Reunification of Ireland

Subject: Reunification of Ireland.

Listening to the popular program, "Any Questions" which this week comes from Northern Ireland one is immediately struck by the vitriol which comes across between the various Irish speakers. Political antipathy one understands, religious tribalism one understands but the apparent total disdain between one Irishman and another is beyond reason. 

The history of Ireland is splattered with violence, not only the violence between the Irish and outside nations wishing to invade the emerald land. The Vikings were a major thorn in their side, the Scots also rampaged with force across the Irish Sea and of course the old enemy, the English, were all fought with good reason but the major source of conflict was, and still is, between the Irish themselves. 

Their family based tribalism, the O'Connor's, the O'Rourke's, the O Brian's were all families who spent all their energies and the blood of their followers in trying to defeat each other. It went on decade on decade, centuries even, with one family gaining ground only to loose it as an alliance between another group of powerful families formed.
Antiquity tells us that the Irish were ungovernable.  Not, as is normally recognised ungovernable, because an outside force has stepped in and tried to rule the Irish but ungovernable because the people themselves do not get on. Centralised governance seems to have been impossible.
Having recently had a short holiday in Ireland I was struck by the under laying friendliness of the people and yet also the under laying political strain in their conversation if, as an Englishman, you sought to offer opinion. In pubs, famous for their rough justice by the nationalists, one was aware that there were men in the pub who had a deep reservations for no other reason than that I was from England. We were fortunate that we were the guests of a well known local family who's influence was sufficient to ensure we were well received but without their blessing I wonder if I would have been as lucky. Their is a ruthless tension in the Irish which contradicts the humour they are famous for, a threat which makes their presence (outside sporting events) a watchful experience. 

It was for good reason that Sinn Fein were feared both in Ireland and in England. They held an almost masochistic delight in inflicting pain on people who crossed them. The infamous kneecapping, crippling someone from the 'other side', left a trail of terror within the society of Northern Island, a fear which still remains even though the Northern Ireland Assembly is in place and Sinn Fein are the second largest party on its benches. They still carry the threat of violence on the street.
Martin McGuinniss represented the ideological embodiment of Irish Politics. His logic had a short fuse and his history of using any means to get what he wanted,(Home Rule), made him a feared adversary. The Nationalist cause is littered with people like him as is the history of Ireland. From the time of the Easter Rising and before the extremists seem to hold sway over the population on both sides as, tit for tat atrocities were carried out regularly. It wasn't a polite Catalan banner waving parade but guns and explosives and above all, terror waged within the ordinary community.

The Tony Blair "Good Friday Peace Agreement" was a concessional political deal which brought the factions together around a table and eventually into a formal Parliamentary setting where old enemies could cross each other with words not bullets. The leverage to obtain an agreement meant that Sinn Fain, the Unification of  Ireland party had their violent past buried, much to the unhappiness of the victims of that terror. A truce was brokered by Blair which, tenuous as it is, lasts to this day but a new fly in the ointment has been the issue of Brexit and how it effects the boarder between Northern and Southern Ireland. The hope of Sinn Fein is that the difficulty of setting up a proper boarder between North and South will drive the parties to consider the reunification of Ireland as a solution.

Scottish and Old Time Dancing

Subject: Scottish and Old Time Dancing.

Society is made up of so many parts. I tuned in by accident to a gathering of Scottish people celebrating an evening of Scottish dancing. The Reel and a Barn Dance were two of the dances as the accordion led band, with fiddle, drums and piano struck up to play each tune. The tunes themselves were a part of Scottish mythology, written to perhaps mourn a failure of a crop of barley, or the sad tidings of a ship wreck off the shore. 
The rigour and the formality of the dance and the strict time keeping of the band didn't hide the enjoyment and fun these people were having. The rolling rhythmic cadence of the band, an automatic foot tapping experience was a pleasure made more so by the homogeneity  of the people taking part. Amidst the Internet and the explosion of cultural activity on the 'web' this backwater of traditional interest remains very strong amongst the older generation.
I remember over 50 years ago in Cape Town being introduced to "Old Time Dancing" as it was called then, now renamed "Modern Sequence Dancing". The sequence of steps and the importance of knowing, not only which way you were going but who you were receiving to dance the next sequence with as the old sequence ended and a new one began was a bit of a strain.
Once a month the formal 'black tie' and women in 'ball gowns' would parade the floor in Bergvliet's Community Centre, as my Aunt and Uncle would meet with long standing friends to enjoy each other's company and dance the night away. The formality of manner extended to carrying a card on which a member of the opposite sex agreed to partner you in a dance when that dance's turn came to be played, so that your night was planned from the outset. The Valeta, the Boston Two Step, the Military Two Step, the Waltz, were all danced with grace and gusto as the dancers swirled around the floor, eyes alight with the fun of the occasion. A tipple or three at the table between dances drew the people together in a way that, in today's disco dancing, where people seem disconnected apparently doing their own thing in the dark recesses of their own mind, is not so apparent.
Back then to the jolly sound of the band and the whoops of the dancers as they swirled around the floor. A different generation and a different set of values.

Can I have the next dance

Subject: Can I have the next dance.

Freedom is a starting point not a goal. We are always fooling ourselves we can work towards being free but like most things, it is not an end, only a work in progress shaped by the will to succeed.
With freedom one starts to progress in a direction more to your own liking and although the destination you desired may remain out of reach the journey is yours and no one else's.
And so as we foxtrot our way with an unhelpful partner who seems keen to trip us up at each opportunity, we have to remember we chose the foxtrot over the quickstep in the belief that not only the band knew the tune but that at the end our card would be marked for another dance with another partner.
Brexit seems to be an occasion where married to the chap, we have to dance to his tune. His innuendo and blatant foot-stalling, his claim to want to dance to another tempo without your having had a chance to practice, seems rude and boorish. You were warned of course but the ritual of divorce seems to bring the worst out of people.
It's not the money or the house it's the hurt of past opportunities blasted on the rocks of expediency.
With good will anything is possible but the bad will of divorce only creates hurdles placed as a means to hurt.
Human beings being what they are, are stereotyped and the worst are the political class. It's hard to know a more self opinionated lot other than self serving bankers. We expect them to uphold our best interests but history tells a different story. Opportunists they are out to exploit the situation they find themselves in for ideological reasons rather than find practical solutions. The Party machine has been known to destroy its self through dogma and historical precedent, what chance the man and woman on the street entering their calculations.   

Short back and sides please

 

Subject: "Short back and sides" please

From "short back and sides" to a "number 4". So one of life's little rituals changes but remains the same. Like a scrubbed and polished Prussian I now emerge from the barber, sorry, the hairdressers into the daylight, shorn of the few wild white hairs which still grow, an indication I am still alive and well !!
The Barber of old was a tradesman not an artist. "Short back and sides"  was an economy of effort and imagination, akin to sheering sheep, carried out with little fuss and bother as was all our toiletries. No creams or gels,  just soap and water, no special plea to make us resemble some screen idol, just the bare minimum. 

