It's Christmas ... so what's in store for 2011?

I have lost proper track now of each and every recession that I have lived and worked through - this one, though, feels different - very different.

The new "coalition" government has set out to redress the national debt by axing public services, selling off anything that might form a part of an earlier legacy (forests) and hoping to turn things around so fast that by the next election, we will have forgotten / forgiven them the pain of the first three years of their office.

Cynic that I am, I cannot help but agree with those commentators who have noted that the Liberal Democrats are being tarnished by the Tories to the latters' gain. In government they are damned if they tow the line, and damned if they don't. Was it a good idea to side with the Tories rather than Labour, I wonder? 2011 looks set for a show-down ... though Labour may need to shed its new leader to capitaise on it.

Unemployment and depressed local economies are in my mind going to feature in the depressing news bulletins of 2011. The government thinks that shedding jobs in the public sector will somehow stimulate the national economy so much so that 330,000 private sector jobs will be generated over the next four years. How? Why? With what resources? If formerly employed local people cannot afford their own homes or to purchase anything more than the basics, how is a local entrepreneur going to find the resources or markets to employ them?

Localism: by that we mean giving local people the power to decide and provide their own priorities and services. Very novel - but isn't that what we choose to do when we a) elect a local council and b) pay their community charges and other taxes? If we are to sweep our own streets (in Chiswick, Chelsea or Westminster ... you're having me on!) or cut the grass and litter pick the parks (in Knightsbridge?), aren't we then entitled to the money back that we are paying the government and council? Where will the expertise come from? Unemployed former apprentices with nothing to do other than use their government-sponsored skills might be tempted, I suppose - but doubt it.

I am no particular fan of Gordon Brown and believe that his government has much to answer for allowing the corporate greed that brought down the economies of the western world. I am certainly no fan either, though, of the current Tory-led coalition of bizarre political thought and dubious economic policy. As each new initiative is announced one cannot help but smell political opportunism and personal interest. For ambitious politicians this must be seasonal bounty.

I fear that the road ahead will be rocky and am grateful that I am not entirely dependent anymore on a future in local government service. I fear for the futures of my younger colleagues and the wider community that is Great Britain: the FTSE 100 may be recovering - but then we must not forget that although housed in the London Stock Exchange, it reflects the global rather than the British economy.

A Chess Mystery

I was in conversation this morning with the writer Joanna Trollope and chess grandmaster, Raymond Keene, at the official launch of outdoor chess in Holland Park. Amongst the topics was Shakespeare and the single reference to chess in The Tempest.

Act V Sc. 1:

Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda,

playing at chess

Ferdinand and Miranda by Angelica Kauffman

MIRANDA

Sweet lord, you play me false.

FERDINAND

No my dearest love,

I would not for the world.

MIRANDA

Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,

An I would call it fair play.

What are they arguing about? She is accusing him of cheating and he says not. Can one be right and the other wrong?

At about the time that the Tempest is set, there were two sets of rules for chess: the original Islamic ones and the more recently agreed European rules (that eventually replaced them circa 1475). One of the major changes affected the Queen. In the earlier game she could only move one square, but in the revised version became free to travel across the board as today.

Miranda and her father Prospero had been trapped on an island for twelve years before the tempest, devined by Prospero, that shipwrecked and brought Ferdinand and his father, Alonso, the King of Naples to their door (and the "comedie" that followed).

Raymond's theory is that in this game, Ferdinand moved his Queen as per the modern game, whereas Miranda was playing to the old rules. Thus - neither was cheating and indeed both were right! Mystery solved!

The work of art depicted in this image is and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Flying high - wondering!

I'm doing my "amazed" thing again... sitting in seat 02K of a BA 747 heading home to London after a most relaxing two weeks in Palm Springs. Settled in, with maximum comforts, we roar through the night sky at thousands of feet above the ground and over a zillion miles an hour.

Today, most of us fortunate to be living in the western world take this sort of travel for granted. However it was not always so.

Our driver this afternoon commented on how ill-able the early white settlers in California had been in crossing the desert as opposed to the native Indians. Where one relied on oxen or horses to carry water and provisions, the other moved easily through the hostile terrain from water point to water point. The aborigines and Khoi San people had similar skills to deploy in their native terrain.

A former colleague maintained that aircraft were only kept airborne because the majority of the passengers believed it possible ... I am not quite such a Luddite or sceptic, but I am still constantly amazed by powered flight and the technology that keeps us aloft and me scribbling this blog as my plane hums along.

But, I wonder, with each step of progress that we make as a species, how many yards of instinct and acquired knowledge do we lose access to? How many of us can navigate by the stars or even communicate by whistles, silent hand signals or, for that matter, even morse code? Will writing and reading follow? Will the alphabet that I spent so many hours learning, be the ancient sanscrit of the future and, how soon that future?

A wasted exercise

The tracking by satellite of a wild cougar through California sadly ended with the healthy young animal being trapped and shot. It's only crime was to successfully locate a food source - a part-time farmer's livestock.

I don't deny the need to protect that livestock from predatory cougars (or even coyotes such as we saw in the wild yesterday)... I do though feel more could have been done in the name of science, if not biodiversity, to protect both.

