Why We Should Be Grateful For The Commonwealth

ASH Smyth unearths a diplomatic despatch from 15 years ago

by ASH Smyth
March 2022

The fortunes of the Commonwealth of Nations have waxed and waned a bit since its foundation in either 1926 or 1949 (opinions vary)—but as of 2022 its membership incorporates one third of the world’s population, it has its own top-flight sporting competition every four years (to which America, Russia and China are, for purely political reasons, not invited), and Elizabeth Windsor, after 70 years as patron of it, is still monarch of 15 of the 54 states within this loose affiliation: ‘a point of connection, cooperation and friendship’ in ‘these testing times’.

Rwanda is the Commonwealth’s most recent member, joining in late 2009. Ireland and Zimbabwe, have, it is true, fallen by the wayside; but Malaya, Tanganyika and Zanzibar all remain after some light rebranding, as does Newfoundland, having made nice with the rest of Canada. Somaliland, South Sudan, Burundi, Suriname and Zimbabwe (again) have all more-or-less recently applied to (re)join. Inexplicably, a handful of recalcitrant failed states—Afghanistan, Myanmar, the USA—remain quite pointedly uninterested.

The Falkland Islands, where I currently reside, is not, per se, a member of the Commonwealth; but as a UK Overseas Territory, this morning the Governor, primary school children, and Members of the Legislative Assembly all stood, amid howling southwesterly winds and peanut-sized hail, and affirmed that we believe ‘in the Commonwealth as a powerful influence for good in the world, and pledge ourselves to its service, now and for the future.’

And I recalled I’d had a similar thought myself, once.

--o0o--

Saturday 15th December 2007

I woke up this morning (duh-duh dar de-de duh!) and clutched my head. This is, I admit, fairly standard procedure.

With the eye that wasn’t occupied in squinting irrationally against the pain, I looked around the room, and took in the scatter of books, DVDs, tea mugs, and the piles of laundry – one for clean, one for dirty, one for miscellaneous. This also is pretty usual.

But they were not mine, and this was not my room. That part was unexpected.

I had absolutely no idea where I was, a situation which is all very well for bragging anecdotes, but actually pretty unpleasant, not least because it is synonymous with a splitting headache and a mouth liked a used ashtray.

As if to flesh out the pounding in my skull – and perhaps with malevolent irony – some comedian put on ‘There There’ (Radiohead, Hail to the Thief) at full blast in a nearby room. I had two options:

1) Get up and find out where the hell I was and how I got there; or

2) Die.

I took option 1, mostly because I have in mind something rather grander for option 2 (when the time comes, you understand), involving last-minute witticisms and thronging crowds.

I stumbled into a living room which, like the bedroom next door, gave every indication that its inhabitants firmly believe marijuana counts as one of your five fruit and veg per day.

“Morning,” I said, astutely, not wishing to be out-done by stoners.

“Strewth, mate, it’s 2 in the avo.”

I was in a houseful of Aussies and Canadians, in Leytonstone (naturally, I’d assumed it was Putney). They were all strangers to me. I think the one who looked a bit like Gary Busey might have been called Gez; but then that’s the kind of name you’d give an Aussie if you had to guess, isn’t it?

One kept switching the channels. One played online poker. Few had been to bed at all, it seemed. Over a cup of tea, I pieced together as much of the story as I could without actually using the phrase “Who are you and why am I here?” Which is to say, very little.

I went to the movies with Rupert—this much I recall. Then we had coffee. Then a beer. Then I went to catch up with Jonah and Chris: that was Soho. We drank Guinnesses in a pub called The George, on the corner of Wardour St and D’Arblay St. Jonny phoned and said it sounded gay. Then he turned up with Dan, just as we were being thrown out anyway. So we went to a bar which cost £5 to get into. Jonny is in banking now, and presumably thinks this kind of thing is normal. It was, I assume, also his idea that we start on a course of Vodka and Red Bull. Thereafter, it’s all a blank.

No: one thing... I remember, somewhere, a parked pick-up truck, or ‘ute’ as its occupants persisted in calling it. In Soho Square, perhaps.

Then a blur of buses, a taxi, perhaps a hedge—and the usual “Are we still in London…?” feeling you get when people invite you over for dinner ‘in town’ and you discover they actually live halfway to Basildon.

I’d offer to cut the long story short… but that’s it. Here were four(?) people who didn’t know me from Adam, but were willing—I assume, unless I paid them(??)—to take a blind-drunk stranger to their house and give him something comfortable to sleep on. Amazing, isn’t it?

So, yeah: the Commonwealth. To some, it may well seem annoying being lumbered with apparent leadership of an agglomeration of 2 billion people around the world, forever being hassled to give back big-ticket items from our museums, and having to monitor elections in lands whose natural resources we’re not even allowed to loot and pillage any more. Probably costs us a bit, too.

But if it means London will always be full of warm-spirited folk who speak my language and will let me crash at theirs when I’ve disgraced myself, hell—I’m all for it. Gods speed and long life to the Commonwealth!