The cigar box

Subject: The cigar box.

Put him in front of a cigar box, ideas would flow and an essay appear. It was not a question of knowledge but of ..... alertness, a transcription of what could be thought about something once it swam into the stream of your attention. Susan Sontag 
This is a description of why I continue to write my vastly inferior pieces, compared to the pen of Sontag, It's the temptation of having an opinion on something (nearly everything) that instigates me to write. My field of vision is not as wide as it should be and not at all fuelled by the contact of other people as hers was. Imagine being immersed in conversation that tapped into your very soul (a literary concept not a metaphysical one) and left you wondering. But never the less I feel strongly about some of the things and get immense pleasure from exercising those little grey cells, as Hercule Poirot was fond of saying. 
Everything which comes into our vision, physically or metaphorically has a place in our lives otherwise it wouldn't have happened. If I had grown up on a desert island I wouldn't have imagined the sight of the wild flowers bursting through the dry stony  soil in Namaqualand when Spring arrives, or the steamy vibrancy of down town Barranquilla in tropical Columbia. These images and many others are the structural sense on what makes of my perhaps flawed understanding of people. The Protestant surety which pervades our thinking in the West is blown apart by the necessities required to exist in other parts of the world and forms much of my dislike of the need to package our lives in the conformity of others. So much is missing in our health and safety culture, we lack the ability to understand the importance of taking the knocks of life with the understanding that our knocks are common in humanity at large and we insulate ourselves from them at our peril.
What can we say about the cigar box. 
It's use, the people who use it, what it contains and the history of the tobacco plant and the effects on people who worked the tobacco plantations, the climate and the corruption, the marketing and the wilful avoidance or acknowledgement of the damage tobacco has had on millions of lives. One could go on, the pleasure of smoking a cigar the mystic of smoking cigarettes for the teenager, the psychological prop for someone in stress to have this repetitive, almost Pavlovian reflex. The memories of jazz music playing in smoke filled cellars, and the almost pathological need to find a place which was a rebellion against the all encompassing  Protestant ethic.
Thoughts which flow and connect and then disconnect make us what we are. Not the title over the door, not the assumption of others who think they know you. It's the excitement of having an opinion, a view which is your own, not gleaned from some Columnists writing for the Daily Mail.
The beauty of the blog is it's individuality and the chance to be reckless without directly hurting someone. It's a fishing pool of ideas which when considered turn into thoughts and identify you to the reader. It's this desire to be identified with something and to pin ones identity to a cause or a school of thought which marks us out from the herd, and it's only after sampling so much else do we define what we like best.

Childhood

Subject: Childhood.

Surely on of the disadvantages of being picked up from school is the child's limited view from the back of the car and the relentless never ending questions flowing from a parent. "How was school today", "What did you learn". The insensibility of most parents when the child was only too glad to be released from the rigours of learning things which seemed to have no relevance to their immediate lives.
In the days when we were free to trudge home on our own or with a pal, each corner, each field and gate, each hayrick or barn, the dog at number 72, were all on ones radar checked  for changes, taken in as part of ones private world of experience. Today the child is rarely free to roam unattended, cosseted by mum of dad, the opportunities to chose are severely limited.  The experimentation which is so important to childhood is now given a grown ups perspective, the dangers highlighted, the substance monitored, it's no longer your own. 
Growing up in the countryside, off out of the house at weekend from dawn till dusk the panacea of our world was hedged in only by an unwillingness to roam. The hedges, the woods the fields and the animals in them were our playground and our laboratory. We tested ourselves by climbing trees or scaling the rocks in the disused quarry. We invented games and trusted each other not to tell when something went wrong. We learnt the craft of living by making ourselves available to mishap, we trudged home with a bruised knee or a cut hand to be repaired by our mother before rushing out again to take up where we had left off. 
Isolated and immunised from danger of any kind, today's child grows up with a whole range  of barely pronounceable psychiatric maladies, each recitable by overprotective and excitable parents, as if it's a badge of honour that your child has this or that disorder. 
Like the fruit and veg in the supermarket there's no room for the misshapen carrot or the knobbly potato, our children must be grown in the hot house of our homes until released and only then the fun really starts as the child begins to answer questions it should have learnt when it was five or under.

