Playing Thirty...

By TOMMY HOLGATE

Believe . . . I'm ready to get stuck in to the deceitful realm of politics

"Whoah, did you know that, by the time it's the year 2000, we'll all be FIFTEEN years old?"

Is what I recall saying in the playground at primary school, circa 1996.

For some reason, at the age of 11, I wasn't thinking that, by the very same calculations, in 2015 I would be turning 30.

Now this milestone has been reached, and I feel more ready than ever.

Although there were also times I didn't think I'd make it this far...

During a decade of alcohol abuse between 16-26 I ended up in hospital on numerous occasions after getting carried away and diving off balconies/tables/down stairs.

I had a vision in my mind that, if I didn't stop drinking, one day I would run across a road and not make it to the other side.

Luckily, I had already got that scenario out of the way after a heavy night following a film premiere of a London gangster flick (Rise Of The Footsoldiers) some years back.

After becoming disenchanted with Steve McFadden's suit [easily done] I said to my drinking buddy: "He thinks he's all macho, but look at him, teaming indigo velvet with violet silk. Get me two glasses of white wine from that free bar."

So he did. Not long afterwards, I woke up in a straight jacket.

I'd tried to run away from the Cafe De Paris in Picadilly Circus and, on the way across the road, had clipped the back of a - barely moving - taxi, spun round and clattered head first into a bus shelter.

As I lay unconscious on the ground, the police had assumed - not for the first time - that I was on acid.

Luckily the paramedics were on hand to strap me in and take me to A&E.

I don't think I've really told the above story to many people. Not for any particular reason, but it tends to blend in with the other hospital tales, none of which I am particularly proud of.

I was slamming down the booze back then, I suppose, because of a deep-rooted disenchantment with the world - and the inability to handle the pressures of the self-appointed responsibility to do something about it.

Basically I wasn't ready to start doing good stuff, as I was too pre-occupied with partying and telling people my hair wasn't a wig.

Of course, the more I drank, the less I did about the state of the world, the worse I felt, the more I drank, and so on.

Fast forward to the present day and a Parliamentary election beckons, following three-and-a-half years of sobriety. 

I'm still disenchanted with the state of the world, but now pre-occupied with a Party of a different kind.
One where Peace is paramount.

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