Walking away from the shop the cold air found new skin to torment but it was all rather refreshing being brought back to the 'starting gate' as it were, separated from of any pretension to be someone you were not.
In those days we were not in awe of fashion or of trends. We were grounded in our sameness and took comfort that everyone seemed more or less the same. We all seemed to have and want the same things and therefore there was little competition. I can't remember wishing to be a millionaire, there were no lottery route out other than the football pools of which it was acknowledged, at least some sort of prerequisite knowledge was required to give yourself a chance to win.
It was a time when for a boy the simple pleasures of being yourself was enough. The cycling and rock climbing  had their hero's on the Tour de France or the guys who shimmied up sheer rock faces in the Alps. They were masculine god's who linage traced back to our Time Trial on a cold windy morning on the A1 or the rocky outcrop you were climbing in the Dales.
Money never figured in my calculations. If I had enough to do the simple things which we did in those days, it was enough. Some change in my pocket for a pint and a packet of chips was all I asked for and even a holiday was a bargain basement experience. Why travel in a "Hilton bubble" we used to say, people staying in those sort of hotels rarely experienced the delight of mixing with the locals or competing for what was on offer at breakfast with other people drawn from all over the world. Breakfast was in fact often the mainstay throughout the day with a small meal in the evening. Eating was not a ritualistic display with the kudos of knowing which wine to drink, it was a refueling event a sort of touch down before the next flight of fancy.
Cycling through France, nights spent in a tiny canvas tent, sighting the Med and the expectation of Cannes at night  was enough to take us into Monti Carlo (not the casino) and the contrast of the tent  made our experience so much more memorable​.
Today the package holiday, ('eat and drink as much as you can it's all included ) is popular.  Compulsory inoculations to insulate you from the bugs, travel insurance to take care of the rest. This would have been an anathema to us as we set out on an adventure with all its inherent dangers but also with the thrill of knowing the danger was there.

We were not cosseted by regulations and "do gooders". We were not constantly reminded of our responsibility to ourselves, a graze on the nose was rather a reminder to be more careful next time.

Authority was respected, parents, the police, not feared or ridiculed. Authority  had its place in our education, passed down from our parents and supplemented by attitudes within society which acknowledged the order of things, without being enthralled or diminished in any way. People articulated their individuality by understanding the importance they had in ensuring the way society worked and the responsibility for the role we all played in its homogeneity.

Identity

Subject: Identity

Identity politics, the impulse we all have, black, white, Muslim, Christian, atheist, gay, straight, men, women, obese, thin, athletic, chair bound, we all acquire a tribal affinity and defend that affinity regardless.
The so called 'progressives' who see society as a mix, with inter connected needs and inter connected responsibilities have done their best to redesign us, to reeducate us into a new paradigm, a new way of thinking.    Words have been allocated to prevent discussion,  intellectual derivations which strike the fear of God into conversation for fear of being called 'racist', or 'misogynistic', sexist, or lacking a sympathetic bias towards those sections of society who promote their own 'exceptionality'.
The rise of Trump was predicated on his galvanising the unsung, unspoken about rump of our society, the white working-class who had spent years watching this intellectual hand wringing as the 'identity mania' took hold and more and more groups of  people demanded to be recognised as exceptional. The political environment in America and in Europe were 'gung ho' on redefining society down to its particular, down to its nut and bolt, like an assembly instruction on a 'flat pack' piece of furniture, miss one screw we are told and the furniture will fall apart. Of course those of you who have erected a piece of kit and found that at the finish you have a couple of bits still in your hand but which don't seem to affect the finished masterpiece are the recipient of one of lives truisms. Perfection is a false dawn.  Society is the same, as we delve deeper into each part of that constitutional myriad  in an attempt to identify, we loose the cohesion that the other parts hold to keep it all together. The exclusion, or rather the assumptions made that the white working class would go along with our sociological experiments, even if they were feeling increasingly marginalised went spectacularly astray in the last Presidential Election.
It's a lesson which the ideologically minded seem unwilling to learn as they plunge us deeper and deeper into "troubled waters". Generally speaking people are pretty accommodating but press them into some sort of homogeneous idealism and they will react with a bang. 

Buying a computer

Subject: Buying a computer.

"If awe we had the giftie gie us so see our sen as others see us it would from many a silly notation free us"
I bought another Lap Top computer on Saturday, part of the mad Black Friday spending spree, a replacement for my ageing 10 year old Dell which was running so slow that it was driving me crazy !!  

I chose one, with the help of Andrew, who nudged me the moment I said "this one is ok", onto the next with a suggestion that it was better. 

We emerged from the shop with an HP Pavilion 360 Convertible touch screen SSD and went home to unpack this latest piece of wizardry.

A rather sexy female voice emanating from the computers 'set up' menu prompted me to select this or that, customising the computer with passwords and PIN numbers.

