The uncommercial traveller

I'm rather enjoying the superficial symbolism the party leaders employed in giving their election addresses.

Blairishly (must get that into circulation), David Cameron gathered his admirers on the banks of the Thames, reminding me of King Canute (though that gentleman was rather intelligent), the idiotic charm of Three Men in a Boat, and prompting me to adapt the bitter and misogynistic words of the Roman poet, Catullus (poem 70):

sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
in uento et rapida scribere oportet aqua

'what a Conservative says… should be written in wind and running water'.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown went to a supermarket in Rochester. Oh dear, oh dear, what terrible semiotics. Firstly, when you're asking the country to make an informed choice, don't pose in a supermarket. The illusion of choice, the massive range of calculations to be made combined with the manipulative tactics of the marketers lead us to paralysis or desperation, grabbing the shiniest tin or flashiest label.

Secondly, Rochester? I'd have thought that the name would be anathema to poor old Gordon. Mr. Rochester is a violent bully in Jane Eyre - Brown already compared himself to Rochester in a rather unfortunate interview two years ago and was soundly mocked in the press. Furthermore,  a Dickensian character should avoid anywhere with gloomy Dickens associations (Great Expectations, Mrs. Havisham's house, Dullborough in The Uncommercial Traveller), and it's a stop on the route taken by the doomed old men in Graham Swift's booze-regret-and-death novel Last Orders. All sounds rather final, doesn't it?

The Liberal Democrat leader probably did something too. Meh, as t'internet kids say.