Julian Assange and rough justice

Subject: Julian Assange and rough justice.

Julian Assange is being slowly drawn, kicking and screaming into the clutches of the American legal system. His extradition seems certain now his partition to have more time to prepare his defence has been turned down. It's the end stage of a 7 year long struggle to stay out of, first the Swedish courts on charges of sexual assault which were eventually dropped and then extradition to the USA to face charges of passing secret information to the public by publishing the information, (gleaned by Edward Snowden) through Wikileaks. 
Big Brother is Watching You was the chilling summation of George Orwell's book 1984.  It presented a world where the state had its fingers into the independence of all its citizens by monitoring their  communication and if it found, individuals who stepped out of line cast them into cell 101 to begin a process of re-education. 
The book was precedent in its foretelling of public surveillance on a massive scale, it described in general what has come to pass in the particular,  that we are all spied on continuously by the state. We know our emails are scanned and our phone conversations monitored by huge computer driven data bases continually on the lookout for indicators for further investigation. 
Typing Assange may be one of them since he was the one who, along with the whistle blower Edward Snowden had upset the security hive and caused the security wasps to seek revenge. It was not what was revealed that was wrong, far from it it was the crime of letting us know that we were being spied upon that was so heinous to the authorities.
Snowden sought sanctuary in Russia a state not known for its citizen freedom but at least a state powerful enough to stand up to the might of the American CIA. Unfortunately Assange had no such bolt hole and instead resorted to the protection of English justice and when that failed, fled for 7 years into the refuge of the Ecuadorian Embassy. Only recently was he forced out in a deal done between the authorities here and the Embassy. 
Having been recused  from having to answer the claims of assault in Sweden he was now faced with the much more serious prospect of facing an American justice system not renowned for its even handedness, particularly when the perceived crime was against a state authority. The power of the legal system in the US to incarcerate or execute people, sometimes innocent people is legend, years in jail  on the supposition that they have committed a crime, crimes which fail to come to court, the accused are thrown into hell holes of brutality, to await their court date which might take years. No wonder Julian Assange's health I'd failing. 
Remember the charge, "to wilfully publish information about what the State was doing with our private correspondence". This was not some Drug Baron exporting misery to millions of our people, rather the reverse he was exposing what was an illegal action perpetrated on behalf of the State. He was revealing an uncomfortable fact that Big Brother plays by his own rules and books no challenge. 
It also revealed how acquiescent  we are in this country when our Cousins demand we obey. How high is the pathetic response to the instruction, 'jump' and it is so at odds when we ask for reciprocity, as in the recent case of the American woman who, driving on the wrong side of the road killed one of our own citizens on road in England, she fled the country pleading diplomatic immunity (she was the wife of an American who worked in the Embassy) but the Americans are under no illusions she is American and will be protected.
This was a crime which needed adjudication because someone had died,  in Assange's case there were no spy rings revealed, no spies in danger of their life because their cover was blown. Instead the spy ring was the United States Government and its commissioned spying on all of us.

The Speaker defends himself

Subject: The Speaker defends himself.

