i know that you know

Although you’re probably no more interested than I was, I thought I should report that the painfully young candidate won the North Norwich by-election on Thursday. She was the one who kept saying “you know” during the hustings.

She pronounces the words “you know” without any hint of a question mark at the end - you know, when the final word is given an upward lilt, as in “You know?” Rather she uses the phrase as an imperial command, as if to hint that I’m being perverse in affecting not to know, but she knows that I do know. I feel as if I’m being reprimanded, as in “You damned well do know!”

She’s one of Cameron’s bitches. I suspect she’s full of good ideas. Someone ought to tell her that throughout history new ideas have been responsible for all the world’s ills. We humans should take our lead from nature. Animals don’t have new ideas. They simply get on with life, evolving slowly without ambition or schemes other than to live beyond the next crepuscular curtain fall. But I have a feeling that a whole charnel-house of new ideas is about to drop into our lives. Sometimes I’m relieved to be old.

I wanted to ask a question of this newest and youngest MP. Why do programmers at the BBC treat their listeners with such contempt? Yesterday I tuned in at the regular time for Jazz Record Requests, only to hear some distant and tuneless organ grinding away like background tracks to a Gothic Hammer House of Horror film. Apparently, the BBC decided to delay my jazz (yes – MY jazz) in favour of a live (another parenthesis – I’m not sure live is the correct word) recital from the Albert Hall. What is this curious obsession the BBC has with live broadcasts? Why must my music be delayed to make way for something which sounds a damned sight better on record anyway? I had to miss the first ¾ of Geoffrey Smith’s programme because I had other things to do.

Already I can sense somebody saying you can listen to the programme on the internet. But that’s fine if you have a high-powered 48 gigabit fibre-optic super-fast Virgin internet connection less than 100 yards from a telephone exchange. I don’t. I have an old-fashioned dial-up system giving me about 0.25kb a minute. It would take me about 2 weeks to listen to an hour’s worth of jazz albums through my computer.

I wanted to ask the new MP whether she would take my plaint to parliament and raise the issue in the House. But I think she’s probably too busy being clear about things and assuring us she’s entirely transparent. She’s undoubtedly fully occupied formulating youthful new ideas that are brimming to be released into the atmosphere as soon as the holidays are over. God help us all. You know?