A night on the town

It's a myth, that there is life out there ! I'v just got back, no not from the outer Galaxy, but the Harvest Moon which is a little closer in. Sampling the flesh pots of Bishops Stortford I have come to the conclusion that there's more excitement in watching paint dry.
It was 8.00 pm on Friday night and I wondered in my hide-a-way what the other section of society got up to.
The first pub I went into, it was convenient, was a Bob the Builders pub The Marne. Extremely noisy, I thought I had stumbled onto a Gay gathering. 
During the day the pub is full of Plasterers and Painters clearly identifiable by the paint and the putty covering their shirts and trousers. In the evening there seemed a metamorphosis. The guys all slimmed down in tight fitting jeans and canvas shoes, no socks. They seemed to have a propensity for hugging each other and kissing on the cheek, unheard of in my day. 
The gals or should I say Molls were clad in little and revealed much. They didn't seem to mind the pawing that went on, taking it in their stride, since the night was young and "you ant seen nothing yet", I suppose was their motto !!
I wasn't shocked but such an outward display of crudity seemed par for the course in this age of moral illiteracy.


The Harvest Moon, a pub I was drawn to years ago when I first settled in Stortford was the watering hole of the guy who offered me a job when we came over. The team, for they always grouped as a team. Laughter and a male gusto was their trademark as I tried hard to understand the nuance of their humour. 
All long gone, there is no trace of the drinking school and the people there, who were more in keeping with my conservatism pooled their habit into couples or larger groups out for a chat.
Nothing to draw me in I left and sped home to the surety of my iPad and a mug of sweet tea. The world outside will remain so for as long as I can remember that 'others' remain 'others' unless you make a big effort.

In memory of

A song by Jacque Brel, sung in a beautiful, haunting, understated way by a slender young female singer at the memorial service in Paris today was impressive. 
The French language has always seemed to me more evocative, more emotional than when songs are sung in English. Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Francoise Hardy come to my mind.
Perhaps it's the breathing and intonation that accompanies the language. Perhaps it's the image of the beautiful, chic, Parisian women with their immaculate dress sense. Their poise and confidence, the husky, breathy delivery, so much more sexy, so much more alluring, full of innuendo and so suggestive. 
On this day the tempo of the song matched the solemnity of the occasion. Even the reading of the names of those who had died sounded special in French. 
And finally, the haunting, mournful sound of a cellist playing that most sombre of instruments a the last epitaph to this moving ceremony of remembrance. 
There were many people, famous and ordinary,

close to tears.

Putting your case

There was a time when we could indulge in being lazy and eat what ever we wanted without the whole world coming down on our heads. We were isolated from opinion, other than the face to face stuff which if you disagreed with it you could argue and reason your case. 

Today hundreds of books are written covering the most intimate subjects regarding personal habits from hygiene to homoeopathy, from overweight to undernourished, and the old perennial from rags to riches.
There's not a moment when the spotlight isn't shining and people queuing up to offer their opinion.
Knowledge is a good thing but when it's used to develop a prejudice then, not only is it destructive but it makes everyone dissatisfied. 
"The clammer to tell" is what I call it. The impetus to interfere in someone else's life seems unstoppable as we become infected by opinion. 
From the humble blog writer to the serial activist who writes books and makes films to get his or her message across, the sheer volume balloons out of control.
The noise level and the intensity of feelings is unprecedented due to the Internet. You Tube is the perfect conduit for putting claims across, the more dramatic the claim the greater the number of hits and the more likely for people to be drawn in to sample the propaganda.
The main issue is not so much the claims made but the source of the material supposedly backing the claim. We all know that the black art of misinformation is an industry in which all the nations in the world partake. From RT, the Russian news service to Fox News in America are but two news services which one has to take what they say with a health warning and a dose of salts Even the respected BBC and the less respected Sky, also skew the facts to fit a story.
When it comes to the fervour of an activist, anything goes and no holds are barred. It's not to say that the message is wrong but the telling can be suspect !!!

The cabal is ready to strike.

Yesterday the Prime Minister stood up and addressed Parliament about the prospect of bombing Syria. With the focus still on Paris and the atrocity of the massacre of innocent people the answer seems to be kill some more innocent people using a 'drone guidance centre' somewhere secure in the South of England. 


The moral ambivalence is quite striking but then such things rarely bother politicians. One exception is Jeremy Corbyn who after the slick presentation of David Cameron (much in the mould of that other salesman Tony Blair), stood up and urged caution. 

One of the crucial selling points of Cameron's sales pitch was that there were 60.000 anti ISIS fighters in the region waiting for us to bomb the ISIS stronghold who would then rise up and "boots on the ground" finish the job. It wasn't long ago that we were told that after spending a fortune arming the anti ISIS insurgents we had managed to recruit only a handful and the bulk of the arms we had sent to Syria had fallen into the hands of ISIS. But this time we have it on behalf of the "security agency" that 60.000 are on hand in waiting.
Who remembers Tony Blair and his dodgy dossier purporting to come from the same intelligence source of weapons of mass destruction, weapons which have still to be located.
Watching Cameron it took one back to that slick presentation from an equally slick operator but listening to Cameron the only real claim is that we should go in because everyone else is and if we don't we will loose face.
Only Corbyn called his bluff whilst all around him on his own benches they looked glumly on. They, the Blairite's and the Brownites had only conceded to allow Corbyn onto the ticket for the leadership contest as a sop to the left of the party. The fact that with the 'rank and file' vote, he trounced them all, he humiliated them in one ballot with over 50% of the vote and they will not forgive him. 
The Middle England socialist who gained their spurs not in the miners strike but in the reading room at Cambridge are out for revenge.
Corbyn has the moral courage to call it as he sees it. Only he seems to speak for the rank and file of Party supporters, the rest the White faced assassins are, as I write, plotting to vote him out and re establish the cabal !!! 

Are you depaysee.

