Friday, 25 May 2012

David Cameron: a lounge lizard for the digital age

It used to be said of the singer Bryan Ferry in his later, post Roxy Music years, that he exactly personified the character of a 'lounge lizard': immaculately groomed, fey and effete, spending his days lying listlessly on a chaise longue, flicking through the latest edition of Country Life, surfacing once every few years to produce an album of crooning self-pity. Apparently this image used to annoy Mr. Ferry enormously, though God alone knows why when he seemed to spend his entire life cultivating such a persona. It was certainly distressing to those of us who remember the avant-guarde vitality of Roxy Music.

I was reminded of Mr. Ferry when I heard that our dearly beloved PM, Mr. Cameron, spent an apparently 'crazy' amount of time playing a game called "Fruit Ninja" on his iPad. The suggestion was rapidly squashed by his PR flunkies, and it's easy to see why.

You can just see it can't you? David Cameron, languidly reclining on his sofa in his Oxfordshire home. The issue of Country Life replaced by an iPad (perhaps there isn't an app for that): a lounge lizard for a digital age. Stylishly presented but essential vacuous, surfacing once in a which to make speech then going back to dozing in the midday heat. And just like Mr. Ferry, his declining fan base looks on in sadness and distress, wondering what happened to the vitality and original thinking of the band he leads, forced to look back with nostalgia and think of better times.