Russia reignited

The mindset is what is important.
The mindset determines the extent to which the political class can push through its agenda and it is what we rarely take into consideration when we judge a nation.
The push to democratise the world which has been the thrust of Western ideology since the last World War is based on utilitarian concepts which sought to pull back from the nationalism that had led to so much struggle and bloodshed. The clique which had run Europe and heavily influenced what went on in the world at large was to be replaced with proper democracy in which leadership was in theory placed in the hands of the electorate.
Some nations took to the idea others never really accepted that, not having a strong, possibly authoritarian leader was acceptable and whilst elections were enacted as a form of paying homage to the concept of electoral responsibility, if a strong leader, using and manipulating the system to ensure he stayed in power, then so be it.
The Russian persona has always inclined towards having strong powerful, often dictatorial leadership. There seems no conflict, hankering back to the days of the USSR, days when the world feared the might of Stalin. The direction and the security which communism gave to the ordinary Russian, the acknowledgement that matters of state were handled elsewhere and that life and it's daily toil were enough to get along with. This "collective mind" still exists and is at odds with our own obsession with individuality and individual rights.
When questioned, the era of Putin has again raised the self image of a strong, life worn nation who would seek recognition through the State and what the State,represents. 
From cradle to grave the State provided. This facile "go it alone" favoured in the West particularly in America doesn't 'cut the mustard' with your average Russian. He was happy to take orders so long as the political direction was a benefit to the proletariat. Schooling. Wage control. Health and Pensions were the bedrock to his existence and so long as they were being provided, he was happy.
Putin has put back into Russian life a feeling that the the strong 'Father' figure. Who's long term benevolence will regain some semblance of order after the difficult period of flirting with capitalism and the distortion it produced with the wealth pooled by the oligarchs and spent on Yachts and Football Clubs, rather than a 5 year plan.
It would be unfair to say this is a peasant revolt since the power still lays in the Prada shopping streets of Moscow but never the less there is a sense that some of the attention has switched back to the hundreds of small towns and thousands of villages which make up this huge country and as we bathe in the success of our football team so the Russian bathes in the success of the Russian bear once more parading in an international sphere of influence.

Rugby memories.

Watching tonight the play off for third place in the Rugby World Cup between South Africa and Argentina it struck me that this game and the South African team, had played such a memorable place in my life. It also struck me that in some ways the team were equivalent  to a series of milestone.
In the first year I spent in SA, 1963/64 I was getting to know what rugby meant to the country. Feeling alienated in the largely Afrikaner crowd in Loftus Versveld when South Africa played the Lions. Supporting them when I was in Sydney in 1965 in the Sydney Cricket Ground as they toured Australia. What huge men as they got off the bus and how small and exposed I felt as I shouted for the Springbok in the cauldron that was the SCG. 
Colin Meads the Kiwi legend, another Rugby god this time when I was in New Zealand, realising that this was another country which worshiped its rugby.
Sitting in my own home in Johannesburg in 1981,the year South Africa toured New Zealand and we were treated to the cold shoulder from the New Zealand public. Apartheid was the problem and the sight of spectators sitting on the centre of the pitch whilst the NZ police formed ranks and marched around but didn't lay a hand on the pitch invaders was watched with amazement.
Links were eventually severed and International Rugby came largely to a halt until the magnificent World Cup win in 1995 by the Springbok, celebrated by Mandela in his number 8 shirt whilst the actual number 8 Francois Pienaar held up the cup.

The games and the people I watched the matches with, some of whom have sadly passed away, are still etched in my memory. Watching the Springbok play brought a strong sense of comradery between all of us as we downed our Castles or our Rum and Coke at the braai.

Tonight watching Schalk Burger and Victor Matfield play their last game for the Springbok one thought of the others. 



1960. Lofty Nel, Doug Hopwood, Avril Malan, John Gainsford,Tiny Neerthling. 
1970. Frik du Preez, Mannetjies Roux, Dawie de Villiers, Hannes Marais. 
1980. Ray Mordt, Nass Botha, Morne du Plessis, Gerrie Germishuys.
Where are they now ?
Today the game is much more inclusive with some of the best players coming from the ranks of players who would not have been chosen because of their colour. It's a game where those best able to articulate how South Africa was wrong to follow the path of Apartheid are the players of colour who now have the whole country cheering them on.
For me when a 22 year old runs on to the pitch I remember being that age in my first short stay in Cape Town and I wonder where did the years go. I am reminded of his youth and the surety of life's purpose as he accepts the applause and wonder if I had it all again, what would I have done differently.

Income and expenditure

The department of Statistics has projected an increase of 10 million people in the UK in the next 10 years.
On the one hand we can expect an influx of people into our cities both from immigration and from the increasing birth rate, mainly from the immigrant population. An increase, the size of which compares to another Greater London.

Whist we 'debate' the issue, of immigration and the high birth rate of the new arrives, we already confront  the multiple problems of a current housing crisis, an unwillingness to alleviate already overcrowded schools and a lack of 'political will' to come to terms with a properly funded NHS. How the hell are we going to manage this increase in the population in the future ?

Tinkering around the edges, kicking the problem into the deep grass or simply denying there will be a problem and trying to muddle through, will not be enough.

Our economy is massively lopsided and in terms of investment, undernourished. 

We have a psychological, almost  pathological abhorrence of taxes to balance our expenditure and see the solution, much as the old thrifty Scotsman, would by drawing in on our expenditure. Unfortunately the draw-down has been targeted on welfare.

In most business' the tension on the balance sheet is not serving 'expansion and growth' through profits but rather through borrowings and it's the source and type of borrowing which measures the success of the company. 

Borrowing is therefore a part of the business cycle and especially so when interest rates are so low. Now is the time when we should be equipping industry with the latest machinery, now is the time when we should be modernising the countries infrastructure   But no, like the Dickens' character  Micawber, who's maxim, the recipe for happiness, "annual income 20 pounds annual expenditure 19 pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence" was the linch pin for the household budget. 

How Mr Osborn would rue the day if individually we all went back to such careful bookkeeping. Instead he charges 'us' with running up our expenditure through debt to fuel the consumer reliant economy by offering all kinds of, buy now pay later schemes.

Perhaps if he laid off the 'acutely poor' and spread the burden by reducing our expenditure on imported goods, since we manufacture so little these days. 

If we were encouraged to save. If we were encouraged to pay 'ring fenced' specifically targeted 'taxes' to help pay for the extra housing, improved schooling and a properly funded NHS, then we could achieve a fairer more equitable balanced economy. Provided of course that borrowings are transferred from domestic expenditure to  improving and modernising, not only our infrastructure but encouraging, through financial incentives, the replacement of the old run down manufacturing equipment which has become the norm throughout the country.

It's not rocket science but it has to have a 'commitment' which doesn't rely on the Market.

The Market is short term and we have a long term problem.

It's no use teasing the Chinese with mouthwatering returns on investment by burdening the domestic user with massively inflated electricity prices. 

One of the main reasons for the demise of the steel industry has been the cost of our electricity at current day prices. We have by far the highest electricity costs in the EU and since energy is the staple diet of most industries and one of the main contributors to the unit cost, it's no wonder we are uncompetitive.

Our shadowing the Americans and placing such a reliance on the Market does not take into account the massive advantage the Americans have with their dollar holdings across the globe which allows them to run huge current account deficits, deficits which would bankrupt any other country.

With Uriah 'Osborn' Heep  running the show and  with so much political short-termism around, we continue to dig an ever deeper hole for ourselves.

Articulation par excelence

I am a fortunate person, fortunate in the opportunity I have to watch and listen to the debates in the House of Lords. 
Get a life I hear you say but for some the pleasure comes with simply observing people at the top of their game. It could be a game of football or a game of rugby. It could a wildlife program or how to bake a cake but it catches your interest and often provides a glimpse of something outside your everyday life. Current affairs and politics in general, although a minefield of misrepresentation is like a parallel universe, or black matter, it's there and effects us all.

The Lords are a much maligned body. The people who used to sit on the red benches 30 years ago were largely members of the aristocracy and not representative of the majority who are represented in The House of Commons.

Given that today the House of Lords has become more egalitarian with the introduction over the years of people, not from the Upper Class but more representative of ordinary people, people who had achieved some notice in their lives were included and brought a wealth of 'hands on' experience.
The House of Lords act as a refining chamber to the Commons sifting through the bills that pass through the Commons to make them not only more constitutionally water-tight but if possible less party political motivated and more suited to the nation as a whole.
The Lords are there to debate and ask questions.
In their debating role one observes some of the best minds in our society.  Drawn from the high positions in both the professions and industry, they have accumulated an ocean of forensic experience. Be it a Law Lord or a person who has spent a lifetime in Finance or perhaps running one of the great Industrial Organisations, these men and women have 'hands on' experience often sadly missing when sought amongst the professional politician who knows little else than the internecine warfare practiced in the House of Commons.
The debates by their 'Lordships' (I would dissolve the term Lordship because of its feudal links) are a delight to listen to in their use of language to define a problem and their high respect for other opinion. No baying for blood as in the Commons they appeal to me by their articulation of a complex political process and then one is able to listen to the equally captivating alternate point of view !!

Through the eye of the reporter

 One of the distinguishing features listening to the BBC reportage of the plight of the boat people is the tone of the people reporting the scene. These reporters are descriptive of the society we have produced over the last decade or two and compared to the life hardened people in the boats one is struck by the naivety of the questions and the incomprehensible sense of disconnect between the scene they are reporting on and the secure, padded upbringing that people growing up in Britain have, especially their assumption of rights.

There is a bleating romanticism about what should be done and what we should expect to be done. The images are all about the plight of the children and how these children are being thrust into a situation not of their own making and therefore our compassion towards them and our hopes for their safety and a successful conclusion is unambiguous and not open to question.

Escaping from the carnage of Aleppo these children and their parents come from a different world, a world where living and dying was on the turn of a dice. These kids, never mind their parents are years older in experience than the reporter, who fresh out of university, raised in suburbia, protected from any sort of hostility by a pleather of laws is out of their depth. Its plainly clear from their inane questions which reflect their cosseted upbringing that they have no right being there.

We seem to have become a nation where the ordinary struggle, which ordinary people have in their lives is not represented by the employees of the media companies through which we see our view of the world. The people in charge, the producers and the presenters represent a swath of Middle England who hold views that are as stratified and cemented in a world in which they 'wish existed'.

Reality is somewhat different and the reportage of calamity, be it on the sea around Greece or in the farthest flung corners of the earth have little in common with this anomalous nation where self congratulatory Political Correctness has cut off any reasoned interrogation into how people really live.

The human tide

Al Jazeera brings a coverage of societal problems seen through the eyes of the Middle East.
I was watching program the other day in which they interviewed a selection of people making the journey from the war torn areas in the Middle East. This human tide which has got us all in a tiswas. 
The men and women interviewed came from different cultures and it was interesting to listen to their separate objectives as they arrive on the boarder of  the "promised land". 

I was impressed by the strength of woman with her 4 young children as she undertook, not only to overcome the problems of traveling, largely on foot, with her clutch of small children, but she was distinctly aware of her responsibility  to her children. A truly immense burden compared to those travelling alone.
Two sisters fleeing ISIS and all that, that regime meant for them if they stayed  behind. 
The university graduate who's background made him a target of a purge in his own country.