Are you 'depaysee' ? Is that why you feel out of sorts ? 
Having been raised in another country, is this country and its people, alien to you ?
It's quite unfathomable, the sense of feeling at home, of instinctively recognising ones Ain Folk and its often missing when one decants to another country since the norms and the traditions are not 'your' norms and traditions. Your fluency is for something different, not very different but sufficiently so that your surrounding, which seems to fit so many of your friends, but jars your own sensibility.  
Without knowing why you are, or have become, more susceptible, more questioning, more disadvantaged, you lack the fluency to negotiate. It's not what the locals say but what they don't say, that hidden language of innuendo which is missing from your vocabulary. 
You can't go back since the place you came from is changed beyond description, as are yourself The only way is forward learning new skills and new coping methods, to be amongst the natives of whom you will never be one. 
In some ways it's worse for me since having returned. I fit in even less and yet there is part of me expecting to know and understand as if it were part of me a sort of second nature. 
Why are the English (Welsh) so oblique so opaque, so not what they purport to be.
"Perfidious Albion" springs to mind. Are they any different from any other nationality in this way or is it a common failing in mankind in general.

Why do I always seem to be peering in, from outside, always adjusting my language to fit their parochial standpoint. Why do they seem so transparent, so lacking in guile.

Added to this is the sense of responsibility which women carry around with them. 
Men feel a responsibility to provide the material things and women the emotional things. The material are finite, the emotional infinite and so a woman's work is never done. 
A man makes it into the chair and he's home, a women transfers her concern to the next close object she cares for and begins to worry about their state of being. 
Perhaps it's a females vulnerability which makes her alive to her surroundings. A man can feel the confidence his masculinity brings and the protection it affords him, a woman always has to negotiate her space and security and is therefor more attuned to her surroundings. In this process of being attuned she sees the plight of others as a 'real time' experience not an academic process of which tomorrow is early enough.

Not the same as doing it.

In just under a months time it will be Christmas. That season of joy and giving,  a time to remember with cards and good wishes for those friends and family who you still wish to remember.

 The Post Office used to be, when far away at Christmas time the point of contact where you would queue to receive what mail was waiting for you at 'Poste Restante' and then scurry away with your pile of letters and cards to sort into piles, family, friends and lovers !! 

Like savouring something special you kept the special to the last, to be opened with trepidation was it good news, she still loved you or bad, she had met another. The pathos of those letters, the stories and the signs we read into them the happiness they gave, or the misery as we walked away into the sun drenched street, alone.
Letter writing and particularly the letters one kept seem, as you read them today no less poignant now than than when you first opened them except that with hindsight you now know the outcome.
They stop the clock and revisit the emotion of the event so many many years ago. It was a time when you were raw with expectation yet reluctant to commit, when the question was, is there still something more just around the corner or was this as good as it gets.

The distance between you and the letter writer allowed you to consider the alternatives, the heady urges were of a reflective nature, not the hot impulse of the warm lips but the crosses on the bottom of the page were as a symbol of something you needed but still on your own terms.
Sitting down to write back that night, the urgent need to catch the next post, the turmoil of a "Dear John" still ringing in your ears or the self satisfied confirmation that she still loved you and you still loved her needed addressing and so you wrote that long laborious outpouring of sentiment.
5 days for a letter to find its way to the directed address and another 5 days for the reply given that a response was as urgent as yours. Sometimes the good news would cross the bad. She had met this chap was on its way to you as you were professing your undying love. That unhealthy tryst which is caused by total absorption, not only of your feeling for her but also your feelings for yourself, since in all these affairs you are somewhat unhinged.

It was all made the more surreal by being on your own in a foreign country with no support mechanism. The dice were all loaded against you. You had to keep throwing double six to keep both her and your interest at a peak. Talking about love and sex is not the same as doing it !!

What is success.

He need so much to succeed!! But what is success. How do we as individuals define success when, being individuals our success should be tailored to who we are. And who we are is a reflection of our experience which by any measure of common sense is not common.
The herd tells us this and that. Our upbringing lays it heavy hand on us. Our parents generation has much to say and yet it is our choice.
To most people success is laced with having a lot of money since as they say "money makes the world go round" but often the criteria of needing to have money also lends itself to spending an inordinate amount of time accruing the stuff and having got it finding it difficult to let go. The sheer time and energy earning a lot of it means that you can't switch off and are forever talking about it or measuring it as if it were some sort of yard stick.
Success must surely come from gaining the respect of others not because you are generous at the bar but because people enjoy your company for what it is. 
Success can come from giving, not receiving, from being out there driving a 'combi' for the old peoples home or visiting strangers alone in hospital. Out in all weathers, shaking the tin to get in the coffers to rebuild a shelter or provide funds for the upkeep of a club.
Success can mean being self contained, having few regrets but being alert to what is happening around you and finding life in general, interesting.
Success can mean starting a new interest, a new hobby. It can be in keeping fit or it might be in exploring a book.
Success comes in all guises and we should never knock another persons definition of success.
Success is like slowly sipping hot sweet tea on a cold day. The steam clouds your glasses as the hot rim of the cup slightly burns the lips and the hot liquid burns a hole through to your chest.
Success is recognising that good literature has, like music a way of astounding the quiet conventional person into wide eyed pleasure at the revelation that not only are you still alive but that what ever you had just read or listened to confirmed it. 
Success is recognising that truth is to be found all around but that we often do not have the eyes or the tranquillity within us to to see. It takes a great author to weave his spell with words, hyperbole and  embellishment to bring us to a truth that has been lurking under the surface of our minds.
That is my measure of success and I will go happily to my grave contending it !!

The Autumn Statement

Today is the so called Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in which he will reveal the extent of the cut to Government Services which is needed to balance our income and expenditure account.

We spend more than we take in and the borrowing, which is done on the 'market' costs us in interest alone as much as it takes to run our defence.   

Clearly one couldn't run a family budget in deficit and expect to continue indefinitely but it is interesting that the major aspect in cutting the National indebtedness is to make those family budgets unsustainable. There are millions of people "in work" just scraping by. The minimum wage which is below the living wage is insufficient to clear the essentials. 'Rent' and 'Child Care' are two of the main unavoidable costs that the modern family has to contend with since, in the case of a single parent or a couple who have to obtain two wage packets, child care is common. No longer can one parent stay at home to look after the kids which I think is a shocking reflection of our society. The unmarried mother has to struggle to be a Mom and a valued employee and part of the diminishment in the attitude and the educational attainment of our youngsters is due to not having a parent in the home at the end of the school day.  In those sections of the country where there is real poverty, parents have to have two jobs, further distancing themselves from their children and furthering the creation of a sub culture leading inevitably to real criminality.

The unwillingness to build affordable housing and particularly rent controlled housing, to provide in fact public sector financed housing for those who will never be able to afford their own house, has led to a Market structured building program, which coupled with Councils selling off their housing stock to make good the hole in their accounts left by the withdrawal of government grants has little interest I social housing. With a withdrawal of the public hand in the housing system it has become a free-for-all for exploitation. Properties that are for sale from the Councils are snapped up by the wealthy property agents who then rent out their newly purchased houses to the people who were previously protected by Council rules. Rents are no longer protected, repairs to the property are no longer part of the Councils responsibilities and being part of the Market, have to contend with what the owner deems a profit.

Of course it can not be sustainable if we don't balance the books but the one instrument that is never spoken of these days on either side of the house, in a climate of withdrawing claimant money from the poorest sections of our society, Taxation. No one mentions taxation. 

In all Parliaments, prior Margret Thatcher, the use of taxation (a penny in the pound) was the way the Exchequer used to fund everything and one usually expected an adjustment. No longer.

Since Ronald Reagan and Margret became joined at the hip, the move to reduce direct taxation and transfer it to indirect taxation (VAT) has moved relentlessly downwards. The top rate of tax has fallen to a rate which was common to the the middle class, the middle class have fallen to the rate the working class used to pay and many of the working class, escape paying tax altogether. How can we fund a public sector without tax revenue. Easy,  "demolish the public sector". Escape the responsibility government had of caring for the poorer, the sick,  the vulnerable parts of our society and become more like the Americans, a society that only has space for winners, losers must if possible be phased out or at the very least, become the responsibility of the charity industry.

The human cost

The concern today, as the British Prime Minister is set to ask Parliament for permission to drop bombs in Syria, is that as we stir the hornets nest we will inevitably be stung. 
With 1.3 billion Muslims spread across the world upsetting them has the potential to be, one hell of a hornets nest and although not all of the Hornets carry a sting there are sufficient, given the identification Muslims have of a common religious identity to give us an ongoing problem.

Perhaps this is the foundation of the Jihadi  plan. To publicly commit such atrocities whereby 'world citizenry' was forced to react. Well they seem to have got their wish and the nations are lining up to to join the bombing campaign.
Of course the main ingredient, and one that no one seems to be talking about, is the schism between the Shia and the Sunni sections of the Muslim community. The enmity runs so deep that Muslims often do not know why they hate the other side but have been bred, from childhood (much like the hatred that still exists in Northern Island between the Catholic and the Protestant, again a religious conflict) to shut out any hope of collaboration.
The conflict is crazy to a non Muslim. Born out of the lineage argument on the death of Mohamed as to who would carry the faith forward it becomes an intrinsic faith argument and you know how intransigent those arguments can be. The number of Sunni attacks on the Shia and visa versa with carnage unheard of in the west, carried out on a weekly basis in certain countries seems to have no end as one side butchers the other.  One wonders why no leadership, within the Muslim community at large, can not come together to quell the internecine conflict.
Anyway with this in mind, perhaps we shouldn't go in to Syria since what ever the short term gains, there can be no long term solution without peace between the Shia and the Sunni factions.
The West's time would be better spent in trying to bring these factions together whilst simply allowing the conflict in the various parts of the Middle East and the Far East to burn itself out, no matter how unpalatable in terms of the human cost.

Eating alone

One of the advantages of eating alone, as I have mentioned in the past, is that it allows one to observe others. There is no comparison to dining with a group of friends, where the conversation flows and the laughter is spontaneous but eating on ones own is not necessarily a sad unholy experience since we can do what we are programmed to do, observe and take note.

I decided on the spur of the moment, rather than return home and cook I would eat out. The Coach and Horses,  a ye oldie looking, part pub, part restaurant in walking distance from my home. 

Because I chat and make myself identifiable I always get a warm welcome, which anyone who has eaten alone knows is important. Enter with a host of friends and you are dazzled by the close comraderie around you, the laughter and the spirit of friendship. On you your own you have to rely on your own resource, what is going on at the table opposite, what feedback you obtain come the waiter/waitress, preferably the latter since one can always flirt harmlessly knowing your viginity is not threatened.
At the table opposite to the right were a bunch of oldies obviously enjoying their retirement. The women were the most boisterous, the men waiting the bill, held back in a sort of hushed silence as their wives jostled each other with the latest revelation.
In the table directly opposite a couple arrived with a small boy. The Mom was obviously in her element taking out the young chap, she was equipped with the most poignant tool a women can have, ownership of her offspring. The young chap who was with her eyed the youngster like you eye a rattle snake, with concern for his future with said young lady but confused at his potential to really have sufficient to say,  to captivate and move in anyway the focus of her real attention. What was strange was that, unlike the current trend amongst the younger set to take out a phone and start texting someone else, they opened a game they had brought with them and proceeded to play a game which required pressing a button and moving a peg as you scored points. At first I thought this was great, to encourage the boy to play with them but soon realised he was an onlooker like myself in a sterile interplay between two young people who at the least should have been holding hands across the table.
It's a strange world, me bubbling with innocent things to say and no one to say them to and these two fit youngsters, unable to hold a conversation.
The contrivance of old age, to be both invisible and yet so alert, is a phenomenon that traces its self through literature. The spent volcano, still active but not sufficient a threat to spark interest !!

 

The Ummah

The unrest we have seen on the streets of Paris is a symptom of a wider problem, world wide.
The conflict between the Muslim ummah and the rest of the world society is the result of a number of things.
The economic condition of many Muslim countries is extremely poor and made even worse by despotic cruel rulers.
The growth in population and the articulation of the conditions in the country through the Internet and the social connections such as Facebook make the individual grievance a binding force between millions of disaffected youth.

This commonality, this perceived injustice is the recruiting Sargent for Al Qaeda and its many affiliates. 

The West, in its recent wars against, predominantly Muslim countries has become the butt of much of their resentment, skilfully manipulated by Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas and now ISIS.  

Counter terrorism has played into the hands of the takfiri  (the Sunni Muslim who accuses another Muslim or any believer in an Abrahamic faith of apostasy) by projecting, not only force of arms but represent the kafir, the unbeliever, as discrediting their brothers and therefore a deeper more profound enemy has to be destroyed in the name of Allah.
It's a profound clash of, on the one hand, religious ideology bound into legitimate disharmony brought on by a burgeoning population and poor economic outlook, against the focus, through the prism of the American way of life and its freedoms, of a degenerate society.
Historically there has always been this clash of fundamental values but it was always contained within segregated national boarders within the Middle East and parts of Asia. Now with the upsurge since the end of the Second World War and particularly the phenomena of the rush of large numbers of predominantly Muslim people to head for Europe, one wonders if the hand of
Al Qaeda isn't behind it all. It only takes propaganda and route planning to get this march to start especially with the economic enticement of a properly functioning society to aim for.
And so we have the strange dichotomy of the Jahidi, stimulated by his hatred of all things western and the ordinary Muslim emigrant, fleeing to the very centre of the kafir homeland with all the potential tensions that that will envisage further down the line.
It all depends how the forces within the faith play out. If there was an accommodation and a willingness to get along then perhaps the two sides can live in harmony but the crucial test will be when the Muslim nation reaches parity in numbers, about 2050.
Will they vote, since they will be the largest block vote we have ever experienced within our democratic history, for religious changes that will change the face of this country for ever or will we simply ameliorate the religious aspects of their way of life and begin to blend in, much as the more traditional religions have done into a pluralistic society.
Somehow I doubt it since the strength of the format under which they celebrate their exclusivity is very strong in the call to prayer many times a day. Mohamed was indeed a clever far sighted man.

 

Schizophrenia

I am sorry to raise the subject again and hope you don't believe I am becoming a one trick pony, but I am continually observing discussions and debate concerning the enquiry in the media and within Parliament where a number of Parliamentary  committees are undertaking, in light of the recent attacks in Paris an investigation as to the health or otherwise of the communities within Britain. 

I am concerned at the way the 'non Muslim', the parliamentarian, and media commentator has tied itself in knots by avoiding asking certain questions. 

It is also amazing to me to find a lack of understanding, within these committees, of the historical substance of the Muslim faith and the empires which were sustained by it. 

One of the people who the committee were questioning mentioned his approval of The Ottoman Caliphate (1362 - 1864) especially the multicultural aspect of its rule.  I was extremely surprised to hear the chairman, a senior figure, balk at the mention and the suggested relevance of a period of benign rule by the Muslims of many disparate people, under what can only be described as, cross national multiculturalism. His ignorance of the outstandingly benign rule of this Empire in which nations and tribes were (after their defeat) brought into what could be described as local governance was a dereliction of the position he holds. 

That apart, and I mention it to balance my other observation.  That the claim of British Muslims of their loyalty to their British nationality, obtained through having been born here and having grown up here has, in my opinion, to have the caveat, that being British comes a distant second to being a Muslim.

The force majeure, the life blood which flows through their veins, is to be a follower of Mohamed and everything else is secondary.

It could be argued that when a religious belief becomes superior to a belief in ones nationality, with all that goes along with belonging and identifying with ones nationality, then we have a schizophrenic situation where the heart and the head are in unison but, under certain conditions, there will be opposed to the nation in which you live. 

Given the conflicts which are raging in the Muslim world, some of these conflicts in opposition to the interests of the British nation, then the sense of loyalty has to be questioned. 

It's no good avoiding this question and hoping it will go away is a question our leaders and the main commentators are afraid to ask.

Potential disharmony

If I shake my head very very hard so that my thoughts get dislodged and fall like confetti they still seem to gravitate into the same pools.
Watching the people going into the packed mosques in Paris and hearing their solidarity with non Muslims after Friday's atrocity, one is again struck by the sight of a with male only congregation. Not a women in sight and this in an age when we are stressed to believe in equality and the rights of women.

How in this day and age can women be banished into the home, behind the curtain, bathed in medieval superstition inflicted by their husband to hide behind the niqab as a sign of modesty. This goes far beyond modesty and implies ownership, subservience, obedience, and has no place in western society. 

And yet we turn a blind eye to it we contrive to acknowledge a special case bound up in religiosity, we are tamed into not calling it what it is, a form of slavery.
How can we seek common ground and a shared identity if we hide the identity of 50% of the other group ? How can women who have striven hard to pull down the barriers between the sexes, especially the privilege men acquired through birth, only to see the most discriminatory practices acted out "within" our own society.
Remember, pre 1947 the number of Muslims living in this country was minuscule, most of the immigrants, after the  "Partition of India" (into Muslim Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India), came to work in the industries of the North and Bradford, my home town had a large segment living within an area called Manningham.
There was little attempt on either side to integrate but particularly the women were confined indoors, not learning the language they never assimilated with the local community and remain to this day isolated.
If the events of Friday's carnage tell us anything it is that we know little of the mind of the Muslim and I am not saying that the men who shot innocent people irrespective of who they were, represent the Muslim person you know in your office but I do say we underestimate the basic differences. We do not understand or bother to learn what those fundamentals are. We naturally take it for granted that our ways and our laws will be respected but if we were to learn that they are not and that there is a head of steam, not so much in the non Muslims mind for which much of our education and restraint is directed but in the Muslim diaspora who's religion tells them repeatedly that our western ways are unholy.
There can be little unanimity in an unholy alliance and whilst I have no answers I fear for the disquiet that has and will continue to brew up, irrespective of what the "spokes people" say.
It's a numbers game of course.
The Jewish Hasidic is a case in point. As you walk through Golders Green you see the dress and hair style and wonder at the person, living amongst the ordinary Londoners. What do they think and how their religious belief marks them out from us but because their numbers are so small they are not presumed a threat (although their attitude to their women has some convergence). The rapidly growing Muslim population and the nascent growth of their demand to be recognised with special rights can only bring disharmony, irrespective of how so many good minded people would wish otherwise.

The big heist

Stories of corruption are always chilling since the participants always seem to get away with it and we are left feeling very vulnerable. 

The scams that are enacted against us by con-men, be it the rogue house builder or the data fraud specialist, where our bank information is stolen or sold and we find money haemorrhaging out of our account is becoming a common event.
We become more accessible to the "baddy" through the Internet, as we use it to trawl through to find someone to do that loft conversion or we type in our password to access our bank account, and inadvertently leave a trail of opportunity.
Corruption is seen as something that someone carries out  on us, a sort of personal attack on our probity.
But what if the corruption is done in our name on behalf of us by the very people we have put in place to manage our affairs.
Our lives are busy with events which are close to us and seem personnel and so the events that are carried out, on a National and (more often these days), on a Global scale, seem outside our scope of reasoning and anyway we comfort ourselves that we can't do anything about these matters anyway. Of course this is just the kind of apathy that the rogue builder or any rogue for that matter thrives on.
I have just read a description of how the authorities, in our name, committed the greatest heist in living memory, a financial scam greater than anything Bernie Madoff dreamt up.
Who remembers the CDOs and the CDSs, those acronyms that bled our financial system dry as tools for the banks to trade a different sort of market to the ones normally used to sell goods and services. 

The market in derivatives (something based on something else) and the insurance created to lessen the loss (if the something that was something else got found out for what it was)  became the "market to beat all markets",  crashing, in 2007/8 when everyone discovered where everyone else's hand was, in this poker game to beat all poker games.
The players, the Banks, were all bust. Like the weary player who has mortgaged his house on his last round of cards, pulling on his jacket he stumble out into the bright light of day to explain to the wife how he had lost the house. In the case of the banks help was on hand. The friendly taxpayer.
Having doled out trillions of dollars to offset the so called book value of the Derivative Market which had lay, like a heavy meal, on the banks balance sheet, someone saw an opportunity. 

Oh yes, another opportunity to make money out of the disaster but again at the taxpayers expense.
Now remember, this is not Dave the dodgy builder or Han the Internet hacker.  These are the people at the very pinnacle of American finance.
You've heard of Henry Paulson, do you remember Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers.

Geithner succeeded Paulson as Us Treasury Secretary and was portrayed as the steadying hand on the US economy, post the meltdown.

The political refrain "we are all in this together" is often used but of course they never define the "we".

Geithner's hand, after the massive taxpayer (Federal Reserve) bail out was to put the financial system back on its feet and part of the method was to create the conditions for a market in the unsalable CDOs.

This is how it works :-

Suppose Bank B bought a COD for $100, of which, $40 was its own money and $60 was money borrowed.

After the crash the COD is now worth $5 and the banks have millions of these in their vaults, in other words they are bankrupt.

The Geithner- Summers post crash plan is to create an 'account' in which the banks and hedge funds are asked to participate to buy the COCs.  

The account is valued at $60 (the amount borrowed) and each participant the Hedge Fund and the US Treasury, is asked to pay in each $5 with the balance, $50 being backed by the Federal Reserve in the form of a loan. 

Positive scenario 

We have a government sponsored  auction in which the COD is to be sold. Let's say the hedge fund bids $60 and the bank clears its debt. 

But of course you ask, why would the hedge fund pay $60 for something which has a value of $5. Well remember a new market has been created and a stimulated market is primed to rise as speculators enter. After a while we see the value of our COD has now traded higher at $80, a profit of $20. 

The Fed who loaned $50 has to be repaid and the remaining equity, $30 is sheared between the Hedge Fund and the Treasury, a $15 return for a $5 investment.

The negative scenario

The market not being sufficiently stimulated to clear the $60 reserve price, the sale of the CDO raises only $30, the Hedge Fund is $20 out of pocket. However the $50 loan by the Fed is in the form of a non-recourse loan which means that the Fed will not pursue repayment of outstanding monies 

But you might ask yourself, "why would even a hedge fund risk money on buying a worthless asset".

The answer is the bank, desperate to get the toxic CODs off its balance sheet, immediately set up its own Hedge Fund from money given to it by the taxpayer, (money which had become locked up in the banks vaults to provide loans to business as was intended when the money was handed out).

So the Banks new 'parented hedge fund', which you remember was created with our money now begins to take part in the newly created market for CODs, CODs which "it" has on "its" balance sheet. 

The new hedge fund contributes $7 whilst the Treasury chips in $7 and the Fed loans $86. 

With this $100 the bank, through its own hedge fund, now bids for its own COD.

In this manner it has rid itself of the toxic COD for only $7 (the hedge fund contribution) which was itself a government handout.

It was a devilish plan allowing the banks to get away with murder, it went far beyond any ethical stance one hoped a government would take and whilst denuding both the current tax payer and future generations of taxpayers who will continue to pick up the bill, the bank walked away with a profit and worse, without any penalty. They are free to think they are above the law and beyond the strength of government and will do it again with impunity.

An interesting footnote is that all the major players were Goldman sacs placements i.e. ex senior Goldman Sacs executives.

When you include the fact that the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chairman of the ECB are also Goldman Sacs place men, you see that Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, were small fry in comparison. 

Pacifism as a badge of honour

Perhaps there is no room for an honest opinion, perhaps as we have become guided, by a press and a news media, for the gung ho approach to things, things which are happening in terms of the threat to this country from forces both within  and without the country.

Today Jeremy Corbyn has upset virtually everyone with his opinion on the use of lethal force within the civilian police force and his feeling that the killing of Jahidi John by a drone strike was wrong and that he should have been brought to justice and tried in court.

His stance is out of kilter with public opinion but it is not necessarily wrong for being so.
Public opinion is galvanised by what the public are fed and the current trend is to stigmatise everything as "black or white" but of course in a normal world, things are not so clear cut.
The people who are on the streets such as "Stop the War",  parading an argument for disarmament for instance have not only an up-hill battle in today's environment but in many ways carry the subordinated ideals of the peace loving common man. "Stop the War" for instance has questioned the blindness we have succumbed to regarding the issue of the shooting in Paris with the bombing in Syria.
People are in uproar when this was brought up and aired and seems to me an example of a dumbing down process, a propaganda against of any sort of transparent opinion.
The lifelong ideals of Corbyn are balanced ideals.  He would prefer to negotiate with his enemy rather than kill him. He speaks more for me than Tony Blair ever did.
His rational is impeccable in a balanced world but of course we are far from that happy state and therefore his ideal seems out of place when dealing with death and destruction, not only of ISIS but of the hideous civil war in Syria or the plundering of human lives by Boko Haram in Nigeria and the ongoing strife between the Sunni and the Shia all over the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan or the underlaying destruction by the American led West on all points of the compass.
It's hardly the time for the ideals of pacifism to have much leverage.

