The Met Office

It's raining

It's pouring
He went to bed and bumped his head
And he couldn't get up in the morning. 

In the middle of our summer we are used to weather which has no respect  for the date and today the heavens opened and remains open as I write.
The Met Office who had a contract with, amongst others, the BBC have the unenviable job of predicting the weather over this tiny landmass which can, in one day have what a country as large as South Africa or Australia can have in a year. The geographic position we are in, on the western side effected by the Gulf Stream and, on the eastern side, by the enormous land mass of Europe especially the frozen wastes of Russia.
The Met Office is an institution which has been a part of our life. The butt of many a complaint when we got the barbecue out and it rained cats and dogs but somehow part of our institutional DNA.
Not any more, the bean counters at the BBC are ditching The Met Office for some as yet unnamed foreign outfit. The contract had come up for review and the rules insisted that it went out for tender. Money is the criteria since the Government have laid down the gauntlet on funding the BBC, as they inch their way to finding an alternative to the annual licence fee. Advertising and the option followed by Sky, of levying a program content fee, is on the cards, although denied by the Minister.
The business of offering a forecast of the weather requires a huge investment in computer power as the information flows in from sensors and weather stations all over the globe. The information is continually changing and the variation between what happens point to point combine to deliver a prognostic, nothing more but which is often taken for gospel by the avid weather listener.
No move is made without a consultation as to what the weather holds but as we have said it is only a prognostic tool, much like the clouds and the colour of the sky, birds flying high and cows seeking a corner of the field.
I presume the foreign guys who get the job (probably Chinese) have the computer power but can they smell the dung ?

I had a dream.

"I had a dream" the famous words of Martin Luther King in which he enrolled the nation and mankind in general to resist the impasse when people who are presented with a face dissimilar to there own, judge them differently to how they would judge their own.

His words were a ringing indictment on the American social disharmony between Black and White, a society which had only recently got rid of slavery and which still struggled to come to terms and address its prejudice.

Of course prejudice lies within most of us and it's not only the majority that are prejudiced towards a minority but opinions and beliefs are strongly held on both sides. Its this struggle to ensure your prejudice is not subsumed by another which makes rational dialogue very difficult. 

Values and religious persuasion hold strong ties in all communities and when communities clash its to find a place already occupied. The push and shove which takes place only heightens the prejudice and resentment.

Leaders of appeasement seem to ignore the political and religious dimension and call for understanding and reconciliation in the "hope" that the common man will learn to morph into some 'new construct' better suited to the changing dynamic. Old values are to be put to one side, if not discarded altogether as if they had no previous substance or relevance.

The disaster which is the war torn Middle East has seen the mass exodus of people to Europe each with their own construct of normality, each needy of something resembling what they know and cherish. How can this multicultural diaspora be managed if the needs and values are so wide apart. 

Of course there are many areas of commonality. The need for safety, the need for work to buy food and shelter, the need for education these are common. Even the things which have little in common can bring a new perspective to the indigenous population. The explosion of foreign food is a feature of our high street and much welcomed but the ruthless use of weapons and the rise of racially defined Gang culture is not.

In a society which had laid aside much of the fervour derived from religion we are extremely cautious about the near messianic obsession with a faith that until recently was relatively unknown in this country. The fear that placing your every minute in the hands of a religious entity when, other than the psychological comfort derived from believing in a benign father figure can lead to a countervailing force within the social structure you are keen to preserve.

The historical footing on which these Monotheist religions are based has become more and more reliant on faith rather than historical reality and there is no counter to the the subjective intolerance towards people who do not follow your God, since religious prejudice has no end.

An observation

"You are boring like your nation, a place which makes love without pleasure,conversation without grace and jokes without laughing". So spake the mistress of Simon Bolivar of her English husband.
Does this really describe us. Is love making a formality, part an expectancy because we have been prescribed by our Presbyterian upbringing which dictates responsibility over spontaneity.
The relationship between men and women in this country has always seemed  to our Mediterranean neighbours, to lack the passion which they seem to exhibit. A sort of hang over from our Victorian great great grandparents. Sex was a dirty word and the ignorance of matters pertaining to sex was due in large part to the inability to talk about it. 

"Making love without pleasure" articulates the immaturity of a society which finds 'form' more important than reality. 

"Making conversation without grace" reflects the high pitched, alcohol induced banter often mistaken for conversation when the English gather in numbers. A sort of competition to be the most bawdy and outrageous takes place especially amongst the women who feel liberated to excess and express their most private and intimate experiences.

"Jokes without laughing" were another rendition of 'form' where polite society preferred, innuendo rather than direct confrontation.  Today, the joke has to be explicit which then opens a Pandora's box of competitive up man-ship, each joke trying to be more outrageous than the next.

