A bizarre political injury

I’ve written before about my continuing problem with radio phone-ins, and today I received the physical proof that it is bad for my health.

The occasion was George Osborne’s appearance on Victoria Derbyshire’s BBC FiveLive morning show. Gideon has quite an effect on me, and not in a good way. He slithered into the BBC’s Westminster studio with the Tory media enforcers’ training clearly still fresh in his mind. The usual vacuous Tory crap-speak was free-flowing from the word go. “Change.”  “Time for change.” “Ready for change.” “Change in a changey sort of way.” (It’s quite possible that I imagined that last one, but the red mist had descended too far by then.)

Very swiftly I found myself shouting at the radio. I don’t know why I do that. The broadcasters can’t hear me, and I’d struggle to explain why a sane or rational person would find any value in such a pointless demonstration of angst. Nevertheless such reasoned consideration rarely deters me from these outpourings, and you must understand that the appearance of Gideon (whether on the radio, the television or by direct satellite link from the Death Star) makes self-control an ever more distant prospect.

Eventually I pushed myself too far. I screamed, swore (I won’t repeat the word, as it’s neither big nor clever) and made some half-deranged physical gesture all at the same time. I’m not entirely sure what happened then, but there was a mess of spilt coffee and biscuit crumbs and I had somehow twisted my neck. It hurt. And I became aware that I was beetroot red.

I’ve spent the remainder of the day in some discomfort and feeling more than a little foolish. I will nevertheless be hugely surprised if I’ve learned anything from my needless exertions. I just hope the BBC can keep my Gideon exposure to an absolute minimum over the next few days, for the sake of my health.