In another place, as they say, the Speaker has risen to defend his decision not to allow the government to seek the approval of the House for a bill which was supposed to have been tabled on Saturday but which, because of an amendment limiting the success of the government bill, they withdrew on Saturday. 
Today Monday the government attempted to  re-table the  bill but were scuppered by the Speaker of the House on the basis of a procedure (dating back 400 years) which prevents the House being burdened by repeated attempts to table the same piece of legislation.
MPs from the government side immediately began jumping to their feet protesting that the Speaker was exceeding his duties and favouring the opponents to the bill by not allowing it to be tabled. And so began a sparkling tit for tat between Speaker Bercow and a number of eminent Tory's, each careful to use parliamentary language but non were match for Bercow.  
I'v said before that I delight in hearing language used like a forensic scalpel, not too deep yet deep enough to score a point,  these eminent wordsmiths, some lawyers, even ex queens councillors, used to debating the pros and cons of a case but Bercow knew his Brief, knew his traditional standing in parliament and was not overawed. Backward and forward went the thinly camouflaged barbs. Did he not understand that this bill was different to the other, was he not aware that he was disrupting government business, was he not favouring one side over the other. And so it went on with Bercow's pithy replays more than enough to dampen the arder of the Conservative MPs who, in effect were hopping mad at having their power usurped in this way.
It's the kind of theatre I like and even more it was a final tour de force for a man who has breathed life into the parliamentary back benches in making Government  much more answerable to Parliament as a whole. 

Guinness ruled the day

Subject: Guinness ruled the day.

The pantomime which is on our screens each day from Westminster has been trumped today by  the Parliament in Stormont which had been called into sitting to debate a revision of the laws governing abortion in Northern Ireland through a Stella Creasy amendment in the UK parliament confirming a change in Northern Ireland's law regarding abortion. 
The rights and wrongs of Abortion are a deeply divided schism which has plagued Ireland ever since abortion became common place in the rest of the UK. Surprisingly the Irish laws on abortion were amended not long ago and today the Northern Ireland parliament were called to debate the matter.
Parliament in Stormont had been closed for two years and as the cameras in the chamber revealed half the seats were empty, Sinn Fein having decided to boycott the sitting, the Speaker was struggling to address the problem of electing the relevant office holders before the assembly could sit. Members from the DUP were adamant that their legal soundings said one thing whilst the Speakers legal advisors said another. Then a member of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) stood up and decreed that the absence of Sinn Fein meant a political forum couldn't be constituted and en block walked out. As the chamber began to empty the only remainders, other than the DUP, were the PUP the Progressive Unionist Party and the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) plus a couple of fiercely anti abortion Independents. 
Parliament which has not sat in two years, assembled for this deep seated division of opinion only to find it was stymied by protocol and procedure. The DUP eventually upped sticks after voicing its opinion and then the PUP reluctantly told the poor old Speaker, who was not at all in the mold of John Bercow, the Westminster Speaker and who had valiantly tried to carry out his duties to no avail was forced to address the empty benches and proclaimed an end to proceedings, as he gathered up his gown and spectacles to shuffled off for a nice cup of tea or maybe a Pint of Guinness !!!

A tribal dilemma

Subject: A tribal dilemma.

It is hard to enter into the spirit of those times when people sort redemption in the English church. The establishment has for years been on the back foot as it seeks to mediate with a rapidly changing society. As the population changed on these islands  the incomers brought with them not only their families and new skills but also their views on life and how life should be celebrated. The customs and the traditions which in some cases were alien to the ways of this island state found a space in the existing society by elbowing out and finding room where before non existed. 
Even in my lifetime the church has diminished in so far as attendance is concerned and importantly, in so far as the social importance of the worship, the community within a community, which manifest itself on a Sunday by setting the day apart from the other days of the week and then by the rituals of service, morning and evening as people gathered at the church door to be counted by the vicar.