Why collar and track predators if you aren't going to protect the subject of your study? Why do this sort of study at all? What was learned apart from it's ability to cross highways - possibly via underpasses specifically built for that purpose?

The reports and photograph portray a very healthy, wild animal. Surely it could, and should, have been relocated and studied further!

The lack of objection to the animal's destruction brings into question the State's competence to manage, let alone study, wildlife in California.
Photograph by courtesy of: http://www.ejphoto.com/cougar_page.htm

The Big March against bullying

A new initiative to draw attention to bullying and in particular that of lesbian and gay youngsters is sadly very timely. In the last week I think there have been three suicides recorded here in the United States where we are on holiday. The most recent followed a university student being filmed and outed by his room mate and another student.

I watched a chat show this morning on which Whoopi Goldberg took a prominent part (I am a great fan of her) and was saddened that the underlying homophobia was over looked in favour of lessons on ethics and awareness of the immediacy of today's information technology. Of course those involved didn't want the outcome they have caused and received... I do not dispute that, but cannot help feeling that the environment in which these young people were being "educated" carries a large share of the blame - as do their families. A life has been lost for no good reason at all and there is a danger in forgetting that it was a gay man who has died needlessly on account of his sexuality. This is as barbaric as the appalling crime in the Islamic world against women who have been raped and been brave enough to report it.

There will be sympathy expressed for all the families involved: I hope those directly involved reflect every day of their lives on the enormity of the deed they have done.

Gay bashing and bullying isn't a cyber crime - when it leads to this sort of event it is murder and should be treated as such.

Amazing advances in technology

I am constantly amazed by the technology I keep stumbling across: today it is a programme for my iPod that enables me to scribble this blog from my sun lounger beside a pool in Palm Springs. No pen or paper, no wired computer: just my iPod and finger.

As a hack blogger I am sure this post will need serious editing at some point but .... the freedom of this little computer and a wifi connection are staggering attainments in my mind.

I have attached a photograph from Kyoto to link with my earlier tweet today about Basho, one of Japan's greatest poets and whose writings I am enjoying on this holiday!
"Disturbing the stillness
of an ancient pond
a frog jumps into the water:
Deep resonance."

So there: some more blogged thoughts on this and that as I scribble and sketch my day through!

Rhodesian Pioneers Day

Exactly 120 years ago to today, Cecil Rhodes's pioneer column reached what was to become Fort Salisbury (Harare). My grandfather, Alfred James Maclaurin, was a member of that amazing group of people who left the comparitive safety and comfort of the Cape to explore and settle in the unknown.

History has not been kind to their memory. Written off as murderers and opportunists intent on self enrichment, they were a vital part in the wider influence and colonial achievments of Britain. Without them I would not be sitting, working and enjoying a massively superior standard of living to theirs. 

The pioneers didn't just settle and acquire benefits for themselves: they changed the lives and fortunes of the people that they encountered. Some will argue that it was an unwelcome and unwanted invasion - but throughout the course of world history that has always been the case. Their vision was driven by a desire for greater wealth (mankind never changes), their quest was brave and the risks, enormous.

With invasion and adventure, domination and influence, has also come improvement and advantage. The invading force needs to consolidate its position, and that can only be done with the co-operation of the host. The  military interventions in Afganistan and Iraq have  both highlighted the need for "civil" as opposed to "military" solutions to lead the way to eventual peaceful resolution. Christianity and Islam cannot take hold over a people without converts.

And so it was that the Rhodesian pioneers settled, brought new medicines, a different education, a new religion and eventually a new political system. Wild veld, or bush, was turned into rich agricultural farm land and the rich minerals mined.

Today - I salute, and remember, the positive sides of that incredible risk and spirit of adventure. I honour the memory of my grandparents and my parents who continued - to my advantage - that determination and drive to improve our world, the World. I don't deny that there were costs to the people who saw their world being turned upside down as a consequence - but the wider good cannot be disputed.

A recent discussion I heard asked the question - at what point does "dirty" money become "clean". At what point do we decide that the individual's actions are no longer based solely on self-interest but community benefit, that pocketted cash becomes the acceptable coinage of share markets? The British South Africa Company's 'charter' may have been fraudulently acquired, but after the initial embarrassment, Britain took full advantage.

No one could ever have predicted the events of a hundred years later when Robert Mugabe decided to use Rhodes' pioneers as the justification for using ethnic Zimbabweans to kill each other and destroy their ability to live, let alone prosper, in the 21st century.

All within one hundred and twenty years that wonderful African landscape that was populated by hunter/gatherers, developed into a British colony, then grew into an industrialised nation exporting minerals and agricultural goods around the world, has returned into one of civil strife and, sadly one that exports people desperate for their own survival and protection from their neighbours, rather than wealth.

What will it look like in 120 years?

9/11 - A response

Today's date has gone down in our recent history as one that marked a turning point for the world. Acts of terror that had been fed on an uncaring attitude and lack of compassion, have been followed by even greater numbers of dead, more terror around the whole world and higher levels of political and religious extremism.

