The party conference season is in full swing now. This weekend the Greens are conferring in their usual well intentioned way and next weekend will see what may well turn out to be a thoroughly bad tempered and entertaining Lib Dem gathering. The following week the Labour Party will do their best to implode and finally the Tories will be holding their Old Thatcherite Reunion in Brum during the first week of October. This last event unfortunately clashes with a British Trotskyist "Right To Work" retro event being held at the same time.
Truth be told I have a bit of previous when it comes to party conferences. Regular readers of this blog may remember me posting about my short but enjoyable career in the circus. Well when the circus moved on I found some work as a stage hand in an ice show being staged at the Brighton Centre and eventually this led to a full time job as a auditorium hand/cleaner at the same venue. The work involved everything from building stages to operating spotlights to cleaning the bogs. It was a classic 80s local authority job with all that that entailed. Long hours were spent in our underground tearoom and when we covered the tables with check tablecloths complete with candles in Chianti bottles management thought that we really were taking the piss; which of course we were. They even went as far as recruiting an ex military policeman to try and tame us, but to no avail. Management did finally give me the bullet on a technicality but not before I had suffered some pretty excruciating party conferences including seeing Thatcher dust herself down and get on with it on the morning after the IRA demonstrated their own brand of politics at the Grand Hotel next door. Looking out across the hall at a sea of dark suits and floral dresses and listening to all that Tory self assurance is something that will live with me forever. Mind you, it wasn't as bad as doing follow spots for Julio Inglesias.
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