GONE FISHIN’ [475]

Only occasionally will I have something to eat from McDonald’s, but when I do, and if it has passed 11am, I will have a Filet-O-Fish. Once I realised that choice was “Proustian”, I had to think about it a bit more.

The Filet-O-Fish has been my choice since childhood, and I can taste why: it is milder overall than a hamburger or cheeseburger, with a steamed bun over a toasted one, tartare sauce instead of the more mixed assault of mustard, ketchup and gherkin, breaded pollock over seasoned beef, and a slice of processed cheese – the original American version only uses half a slice.  I continue to make sure that some of the sauce falls out, creating a dip for the fries.

I also remember the Filet-O-Fish’s previous blue polystyrene container, served in bags crossed with lines of “M”s, more than any toy the meal came with, and trying to poke your fingers through it as much as you tried to flatten the flimsy foil (unused) ashtrays that used to be on every table, which usually had the moulded seats bolted onto the table leg that took root in the red tiled floor, surrounded by cream walls, doctor’s office pictures, spider plants and Muzak...

This is the term “Proustian” at work, derived from the dunking of a Madeline cake in tea conjuring the memory of the story that makes Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” (or “Remembrance of Things Past”). Everything I have described does not exist anymore, but they are of such a specific time – the late 1980s into the early 1990s – that it cannot be separated from what triggers those memories.

Tastes necessarily do change. McDonald’s can no longer realistically be allowed to appeal to children, their having ended the ball pits and birthday parties. I sensed something was up when the dominant colour of their restaurants changed from red to green, resembling a coffee shop more than a classic McDonald’s, just as other coffee shop chains joined the High Street like Starbucks and Costa. At the very least, the UK avoided the replacement of the Filet-O-Fish in the US by the Fish Filet Deluxe in 1996, with a larger patty and the addition of lettuce, before petitions brought the original back within a year, retaining the larger fish patty.

I am also now too aware that the Filet-O-Fish is the “healthier” option only in comparison to their other burgers, McDonald’s making clear it uses fish from sustainable sources, and that a medium portion of fries has more calories in it than the sandwich itself (337 versus 315, according to mcdonalds.co.uk)... but you still need at least a small portion of fries for the tartare sauce... 

If nostalgia is going to be triggered by food, make sure that nostalgia comes from a place that means you can only eat it occasionally.

TOO BUSY DODGING BETWEEN THE FLAK [474]

I had only one reason to think that Donald Trump could be re-elected President of the United States, and that was the event of his attempted assassination in Pennsylvania in July 2024, when the imagery of someone getting back up, punching the air as they were led away, eclipsed everything he had said or done, or could say and do. We live in the age of the moving image.

I have no intention of writing about Donald Trump again after this article, because I have done it more than enough times for one lifetime. I could find myself writing about the consequences of his actions, because you don’t have to be in the United States to have it act upon you in some way. Trump will do what he does, like he did last time, we will all resist again, like we did last time, and when he leaves office, because he cannot run for President again – and realistically will be too old to run for a third time, even if he somehow changed the rules – the next President will overwrite his proclamations with new ones, just like last time.

Meanwhile, most Americans that did vote for Trump may consider that choice to be as transactional as any other interaction he has made, because they cannot have voted based on character to have re-elected as known a quantity as him. Fears over the future of classical liberalism and democracy will fade, because people can still think, choose and act for themselves, regardless of what the rules are – how else does Trump think he can behave as he does? The search for a Democratic answer to this victory will be found, but by a younger generation of people.

It has already been noticed that sales of dystopian fiction, like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, have surged in the days following the election. However, I had already thought about the fictional megacorporations that would have benefitted from a Trump presidency, like Wayland Utani (“Alien”), the Tyrell Corporation (“Blade Runner”) and Omni Consumer Products (“Robocop”). Elon Musk, having slotted himself into a prospective governmental position has also, through his use and misuse of his own social media platform, also fulfils the role previously filled by newspaper press barons like Rupert Murdoch and William Randolph Hearst. 

What am I going to do? I will leave below what I have already said before, leave it at that, and be thankful that the only reason the United Kingdom is on its sixth Prime Minister in a decade is because, when they are no good, either as a political leader or as a person, they are either voted out, or kicked out.

This could apply in so many cases, but in the next four years or less, read thoroughly, have a sense of history, and don’t repeat your mistakes.

Back when Trump was first elected in 2016, I said that “the weight of [the Presidential] office demands respect. However, the holder of that office cannot afford to be given the benefit of the doubt, especially when Trump has never appeared to need it before.” (“Who Says a Miss Was Made to Kiss?”, 21/11/2016)

In 2018, I mistakenly consoled myself knowing that 2025 could have been the latest possible year Trump could remain President: “What I do know is that everything will find its centre, or equilibrium once more, even if it has to make a new one, as people take stock of where everything has reached.” (“You’ll Never Live It Down Unless You Whip It”, 28/05/2018)

When Joe Biden was elected in 2020, I said that scrutiny of Trump will continue to intensify: “Trusting only his decisions, there is no history to learn, no precedent to observe, no dignity worth honouring... Perhaps your experience of life is tainted when the only people that come close to you will eventually sell you out for profit, but when you define your life by the deals you make, you can’t reasonably expect fealty from anyone.” (“Spank The Pank Who Try To Drive You Nuts”, 08/11/2020)

Finally, after the 2021 attack on the Capitol building, I thought I never had to consider Trump again: “Donald Trump became the de facto 'Gatekeepers' bogeyman: a man whose choppy utterances and half-formed, half-stolen slogans enraptured millions, and radicalised thousands more. Words were often beyond him, left to those in his administration to make sound reasonable, but the longer the noise, the threats against the media, and the pronouncements on Twitter went on, the more it became the stifling daily rhythm to everyday life... He really was the worst of us.” (“All About the Love Again”, 24/01/2021)

BUT STILL THEY COME! [473]

Browsing blu-rays in HMV’s flagship store in London’s Oxford Street, I found myself unable to concentrate on what special edition re-release I wanted this time around, leaving half an hour later empty-handed and with a headache. 

While inside, the store’s speakers were playing an intense section of the immensely popular 1978 prog rock album “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds”, from the emergence of the spidery Martian creatures and their heat rays, with driving bass lines and Phil Lynott’s vocoded call of “Ulla!”, through Justin Hayward’s rendition of the love song “Forever Autumn”, the album’s sole cover, mixed seamlessly into the story, to the sinking of the iron-clad warship HMS Thunder Child by the Martians. 

I presume the 95-minute album was played in full, but it was heavy going for a Saturday afternoon in a busy store. However, I made sure to listen to it in full, something I had never done before, despite my family always owning at least two copies of it, my parents seeing a live performance of it, and even my travelling to Woking, where the story is set, to see Michael Condron’s Martian Tripod sculpture, identifying it more with the album cover than the description in H.G. Wells’ original novel. My family has always had at least two copies of the original double vinyl release, with gatefold sleeve and booklet of art by John Pasche to accompany the music - it is pretty much my introduction to what an “album” is.

The opening track, “The Eve of The War”, and “Forever Autumn” were released as singles, and a “Highlights from...” album cuts the length in half, but listening to Jeff Wayne’s development of leitmotifs is something I should have done earlier, distilling the essence of Walls’s story into an immersive experience, guided by Richard Burton’s narration as “The Journalist” (recorded in California before he began shooting the film “Exorcist II: The Heretic”).

Progressive rock is named through its aspiration to art through more elaborate composition and arrangement of music and lyrics, taking in other genres. I initially thought that, in this case, Rick Wakeman had walked so that Jeff Wayne could run, through Wakeman’s albums like “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” in 1975, and the previous year’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, a forty-minute orchestral adaptation narrated by David Hemmings. However, Wayne had already composed the score for a West End musical adaptation of “A Tale of Two Cities” before entering commercial song and ad jingle writing.

Now I have listened to it, something that made me screw up my face was the track “Brave New World”, where David Essex, as the Artilleryman, proposes that humanity can live underground, under the noses of the Martians: “We'll send scouting parties to collect books and stuff, and men like you'll teach the kids not poems and rubbish – science, so we can get everything working.” Fortunately, us art-lovers have Burton’s narration of the Artilleryman unveiling his tunnel, “scarcely ten yards long, that had taken him a week to dig. I could have dug that much in a day, and I suddenly had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers...” How fortunate for humanity that the Martians caught a cold.

Writing this has led me to discover that “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of Spartacus” exists, an album released in 1992 that stars Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, seemingly eclipsed by the enduring success of Wayne’s previous work. I may have to listen to it too.