Its only a journey

Subject: It was only a journey.

You could say that people 60 years ago were relatively laid back at the prospect of dying. Their lifestyle was not ring fenced with do's and don'ts, with what to eat or drink, or a regime of exercise. Even expectations of what the medical fraternity could do if you fell ill, was treated with some scepticism .  Death was an expectation, it was given a date or a span of years, usually 70 years if you were a man and 75 years a women, and people who passed these milestones were seen as special but not necessarily blessed since ageing brings its own discomfort.
Today we are encouraged  into doing what is good for us on the assumption that if you follow the advice you will live longer. This vision of living longer fixates many people as they pound the street, mile after mile, running like metronomes, ticking off the seconds as if they matter. They rise early to be at the gym to compete in a sort of fixated self adulation, a fitness fanaticism which is encouraged by advertising to buy this running shoe or this bike and you will improve, or a self imposed image thing about the way we want to look and present ourselves to others.
There is no doubt the trade off for those hours spent exercising is the feel good factor. Not just the bulky muscles to parade on the beach but the endorphins released in the brain which provide the person with a mental boost.  Of course not everyone feels they need a boost and some would even say, spending hours of the day running, skipping, bending is a waste of time. For many the very idea of exercise is painful as they munch their crisps on the couch watching Netflix. For them the dream is a box set of East Enders.
So how did we become so self absorbed, so fixated on our lifestyle and longevity. Perhaps 60 years ago the church played a larger part in our conscienceless and the idea that there was something else after this life gave us added perspective as to the importance we attach to these three score and ten. The agnostic after all has to cram as much into the life here on earth given it's all they have.
One of the things which nourishes me as I look back on my life is the variation. There has been no exceptionality just a confident process of experiencing the pleasure of each stage. A wonderful childhood blessed with loving parents who allowed me to proceed at my own pace, never over protecting. My decision to escape the conformity of growing up in this class ridden society with its myriad glass ceilings, rather to snuffle and poke around in many different countries learning as I went. The enormous privilege of having a family and raising kids, watching them grow and form their own personalities. The latter years of returning to find that not much has changed and being frustrated by that yet at the same time recognising the advantages of living here in relative security, particularly when growing old.
A life of stepping stones of uncovering not only ones own talent but of recognising the inevitability of getting things wrong and moving on to make what ever you can of life without the envy of wishing things were different.
The bubble we create for ourself is our bubble and therefore we better know who we are and what we stand for rather than some wishy washy contrivance imposed from above. To have the values which Kipling so famously set down in his poem 'If'.

Knowing the script

Subject: Knowing the script.

One of the complexities of the current uprising of black discontent in this country is on the one hand a call for black people to be treated the same as their white counterparts in business and yet on the other, to fast track them to gain some sort of parity and to square a statistical anomaly if promotion is deemed to be based on colour not ability.

The reason why people get promoted has never been solely down to ability. From time immemorial over and above talent there are preferences at work. The old school tie and  jobs for pals. the politics of gender to fulfill a gender quota, personality quirks which exclude someone in line for promotion who have the experience and the line skills but get passed over because their face doesn't fit. If we now muddy the waters further by introducing not only a gender preference but also race and ethnicity, why not religion or LGBT rights. The list could go on as we seek to create a politically correct utopia, balancing this against that, for ever referring promotion to the Human Resource Department for them to keep score on managements awareness.
As we seek to tie ourselves in a gordian knot it must be remembered there is always, the other side of the equation, the person who loses out, who's work pedigree fits him or her for the job but who, when the job becomes vacant is passed over for what is a political appointee rather than one based on ability. This trend to fit an ideological quota  is wrong, as of course was the case of racial stereotyping in the past.
But two wrongs don't make a right and generally speaking, people recognise talent in others,  if the talent is there then promotion is accepted but where tokenism pushes someone outside their attainment level, it only breeds discontent. If this is accentuated across the country instability raises its head in all kinds of ways and 'identity politics' begins to define our decisions. Groups form, racial, or religious allegiances  are created and prejudice becomes rife on all sides. 