Karen Armstrong has written in the Huffington Post today:

9/11 and Compassion: We Need It Now More Than Ever

"The anniversary of 9/11 reminds us why we need the Charter for Compassion. It should be an annual summons to compassionate action. The need is especially apparent this year. In the United States, we have witnessed an upsurge of anti-Muslim feeling that violates the core values of that nation. The controversy surrounding the community centre near Ground Zero, planned by our dear friends Imam Feisal Rauf and Daisy Khan (who were among the earliest supporters and partners of the Charter) has inspired rhetoric that shames us all. And now we have the prospect of the Quran burning proposed by a Christian pastor, who seems to have forgotten that Jesus taught his followers to love those they regard as enemies, to respond to evil with good, and to turn the other cheek when attacked, and who died forgiving his executioners.

If we want to preserve our humanity, we must make the compassionate voice of religion and morality a vibrant and dynamic force in our polarised world. We can no longer afford the barbarism of hatred, contempt and disgust. At the same time as we are so perilously divided, we are drawn together electronically, economically and politically more closely than ever before. A Quran burning, whenever it is held (it appears to have been delayed for questionable reasons by the pastor behind it), would endanger American troops in Afghanistan and send shock waves of distress throughout the Muslim world. In an age when, increasingly, small groups will have powers of destruction that were previously the preserve only of the nation-state, respect and compassion are now crucial for our very survival. We have to learn to make a place for the other in our minds and hearts; any ideology that inspires hatred, exclusion and division is failing the test of our time. Hatred breeds more hatred, violence more violence. It is time to break this vicious cycle.

courtesy of bbcimages

In response to the prospect of a Quran burning, some people planned readings of the sacred Quran. Others are organizing interfaith gatherings on September 11. Each person who has affirmed the Charter, each one of our partners and associates, will know how best to respond in his or her own community. It is an opportunity to protest against the hatred that is damaging us all; to sit and do nothing is not an option. Instead of looking at one another with hostility, let us look at the suffering that we are seeing in so many parts of the world -- not least in Pakistan, where millions of people have been victims of the flooding. On September 11, let us all try to find something practical to do that can, in however small a way, bring help and relief to all those in pain, even -- and perhaps especially -- those we may regard as enemies. We are all neighbours in the global village and must learn to live together in harmony, compassion and mutual respect.

Imam Feisal Rauf is a Sufi. Over the centuries, Sufis, the mystics of Islam, have developed an outstanding appreciation of other faith traditions. It is quite common for a Sufi poet to cry in ecstasy that he is no longer a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew and that he is at home equally in a synagogue, mosque, temple or church, because once you have glimpsed the immensity of the divine, these limited, human distinctions fall away into insignificance. We need that spirit today -- perhaps especially near Ground Zero. Here I would like to add some words of the great thirteenth-century Sufi philosopher Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi, which I have found personally inspiring:

Do not attach yourself in an exclusive manner to any one creed, so that you disbelieve all the rest: if you do this, you will miss much good; nay, you will fail to realize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for He says, "Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah" (Quran 2.109). Everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs of others, which he would not do if he were just but his dislike is based on ignorance.

It is time to combat the ignorance that inspires hatred and fear. We have seen the harm religious chauvinism can do; now let us bear witness to the power of compassion."

Former Roman Catholic nun; Author, 'Through the Narrow Gate'

Posted: September 10, 2010 08:24 PM

Today of all days, we need to stop awhile, and take stock, lest we pass yet another golden opportunity to stop the carnage.

As useless as - a banana tree in Japan?

One of Japan's greatest poets was a man called Matsuo Basho (1650-1722). He is credited by many with lifting haiku into "the realm of perfect poetry".

Basho was born Matsuo Kinsaku but later known as 'Toshichiro', and occasionally, 'Chuemon'. In 1664, his first two poems, hokku, were published under the pen name 'Sobo'.

In 1666, he moved from the city of Ueno to Kyoto's Kinpukuji Temple, and there studied Japanese and Chinese classics, as well as calligraphy. He returned home briefly in 1671, but the following year moved to Edo (Tokyo). It as there that he met the poet, Soin, a metaphorical poet whose influence on Japanese poetry was then at its peak and, subsequent effect on Matsuo so great, that he changed his pen name again: this time to Tosei. His poetry changed dramatically as well to a much freer, more metaphor filled style and this is illustrated by a poem written on a home visit from Edo:

                                        My souvenir from Edo

                                        Is the refreshingly cold wind

                                        Of Mount Fuji

                                        I brought home on my fan.

In 1680, one of his admirers built him a small house in Fukagawa, in a relatively isolated spot near the Sumida river. Another of his fans presented him with the roots of a Basho tree (a type of banana) and this was planted beside the house which he then called "Banana Hut".

                     The leaves of the Basho tree are large enough to cover a harp. When they are wind-broken, they remind me of the injured tail of a phoenix, and when they are torn, they remind me of a green fan ripped by the wind. The tree does not bear flowers, but unlike other flowers, there is nothing gay about them. The big trunk of the tree is untouched by the axe, for it is utterly useless as building wood. I love the tree, however, for its very uselessness ... I sit underneath it, and enjoy the wind and rain that blow against it.

Yet again, the much admired and talented Matsuo Kinsaku changed his name: this time to Basho (Banana tree) and with that, went on to change Japanese poetry and the art of haiku for ever. 

                                                   Breaking the silence
                                                   Of an ancient pond,
                                                   A frog jumped into the water -
                                                   A deep resonance.