Cassandra revisited

The morning after the night before and in light of my comments in my previous blog,  where I suggest 'Martial Law' to allow a clear out of known agitators, currently hiding behind habeas corpus to prevent their arrest and confinement, is this is a move too far.  

Should we ride out the wave of bombings and shootings. Is the collateral damage worth the financial advantages of having open boarders. 

Does Shengen, the free movement of labour, a system designed to plug the labour gaps where needed in a Global financial system  provide a sufficient financial incentive to carry the downside of a few bodies here and there. 

Are we sufficiently in thrall of hindrance-free holiday travel that we would put up with a bit of mayhem here or there !

Choices, they bedevil us with options. Not only in the 'market place' and the choices which intensive marketing targets the cash strapped man-in-the street but now in a reappraisal of the choice we have to make about our inter-relationship within our own society.

'To close our eyes' is the common refrain when I ask the question amongst some of my readership

"It's all so far away and I can't be bothered".

"I'm getting ready to go out".

"What is the use of worrying we have no power to change things and no one listens anyway".

Part of the post Thatcherite dumbing down within society has produced a free thinking, sorry 'no thinking, hedonistic society which views itself as in a bubble, unconcerned with what is happening to the society at large. 

Ask them what they think of the dismantling of the NHS in a bid to privatise it.

Ask them ditto about the BBC.

Ask them what they think of the financial pain imposed on the working poor by the withdrawal of certain benefits which have become necessary in our ultra low wage economy.

You can ask them until you are blue in the face but don't expect an answer other than, "it doesn't concern or effect "me".

I was asked by someone new to my blog "why do you bother to write and send out your opinions" ? It's an interesting question and goes to the root of who I am. 

I come from a politically astute family, particularly my Father who in the 1930 studied Russian because he thought Communism was the answer to the drudgery of pre-war Capitalism and its unbridled power over the workers. Politics and the "Editorial" were a must read in our household. Only the serious press was allowed in and we discussed many of the issues which were then current in world affairs.  After I left home we continued to write about what was happening through long, sometimes 30 page letters about what I saw (I became his eyes) and what I felt about the goings on in the world.

I used to have some intriguing and definitely risky discussions in the places I visited, asking the un-askable but generally being treated with respect because I was genuinely interested and often sympathetic. I always found Zac de Beer of Anglo fame immensely profound and willing to answer political criticism openly with candour and a deep rooted intelligence.

And so it's gone on. The Internet has given me a wider audience but the inquisition goes on as to the why and wherefore on practically any subject since I consider myself to be member of the human race and anything which acts within that orbit is fair game !!

Them and Us

If you wish to bake a cake it is fundamental that you have the right ingredients.
Any thing which which has a fermentation process is liable to be volatile if the ingredients aren't properly measured.
Last nights attack on Paris was predictable because, although no politician dare hold up his hand and admit they got it wrong, the process of globalisation and the rush to accept multiculturalism as a price worth having to create a market for goods and services which also ignores boarders and ethnicity, has a price tag.
Under normal integration the forces which make a person identify with their nationality and create a sense of identity separate from the people you currently live with usually dies out within a generation maybe two. My own experience in South Africa where my kids were completely adsorbed into the culture that was South African is a case in point. There was no celebration of their Dad's culture to deflect them from growing up and accepting the culture of the people around them. There was no religious symbolism for them to identify with which could confuse as to who they were.
That being said the ties to ones past are sustained by customs and generally are welcomed by most people as bringing variation to ones own setting.

The Hindu's have just celebrated Diwali and it was fascinating to watch the rhythmic highly charged dancers dancing in the Wembley Stadium in a show put on for the Indian Prime Minister Mr Modi. Here was a peaceful enactment of a cultural affinity with their ethnic link to India. 

The Muslim religious observance of Ramadan and the celebration of Eid at the end of the fast has also recently been celebrated and works in harmony with our own culture.
Needless to say there are people who decry what they would call an alien or foreign manifestation of collective will on these shores, since whilst it is harmless, it can be seen by some as divisive.
We have on the one hand the concept of a mixed up cultural hybrid, multiculturalism where people blend into one standard integrated culture, respecting each other and acknowledging each other whilst we also celebrate our differences and find minority cohesion through the acknowledgement that we are different.
Normally we find no great tension arising from these outward displays of cultural disparity and put it down to the rich tapestry of the world and its complex history.
But deep down there can be, dependent on the size and strength of the demonstration of a different set of values, usually in regard to a religious belief, an unease that people in increasing numbers believe in a different set of values.
Values are largely what define a nation. Shared values make us think as one and feel the collegiate bond strongest when supporting ones own national team. We are perplexed when the Edgbaston cricket ground is full to the rafters with the 'sub continent' diaspora cheering on India or Pakistan, rather than their adopted country.
Deep down we both understand and acknowledge that transformation can never take place as long as we continue to celebrate our cultural uniqueness and because this is about identification as well as religious observance, there will always be an element of them and us.
It is increasingly clear that it becomes a numbers game and we must address the intake of "them" if we want to remain and be able to recognise "us" in the future.

The attacks on Paris

At last, as some predicted the struggle with the Islamic extremists ISIS has come into the heart of Europe. Multiple attacks from heavily armed gunmen shot and killed many Parisians this evening out for an evenings entertainment on the streets of Paris.

One of the frightening aspect of this event is the apparent inability of the police and security forces to contain and apprehend any of the attackers so dispersed was the attack. Clearly well planned, involving people who are fanatical and willing to die for their cause it opens up in Europe a Pandora's box. 

Is this the start of a wholesale conflict including other major cities or is it a one off, a reprisal against France for agreeing to bomb Syria.
Does this sort of well armed attack mean that Europe and ourselves in the UK will need to bring in all sorts of security measures that will not only make our lives more difficult but also cross the line of what we believed was the demarcation on security surveillance and information gathering.
And finally will it begin to ask the question. Is the invasion of Europe by immigrants, in some cases fleeing for their lives in others seeking economic betterment, young men from the area where ISIS have a stronghold, Syria, can this be allowed to continue since it is assumed that infiltrated amongst the genuine asylum seekers are many Jihadis intent on setting up cells throughout Europe to wreck havoc at a later date.
Is it not time for the humanitarian emotions to be reigned in and face up to the threat with a stringent response to an emergency set of circumstances, a sort of martial law where prima facie evidence is not required to arrest known activists.
When the game changes the rule book becomes redundant and new rules apply to meet the needs of the new situation ?