I thought I did ok but little did I know, Andrew was filming me throughout and on watching this 'old man' stumbling around,  clearly out of his comfort zone, pondering the last instruction, aware, like people of my generation that a false keystroke at this point in time would cause the computer to explode and dissolve in front of me. 

Unlike the young today who live a virtual world, we were brought up on a secure, step by step upbringing where a wrong move had consequences which no longer apply to them but still does to me.

As I watched the image of my dad in his advancing years unfold in the Doppelganger that was me I realised the self image I carry around is not true. It's an amalgam of past shots, of fleeting glances in the mirror, of remembered actions and reactions, all a far cry from the stumbling old bugger now on the screen trying to follow instructions. 

An identity shift into the old people's home might be more appropriate, snoozing the time away in an armchair or eating custard through a straw.

Robert Burns was rights, we have this image of ourselves as a protection from reality. We can still run and catch a bus but we prefer the car. We can still attract the opposite sex if it weren't for the fact that their interest seems elsewhere. We can still desire to explore new pastures if it weren't that our comfort zone is slowly closing in.

Andrew had no idea the emotions he stirred in his bit of fun. Not sad emotions, no sense of being resentful, no anger, only a realisation that my Doppelganger friend and I are so far advanced along the road, a road from which there is no return !!!

Happy Birthday John.

Subject: A gift.

Happy Birthday John. You made it.

Another year has flown by and my 77th  birthday signals something I never thought would happen, that I would progress to such old age. I know I am just a 'spring chicken' in some of your books, where 80 is but a pathway to 90 and 100 for the few.
I grew up when, in a working class household, reaching 70 was an achievement, women lived roughly 5 years more. To retire at 65 usually meant that 5 or so years were available to enjoy in retirement on the state pension, a pension, not in any way generous, but marginal and supportive, being frugal one could just get by.
Old men aimlessly walking the street, fag in mouth waiting for opening time, nursing a pint until 3pm when the pub closed its doors for two hours, until reopening at 5pm.
It was a lonely life after the camaraderie of work.  The wife usually had her own routine and didn't  want her husband getting in the way.  The reality of living together all those years didn't mean that either party understood the other any the better and now, enclosed in the same set of rooms the chance for conflict was high.
The myriad problems of getting older, finding in these years, a slow tailing off of ones health and energy, the aches and pains, a little dizziness and short of breath made one even more aware that the old physique we had always taken for granted, was  not as good as it used to be.
We have just had bonfire night, with Christmas and new year to come, all signposts heralding  time passing. Occasions which in the past spoke of parties and gifts, of a child's fantasy towards Father Christmas and an adults expectation of a happy cheerful family event.
Old age can simply brings a telephone call, or now-a-days, if the "oldie" can work a computer a connection via the internet to say Hi to a family living on the other side of the world. Christmas spirit barely leaks under the door, the odd card and a television set showing repeats of the "Two Ronnie's" or a traditional white, middle class American family with presents galore  and a table so full of food one can only wonder what people on welfare, or worse the homeless, think of it all.
It's strange to reflect that from the moment the young child grasps his mothers hand to the moment he/she is dropped off at nursery school, then primary followed by secondary school, perhaps eventually that special bubble, the 6th form and out into the big world of a job or university, the plan and the path seemed so assured. As I watch young men and women striding up the road towards the railway station, already fixated on their routine of catching the 7.35, their lives a treadmill of walking, eventually running trying to keep up with the competition,becoming so immersed in the corporate need, that their life is simply not their own. 

The years pass, a family of ones own comes along and, ill equipped, you make as good a job of it as you can. So much intellectualised input went astray, and with it so many good intentions. Love there was plenty but that mystical concoction of fireside cohesion and bedroom stories, read to an 'appreciative' child were somehow missed. 

The years fly by until all of a sudden there is no competition, no urgency to catch the 7.35, only the silence of an empty street, the cars and the train catchers long gone as you eat your porridge and scan the TVs programming guide for another day indoors.

But in reality we should all thankful for what we got and hope for more of the same next year.