Greatness can lie in the most mundane of things.  Even the seemingly, most utterly useless of objects (a tropical fruit tree in Japan) can contain great Art; and from Nature, great minds draw their inspiration. Thus it is that in William Blake's "world in a grain of sand," Basho's banana trees can be found growing.

(For more: read Penguin Classics: NOBUYUKI YUASA's introduction to "The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travels" by Matsuo Basho).

Anne Frank's tree is felled

It was sad news this week about the final demise of Anne Frank's tree in Amsterdam. Ironically, where the authorities had failed, nature won. The Horse Chestnut tree, weakened by age, fungus and other disease, was hit by the very high winds that have swept through our corner of Europe - bringing to an end a very noticeable - but mini- drought.

The campaign in recent years has been fiercely fought on both sides and last year it seemed the preservationists had won. However, I take heart from the fact that the attention resulted in numerous cuttings being propagated from the dieing tree and that almost certainly a new one will be planted. This great tree had become a hugely important symbol of freedom and the fight against facism that Anne Frank has come to represent.

“23 February 1944

“The two of us looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air, and we were so moved and entranced that we couldn’t speak.”

“18 April 1944

“April is glorious, not too hot and not too cold, with occasional light showers. Our chestnut tree is in leaf, and here and there you can already see a few small blossoms.

“13 May 1944

“Our chestnut tree is in full bloom. It’s covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year.

The world must never forget the spirit of that little girl and the heroic battle that her parents and those protecting them made. It is not just an inspiring story of humanity: it is the very essence of human sacrifice in the face of human barbarity. I will certainly never forget visiting that house.

So where there are chestnut trees - let her spirit live on!

The impending austerity programme

In my search for a new Sunday paper to read, this week I tried the Independent on Sunday (the "Indie on Sunday"). Their top story focused on the proposals made by members of the public for reducing the government's deficit.

The list contained a mix of the obviously sensible and the not so - however, in all of it the thread that doesn't appear to be present is that relating to consequence.

Consumption by its very nature requires production, transportation, marketing and selling. To each of those there are jobs and additional consumption, production, etc.

By suddenly removing the consumption of the public sector - are we not in danger of creating a very painful rod for ourselves (and others) further down the line? For example: one of the ideas is "to plant more herbaceous plants and stop planting pansies". I am actually in partial favour of the idea of stopping mass plantings of annuals in municipal planting schemes - but for environmental rather than economic reasons. However, my reasons aside, what happens if every local authority stops planting annuals in its parks and town / city improvement schemes?

The seed merchants go broke first of all; followed by the nurserymen and there's the consequent unemployment of their seasonal workers (ie people at the bottom end of the skills and income scales). The truckers / delivery people are next as there is no longer anything to deliver. The councils will cut back on their gardeners / horticultural operatives (not really a big saving there as they are all on minimum wages).

The city managers / Town Clerks will of course still stay put - but instead of overseeing a pleasant town centre, will be watching the grass grow longer between cuts, the shrub beds choke on bindweed and litter. More and more people will grow more dissatisfied with venturing into the centre on account of the physical state of it, and the numbers of unemployed, semi-skilled people sitting around either begging or drinking the last drops of their unemployment benefit cheques.

I'm thinking of replacing my six-year old car. I've four years left (maybe less!) until I retire - so it makes sense to buy one now to see out my days of employment. However, the new mood sweeping the country suggests that this is not such a good idea. Despite the appalling lack of interest being paid - I am actually being encouraged to save; to stop spending; to join in the new hobby of seeing how little we can spend. 

So like a cancer, the discontent and economic decline spreads; government department savings become the necessary source, not of investment or services, but of benefit payments to those unemployed by the austerity programme.

To avert a pensions crisis, the age of retirement is being moved back steadily. The effect will be to increase the number of grey haired, slower moving / thinking people such as myself and a decrease in the snappier / sharper young people leaving schools, colleges and universities. Mrs Thatcher and her colleagues did away with the manufacturing sector in Britain, in favour of a service economy being fed, clothed, financed, and powered by cheap resources and labour abroad; we are likely to now see more and more young people queuing for fewer and fewer "service" jobs that, ironically, fewer and fewer people can afford, or will want, to spend their money on anyway. Yes we do need people with experience to run our services - but not at the cost of ensuring the generations following us are able to also gain experience of their own.

Bored, young people with limited skills and plenty of free time at their disposal are an absolute feeding ground for those already aggrieved or feeling dispossessed to proselytize their extremist, often fundamentalist, positions on the politics of the community and eventually the state. We are potentially about to unleash a dark age the likes of which our generation has never seen. It was no accident that Hitler came to power on the back of an economic recession and political disasters and discontent that arose from the treaty terms forced upon Germany at the conclusion of the First World War.

The banking sector was bailed out despite having been the major cause of the recent recession. It's future was seen as being critical to our economy. The banks have responded to their rescue by the tax payers (who are ironically about to face their own economic ruin as a consequence) by shoring up their reserves and screwing down on investment by the private sector. The ugly faces of international capitalism (bankers' bonuses and extortionate fees) are going to figure highly in my vision of the impending apocalpse.