The English were taught to hide their feelings and became used to thriving within an emotional closed circuit , reluctant to let others in. Is it a lack of confidence which comes from being made to know "ones place", from being largely separated by schooling, money and the opportunities which flow to some and not others.

An Englishman's home is his castle and one is invited in on a very strict proviso that the stay is limited and the clock is ticking. 

The open door, stay as long as you like, the a bed made up in the back, which I have experienced in other countries, is an anathema to an Englishman who are at root very conservative and find the concept of opening their castle to others virtually impossible.

This is not to knock my fellow countryman, just to acknowledge what others observe.

Democracy through a gun

Watching a film made in London depicting the ugly brutality between husbands and wives, between young men and women emphasised how lucky one is to be born into the security of a happy family. The physical harm the bully brings to all around him, the ineffectuality of the law, the hopelessness of the weak, made me reassess the American position on guns.
The layers of depravity and desperation, the lack of anything we would know as normal.  A breeding ground for violence which lies at every corner of their lives, unrepressed violence which starts as they wake up and continues in various forms throughout the day and well into the early hours. The fear and the uncertainty always there distorting there every thinking moment like a black cloud hovering above, inescapable, without end.
If violence is the modus operandi and the biggest most violent person hold all the cards, isn't the ownership of a gun democratic. Like the cross on the ballot paper, each bullet holds the same amount of power, the power to decide and solve the conflict which these people are engaged in, literally from birth and the willingness to pull the trigger is a direct result of the pain they are in.
The bully isn't in pain. And the weak, who are his usual pray, would have a contender on their side, making them less likely to be bullied, a form of democracy which seems to be at the heart of the American Constitutional Right to carry a weapon to be able to defend yourself ?
The liberal establishment in outlawing weapons, base much of their case on Socrates and the power of debate which sadly is lost in the jungle. As in so many cases there is an intellectual "wish" for a better outcome. If only people would behave in a more civilised fashion. They seem not to realise that the essence of the jungle is kill or be killed and that in many societies throughout the world this is the norm.

What do we mean by claiming to be British

Have we have lost our ability to claim and wear our ethnicity as a badge to be recognised throughout the world as it used to be when I set off to wander the globe back in the early 60s.
Today the British are drawn from all cultures and many ethnicities and we find it difficult to identify with our own concept of being British, which was formed in our minds when growing up.
One of the problems is that to think such thoughts is deemed racialistic. This fairly recent mode of evaluating and policing a society.  A society which has changed out of all recognition because of the immigration policy which has been implemented over the last 50 years.
There were economic reasons initially to encourage people to come here and of course, rightly, once here it becomes their home and their family, which is raised here, naturally feel that they are British.
Of course it raises the question of where and how the people, who have many generations of established cultural tradition to identify themselves with, feel about this turn around.
It is further muddied by the Politically Correct doctrine which agonises that "to think such thoughts is heresy". This issue of identifying with a culture and especially the norms which are part of that culture, which in the past allowed you to be comfortable in recognising those around you, is now questioned when these norms are demolished and we have a multitude of cultures, each with a different set of standards each vying for supremacy
There is no real substratum to being British any more. Being British is now an exercise in multiculturalism with its multitude of background influences and standards depend on which ever subsection of the society you address.
Their is little commonality and it is made so much more so when segregated by religion.
Religion has defined history. It has distorted the reality which many of us have and to be fair has created a reality for the believer. But it sets up the problematic situation of a society within a society.
The power of "faith" and the insistence that the faith and its "heavenly" instruction takes precedence over earthly rules is a precursor to a clash which eventually numbers will make the difference and decide the outcome !

Closing the gap on winners and looser's

The rise of Jermy Corbyn,from being included into the Labour Party contest for the leadership of the party as a sop to the left, to now leading in the contest is causing much excitement and soul searching. Many are up in arms, ridiculing the concept of a non centrist taking over the leadership on the basis that unless he courts Middle England then the party will never again win an election.
We are blinded, day in and day out by the views of the pundits and general factotums who present the television programs, projecting  their opinions in all kinds of ways.
It's important to understand that virtually all of them come from the kind of background which we would describe as middle to upper class. They are university trained some  having been to boarding school they are a product of that section of society we call the Establishment.
For a number of years there has been an attempt to synthesise the opportunities which are essential to the 'better off' with the underlaying assumption that the 'less well off' can if they pull their socks up, obtain the same advantages.
The product of all this is a person who has a fear of centralisation and a planned economy and they throw up the stigma of failed economies as if the failure were inevitable.
It could be argued, as Corbyn would, that Capitalism has failed, if the aim were to secure the best economic outcome for the most people.
The world is ravaged with poverty and inequality. In places where it was always so it is made worse by introducing the spectre of dismantling tribal sureties and encouraging some sort of universality of purpose. The seeds of opportunity are planted but invariably the seeds do not flourish and having broken the link with the tribal expectations the young people are left destitute.
Capitalism which represents amongst other things a global market has at its root 'the trade' in which often there are winners and losers but winners and losers in societies where there is no fat to absorb the loss, the gap between the winners and losers is likened to that between life and death.
In mature societies like our own the gap between rich and poor is less acute but it is growing non the less and it is this growth in inequality which people like Corbyn fight to prevent. They fight it because they know that it is wrong. They know that better organised, the wealth of a country is not wholly the product of a few and that in many many ways a healthy society recognises the contribution of the many.
Winners and losers are acceptable if the winner doesn't take virtually the whole of the pot since living amongst the people who, to varying degrees are partaking in a contest one has to recognise that humanity is at its best when no one is made to feel an out and out loser !!

How on earth did we manage before

Do you have a table for two ? It's a sunny day and I'v driven across to Braintree to the "Harp and Angle" to have lunch with Keith. The pub is popular but I managed to get a table until 2.15 when the next sitting is due. There is a Sunday speed, a languid slowness to the driving, people are laid back as they remember their childhood and the rigour of Church attendance. Only the children have energy as they run around shrill and hyper trying to attract the attention of a parent away from her boyfriend. Who knows what insecurities flow through their minds.
Some of the groups are loud and raucous the women shriek the men

guffour as the tales are told.
A fairly large family arrive. Young, middle and old with the oldest a grandad bringing up the rear. Not quite sure he should be with this lot, his brood, which had grown out of all proportion to those far off days when he was in control, now he is more a relique, trying to keep up, remembering better days.
The English out to Sunday lunch. Roast beef,Yorkshire pud' and a helping of spuds and carrots with what looks like broccoli lurking amongst the gravy. A pint of beer or a bottle of red decides which part of the country you come from but never mind the air is convivial and the sun is out.
The countryside is riddled with attractive little hostelries. Google and the Internet fixes a spot and the sat-nav does the rest. We are in an electronic era, choosing, getting there, even paying is all electronic. How on earth did we manage before ?

Next please.

For those of you not living in the UK the TV character Victor Meldrew won't mean anything but never the less I'm becoming he !
A curmudgeonly old chap he ranted about this and that and seemed to see ill in much he saw around him.
I'm back at the doctors following up on a letter I received saying they had cancelled an appointment but not suggesting any alternative. I'd also left a sample with them which they had lost but seemed impervious to the suggestion that having lost the sample perhaps a phone call to explain and ask me to give another was treated with nothing short of astonishment. Apparently it was up to me to keep track and notwithstanding I was their patient for which they make a claim on me (my taxes) through the NHS to recompense them for their actions, they thought I was mad to think they had any responsibility, Hippocratic or not, for my well being. 
I don't think I'm as bad as old Meldrew. Perhaps I have forgotten my Ps and Qs (my place in society) but the system and the attitude of the receptionists towards a patient leaves something to be desired.
The Health Service is a vast organisation and these pesky patients who turn up with their problems eat into the tranquillity of their day. We are the doctors right hand, nothing escapes us especially if it's a prospective patient. 
The days of being on the panel, as the doctors list of patients was known, an individual who might have been brought into this world by the self same doctor. A doctor who knew the family as a unit, who had come to the "home" and treated whoever was ill. Who saw you as a real person, part of his flock of people and families of whom the doctor was intimately aware.
Today you are a number, "next please" with an email address and a physiology record held in a data bank. Like the record the treatment is based on statistical evidence attached to a symptom.
The true relationship with your doctor is lost in the efficiency of the system which has to be followed at all cost. 8 minutes per consultation and no more. Pity if you've come for "support", for that you need "private medicine", not the conveyor belt of your local practice.

At prayer

What would it be like to pray five times a day, every day. To have the surety that praying has a purpose in ones own life.
For an atheist the compact with God is broken, God doesn't exist and the expression of faith is of no relevance to the business of everyday life.


But what if ones everyday life was regularly punctuated with an intense interaction, through prayer,  a conversation about ones self and ones place and purpose in the world. Not the small talk but the important stuff which you are unsure about.
What if the prayer was so fundamental, a prop that without it you become rudderless and that the concept of the god you are praying to is so strong you believe implicitly in his scripture, so that much of the doubt we have about our lives and the ending of our lives is removed by a simple act of faith.
Of course in a society where the heat and the structure of the day is much slower, then the act of praying is part of that rhythm of life and folds into the space and speed which is all around. The harshness and the tenuous nature of living makes death a close companion and our frailty on earth makes life beyond death so much more enticing and believable. 
In the busy non stop action of a western existence where we are protected by systems such as hospitalisation if you fall sick or simple sanitation is taken care of by the utility company then the pace of living is generated, not so much by oneself but by the needs of others. One becomes a very small widget in a vast jigsaw of activity. Praying under these conditions takes on a whole different meaning since one becomes an outsider, stopping the clock as it were to do something very personal.
The society over here has become very benign towards the needs of minorities. For all our sins we have accepted the cultural variations and needs and so when we have to wait whilst some one is praying so we can access a room or have answered a question which only the person praying can answer, we take this relatively new phenomena in or stride. Perhaps we wonder why a person in a business environment needs to absent themselves 5 times during the day and perhaps we become a little frustrated if our own breakneck pace is interfered with but on the whole we come to terms with praying and its importance in a way which was not something we thought about a decade or two ago.
Is it right. Well who can say. Is it inconvenient. Well yes but in the scale of things does it rather say much more about our own lives and the stressful pace we drive ourselves at, in worshipping a different God, the god of consumerism.

Kids Company

We have no idea of how some people live and get by day to day. 
With the closure of Kids Company, a charity which fed a need for street children and young adults who have no real home life and had become reliant on the Charity as a home and an environment in which people cared for them  their future is very bleak.
The damage which the 24 hour, 7days a week, single parent, and over stressed married parents unable to play the crucial part of being parents, devolve to the children who are lost in a jungle.


The social welfare system which is being asked to take up the slack is unable to cope with the problem. Its bureaucratic, box ticking, 9 till 5 approach falls far short of the needs of a youngster who has no one to rely on other than the gang or a pimp.
The social welfare is organised like the NHS it does not treat patents, patents are simply an entry in the system, sometimes the list of ailments are treated as if they belong to separate bodies, unconnected to the person who's name is at the top of the form.
The Kids  Company picks up the pieces of an ailing society. 
Young people who have never known the security of proper home life and they become the natural kindling for a life of crime or prostitution. Its here that the charity seeks to provide a semblance of home and gives the guidance of a parent.
The Ministers and the Civil Servants who have been the conduit for funding have been all over the place in their pronouncements. On the one hand they say the the charity "does a marvellous job" and then cut off funding because "the money has not been well spent".
And so we have the age old conflict between the desire for a conventional business model, with that of running the desperately uneven business of providing for damaged youngsters, who it should be acknowledged, are the responsibility of a society which has become so distorted by economic need, fuelled in the first place by the ease of credit and the artificial manufacture of a 'consumer driven society'.
The money involved in Kids Company is minuscule when compared to the  ordinance  dropped on civilians in the Middle East or the bonuses paid to bankers and footballers. The wastage on government IT systems makes the running of Kids Company like a drop in the ocean but then this is the skewed set of values we now have, as government back off from any of the roles which I for one feel the government should be a front row player.

London, East of the City

It's a warm day as the inhabitants of East Ham in London begin to shake off the night before.
A city environment is so different to the relatively countrified living I experience in Bishops Stortford. 
The trees, fields, and the farms are within a stones throw of my house and one is continually in touch with nature in your normal day. 
Not so the city life.  Pavements, buildings, back to back housing, streets carpeted with cars and pedestrians negotiating their way through the throng. The market is open, the traders shout their produce as the women shuffle in to purchase what ever. There is always noise. The buses, cars and lorries all competing for a patch of space, the continuous pressure of finding parking and the frustration of the traffic jam contribute to a constant buzz, a mental contest in which there are no winners.
The street outside the pub is hosed down after the shenanigans of last night the broken glass swept up as a different clientele takes over.
People live an artificial life at the best of times but city life is artificiality squared. It turns people into pygmies, it shrivels and dehumanises as they drag their tired bodies from pillar to post, from fast food counter to the betting shop.
Of course there are two cities. The City of London has within its boundaries many Theatres, Clubs, Expensive Shopping outlets plus the iconic sights of The Establishment to attract those who can afford to live there and who increasingly, do not have English as a first language. 
The other city was always off-piste and clouded by poverty. A 'holding stable' for undernourished people both educationally and culturally who were not of the kind the other 'city' rubbed shoulders with but who were essential to do the work they did not wish to dirty our hands with. 
The people who live there in East London, have changed in character. From  the strong social structure which the nursery rhyme of those who lived within the sound of Bow Bells were known, The Cockneys,  now can only be described as 'multicultural' with little in common with their predecessors.
The call to prayer has superseded the early morning market trader and the distinguishing mark is now more Eastern than Anglo. 

Travelling in North Africa

I'v been reading a book by an American women, Nina  Sovich called "To the Moon and  Timbuktu". It's a story of a woman's perspective travelling in North Africa, a journey in which she try's to resolve her conflicting  desire to pull away from the cloying conformity of Paris and her ambivalence to her containment within her marriage to a Frenchman.

The description of her living and travelling amongst people who in many ways are the antithesis of her upbringing, the men traditionally machismo, the women bonding in their femininity. Gender role play, each living a parallel existence, is fascinating.

A description by her when she was out one morning, caught my attention as being the curse of Africa.
I quote :-
Then we enter the old colonial quarter. The houses are beautiful, pale yellow bungalows with terracotta roofs and floor to ceiling windows,and wooden shutters to keep out the heat.
Most are falling apart which adds to the melancholy air. Sheep wander amongst the ruins and creeping vines burst through the fallen roofs. Squatters have pitched burlap tents and planted vegetable gardens in the front lawns of the formally grand houses. Children chip away at the plaster walls with sharp metal sticks. A few properties have been put to good use and turned into nurseries run by women who sell tomatoes and Mellon vines, but few if any of the houses are still inhabitable. By the river French expats have resorted some bungalows and those are truly lovely.

 

I'm about to mention this when Amadou (her guide) makes an angry motion toward one of the houses and says with bitterness, "The French. They control everything in this country".

This is symptomatic of Africa. A blame game is always to hand with well meaning but misguided people wishing to make excuse after excuse for the undeniable misuse of assets simply because they didn't fit the pattern of life which the indigenous people feel ancestral and to which they cling irrespective of the cost.

Goldman Sachs. Mater of the Universe

The bank that runs the world. Goldman Sachs.
I have often written of my distaste of the power and the lack of ethics, the contempt which this powerful Wall Street Bank exhibits towards the world at large.
Their tentacles are everywhere. Placement men in the highest offices throughout the western financial and political system, names which are familiar to us all. 
Mario Draghi the current President of the European Central Bank. Romano Prodi an Ex President of the ECB. Mark Carney the current Governor of the Bank of England. Henry Paulson the US Treasury Secretary. Robert Rubin US Treasury Secretary. And so many others !!
Imagine the influence of sharing the Goldman boardroom and then departing to hold crucial senior positions across the western world. No wonder Goldman's  hands are all over the events before and since the financial crash. 
The most recent event and probably the most politically damaging (if they weren't so Teflon coated) has been their tampering with the Greek books when they were applying to join the EU.
Part of their ruse was to evoke a slight of hand when the Greeks needed a loan to cover their bills in 2010 the amount which was called for was doubled by illicitly offering a non accountable lone which mirrored the accountable lone but which attracted a substantially higher rate of interest.
And so began the Greek financial tragedy. Like a parent winning favour with their child by plying them with sweet drinks the dental bill was still to come.
Goldman Sachs are evil and have no scruples. Laws which would trip the man in the street do not apply in the rarefied atmosphere of Goldman's Boardroom but what really worries me is that there are so many Goldman Sachs look alike's posted into all our financial centres who have learnt their trade in 200 West St NY.

Life after school

Last week we were introduced through the media to a team of Chinese teachers who had come over for a short stay to teach kids in a Comprehensive School.
Listening today to a program discussing the comments made by the teachers about their findings regarding the pupils and the relationship between the pupil and teacher was absorbing if not a little sad. According to the Chinese teachers the children were disruptive, lazy, they showed no respect, and didn't want to learn. 
We feel in our bones looking at the poor behaviour amongst young adults that somehow we have failed so many of our children. The concept of "instilling" education has been lost in favour of trying to convince the kids that they should take notice of what is taught. The incredulity that we don't allow the children a semi free hand on the basis that too much interference with the intrinsic make up of a child is bad and that it is more important for the individual to flower naturally, was the response not only of the "program presenter" but by many who called in.
Of course we are talking of State Education, not the Private Sector Education since in the Private (Public) school system, discipline is accepted as an educational component along with competition amongst the pupils in terms of "inter-house, inter-school, and importantly academic success. This ethos of a Private School is one of comparison and achievement and it sets the pupils on the path to handle the rigours of life in the workplace.
The touch stone, when the Grammar School and the Secondary Modern School were merged into Comprehensives, was to give an opportunity to children who hadn't passed the entrance to Grammar Schools a second chance. Unfortunately hand in hand with that laudable aim, two things happened. General academic standards dropped to the disadvantage of the clever student who was no longer challenged plus the ethos of the school changed towards focusing on the less academic student. The concept of finding the "special attributes" which it was believed every student had meant the teachers job became as much that of a social services function as it was to be a teacher.
The pupil was judged not as person who would absorb the academic subjects which the teacher was trained to teach but as someone who needed rescuing and rehabilitating, turning them into someone who could progress into society in general. The average and below were the benchmark and we have suffered "as a nation economically" from the ideological game shift which occurred in the 60s.
This is not to dismiss the achievement of giving many individuals a second chance but at what cost.
If society is bent on rescuing all and sundry, as it should, it would do better to devise ways and means that do not rely on making the mistake of judging everyone as equal in their ability to grasp the importance of education. I am a firm believer in not only substantially increasing the expenditure but also develop better ways to educate the average and below average pupil. 
With the Internet and the use of electronic pathways into the school, richer more relevant subject matter could be developed (Open University Style) and piped in to capture the imagination of the street wise kids. Lower class sizes should be the norm for the less well equipped kid so that they receive the specialised attention they need but above all we must never loose sight of the aim of the National school system. To teach a curriculum based on life after school.

