You don’t ‘che.

Just touching base here to basically fill you in on a classic. Made my blood run cold, to be honest, but let’s be fair, I can run but I can’t hide. Mea culpa.

Turns out I talk in almost total cliche. Who knew?

Little survey on the BBC news site has flagged up, beyond any shadow of doubt, that I only know how to talk in the verbal equivalent of a finger pistol. 110%.

Now, you might say: ‘No sh*t, Sherlock’. But – not being funny – the full realisation only dawned on me, actually, as I was ticking off the whole nine yards.

Just back from a meeting in a motorway service station – as is only natural in the stimulating and original life of a freelance creative – I can count a worrying number of them from this little online article that I used IN the meeting.

“Songsheet, pipeline, end-of-play roll-out scenario solutions deliverables.” Literally. ..Although the day I DO use the word ‘scenario’, or – heaven forfend – ‘solutions’ >gaaakkk< I should have something lethal put in my drink, please.

At the end of the day, we’re all only human, I guess.

..Although. Hmm. You’d think the least a bloody allegedly-professional writer could do is a rather cleverer job of writing in cliche – when actually trying to write in cliche.

It’s no good just talking the talk… (ohshutup.)

Yes.

..we chuffing can, apparently.

Overnight, America got its mojo back.

We’ve grown so used to the Bush administration’s incompetence that we’ve almost forgotten about the little chap that’s still apparently to be found in the White House. But the all-but landslide of Obama’s electoral victory lastnight has, at a stroke, put America back where it wants to be: inspiring the world.

Now, stick with all this, because I’m not sure that today’s a day to get hung about hyperbole.

I’m not sure it’s being silly to feel a lump in the throat about it all, some five hours away at nearest landfall. ..I’m not sure it’s OTT to shout OMG! out in the bleedin’ street, to be honest – and I’m really not sure that words will cover the genuine significance of the symbolism.

Think about it.

America managed to find a man who was not only intelligent and considerate but inspiring ..AND willing to run for public office. And thin. And then it actually chuffing well voted him in to the highest seat in the land.

Oh, and apparently his skin colour’s a novelty. Whatever.

Really. Just feel a little lightness about something groovy having just happened in politics for once. Feel no shame about the sentimentality. Because America just said no to the incompetent, narrow-minded, corrupt, basically hateful attitude of old fashioned right-wing Americanism. By one college vote under an official landslide.

Yes.
Whatever the combined circumstances, it did. And Barrack’s retort to his well-wishers that this wasn’t so much his victory as everyone’s, because it was victory secured with countless counting hands and feet mobilising – that’s simply true. For once, the rhetoric is kinetic.
Interesting, though.

In America, they’ve always proudly said that any idiot can get into the White House.

It seems that both administrations, incumbent and elect, have proved it beyond doubt.

..Bloody get in, Baz.

History.

So here I am. Sitting up with a cup of tea, ages after I should have followed my instincts to bed, watching the waffly overtures of the BBC’s coverage of the US election. They keep saying it’s an historic evening.

First results are in and they’re interviewing Ricky Gervais. Right to the heart of the action.

They’re also showing squads of bloggers in Times Square, keeping the online momentum of the evening belting along breathlessly. I wonder what they’re all banging on about? The concerns of the chap who’s really at the centre of this election – Joe the Blogger? That guy speaks for me, sure.

Oh dear, can I face the tedium and adrenalin mixed? If so, it shows I might have coped with being an airline pilot.

I’ve even been scribbling in my journal, just to prove I was here on this ‘historic night’. Like historians are going to be concerned with what I half-heartedly scrawled in my underpants on the sofa on the night the first black president of the USA wasn’t elected.

Actually, a little voice whispered in my idle wonderings, while cynicism bellowed in the background something obvious about America ‘buggering it up at the last bloody minute’, that maybe – just maybe – Obama will win by a landslide. An actual landslide.

If he does, let’s just accept it – it would be historic alright.

A president who understands disco.

Vote.

Oh, crikey. Can we really get through this? This last agonising day? Sitting on our hands and wondering.

It’s like watching football. Especially from my point of view, as a person who didn’t even begin to understand it until he watched an international match – it’s all so very real to your adrenalin gland, yet all so practically academic. How will it change my Wednesday either way? Really.

Now, if I was funny or creative, I’d punchline-out with something about the Glenrothes bi-election, and how I’ve been following it’s every move and, oh, is there something happening elsewhere, etc…

But anyway that’s on Thursday and I can’t be arsed.

I’m just not looking forward to the radio coming on tomorrow morning and, y’know… finding out.

It’s academic, you’re right. These things are probably more important at local club level, again you’re right. And the heroes on the pitch can sometimes turn out to be prize twits without a steadycam running along the touchline beside them. I know. ..I also know the US presidential elections should sooner have a baseball metaphor than a ‘soccer’ one. I know.

But my point is, we get very excited about England’s chances of possibly one day maybe qualifying for an international tournament again, when all they stand the slimmest hope of ultimately winning is a trophy and some sponsorship.

The winner tonight gets to take home the Free World and the keys to our burnt-out, sitting-on-bricks economy.

And I so want that guy to at least have a fighting chance of being able to out-live Sarah Palin’s time in the VP’s office.

Gore-p.

Almost-last shot of sharp-tongued Guardian critic Charlie Brooker’s gonzo-gore undead mini series, Dead Set:

zombies in soulless shopping centre staring vacantly at zombies in Big Brother house, staring vacantly back out of widescreen tellies in Dixons or similar.

Nice work, mate.