My problem is (well, one of my problems; a 3Gb computer is insufficient to list them all) that when I read books I engage with them. They become my reality. Same with movies. Which is why I love reading and film. Because they are the ultimate escape. Because when I put the book down or leave the cinema, I AM JAMES BOND. I am Woody Allen. I wasn’t Carol last week because lesbianism is tricky for a man with a beard and I can’t wear heels. But I become the characters. I can’t help it. I’m a spy. I’m a gigolo. I’m breaking codes to beat the nazis. The Stephen Hawking movie presented me with minor difficulties.

And I’m currently reading some Ken Follett novel or other (they’re all about the same really), this time set in the years preceding the 2nd world war. The time when Europe became fascist. Spain, Germany, then Italy, and Russia was for years a fascist state, but in its own way and with a slightly modified set of published ideologies, but by any definition Russia under Stalin (and indeed under Putin) is in every way a fascist state.

Britain toyed with fascism. They liked the uniforms and moustaches. So Moseley set up his band of brown-shirt scum and was backed whole-heartedly by the aristocracy, half the conservatives and The Daily Mail who hailed him as the messiah.

So ‘we’ went to war against fascism. We had to. It controls, it dictates, it removes all freedoms and all democratic process. It suppresses the truth. By controlling the press, by removing freedom of speech, by not allowing opposition. Thus the secret police arrive, the thought police looking for ‘subversion’ and the next thing is they’ve arrested granny for saying how the price of tea has gone up by 17 pennies and a farthing.

But what Fascism also does is appeal to a threatened indigenous population. Hitler will make the great depression go away. Franco will keep the churches in charge. Mussolini will… errr… good question; what the fuck did Mussolini ever do? But these leaders will MAKE THE PROBLEM GO AWAY. Whether that problem is poverty, instability or immigration.

And now France has taken a big step towards fascism as a knee-jerk reaction to the Paris attacks, horrendous though they were. WE NEED TO CONTROL IMMIGRATION!!! they cry. Then Daft Donald Trumpety-Trump pipes up that America should ban all muslims for 5 years. By which time he’ll be down to just one hair on his head, grown to 17 feet and wrapped round and round and round his horrible pink scalp.

The National Front took 30% of the total vote in the elections for regional councils. That’s massive. Because they hate immigrants. The fact that they also hate most people already living in France is beside the point.

Being French, even the fascists are gorgeous. But don’t be fooled. A Le Pen is a Le Pen is a Le Pen. And they are all totally fucking evil.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx