The first time I ever saw Kinnock, we were tripping our bollocks off.
Couldn't believe it... there we were, next thing, there's Kinnock.
Only nothing like on telly. Wearing a polo neck, nice suit. Looking
for all the world like Derrida, or something.
He reminded me of Captain Picard. Looked
trimmed and clever and hyper-competent.
Real class act.
So, anyway, we're all jabbering
like idiots don't, kind of pointing and laughing and saying
"Kinnock!"
out loud -
the absurdity of the connection between that noise, two hard syllables, and this bit of the world -
this lump of humanity -
in front of us.
(The hubris of that connection: Huxley was from Ealing as well...)
Glenys was there.
And another couple.
And anyway,
we're all jabbering and pointing and
stuff, and it's like he just doesn't see us. Not that he ignores us. No,
not that. He just doesn't
see us. It's like we're invisible to him.
In West Ealing, outside the Haweli curry house.
Kinnock was a great man for a curry.
Ealing folklore.
A fight in a curry house: Not the Prime Minister.
Of course, I had seen him before,
in Homebase,
on the Great West Road.
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