The roller coaster

There has always to be the question of "what if" which hangs over us as we approach the end of our travel. What if I had done this or that, what if I had said yes instead of no.

Our lives are a whole series of chance happenings and unless you were one of those people who meticulously plotted your course from day one then the outcome of your life is pitted, chameleon like with subtle changes that make up the finished package. What we are is not what we seem since we are far more complex than what's written on the tin.
When young our emotions sometimes led us into places that no sensible person would wish to go. They were a  counter pose to a perhaps a puritanical upbringing, or alternatively, exposed to a swinging, laugh a minute childhood, we knew no boundaries and lacked the common sense to ask.
Which ever way, our lives have been a series of stops and starts, an emotional roller coaster, highs and lows which our 'conservatism' smothered to produce the often bland finished product.
It's only when we hear a tune which takes us back to an occasion of high emotional tension that we remember the old you.
Nothing lasts, yet nothing passes either. And nothing passes just because nothing lasts.
That is the story of life and tied up in it the dread of the missed opportunity.
It's not even the missed opportunity that is important it's the missing person who lies trust up in the chains of conformity. What became of the dancing queen or the party goer  what became of the travelling man, what became of the lover the intensity of a relationship, the anticipation of so much more. Sitting inside the psyche (the soul), that force within an individual which influences "thought behaviour and personality" is, a corralled person who never had or never took the opportunity.
The sound of a tune is enough. Music often accompanied the fun event and acts as a trigger for the journey "back then" and we become stimulated, and morph into a make believe character, a look alike, a maybe character who we wished we had been.
The dance releases the memories and the dreams, not just of the situation but of the period and our place in it.
We were fortunate not to be tied to convention in those early years of growing up when the fields and the woods were our battlefield, a place to explore and take risks, a place to discover our limitations. Those times are a blur since they carried no baggage of rejection or worse, no external measurement and little judgement. It was only later when one got into competition that the sharp edge of success or failure comes back as a memory and one remembers how fragile you were and still are.

Narendra Modi

The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has just given a speech to a gathering in Parliament.
The speech was laced with history and our common interests in using the skills that each can bring the other. The speech was, as all's peaches are, a proclamation of "wants" rather than the reality on the ground and one wonders, with such a huge diverse country, can a democratically elected leader with his need to negotiate change, unlike the Chinese leader who was here a couple of weeks ago. The grip the Chinese Communist Party has on all aspects of running their country is far from Modi's position.
India with 28 States, 7 Union Territories and 1,27 billion people is a very complex web of competing interests. The religious and class differentiation make such a conflicting tapestry which in some ways has not changed from the beginning of written time and is so engrained into the culture that no amount of legislation will break down the barriers. We boggle at a nation that can design and build rockets to do interplanetary travel and yet places the cow on an almost mystical level. We marvel at the high tech graduate system which produces thousands of highly qualified student who live and work in a country which at the same time has a class system which denigrates millions of people to be "untouchables".
How do we value this mammoth arising in the East, how do we acknowledge the tremendous potential for trade whilst closing our eyes to the unspeakable brutality of life for some sections of society.
In life we say we are civilised when we have the gift to recognise good from bad but surely it is the mark of a civilised man or women to speak out against oppression even if that oppression is part of the fabric of the existing society and slides under the bar by being called "cultural".
The pragmatists will say that it is none of our business what goes on in foreign countries and maybe if we want to survive in a global community we have to acknowledge the massive variations which make up the global community.  But of course running parallel to the pragmatic view is also the 'collective' view governing "Human Rights" and we are caught in a conundrum.
The Jeremy Corbyns of this world have no doubt that Human Rights gains precedence, the David Cameron's of this world would argue for a deal on trade before anything else.
Who is right, well I leave that to your conscience !!!

Keynes turning in his grave

Is any wonder that we are in such a financial pickle. 

Relative to 1960s, domestic debt in 1970s rose by 238%. In the 1980s relevant to the 1970s debt rose 318%. In the 1990s 180% and in the eight years up to the global crash in 2008 163%. That's 'household debt' in a period when household earnings had plateaued and begun to decline. The offer of "debt inducement" was predicated on the need to feed the consumerism which was the linch pin to so called economic growth.

The rise of Walmart, a model whereby the goods were discounted in accordance with the reduced circumstances of whole neighbourhoods was in part dependent on low wages and long hours which further drove down the earnings in the neighbourhood since Walmart had became the major employer within the neighbourhood. 

The package of low priced goods, falling wages and ever attractive debt offers are the Capitalistic landscape we have become used to. There is no resilience in this economic scenario and in my opinion we are headed for another crash which this time will be much more difficult to counteract because of the negligible interest rates (a major tool used to stimulate an economy) we have had for a decade.

This didn't come by accident but like the Generals in the two World Wars, there is a disconnect between the leadership and the ordinary human being.

Money is the great differentiation. But even money is suspect. They have devaluated all the major currencies with unimaginable amounts of  'Quantitative Easing' (printing money in the old language) and we are awash with uncertainty. 

The glitter of short term returns has meant the banks never really ceased their sometimes near criminal manipulation of money and given the wholesale largesse from the taxpayer to rebalance their balance sheets, (not in the form of a loan but as a gift from us), they continue to weave a sense of false security. Like the child with its hand in the cookie jar they are are unable to go back to the basics of proper banking. 

Barclays, after the debacle of Bob Diamond and his laissez-faire minimal regulation approach they brought in Anthony Jenkins a local man who's first task was to free the bank from its reliance on the casino of arm of the bank, 'investment banking' and re-establish the wholesale bank with its priority on lending. Jenkins was the good guy, home grown he promised to rebalance the balance sheet and rid the bank of bad practice which was exemplified by the complicit nature of Diamond, an American banker, with the Libor scandal on his watch.

