Independence Day, 2026/Hysteria Island

It rained today. Just like last year and the year before and the year before that. It’s almost become a joke;

Knock, knock

Who’s there?

It’s going to rain on the twenty third of June.

I was never much good at jokes. But ever since they made it a bank holiday they pretty much guaranteed rainclouds. Christ; chances are they’re hiring those Russian made weather drones, those cloud pushers, with the boner intention of making it rain. After all, what could be more British than a sodden bank holiday?

A damp cynic, perhaps.

But of course we don’t use the word cynic anymore, we’re not supposed to anyway. We are not cynical people. Now we’re supposed to say that we are pragmatic. This is; a clearer reflection of our national character. I mean, I get it; in real terms these things are pretty blurred together, it makes sense in a Faragian way of thinking.

If you do something long enough it becomes a tradition. Apparently it takes about ten years. When they figured out that breaking away didn’t mean that there were any more fish in the ocean, they decided that everybody should go to the seaside on this, our day of independence, to provide a perennial cash injection to the struggling coastal regions. They even emailed everybody ice cream vouchers as incentive. What better way to celebrate British independence other than going to the seaside and spending your ice cream voucher in the pissing rain?

After a couple of years the Existentialists forgot to question it. After five they forgot that they forgot and just accepted it. Small victories; the aggregate of margins; somebody wins, some you lose.

But, see; and this is what really pisses me off. I live at the seaside. Some no postcard abortion of a coast town called California. Butting out ugly against the North Sea, this is nobody’s Riviera. Nobody wants to come here apart from on the twenty third of June. So, yeah, seeing all these people roll into town and knowing, just knowing that they have no intention of spending anything other than that one crummy ice cream voucher. They don’t even hire deck chairs anymore. They bring their own; the hyper deluxe lounger with charcoal blasted support struts. The lightweight steamed bamboo chez-lounge.

Garden chairs.

Dining chairs.

Kitchen chairs.

I’ve seen all kinds of chairs, man. And they sit there on the beach in the rain and sing Rule Britannia as if casting it over the wild browns of the North Sea and onto a continent that stopped listening years ago. They congratulate themselves on their courage and their bravery whilst the rest of us crack rhythms with bubble gum and chase joints around in the car park behind the cinema, or engage in other useless displacement activities.

But, see; that’s not who the Existentialists were back then, there was something more, something other to them. I know this because my parents were there at the beginning. They rose up, albeit giddily, albeit briefly and others like them. What with the parliamentary opposition self-immolating on what my parents described as a weekly basis, the Existentialists were the only visible resistance. There were uprisings and sit-ins and bombings and outings and for a few years things got pretty rough. So then they legalised Weed and the revolutionary noises piped down.

So now, when my parents aren’t at work they’re all blissed out and playing nicely. Every now and again they’ll say over dinner about some or other rumour that Corbyn is going to ride down from Scotland and lead the charge but other than that there is no talk of disquiet or agitation. Jimmy says that he’s dead anyway. Molly says that her dad says that he went mad and lives in a monastery out on the Hebrides. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself.

You might think that what with us being here first, the California that you’re thinking of is named after us. It’s not. We are named after it.

1898 and some frigate carrying four thousand gallons of yellow food colouring runs afoul on an outcrop of unfortunate and the cargo is split. This happenstance turns the surrounding water into a deep gold colour and somebody says; it’s just like California. And the stupid name stuck, as stupid names often do.

So when they said they were gonna build a zoo around our neck otw everyone was pretty made up about it. People fuelled their imaginations with pride about having the California Zoo. They said it would put us on the map for something other than food colouring. The Suits, as is their nature, spotted an opportunity. There was a secret ballot based upon a shortlist of three. I’m not old enough to vote. My parents were too stoned to vote but why would you call it anything other than the California Zoo?

It was a shoe-in.

It was a cert.

The Iain Duncan Smith Menagerie and Zoological Gardens of Economic Growth and Stability opened today. Turns out nobody really cared about the name. They say it’ll bring in even more business. We say it’ll bring in more ice cream vouchers. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself and for others.