This is a human tragedy brought on, less we forget, by the West's meddling with "regime change". 
Initially in Iraq with Saddam Hussein and then the ousting of Gaddafi in Libya. Our cheering of the 'Arab Spring', this western dream of democratisation in an area of complex tribal arrangement and allegiances, of internecine conflict where democracy, 'one man one vote' is made immeasurably more complex by the structure of a thing called a "country", (a concept of land with boarders) which is an anathema to many of the wandering tribes.
Should we be worried. Yes, if for no other reason than the Trojan Horse, "religious conviction" which generally proves stronger than any man made convention is traveling unseen with this mass of humanity. 
Individually we can sympathise with each persons story and as individuals we can make a place for them but the instinct to consolidate and stick together creates a ghetto, a pressure point within an existing society. The 'union' which a religious belief brings to a person is  so much stronger than a secular arrangement of individuals following their separate paths. It is a potentially galvanising situation where, given numbers there is eventually a call, not only for respect but acknowledgement that have become a force who 'will' be listened to.
Adjustments within society are a sign of a healthy societies maturity but when these adjustments are not organic but become part of a series of "demands", then we will have open rebellion and in fact, we will have imported more of the Middle East than we bargained for.

Getting old

The problem of working in an old peoples home, as I have done today, is that you come face to face with ageing, a process we all are engaged in.
Most people as they become old become childlike as their mental faculties diminish and, as a group in a home, they seem to reinforce each other in this aspect of their diminishing personality.

Talking to themselves or wandering around lost in their own private world seems an undignified end to a life, a life which may have been very fulfilling and one is reminded of how frail we are as we enter this final stage of life's journey.
Being just this side of old age, (although it's a mute point when old age begins), one is aware of ones own mortality in so far as being able to look after yourself and continue to present a reasonable face to others, of the person you wished to project.
Our self image and the self esteem we gain, is important. We rely on being able to match and move amongst our peers with some semblance of recognition which, in part depends on some measure of uniformity with others in the way we talk and act.
Old age lays that all aside. As we begin to fail to present the "me" of old, that self conjured image which is attached to our name we start to loose ourselves in a 'group' which itself is lost!
A child like personality which had been subsumed by our move into adulthood, begins to reappear and we become reliant on others to give us direction.
There is no way around this unbecoming phase in our lives, (other than falling under a number 42 bus), since society has set its face against assisted dying, one only has the opportunity to become slowly helpless!
Death and a graceful end is rarely on the cards. To often death is a decline into obscurity.
It's funny really, having banged on through the years,about "the respect we should have for each other", society funks the final passage with banal excuses.

Forgetting the actual individual, we prefer to hide behind "group speak", and avoid the issue of a 'respectful death'.

Sent from my iPad

A Statutory Instrument

Having listened to the debates in the House of Lords regarding the changes George Osborn, the Chancellor, was making to the Tax Credit system I am dismayed at the disingenuous comments made by leading members of the Government and the Media Pack on the matter.
As I mentioned before we don't have a written constitution.
There is an unwritten code which prevents the House of Lords voting against a 'financial bill' that is proceeding through the Hose of Commons.
This code also describes the finance bills as part of the governments annual business through presenting its business agenda at the beginning of each year in the traditional Parliamentary Opening Ceremony, The Queens Speech. 
The new Tory government had, as part of its 'election manifesto', avoided any details of the cuts it intended to make in its attempt to bring down the deficit.
Not having announced its specific intention regarding the cuts it used what is called a "statutory 
Instrument" to in effect bypass the convention of announcing its intention at the start of the parliamentary year in the queens speech.
Having chosen the "statutory instrument" instead of a normal parliamentary bill, the Government laid its self open to allowing the Lords to vote against the 'statutory instrument'.

That is the nub of the situation and it is disheartening to hear MPs and Constitutional experts ignore the important differences. They know the procedural rules well enough but it is an indication of their determination to put the Lords in their place that they feed the public with scare stories of how unelected people can control the elected MPs 
Our elected MPs have not covered themselves in glory over the last decade and it makes me sick to hear them pontificating when we also know that the 'electoral system'which placed then in Parliament is deeply flawed and unrepresentative.

House proud.

Cleaning the house is a chore to some whilst to others its a mission but rarely is it a creative passion. There is the pleasure of knowing the house is clean, which is in the same league as ensuring you wear clean underwear just in case you have an accident and will pass scrutiny !!

This last image was more a 'homely' from my mothers era where privacy and presentation were so much more valued than today.

Cleaning the house was much in the same mould. It was a defence against an unexpected visit and based on the assumption that someone would see something you would rather wish they wouldn't see. The conclusion is that you care what others think and it's this characteristic of our personality which, although useful in small doses can distort us into always qualifying and taking into consideration what others would think if we did this or that. Like a weight tied around our neck it limits our movement to be who we are and express our own individuality.

Of course cleanliness is near to God for some, even to the point of being an obsession and whilst one always appreciates a freshly spruced up home, smelling of furniture polish, the sheer routine is pretty mind dumbing.

This is especially so if you live on your own and the only person likely to call is the gas man to read the meter. Of course one could make the pretence that he will notice the dust gathering on the TV but in all honesty he has no interest in your dusty TV and is focused to be off as quick as he can to the next house, living his day also in mind chilling numbness through the repetition of reading meters.

Of course if the next door neighbour or worse, a relative calls one is in the full searchlight of self torment "what will they think", but in my experience the impact of visiting someone is very much the open hospitality you project or receive and the essence of the visit is centred around the conversation you have so long as it doesn't turn to 'cleaning' !!

The rocket salad debate.

When writing of the "working class" I am a person who goes far enough back to a society which was less pliant, less influences by the media and more organic in its assuredness. 
The strength of the class of people we described as "working" was a misnomer since every class except perhaps the "idle rich" worked in some way or another. The fact that today we are faced with the ridiculous concept where people running our business's are worth, in remuneration 200 times more than some of the people they employ, because, it is argued their contribution, (work) is worth 200 times that of the ordinary worker, leans towards the belief that we have diminished the value we attach to the work a working man does rather than the value of the work a boss does. But I digress.
People growing up in the era before the reach of television were not subverted by its power to mould a people in virtually every facet of their lives. A persons identity, his or her characteristics were a function of the environment they grew up in and on the whole there was a healthy interplay of real time experience which was your own. Much was first hand and had the ring of home grown actuality about it, a 'commonality' you could share which not only bound you to your contemporaries  but reinforced you all by the 'block experience' within your tribal affiliation.
Working class values were down to earth. They were not based on the analysis  of an intellectual debate rather they were a rough assimilation of what worked for a society living in reduced conditions with little money to spare and none to waste, although I suppose 'smoking and 
drinking', whilst a relief were a considerable waste.
Simple pleasures and the ability to stay close to nature, walking and cycling to work rather than driving, brought a whole panoply of natural experiences which, whilst they cost nothing, gave one added perspective.
This is not romantic nostalgia and is tempered by the unpleasant memories of rain and fog. 
Yes I might have hankered after the warmth of a car but I would have isolated myself from the  connection to my surroundings, especially the people I met in the street or on the bus. Stevenson's Rocket was a milestone. It signalled the start of the 'industrial revolution', a break from the agrarian lifestyle and the beginning of the mass consolidation of people into cities. 
TV, was another milestone as it encroached into everyone's living space, converting our values and our lives, manipulating us to believe what we are fed through the medium. 
From a magnificent invention, a steam engine named 'the Rocket' to our whimpering in the self same media over the value of a Rocket Salad is but a short journey in years but by the yardstick of human achievement we seem to have come full stop.

The House of Lords, a last bastion for the poor.

 Listening to the pomposity of the Tory politicians working them self up with self-righteous rage and umbrage at the thought of the House of Lords refusing to rubber stamp the horrendous, for some, changes to the 'tax credit' arrangements, needs to be put in context.

MP after Tory MP is seen on College Green, that patch of lawn outside the Houses of Parliament  expressing their deep unhappiness about an unelected body having the power to interfere with the decisions of an elected representative

But there's the nub of the problem. 

The concept of Democracy is flawed in this country since the 'first past the post' system is skewed in so far as the numbers who vote for a party are not at all in relation to the seats won in Parliament. In fact the Tory majority was won on 36 % of the vote with only a third of the people qualified to vote voting for them but they have total power to govern for the next 5 years. Thousands voted for the the Greens thousands voted for UKIP but each only won one seat !!! 

What sort of fair representation is that ?

The issues of whether it is fair to expect that section of society least able to survive a reduction in annual earnings is being debated in the Lords and since, with a small working majority of 12, the governing party can rail road bills through no matter how draconian their effect, the House of Lords is the last refuge of the poor.

How ironic. The symbol of patronage has become the symbol of hope to the disadvantaged.

 Then there is the appeal to tradition, the tradition that an unelected House the House of Lords can not oppose the so called democratically House the House of Commons on a finance bill.

Much of English Constitutional  law is based, not on a written constitution but a series of unwritten systems of agreement in which it is implicit that a specific format is followed. If the Lords throw out this draconian bill, as it should given the effect it will have on people least able to defend themselves they, the Lords are simply doing what a second chamber is there for to make the primary law makers reflect on their actions.

An audience of one.

There are no solutions only hypothesis.
Life proceeds in an irregular way, we have our ups and downs our mood swings, one way or another, we are at the centre of our own confluence, streams of thought pulling and pushing us to and fro.
To be settled and secure we need answers but often at the root of our difficulty is the questions we ask of ourselves. The questions somehow get mixed up in what we see and perceive others have and we forget who "we" are and fail to identify 'our' specific needs.
Life is in many ways simple. First of all we can't live the life of others no matter how much we care for them, we can only live our own life which is defined by who we are, which again is defined by the passage we have travelled living our own set of experiences.
Listening to a description of the torment that Beethoven experienced as he became deaf and the fact that he was shut off and isolated with only his music, created in his mind without sound but with the knowledge that the quavers and semi quavers were a representation of the music, a written shorthand which others could reproduce.
His list of masterpieces, the Symphonies, the piano concertos, are a requiem to a life which had many ups and downs and whilst we, ordinary man and women, will leave nothing as magnificent as the Pastoral, we have our own journey which is just as significant, even to a smaller audience, sometimes an audience of only one !!

Mallard, full stop

Watching some magnificent footage of the Mallard steaming through the countryside, smoke belching from its funnel, this streamlined A4 Pacific Class held the world record for a steam locomotive, 126 mph.
The TV program was designed to show how the French TGV was evolving into an AGV and discussed this technological achievement. The Bullet Train in Japan preceded the TGV but now the network in France is so inclusive providing high speed rail travel to all corners of the country it makes our rail network look positively antediluvian
For historical record the British were mentioned. Having, with Stevenson's Rocket, laid the foundation for economic rail travel. We progressed from the Rocket to the Mallard and then ..... We stopped. 
Diesel and diesel electric power units provided better more economical trains but as to being in the forefront of design we gave up.
Why can the French remain leaders in mechanical design, locomotive design, nuclear plant design, fields where we used to be world leaders. Of course they decided to fund the business.
Whilst we run everything through the Market to find if there is economic interest, the French had a vision of their national prestige and recognised that technology has its payday in ways which take 'long term vision', "something we have forgotten". 
The nuclear power plants that the French will design for us will be done at a premium. We have no alternative, the 'market' can only calibrate a profit today or in the immediate future, share- holders will not wait for their dividend and so we are caught in the short-termism which identifies our nation. 
Once proud and innovative now low key a diminutive. 

Dementia

Dementia that scourge which is claiming more victims simply because we are living longer is acknowledged but little understood.
I have just finished reading an article written by a carer who took over the role of living in the house of a old 90 year old man suffering dementia.
What was startling in the article, was the way we misinterpret what memory loss means and underestimate the importance of memory in the way we function.
Memory allows us to remember not just people and events but also the minute by minute reason to function in a way that depends on knowing. Take away the 'knowing' and the emptiness is overpowering. All the connections we make, as we do what ever we do are absent. There is no continuity since there is no memory to provide us with any perspective.
A question elicits an answer but the moment the answer is given it is forgotten and only the question has any relevance to the patient. Language, "asking questions" is the last vestige of the Alzheimer patient trying to make sense of anything, the answers are superfluous since they can't be remembered but the repetition of asking provides some sort of umbilical connection not to someone you remember but in a sense, to yourself.
For the carer there is the awful subterfuge that there is "a conversation" and that the words or the repeated answers to the repeated questions are part of some sort of human communication whilst in fact the communication is all one sided.
It's this facile façade that makes the whole process of caring such a unforgiving source of pain.
The person in front of us is physically there but the mind with which we identify that person has gone and we strive at our peril, to try to find what we had, even yesterday !

The Team Shirt

One is always struck by the 'influence' of the tribe into which you were born. 
If you are a white person born in the South of England it's probable that you will have a very different reference point on which to form your views than someone born in the North.
If you were a black person growing up in Birmingham or Tower Hamlets your concerns about the fairness of other parts of society towards your group will be prejudiced by your experience.
If you are a Catholic or a Protestant in Northern Ireland your memory will be scarred by recent history.
If you are a Muslim the foundations of your faith will direct your actions and thoughts and, irrespective of anything else, you will put what you understand as being a good Muslim, first and foremost.
The groups go on and on. The Sikhs. The Hindu's, the Buddhist. People from China, people from Syria all have very different images of what is right and wrong and given as I tried to argue in a recent blog, the question of what is right and what is wrong is littered with prejudice and cultural opportunism.
Given that "they" are in the process of inflicting a global hegemony on the world and need to open boarders and consolidate intermixing of whole cultures and populations, as part of a global consumer market, our differences are going to be highlighted and the strains within any society magnified.
It seems to me that fitting round pegs into square holes for the benefit of Wall Street is fraught with danger. People are pliable to an extent but dissatisfaction and confusion as to your traditions and the respect these traditions have in the larger picture, produces unnecessary tension.
Nations and cultures are not a plaything which Goldman Sacs can manipulate like a 'derivative' offering to the market, reflecting one thing but of no substance. 
People need more to hold on to.  Like the importance of the team shirt in the rugby tournament which identifies the direction of travel. Imagine a game played by individuals each wearing a different shirt, each player unable to recognise who is playing for who. 
Multiculturalism is based on trade and profit. Forget the altruistic  claims, its an experiment the like of which has never been tried on this scale before in which the gamble  is, that the natural harmony people have for each other, (until threatened) will tide the society over until the profit is secured and the plunder, safe in a Swiss account.

Gallipoli and Leadership

Why oh why do we place so much faith in what can only be called the Establishment.

How we are conditioned from birth to subvert our natural common sense to a view handed down by those who "are born to rule".
It's a phenomenon that follows us throughout our lives as we kowtow to our betters on the understanding that they will make decisions from which we will all benefit.

I have been reading an account of the events leading up to the storming of the Gallipoli  Peninsular, events which make the concept of placing ones trust in ones superiors, ridiculous and foolhardy.

The Generals and Admirals, the Commander in Chief and the politicians back in Whitehall were all guilty of committing men to their death on a foolhardy, ill thought through escapade with the single political reason, to placate Russia.

The omens, the rational, the observations, the common sense told the planners that this wouldn't run ! The haste and lack of planning, the insistence of a foreshortened time scale, the importance of not having the backing and full logistical support of the man given the task of coordinating the the war effort in Europe, Lord Kitchener, all dismally fell far short of what was needed.

Hamilton under the thrall of Kitchener as Admiral De Robeck was to Fisher in the Admiralty, there could be no turning back.  

The young men from all the echelon of society were fired up with romantic thoughts of King and Country. Rupert Brooks who's immortal poem finishes with the words 

"If I should die think only this of me ; 

That there is some corner of a foreign field 

That is for ever England"

This fever of excitement which drew young men into the field of battle, only to die like the rest, 'there is no democracy like a machine gun bullet'.

This "flower of youth" was not the lot of the conscripted men who were posted to die on a post code lottery. Which battalion would fight where, was part of the Staff Officers remit and your fate was sealed on a map laid out at headquarters, usually well away from danger.

The men fighting were drawn largely from the antipodes. Out of a force of 70.000, 30.000 men were Australian and New Zealand volunteers. The Gurkha feature strongly as do the Scots and the English conscripted men committed by their superiors, in a "boys own" drama which had no place outside the field of fiction.

From the Charge of the Light Brigade to the Officers whistle, signalling the men to go over the top of the trench and charge into the withering fire of the enemy, human beings have been the fodder a collateral wastage driven by the desire to do something. Whether it was feasible was secondary since more troops were arriving tomorrow.

And so we are led. Like the Christian or the Muslim by faith, either in God or by the secular person, in a non religious way. A faith in a deity, a person or a class of people who either by learning or instinct feel they can are better able to guide us.

In effect it is all based on the shifting sand of assumption and guesswork and brings me back to my observation.  "We are singular and unique" and our sights should be set on what we actually know, the commitment to "do unto others what we would have others do unto us".

The China Express

Today we signed an agreement to allow China to finance and build a series of new Nuclear Power plants the design of which is in the hands of the French.

To entice their collaboration we have agreed to "double" the unit cost of our electricity price to the consumers in the UK. 

We have our sleek publicity man David Cameron explaining to us how fortunate we are to secure the deal and how any fears of future integration with China are unfounded.

He is of the political breed who can not describe to the nation, how a nation, which designed and financed and built the nuclear plants, now coming to the end of their life can not, 20 years later either design, finance or practically build their replacement. 

Where, how and why ?

Where did the designers and the expertise go. 

How could we loose the skills to build these plants. 

