Communication

Subject: Communication

Humour and light hearted banter is becoming rarer. Part of it is that the conversations we used to carry out in the pub, after a pint or two, which dissolved any crankiness  between us and we all enjoyed each other for its own sake. Today especially because of self isolating, we are confined to spend time behind our screens popping into each other's space, uninvited and some times at inopportune moments. The caller assumes so much, they can't read the signs from the body language or sample the atmosphere for potential conflict instead we have in our head a picture, a bubble image depicting a fictional character of the person we want to talk to, the one we enjoyed when chatting last time. 
People are fickle they rise and fall like dough in a baking tin, so dependent on their mood, on some quotient of happiness or sadness, each the conflicting ends of a spectrum which is us, looking for one and trying to avoid the other. Most of the time we are in neutral, drifting, with little passion for life, subsumed in the everlasting conundrum of what ifs and why not, always on edge, trying to second guess.
If you were a hermit living selfishly on a minimal existence then the complexities of life is simplified. The background noise made by others, the consideration they always demand eliminated, there's no need to emphasise ones own preference, it's there in your head like a good companion, sifting by your own likes and dislikes to your hearts content and if  true, is communication necessary, is it important to pick up the phone or send an email, should we simply stay stum. 
Are the thoughts in your head of any relevance to anyone else or is it a conversation which should remain private and personal.  If you lay it out for all to hear you maybe fall foul of being thought self centred, an egotist when all the time your conversation was merely a sounding board not to draw attention to yourself but rather to seek confirmation that your thoughts were with them for reasons of empathy. Conversation is a mirror, a way of integrating your thoughts with someone you respect, words act as a rubber band preventing you from straying too far from the people you care about. In this case you chose who you hold that conversation with and as likely as not they will be people most likely to confirm your views and if not agree with you you can always negotiate a truce which confirms that friendship. 

Perhaps it's all down to empathy, that strange flow of cognitive energy in which compassion and emotion play their part in recognising who we are, through others. Empathy that humanising aspect to our character, so often buried under the artificiality of modern life with its emphasis on winning.

Them and us

Subject: Them and us.

It's interesting to contemplate the difference between the European (and that includes us) and the American. We hear and see on the television the attitudinal difference amplified by the followers of Trump, the obsessive insistence that gun ownership is a staple aspect of life as is the heavy handed police or there willingness to exclude the financial failures in society who can't find the money to pay for medical treatment. 
It seems so uncivilised as we mark our own card on our societies  use of unarmed police and the slogan on every hospital, 'free at the point of need'.  So much of our GDP is earmarked into seeing that the social needs of the society are met, including the dispossessed. In America the 'land of the brave' you have to be brave if your unemployed  or feeling sick, there's no catch net based on the assumption that we can't all be winners and those that can't - should. 

The vision of the down trodden families fleeing the hardship of Europe in the 1930s and 50s, emigrating to the States, the land of milk and honey was a tantalising experience. Europes customs and the ties to cultural life which formed the every minute aspect of life in Poland or Italy, was extinguished as the ship berthed in New York. The hustle of the life to make a dollar, dollar was king and its attraction had started almost as soon as immigrant stepped off the gangplank. The abundance of goods in the shops, at odds with the rationed society they had left behind, New York was an Aladdin's cave to the war weary European. No longer constrained by family,  social and religious constrictions they had become anonymous as they set off into Brooklyn or Queens with an address for a nights accommodation and the long painful search for a job.
In Europe money counted but so did the society you grew up in. The rules and traditions the religious morays, the structure and the inter relationship of people from different backgrounds was often the glue to make life bearable. The family extended the emotional comfort a family usually does and the judgements, although tedious was usually fair. A woven web of culture and tradition was in itself a blanket to protect you from the vicissitudes of life, it allowed you to judge yourself at any stage against your peers and find comfort in finding they were still close. 
In America you became a hustler, a pan handler, a doer of deeds, good and bad, some would have brought the full weight of social opinion down on your head when at home,  in New York your anonymity protected you from all that.  You could be a barrister or a bum and no one cared so long as the rent was paid. People were divided into those up in  the clouds of their skyscraper apartments and those down at street level making do. 
Life on the sidewalk was hard and dangerous and the jobs an immigrant could aspire to meant that they became even more anonymous in this land of untold wealth, how could a person be poor within such a prosperous society it was almost a crime not to succeed but a life of crime was sometimes the only way to make ends meet. The poor were blindsided, off the radar, they are the 'other people' discussed briefly at the dinner party, ostracised for not making it and for being a danger to those who had. 
And so today this strange land of entrepreneurial success and social failure is a mystery. We believe we should know them, after all we speak the same language and share a love for literature and scholarship. We respect largely the same understanding of corporate law and a rough agreement on such matters as civil law and yet deep down we are so different because the people from Europe are a settled society, not a frontier society, we expect the institutions of government to solve our problems whilst in America, a government which interferes too much is rejected. 
Our European sense of the importance of society in general, not the dinner party society but the ordinary chap on the street who you recognise as a mirror image of yourself and is vital as to how we behave towards each other is in some ways mirrored by the Black people in America who have their own affinity for each other as sisters and brothers, a society more European and potentially a more powerful cohesive force than the white American family, isolationist by temperament, individualistic by creed and weirdly obsessed by a divine providence fostered in their need for religiosity.

The importance of being earnest

Subject: The importance of being earnest. 

People have said it was luck to be born and grow up in the 40s, 50s, and 60s when the world was a far freer place to live. The individual reined supreme and could get on with pursuing his or her interests without the cacophony of the internet to harass your every thought.

 One of the milestones in growing up was the advent of serious television with the opening of BBC 2 in which many programs were treated with almost monumental respect as were the people who made the programs. Television in those days was an opportunity for drawing people together as they congregate in front of the box drawn would you believe by a specific program which other members of the family also wanted  to watch. This was long before the advent of multiple channels and dozens of programs, all filleted by the same adverts every 10 minutes or so. In those days the Beeb was the only show in town, BBC 1 for light populist television and BBC 2 the more serious stuff.  Two programs stand out.
'Civilisation' directed and presented by Kennith Clark. A series which ran for about an hour each week depicting the rise of Civilisation, specifically in Europe. From the cave paintings to sublime gothic architecture and fretted roofs in the great European cathedrals. The art of Leonardo da Vinci, his anatomical drawings and his mesmerising portrait  of the Mona Lesa and the detail of the Last Supper, to Michelangelo's soaring masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and his revered sculptures, particularly the one of David. Clarks scholarly talk was that of a wealthy informed classist who's love for the world of artistic accomplishment was equally matched by the down to earth charm of Jacob  Bronowski in his series called the 'Assent of Man' a program based on the scientific achievement of man and the place science held in the humanities. 
Both programs were epoch making and both raised the levels of awareness across the land by integrating the public in a debate which took place in the informal setting of the living room. Much like the more recent but equally brilliant David Attenborough series on the animal kingdom and life in the oceans, these men were ground breaking in educating the ordinary man and woman who, without an university education, had the chance, probably for the first time in their lives to to be included and offered the opportunity understand a world which didn't require a mind deadening eight hours of toil in the factory and was accessible in the comfort of their own home.
We all see the past through rose tinted spectacles but the excitement of growing up and feeling education was important, that knowing stuff might come in useful, not to pass exams but rather to obtain a better understanding and gain the ability to converse on subjects other than football. 
If these programs were called highbrow, well so be it, they, along with the philosophical and political debates, a one on one format,  not the sort of hurried adversarial contest seen today in which the interviewee puts a  question but hasn't time or the inclination  to listen to the answer. In those far off days people these people respected each other and we respected them as we sort to look behind the obvious for the substance in the answer. I remember at the close of the program the headache due to concentrated effort to keep up on what was said and the meaning of what we understood and best of all, with the tele switched off, the discussion with my Dad as to our view and the avenues for further discussion the program offered.
Sadly today the answers come as sound bites, but in those days because of the sheer quality of the program and the people taking part, the answers were the grist to the mental mill, an intriguing opportunity for an active mind to try to plumb the depths purely because we thought it 'was' important.

Enough is enough

Subject: Enough is enough 

Listening to the condemnation of a person who came from mixed parenthood and where, in her world, all the ills of the people who became the Caribbean group of nations and especially those who had left the islands and settled here in the UK, is to be traced to slavery. Of course without slavery they wouldn't have made the crossing from Africa to the Americas and would instead be citizens of Senegal, Guinea, The Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone or perhaps Liberia, all now princely homes of the democratic principle they so aspire to whilst living here. 
Even in the West Indies each island is different, populated by people who see rivalries in each other and are as different as the colonial powers who were in charge 200 years ago. The Dutch, French, Spanish and the British ruled the various islands and todays political demographic echo's the temperament of each European nation who ruled them. Like a child is dependent on its mother for guidance when growing up so each island community reflects the care it received in those early years. The character of the Trinidadian is different to Jamaica, the Dutch run Antilles is different to the French Guadeloupe or the Martinique islands. Even tiny islands living cheek by jowl such as St Kits and Nevis who are at odds with their close neighbour and genetic cousin Anguilla. It makes a mockery of this picture of a down trodden people and rather highlights the frailty of the human beings to get on no matter what the skin colour. 
The political back bitting and the revolt between Black and Indian and those with mixed blood is as complex as it is in any part of the world when cultural heritage clash. 
Today's call for reparations are claimed by what we now call Afro Americans but not the Indian who themselves were brought over from India or the Chinese who were shipped over in their thousands to provide labour in all four corners of the world. If we are to go back in history should the Italians pay reparations to us for what the Roman Empire did or the Scandinavians for the pillaging caused by the Vikings in Britain. 
It's only now that the voices are heard and given a platform by the very people they seem to hate so much. Try protesting in Beijing or on the streets of Karachi, give it a go in Cairo or Riyadh, don't upset the authorities in Jerusalem or Abuja otherwise you might bring the wrath down of people far less inclined to hear your case and still less inclined to encourage you to make it. 
We in the UK seem to enjoy some sort of sadistic pleasure in lining people up to abuse us for the sins of our great, great, great grandfathers. It's probably the result of that confidence we once had, believing our actions were constructive in parts of the world where tribal custom was more primitive. The economic drive to encourage  a country's prosperity through trade and exports demanded that ports be built and railways constructed and functioned long before the locals had seen the need. For this we are damned since it disturbed a natural indolence, a disruption of the way things were done then in many of the world. Were we wrong to explain the importance of the security that contracts brought  or the laws of commerce, and instead these days it's suggested it was all self interest and our feverish desire to exploit the indigenous population.
You takes your pick when you try to extrapolate the causes of why things were done 200 years ago and especially the effect it had on the settled population. In many places the infrastructure has been willfully destroyed under local mismanagement with railways and roads abandoned for a general apathy which seems to say that maintenance is too expensive and simply too much trouble. 
Even in mature economies such as South Africa the lack of investment and the corruption of government has seen the much vaunted South African industry and standards destroyed. Escom (the electrical power generating company) which in the 1980s was the equal to any in the world, is now plagued with regular electrical outages that have sadly become a way of life for many South Africans. 

The hospitals, not only the racially assigned ones such as the Johannesburg General but hospitals such as  Baragwanath which were designated, non white and were cutting edge in the 80s and early 90s but now are a pale image of what they once were. Corruption and mismanagement from the government has devastated this once proud indicator of South African excellence, including the worlds first Heart Transplant which was carried out at Groote Schuur Hospital on the slopes of Table Mountain in 1967.   South Africa was the first and perhaps the only country to dismantle its nuclear bombs (6 of them) prior to the hand over of power in 1994 to the ANC, another perspective of South Africa's technological ability which only USA, Russia, Britain and France held at that time. Now the hospitals are under-equipped and understaffed, unable to offer any hope to patients with Covid 19.
Very little is said or heard, (still less the perpetrators brought to book), in an Africa where the offspring of the forefathers of so many of our detractors still live. The contrast between most of post colonial Africa and Europe, especially Britain, which seems to be such a racially corrupt place to bring up their children, when the graft and corruption across the continent of Africa is ignored for the 'god given' (actually a political enactment of 1833) right to let off steam over here is used to great advantage for all but the ones with the courage to say, enough is enough.

A job well done

Subject: A job well done.

