29th December 2011

Not quite the bleak mid-winter.

It has it seems rained non stop since we got back from Genoa and looks like it will continue to rain until we leave for Spain, where of course it rains mainly on the plain.

But here we are mid-way between Christmas, feast of consumerism and maxing out credit cards in order to help the economy, and New Year, time for resolutions, or should that be revolutions.

The agenda for 2012 appears to be setting itself as a continuation of the 2011 agenda.

So more agonising over Europe and the Euro.

More Afghanistan.

More broken Britain.

More recession.

More all in it together.

More extravagant expenditure by those who have it to spend.

More tightening of purses by those who don't.

More Con-dem government.

This year the bleak mid-winter might drift into a bleak spring and a bleaker summer especially if the threatened recession actually materialises.

So I think that an early night is called for on Saturday followed by a quiet and reflective New Year's Day.

2011ended as years tend to do by the Archbishop preaching at Canterbury Cathedral followed by 'outraged' of Tunbridge Wells demanding that he keeps his nose out of politics, this because he quoted from the long exhortation in Cranmer's Prayer Book the 350th Anniversary of which happens to fall in 2012:

If ye shall perceive your offences to be such as are not only against God but also against your neighbours; then ye shall reconcile yourselves unto them; being ready to make restitution".


He went on to suggest that maybe rioters and bankers helping themselves to what perhaps wasn't rightfully theirs i.e. bonuses or trainers from Loot-locker, had something in common.

But given that David Cameron had announced that we were still a Christian country it seemed reasonable to me, if not to 'outraged' of Tunbridge Wells, for an Archbishop to remind us what exactly being a christian country might mean.

Of course 350 years ago things weren't exactly quiet on either the religious or the political front, with upheavals and executions as the political pendulum swung between protestant reform and catholic supremacy, things are certainly quieter now.

Cranmer was burnt at the stake in 1556 after Queen Mary, a Catholic, assumed the Throne.

2011 ended with more deaths in London and Manchester and there is little to encourage us to believe that 2012 will be any quieter or more peaceful.

We will it seems remain a divided and torn society in the year ahead so I think that the precept of Micah might offer the best and most positive hope for a New Year:

Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.


That would be some revolution ..........

24th December 2011

The Santa run had to be postponed.

The Harley was fine, more a case of a willing spirit and weak flesh on the part of the rider.

Besides there is the Crib Service with the grandchildren at 3 00 pm.

So we curled up on the settee with a coffee and read the Newspapers.

Of course its all year end stuff, will things get better in the New Year? Will the constant encouragement to overspend and load the credit card with debt mean, as a famous Private Eye Christmas record released in the sixties had it, that there will be a profit (sic) over the land?

The papers are full of lectures from politicians and pundits telling us how to go about helping to end the downturn and avoid the inevitable recession that is feared.

The big society seems to have fizzled out.

There is no future in the rhetoric of all in it together when the 99% are camped outside St Paul's and the 1% are drinking Champagne and eating steak in the restaurants in Knightsbridge.

Maybe we will wake up in 2012 to be reminded that this is the year of International Co-operation.

From those 28 pioneers in Rochdale in 1844 the Co-op has grown into a world wide phenomenon.

As the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the launch of the International Year, Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility.

At a meet the Candidates session in Penrith before the last election I asked the candidates about co-operation. The Conservative candidate dismissed the idea out of hand as naive.

The IYC web-site has a blog' see: http://uncoopsyear.wordpress.com/

It seems to me that providing a 100 million jobs around the world as co-operatives do, is anything but niaive.

Communism has failed, although the totalitarian repression of many 'communist' regimes was not actually communism.

Capitalism is also failing to provide either economic viability or social responsibility.

So maybe IYC 2012 can open a debate about the way forward in a world where religious oppression and totalitarianism are in the ascendant.

Maybe the big society will work if it becomes the co-operative society. 

My first job was as a delivery boy for the co-op in Stoke on Trent. I had a bicycle with a huge basket on the front and I delivered the orders, long before supermarkets came up with slogans like, you shop, we drop, the co-op was delivering customer's orders, or at least I was.

It's a long journey from a push bike to a Harley, I can't imagine pedalling a bike now, but maybe if the weather picks up I might get to try out my new Christmas present, motorcycle boots, early in the year of co-operation .......


 

21st December 2011

I wonder what Mrs Cameron is buying Mr Cameron for Christmas?

I imagine that they have enjoyed reading How to Spend It together, planning what kind of presents would impress their friends in Oxfordshire or on Boxing day at Chequers.

Given his recent gruelling schedule I imagine ear plugs and a face mask to enable him to nap as he flies around the world, would be a good present.

Alternately a phrase book so he can say NO in twenty seven languages or, perhaps a dedicated iphone so that he can stay in in touch with the Chancellor, that would be useful when the Triple A rating is reduced to Alpha Minus and they need to call the Samaritans!

David Lammy's book on the riots makes interesting reading.

Whilst it is not polemical its analysis is insightful and has the benefit of being based on personal experience, you get the feeling that he was there. It also, usefully, positions him as the future Barack Obama of Tottenham when he makes his bid as the next leader of the Labour Party.

The analysis is good but the prescription, as is so often the case is weak, not every gang member or young hoodie or single parent family wants a key worker sitting at the kitchen table offering guidance.

They just want a share of the profits.

Essentially Lammy is looking carefully to find that ephemeral thing, good capitalism, in which workers can feel that they have a stake.

And in doing so he quite properly castigates the bankers for privatising profit and socialising their losses, they kept the profits for themselves and were then bailed out by the taxpayer, who has been encouraged by this dreadful con dem coalition to think of the people on benefits as their enemy rather than those who award themselves enormous bonuses or who year on year manage to avoid paying their taxes.

My father was a Bus Driver in Manchester, he didn't get a bonus other than the pride he took in his work and he paid his taxes.

As a public servant he was essential to the effective running of the urban infrastructure. He got people to work on time and he got them home again. Reading Lammy's book put me in touch with why people could take pride in being 'working class'.

Their wages represented a share of the profits.

His analysis of the impact of Council House sales by Mrs Thatcher is also accurate, it was the underlying cause of the ghettoisation of the unemployed and the constant reinforcing of the development of estates where generations of unemployed live increasingly dependant on benefits because they have been refused a share of the profits.

Lammy touches on the John Lewis Partnership which is certainly a better model than Lehman Brothers, but what he seems to have missed, although I haven't quite finished the book yet, so it might be in there, is the good old, old fashioned Co-op, where as a member I both own the business and have a share in the profits.

Mutualisation is not an old fashioned gimmick in fact it is a thoroughly modern concept and points us to a better and more co-operative relationship between all sections of society.

And it is urgently needed now because we are quite probably seeing the death throes of the Capitalist Dinosaur.

It's clearly broke and needs to be fixed, radically fixed.

To be radical means to get to the roots of things and to re-examine them.

2012 is the International Year of Co-operation. It offers an opportunity to get to the roots of how a society can be managed for the good of all its Citizens and put new systems into effect that mean that we all, not just the bankers amongst us, receive a share of the profits.

So I hope that Mrs Cameron finds something simple for Mr Cameron to enjoy during the Christmas recess, I suggest two tickets to Manchester and visit to the Co-operative Museum in Rochdale. 

Cheaper than a visit to the Leonardo Exhibition at the Tate and on the way home they can share the profits with a nice bottle of co-operative wine on the train..

19th December 2011

After we had left The Jewish Cemetery in Prague we felt that lunch was in order.

So we found a cafe, after we had all decided on what to eat I went to the bar to order.

Sitting at the bar were two Americans. They were discussing the beer. Gee, one opined, it tastes just like American beer.

I couldn't help myself, Ah well I offered, the clue is in the name, Budweiser,  a brewery in the city of Ceske Budejovice, right here in the Czech Republic. so it's no wonder it tastes the same, your American Beer is in reality Czech beer.

As I turned away from the Bar with our order I heard one American say to his countryman, what an ass ........

Of course they were right, I should not have listened to their conversation and I should have kept my mouth shut and my opinions to myself.

But it always happens to me when I visit another country.

I become infatuated with its culture, its history and its people.

I always hope to be taken for a local even though I don't speak any language other than English.

Although on one memorable occasion in Czech over an evening with my daughter's friends and their family I found myself drinking with Horst, the father and by the end of the evening we were getting along very well indeed, conversing in a language which I think should have been called Bekerovka after the famous Czech liquor.

