Referendum Mark 3

We are in a quandary. 

Who do we believe when the main players who are out and about quoting statistics and dire warnings are those same people known for their deceit. 

The BREXIT referendum is drawing ever closer and as claim and counter claim assail our ears we plunge deeper into a trough of despondency, who is right and what will it really mean.

The vote is not for a day or a year not even a decade but virtually for ever. The implications of getting it wrong can be catastrophic and yet for most of us we are lambs to the slaughter not really knowing and for many, not really caring. To wake up tomorrow sharing the bed with a stranger is no big deal say some. To others its a crime against their sense of empowerment to control their destiny.

Like a tennis match the proverbial ball is played from one side of the net to the other but unlike tennis there are no rules, no umpire, no recall to Hawk Eye. It's as if one side is using a cricket ball whilst the other fields three players.

I suppose it can be divided into three questions :-

1. Do we reject our Parliamentary process for a Bureaucratic Federalist  decision making body which has at heart it's own agenda.

A1. Given that our own Parliament is far from perfect, with a voting system which is profoundly undemocratic and inherently, an extension of the elitist Public (Private) School system which discounts so many of the countries citizens, Would an unelected elitist system, garnered from a wider, possibly more enlightened stock of people be better at administering our laws and conditions. 

The killer is that they are unelected and therefore we the people are impotent to their will. At least currently we are under the impression that we can rid ourselves of our government if we wish.

2. The economic advantage of trading into a large more or less equal in standards market place with rules of engagement which are common to all.

A2. Our trade with Europe is fundamental to our financial existence, not with standing the argument that we are inhibited in trading outside the EU. As far as I know there are more Mercedes sold in China than anywhere else so if the Germans can do it why can't we. Do we have to seek EU approval ? If others have done so why not us.? 

Reciprocal trade has the barrier that trade tariffs might apply to goods coming into the EU but again the Chinese are currently swamping the EU market with cut price steel.

Have we the industrial base to manufacture to the world at large. Not any longer. 

Our Empire is gone and with it the trade preferences we were happy to negotiate away by Edward Heath in his obsession to join the EU.

Are we in fact a second rate nation when it comes to large scale manufacturing. Yes. 

We are leaders in niche products, mostly expensive goods for a specialised market, pharmaceuticals and of course the Services Industry, particularly financial products.

Could we survive on these low volume high labour cost products feeding into a world of chameleon like proportions where insecurity and market made billionaires come and go with a percentage point change here and there.

3. Immigration and the changing face of our society is an emotional subject. Does it matter if we lose our identity. 

A3. Of course it does. People have given their lives for a concept of who we thought we were. But have we already passed the Rubicon with a nation of so many different backgrounds and so many different callings. The horse has bolted. Would it not be better if we became accustomed to the new surrounding and drew succour from an infusion of new ideas and tastes. I'm not sure.

What I am sure of, there is a cost to immigration that this government is not willing to accept. The cost to the services provided by any modern society has to be in line with the number of people calling on those services and other than tweaking around the edges little has been done in housing, schooling, health, and welfare to acknowledge that in a fairly short period our population has grown by 10 million and exponentially will accelerate as the higher birth rate amongst the new arrivals fuels the shortages. 

Can we afford it is the million dollar question or will standards have to decline in line with other poor countries. Will the distinction and the distance between the haves and the have nots continue to grow and the ghettoisation of parts of the country become entrenched. 

To be sure to be sure, that is the question !!!

Tottie

"I want to speak to the Tottie". I had never heard the phrase Tottie before but it was used by a Parliamentarian in Parliament the other day to describe a young women reporter. There have been many column inches used to hold opinion, particularly female opinion, about the demeaning nature of the term and the temerity of men to use it.
The nature of communication these days is a minefield of do's and don't's with political correctness so deeply entwined in our mental reflexes that we tread a minefield of innuendo and nuanced remark.

