The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Yes, when I was a small tike, channel 9 would run the same movie all day long and they ran Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner starring a young Tom Courtney. Based on Alan Sillitoe's novel it portrays the poor working class of Britain in unremitting misery that's only alleviated by materialism or sex. Hollow, shallow people, unable to get ahead, unable to love, and in the final moment of being able to grasp a small but life-changing measure of success, throwing it all away in a fit of pettiness.

For some reason, this movie, which touched me so deeply for so many years and I later decided was pretty much based on the bullshit philosophy of Sillitoe's--existentialism--came to me this morning. Oddly enough it was not the hymn Jerusalem, which I was introduced to by this movie and which I still dearly love. No, it was an email from my friend in England who is not poor working class, just middle class with a quite nice house, a rental property, a dog, a car, a caravan (!) and a family. My friend said she was turning away from politics and the news, just wanted to be left alone, live out the rest of her life and when her mother dies, invest that inheritance in property because that's the only thing of value anymore.

And so we see how Great Britain will become Lesser Britain or maybe Britainistan. The social policies of the elite for so many years, generations now, have crushed the English spirit.

In The Long Distance Runner the telly soothed the spirits of the family. Today it's my friend's caravan. Please, just leave us alone to live out our lives, we promise we will not challenge you, just give us a few pleasures useful to make the time go by until we die. They have nothing left to fight for because they are no longer free men, they have reverted to being serfs.

And the ruling elites are as stupid as they ever were.