Thoughts about the Czech Republic have come to the fore with the news that Vaclev Havel has died. His life is a reminder that there is Statesmanship and there are politicians.

Unfortunately at the moment we seem to have as a choice which is no choice, to choose between politicians who appear to have set out their political strategy as sixth formers or undergraduates, worked their way up the party apparatus until, without having worked in any other arena or capacity and without any real experience, have emerged as Government and Opposition.

Vaclev Havel both as a writer and a lifelong opponent and critic of the regimes that governed Czech was invited to exchange the prison cell for the Presidential Palace.

We are in a parlous state here in the UK, isolated now in Europe, with the Banks still calling the shots over our flat lining economy, with the deficit refusing to respond to the economic strategy agreed between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor as though they were answering a question for an upper sixth economics exam where the consequences for real people are not taken into account or considered to be of no account.

The big society is no more and now we are being offered the open society but truth to tell big or open makes little or no difference if we are sidelined in Europe and there is 'no money left' and now we are reduced to listening to platitudes, and seeing vague attempts to legislate for goodness, such as the proposed tax breaks for being married.

Back at the bar the Americans continued to drink their Czech Beer.

An altogether better American beer experience happened in 1985 sitting in a restaurant in Boston with my family, we were drinking Rolling Rock with our burgers and pizzas.

The people at the next table had ordered a pitcher and two arrived, but instead of sending it back they handed it over to us at our table.

We poured the beer and raised our glasses, Cheers we said.

As they got up to leave one of the party came over and asked if we were visiting, yes we said we were, he asked if we were Australian. No English, we replied.

You like American Beer? Yes we do, we love it ...........

16th December 2011

So the delinquent families have been identified and each will have a specially trained worker, it will be like the old advert for one of the banks, which showed a Bank Manager crouched in the wardrobe, looking like he had been caught 'in flagrante'.

Oops!

There is a lovely story told about  a caseworker being introduced to such a family by a senior colleague.

They drive onto the estate, dodging the children playing in the street, drive around the burnt out cars, trying to avoid the broken glass rubbish piled up in the road, and, arriving at the house, park and lock their car securely.

The senior colleague explains that this family is being brought up by a lone parent who looks after the seven boys, his wife having left some years before.

Their standards are low and their manners shocking, he explains, but if we can keep the family together we can keep an eye on them, it's an exercise in damage limitation, and this kind of support is cost effective, we save £2 for every £1 you cost.

Don't let them see that you're shocked the children are wild, two have already been in trouble and received custodial sentences and there are fears that all seven will end up before the courts, so the aim is to prevent that from happening.

As the climb over the garden gate, which is tied up with string, they see a large Alsatian Dog in the garden.

Don't worry says the senior colleague all these families have a large wild eyed dog in the house, but he adds, don't look into its eyes, it will think that you are challenging it.

So avoiding the dog's eyes,  they edge forward cautiously and knock on the dilapidated door.

The old man opens the door and lets them in, the dog follows them and proceeds to lie down in front of the coal fire.

They spend a few minutes talking about the boys, asking how the old man is and how they are all coping, the senior colleague asks if the children are attending school.

Around the table the family is eating lunch and proceed to throw bits of food toward the dog, the young caseworker is horrified by this display of poor manners, and even more horrified when the dog stands up, walks across the room, cocks its leg and relieves itself against the kitchen unit.

Eventually they finish their business and the new caseworker arranges to call again next week.

As they leave the house and head towards the gate, the old man calls out to them, Hey! Aren't yer taking yer bloody dog with yer .............

14th December 2011

The Queen of Shops has spoken and Little Mix has won the X Factor.

How long before the girl group are appointed special advisers to George Osborne or David Cameron on some irrelevant topic as another specious attempt to rekindle public interest in their failing big society project?

We need to start shopping again, the High Street is threatened let's have an X Factor style makeover.

Better, cheaper parking. Fewer planning restrictions. Lower rates. Fewer shiny sheds. More pop up markets.

Well who knows? Ms Portas may have a point.

But comparing the High Street in Genoa with the High Street in Carlisle I would say that none of the above apply.

Parking in Genoa is a nightmare.

The shops are zoned in the sense that the High value stores line the better streets with the better addresses whilst the lower end stores, pop markets etc are found in the Old Town with the second hand shops. There are no Charity Shop,s Italians don't do charity shops.

Rates in Genoa are universally high.

Like in the UK the shiny sheds are out of town, Ikea is in Sestri for example, which is out of town and needs a bus, car or scooter to get to.

I guess that my own experience is not necessarily the same as yours or indeed Ms Portas, but the reason I don't shop much, either in Genoa or Carlisle, arises from two compelling reasons.

The lack of money and the Internet.

I do feel guilty when I buy another ebook from Amazon, I know that the closure of another lovely, local bookstore is imminent.

But the cost benefit ratio is clearly with Amazon. Oh, I know that there are Libraries, (just about).

But the ebook is instantly delivered to my kindle, I don't have to venture out into the rain and ice, don't have to drive around for hours before I can park, don't have to negotiate the in-house critic's wheelchair through a generally inaccessible town centre.

And, generally it is cheaper, which, given that my disposable income like most peoples (other than Bankers and Politicians) is increasingly being spent on keeping a roof over my head and paying the Gas Bill, is a good thing.

So it might be that the X Factor style, instant celebrity critic, still fresh from their latest TV series is not necessarily the best person to advise the Prime Minister on how to bring his big society vision to the High Street.

High Streets have been dying for years.

What is needed is not more shops and more greenfield housing developments but the repopulating of our Town Centres.

Over the years I have lived in three City Centres, Cambridge, Mass., Bradford, West Yorkshire and Genoa.

City Centre living is wonderful, energising and it is great to have your favourite department store or bookshop as your local store.

Bring people back into City Centres and the High Street will live again.

12th December 2011

Almost a 150 blog's.

Over 4000 views.

A steady stream of people stopping by to check out what is being said about the big society.

That's great and thank you and whilst this blog is read across Europe, the America's, China and Singapore as well as the UK it is still 100% an English blog, although I must admit that .blogspot.com, is American, so I can't be too jingoistic or self congratulatory.
Well today's theme is innovation. We need innovation if we are to create new products and earn our living as a nation in a competitive world.

And that is probably more true now we are isolated in Europe.

Yet how 'isolated' are we? It seems that the Tory Right have no problem with British public utilities, both water and power, being owned by companies based in France or Germany.

No problem with most London properties being owned by Russian billionaires.

No problem with our banks being owned by Santander. Or the ports, or the airports or the car manufacturers or the Football Teams in foreign ownership.

That it seems, is OK.

Well it would be better if the Glazer's allowed Sir Alex to buy a new mid-field line up.

Sitting in the darkness last evening with a calor gas hurricane lamp, reading my ebook on Kindle and watching Manchester United's goals on my ESPN app on my iphone, I thought how first century AD I was whilst equipped with 21st Century toys all designed in America and made in China.

If the new stair lift had been installed, German design I believe, the in-house critic would not have been able to use it or could even now be sitting half-way up the stairs waiting for whichever foreign company generates our electricity to switch it back on, unable to make a personal plea to Mr Sarkosy because the 'phone was both out of reach and unusable.

I cannot complain, who do you complain to?

No-one will write or 'phone to apologise, but this morning I noticed that I had still paid the bill, in Sterling not Euro's but that will come, just give it time.

How can we say that we are staying out of Europe, when we are largely owned by European Companies? How can we compete in an international market when our manufacturing is dominated by international investment?

There is a saying that the fruit never falls far from the tree.

Coalition fruit is proving to be isolationism and the defence of financiers and politician's friends.

The notion that we are 'all in this together' has proven to be nothing of the sort as the cost of living soars and the incomes of middle class families shrink.

Apparently one British manufacturer is engaged in a number of law suits about 'intellectual property rights' the company is well known and has been engaged for some years in pursuit of the dream of the 'better mouse trap'.

Whilst I have never been convinced by their attempt to out hoover Hoover, I have to admit that the hand dryers that bear their logo, which have been fitted in the public toilets in our local arts centre and museum are, quite simply 'state of the art' and really do do what it says on the tin, they are the 'better mouse trap'.

So I was especially delighted and took a real sense of pride, when recently in Genova I had to use the washroom in a cafe, to find installed there, genuinely British hand dryers that worked, that worked efficiently, that did their job with minimum fuss, so much so that I washed and dried my hands three times whilst singing 'Rule Britannia'.

10th December 2011

Driving into Carlisle last week we passed a tanker carrying sewage.