Why can't we entice our own financiers, given the sweetener that there will be a guaranteed price structure paid for by the British consumer covering the next 30 years !!

It's almost impossible to quantify how far this nation has fallen. We led the world in this field of high tech specification, in direct competition with the USA and now we are a beggar nation holding our hands out to nations who in those days were industrially primitive.

No one on any bench in Parliament asks, why. 

Are they all complicit in the move into finance and consumerism. Dodgy finance and reverting to a nation of shop keepers is where we have travelled over the last 30 to 40 years, it's been a downward trajectory and there seems no stopping it since the Keynesian philosophy of investment and modernisation has been rejected by successive governments.

Vote catching political gimmickry has been the order of the day and it's a long time since we had responsible governance with an eye to the long term needs of the country and not the market. 

Australian Supermarket

Walking around an Australian supermarket care of the marvel of Face Time one is struck by the conformity of the Capitalistic model all around the world. The eye candy is a brightly packaged consumer product all neatly stacked awaiting purchase like puppies for Christmas. Row upon row of tantalising option food, lined up in straight lines, "take me" they call like a 'call-girl' in the shop window in Amsterdam.
Consumerism and packaging sell the dream. Will it taste as good as the picture or will my intervention spoil the party.


The method of selling and presenting the goods in an eye catching way is the same in California as it is in Chippenham and 'down under' I could have been in Morrison's if it hadn't been for the footfall and the dress code. No, down around the backside jeans or flab around the waist, shorts and casual with the surfboard parked outside were the order of the day and one had the impression of a younger more healthy environment with the associated sense of living the life !!
The sun was disappearing from the sky (on its way here) as we drove back to the Apartment, me captured in the phone, asking questions, he negotiating the nearly empty highway as it drew us back to a view over the yacht club from their balcony window. The pool in the Apartment grounds was deep blue lit from its underwater lights,the sound of the waterfall enticing.
Donald Trump would have approved !!

Kids Company

I have been watching a recording of a Parliamentary Select Committee in which the founder of Kids Company, Camila Batmanghelidjh and the companies Chair of Trust, Alan Yentob were grilled by the committee of parliamentarians.

The committee sat on Thursday and I had heard snippets of the meeting and read reports in the news of the clash of personalities, particularly between the Committees Chair, Bernard Jenkins and Miss Batmanghelidjh.

Kids Company like many charities these days do the work of what used to be that of a government department. Charities have, over the years taken on their shoulders parts of the States responsibility to its electorate and vulnerable people depend on charities to function.

Kids Company was just such an organisation run and conceived by an extremely charismatic woman who, dressed in bright flamboyant clothes,  was dedicated to helping kids and young people who were so damaged by their upbringing they didn't fit the template which Social Services accept and by being on the fringes of society her clients were always vulnerable to being misrepresented.

How do you reach out to people who both self harm and harm others as a normal course of life.

How do you audit not only their progress but also the expenditure as a unit cost.

The Committee of Parliamentarians were hell bent on tying the company up in accounting procedures and questions of probity especially when it came to the responsibility of the Trust and its fiduciary commitment.
The question Batmanghelidjh kept asking "where was the governments responsibility towards these socially impoverished people" she was derided, bullied and told to be quiet by Jenkins in quite a most unsavoury manner.
Trial by media has made Kids Company and its founder almost indefensible. The company was responding to a situation which has no parallel and a typical company profile was inadequate to describe this funding of a service which had little in common with other welfare services. 

More a series of meeting places and tenuous communication projects which relied wholly on trust.

The money was spent on a hard core of administrators but relied heavily on people giving of their time or in the case of 'university health care students', picking up experience. 

In a hand to mouth operation where the recipients firstly needed money for either a fix or a stimulant and then, only after establishing the supply could you begin to work on the long and tenuous rehabilitation back into society. Only in this underworld does the hard headed "black is black and white is white" forensic accountancy, making every penny accountable and transparent,have little relevance.  

Only in the tidy mind of the mythical, unsullied parliamentarian could this discussion proceed but of course they are living in a parallel universe to the reality on the street and in this simple fact lies what is wrong in most societies, between the governor and the governed.

Being able to choose.

One of the problems in our ageing society is the pressure the older person puts on the younger members of the family
In my day people died in their mid to late 60s which is 10 years earlier than the the current norm. People died, often quite quickly through diseases  which today would be 'controlled' and life extended.
No one would want to halt progress in medicine and the healing of the sick but when does the concept of a person being sick merge into the recognition that sickness becomes ageing. Should we judge the extension of life beyond a certain stage differently from healing a potentially healthy person. 

It's that description of a "potentially" healthy person which is at the nub of the question.
Of course each person is different and for some longevity is their norm, but for the bulk of the population their natural lifespan is in danger of being artificially extended simply because the medical tools to do so exist.
The question to now ask is, "what sort of stress on the immediate family does this longevity bring"?
In a world were the extended family were contained within the neighbourhood, the responsibility and the functionality of looking after the older parent was shared. Other siblings, Aunts and Uncles, Cousins, friends, were all there to pop in and keep an eye on the old relative and no specific person felt the pressure.
Today in our atomised society, with husbands living away from their wives,with children making their future overseas it often falls to one member in the family to shoulder virtually the whole weight of day to day concern for the frail parent.
Historically it has often fallen, probably unfairly, to the daughter to be landed with the job and perhaps this aligns with the female shouldering the brunt of child rearing in general. Often putting "her needs" on the back burner until the parent has died or the children grown up.
This role that women play is not out of balance with their role towards the sustainability of the species which, if it were up to men (regardless of the birthing role) I'm sure we would soon die out.
It's not irreversible but are men more individualistic, immured in their own world or is it that women, taking their child rearing responsibilities become more caring generally and continue to display this sympathetic bond towards the parent.
Life so depends on what you make of it and one should be on guard of placing responsibility towards a parent who have enjoyed their life, before the responsibility towards yourself. It's the nature of life that we have a term and that from a parents point of view there is no greater satisfaction than seeing ones daughter or son happy and successful, irrespective of what they choose to do or where they choose to live.