There never seemed the hell and damnation of the Catholic Church, the seeking of repentance that private exposing of your sins before gods representative on earth the priest to seek some sort of annulment of your sin so long as you recited the requisite Hail Mary's. The English church, or the Church of England had become much more akin to a social club and this was reflected by the hierarchy in the church moving outside its walls to find the soul in torment amongst the non attendee in the youth clubs and the refuge centres for the abandoned. It became a band aid for those people who had succumbed to the pressure of living in a modern society.
The Archbishop was and is forever trying to find a solution to the social ills in society and whilst other churches and places of worship still practice the fear of God to wrest the people through their doors the English church is more benign.  
This message of hell and damnation is a strong message especially as people grow old but it would be seen that in religions where the tradition of attending church or mosque is more ingrained in the believers mental fabric, it seems to instil a willingness to devote oneself to the rituals of observance and is seen to strengthen their lives on earth and especially in the community to which they belong. 
The Jewish community is an example of the tribal link tracing its way back into antiquity where the testament to the word of god was born specific to a particular tribe, which to this day sees itself separate and different. For the Jewish person the ritual of the Friday meal and the abstinence  of labour on a Saturday is for many  a rigidly enforced domain, to remain in the tribe this structural focus on who you are in relation to the others in the Synagogue, lends the believer great strength in the assumption of who they are and their importance in the eyes of God.
It's not psychobabble this belief in a creator, it's rigid fact to the believer and the gap between the practicing Christian, the Muslim or the Jew is both wide and narrow depending on which part of the observed ritual they espouse. 
They all believe in god. They all belong to a structure which guides and protects them. It's the intensity of that 'family belief' which sets them apart and, as with most families they are less inclined to look outside the family for friendship and direction. 
Yet another tribal dilemma if ever there was one.

 

A decision is necessary

Subject: A decision is necessary 

I suppose the accommodation  in the Tower of London is being refurbished, otherwise the sight of Boris Johnson being escorted through the gate by the Beefeaters to a cell would align him with many other equally famous people who for one reason or another had upset the Crown. Johnson has been instructed to write a letter to the EU requesting an extension to the period granted by the EU accommodating a nation wishing to leave the Union. The letter has to be written if the governments bill to leave the EU withdrawal is not passed in Parliament. Because of a fear that he would try to wriggle out of asking for an extension, another motion was tabled in Parliament by Oliver Letwin a senior Tory MP, reiterating that on losing the vote the PM would write and send the letter. 
In a vote Letwin's  motion was successful and so the government (Boris) decided not to  present his bill on Saturday as planned. 
It was the first time parliament had sat on a Saturday for 37 years, the last occasion was the Falklands War and its recall today for Brexit become suddenly an anticlimax as Boris declared his intention not to present the bill but delay it until Monday. Parliament now prevented from voting for the 'withdrawal bill' became a flurry of discontent and concern 'what was he up to', 'what Machiavellian plan was he hatching and why'.
Because of the complexity of parliamentary protocol and the equally labyrinth rules of regulatory procedure a misstep by either side can produce unwanted results. If his bill had been presented yesterday and defeated then the letter would have had to be written asking for more time but if it's not presented until Monday then more time to think up some sort of wheeze would enable Boris to pull out another rabbit from his hat.
This morning we wake to see the headline,Boris will write the letter but he won't sign it !
What sort of jackanapes is that, what sort of a 'Billy Bunteresque'  move is he up to, is he the Prime Minister or the Court Jester.
And so the most politically momentous decision of our times, a decision for wise, cool heads is to be made by the class fool, the guy who is seen continually standing in the corner having committed some misdemeanour. No wonder we as a nation have been reduced to a laughing stock, lampooned, out of control we dither on the edge of making a decision but as our recent history has shown, we hate decisions.

