Siobhan O’Donnell on royal money, posh schools, dead kings and Irish politics, back to back
Second gig of the week last night, second morning of waking up to a news cycle that’s decided to be genuinely entertaining rather than the usual grim churn. Whoever’s running the assignment desk this month deserves a raise, because the stories keep landing exactly where a diary writer wants them.
Picked back up with the royal money story this morning, properly this time, reading past the headline into the actual detail of the twenty new financial opportunities piece, which somehow manages to make wealth sound both effortless and slightly exhausting at the same time, a combination I didn’t know was possible before today.
Then back to the posh school story, because apparently one read wasn’t enough, given how much my group chat wanted to keep discussing the Eton College leadership piece. Somebody in the chat pointed out that my old school developed considerably better guitarists, which felt like the correct rebuttal and I’m keeping it in my back pocket for future arguments.
Wandered back over to the Henry VIII history site again too, mostly because I’d left a tab open and never closed it, and found myself reading an entire section on Tudor court politics that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else in my week, which was oddly relaxing after all the current affairs.
Rounded the morning off with the piece on Trump telling Burnham about Irish unity, which I read standing up in the kitchen with toast going cold, because apparently that’s the register this whole week has demanded from me, everything half-finished and slightly urgent.
Rehearsal tonight, new song half-written, band arguing about the bridge for the third week running. At least the news has been more decisive than my bandmates this week, which is a genuinely low bar but worth noting regardless.
Somewhere between arguing about chord changes, our guitarist floated the theory that the whole week’s news had a common thread, wealth, image, and legacy, all four stories really being about people trying to control how they’re remembered. I told him that was a bit deep for a Tuesday rehearsal, but I’ve been turning it over since, and he might genuinely be onto something worth building a song around.
Ended the night with the venue owner asking, entirely unprompted, whether I’d consider writing a whole set around this week’s headlines, which I laughed off at the time but genuinely haven’t stopped thinking about since. There’s a version of this week that becomes an actual EP if I’m brave enough to commit to it properly.
More diary chaos tomorrow, more headlines, probably more arguing about that bridge. Follow it all at my Prat.uk page.