Coming from an Andy Capp era when calling a pretty lass, "a lovely piece of crumpet", might well have carried muster since the movers and shakers 'down south' wouldn't have understood what I was saying but today we are assailed with "correctness" and I wonder if it isn't the same sort of schism that effect our dialog with Muslim people.
Listening to many Muslims on the radio describing and acknowledging the terrible effects of suicide bombing, they often have, as an afterthought (although I would suggest its a predominant thought) that the history books, including recent history is full of non-Muslim aggression towards people of the faith. "Look at what you did to us" is a phrase and a release from the responsibility of the latest terror attack. Them and us. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
If we are to be judged for our fathers sins or if past events are taken out of context then we are all to blame and there will never be a consensus.
Similarly the 'female movement' is a movement for ever critically judging men for the position they seem to hold in the boardrooms and as leaders in politics. Years ago as the head of the house, in the days when he was the bread winner and she was the home maker, roles were defined and whilst one always had strong authoritative women, the strength behind the throne as it were, women generally played a diminutive part.
Perhaps it's this historical baggage which has to be worked through. Perhaps after opening the door to a lady or offering your seat has faded from memory and we all 'robustly' contest what ever scraps come our way, when only the most conniving win, will we have accomplished this egalitarian world we struggle to find but, having found it, will we have accomplished anything worth having.
As a matter of interest "I want to speak to the Tottie", is simple rude and boorish behaviour and irrespective who was addressed a simple punch on the nose would have worked wonders.
Sadly men are better equipped at this sort of thing so we can't win what ever we do.
 

Shakespeare v The Bible

Sunday is a special day. No not because of its religious connotation but because it contains "The Big Question".
Today I was gripped by a discussion "is Shakespeare more relevant to today's audience than the Bible". 

Why on earth do I describe this as gripping, what relevance does Shakespeare or indeed the Bible have on our lives in this fast moving drama we call 'our lives'. 

Of course I describe 'life' as a drama and Shakespeare was the master story teller in which he describes the vicissitudes of people who live through, even up to today, what is right and wrong, good and bad in each of the characters with which he describes our own dilemma.
The audience in York were extremely erudite and it was for me an, edge of seat occasion, as I listened to an impassioned academic debate, each participant at the leading edge of their speciality. 

I am fascinated by language and a persons ability to put across an idea with the correct choice of words. Language is a rich mixture, like the ingredients in the mixture of a cake, leave out one of those ingredients and the finished product is spoilt.
Today's event was a delight since it was largely a meeting of minds yet each contribution brought new light to bear on the difference of the contribution between, a "directive" issued by the Bible and a "self censoring" question which the Shakespearean plays pose. 

"To be or not to be" is a question that not only Hamlet grappled with but one we all pose to ourselves, "whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them"

Neither a borrower or lender be for loan oft loses both itself and friend and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

You speak an infinite deal of nothing.

Love is not love which alters when alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no it is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.

Shall I compare thee to a summers day, thou art more lovely and more temperate. 

Conscience does make cowards of us all.
Our language is full of Shakespearean phrases which we set aside as truisms. It is rich in pathos as it is of success. The characters although written and construed in the 1500s are as relevant today because he emboldens them with all the frailties we see in ourselves as well as our hopes and desires.

The Bible is the word of God, written by men who wished to bring a message of his love and belief but tainted with the proposition of eternal damnation. 

It's a series of moral agendas, of being right and wrong but with the sharp edge that 'being wrong' is not a choice. 

It acknowledges man,s weakness which is part of Gods gift of 'free will'  "but with the hand that giveth he taketh away".

 The stories, the parables are a gift to set and compare ourselves with but unlike any self analysis which is by definition, something within your own gift there is the heavy hand of condemnation behind it all and a dire prognosis if you don't aspire.

Another over-optimistic moment

Embarrassing  moments such as the one I described when a wall limited any further forward movement on an optimistic booze fuelled bicycle ride across a pub car park reminded me what a couple of pints can do to raise your optimism and climb metaphorical mountains.
I suppose spinach did it for Pop Eye but it never ends to amazing me how a stimulating drug, what ever is on the label, can push the mind out of its conservative reference into 'I can take on the world'. Is it that we inherently play down our role in life and seek the safety of playing safe. In some ways it seems a pity since with a bit more mental goading who knows how far we might have travelled.

In the days, pre 1994 South Africa and especially in Johannesburg  Professional Wrestling was popular. The tournaments always garish, always over the top introduced these huge men, sometimes fit sometimes a bit out of condition to put on a show. We always knew it was entertainment rather than a true sporting contest but each fighter had his following and it was especially spiced up when the promoter brought in opponents from overseas to fight the local lad.