A minute to go

All team games, or combinations of athletes in a team seem to bring into the equation chance.
There is a complexity when multiples of players compete and rely on each other to play their part
In athletics the 'relay' events rely on not just the speed of the runner but his ability to pass the baton. It's here that a turbo charged team who on paper should win the race easily come a cropper on a technicality which in some ways has nothing to do with running which after all is what the event is supposed to test.
In football a side can have 80% of the possession, continually attack the opponents goal but get caught out on a rare counter-attack and loose the game.
Watching the rugby, most games have gone with the stronger team but there have been occasions where penalties have canceled out much of the play and, although penalties indicate indiscretions by one of the teams as I have said before the game is so complex that a boarder-line interpretation of the rules can loose a match against the run of the play.
If you compete as an individual in sport its most unlikely that you will have your individual effort negated by the rules. Perhaps boxing is an exception where decisions taken outside the field of contest and depend on the scrutiny of judges or a referee can there be discontent about the outcome of the contest.
One of the features of the Rugby World Cup has been the crowd attendance and the support for the teams in general. My mind goes back to half empty stadiums in South Africa and even the Football World Cup in Brazil. The stadiums over here are well established by the fact that Britain is made up of four nations and each has its centre for a specific sport. The crowds never the less have filled each ground to the brim and this is especially pleasing given the host nation, England got kicked out at the preliminary stage.

Who would have thought the odds on Scotland holding the Aussies to a point by the 60 minute mark. The Scots hardly rated within the Home Nations were carrying the slender hopes of some sort of self respect for Northern Hemisphere Rugby. An 'interception' and Scotland pull ahead by two points with five minutes to play. The heavens have opened and the rain is pouring down. Four minutes to play, three minutes to play and now a penalty, a disputed penalty without a call to the TMO to confirm the decision, when the use of the consultation to a slow motion rerun has become a common part of the referees decision making.  With only a couple of minutes to go, the game hinging on the decision why didn't the ref' confirm it ?

Over it goes. The whistle blows, one point in it, and the Aussies scrape through !!!

Getting the job done.

Wham, bang, bosh it was all over as these old fashioned marauders took the French rugby team apart. They look like a team kitted out in the "Chariots of Fire" era team shirts and shorts. Old fashioned with socks down at the ankle, large men playing in what used to be the boys outfits.

And there the resemblance to anything old or associated with fashion ends, these guys were awesome as they romped in try after try.
We had been held on the edge of our seat in the afternoon by the titanic contest between Wales and South Africa. If you were in the pub in Wales, as Angela was, the shell shocked atmosphere of defeat was bitter. The boys in red who due to injury had a much diminished side playing their heart out were eventually beaten by a try which was conjured out of brilliance. It always seems so unfair for a team which didn't seem like there was a try in them to produce this final piece of magic but there you go, who said there was justice in sport. Territorially South Africa were always in the right position to kick the penalty when it came, and penalties have been a feature of the tournament. The complexity of the breakdown and staying on your feet in a maul is ripe for judicial judgement and the ref's have no option but to blow up. The one insurance policy is to play in the other teams half.
Anyway with their beer rapidly watering down with tears of frustration, the Northern Hemisphere have all their hopes pinned on Ireland now to put up some sort of fight but,without the leadership of Paul O'Connell they will be hard put to beat the antipodeans.
Given the All Black display was magnified against a dejected and bewildered French side one wonders what the game plan of the South Africans will be to match the Kiwi. South Africa have not looked a dominant side and although they have ground out wins after the humiliation of the Japanese defeat it hasn't been attractive rugby, unlike the trouncing the Aussies gave England and last nights display by New Zealand.
The deep, manly growl and physicality of the Hakka's challenge will still be the lasting memory for me of a side and a tradition dreamed up on a tiny island set in the rough seas of the South Atlantic. Not known for its outward blown character, much like its rugby kit understated until you meet the true character of the people who live there, with farming and simple life in their blood they eschew flamboyance for getting the job done and last night they did just that !!!

It should come with a health warning

As is often the case I am a little confused. The Volkswagen emissions scandal now includes other cars which they manufacture including the Audi. The issue is that the company deliberately tried to deceive the authorities into believing that the exhaust emission from the car was cleaner than it actually is. This was done by software controlling the engine to I assume, perhaps reduce the fuel intake whilst the test was under way. This would cut down the flow of the diesel, and therefore the particulates released after burning into the atmosphere. Cutting back the fuel would also no doubt effect the performance of the car and the claims made by the manufacturer regarding the power would be invalid.

Now as I understand it VW engines (apart from this software modification) are no different to any other Diesel engine and therefore all motor car diesel cars must be guilty of pushing out this harmful particulate. 

Listening to the "experts" this morning the focus is on VW deliberately trying to deceive the American testing authority and through them the American public.
The reason for VWs dilemma is that the Americans have been seen to do the job properly. The European testing authorities did not pick it up (or if they did they stayed stum)  but no word is made of their culpability since the whole purpose of these test authorities is to protect the public from the increasing pollution as more and more cars move onto out our streets. It's a health issue more than a question of deceit.
Why isn't the spotlight turned on the European testing authority, including our own ?
Surely the issue is that all diesel cars are potentially dirty and collectively harmful and whilst VW were caught trying to disguise the fact all manufactures have the same problem, their diesel cars are all guilty of a greater crime than trying to hide their vulnerability.
A diesel car should all come with a health warning !!!