Written on the side was the word serious and under that a slogan.

The motion is carried.

As the speaker frequently comments, Ordure, Ordure, or at least that's what it sounds like against the racket of braying MP's in the background.

As the week closes the overwhelming sense that Banks and Politicians have failed us gains momentum.

As a young man I became convinced that Anarchism was the way forward, no politics, no politicians and every major decision made by means of a referendum.

An Anarchist society is essentially a contradiction in terms but I joined and enthusiastically read my way through the literature from Bakunin to Proudhon and the early Christian Anarchists.

I even became actively involved in a campaign called Anarchy in, Politics out during one election campaign when it looked like the Tories were going to be re-elected.

Despite my campaigning they were re-elected and it was some years before the Labour Party were able to form a Government.

Returning from the European Summit the Prime Minister has again sought to protect the financial services industry and The City of London by using his veto, thereby isolating Britain from Europe.

His actions raise an interesting question about what is in Britain's interest?

The newspapers are divided on this and clearly it is to soon to tell but my instinct is to feel that anything supported by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage is not going to be something that I would welcome.

Apparently Ed Milliband tweeted his response which was disapproved of by Mr Murdoch's Times Newspaper but then there is no surprise there, although it was the tweeting rather than the content of the tweet that was criticised.

I have come to the conclusion that it all comes down to being able to speak English.

If only the French and the Italians and the Germans would make English their national language then we'd get on really well with them and feel relaxed about being European, but instead they insist on speaking French or Italian or German, indeed some can speak all three languages at once.

I didn't learn a language or very much else at school and left with an 'O'Level in Woodwork.

But I do remember one teacher explaining that language gave us an insight into national characteristics and temperament. His example was Belgium which is a nation divided by two languages. The parts of Belgium nearest the Dutch Border speak French, he explained and the parts nearest to France speak Flemish, in that way he suggested, they defend their national interest.

Recently in Genova I recognised a pun in the name of a Cafe, combining the word Barrista and the name of the Street it was on to form a new word, Barribaldi.

But largely I still prefer to pun in English, once, swimming in the Mediterranean, I spotted a floating island of sewage, I called to my family nearby, don't swim here, just go through the motions ..........

8th December 2011

It has to be said that the Cumbrian weather is not letting us down.

It must also be admitted that no matter how much we might like to, we can't blame the Government.

So we continue to struggle in a country of two halves, divided by amongst other things, the weather.

Apart from almost being blown off my feet by a gust of wind on the way to the Surgery I was wrapped up in a variety of winter weather layers and wearing my green hunter wellington's, which in this part of the world are not a fashion accessory, but a necessity.

So when I arrived at the surgery looking like an arctic explorer or a Cumbrian farmer, I waited as asked in the waiting room, dripping water onto the hard wood floor.

Then the Nurse came to the door and whispered a name, it could have been any name, Mr Next or Mr Unwell, or Mr Sick, or Mr Almost Drowned.

There was only one other person in the waiting room and he immediately stepped forward and entered the room, and the Nurse closed the door.

What happened next was like a Brian Rix farce.

First the Nurse emerged looking puzzled.

Then Mr Next came out and started haranguing the receptionist.

Then the Nurse disappeared altogether and I approached the receptionist to explain that I was still waiting.

Then the nurse ushered me into the room saying I will explain it to you inside.

But, once inside, she began to question me in a somewhat patronising manner, asking if I knew why I was there, almost asking if I knew the name of the Prime Minister and saying I called your name and you didn't answer.

Whispered I said, you whispered a name.

Then it was back out into the wild weather of winter to struggle back home, wondering all the while whether it is still warm and sunny in Genoa?

It seems that the big society is unravelling rather rapidly as the Prime Minister (Now what is his name again?) attempts to tell us clearly what is happening in Europe and how he is protecting Britain's interests whilst attempting to resolve the Euro Crisis whilst not being part of the Euro Zone.

Having his cake and eating it whilst pursued by an angry mob of Eurosceptics led by the Mayor of London.

As a Nation Britain has never quite seen itself as European. Occasionally there has been a Grand Project, Concorde, the Euro Fighter or the Channel Tunnel, but our reluctance to be European was once summed up for me by a member of the congregation in my first parish.

He was retiring and he and his wife were embarking on a Mediterranean Cruise, I expressed the usual envy at his good fortune and how much I expected that he was looking forward to the trip.

No Vicar, he remarked, it's the wife as wants to do it, I'd rather stay here.

He explained that he had once had a weeks holiday in Belgium with his family and it had rained for the whole week. On the Ferry on the way home, he had commented to his wife, if that's abroad you can keep it!

We need a bigger vision for the big society than we are being given. It's got to be about more than pavement cafes and shoes worn without socks, we need markets for our goods, prosperity for people and a more equitable sharing of the nation's wealth.

The North / South divide can be seen in jobs, wages, poverty, health and well being, but if we insist on being a peripheral nation on the edge of Europe but not part of it, then it will not only be the weather that divides us ...........

6th December 2011

Driving North on the M6 last evening we travelled across Shap.

It's a long drag up the old road and it is hard to recall how significant a moment it was when the old cars and motorbikes that my parents ran managed to climb to the top without overheating.

We often stopped for a picnic whilst the engine cooled down, then checked the oil and water before setting off at a gentle pace.

It was a gentler time altogether.

Now on the motorway, whilst still a steady climb most modern cars don't even notice and even the lorries maintain their normal cruising speed.

Last night the road surface had a light covering of icy snow and still people continued to maintain their cruising speed despite the poor visibility.

At one point passing the scene of a multiple car pile up, with the mist illuminated with blue and orange flashing lights, the roadside warning lights asked motorists to slow to 30 mph, but no one did and as I slowed a lorry roared up to the back of me and I had to accelerate away to avoid a collision.

We live in pretty scary times and with its impeccable sense of timing and brilliant intuition the Government senses that this is just the right moment to raise the speed limit.

Last night seeing the motorway with so many cars roaring into the dark and snowy distance I found myself thinking of Lemmings and the phrase 'built by robots driven by idiots' came into my mind.

But hey! Nostalgia's not what it used to be and I guess that grumpiness is not necessarily the preserve of old men or women.

Not that I am young.

The news continues to focus on the Euro, the Riots and of course the the LSX protest continues to generate interest and headlines.

Other Occupy groups have sprung up around the place.

At the Co-op Northern Regional conference there was a good deal of discussion about the impact and long term effects of the campaign.

Co-operation or mutualisation is both a practical and an idealistic way of running both business and society but a recent survey found that people questioned found the Co-op 'old fahsioned'..

One of the key lessons of the LSX protest and indeed the many pop-up occupy groups is: there is another way of organising things.

A way that is inclusive and does not materially benefit the small group over and against the large.

It is unfortunate that David Cameron came up with the notion of a Big Society, because the words have now become associated with his particular form of Conservatism and cannot therefore be easily used by anyone who shares the vision of a society based on the idea of a public good.

It seems that the knee jerk response to the riots, gangs and brokenness, is not altogether right either.

Opportunism played a major part but the main focus of the sense of indignation that underlay the looting seems to have been a public dissatisfaction with policing, particularly Stop and Search.

Broken policing? Broken politics? Broken economics? Broken policy making?

But no, for the con-dem Government it continues to be, broken society.

But that will no longer do, we cannot any longer continue to travel the old and unreliable way.

I was reminded this morning of a passage in Jeremiah, 'stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is; and walk in it and find rest for your souls'.

Sadly the people of Israel said no.

So far we seem to be saying no as well, so, in the words of a Bob Dylan song, we'll 'just keep doing ninety miles an hour' down the dead end street we're on.

1st December 2011

It's clear what the best thing about being home is.

We've already spent time with children and grandchildren and look forward catching up with the rest of the family over the next few days.

Manchester United's strikers were in poor form last night at Old Trafford.

It would seem that Sir Alex's selection difficulties are made worse by some of the team not really understanding what playing for United means.

A poor performance all round I would say, and an argument for a leaner, meaner, altogether hungrier squad. May be it's time to release some of the makeweights?

If I was Sir Alex, last night would have been enough to make me give serious consideration to retirement, nobody needs that degree of aggravation when George Osborne sends you a winter fuel allowance every year.

It seems that the true strikers made their point pretty well.

Coming through passport control at Edinburgh I whispered a quiet expression of solidarity, 'Good Luck on Wednesday', and received a smiling thank you, in return.

It's interesting. When it works it can be great.

We caught the bus at 6 00 am local time in Genova the bus driver maintained a steady cruising speed and we arrived at Milan Malpensa exactly on time.

The special assistance at Milan arrived in the form of a very pleasant young lady who ushered us through the staff control area, as usual I set the alarms ringing, but the security official simply smiled at my rings and ushered me through.

Common sense is all it takes and how much better than our last experience with bags emptied, trousers falling down and stocking feet.

Then easyjet lived up to their name, the plane was due to leave at 12 05 local time and we were in the air at 12 07, amazing efficiency and lovely staff made the whole experience a pleasure.

Then home at last twelve hours after leaving Genoa we opened our front door and put the heating on.

The social contract meant that the wheelchair and its occupant was assisted onto buses, trains and planes with courtesy and dignity.

Of course that is just one story of one couple. Sadly the European Project now looks in danger of being dragged down by the banking crisis which is gaining momentum again.

Why is it that George Osborne, echoing the rhetoric of the Thatcher years, wants us to believe that the economy is like the weather, and is outside human control. His use of weather related words like 'storm' reveal someone who wants us to believe that somehow the only thing we can do is reach for the umbrellas. Not so of course. The Unions are right to point out that what is happening as working people's income is losing value through inflation and cuts in public expenditure needs a stronger clearer response from national governments.

The Polish Prime Minister put it very clearly saying that he fears German inactivity as much as if not more than, it's activity.

Every time I went to a Bancomat, I wondered whether it would swallow my card and refuse to give me any more Euro's because it had run out of them or worse my own bank was not prepared to exchange the pounds in my account for a currency that is out of control.

The British Government has made itself peripheral to the debate in Europe, if it had joined the Euro it might have more influence, but what is clear that the future is looking increasingly uncertain, the Euro's on my dressing table ready for our next visit into the Eurozone may well be worth little or nothing if the Euro collapses and national currencies reintroduced.

One travel company, based in Germany is apparently already changing its contracts with Greek Hoteliers with a reference to Euro's or New Drachma's in the event of Greece leaving the Euro.

So strike for a day and nothing changes, what we need is a sustained national conversation about how we recover from the mess that the so called 'Masters of the Universe' have got us into.

But I'm not holding my breath, the post war social contract has usually been more honoured in the breach than than observance.

This morning we went into Carlisle and walked past Sir Philip Greens new Top Shop store, it was being refurbished when we left in October, there are two high steps up to the ground floor level. The in-house critic, sitting in her wheelchair observed, 'they want me in there even less than I want to go in'.

Just as well really!

Buses in Genoa, planes in Milan, trains in Edinburgh all accessible, but not the newly refurbished Top Shop in Carlisle?

26th November 2011

Snow and Strikes, or should that be Strikes and Snow.

If it's Wednesday it must be England, to misquote a famous line from something or somewhere.

On Wednesday there will be a Strike.

And to reinforce the welcome home the weather forecast is for Snow.

Snow is no respecter of people.

Schools will be closed.

Roads will be closed.

Travel will be chaotic.

And, however many days of work will be lost.

The strikers will also be accused of not being respecters of people.

Schools will be closed.

Roads will be closed.

Travel will be chaotic.

And, however many days of work will be lost.

This strike is over pensions. Being for once, in the right place and the right age at the right time I am now a pensioner.

I even retired early so I can't comment, but I can understand the anger when, as it seems is happening, employment conditions are being changed without proper consultation and people will end up working longer and paying more, for less.

Politicians are in a mess over this, the Labour leader is compromised by what he knows will be forced on him if and when Labour is in power. The Conservatives are now hiding behind Danny Alexander who swears that blue is orange and everyone will be better off and they have been listened to.

We'll see what happens on Wednesday.

Italians are used to strikes, often happening at the drop of a hat and without warning.

Our recent visitors were stuck in Gatwick because a strike prevented their plane landing in Genoa.

Apparently the ground crew had walked out, fortunately they walked back in, so the travellers didn't have a sleep over at Gatwick.

But I imagine that some unlucky travellers couldn't join their cruise ships that day.

There are all sorts of reasons to strike but I still think that the work-in at Govan sent out a more powerful message and for that reason my true folk hero has always been Jimmy Reid rather than Arthur Scargill.

We fly on Monday but all week we have been receiving emails from the airline. I cannot quite see how a proposed strike on a Wednesday should affect a flight on the preceeding Monday but apparently check in has been brought forward half an hour.

If the previous two flights are anything to go by that will mean more time stuck in the special assistance lounge at Milan Malpensa watching Italian TV and sinking slowly into madness as the flight delay grows longer.

But there is an upside to all this, a silver lining to every cloud.

According to my newspaper today Downing Street staff are going to staff the Border Controls during the strike.

I am left with a picture of an Angry American ready to give someone hell after a gruelling delay, only to be left tongue tied as s/he is welcomed into a gridlocked Heathrow by an old Etonian!

Unfortunately we are flying into Edinburgh so in our case it will be Alex Salmond, pity it can't be Jimmy Reid. 

24th November 2011

On a Eurocamping holiday in France in 1982 I  met a fellow Euro camper, (The addition of  the word Euro in front of the word Camping somehow transformed the experience from dull, boring and cheap to exciting, adventurous and sophisticated) eventually, actually quite quickly, the conversation turned to, and what do you do?

I muttered my usual holiday cover story about being a poet (who wants to meet a Vicar on holiday?) and he told me that he was 'in' shipping.

Well actually, he said, I suppose I make my money from currency speculation, I buy goods in one currency and sell in another and sometimes keep a ship at sea a few extra days until the exchange rate means that we can land the cargo with an increased profit.

Later that day we exchanged our last travellers cheques for Francs and hoped that they would last until we returned to the relatively safe harbour of the Pound Sterling.

That was my second trip abroad, the first was Germany in 1967 when the currency was the Mark but I subsisted on pfennigs, since then I have travelled more frequently.

The biggest headache was always trying to do the calculation, usually on the hoof, whilst the shopkeeper was wrapping the shopping up, to work out what we were paying in 'real' money i.e. Pounds.

Then came the Euro and the calculation became simpler, wherever you were in the Eurozone, divide by three and multiply by two.

According to my newspaper the the Euro is now under threat because the Bundesbank want to rename it the Mark and it is both overvalued and undervalued and until the economic conditions are right Britain will remain loyal to and dependent on Sterling.

Which hardly helps answer the question is the Euro safe?

As our current trip to Genova draws to a close I would argue that it is, but that it is still only worth 66 pence of Sterling.

How do I know this?

Because I went to buy a catalogue of the Van Gogh exhibition in the Palazzo Ducale only to find that it was priced at 35 Euros.

I estimated that its equivalent price in the UK would have been around £20. Divide by three and multiply by two and 35 becomes approximately 23, so I didn't buy the catalogue because it was overpriced in Euros.

Unfortunately we cannot exercise the same discipline with food, drink or other essentials so we continue to pay too much, roughly a third too much, for everything we buy.

But then, when sitting outside in glorious November sunshine enjoying a G&T, a third too much seems to be worth the extra if only for the sunshine alone, so we don't complain.

Should we be in the Eurozone?

Lord Ashdown thinks so, and thinks that eventually we have to be and on this I find myself agreeing with the Liberal Peer.

It seems crazy to me to place yourself outside the club of which you ought to be an active and influential member, even on the committee etc.

Would the over valuation have mattered so much if we had joined the Euro, I suspect not, and importing and exporting would presumably have been more straightforward?

Now it seems that, on the one hand the continued safety of the Euro is crucial to the con-dem's economic strategy and on the other the Conservative part of the coalition wants to place itself as far outside the sphere of influence as it can.

Which seems like a case of, heads you lose, tails you don't win?

But then capitalists make hay wherever the currency sun shines, because of course they are in the Euro and the Dollar and the Kronor and the Pound, wherever and whenever it suits them.

They just keep their ships at sea a bit longer or land their cargoes in more economically beneficial harbours.

22nd November 2011

There is a marvellous exhibition in Genoa, The Galata Museo del Mare. (The Museum of the Sea).

It tells the Story of Genoa's rise to power as a sea port in the Mediterranean.

The story takes the visitor from Galleys, to Galleons, to the huge cruise ships which now use Genoa as a base for holiday makers choosing a Mediterranean Cruise as holiday or winter break.

Something that I didn't realise although in a sense it shoud have been obvious, is that thousands of poor people fled Italy as unemployment and povery gripped the country.

