a snapshot

Yesterday, I arrived at work. GB News was on in the canteen before I started my shift. The headlines about the air collision in Washington tapering across the screen. The canteen had a smattering of people. Africans, Poles, English, Indian. Some eating, some watching the screen, some glued to their phone. I remember the first time I noticed GB News playing on the canteen TV. It felt noteworthy. That was over a year ago. Maybe longer. It's standard now. It just plays in the background, like the BBC, or a local radio station. I can't help but periodically think about the noteworthiness though. Someone clicks the remote to turn it on. No one complains. No one turns it off. It feels like a little victory. Like somehow it's a little guide rail, keeping everything on the same cultural track. A kind of crash course in Britishness by daily osmosis.

Rolling coverage of American officials talking to the press about the tragedy runs uninterrupted on the screen. Then, finally, it cuts back to Tom Harwood and a female presenter in the studio. It then cuts to live feed from John Prescott's funeral, where Tony Blair is giving a eulogy. It starts mid-anecdote. A tale about John's no-nonsense working class manner - a refusal to refer to Menzies Campbell as "Ming". Blair then starts talking about "power". John's influence on debates about "what Labour must do to sustain power," and how the Tories "wield power" and find "nothing inherently unprincipled" in doing that. Even with the sorrowful news I couldn't help but inwardly laugh that even at a funeral Blair can't help but talk of power. I then looked at the clock in the screen's corner: 12:49. "I better wrap up, get my hi-vis on and head down to clock in for my shift."