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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Reason is irrelevant. ‘The people’ demand their pig in a poke

9/9/2019

14 Comments

 
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For over three years, British politics have been a pantomime that gives democracy a bad name. A referendum dreamt up to unite the Tory party – spoiler alert, it didn’t – fragmenting the entire electorate with a just-over 50% vote in favour of economic self-harm[1]. The nettle grasped by a vicar’s daughter[2], and boy oh boy did that nettle sting. Still, she tackled it with robotic determination, while Rome burned[3], until she finally got the humbling she’d been rooting for since day one[4]. Now, for those of us bludgeoned by the Tory leadership contest[5], the victor’s blundering first week in parliament has been a joy. But will we find, amid proroguing parliament, sacking twenty-one of his mates – including the longest serving MP – and an apparent willingness to break the law rather than ask Brussels for an extension if he can’t secure a new deal, the final straw that will bring the country to its senses? I hope so, but I can’t believe it will.
[1] Leaving me and many others feeling homeless inside.
[2] Is that relevant, Anne? It is if she considered that a stamp of her morality, then went on to railroad through an agenda even she didn't want, having voted Remain.
[3] Or London did, in the Grenfell tower
[4] See Humbled Theresa puhleeeassse
[5]AKA a fascist plot to demoralise the Left
The longer this goes on the more intransigent ‘The people’ become. ‘The people’, we’re told, want ‘Brexit done’. At any cost, they tell us gleefully, whenever a TV news reporter sticks a microphone anywhere near their mouths. ‘The people’ are happy to back the Prime Minister, however badly he behaves.
 
This is scary. Aren’t the rest of us people? Don’t our opinions count? In our looking-glass world, seemingly not. Words quickly come to mean their opposites, with working-class kids who studied hard and gained good jobs tagged as elite, while the silver-spooned who inherited wealth from their parents are somehow salt of the earth.
 
But this was never about reason. While some – on both sides of the referendum vote – attempted – despite lies and misinformation – to weigh up the options for staying and leaving, emotion has played as big a part as logic, or maybe more. For some time, there’s been something rotten in the state of Britain, something we can’t quite bear to address. Fortunately, there’s  a scapegoat at hand.
 
On a national level, we’re a tiny country recoiling from a loss of empire unable to face its insignificance on the global stage. Let’s blame the EU for holding us back, especially when Germany has become so influential. Didn’t we thrash them in the war?[1]
 
On an individual level, decades of widening inequalities, promoted by governments of both Left and Right, have left many impoverished, hopeless and demoralised, while servo-charged capitalism has demolished the structures through which they might have fought back. You might think that decades of cheap package holidays to Europe would have weakened the tendency to offload our disgruntlement onto ‘foreigners’ but maybe the temptation – albeit unconsciously – is too much to resist.
 
The referendum seems to have galvanised the electorate with an enthusiasm often associated with reality TV. On such shows, it might not be so much that viewers choose the candidate they consider to have the best qualities but that, after selecting their favourite, they conclude that person must be the best[2]. If that person wins, wouldn’t they – wouldn’t you? – consider it a miscarriage of justice if the decision were dismissed.
 
I suspect something like this mechanism is behind the commitment of ‘The people’ to crashing out of the EU. It’s less about whether this is the right move – the rational doesn’t have much of a part – but, especially for people who feel powerless and rarely find themselves on the winning team, it becomes to feel more correct the more it’s threatened. ‘The people’ will insist on the prize being awarded, whether it benefits them or not.
 
I don’t know what the answer is. In fact, recognising that logic has nothing to do with it makes me even more despondent about our future, and angry with the chump who set this whole thing off. Although if any of them should read it, I imagine they’d find my analysis insulting, it does – for perhaps the first time – give me some sympathy for ‘The people’ whose goals are completely at odds with mine.

[1] It's a long time ago, but still in living memory of the democratic that voted Remain, but in my pre-EU childhood adults would often shake their heads at some German accomplishment, saying, "Remind me again who won the war!"

[2] There's psychology on this – honestly! – but I don't even know where to look for it, never mind find it.


I’ve already posted this week’s 99-word story for the Carrot Ranch prompt “true grit”.[1] But, to show my solidarity with writers across the pond suffering from Trumpism, I’ve written another.

[1] Miles of mountain, miles of sand


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Chin up, Boris!

The game kicks off at Eton, wellspring of uneven playing fields. Tactics tested and perfected in the hallowed halls of Oxbridge, it’s bowled by banking barons to the Palace – Westminster, that is – batted back and forth between the Commons and the Lords.  Though dressed in Greek and Latin, there’s nothing classy about the rules. Leave truth behind in the changing rooms, trounce the opposition and lay tripwires for those of your teammates who won’t pledge one hundred percent support. Forget fair play, sell your granny if you have to: winning’s all that matters; true grit will grab the prize.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
14 Comments
Norah Colvin
10/9/2019 01:00:55 pm

I can't say I know much about your country's politics, or mine for that matter, Anne, but there doesn't seem to be much good going on anywhere. The line about selling one's granny, do what it takes at any cost, seems to fit the tone quite well. From what I heard on the news tonight, it seems that anything that helps me get my way is okay. I wish it worked for me!
Congratulations on writing two responses to 'grit'. I haven't come up with one yet and I'm running out of time. I don't think I've got the grit for it.

Reply
D. Avery link
11/9/2019 04:08:47 am

Nora, you do have the grit and you put out a fine story, yet again.
I agree with the granny line, sell her, alls fair game these days. It's so bad here, seeing America (ignorwillingly) being led to Hate again, but even sadder to see that things are bad all over.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
11/9/2019 03:51:16 pm

As in most things, you lead the way. Unfortunately, we follow.

Anne Goodwin
11/9/2019 03:49:59 pm

Ha, right now it's hard to keep up even if you live here, although might be quiet for a few weeks now the PM's shut down parliament!
I see you've found your grit and I'll be over with my comment soonish.

Reply
D. Avery link
11/9/2019 04:01:28 am

Hmm. Yikes. Well now.
This prompt had me leaning towards a story as yet unwritten that was much smaller in scope but perhaps more scary because of that; in that it is shitty scary all over on large scales and small scales. So many good people, (I do see it and have to believe it) but so many f*** up leaders, such scary times round the world, and even in smaller local arenas.
Wait; was the prompt word shit or grit? Ah, grit, I messed up.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
11/9/2019 03:52:34 pm

Ha, no, you got it right and the prompt was grit. I just like to see the shitty side.

Reply
Jane link
11/9/2019 09:29:09 pm

Ha - I love your True Grit piece! Maybe we can combine mine and yours in the future and make Boris the victim of a murder plot!

Reply
Anne Goodwin
13/9/2019 01:15:59 pm

Careful, we might be done for incitement, although he does enough of that himself!

Reply
Norah Colvin
13/9/2019 10:41:33 am

What an enjoyable conversation - not the topic, but the repartee. Yes, I did eventually come up with something to contribute, not quite as deep as yours but perhaps more fundamental to the development of human psyche? Speaking of which, have you read any of Alice Miller? I guess I mean as a professional. I know you prefer fiction to non-.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
13/9/2019 01:14:27 pm

Yes, it's great when that happens. But Alice Miller? Didn't I recommend her to you?

Reply
Norah Colvin
2/10/2019 12:07:23 pm

You surely did, Anne, but I'd forgotten. I've just added another of your recommendations to my list and have seen three by Alice Miller already on my list recommended by you. :) I obviously hadn't taken notice of her name. Now I have.

Anne Goodwin
4/10/2019 05:57:35 pm

No worries, I'm glad you picked up on her work, however it came about.

Charli Mills link
18/9/2019 05:46:51 am

World politics have gone mad like they are eating off of lead plates. We have a crass saying when someone is about to do something more stupid than the last person, "Hold my beer." I feel like America elected Trump and the UK said, "Hold my beer." This competition of idiots needs to stop.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
18/9/2019 04:30:22 pm

We do love following your lead, even if it's into the pigsty. If only we could just down a few beers and make it all go away.

Reply



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