Rugby World Cup

Subject: Wales v France /  Japan v South Africa

I wonder what the nation of Japan thinks of all this as the nations line up to sing their national anthems prior to bruising game of rugby.
A nation know for its isolationism has been the host of a marvellous festival of rugby football.
A game we don't associate with Japan, they have not only put on a great tournament but have fielded their own side who are taking the scalps of more mature rugby playing nations.
Apart from the typhoon which rocked parts of the island everything has gone to plan. The stadiums full of cheering spectators, fans in their national colours, wild with enthusiasm, men and women having travelled halfway around the world to one of the most expensive places to find a hotel they have come in their thousands.
The inscrutable faces of the locals have been writhed in smiles. The white headbands reminiscent of the white scarves of the kamikaze pilots tied around their foreheads as they committed themselves to the cause of nationalism in the War, is today worn as a sign of peaceful intent an emblem of their future not their past. 
In today’s first game Wales v France, France were rampant, playing that fleet footed game they are feared for as the their forwards provide them with the platform for their backs to run and jig their way to the line. The Welsh look shell shocked as they  regrouped trying to work out a game plan to nullify the magic. It’s a lonely place when the French turn up and turn it on. So often these days the French  heart doesn’t seem in it but I suppose a World Cup Quarter Final is a place to wake up and wake up they have. 
The game is a game of incidents and in some cases, of plain stupidity by players. The swinging arm of the French players indiscipline resulting in him being sent off, changed the complexion  of the game. Wales eventually won by a point but they were for much of the game, lethargic in their win against 14 players and will go into their game against South Africa having to bring out their other game, the game which made them champions of the 6 nations competition this year.
                                              ____________________________________

The game Japan against South Africa is on a different level as the drums pound out the beat and the players run out onto the pitch. The Japanese national anthems, a sound that had things gone the other way might have resounded across the globe for the wrong reasons, the South African anthem composed in two parts, one African the other the last remnant of Afrikaans pride. The stadium full to capacity, the moment has come and as the Japanese spectators sing Nikolai Sikelel having been given the song sheet, a matter of respect, to sing their opponents anthem.
The speed of recycling from loose play, the speed of the pass, the speed of the legs as Japanese launch wave upon wave, it was all mesmeric and so creative.
Wane Barns the English referee was on the whole very decisive and didn’t ask for the TMO which has been a feature of other  referees  and their handling of decisions in previous games. Right on half time the Springbok were denied a try when the ref said the Bok scorer had been held in a tackle when in fact he wasn’t. Also soon after the game had resumed in the second half, there was a high tackle by the Japanese player when Barns said no but the TMO would have called it a dangerous foul.
In some ways it’s refreshing to see the referee, taking responsibility and keeping the game mobile instead of the stop - start which has been the the feature of other games. Slow motion replays always seems to make the offence seem so much worse but if fouls are committed they should be ruled upon.
A game of two halves. The Japanese dominated the first half, the South Africans the second and ran out winners.

The Japanese lost the game but gained the respect of the millions watching across the globe

Rugby World Cup

Subject: England v Australia. / Ireland v New Zealand.

The first game was a battle which pitted the structure of England against the individual skills of Australia. The first 15 minutes were all Australia as they squirmed and darted their way towards the England line. This Aussie ability to recycle the ball from breakdown was amazing and their ability to breakthrough tackles seemed to foretell an English defeat. 
Rugby though is a complex game it is built on basic formal aspects of the game. The line-out and the scrum, the kicking into space and the vitally important issue of not conceding penalties in kickable areas and whilst  Australia have such dynamic runners ball in hand, like the great forwards in soccer who poach goals by individual brilliance this game is a territorial game crafted as much in the scrum as in the flourish a winger brings as he dashes for the line. Defence and positioning in rugby is therefore equally important in a game which is more like a game of chess than anything else. 
England were under the cosh but slowly they took command of the game with the use of their simple no fuss positional play, waiting for the moment when the Australian exuberance lent them the opportunity to capitalise on mistakes.
The game slowly turned around like a tanker in the bay, the emphasis on the brilliance of the ball player was overtaken  with a massive display of tactical rugby to take the game in hand and lead England to a deserved win. 