After only 2 years, Jenkins has been sacked. The pressure for the good old days of rapid unsubstantiated growth from the banks 'Hedge Fund' shareholders was too great and another American, Jes Staley from JPMorgan, one of the banks involved in the crash of 2008 were he was, you've guessed it their Investment Bank boss, has been brought in with the blessing of the Banks Chairman John McFarlane who has promised to take a back seat and give full reign to the incoming guy. One wonders, was he doing that when Diamond was in charge ?

And so the wheel turns full circle and Keynes must be turning in his grave !!

Armistice day

Today we had the annual 2 minutes silence at 11 o'clock, a small token in remembrance of those who fought during the two world wars.
Listening to a program afterwards where relatives, sons, daughters, grandchildren proudly remembered their Dad, having died or having returned from being in the midst of such a calamitous event were reluctance to tell anyone their stories or in anyway boast of their achievement.
The event seems to have scarred them into silence and in this era of the cult of the 'selfie' where we are shameless in our self promotion it seems the people of that era were cut from a different cloth.

 When one sees the carnage. Bloated bodies sticking out from the mud, faces muted in that moment when the bullet hit, one moment and then gone. The bodies lie on both sides of the line. German lads look just like British or French lads in death. 

Young men called up to serve, willing to be conscripted for King/Kiser and Country but little knowing what was in store for them.
Into the "killing fields" they were despatched to match and counter match the death and destruction on the other side, entrenched in a hideous gavotte, a hundred yards this way, a hundred yards that, each hundred yards with a price tag of maybe 10.000 men no I'll raise you 20.000 in a single day. Can you believe it, the death of these young men merely a statistical game, like betting on Pall Mall trying to throw a six.
Today they use the awful term "collateral" damage to describe the "incidental" deaths which are caused to others who are not the intended target but clearly these intended targets, which eventually ran into millions "were human beings too". Human beings with families and lovers with parents to grieve when they didn't return. Their potential for life was taken away from them for a hundred yards of barren ground !!
When one reads of the posturing within the hierarchy, on all sides of European governance at that time especially on the German side, in its blatant pursuit of rearmament and build an army and navy which had no other purpose but pursue  its dare we say selfish interests.  
The French were no better and whilst the British with a small army were not intent on any continental adventure they were wholly reliant on the navy to provide a buffer from any hostile attack
Would these statesmen (and I use the term guardedly) in their grand offices who plotted and schemed to take what was not theres to take, we're they any better than the common criminal.
Were they worse, were they 'mass murderous' on an industrial scale, willing to commit and spill other people's blood whilst in the safety of the War Room as they stood around a map and plotted more carnage.

Philip Roth

I'v just finished rereading Philip Roth's the Human Stain. It's a great book, as are all his books. The craft in his writing and the subtle cross flow of plot and sub plot are unrelenting. He continually raises questions in your mind about the "human condition" and how we are often two personalities running in parallel trying to appear as one thing whilst carrying the ghost of our other self.
A great writer and I believe Roth is just that, not only tell you a tale, but expose the untold complexities of living a life surrounded by people. In the Human Stain he describes a successful Dean of College carrying the lie of his ethnicity until it breaks him. The secret becomes larger than the fact and destroys him. All of us have secrets, all of us project lives that are not quiet what they seem and few of us would have the courage to break the mould of how we have nurtured ourselves to others with a proclamation that it is all a sham. That is what the book is about that and the deceit that went into sustaining the lie.
He writes powerfully about human relationships about the counter poise they produce in finding compromise. And having found the compromise are unhappy with the distance it has brought us from "ourselves".
All his books are revelatory. You put them down and think about what they have to say about us, not so much a critique but a confirmation !

Cassandra revisited

The morning after the night before and in light of my comments in my previous blog,  where I suggest 'Martial Law' to allow a clear out of known agitators, currently hiding behind habeas corpus to prevent their arrest and confinement, is this is a move too far.

Should we ride out the wave of bombings and shootings. Is the collateral damage worth the financial advantages of having open boarders. 

Does Shengen, the free movement of labour, a system designed to plug the labour gaps where needed in a Global financial system  provide a sufficient financial incentive to carry the downside of a few bodies here and there. 

Are we sufficiently in thrall of hindrance-free holiday travel that we would put up with a bit of mayhem here or there !

Choices, they bedevil us with options. Not only in the 'market place' and the choices which intensive marketing targets the cash strapped man-in-the street but now in a reappraisal of the choice we have to make about our inter-relationship within our own society.

'To close our eyes' is the common refrain when I ask the question amongst some of my readership

"It's all so far away and I can't be bothered".

"I'm getting ready to go out".

"What is the use of worrying we have no power to change things and no one listens anyway".

Part of the post Thatcherite dumbing down within society has produced a free thinking, sorry 'no thinking, hedonistic society which views itself as in a bubble, unconcerned with what is happening to the society at large. 

Ask them what they think of the dismantling of the NHS in a bid to privatise it.

Ask them ditto about the BBC.

Ask them what they think of the financial pain imposed on the working poor by the withdrawal of certain benefits which have become necessary in our ultra low wage economy.

You can ask them until you are blue in the face but don't expect an answer other than, "it doesn't concern or effect "me".

I was asked by someone new to my blog "why do you bother to write and send out your opinions" ? It's an interesting question and goes to the root of who I am. 

I come from a politically astute family, particularly my Father who in the 1930 studied Russian because he thought Communism was the answer to the drudgery of pre-war Capitalism and its unbridled power over the workers. Politics and the "Editorial" were a must read in our household. Only the serious press was allowed in and we discussed many of the issues which were then current in world affairs.  After I left home we continued to write about what was happening through long, sometimes 30 page letters about what I saw (I became his eyes) and what I felt about the goings on in the world.

I used to have some intriguing and definitely risky discussions in the places I visited, asking the un-askable but generally being treated with respect because I was genuinely interested and often sympathetic. I always found Zac de Beer of Anglo fame immensely profound and willing to answer political criticism openly with candour and a deep rooted intelligence.

And so it's gone on. The Internet has given me a wider audience but the inquisition goes on as to the why and wherefore on practically any subject since I consider myself to be member of the human race and anything which acts within that orbit is fair game !!