Governments, not banks, have the ultimate control of our economies. It is time politicians sat up and took stock of the real situation. I am not proposing spending more than we have in our coffers. I am suggesting a sensible Government spending and borrowing programme that reduces excess, removes profligacy and through a programme of investment in the capital infrastructure of the country, spends its way out of recession. Adding, as at present, to a burgeoning population of young, unemployed people, will be disasterous.

An unusual request

A SHORT STORY

It had started as a normal working day with the usual traffic in telephone and email requests that passed the time, however, by lunchtime, I was filled with intrigue:

Three plain clothed police officers had arrived in my office in late morning, presented their credentials and informed that I was bound by some legal duty to keep their meeting and mission in absolute confidence.

Satisfied that I would co-operate with them, they told me that an inmate of a prison had made what appeared to be a death-bed confession and indicated that a key part of the evidence was to be found in one of the cemeteries in my care. In my experience, the police are incapable of speaking in normal English and these three were no exception. They didn't elaborate on what the evidence might be but, being a would-be Sherlock Holmes for the moment, I immediately suspected "murder most foul". What better place to conceal a corpse than a council grave yard?

They asked numerous questions about the cemetery starting with confirmation of its physical address - 174 Paxton Avenue, and then they wanted to know about the people working there and particularly if any had suddenly left (which they hadn't).  The address seemed particularly important. They wanted me to provide the grave yard's full history: how long it had been in existence and what areas had been most recently developed and opened. As it happened, we had only a couple of years before asked a member of our staff to design a new garden for the internment of ashes. But I guess, because ashes aren't corpses, they didn't seem to think that relevant. They were though, interested in an area of older memorials in a particularly quiet part of the cemetery frequented by foxes. After my explanations and some discussion between themselves, they left, leaving behind the business card of the most senior of the group "just in case you think of something else". I added it to the rest that are stacked randomly in an old cigar box on my desk .

A few weeks later a Home Office archaeologist arrived, asked me similar questions about the cemetery at 174 Paxton Avenue and in particular seemed intrigued by the quaint combination of letters and numerals that divide the cemetery burial sections into plots and individual graves. Later he walked slowly around it paying particular attention it seemed, to the old, less visited sections and then left without any further comment. Inevitably in time the story was allowed to drift into local anecdotes of the history of Paxton Cemetery. There might be the victim of a murder interred there, but where's the news in that? It's a cemetery, isn't it?

Five or so years passed when the colleague who oversaw the daily running of all the cemeteries for me and, who co-incidently, had designed the new garden for the internment of ashes at Paxton Cemetery, unexpectedly stated that he wished to leave. I asked the usual questions as to why, and, having received all the answers expected, accepted his resignation. In due course he cleared his office in Paxton Cemetery and left.

About a month ago, we received a request from him for the right to purchase an ashes plot. There is nothing unusual in that as many people buy graves and ashes plots "in readiness", and given that he had spent many years working there, it also fitted that he would probably want his own ashes interred there. I duly handed the request over to the clerk who dealt with these requests and thought nothing more of it. 

This morning, the deeds having been prepared, the paperwork was returned to my desk for authorisation. It was then that I looked at the plot number he had requested. I reached for the cigar box of business cards.

And now, from my office window overlooking it, I can see that the cemetery gates are closed. There's a police car in the drive, another by the site office and a team of people in white overalls moving back and forth between other vehicles and a tent that they've erected over the now no longer "new" Ashes Garden and, I'm guessing, looking closer at plot number 174.

Looking in the mirror

SHORT STORY:

One afternoon, some years ago, I took a stroll through the park behind us here in Chiswick. After a while it started to rain so I ducked under the trees to take shelter and let the shower blow through.

Sitting on a log near by to my left was a middle aged man with a woollen hat and spectacles, looking into what looked like a small compact mirror. I couldn't help but wonder what on earth he was doing and watched closely. As if on cue, he looked up and smiled. "Wondering what I'm doing, I expect," he stated rather than asked.

"Well, yes, I was," I replied, trying hard not be embarrassed for having obviously stared too hard.

"I'm watching the squirrels up that tree behind me," he paused. "If I stare at them  directly they become scared; but if I just sit here and pretend not to see them they approach on their own terms."

Not knowing how to respond, I just nodded.

After a few more minutes of rain and silence, he laughed. "You don't believe me do you?"

"Well .... actually I do find it a bit ...."

He laughed again. "Yes - you got me there! No actually I was sitting here wondering what I look like and thought that this was as good a spot as any to stop and look at myself."

"Of course," I responded, hoping like hell not to sound alarmed or worse still, taken-in by his ruse.  "So what do you look like?"

"Aah - now that is the question, isn't it? Well ..." he paused again, " what I see is a silly old fool who had someone he loved to bits but took for granted, a lover he didn't love but took for granted and, now what's taken me for granted is this ... " he turned towards me so that I could see the unmistakeable dark purple and red rash of a sarcoma that started across the left side of his face and disappeared down his neck behind his shirt collar.

"I'm so ..."

"Sorry? Don't be! This is the price of my thoughtless self indulgence. And now that the rain has stopped, please be off and leave me with my mirror and ....." he didn't finish, but resumed staring into the small mirror.

I stammered a quick good-bye and walked on.

