June 23rd: Brexit


Last month the streets of Leicester were adorned with Leicester City Football Club flags, banners and posters and I still have my homage in the dining room window: a framed print of Matisse’s Blue Nude II and my blue and white Converse (photo) purchased from a vintage shop in Hoxton.  I’m sure Jamie Vardy appreciates it.  I sold my framed print for £10 last week (not to Vardy).  This month the city’s posters have been swapped for Brexit messages: STAY or REMAIN and many invisible but critical ones stating they DON’T GIVE A TOSS.   I am firmly in the remain camp and will soon have a remain campervan. The polling station is a two-mile round trip, walking from my house, but even if there’s a hurricane and escaped lions I will get to there to do my bit to ensure that the UK stays part of the European Union.

I watch the BBC from 10pm. Gibraltar declares first with 96%. No surprise.  But then it’s Newcastle, which only very narrowly votes to stay with 51%.  This is like a seismic aftershock; it’s not devastating but a rumble that causes jitters and another large glass of Merlot. The economic and political world starts to shake when Sunderland votes 61% to leave.  I stay up for another 12 results. With 15 out of 382 constituencies declared the total leave vote is 50.2% and remain in 49.8%.  I wish I wasn’t watching this on my own.  I wish I wasn’t watching this.  If it was a horror film I could turn it off and know it was just special effects and a script.  It’s now two in the morning, I’m in bed and have set the alarm for five.


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