Like so many Europeans they fled to the USA as emigrants seeking a new life.

Just as in Ireland and Scotland, clearances and dramatic shifts in agricultural practice, enclosures and folk simply driven off the land they had occupied, alongside poverty and starvation, meant that desperate people had no choice.

In one village that we visited, just outside Genoa, there is a huge memorial erected to the memory of those who left their families and communities to seek a new life.

America was the promised land.

The final experience for the visitor to the Museum is to relive the experience of an emigre.

As you arrive, in the exhibition hall on level three you are given a Passaporto and an official (Ufficio) emigration (Emigrazione) certificate or ticket.

You then move through the display which takes the form of boarding the ship that will take you across the Atlantic to New York, your final destination, my ticket was dated 20th September 1922.

The trip was rough, the accommodation poor, the weather terrible with stormy seas, thunder and lightening. But we arrived having managed to avoid the terrible illness that befell many of our fellow passengers.

Then of course we had to be processed through customs.

Then we were questioned by an immigration official.

This turned out to be a frightening experience with questions thrown at you without any obvious logic whilst still reeling from the shock of the voyage, the cramped conditions, the fetid atmosphere of the mens quarters and the poor food.

We had to answer a whole series of questions about our background, our health, our wealth and whether we had relatives or anyone who could sponsor us.

Interspersed with these questions were other questions about our politics and life style.

Was I a polygamist?No!

Was I an Anarchist? Hesitation!

Then came the result, REJECTED.

He who hesitates!

Fortunately I still have my British Passport and continue to be hopeful that when I land in the UK next week I will be allowed to enter the country and hopefully be welcomed.

But even now, in 2011, thousands of people from Africa are desperately fleeing war, turmoil, starvation and seeking a better life in the West, in Europe and in Britain.

As the exhibition dramatically illustrated, they risk seawreck and drowning as they cross the Mediterranean in small boats, often paying huge sums of money for their passage or being recued by the Italian Coast Guard Services.

And then, if they can prove that they are not polygamists or anarchists and do enter Italy, they will be held up and rejected at Ventimiglia when they try to cross into France, this despite the Schengen agreement.

History has a way of repeating itself.

As people seek to better their lives, they encounter frontiers that cannot be crossed and rejection that cannot be appealed. 

18th November 2011

Having just celebrated another wedding anniversary I recognise that numbers can be understood as achievement.

Wedding Anniversaries are usually celebrated in numbers like 25, Silver; 40, Ruby; 50, Gold and 60 Diamond, well we are somewhere between Ruby and Gold and that feels like an achievement.

Certainly when, as a fresh faced and naive young couple, we stood for our photographs outside on a freezing cold November day in Salisbury the thought that over forty years later we would be celebrating our anniversary sitting outside in warm Italian sunshine toasting each other with a G&T, was unimagineable.

Sometimes the achievement is in the number itself, sometimes the number can imply determination, dedication or perseverance but the numbers do matter.

Tragically a number that has appeared in the press over the past few days is neither a cause for celebration or a reason to be cheerful.

The number 1,000,000, indicates the number of young people unemployed in the UK.

C Wright Mills the sociologist has a comment in his book The Sociological Imagination.

Describing the impact of unemployment in a community he says 'the very structure of opportunity has collapsed'.

That is what has happened in the UK for our young people and the fact that in the rest of the Eurozone, Spain, France and Italy things are worse, does not make it OK.

Our politicians should be ashamed. Our business leaders should be ashamed.

We have allowed apprenticeships to disappear. We have allowed the market to replace common sense and wisdom. We have exported jobs and allowed the foreign ownership of our public utilities.

We have put profit before people.

From school to dole queue is not a career move that any young person would choose, especially when as they arrive as the latest sorry statistic, they are criticised and blamed by the millionaire members of parliament, individuals whose personal wealth has meant that they neither wanted or needed a job, simply assuming their inheritance and their role in the family business, or taking up politics as a kind of hobby.

This 1, 000, 000 is a statistic and a number that we should be deeply ashamed of as a nation, it means a gross cost that is significantly higher than the cost of investing wisely in our children's futures.

The cost both to the individual and the nation will be financial, but it is a cost that will also be paid by young people and their families in emotional and physical health.

In Spain the 'indignado's' have camped out in the centre of Madrid and other urban centres to demand changes to the political system.

The LSX campaign at St Paul's Cross is aimed specifically at the financial system and the Stock Exchange alonside such protests, we need in the UK a similar expression of indignation at the colossal and tragic waste of the talent and abilities of our young people.

Whilst personally, we have taken some degree of pride in our achievement, simply staying together like Derby and Joan 'for forty years or more' as the song has it.

However as we look at our grandchildren, their friends and their peers, we fear for their futures.

Their hopes and ambitions need to be nurtured and encouraged, need investment and a humane social policy, need apprenticeships and training opportunities, need a sympathetic and realistic government, if they are to be realised.

Our young people need a 'structure of opportunity' that allows them to look forward to a lifetime of fulfilling and rewarding work, inventing things, designing and building things, making things, building a future for themselves and generations to come.

We can't celebrate this million so let's set to and change it for something we can celebrate, a future for our young people.

16th November 2011

Last evening I watched a wonderful documentary made by the National Film Board of Canada.

It followed the activities of a group of homeless men in Vancouver.

Their 'Day' job was collecting tins and bottles which they sold for a dime or a nickel to maintain their simple lifestyle.

But they had developed an extreme sport, racing the shopping trolleys, which they used to collect their tins and bottles, down the steep hills of Vancouver. The Trolleys could reach speeds of 50 or 60 mph and the sport looked pretty scary, very dangerous but thrilling, like extreme sports usually are.

When I lived in Boston I was aware of the homeless who pushed their trolleys around the centre of the City collecting bottles and cans, both a useful service and a form of regular income.

Here in Genoa I have, insofar as language and lifestyle allow, become friendly with a homeless man who lives near the crossing near where we live, he spends his day begging from the cars paused at the traffic lights and always greets us with a friendly wave and a Ciao, Buongiorno or Buonasera as we pass by on our way into town.

Like the UK there is no fee payable for returning a bottle or a can so they remain discarded on the sidewalk or under the bushes in the parks and gardens.

Litter and homelessness are causes of public concern.

I read recently about the agencies in London complaining that homeless people had joined the LSX protesters in their camp at St Paul's and that this was 'hindering' the agencies work in re-settling their homeless clients.

On eof the first voluntary projects that I set up, whilst still in my twenties, was a hostel for homeless people, this led to a campaign to re-settle individuals into abandoned houses in a blighted area around my Church through a campaign of organised squatting.

Homeless people often reflect the general public in the sense that the reasons for their situation can be very varied, arising from illness, marriage breakdown, even suprisingly, choice.

Ross Raisin's new book Waterline explores how a settled man with a job and a family can so easily become another homeless statistic, moving from shelter to shelter.

Having read some of the interesting and challenging stories emerging from the LSX Camp it does seem to me that what has been created, possibly unintentionally, possibly intentionally, is a microcosm of wider society, with its health care provision, catering, university tent, lectures, active democracy, the LSX camp looks uncannily like a big society at work, or possibly in this case a small society with big aims and ideas.

Whatever, if you work on the basis that 99% cannot be wrong then perhaps its worth exploring the principles that underlie, not so much the demonstrators public aims which are becoming increasingly clear as the Global economy continues to act in a dysfunctional manner, proving beyond doubt that capitalism is part of the problem not part of the solution, but the organising principles that make the camp an exercise in democracy.

So if the Prime Minister wants some advice on how a big society could work in practice he should maybe take advice from St Paul's.

Meanwhile, lets add 5p to every bottle and can to add another income stream alongside the Big Issue, encourage active recycling and challenge Mr Dyson to design a faster, sleeker shopping trolley ....... 

14th November 2011

Was it a good game?  Was it a positive sign that things might improve at Euro 2012?

It was hard to judge from this game, England were defensive, the goal was somewhat 'lucky' and Fabregas thought that the best team lost, but then he plays for Arsenal, so that reaction was somewhat predictable.

Still I couldn't help feeling that normal service was still on offer. That come the serious competition England supporters will be disappointed again.

It is too easy to find excuses which might well be reasons.

Not enough investment in Youth Academies. Too many foreign players in the premiership. A lack of British candidates for the manager's job. Who know's but for anyone who follows a local team, whether as a season ticket holder, a viewer on TV or however they watch the game, whilst there will be disappointmens and cries of 'we wuz robbed', week by week the team will reward their support.

