. He was beyond normal discourse, preferring instead to make several loud “boom!” noises, while gesturing wildly at my small rucksack. I did what anyone sensible would have done in the circumstances. I phoned 999, got through to the poliss and explained I was a victim of an on-going hate crime.

Fry and Laurie decided to do one and unsteadily walked as far as The County, while I continued my conversation with an utterly unhelpful Northumbria Police operative, who insisted on endlessly repeating that they were “very busy” with matters that had “a higher priority” than my case. The Lennie and George of the RGS then affected their escape in an Uber, whose number I did not catch, heading off in the direction of town. It was now just after 6.00pm. I was freezing cold and my attackers had gone. The police were nowhere to be seen, despite me informing them a hate crime was on-going. What else could I do? I gave up and went home.

Around 7.15, after returning home, I received a call from Northumbria Police asking if the crime was still taking place. I pointed out that people suffering tirades of invective and abuse don’t tend to hang around listening to 75 minutes of that sort of thing.  I explained everything I had endured and witnessed, but the bored cop told me there was nothing he could do now they were gone, because “it’s your word against theirs and we know quite a bit about you, don’t we?”  He refused to check CCTV or Uber’s bookings, saying he wouldn’t record my complaint as a hate crime as my departure from the scene “indicates no offence has been committed.” The final, sinister pay-off was his warning to “be careful what you say about us and why you contact us in the future. We know your game.”

Astonishing huh? Evidence that a stratum of society clearly desires that we should live an increasingly right-wing, crypto-fascist, semi-dictatorship that is as much of a police state as the 1980s were. The Cops, the Tories and the Little Casuals are all in this together. From Blaydon to Marsden and North Shields to Newburn, the instigators of violent hate crime are cowering behind their crew cuts, swaddled in chunky Italian knitwear, afraid of ideas.  Starved of affection. Scared of love.

My life may be in danger, but the triumph of Hope in the election shows we who believe in love, tolerance and compassion are in the ascendancy. Don’t fight the little fat lads; forgive them. Indulge them. Love them. Emasculate them. They have lost. They are finished. They are dying out.