It rained again today and this afternoon, caught by a passing shower, I stopped under what i think was the same tree. Whilst staring into the rain-sodden shrubbery, I could swear something like a warm hand gently touched my neck and brushed past my left cheek. I turned quickly, but all that was there was a grey squirrel blowing its cheeks and flicking its tail impatiently on the branch about three feet behind me.

Adding oxygen to the debate

Recently Clare Balding, a near neighbour of ours, was described maliciously by a Sunday Times journalist as a "Dyke on a Bike". She took exception (as did practically the whole lesbian and gay community). She protested to the Editor most eloquently in the same paper the following week - to no avail as the same journalist followed it a couple of weeks later with repetition of his infamous views on the Welsh.

Quite why the Sunday Times believes that it is acceptible to insult many of its readers with a type of humour that it itself finds offensive when directed against the English by Muslims, or by gay people against "the family", is beyond my comprehension. 

Sue Perkins, a comedienne of some worth, tweated on Twitter last night that she was "in Scotland eating a salad - spot the oxymoron". That sort of joke is good hearted and not malicious . . . well, certainly not to me a Scot who isn't prone to ordering salads!

So where's the humour and where's the offence? Where do we draw the line? I guess we have to look at what was the writer's intention. If it is to hold up a mirror and laugh with them - then that's fun and fine; if, however, it is to hold out a stick and point or jab: that's hurtful and puerile.

Haiku: the answer to climate change

A senior colleague recently wrote asking for help with bullet points and other information relevant to a speech on cliimate change that he was due to give  to an august gathering of local politicians.

He confessed later to having bottled using my response, a haiku:

They have chopped down

the willow tree. So

the kingfishers have also vanished.

                                                   SHIKI

                                  Photo by Rakutobi on Photoramio

The Poetry Challenge this month

Poetry in the parks is re-launched this month.

Avondale Park and Cremorne Gardens have designated seats in them (an idea brought from Gunnersbury and Battishill Parks), and other park benches will have poetry books provided by the Library Service placed on them by the park keepers.

What is poetry? For William Wordsworth it was “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ... (taking) its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity”; to Steven Fry it is “a primal impulse with us all”; and to most kids on the street probably just a ‘load of old bollocks!’

All of us, I suspect, have a horror story of school lessons spent trying to come up with the answer to the question: ‘So what is the poet trying to tell us?’ Despite having had apparently meaningless nursery rhymes drilled into us as babies (“Ring - a ring of roses ...” signs of the plague! ), I suspect few were ever really inspired to look further than the classroom clock and freedom into which the slowly ticking hands would eventually release us.

I thank my Mum: she used poetry to capture my imagination and encourage me to relocate myself into a world of pea green boats that put out to sea with the owl and the pussy cat, and the like.

But poetry doesn’t just stop there!

It has the power to comment on social disasters such as in Dambudzo Marechemo’s indictment upon Robert Mugabe’s “free” Zimbabwe (The Oracle of the Povo) and even to change the world for the better: Walt Whitman’s “I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth ...” must have provided inspiration for Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, given in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

It has within it music: “Do you remember an inn / Miranda? / Do you remember an inn? And the tedding and the spreading / Of the straw for a bedding ...” (Hilaire Belloc).

And it has the means to capture the very essence of the passage of time as in Rupert Brooke’s “Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, / And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands ...” or Wordsworth’s “fair lady at her casement ....doth herself divest / Of all her radiant garments, and reclines / behind the sombre screen of yonder pines ...”.

Poetry has the ability to bring order to disordered thoughts through the discipline of its various meters and forms (from acatalectics to Zen haiku). It has inspired writers such as Stephen Fry to write books on the subject (‘The Ode Less Travelled’ came out of a discussion of the components of a villanelle) and, using blank verse (“playing tennis without nets” according to Auden), it has encouraged generations to try to free themselves of one set of bonds in order to just become tied up in others: “Freedom. Freedom. Prison of the free.” (L. Durrell). Poetry can inspire or it can make you just smile; it can uplift (Blake’s Jerusalem) or make us want to weep, as Keats is reputed to have done when reading Spencer’s “sea-shouldering whale”.

So here’s my challenge: using the excuse of enjoying the fresh air that our wonderful parks and gardens provide, stop at the poetry seat and, if you haven’t done so before: read a poem.

It will change your day:

“To see a World in a grain of sand

And Heaven in a wild flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.” (W. Blake).

A blog about Poetry

The cat long since departed from my feet and, my god daughter not yet awake in the house next door, silence fills my home – disturbed only by the tapping of my fingers on the keys of a laptop balanced precariously on the dictionary I keep beside the bed (how else to quiet the lexical koans that intrude at 3 in the morning?). Beside me, from an assortment of books, poems stare lifelessly up at the ceiling or, if the spine not yet broken by impatient hand, gasp for breath, face down into the bedclothes. Words start their unsteady journey from my tangled thoughts across the screen that replaces “Dickensian” candle and quill.

I pause and, turning note scribbled pages (“merde”!) of Keats, dip once more into a poem of my youth:

“And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.”

It is of course impossible for a girl to sleep in the lap of a legend ... or so we like to think! But there she lies and has always lain, a pre-Raphaelite, gorgeous goddess, adored for ever in alexandrine order.