Black Lives Matter instigated the banner flown at Burnley stating White Lives Matter.
The police are bruised by taunts of racism, using strong arm tactics to hold belligerent people down whilst at the same time expected to wade into a melee or wrestle a knife away from a terrorist in Reading and today, an immigrant in Glasgow.
We seem to have lost our sense of 'national purpose'. We don't seem to identify as a nation any longer. 'Gesture Politics, Affirmative Politics, Identity Politics, call it what you will, has taken over.
We have stopped seeing the nation as one but as groups each competing for attention and heaven help the police chief who hasn't read the very latest Politically Correct script.

Margaret Thatchers children come home to roost

Subject: Margaret Thatchers children come home to roost

One of the unknown consequences of the lock down and the dislocation of business is the effect of so many people being placed out of work by business's not returning.
Of course it a disaster for the entrepreneur who had a thriving business and was forced to close because of the restrictions. This part of the small business community has been the backbone of keeping the nation alive since we allowed industry to go to the wall and encourage the population to buy everything from China. Tax revenues and importantly employment shifted from the industrial sector to the thrifty service sector where the businesses could come and go but as a collective the new employers were encouraged, through a employee top up system to pay as little as they could get away with whilst providing few if any terms of employment. We have teetered along now for 10 years accepting the insecurity of so many in the workforce, we have brushed over the stress caused by not having any statutory rights of employment and now, with the pandemic closing so many businesses and making others incapable of making much of a profit, laying of staff will create wholesale unemployment such as we have never seen since the 1930s Great Depression. In times of depression the stoicism of the people is the only guarantee that society will continue to function and the rule of law be upheld. That implicit stoicism is no longer a trait of a multicultural society, the dangers of unrest will be amplified as the chronically sick battle  for their lives in hospital and we of course won't have many pubs open to wash away our troubles.

As a society we are cut from a different cloth to the one who lived through the 1930s. Much more compliment, much more used to real hardship, the stoicism of the workers and their families allowed them to tighten their belts and get on with what they had. Today in a society gifted with the concept of 'rights', where the second car and the annual holiday abroad is deemed a right having to downsize their aspirations is manifest in the suicidal race to the beach last weekend, a nation epitomised by, me first and to hell with everyone else, Margaret Thatchers children have indeed come home to roost.

Robert Jenrick

Subject: Robert Jenrick

In danger of being accused of saying 'I told you so', well I did when I portrayed Robert Jenrick as a person who when paraded in front of the cameras to tell us the good news about the corona virus seemed to me to represent all that was bad about the Tory party. I described him as a talking marionette, a man who said things because he allowed himself to be programmed to say what ever disingenuous government statement Boris needed to be said. He seemed to lack any personality, his dead pan face, his apparent lack of empathy and the way he batted away the questions the reporters gathered at the daily news briefings asked as if they were inconsequential to the governments will.
Well he has been caught with his proverbial pants down in his post as Secretary of State for Housing. Part of the job is to act as final arbiter on decisions regarding the go ahead or otherwise of a housing project. Local government and his ministerial department are the filter for these multi million pound and often controversial housing projects and it would appear he disregarded all advice and awarded the go ahead to Richard Desmond that grandee supporter of the Tories through his ownership of The Express newspaper who appears to be filling his boots these days in the house building market.
When forgoing all the advice not to proceed Jenrick did so after a dinner meeting with said Desmond and after saying he refused to talk about the project, in fact did so at length with emails  to confirm what had been said. Housing projects these days are supposed to include a percentage of housing which is identified as 'social housing' (although this is often a misnomer since the houses whilst slightly cheaper are certainly not affordable to the social strata the provision was aimed at) and the agreed number of social houses initially proposed was mysteriously lowered from 33% to 22%. But that's not all. The date of acceptance by Jenrick was hurried  forward to enable Desmond to benefit and save tens of millions in taxation by preempting the new Communities Levy, money we can ill afford as a nation to lose after the Chancellors massive spending on easing the hardship due to the pandemic.
Jenrick represents along with his boss that dark side of the Tory party, the side revealed in the scandal of MPs taking advantage of their already generous expense allowance system claiming for all kinds of things well outside what the expense fund was set up to provide. He is what I would describe as an apparatchik, an operative who's motives are purely self orientated with little sense of the morality needed in his decision making.
Of course he is supported by Johnson who's own grasp of morality is fleeting and calls to see him resign will be batted away by a government who carrying such a large majority have little to fear.