I had a farm

"I had a farm in Africa".
And so it began that almost mystical tale "Out of Africa" made into a beautiful movie with Meryl Streep.
Reading the opening passage is like reading that memorable opening sentence from "Cry the Beloved Country"by Alan Paton.  "There is a loverly road that runs from Ixopo into the hills".
Each some how symbolises and draws you in to the story especially and perhaps only if you have spent time in Africa. They say that like no other place, Africa becomes a part of you with its deep sense of life and death its beauty and its vast space. 
The tribal outposts where Paton contrasts the debauchery of Johannesburg with the simplicity and customs which can make a people dignified and respectful but which are soon destroyed by city life.
In Karen von Blixen's portrayal of her farm and the African people who worked for her on the farm, she has an almost hypnotic connection to the land, its animals and the people. But it's her loneliness in living in an almost parallel existence with the native people she grew to love which was palpable. The sights, sounds and smell of the Serengeti are evoked in our minds as being like some living system, a being, of which she was on the periphery, an observer without much control.

Of course she was a romantic like Paton. She saw what was in her heart and like him paid the price for unearthing sentiments that were out of place in such a vast tapestry.

Never the less, in his sentiment, and by setting the books opening stanza. 

"Towards the grass covered hills, that are lovely beyond any singing of, the road climbs to Carisbrooke. You might hear the forlorn cry of the titihoya, whilst, below in the valley of the Umzimkulu".

For me both books set the scene for an enchanted journey into a land of inscrutable promise and damming failure. A land of beauty and hardship of pragmatism and inspiration, a land of misunderstanding but also of deep forgiveness.

British values

What does the term "British Values" mean ?
There was a time when it would have been a question that hardly needed asking.  The society was fairly homogeneous in the sense that it had been inculcated with a series of unwritten but well understood norms of what was acceptable and what was unacceptable. The society was tolerant but had not made a fetish of tolerance in the way which it has developed over recent years where now virtually anything goes. It is now a human right, prescribed in law that you are encouraged to express your views and follow your ideological leaning.
Society of course was a structure made up of people who would recognise each other as largely having the same ethnicity and culture. The main, perhaps the only divide was between rich and poor which gave rise to political parties who would devote their energies to protecting either the rich or the poor. 
After the Second World War the society began to change with the substantial influx of people from different parts of the world who naturally held different perspectives of they way to live their lives and the cultural values which they brought with them.
The seeds of multiculturalism were sown without questioning the effect it would have on the people living here. "They", as always were not consulted since there was an economic imperative to bring in people to work at wages which were designed to provide an economic return on the goods we manufactured at the time. Of course as commerce became global and the workforce could be obtained at source amongst the economically poor, the country no longer had the manufacturing to mop up the labour which had been encouraged to come here and we have what we have today a low wage poorly educated workforce sustained by Welfare.
Now the religious and cultural values are the only way to distinguish a segmented society and whilst the concept of insisting that underlying British Values should have pre-eminence in such a melting pot of beliefs and centuries old custom it is frankly ridiculous to expect people from the four corners of the world to have any cognisance of our frankly weirded feudal make-up. 
Put another way  could a Muslim or a Nigerian, someone from China or Japan be expected to change their fundamentally ingrained mode of thought and practices to accommodate a nation which had loosened its own concept of what is right or wrong, good and bad for a laissez faire free for all !!