But, see; they reckon this zoo is something else, a real Kardashian of a place, so they say. Nothing else like it in the world, a real triumph of British ingenuity and endeavour. Amongst all the lions and Tigers and Monkeys and all the other animals showcased on the strength of their points for residency exam results, there are two crowning jewels. The first is controversial on account of it being not quite real. And when I say it’s not quite real, I mean it’s not fucking real.

A holographic Dodo.

Using all the latest bleeding edge technology, Digital the (wittily named) Dodo appears to be a real life example of the British glory of the extinction reanimation process.

They even have little packs of shit strung out along the parallax barrier to provide that authentic dirty bird smell.

Everybody likes technology but not everybody likes the idea of it belonging in a zoo. It’s not like a cd skipping. It’s not like a cd skipping. There is too much money involved. If it fucks up we’re fucked. These days half the appeal of seeing animals caged up is the anguish in its eyes and the distressed timbre of its cries. Caged things now soothe the populous; make them feel powerful, respected and superior. Sometimes, early morning, when my newsfeed is quiet I wonder if our self-ordained insulation has been very good for our national psyche.

But the second jewel…

Well, that’s a whole cum in your pants social orgasm of a victory for Britain and the British people and everybody that ever stood up for what is right at home and throughout the world.

Ladies and gentlemen; we have Tandy.

Tandy was a big fat and dumb thing. Tandy was also the last Giant Panda Bear in the world. Made us look like the good guys. The caretakers of a species already halfway down the fire escape. There was some long hashed out and expensive deal with China, the details weren’t disclosed. Details are cynical.

We’re a pragmatic people.

So, anyway, on this rainy day in late June, some ten years on from where you now sit, everybody is getting real excitable about the opening of the Iain Duncan Smith Menagerie and Zoological Gardens of Economic Growth and Stability. The roads that spider web out of California like the busted capillaries of some alcoholic’s nose are more congealed than ever. What could be more British than a traffic jam in the pissing rain on a bank holiday?

I should probably tell you about Grandma Soup.

Her name wasn’t really Soup but she really was my great Grandpa until he lost his shit and decided that he wanted to be a Grandma. The only sustenance that she could manage was soup and thusly born be the suffix. Anyway she always carried the pistol that he was issued during the big war. Even in the kitchen, sweating over giant vats of soup, the pistol invariably in holster and holster welded to hip. Even at the dinner table, steaming spoon in hand, pistol there in holster on hip.

Grandma Soup died the other day and in the Faragian School of thinking that means there’s more room for us. It seemed a sad way out to me; one cardiac arrest with a side of face in scalding minestrone. My parents said that’s how she would have wanted it.

So anyway, I figured that living so close by, I’d get me down to the grand opening. What with it being my town and all I figured I had more of a right than most.

So, anyway, there I went. Up Nigel Farage road, cutting across the angle of Nigel Farage Park and joining Nigel Farage Lower Street at the point where it bisects Nigel Farage upper street and Onward. Skipping past Nigel Farage close and crescent I turned right (obviously), onto Nigel Farage boulevard and climbed westward onto Nigel Farage bridge. I paused at the crown and looked out to admire the snarled traffic and the snarled faces within. In the distance the slate grey road bled into the road grey sky like some bleakly textured Mobius strip. And I thought to myself; what a wonderful country. So much space!

They chopper in all the biggest suits for things like this. These are not the people who sit aiming the dashboard fans at their armpits in endless traffic jams. These are the helicopter class.

How do you know if you’ve seen a member of the helicopter class?

You’re not with them.

I was never much good at jokes. But here I am.

But here I am.

These days it’s all about lining up. And what could be more British than lining up in the pissing rain, on a bank holiday?

There is no crush to see our leaders. There is no excitement. There are ripples of polite applause, there are three cheers. I line up quietly as is the duty of a British citizen to God and to the King.

I remember things.

I remember being a kid and my mother making and building and making me this replica of a twentieth Century farm. It had cross stitch vacant dirt fields. It had running stitch fields of crops with upturned staples wrapped in fine yellow thread for corn. It had model tractors from toyshops and charity shops. It had pipe cleaner sheep.

It had nativity Jesus done up as a milkmaid.

A robot shepherd.