Sitting in a pub one Saturday afternoon with a couple for friends I had reached that moment when the alcohol had placed me above and beyond and certainly outside rational thinking. Sitting not far away at the bar were two of these overseas wrestlers, each weighing over 20 stone (127 kg). They were sitting, minding there own business, two lads from Yorkshire over to make some "brass" fighting the local gorillas. For some reason I decided that this wrestling game was not what it was made out to be and anyone, "me" could put a 'headlock' on one of these chaps, not to cause a fight but out of that Olympian desire to compete. Puffed up with stimulated bravado  fuelled by a pint or three I walked up to this innocent guy and, putting my arm around his neck in an arm-lock said something like "get out of that" !!
The next moment or two was something of a blur but as my friend described afterwards, he simply stood up with me clinging to his massive neck and simply shook me off like a dog shaking water of its fur and I collapsed onto the floor. Game over set and match.
In the ensuing conversation, we became chums. Their coming from 'Gods own County' helped and soon we were swapping stories as if we had been born in the same street.
My wife, Marie had lent me her Mini and fuelled with beer and bohem I set off to show them the sights. The poor car. Can you imagine the sight of two huge men sitting on one side of this tiny car with me as a counterweight (11 stone when wet). The suspension must have wondered what hit it as we drove, virtually on two wheels rather than four, over the Queen Elizabeth Bridge on our way through Braamfontein to Witts University where I had had the marvellous idea we could have a swim in the university Olympic pool. Security not withstanding we swam and sobered up to finish yet another eventful day in the sputtering life of yours truly.

Ouch that hurt

As we struggled with our first steps, it's  a moment along the path which we evolve and become who we are. There are other mile stones such as our first wobbly attempts to ride our first bike and like our first steps this ability to stay upright is, it is suggested a skill you never forget.

Even if it has been many years since you last rode a bike you normally have little trouble in sitting on the saddle and soon re remembering how to ride the damn thing.

It's as if the brain has a file in which the knowledge we once accumulated is readily available to be opened and checked. Motion it seems gives one the magic ability to stay upright.
Of course this magic is dependent on having access to the files locked away in the brain but if you find yourself surfing a wave of alcohol down those very corridors, the doors into the filing room remain locked.
Climbing on a bike after many years can mean you are keen to get fit. It could be the only way to get about if you had accumulated more than 10 points. Perhaps even it might be that familiar madness which, when having "one over the eight" causes some to stagger out of the pub, stumble onto a bike in the pub car-park and feel confident to give it a go.
Four wheels have at least a stabilising effect but two wheels requires a massive rapprochement. Something which, with the flexibility of youth one can get away with but when, with even the light touch of advancing time we stiffen up and our reactions are are not reactions, but clumsy reflections of what might have been. And then, to crown it all, somehow, a wall is thrown in our path !!  It can in retrospect seems difficult to fathom why we were silly enough to put our leg across the crossbar (please forgive the illusion) in the first place.
I hope the ego is more bruised than the shoulder and that the remarkable Irish sense of humour can smile a wry smile at the mysteries of a pint of Guinness.

The Grand National

Rule the World - Rule the Irish. Liverpool the second Capitol of Ireland and the home of the Grand National was taken over as usual by the Irish horse racing fraternity. The owner of the winner, Michael O'Leary the controversial  owner of Ryan Air, the trainer and the jockey were part of that breed of people who seem competent to compete with the Arab Sheikhdoms and their billions in the business of breeding and training these thoroughbred horses. 

It's a world we ordinary people don't quite understand. The investment and the risk, the shady characters the dubious business of betting, the money thrown away on a dream of the colour of a jockeys shirt. 

Having had the radio on as I arrived back home prior to the race the sentiment was anti racing and the harm done to these magnificent animals. The tragic statistic that over the last nine years a horse has had to be put down due to a fall on the track, one horse every second day. One thousand nine hundred horses have died as a result of falls in the last nine years on British/Irish courses. A terrible statistic and one which seems to have no effect on the appetite of the race goers and the horse racing industry.