Kicking back

"Our streets are not paved with gold". So said the Home Secretary in a panic reaction to the migrant issue as Africans flood across the Mediterranean into Europe. 
It's a migration phenomenon that is picking up speed and, given the size of the population in Africa and the disadvantaged status of so many on the Continent, the notion that you simply have to "up sticks" and arrive in another country to gain membership is new but of its time.
The rigmarole to get into Australia or obtain a Green Card to work in the USA is marathon. Most people when faced with the shear bureaucracy draw back knowing their inadequacy to cross all the 'T's and dot all the 'I's but of course most of us have a choice in not going, since  life in our country of origin is ok.
Certainly our streets are not paved with gold, if there was any, George would be out there digging it up but everything has a comparative value and there's no comparison with our life style and that of someone living in Syria or Libya. 
It has been a phenomena in the making as the Internet and the smart phone not only shrinks the world, it accelerates what others do. From being constrained by the village culture and the structure within the village community, young people are creating their own concept of a boarder and the barrier to their own future and they are doing what is common in Western cultures, moving to where they see their best lifestyle chances prosper. 
I suppose if the world of finance can cut across boarders with its Global strategy, ignoring the will of the local inhabitant and running foot loose with established norms it's no big deal that the poor who have had their countries destroyed by the same western ideology should want to kick back.

Prejudice.

Why do we ever listen to "others". These others with their opinions settle over one like a gritty vale excluding the real world with "their" take on what they have 
contrived as real.
We form most of our opinions second, third  fourth hand and rarely first. This highly filtered opinionated world of events marks our prejudice and distorts the actual. We see everything through a dirty windscreen smeared and distorted.
Our take on our fellow human beings is equally manufactured. The media, the innuendo, the gossip are all at work to discourage the true picture. Especially now, the "Internet", un-alloyed with rules or bothered by guilt is a bar room place for shopping our prejudice. We are safely more than an arms length away from any sort of retaliation if we hurt or misappropriate a persons culture or tell a story which is not only untrue but hurtful. We side with the majority irrespective of how well informed that majority is. We laugh at serious dilemma, we poke fun at people who are not in a position to argue their case.
I was reflecting the other day how in so many occasions in my life I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and yet nothing happened and I had enjoyed the simple welcome of people who would be described by "others" as dangerous.

Soweto in the 70s was not a place a white South African would go because the prejudice and fear that was created by Apartheid made Soweto seem like Hell's Kitchen.
My German friend Carl had lost one of his lead workers and we decided to attend his funeral in the heart of Soweto. Not only were we welcomed by the family and mourners but absolutely no hostility was shown by anyone. We had breached a gap in human relations by acknowledging our respect and this was reciprocated by everyone.
On Christmas Eve In a bar in Newark, just after the riots in that town I entered this African/ American environment because I was drawn to the music and being a 'Pommy abroad' I felt at ease to go in and have a beer. The only white face in the place I excited some interest but having established my credentials I was open to being just one of a crowd and not afraid to be there because I had no prejudice.
Prejudice distorts the facts and it should be the facts which we are after to form our own opinions. These opinions will only be true in so far as we make an attempt to be as honest as we can, not only with others but with ourselves.

A pair of slippers

The biggest decision I make in the morning is whether I put on my slippers. If I do it's as if I have decided that for the rest of the day I'm 'home bound' with little encouragement to venture out. This is not a bad thing, it's not as if going out is all that special, unless of course you have somewhere special to go. 
This need for progression, a place to go and the propriety in the things you must do to get there starts with the slippers. To shave or not to shave that is the question. All these troubling decisions and I'v only just woken up !!
Much of our life is programmed by other people and so when one has to rely on oneself to give oneself an impetus to do things much can slip through the cracks. Of course there are the hard wired customs, instilled since childhood to do with hygiene and dress which keep us on track but it's difficult to conform when one is living in blissful solitude. Who cares if you don't. Convention my dear chap, convention !
I remember the story of an Aussie listening to two landlady types on a bus discussing the strange habits of the Aussie "they always want to take shower or get a bath. I suppose it's the novelty"?
Anyway it's the starting that's important, getting out of bed is a thought provoking exercise in its self. Last nights book is luringly within reach. Did he make it out of the jungle. Who really done it?
The exercise greeks and the food freaks all opinionate on the next move and so "others" crowd in on the simplicity of ones every action no matter how innocent.
The crafters cottage with its rude simplicity has its attractions. Batten down the hatch and place a do not disturb sign on the door is the best retreat but in reality,we are compelled to go out and enjoy the day but I am also reminded of the refrain  "I'm so pleased the sun isn't shining today and I don't have to go out and enjoy it"!

The "n" word

My God they used the "n" word and even the "m" word.  Talk about, "don't frighten the horses" it was as if the the world according to Milton Friedman had received a seismic shock

I'm talking of the interview with Jeremy Corbyn on the Andrew Marr show.