The Ireland v New Zealand game was in essence marked out to be a more traditional, all encompassing team game with everyone playing their part as check and counter check as the moves were attempted. Unfortunately someone in a black team kit had written a different script. Ireland were up against the grand master, a New Zealand team playing with all the forceful majesty that is their trademark, every move was countermanded as the Kiwis ran in try after try.
The traditional Maori  Hakka had been drowned out by the singing of the Irish fans, the sound swelled and reverberated as if the Irish were playing at home at Landsdowne Rd. You could hardly hear the Hakka but it seems you must never poke the tiger with a stick. They ran away with the game blitzing a strong Ireland team as if they were playing a second string side. Everything they did was textbook rugby, the pressure to gain position on the field and then, with a twist and a turn their back line ran through the spaces which opened up to score try after try. It was a master class of width and skill, of knowing where their players are and the surety of moves pioneered on the training ground and executed with indifference to whatever Ireland tried to do. The Kiwis were rampant in every department and the Irish, like a prizefighter who is outclassed, as the punches rained in from all angles refused to go down, played as much on remote as in charge of their senses.
I think it goes without saying that whoever the Kiwis opponents are in the rest of the tournament, better leave the stick at home !!

As a postscript. 'One of the good guys' Rory Best, the Irish Captain was playing his last game and whilst his team was truly walloped he got a tremendous ovation from the fans in the stadium. A quiet unassuming man both on and off the field he is the epitome of good guy who always gave 110% and yet never played dirty.

He is every son's ideal of a dad and who ever he is, his son must be proud.

The substance of the new deal

Subject: The substance of the new deal.

One of the abysmal aspects of Brexit has been the coverage of the issue in the press. It's all been headline stuff with little in-depth reporting of the facts. 
Today with Boris securing some movement from the EU, mainly regarding Northern Ireland and their situation vis a vis the boarder into Southern Ireland. It seems as if he has given away Theresa Mays red line of not allowing Northern Ireland to be treated differently from the rest of the UK in terms of status. Boris has blown that apart by agreeing to allow Northern Ireland to remain in the EU for a period of 4 years, renewable if the Northern Ireland Parliament wish it and Scotland are up in arms about the preferential treatment saying this is another reason for them to press ahead with independence.
The other and potentially more worrying aspect of his new agreement is his willingness to kick down the road the sureties of workers rights and environmental rights which the EU insist upon and and replace them with Rights envisaged by the Market, and eventually Donald Trump which are inevitably far worse for the ordinary man and woman in the street but right up the street for people like Boris / Rees-Mogg and their chums in business. 
The self harm we do on ourselves is due to the fact that we never see ourselves as 'the other man'. We isolate ourselves in a cocoon of self interest and banish any thought of collective society. Large swathes of that collective society have been won  over by the headline grabbing stories of EU spite and intransigence, of a democratic deficit and a legal system which somehow trumps our own. Of a fear of foreigners and the willingness to go along with jingoism of our own ruling class. 
In law to manipulate a person into doing something they would normally not wish to do is an indictable offence but somehow in politics and the print media it's ok to lie and cheat and to willingly misrepresent facts. Day in day out the press have hounded the European Union with abuse, so much so their gullible readers know no other mantra than a disdain for anything European. Our poorly educated masses are all too vulnerable to tittle tattle and, as in most things, something repeated ad nauseam is believed. 
Boris's new deal, apart from selling the Northern Irish down the road and releasing our government from any responsibility on how it treats its own citizens, is the same as Mrs Mays deal which also kicked most of the judicable issues into the future to be negotiated at a future date.
Too small economically to stand up to the economic giants we have to rejig our thinking towards the second tear of nations who sit around the big table hoping for scraps to fall.  
Of course our history charts a very different course, we discovered some of the countries we must now aline ourselves with and the nations we used to sit with, as a right have moved on. We need a period of looking ourselves in the eye and seeing who we really are in the 21st century. We have to acknowledge we squandered many of our assets, like North Sea oil (the Scandinavian countries created a wealth fund whilst we spent the proceeds as fast as we could) and failed our population in not equipping them to perform in this century with proper training. We played the divide and rule game until no one believes us anymore least of all the people who live here and our class ridden system is not fit for purpose anymore. 
The longer we elect people like Boris Johnson to form the image of who we are the more difficult it will be to dig ourselves out of the hole we willingly dug for ourselves