Sadly not so England, even if the team sheet reads like your favourite club, its performance will in all likelihood disappoint on the day.

When I lived in Newcastle, none other than Sir John Hall, he of Metro Centre fame commented in the local press, that when the team did well then production would improve in the Shipyards, he was talking historically of course.

But there was never any doubt that the Team's performance affected output.

Whether it was in a pit village, a shipyard or an engineering firm, from Birmingham, to Glasgow, from Tyneside to Sheffield and Manchester, Saturday's result influenced both attendance and attitude on the shopfloor during the week that followed.

Whether this explains the current state of the English economy is difficult to say but the latest news continues to be as depressing as the defensive display of the English football team.

Inflation is a regressive tax that impacts most severely on the poorest, but the Chancellor's latest proposal is designed to de-link the rise in benefits from the headline rate of inflation, which will be doubly regressive.

The Occupy protesters, supported by Ed Milliband, claim to represent the 99% who are now paying the price for the financial disarray which has resulted from the cavalier approach to the development of 'financial products' based essentially on re- packaged, unrepayable debts from sub-prime mortgagees in the United States.

In fact the proportion is possibly different in the sense that those who have prospered or been unaffected by the current crisis is more than 1% and the imbalance between reward and effort has seen CEO benefits increase disproportionally to the rewards for employees limited to an average 2.5% which the Chancellor is, apparently, seeing as the cut off point for increases in benefits.

Questions over the Government's record continue to rise with a conservative MP privately critical of the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary's performance over Border Controls raising eyebrows, the Lib- Dem's trying to face in two directions at once as they seek to support and oppose their coalition partners at one and the same time.

So whether football is a bell weather for the state of the nation or not, the economy, the Government and Fabio Cappello's youth policy, continue to struggle to convince, meanwhile apart from the weather, which continues to favour the South over the North, England remains as Shakespeare described it: a blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ........

11th November 2011

At Eleven a.m. today we paused briefly and remembered.

Across the world, in different countries people were remembering.

In my childhood I recall that everything stopped, it was as though the clocks stopped ticking and the Birds stopped singing. But then my Childhood was so much closer to the events not only of WW1 but even more so of WW2.

Then people were remembering their friends, families and colleagues in arms.

In Italy, Remembrance Day is the 4th of November,  the day of the Armistice of Villa Giusti, although in recent years it has been transferred to the first Sunday in November.

We will keep Remembrance Day on Sunday, with a special service and prayers in the Chiesa Anglicana, I plan to say something about my experiences with the Charity Toc H which helped me to re-engage with the events of Remembrance.

For other people of course recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the corteges that have passed solemnly through the town of Wootten Bassett, and the news headlines recording yet another death of a young man or woman in a distant conflict, far removed from home and family, has brought home the reality that throughout the so called peace of recent years, wars have raged across the world and innocent people have lost their lives.

In the midst of remembering every day events continue to challenge and disturb.

Yesterday we walked down past the area where flooding had ravaged the centre of Genoa and where lives had been lost. The underpasses were being pumped out and volunteers were busy clearing away the mud and detritus of glass frontages and shutters, that had been washed away by the force of the flood, along with the contents of window displays.

At one point we passed a tent on the side walk and realised that it was a stall selling mud caked shoes, presumably washed out of the shop windows and into the underpasses.

There were trays of shoes, some presumably having been on display for hundreds of Euros, this being the best shopping street in Genoa, all were now for sale for twenty euros, I imagine that the proceeds would go to some Charity for those affected in some way by the floods.

It was a bizarre sight, mud drenched designer shoes in plastic trays being sorted through by bargain hunters, it had the feel of a Harrods Sale, post deluge.

Today in the Co-op the in-house critic had to use the facilities, having acquired the 'chiavi', I put our shopping down briefly to open the door only to see a figure scurrying to where I had left the basket of shopping for which at that point we had paid and which contained the ingredients for our weekend meals.

I moved swiftly and headed the young man off at the pass.

Minutes later I heard a commotion to see him being escorted from the premises by a member of staff who had retrieved a bottle of spirits from his coat pocket.

Excitement, danger, threat. The adjectives that describe urban life.

Each day as we walk through the wealthy streets of this affluent town we are amazed and disturbed by the people, fellow citizens of post war Europe, who are forced to beg for the essentials to sustain life, and yet ..........

Only a week or so ago I read the Gospel for All Saints Day, it is a manifesto for saints, the poor at heart, those who mourn, the merciful, all who seek peace.

For them at least let us keep a silence on Remembrance Day.

9th November 2011

The weather in Genoa appears to be returning to normal with the low pressure zone filling and clear skies and warm air returning, although warm to a temporarily exiled Englishman to a Genovese it is now autumnal, so my T Shirt is looked at somewhat askance by people dressed in overcoats with mufflers and gloves.

To us it feels like a summers day but to locals it is time to get ready for Christmas.

Yesterday with rain still in the air after the thundery showers and the flooding we decided to take ourselves along to Cinema City where a film advertised as Lingua Originale, was being shown.

The film, Cowboys and Aliens was based on a graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

It is an old fashioned western with the added twist of UFO's.

It was both entertaining and intriguing, reminding me a little bit of Eric von Daniken's, Chariots of the Gods, which appeared to convince many people that Jesus was a space man.

I remember in Youth Clubs in the 70's, teenagers waving the book under my nose and challenging me as the new curate, to refute the 'scientific' facts produced by von Daniken.

The Cowboy narrative is one of the core stories that human beings tell each other around the camp fires. It is central to the human need to tell stories, its popularity arising precisely because it is a core story and it often used as the progenitor of the Capitalist ethic.

There are good guys, bad guys, whores with hearts of gold, moral courage and heroism and, usually, good wins out and the hero rides into the sunset.

Cowboys and Aliens has all this plus some rather clever, self referencing, humour and its triumph is that in the end the whole human race is the good guy seeing off the alien bad guys, Cowboys and Indians are on the same side and even the outlaws are invited to share in the general state of grace.

Finally in a post feminist conclusion the woman who is neither a whore or entirely what she seems to be, having emerged from the camp fire naked and unharmed, offers herself as a final sacrifice to rid the world of the 'demons'.

Central to the narrative thrust of the film is the aliens desire for gold.

So desperate are they for gold that they collect gold where they can, the robber is robbed of his stolen bullion, and people are snatched in order that their spectacles and watches can be melted down in the alien's space ship factory.

With Harrison Ford, bringing the memory of his role in Star Wars as Hans Solo bringing down the Aliens with lances and stone axes and Daniel Craig reminding us of his role as James Bond, it is somehow unsurprising when an arch alien, demon, is drowned in molten gold.

Apparently one of the 'suprising facts' described in the report Value and Values published by the St Paul's Institute is that people in financial services think that they are paid too much and yet say that 'salary and bonuses' are (their) most important motivation.

Essentially the report is a survey of attitudes, which like people can be contradictory, but implicit in the text is a view that ethical capitalism is possible even desirable.

The trouble is that 'ethical capitalism' like UFO's is often reported but has rarely if ever actually been seen.

Perhaps what is needed now is for the Church to look at these issues again and in a future report to take on board that if the planet is to survive we need to adopt the view that prosperity is possible without GNP growth, see Tim Jackson's book Prosperity Without Growth which offers a new economic paradigm or the recent report from the Co-op published on November the 9th, showing that 300 Co-op's worldwide have generated $1.6 trillion, roughly equivalent to the GDP of the world's largest economy.

Both these alternative approaches to Capitalism suggest that there are other ways of doing the world's business.

Capitalism, like the wild west, needs to be radically rewritten if the world is to survive its current crisis ......

7th November 2011

I came to Genoa, locally it is called Genova, partly to enjoy some better weather, partly to take on the role of Chaplain at the English Church, the Chiesa Anglicana, and hopefully be of some use, partly because the in-house critic and I enjoy the continental lifestyle, the caffe corretto's, the G&T's in a bar in a sunny Piazza just watching the crowds pass by.

But on Friday we found ourselves sitting in the rising heat in a flat in Genoa in the middle of a classic mediterranean low pressure system.

Outside there was torrential rain, thunder, lightening and chaos.

On the internet we saw pictures of flooded underpasses, the river which is normally a trickle became a raging torrent and, where it met a rough sea and high tides, had burst its banks flooding the underpasses and streets around Brignole railway station.

Then we received an email to say that Mayor has advised everybody to stay at home for their own safety, no one was to use private transport, the police were issuing fines if you were in town in your own car or on one of the ubiquitous scooters, and if you were on the ground floor or in a basement, the advice was move to an upper level.