Order? But surely has not poetry always been the means of escaping the “order” of the disordered world into which I have found myself? Order requires rules, regulations, religion, templates and obedience. Order requires clothes, buildings, streets, employment. Order requires, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years - a lifetime of routine. And yet I seek a place into which I can flee and indulge in the loveliness, weep in awe of the depth of peace and spirituality, or silently cry at the high emotion or gut wrenching ghastliness of this – yes, ordered too, world.

Poetry also requires order and in it is to be found the ordered (metrical) art of all seasons, the ordered (rhythmic) craft of all races, people of all shapes, sexualities, colours, sizes and in its ordered substance, Poetry fashions and tempers through an often eloquent rhyme, a sword of thought, of spirit and truth with which to, at times and with mathematical precision, cut down the disorder of our minds and the world around us.

“Freedom, Freedom, Prison of the free!” – wails Lawrence Durrell. He could have been describing Poetry.

Blank or free verse mostly holds little for me: in its particular disorder are to be often found the un-fettered and, un-resolved, doodling of an undisciplined artist. The voice is noise rather than music and the thoughts as a consequence little more than the tenuously connected words often seen in a power-point Mind Map.

In the brevity and complexity of a haiku, the ordered repetition of a villanelle, or the questionable humour of a clerihew, rules and order dictate the form through which the poet skilfully crafts thoughts, observations, feelings and stories from words.

Ah, there’s the rub of it: words!

What would poetry be without words? Words, language, communication. The screen scribbles a green line underneath that last sentence. Intrigued, I press the computer’s Help key and the anonymous sage within Microsoft advises me: “Fragment. If the marked words are an incomplete thought, consider developing this thought into a complete sentence by adding a subject or verb or combining this text with another sentence.” He (the author has to be male, surely?) then provides the following examples: “Instead of ‘Meteors the entire night’ consider ‘We watched meteors the entire night’."

Indeed! In that fragment on meteors are the music, evocation and poetry of the universe; in that sentence, a rather dull evening spent in the company of a group of cardigans watching planets.

And so, having offended my (genuinely) very dearest friends through whose binoculars and telescopes I have gratefully watched, in absolute awe, the differently configured constellations of the Aborigines in the Australian Outback, and those of the ancient Greeks in clear skies over Palm Springs, my fingers return to the keyboard as this blog seeks conclusion. “Madeline” next door wails the new day to life, the cat returns from his dawn patrol, stares critically at the books strewn where he had lain earlier and with a deep sigh, curls up and closes his eyes. The day has begun . . .

The Icelandic Volcanic Fall-out

The Press is of course having a field day: "they took our cash and repaid us with ash," etc etc. The story's origins? The eruption of a volcano that has put paid to all air travel for the passed few days, and which looks likely to continue well into next week.

Inconvenienced, we've all forgotten the impending election, the outrage caused by the British Airways's cabin crew strikes and over-looked the appalling loss of life last week caused by an earthquake in a remote corner of China.

My partner sits in Vienna, colleagues are stranded in Portugal with their families and, in Poland, the funeral of a President has to proceed without most of the world's heads of state as none can fly to Warsaw.

In short: we are all very focussed on how we are being inconvienced by this natural event.

There is though a far greater inconvenience just waiting around the corner to blow our complacency to the four winds: man-made, man-denied, climate change.

Like the denial of the horrific events of the holocaust by people living almost on top of its ovens, we in the West are today blind to the catastrophy we are overseeing with our politics, our consumerism, our fossil carbon burning and excessive consumption. It's somebody else's fault - if it is indeed happening. We are just by-standers. What can we do? we aren't in government. Oh the list goes on.

When I was doing my apprenticeship in horticulture we didn't use peat or peat-based soil mixes; we used John Innes 1, 2 or 3 mixes that we made ourselves by hand. The compost element (aka humus and soil conditioners) were of properly made and screened compost from our own heaps of green waste. Today we have DEFRA and other government departments ringing their hands at the their failure to cut the use by the horticultural trades and public. Ban it! Ban the extraction, the sale and the importation of it and any product tainted by it (Russia is a popular alternative source it seems). Force the industry and gardeners to behave responsibly. Use the current "fad" for Grow Your Own to instill a real awareness of the value of knowing where your food comes from,  how much better it tastes if not produced in a factory, and how important it is to do things properly for the sake of our children's and our neighbour's world ...if not our own.

It won't just be a lonely Polar bear being photographed in future: it'll also be the last Inuit Indian and close behind them will be the Western photographer who set out to warn us - but was ignored.

I'm loving the plane-free skies over London: the quiet gives me a chance to hear some of the sirens so easily drowned out by our growing carbon footprint. 

A day in the life of my job

My day started with the composition of a fairly lengthy response to a petition about dangerous dogs in parks.

That done, it was a quick drive out into the parks in the north of the borough. There I encountered a number of elderly folk walking their dogs and enjoying the milder weather. London is water-logged at present and there's more rain yet to come. The parks are flooded in places.

As with dogs in parks, I'm responsible for the excessive rain water in the roads and gardens surrounding the parks and yesterday afternoon was spent carefully rebutting allegations on that front too!

   Little Wormwood Scrubs 25th February 2010 

Following the tour of some of my own parks, I travelled by bus into Westminster to look at Green Park and then Hyde Park. Both are Royal Parks Agency sites, and are faring no better than ourselves at present from what I could see.