'Nationalisation' and 'Marx' were thrown into the mix by Marr as an antidote to the common sense Corbyn was talking since it wouldn't do to indoctrinate the populous with common sense now would it.
The electorate have been made extremely skittish, by a medias almost constant right wing tirade against anything which doesn't have the "p" word as its economic talisman. The "p" word is of course "privatisation" !
Here we had a man not afraid to mention the illicit use of the so called 'free market' by the Railways. Railways in which that part of railways, (the track, signals, stations ect) are funded by the taxpayer whilst the 'income bit', the trains, are private.

This would be described by the Conservatives and when they were in office, New Labour as running a privatised transportation system when in fact the system is quasi nationalised.  

An artificial creation if ever there was one where, to attract private investment the Railway were split into two. The 'dirty bit' the infrastructure, which has the word 'expenditure' written against it became the responsibility of the taxpayer whilst the 'income bit' was reserved for the investors.
The companies that provide us with water, electricity and gas, the utility companies were also privatised even though the users were captive and therefore there was little or no incentive to compete. An antidote to socialism, "The Market", with its touch stone 'competition' is there to eliminate the sins of nationalisation. But we all know it's a sham with the private companies who run and own the utilities companies behave like the 'cartel' they are with minimal competition between them.
What happens when "Private Enterprise" are asked to come forward and quote on building another Nuclear Reactor. They simply screw the tax payer into granting a ridiculously high kW tariff so that its a win win for the French (who are now the only people who have the skills to build Nuclear Reactors which is a travesty in itself since we pioneered the engineering know how but allowed our manufacturing and design skills to erode) and we the taxpayer pick up the long term cost.
But of course the populous has been brain washed into believing that only through privatisation can we become economically viable. They have closed down any debate on National Ownership equating it with Stalinist Russia and of course the people acquiesce to what their betters tell them !!
Corbyn has reinvigorated at least a dialog and listening to him today expertly dismantling the political land-mines which were thrown in his path, not with the usual political obfuscation but with rational argument was a genuine pleasure.

A rich tapistry

I was fascinated watching the assembly in the European Parliament of the MPCs  who had invited the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to a debate on the Greek situation.
A multitude of different views and ideologies were gathered to vent their opinions in open debate.
We must acknowledge the fact that this is a debate which wouldn't be condoned in Russia or China where in either country we never hear any dissent, other than from people behind bars or from their deathbed.
Politics is a minefield of differing opinion, opinions arising from ideologies, different cultures, even different religious assemblies. Democracy is a delicate flower since it is a concept based on valuing each individual to use his/her discretion having listened to argument freely given in an open society. The vagrancies of each person his/her willingness to be swayed by opinion, much of it in the media, provide a hotchpotch, a multi coloured tapestry in which positive direction is often unsure, where decisions are made and unmade but where at least it's yaw yaw not war war.
The MEPs cover the whole gambit of political persuasion, each fervent, each secure in their own views. 
It's a strange phenomena amongst human-beings this political commitment, (like the religious commitment), a sort of mental construct regarding the way society and its organs should be organised and the values relating to its objectives. 
People feel driven to proclaim ! People who are on the whole rational, become irrational in their fervour to describe the promised land.
The theatre of a debating chamber where, not only is their a wide mix of political views but an even wider cultural landscape to draw on. Impassioned they leapt to their feet, for or against whilst Tsipras sat and listened. When his turn came there were no concrete steps as to how, only platitudes as to why and we were left once again, waiting to see !!

The final resting place

Japan with its ageing population and a lack of physical space has a problem of where to bury it's dead. 

Traditionally the population is divided up into 50% Shinto (non organised), 34% Buddhist 4% formalised Shinto and the rest a mixture, including Christians. 
A combination of pragmatism and traditional practice has made the Japanese adapt there single grave/headstone cemeteries into a mixture of high tech, low tech solutions.
The high tech end has a computerised automated retrieval system where, when you arrive to pay your respects you insert your identification card and the urn, carrying your loved ones remains are extracted from a vault and automatically presented on a Plinth with a photo of the dead person projected onto the urn. No trudging through the cemetery or tidying the plot it's all very sanitised within a modern building amongst the tower blocks and offices. Being a sceptic I wondered if the urn wasn't symbolic and the retrieval somewhat imaginary but then the whole process of dying and where you go afterwards is a bit of an illusion.
At the other end of the scale was the multiple burial plot. Here about 20 to 30 healthy people of different ages bind themselves together as a family who's purpose is to be buried in the same grave as and when the time comes. These communal plots are in ares of woodland and the selling point is not only cost but that relatives and friends coming to pay their dues have  a pleasant experience
I rather like the idea of a community born of life with a focus on death. Who knows what relationships may spring from such deliberations.
I still hanker after a cardboard coffin possibly with a happy picture on the outside. Suggestions on a postcard please.