A coke can ring pull in half a cork as a boot scrape.

Shit man, it had character. It had this special gate that forced the cattle into the shed one by one, like some strung out metal funnel.

Oh, the memories that this setup sets up. And the CD almost, but not quite skips again.

So, anyway; I should probably tell you about the gun.

You line up calm, you line up pleasant, you line up in tradition but you don’t feel very proud of it. You line up wearing your reading glasses so you look like less of a threat but you line up with a gun in you backpack. At the top of the column, at the entrance you see the big suits shaking hands and handing out rosettes congratulating all on being there at the opening of the Iain Duncan Smith Menagerie and Zoological Gardens of Economic Growth and Stability. You try not to think in names because you know that they popped a reaper memory chip up your nose before you were two weeks old. You’ve trained yourself to think in abstract.

You see the fat one.

You see the purple one.

You see the lame one.

You see the one who wishes he was king.

And you lose your fucking nerve and shake each hand extended and you mumble something about inclement weather and before you know what’s happening you’re inside with a big purple, red, white and blue rosette stuck to your heart like a frilly tumour.

So, anyway, about the gun…

If you come from middle class stock as a rule of thumb you’re middle of the road. You’re bred to be average. You’re taught not to rock the boat. You’re taught that this is how we rule the waves. We live in the age of plastic; of disposable celebrity, of designer label tampons. We’re doped on religion and sex and TV.

Grandma Soup’s gun seemed to represent something other. Hard and black and deadly; some relic of a previous time when things weren’t so superficial; when ambition wasn’t so bland; When someone could strike out against something tangible and solid. These days everything is soft. We live in the carbonated bubble world of social media and flavoured tranquiliser pills. Sometimes it’s a real drag being average. In the congealed minestrone aftermath of Grandma Soup’s death nobody noticed the moves of a child or the sleight of hand that conjoined kitchen table and school bag.

Meanwhile down some other avenue of consciousness…

Sixteen hundred.

That’s how many of my kind were around in your time, the time you are in now. But it’s not your fault, it never is. And now, forward into my time and the number is one.

And it’s me.

But here I am.

Apparently my name is Tandy. Apparently I’m important. More importantly I’m famous. The whole world knows my face and I know your kind crave that sort of thing. I see it in your eyes; those lustful jealousies as you imagine all the autographs that I can’t sign and all the photographs that I can’t smile for. From sixteen hundred you let me drip away into one. You made me who I am. You and every black eyed Panda previous to me who was too lazy to fuck for years on end.

But here I am.

But here I am in my barred kingdom with my forced grown shoots of bamboo and my imported grasses and my little cherry red pills that smooth the edges of my thinking. My bed charged with voltage during daylight to keep me out of it.

I sit as still as I can and imagine I’m floating down some river in some land that I have never known. But those hand written ripples aren’t real and you people pour by my lonely kingdom and I stay where I am.

A Panda without a purpose is no Panda at all. You all go by with your camera phones to your faces with your thoughts transcribed into status updates. You are no more alive than me and I am no more dead than you. I know how you work; I know your dreams of bestiality and Panda bondage.

This kid here, this kid is different. When you’ve been gazed upon as often as me you get a feel for people. He pauses and the river breaks around him.

And his bag is off his back.

And he’s rummaging in it.

And I’m mildly curious.

And he pulls something from it.

And I’m thinking that if we are all carbon based life forms then really we’re all made of stars and maybe reincarnation is just the recycling of atoms with something residual attached.

I’m thinking maybe we all fade to black eventually.

I’m thinking that doesn’t look like any camera I’ve ever seen before.

I’m thinking –

For some reason the recoil makes me think of Grandma Soup’s frail wrist. For that split moment between Tandy being alive and otherwise I see a sheen of surprise in his black eyes. The air above him seems to wobble like looking through the vapours of spilled petrol.

There are screams and the river of people scatters and shatters around me and I realise that I am the first and the last of me. And I realise how completely alone I am. And I realise how completely alive I am.

I sit down on the ground and take off my glasses. I realise that I can’t think of a single joke.

Apart from...

Apart from one that Grandma Soup told me the week before she died.

What’s black and white and red all over?

But I forget the punch line.