The main shopping street was flooded and there were ten fatalities and numbers of injured. All night the sirens sounded as the rescue services ploughed backword and forwards.

You knew how bad it was when the football was cancelled.

The next morning as the clear up began there was more rain and the curfew was re-imposed for a further 24 hours.

Whilst the actual storm blew in and was beyond the power of any individual to control it, just along the coast in Cannes, the economic storm continued to rage.
The Euro trembled in the strong winds.

The exchange rate floated, but managed not to sink and Berlusconi left Cannes to return to Italy saying that everything was fine, after all the planes were fully booked, the hotels were full and Italians were wealthy.

And of course in a strange way, whilst he is wrong at so many levels, he is also right.
By Sunday the Sun had put his hat on and was back out to play, the passegiata was resumed and the all the outside tables at our local cafe were full with people drinking Prosecco and eating delicious pastries.

An amusing footnote to all this was that at 10 30 during the evening of the storm, my doorbell rang  I assumed it was someone wanting me to open the Church as a refuge, which we had offered to do, or a member of the congregation affected by the flooding taking up our offer of a bed for the night.

I opened the door to a delightful young lady holding a bottle of wine.

As she spoke, despite my non existent Italian, I realised that it was not a gift that I was being offered and so I invited her in and retrieving the corkscrew from the kitchen draw, opened the bottle with a flourish.

Thanking me profusely she went back to her own apartment rejoicing.

Always glad to be of service!

5th November 2011

I spent some time clearing up in the Chiesa Anglicana in Genova yesterday, amongst the old pamphlets and books which have accumulated over years I came across a torn old pamphlet, without its cover, on closer examination it turned out to be edited by William Temple and published by Penguin in 1943.

Flicking through it the word 'economics' caught my eye:

The author of this particular essay, Malcolm Spencer, is discussing what the Churches have to say about Wealth and Poverty. He quotes a Papal Encyclical and a report of a conference held in Oxford.

The Papal Encyclical  and the Oxford Conference Report draw attention to the 'magnitude of social injustice which has marked the industrial life of the West for generations, and which still persists.'

Spencer quotes the Encyclicals as they speak of, 'misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working classes who are 'surrendered' to the greed of unchecked competition'.

But the report from the World Conference of Churches held in Oxford in 1937 is much sharper:

(i) The ordering of economic life has tended to enhance acquisitiveness and to set up a false standard of economic and social success.

(ii) Indefensible inequalities of opportunity in regard to education, leisure and health continue to prevail; and the existence of economic classes presents an obstacle to human fellowship which cannot be tolerated by Christian conscience.

(iii) Centres of economic power have been formed which are  not responsible to any organ of the community and which in practice constitute something of a tyranny over the lives of masses of men and woment.

(iv) The only forms of employment open to many men and women, or the fact that none is open at all, prevent them from finding a sense of Christian vocation in their daily life.

Spencer concludes: the present economic system .... necessarily produces intolerable degrees of poverty and intolerable conditions of unemployment and insecurity on the one hand and, on the other hand, to pile up totals of wealth and power which are a standing menace to the peace and stability of human society

Seven years after the Oxford Conference the World was at War.

3rd November 2011

The debate about fairness, in terms of both rewards and opportunities has been taken on board by amongst others, Rowan Williams.

He appears to be favouring a Robin Hood Tax, so called because it robs the rich to help the poor?

Well not exactly, but it is an attempt to re-balance a financial system that is intrinsically unfair by definition however it can only go so far and in effect is tinkering with effects rather than examining underlying causes.

The trouble with Bishops claiming that they understand poverty was best illustrated by a story I heard when I was a Vicar in Salford.

I have no idea whether it was true or not but it made its point pretty effectively.

A row had broken out in a Parish and the Parish Priest had been called in to see the Bishop. From the Bishop's study window it was possible to look down and see the parish in the distance.

You see, says the Bishop, from here it all looks so peaceful.

Yes, replied the Parish Priest, and I am sure that Hades looked peaceful from the comfort of Abraham's bosom.

So, thank you to all the helpful Bishops amongst the twitterati but I don't need the advice you so helpfully dispense.

So what can be done, the post war settlement has failed, no more homes for heroes, no more planning the economy to protect working people, no more welfare safety net. We now live in a world of bankers bonuses and CEO pay levels which, apparently now average £2.7M annually.

New Labour were relaxed about people becoming filthy rich because that was clearly in the long term plan.

So we were encouraged to borrow against the constantly rising value of property, we did it personally but  the Government also did it and now we are paying the price, through unemployment and cuts, cuts, cuts in public services.

Now we are in the mess we are in and there is no obvious way out and we are not all in it together some are more in it than others. So what can be done?

I have always thought that there were three important principles which should be written into the capitalist system:

The first is that there should be an agreed ratio between the highest paid and the lowest paid in any organisation. What that ratio should be is a matter for debate. A factor of ten would mean that in a company where the lowest paid earned £9000 the highest paid would earn £90,000, still a huge and questionable differential.

The second builds on the idea of a minimum wage to guarantee everyone a national minimum income. Whether the national wealth is generated by a few financiers or by mass manufacturing, that wealth needs to find its way into as many pockets as possible in order that it can be spent and saved, thereby creating both a market for goods and pool of national wealth. The current rewards system which gives a few millions and millions little or nothing has failed to stimulate either demand or saving.

The third is a jubilee. The biblical jubilee required that in the fiftieth year every man's (sic)  patrinomy be returned so that all would be restored to their own land and titles. The effect of this was to legislate against the accumulation of property and wealth in the hands of a few oligarchs. Ultimately taxation is not an adequate mechanism for redistributing wealth and a more radical intervention is required, this is both idealistic and impossibly millenarian but a regular debt write off for individuals, at least once in a lifetime, is both necessary and just if the usury of the banks is to be combatted and an equitable system introduced.

I once bought a book simply for the title, it was called The Millenium Postponed, inevitably ideas like these will be dismissed as unworkable and impractical, but compared with the National Lottery creating a new millionaire each week through chance, I suspect that they will have the advantage of simply making life less chancy and more equitable for people.

2nd November 2011

There is a constant knocking from the flat above.

It's hard to imagine what they are doing?

They can't be laying carpets because the apartments have marble floors.

There is no metallic ring so it can't be plumbing.

They could be hanging pictures but by now they would have more pictures than the Louvre.

And it's definitely not the assembly of Ikea furniture which only requires an Allen key.

I can only imagine that they're trying to escape by knocking a hole in their floor, which is our ceiling.

Any minute know I expect plaster to start falling from the ceiling and a smiling and plaster smeared face to appear.

I will say Salve, which is pretty much the best I can do in Italian and move a chair under the hole in a friendly gesture of welcome.

Either that or, if it continues for much longer, I might go up, knock on their door and demand an explanation.

Sadly this will do little good as I won't really understand and will have to demand to be shown.

I turned up a week early for a meeting today.

I think that it was put down to English enthusiasm because Italians tend to be late for most things. This can be partly explained by the fact that most events, be it Concerts,  Lectures or any  public gathering are normally prefaced with long and detailed speeches, usually by three or four of the more important people present. so if you turn up at 5 45 pm for a concert advertised as starting at 5 00 pm you may well have another 15 minutes of speeches before the concert actually starts.

I am sure that the audiences are generally delighted by what they are hearing and even expect it, but if you have difficulty following the gist of the argument, then it can become tedious.

With the saga of the campers outside St Paul's going on and on and more campers appearing in a street near you anytime soon, apparently there are campers at The Monument in Newcastle and more in Bristol and Glasgow, the movement is growing and the debate about a better, fairer way of organising our politics, our economics and our democracy is being extended Mr Cameron's vision of a Big Society is being realised, but not in the way he hoped. As I have said before, you should always be careful what you wish for.

In fact I am thinking of changing the strap line for this blog because the big society appears to be no more. At least I am hearing no more speeches or reading any more reports.

Soon we will be renegotiating our membership of Europe. I wonder, if that happens, whether the French will close the Channel Tunnel?

Indeed the whole of Europe could turn its back on us which would be a tragedy really because it does seem to me that what makes society large, in both the geographical and spiritual sense, is its openess to celebrating difference and embracing the cultures and ideas from other nations.

Walking to my meeting this morning, a week earlier than necessary, I paused for a coffee and stood at the bar like an italian and drank my caffe, exchanging a greeting with the Barrista and the man stood next to me.