In the garden

Subject: In the garden

I'm sitting in the garden in the sunshine, enclosed by tall hedges, the lawn spotted with bushes and fruit trees ladened with ripening plums and apples, a verdant green oasis set under a cloudless sky to the sound of gulls proving the sea is not far away.
This is no brochure copy for an island in the West Indies but the back garden of Marie's home in Swansea and it reminded me of how lucky we are to live in this country, its lifestyle and the daily security we enjoy by being here. 

The television is awash with trauma. The Middle East is aflame with rival factions exerting their power supported by a seemingly unstoppable flow of arms coming to the region and the inescapable conclusion that tribal enmity will continue to fuel the flames of innumerable never ending contests.

At the moment it's Libya and the Yemen, yesterday it was Syria. The factional nature of these countries, primed by the political ambitions of Egypt, Turkey, Iran and the Saudi's makes for never ending misery amongst the ordinary Arab.  Hot heads ride around in their converted trucks with high powered machine guns mounted on the back and the ruined buildings are there for all to see.

It was always the signature of an Arab nation, especially in the bazaar that the men dressed in their traditional thawb were suspicious of visitors, where traders and the trade were never quite as they seemed. The contest of reaching a price was part of their makeup and often tiring when used to a shopping with the prices displayed, would find the constant bargaining unsettling. Perhaps it's this lack of conformity, this fundamental independence, every man for himself without a sense of a national politic or an administrative bottom line is where the instability comes from. In settled societies we form a general consensus on many things, we accept laws and social norms, we respect the formality of pricing for instance and the sense of conformity based on a national need.  This across the board trust is assigned on the assumption that the law can be called upon if needed and that the courts are fair. Only if you live in a patriarchal society where disagreements often lead to death, where an 'eye for an eye' has meaning then it's no wonder the concept of boarders and nationhood are pretty much meaningless.
The disturbing sight of children caught up in these struggles reminds us of how lucky we are to bring our kids up with regular meals and good sanitation. Where they won't be exploited or have an education system which, whilst not the best can offer the child  a path to a bright future.
The garden is a sanctum from the environment outside.  The birds hang onto the seed feeder  like humans queuing outside the Kentucky shop. They hop and frolic in the bird bath with an occasional glance to see if the next door neighbours cat is around. In our wisdom we have contrived an idillic setting for the birds whilst a thousand miles away there is mayhem in Banghazi

The ghost horse

Subject: The ghost horse. 

We all have memories of strange events which can't be explained. The seance we attended or the fortune teller who knows too much about you for comfort, how could she know about that from the turn of a tarot card.
I'v always been very sceptical of these future-predicting fairs which seem popular in Wales, where the various practitioners stare into their Mystic Meg globe, examine your palm, or shake the bones. The sangomas of Africa with their painted faces and the fear they spread of the tikoloshe with its malevolent power is much in evidence amongst the African black community but no less so in the tents and on the village green in Llandysul where a 'future seeking' congregation hand over their modest £5 - £10 a throw to see what the tea leaves have in store for them.
To the Chapel down the road this is Devils work and they will pray for all those who need word from the other side, (other than the word of god) but at least this is a quick fix and provides a startled buzz when Auntie Maude is mentioned.

This aside, my own trip into the paranormal started on a day on the beach near Penclawdd, or rather the boggy turf which marks one of those little estuaries which divide the land around that area. It was a bright day, a peaceful scene, sheep grazing, birds swooping down, Marie making her way along the path, me a little more adventurous hopping from turf to turf trying to stay out of the mud and hoping to get a better shot with my camera. This was in the days before we discarded proper cameras for the convenience of a smart phone camera and whilst my camera stored the pictures electronically, to be downloaded onto a computer later, it was state of the art for its time. Suddenly, whilst I was trying to compose a shot of the headland with the grazing sheep in the foreground there was the sound of pounding hooves behind me. As I swung around a black horse was galloping full speed towards where I was standing. The horse in full flight, nostrils flailed was an exciting sight, the sheep scattered out of its path as I swung my camera up to shoot the scene. Click click went the shutter as I filled by view finder with the horse and then it was gone heading off around the bend in the estuary. Wow that was a sight I said to Marie when I joined her, she had got a shock and took flight herself along the path to get out of the way.
We spent more time exploring and eventually regaining the car we drove back to the camp-sight not far away to have a look to see what they offered. In conversation with the camp sight owner I mentioned the horse and what had happened. He looked at me quizzically and told me the story of the legend of the phantom horse that was seen occasionally galloping along that part of the estuary. Look I said I have a picture of the horse and pulled out my camera. All the scenes were there before and after but of the shot of the horse there was nothing, just a blank screen like the one you used to get if you over exposed an emulsion film. No image at all other than a grey screen which showed the lens had opened and the light had activated the sensor in the camera but the pixels hadn't formed an image.
And so yes I'm convinced a ghost horse had indeed raced not 20yds away from me. It was not of this world, it was not real but belonged to the paranormal, that repository for things we can't explain, including how the tarot card reader was right in describing something which had happened to me years before.  I left the fair that day to preserve my scepticism and keep my integrity in tact but along with the horse, it all remains a mystery.

Prejudice

Subject: Prejudice.

Prejudice is a funny thing. In some cases it's ok, I'm prejudiced towards my own family, perhaps to the County I grew up in. When I'm overseas living in a foreign country I look to find people who I can reminisce with and share my prejudice. In the dictionary of course it has the connotation of doing harm, having a jaundiced view or a preconception which has no basis in fact. Synonyms include bias, partisanship, favouritism. Antonyms include neutrality, impartiality, if I am influenced by or predisposed then I am prejudiced.
The trouble is as humans we make judgement by having and holding opinions, opinions which we gain as we grow up and which are influenced by the environment we grew up in. If the people in the environment had a prejudice we were likely to absorb it into our own conscience.

Yorkshire is the greatest cricketing county, the Dales the most beautiful, the hospitality the most open and the beer the best. Each is a prejudicial view and would be contended by many but my bias, my partisanship, my favouritism are the weft which holds my tribal affiliation together. This we might conclude is good prejudice much like there is good cholesterol it's a prejudice which may cause one to make false claims or even heaven forbid, go to war and a great deal of prejudicial  jingoism has in the past whipped up our young men to go and fight battles for which they had little cause. But the prejudice towards ones own kith and kin, be it ones own family or the townspeople you grew up with is a mark of your feeling of security towards and with these people, their habits, ways of speech and thought.
In the polyglot world which has been created for us by political or economic expediency the word prejudice takes on a whole new perspective since much of what we thought we knew is replaced by the complexity of multiculturalism. The constituents which made for our sense of commonality, a sort of leavening agent, which modifies and moulds society to make it feel as one which we know intimately, is lost. There are no norms any more other than we should 'love one another' because, in some minds, the alternative is to hate. There is no centre ground no agnostic stance, instead we must put on a brave face go the extra mile and try to make sense of so many conflicting views.
My statements are loaded with prejudice because I can't be expected to canvas everyone's views to seek consensus. The fact of doing so would be to invite distrust, that I have an agenda to destabilise by the act of asking since in the asking lays the implicit danger of not agreeing with the answers I receive.
In my blogs on Black Lives Matter I am accused of distortion because I dare to put across a different view. Not that Black Lives don't Matter but the supposition that police are instinctively brutal when they seek to control black people. Also In seeking to place on record  a 'white working class view' regarding black people not getting their fair share in employment for senior positions and therefore demanding preferential treatment.
In this case my prejudice comes from my experience of growing up in a town where there were few opportunities, given the poor education we received but because we all were in the same boat we made light of it. We didn't bemoan our birthright instead we paraded it on our bikes in our beloved Dales or climbing the rocks in the Lake-district. We looked beyond the city grime and its unfairness and marvelled at our good fortune. We had our detractors, the parents of the kids who came from the better off leafy suburbs or the daily schism which presented us at work when managerial positions were inevitably taken by better prepared, private school educated people . There were no marches or public breast beating against the entrenchment of Public School advantages which money brings to the students who attend those  hallowed institutes. Instead we embraced the freedoms which this country provided and thanked our lucky stars we had been born here, but then I suppose we were prejudiced.