It's an interesting moment, 80 years to look back and do a sort of audit trying to trace backwards the person you were to the person you've become. 
For most of us our lives are unpredictable, a set of chance happenings, of relationships which blossom out of nowhere and die, of chances taken or missed, of opportunities refused and sometimes regretted. 
The essence of our lives starts at birth and proceeds until we leave a nest which has protected us as best it can from the bruises which occurs when we seek solutions through other people. In the beginning it's all about security and the constant attention a mother can bring to her child. Its only now when I see a replay in my own daughter and her unlimited compassion for her child do I reflect that I must have been the beneficiary at one time. The attention and the indefatigable energy a mother brings brings to the minute by minute needs of the baby and then of the the child, to subordinate herself beyond the call of duty brings benefits to the child, as yet untested. 
The child's assumption that the world revolves around him or her is a fact of life for which the child will never know or understand. It's the babies normal world, a cry or a grimace tells the world around what is expected. This beautiful balance between need and the unmitigated willingness to provide what ever is required is the crucial period which forms the crucible for the child's character and its sense of security. The basis for mental assuredness is rooted in those early years, without it all the apparent security garnered by financial success is worthless.
Moving as, we must, into the company of others we discover they are not as accommodating as our mother was, they have their own mothers who fostered each child with its own sense of uniqueness and here the first clash occurs as we discover we are not so special after all and the tussle to remain afloat in a sea of conflicting egos is the start of a journey which will buffet us throughout our lives as we try to convince others of our worth. For some this 'worth seeking' manifests itself in searching for academic and financial prowess for others it finds its outlet in adventure and travel, one an outward sign of success the other an inward contentment.
The quiet encouragement to find what is important in our lives is offset by the nagging fear that the world is unaccommodating unless certain criteria are accomplished first but this is often realised long after the initial excitement of living for the hell of it has long passed. The families who set off in small yachts with young children, the couple who trekked around central South America on a motor bike with a 8 month baby, these are the people the actuaries could never put a price on but we were often more conformist with houses and mortgages, private schools and jobs to worry over. 
Looking back they were great years which whilst you tied yourself to repayments the work and the growing family were a dynamic that you would never have imagined unless first having taken the plunge. We were part of a family of similar achievers, people who loved to party and were themselves part of their own optimism a dynamic which you fed off in a strange way. The economy was good and the aspirations largely met. The open door feature of the society meant that people were always welcome, a friendly visit turned into a party and a sleep over, the assumption being that your home should be shared was common.
All countries have their own flavour, the Italians and the Greeks, the Moroccan and the Egyptian, the Indian the Malaysian, the Singapores or the Papa New Guinean were all so different. From Japan to Sydney in the 60s. New Zealand, Tahiti to New York and Toronto. Watching the Niagara Falls or the Victoria Falls, climbing inside the Pyramids or listening to jazz in New Orleans it was all a precursor to married life and watching the children grow into the terrific people they have become was all a stepping stone to eventual retirement. Job done and not a bad one, even if I do say so myself.

Reaching for a book

Subject: Reaching for a book.

Sitting in my self isolated bubble here in Swansea I listen for a reawakening of traffic in the morning heralding people setting off for work. During the lock down it was eerily quiet, each day with the cars in the street parked up and not moving, no rumble, no swish when it rained, only silence as people stayed indoors. The houses are not large and one wondered how families with many kids managed to coexist, surely they didn't all turn to a book. I haven't heard of any cases of fratricide/filicide but I'm sure it came close as the pent up frustration mounted with 'boy meets girl' being carried on over the Internet. At least there was no chance of being 'stood up' waiting outside the cinema for the love of your life to arrive for an hour or so snogging on the back row, only to be dumped standing there in the cold as she found someone, or something more important. At least with an internet contrived fantasy connection you can have multiply affairs, one after the other all at the flick of a switch. 
So this morning, a Monday morning with the sun rising in the sky and the day beckoning the streets are still quiet, the cars still immobile, the silence still deafening. I suppose it all depends on how economically viable your area is, whether people can work from home or whether the business they used to go to has closed for good or at least downsized until some time in the future. 
The casualties of the pandemic are not only the poor people who struggle to breath in hospital but also the ones who struggle to see any employment in the immediate future. Living close to London the economy has hardly missed a beat except for those such as the hospitality sector who are still wondering how to redefine their business with social distancing. The building industry, electricians, plumbers, carpenters have been going into work across the piste as the building sites remained open. Missing their daily coffee they found a way to get on with what they do and probably thanked the pandemic for clearing the normal traffic off the road and they joked about the worries of the nanny state as it issued more and more, ever confusing directives ignoring the casualties on ventilators as just bad luck.
Swansea isn't London nor is Bradford or Coventry and in these cities and towns across the country the silence is still with us. People are still reluctant to come out and spend and therefore the shop girls and the fast food guys are pending. The manager has cut the staff by three quarters, the pubs are still uneconomic with reduced numbers and so people wait and wait for inspiration. Meanwhile the virus also waits, it lurks inside us even though we don't know and it's at it's most infectious in this lull before we show symptoms, just keen to get out and about as we are. When the results of the withdrawal of restrictions last week become apparent by a spike in infection, as shown in Leicester, causing them to once again quarantine the city and reintroduce this deathly silence, only then will we wish we hadn't been so frivolous. 
Perhaps unemployment will in the end be a blessing with many people having no job, nowhere to go and no money to spend, forced to stay at home and thus keep the virus to themselves perhaps an unintentional consequence which in the end will benefit us all  Maybe the silent, traffic free suburb   Is here to stay, until a vaccine is found, maybe the adage that 'silence is golden' will grow on us all, perhaps I'm not being so fanciful to think that more and more people will eventually reach for a book.