As I left I realised that the name of the bar was a pun in Italian, the name of the street crossed with the name for the person who makes the coffee, barrista, I had ordered my caffe in the Cafe Baribaldi.

The little joke made me smile and I tried to think up some other puns that might amuse the politicians as they listen to the boring speeches and negotiate and renegotiate their way out of the current financial mess.

But I had arrived for my meeting and still hadn't got very far with my first attempt ......

31st October 2011

The LSX campaign still grabs the headlines and everyone is at it.

The idea of camping out in central London in around St Paul's Cathedral in order to make your views about the mess that the financial services industry has got us into is a pretty good one.

I am sure that if there had been a Stock exchange in Bradford and there had been a similar camp, on the whole the Chapter would have welcomed the campers, although I have to admit they never really liked the modern sculpture I installed.

But what is interesting is how the real focus of attention has been the Cathedral itself.

The Dean and Chapter seem to have made a hash of both their response and the PR campaign that followed it.

Closing the Cathedral was plain silly and the queue of pompous prelates lining up to have their two penn'orth was embarrassing really.

It's not as though the protesters don't have a point.

From Madrid's 'indignados' through the 'Wall Street' protesters, an international network of peaceful protest is drawing attention to the fact that financial services and bankers have been getting away with blue murder, pocketing thousands of Euros, Dollars and Pounds in Bonuses whilst unemployment has risen dramatically as Government's have tried to cut their way out of recession. In particular unemployment amongst young people has become a scandal which should embarrass all of us.

Things are simply out of kilter.

The Euro is valued now at almost a Pound Sterling, the exchange rate is around £1 20, but if you go into a store to buy something in a Eurozone country that has an equivalent value in the UK the original calculation, divide by three and multipy by two still applies, in other words in reality the Euro is still, in terms of its purchasing power, worth 66 pence Sterling which was its opening value when it was introduced.

So who is pocketing the difference?

Whilst politicians and church leaders flounder around becoming increasingly angry with the protesters and each other, recently reported exchanges between the Italian and German leaders and President Sarkosy and David Cameron, were more reminiscent of the Kindergarten than mature political debate, the protesters coninue to ask perfectly proper questions in a language that is tolerant and inclusive.

When I was at theological college, and I wasn't a Greek Scholar, so I might be making this up and Google hasn't been able to help, but I am sure that I was told or read, that in St John's Gospel the actual translation of the word dwelt, as in, God dwelt amongst us, was tented.

Worth a thought if you are the Bishop of London or the Dean of St Paul's .......

29th October 2011

The flaneur is a person who sits and watches people around them, observes, notes, perhaps writes poetry or just imagines.

Sitting in the warm autumn sunshine in the park near our apartment this morning we read the Newspaper over a caffe corretto.

The addition of a shot of Grappa to the espresso or caffe normale in the Italian, 'corrects' it.

Families gathered, as did those exercising their dogs and even the sparrows are so comfortable with people that they take crumbs from your fingers.

It was a perfect morning.

And yet the news was terrible.

The imminent collapse of the Euro at a stroke taking the Eurozone with it and quite possibly meaning that when we head to the bank machine there will be no cash forthcoming.

The Chinese appear to have dismissed the European appeal for financial support on the grounds that Europe is profligate.

Floods in Italy in the Cinque Terra have only affected people locally but in Thailand the flooding will have an immediate impact on the cost of computers which are likely to rise.

The Arab spring looks increasingly as though it will usher in Islamic regimes in the Arab world.

Even Scotland it appears could exchange its role as a leading nation in the Union for one of independent actor in the ensuing maelstrom following the collapse of the Eurozone, probably unleashing a popular campaign for Carlisle and Berwick to join Scotland in its independent statehood.

Our current holiday reading is 1Q84 by Murakami.

Here the normal world of 1984 slips into a mysterious world with two moons the 1Q84 of the title where nothing is what it seems and the protaganists are pursued not by big brother but by the guardians of the 'Little People'.

As we drank our corrected coffee and looked around, nodding in acknowledgement of the friendly greetings from those around, we imagined how all these different geo-political scenarios will in the end play themselves out?

Will the Financial Services grind to a halt, will barter become the new form of trade, will the discredited bankers take up their beds and set up camp outside St Paul's?

It is too early to tell but it is also clear that the post war political settlement world has slipped into a weird and possibly dangerous world where we just possibly should start stocking up with dried goods and candles in case the supermarket shelves start to empty and the lights start going out in the City's.

And so it goes ..........  

28th October 2011

One national newspaper carries a weekend review, usually of a high flying, high spending, high worth individual describing a typical weekend.

Usually it is made clear during the article that the individual being interviewed owns a number of properties in city, country or seaside, to which they can repair depending on their mood, social or business requirements.

Despite having owned only a couple of properties over a lifetime I can understand how it might feel to have access to properties around the world or across Europe.

My family home has usually been a vicarage and now in retirement I have acquired access to a number of properties from the highlands of Scotland to the Ligurian coast where, within moments of arriving, I feel completely at home.

One such apartment is in Via Goito in Genova.

This elegant apartment is the Chaplaincy house for the Chiesa Anglicana in Genova, where in exchange for the accommodation, the Chaplain offers pastoral and liturgical support to the congregation which gathers for worship at 10 30 CET every Sunday.

This is a wonderful way for an impoverished and therefore low spending, low net worth, retired Church of England clergyman, to spend his weekend, breaking bread and saying his prayers, with a wonderful group of people from around the world.

The Church on Piazza Marsala is in the care of the Diocese of Europe, the previously, and in my view better named, Diocese of Fulham and Gibraltar. However the responsibility for the maintenance and restoration of the Church rests with a small congregation made up of English folk living in Genova plus other members of the wider Anglican diaspora.

The Church and its congregation are in some ways a wonderfully eccentric anomaly in Genova, as are the English, usually retired, clergy (I include myself in this of course) who offer upwards of a month at a time as Locum Chaplains.

Being equally enamoured of things Italian and things English marks the congregation out.

Peter who has taught English in Genova for years relishes the richness of his life in Italy and wonders why anyone would choose to live in England these days; Alexia born in Africa married to her Italian husband zipping about the City streets on her scooter; or Mary, originally from Ghana whose husband is an Alpini stationed in Afghanistan and who loves the sound of the cork popping from the Prosecco as refreshments are served after the Sunday Eucharista.

Most Sundays, Liz, an English teacher, married to her Italian husband with a Genovese daughter, Son in Law and Granddaughter, opens the Church and greets us as we enter with an Italian, ‘Buongiorno’, the service sheet which she has printed, already on the Altar.

Then, at the last minute, usually with her Italian Mother in Law on her arm, in rushes Flora the organist, always with too much to do and too little time, with her Italian greeting, a kiss on either cheek, she rushes across to switch on the organ and brief the violinists, Hanuka is Japanese and Ellena her colleague German, who will accompany the hymns.

The congregation can be from any where and everywhere. At my last service the nations represented included Ghana, Nigeria, other African Nations, Japan, India, Germany, England, the United States and Italy.

There are also Ecuadorean and Nigerian Congregations who use Holy Ghost as their place of meeting for worship.

On Easter Sunday 2011 we were struggling through the service with a handful of the regular congregation, when the doors burst open and a gang of twenty young people poured in, tall and handsome, they brought an energy with them.

I assumed they were Americans as they joined in and lifted the spirits of everyone present with their liveliness and loveliness, only to discover that they were in fact from the Netherlands and touring Italy for the Easter break.

Buongiorno indeed!

The Church was designed by the English Architect G E Street and is typical of his design work, a fine Victorian building built to a specification drawn up by Sir Montague Yeats Brown, British Consul at the time.

The Church was built to serve the English speaking community resident in Genova in the nineteenth century. There is also an English section in the great Staglieno Cemetery which provides the final resting place of a number of ex Pats not the least Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance.

Oscar Wilde visited Genova around 1880, where he wrote the sonnet, ‘Written in Holy Week at Genoa’, whose opening lines refer to a park near the present day Di Negro Metro Station.

James Smithson another Englishman has a memorial in the Church, a chemist and mineralogist, and both a European and an Internationalist he died in Genoa in 1879. He left his considerable fortune to America to found the Smithsonian Museum.

Today the building is showing signs of wear and tear and needs some refurbishment and the present Honorary British Consul Ms Denise Dardani is leading an initiative to start a Friends of the Chiesa Anglicana to raise funds for the refurbishment.