Mother Nature

Autumn is nearly upon us and this morning as I walked to the shop, I can see the leaves beginning to turn russet red as they start to die. England is a magnificent place to witness the seasons. They are so specific and clear cut, as the old dies away with the first sign of a cold wind Mother Nature is resilient, tucking in her skirts to see out Winter, tempting us with the anticipation that Spring always brings.
Today the sun is shining, the air clear and bracing and its a pleasure to be out.
It got me thinking to the whys and wherefores, the plus and the minuses of living in where ever you live.
Where we live is often a matter of chance. Either we were born there or moved there to be nearer someone. Each environment is different and one can weigh the pros and cons till the cows come home but we all have an investment in where we live and a responsibility to look around and appreciate what we have.
As I have mentioned in the past my abiding memory when I moved back here was that the weight of suspense was lifted from my shoulders. Not the suspense of earning a living, that was still with me and made worse by the situation I soon found myself in. No it was the security of not fearing, of not looking over my shoulder of not being aware of the potential danger lurking within the environment.
Each country has its claim to fame.
The sunny weather and the spectacular beaches of Australia.
Ditto South Africa, along with the loverly homes and large gardens  and the open hospitality which is unique to that country.
New Zealand a hidden gem. A sleepy backwater which thrives on the outdoor and excels in its ability to have a no frills lifestyle, not brash like its neighbour but resolutely sure of its self.
The USA seeped in celluloid history. The towns and cities known to us all through the films, contrived in the romance of the storyline, we arrive hyped up only to find, behind the billboards the tumbleweed of yesterday and what we sought, was a fantasy.
Of course each has its up side as well as its down side.
The heat of the day brings lethargy, and at night one suffers not only from being too hot but also the blight of the mosquito.
In some countries it's the flys that make your life miserable, sometimes it's the danger of the spider or the snake, even the shark gets in on the act.
Of course one rides ones chances because the sunshine is such a boost to confidence. The spirits rise as one watches the sun come over the horizon and the light floods into the bedroom. In my experience it was the light which played the most important part in lifting the psyche.
When it's raining and the temperature drops below freezing and the only light comes from a street light I would be the first to admit that a couple of spiders and the need for a plentiful supply of sun-screen is a fair reason to be somewhere else.

He passed this way once

I'm a happy man. 

Yesterday I received a copy of a book, my blog articles written in the year 2012 covering events that caught my attention in that year. It was the result of an idea I had to turn these web based articles into a book in the hope that perhaps someone will find them historically interesting, a memoire on events that happened that year.

It was the year of the London Olympics and I think my writing has caught the mood, not only of the marvellous 'opening ceremony' but also the response of the crowds to the success of the British Team. 'They kept on winning' and the mood in the country was tremendously empathetic.
But it was not all about the Olympics. I dealt with ageing and loneliness, of destitution and success. I threw in a bit of Buddhist philosophy, are well as some of my own and ranged over the human condition in general. The economics of the world were well and truly falling apart and Greece was in turmoil. Religion was in the ascendancy and of course there was always the political scene to ponder.
When you write, you write for yourself. Your audience is a side issue although ones Ego hopes that others will understand and enjoy what you write. But it's the business of getting 'it' off your chest that is the real motivator.
People say why do you concern yourself with things you can't effect ?
Well it would be a dreary old world if we showed no interest in anything outside our immediate concern. If the only thing you thought about and became mentally embroiled in were the relatively domestic events which run our existence.
To have feelings for and even passions about that happen in remote parts of the world or, closer to home, the fabric of the society you live in, then I think you are missing a great opportunity. It is only when you compare your own life with others do you reach any kind of perspective. It's only when you confirm your beliefs with the beliefs that others hold do those beliefs become tangible.
Writing is cathartic. It slows the humdrum thought process and focuses on the specifics. It questions the assumptions by placing the thought on the page to look at and consider, "am I right".
Of course it doesn't answer that question because one man's opinion is just that, one man's opinion. But it does hold that opinion up to the spotlight to examine and if necessary criticise.
I am proud of the book and tremendously pleased my son Andrew went to the trouble and the expense of taking it out of my hands and organising this for me.
As I say the first book covers the year 2012. I also intend to have printed the articles written in the years, 2013 and 2014 and when we reach the end of this year, 2015.
A coffee-table edition. Pick it up at any page and find something of interest and time relevant. Also, since the 'ego' is never far away,  when I pass on, at least there will be some sort of footprint to acknowledge "he passed this way once" !

Complicit by association

Listening to a program on the reaction to the proposed new law here in the UK on 'incitement' specific to Muslims one thought,  as one listened to the voices within the Muslim community relating how they had been demeaned by for instance, having their had head covering torn off in public. The use of vile language towards Muslims and the aggression shown them, were all cause for a Muslim specific law which would seek to outlaw people regarding their behaviour towards this minority group.

It is incitement to disparage a black person because of their colour. It is incitement to call into question anything which questions the Holocaust regarding the Jewish people. Similarly the gender issues are fraught with trouble as is the issue of disability.
It begs the question on what one can hold an opinion and, if that opinion demands it, can one castigate and disagree with a minority group without getting into trouble ?
Of course in many circumstances one would assume that it depended on how you voiced your thoughts although this is not always true since.  To come up against a 'politically correct' Council Employee who 'demands' that an innocent remark, made in the privacy of a private conversation but overheard is offensive and the implied threat is that the Council will be forced to enact rules which were brought in to dissuade outright discrimination. People walk in fear of these Politically Correct zealots, knowing that management, craven in its fear of litigation will come down hard on any descent by the so called majority. So went recognition of "free speech"!!
It all leads to immense confusion made incalculably more so when, after the debate about protecting Muslim sensibilities in this country one learns of the imminent sentence of 350 lashes which are to be imposed on an old 75 year old Brit' living in Saudi Arabia for having been found to be carrying wine in his car !!
It is undoubtedly a Muslim based edict. It stems from an interpretation of the Prophet Mohammed and the laws of behaviour defined in the Koran.
Where are the shrill voices of the Muslim community decrying "this" atrocious sentence. 

We only know of it because it effects a person from this country but what of the other barbaric sentences which pass un-commented by the community in this country, unified under the one faith and apparently complicit by association !!