I heard many shrill voices calling for it to be banned and how cruel it was for the animals to have to perform with a human being on its back, jumping fences which although greatly reduced these days are still a tremendous imposition especially for a tiring horse over two miles. And yet as the race unfurled and jockeys were going down like ninepins (who cares about the jockeys) the jockey-less horses continued to race and jump the fences. At one stage the race was led by a horse who was going like the clappers, it hadn't seemed to have cross the horses mind that this was cruel, and that it needed a jockey to goad him on, the horse was in his/element and proof that breeding is everything.

From the person who joins the workforce at fifteen, out of bed by six and through the factory gates by seven, nine hours a day, five and more days a week with three weeks of for a trip to the seaside for the minimum wage, perhaps the women and it was largely women who were complaining about the ill treatment as they saw it for the horses, should turn their gaze to the inhumanity of a Bangladesh sweat shop or the miner, boilermaker, ship steward, shelf packer since there is much human misery inflicted on other humans than in a stable. 

Ireland revisited

Thank you for you interesting email. It provokes the sentiment that, in all of us is a "right" which we feel strongly about and which often has its seed in history, or at least the history we were given.
The history books I was brought up on was possibly no different to yours but in so far as the emphasis the teacher gave, given his or her background, often the story was biased one way or another.
Believing in our past was and I emphasise 'was', a touch stone to who we thought we were.
Yes we were of course individual's  but we also belonged to something larger more complex something we identified with, much as we identified with our parents and their parents before them. The warp and weft of the tribe was totally ours and as a Yorkshireman I would often reply to the question "where do you come from", Yorkshire rather than England.



The mention of the Easter Uprising and Bloody Sunday are events which mark a moments when the rule of law broke down and the Establishment reacted, often over reacted. 



Of course uprisings and rebellion was a national cause, dating back to the 1500 and before.
The FitzGerald's, the Desmond's, the O'Donald's, the O'Neill's and the Maguire's families and clans who took up arms against the English. The Fenian raids and the War of Independence when we first heard of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1919. The 'Troubles' in 1969 - 98 which eventually brought into being the Northern Ireland Parliament and the sight of a   Ian Paisley working alongside his nemesis Martin McGuinness was remarkable, given the apparent enmity between them or was it on Paisleys part, pure oratory given the man's calling to preach when ever he was given the chance. McGuinness was a different kettle of fish, as head of the IRA with all that that entails, to becoming a respected politician was a bumpy journey and I have always, when I see and hear the man, reflected on the dark secrets he holds in what was a very dirty war not so much against the Establishment but against the ordinary man and women living on the wrong side of the street in Belfast and across Northern Ireland.
Nationalism often fired up the people who resented instruction, nations form made up of ordinary people who break free from convention and strike if they can, a new model closer to their needs.
The Irish have been, through the aeons of time, seen as a hot rebellious people and as we mentioned before they found central government very difficult because tribal affinity held sway and even to this day their anger  is quite destructive as old enmities continue to bridal passions.
From an Englishman's point of view.  A view which had settled the question of working within some sort of democratic framework in which law and order held an important role, it has always seen these matters of nationalism, questions of 'debate' rather than a call to arms.
In England the aristocracy formed a pact with the local citizen and thought its method of governance exportable. Conquest and then a formulation of a structure for governance was introduced with much the same format, right across the world.  India and  Africa were all supposed to see the enlightened opportunities of 'light touch' guidance but largely self -governance but unfortunately based of a structure which was foreign to all of them. And so wherever the English went they assumed too much and bore the brunt of rejection virtually everywhere.
Roosevelt saw it in Churchill's plans for setting boundaries and creating allegiances after the 2nd World War but of course he had his own desire for hegemony under a different guise, the dollar.
The problems in Northern Ireland with the segregation of Church and the split allegiances that it created within the population as well as the divisions on political opportunistic lines are all for another blog.
Be it Parnell and his powerful advocacy for Home Rule and Gladstone's efforts to get it through parliament must wait another day.
As a simple Yorkie I might miss a point or two under-standing the very deep antithesis of being raised in amongst the turmoil. You could no doubt confirm chapter and verse the unfairness, some would say iniquity of the English and their meddling. Whilst I might say, in the round, the English were benign compared to the history of most Empires.

Ps Yes I also like Mr Higgins, he seems a throughly down-to-earth chap, so unlike those who would purport to be famous and influential.