I find the dull, weather and damp at this time of year extremely depressing ... yet bumped into a colleague standing in the light rain this afternoon - absolutely delighted and literally soaking it up. How sad he must be in a hot, dry summer!

Shadows

I am currently reading "Out of Shadows" by Jason Wallace.

We went to the same school, but he was there some years after I had finished. His book, in part in the mould of "Stalky and Co" by Rudyard Kilping, is a brave attempt at portaying a fictious series of events involving public school boys in Zimbabwe. The vast majority of his readers will not, I fear, have the slightest knowledge of his subject matter and consequently be baffled by it all.

I must confess to feeling let down by the book. In part I suspect because of the constantly injected tension between characters that just reads false, and political views that were the very antithesis of the school and the parents who chose to send their children there. There was never an admiration for Ian Smith and there always were considerably more black and brown faces amongst the pupils than is suggested by the book! The other irritation is one of style: the dramatic suspense added to the closing sentences of chapters referring to unfortunate incidents to unfold later ... after the third or fourth I started skipping over them!

However those faults aside, I have enjoyed indulging myself in the mix of Shona and Afrikaans words that I recognise from my boyhood vocabulary, the descriptions of the bush and mention of places such as Monkey Hill, where the school flag was flown. I'd forgotten about the Matebele ants and devil thorns - goodness they hurt if you trod on them!

On the bullying of "squacks" by House Prefects and others, I also have a problem: have I, in adulthood, excised painful memories? Were we bullied? I don't think so! Yes, there was the odd scrap and some boys were indeed taunted and made to feel pretty rotten at times, but generally those incidents were isolated; furthermore, if anyone in authority became aware of them, all hell let loose! This story, though suggests an endemic culture of violence which is unfortunate.

The main protagonist yearns to be in England: surely then he would have been aware of the strong links between Peterhouse's house system as well as studies (Toyes rooms) and Winchester?

Missing from the story too, are Tri-colour and Bi-colour - the unique Peterhouse (Haven School in the book) - punishment meted out for minor misdemeanors. It involved writing out a text in very faint pencil and then going over it neatly in ink using a different colour ink for each letter. It took hours!

However, besides all of that: I have started more books than I care to speak of and consequently on a purely technical level am impressed by Jason's completion and ability to have this difficult story published. For me the strength of his writing is not so much in the story but his ability to evoke very strong memories of political and social events that we both lived through.

If you know this period of history in Zimbabwe, or grew up there: you may enjoy reading this book. However, if you didn't - expect to be very confused.

The Robinsons

I give notice that I am aware that a woman whose vicious out-pourings on gay people etc is in the gutter (undergoing psychiatric help) and that her husband has been forced, temporarily at least, out of office on account of his failure to declare what he knew of her financial dealings with her (former) nineteen year old, lover. Needless to say, both are politicians. She has said she will step down within days (after negotiating her golden hand-shake and pension?) and he has taken six weeks' leave of absence.

My desire to be more compassionate in my dealings towards others prevents me venting what I really feel at present about the demise of the Robinson duo ....  I am hopeful that now that they are really down, they start to appreciate the meaning of the word.

Away from Northern Ireland and Westminster they may indeed find time enough to reflect on what led to their unplanned early departure and why so many are content to see them suffer.

Is Compassion A Good Thing? revisited

In August 2009 I wrote a short blog on my response to the Scottish Government's handling of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Today I transcribe in full the Charter for Compassion that I have copied from the TED site:

"The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.
It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community."

Wow - such a simple, unifying idea whose time must surely have come!

Communicating in 2010

A recent exchange of emails with my brother in Cairns, Australia, has brought into fairly sharp relief how communications have changed in my limited life time.

As a child on a farm in Karoi, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), I can remember the huge excitement that followed a telephone call from the local telephone exchange advising my mother to be ready, sitting beside the telephone on a particular date and at a specific time, in order to "take the call" booked in Edinburgh by her brother. The phone would ring and then, before the two could chat to each other, there would be literally minutes of different exchange operators talking to one another to set up the link: Hello Salisbury this is Karoi - I have Karoi 44126 on the line.... Hello Pretoria, this is Salisbury - I have Karoi 44126 on the line.... Hello Cape Town ... and so on."

The farm's telephone was on a party line which meant not only that we could hear every telephone being rung (each had a unique ring) but neighbours could, and sometimes did, pick up their handsets and listen in to other people's conversations. How that irritated my parents!

When I first came to the United Kingdom the first port of call was always a Post Office in order to send a telegram: arrived safely ... and then after that all communication was by letter. There's a stranger!

When I was doing my national service in the Rhodesian army as a signaller I loved to tune in late at night and listen to radio hams chatting to each other around the world: how I envied their distant, exotic sounding locations and ability to chat to each other!

Now I keep in touch by email - from a laptop using wifi, or a BlackBerry. Or even by SMS on my mobile telephone (my sister's favourite method of keeping in touch).

And it's all so incredibly fast, effectively free and not reliant upon anyone with a face - just a piece of equipment and network that is maintained probably by an army of de-humanised IT experts who have replaced the ladies in the telephone exchange (or the neighbours listening in). Progress - huh!

And then there are my Blog and Twitter sites (if you really want to know what I'm up to, you'll find me there )...