Golden toilets, golden arches. As for David Cameron...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/22/golden-toilets-golden-arches-as-for-david-cameron

Version 0 of 1.

Like most people, I enjoyed the news of the theft of that gold toilet. I’m glad the gold toilet exists (or existed) and I’m glad it was stolen. After all, if it hadn’t been stolen, I probably wouldn’t know it exists. I’m also glad it was stolen from Blenheim Palace, that colossally vulgar stately home, because it’s exactly the kind of place you imagine might have gold toilets.

It only slightly spoils it that it doesn’t. The loos at Blenheim are, as far as I know, made from conventional materials. The gold loo, as well as being a loo, is a work of conceptual art and was part of an exhibition of other works of art that weren’t also loos, or also gold. So the gold loo wasn’t already there. Winston Churchill never s(h)at on it, though he was born just across the hall. On a non-gold bed, I regret to say.

But it’s a proper loo. It’s not just loo-shaped, it was a working loo before the burglars ripped it out. Visitors were each offered a three-minute go on it, which I reckon is rushing it for a poo (and a poo is obviously what most people would want to do in a gold loo – I mean, that’s the anecdote), but plenty of time for a wee, the yellowness of which would presumably be hard to discern. A poo would show up brilliantly though and definitely be all sorts of metaphors.

Again, slightly spoiling it, the artist, Maurizio Cattelan, is ahead of us here. He offered the loo to Donald Trump and he’s called it America. So, you know, he’s doing the joke. And Donald Trump turned it down, which suggests even that idiot senses ribaldry because there’s no doubt that, stripped of the potential metaphorical implications, he would definitely like to have a gold loo. Interior design by King Midas is absolutely Trump’s domestic style and his penthouse is probably the only place on Earth more likely than Blenheim Palace to have a solid gold khazi.

I hope whoever stole the golden loo gets away with it. It just seems fun, like an Ealing comedy

But it’s still a great story, made more so by the founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, and the current Duke of Marlborough’s half-brother, Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill, having said of the loo last month: “It’s not going to be the easiest thing to nick.” True – that would probably be a pen from a meeting or a Twix from a newsagent. But traditionally thieves are willing to make a bit more of an effort for things that are made of solid, 18-carat gold.

“Firstly, it’s plumbed in and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate,” Lord Edward continued. “So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.” I’m not sure he’d be the man for the job anyway. Get some sort of professional security would be my advice. And I’m not entirely clear why the thieves would need to know the identity or diet of the lavatory’s previous occupant or why ignorance of those things would deter them. Does he just mean that no one would want to pinch all that gold because it might have poo and wee on it? Where there’s muck there’s brass, your lordship.

I can’t help wishing the thieves luck. At the time of writing, two people have been arrested, but there’s still no sign of the missing bog and I hope whoever did it gets away with it. There’s not much harm in that, is there? It doesn’t make me an anarchist. It just seems fun, like an Ealing comedy. I reckon I’d probably always have felt like that about it.

I’m not convinced, though. Another story made me doubt myself. This was last week’s news that McDonald’s has applied for planning permission to open a branch in Rutland, the only county in Britain that doesn’t yet have one. Unsurprisingly, some Rutlanders are up in arms at the prospect.

“Please don’t do this to our beautiful county. Let’s stay the only county without one of these,” implored resident Charnelle Els, while Joanna Aitkens told the council: “I’ve heard that it would bring Rutland into the 21st century. I’m sure that even McDonald’s would think that it’s a sad world that pins its hopes on a cheap burger and fries to offer modernity and prosperity to a county.” If McDonald’s does think that, it’s sliding into corporate self-loathing. Meanwhile, David Taylor said: “It will be an eyesore and attract the wrong sort of people.”

I’m afraid this made me start hoping Rutland does get a McDonald’s. All the complaining made me think: “Why shouldn’t they have to have one like everyone else?” It made me want to prick their picturesque bubble so that the whole county is full of McDonald’s and nail bars and Ladbrokes and Wetherspoons, but not a single post office, just like everywhere else.

I was surprised by my own spite and it made me question my motives for liking the lavatory theft. Maybe I wasn’t really attracted to the enterprising underdog, but I’m just pleased when things go wrong. Maybe, amid all the turmoil and division of the last few years, I’m turning nasty.

Which brings me to David Cameron. The former prime minister has been cutting a surprisingly sympathetic figure as he plugs his book, with apparently wholehearted contrition for some of his most egregious failures and beguilingly expressed condemnation of the arseholes those failures brought to power.

But the consequences keep mounting. Millions of us feel more confused, worried, conflicted, angry and just plain mean than ever before. David Dimbleby said last week: “I lived through Suez, the miners’ strike, I lived through the poll tax debate and… the Iraq demonstrations – I’ve never seen the country so divided as this.”

That’s more David Cameron’s fault than anyone else’s. Yet, in terms of image, he’s the beneficiary of his own blunders. He let the country down so catastrophically, and such ignoble fools and villains have come to prominence as a result, that, next to them, he looks comparatively statesmanlike. He stands tidily beside the mess he made. Like a bewildered aristocrat whose loo has been ripped out in the night, the clumsy and selfish architect of the wreckage surveys it in a spotless shirt.