29th April 2011

On the 29th April 1945, according to my Mother, it snowed.

The weather for today, whilst threatening to be showery, is forecast to be better. In Genova the sun, it is promised, 'will have its hat on and is planning to come out and play'.

So I find myself, having tried to escape the wedding that has dominated the news for the past couple of weeks, leading a celebration for the marriage of  two young people, who appear to be very much in love.

I will be celebrating the occasion in Genova, with a short service in the English Church here, followed by an Apertivo jointly hosted between the Chiesa Anglican and the Consolato Britannico with a Toast to the Royal Couple proposed by the Honorary British Consul.

To confirm the six handshakes theory which originated in America and which states that every American is only six handshakes away from the President, I have met the Grooms Mother and his Father, on separate occasions and his Grandmother and Grandfather on the occasion of the Royal Maundy at Bradford and, if the Brides Mother was a member of the cabin crew on the British Airways flight to Boston in 1985, who knows? So in my case the odds have been reduced to a single handshake.

But, even so thinking of America,  I must admit to wishing that I was on Route 66 instead, as the song says:

.... if you ever plan to motor west
Just take my way that's the highway that's the best
Get your kicks on Route 66

 Because today also happens to be the day my 66th year begins and what could be better than heading West on that mythical highway on a Harley Davidson with the wind gently blowing back the years as you ride, a horseman of the gasoline age.

Instead I will be leading the prayers as, the invitation says, Presiedera and not for the first time.

I have attended lots of wedding over the years and they have all been happy occasions and I always felt pleased to be part of a special day for the couple and their families, even when the timing clashed with a FA Cup Final between Manchester United and Southampton, when the Bride's grandfather's 'hearing aid' turned out to be a portable radio tuned to the commentary.

I also have photographs of three very special weddings that I have attended and am always pleased to be reminded of the happy occasion and the pride that I felt as Father of the beautiful Brides.

I have a small clutch of wedding sermons and the one I use most often is about the promises that couple make,

'With my body I honour you, All that I am I give to you, And all that I have I share with you',

I am always amazed at the commitment implied by these words and the extraordinary depth of self giving that they imply. Marriage is a physical, economic and spiritual union, the single deepest commitment that any one of us is likely to make to another human being.

At a time when marriage is falling rapidly out of favour the good thing about this wedding is that it has put marriage and especially the commitment it demands back into the public discourse.

The commentariat have of course dined out on the strength of it for weeks and will continue to milk it for all the column inches it is worth for weeks to come. But you cannot blame the couple for that or for deciding to get married rather than elope and its particularly good that the Bride's uncle has made the news. 

So I suppose that I am hoping that the only showers today are showers of confetti, rose petals or rice and that the day passes off peacefully and I will raise a glass to toast the happy couple (Royally Happy even!).

But somewhere at the back of my mind will be a chorus of American songs, the gentle burble of the Harleys' exhaust and the thought of that litany of place names from Chicago to L.A. and the two thousand miles of american blacktop, diners, tumbleweed, desert and prairie.

After all what more could anyone ask for in their sixty sixth year than to live their life as though it were a soundtrack, after all isn't that's pretty much what I have been doing since those April showers in 1945?

Life is not a highway strewn with flowers,
Still it holds a goodly share of bliss,
When the sun gives way to April showers,
Here is the point you should never miss

Though April showers may come your way,
They bring the flowers that bloom in May.

27th April 2011

Euroflora 2011 is a flower festival in Genova.

The crowds attracted by the exhibition included thousands of people buzzing like bees around the many colours and scents of the vast range of plants and flowers on display, the only thing that was missing were the bees themselves.

I had hoped for a stand describing the significance of the bees contribution to human well-being, after all the humble honey bee is essential for the pollination of seven out of ten of the world's most important crops and even in the pop up markets on Via Roma,  the Apiarists stall offers honey and wax objects including candles and tells the story of the bees significance.

We visited the exhibition yesterday and were awed and amazed by the displays, from a jaw dropping collection of Orchids to a wide variety of terrains and micro climates especially created in the Fiera di Genova, the huge exhibition centre on the Mediterranean coast.

The theme of the exhibition was the Flower of Unity and the organisers in a helpful English translation of the theme in the Brochure described it as 'an invitation to rediscover the powerful reasons for all human beings to live peacefully together, with a profound respect for cultural diversity'.

As we made our way around the exhibition, which was busier than Genova Bus Station at rush hour, we walked through tropical rain forests, alpine meadows, fields of sun flowers, deserts, and lemon groves. grapes grew under palms, lettuces under olives and there was a huge range of biological diversity essential to the the well being and thriving of the human species.

It was as though the Garden of Eden and had been uplifted and transplanted to this sea shore exhibition centre.

Amazing though the displays were, more amazing still was the back story.

Because all of this had been created, the planting, the mature trees, the topiary, dragons, rearing horses, flying birds, dinosaurs and dolphins  by doubtless, teams of horticultarists and contractors, using a range of machinery including earth moving equipment as their artists tools with the elements of the natural world as their palette.

The National pavilions from Italy, Spain, Belgium, Ecuador and elsewhere not only from Europe but around the world were set in gardens, both indoor and outdoor, with artificially created displays and complex designs with all the information about, as the brochure puts it, 'biodiversity, respect for the environment and our ability to establish a balanced relationship with nature in our everyday lives' written in Italian and English.

Sadly the bees crucial contribution to this fecundity was somehow glossed over or we simply didn't see the bee keepers exhibition.

The Co-ops Plan B is one example of a major food company (and one of the nations largest farmers) seeking to draw the public's attention to what is a global crisis in the making, the cost of pollinating crops , to put a cash value on the bees contribution to human well being runs into the billions of pounds.

As Sir Michael Jagger sang in one of the Stones great cover versions of a Muddy Waters song:

Well I'm a king bee
Buzzing around your hive
Well I'm a king bee, baby
Buzzing around your hive
Yeah I can make honey baby
Let me come inside

Maybe the bees were there, just buzzing around outside waiting for the crowds to buzz off so that they could do their job ...........

25th April 2011

Riots in Bristol.

That's a shame I thought, I have never lived in Bristol but the Charity I worked for had a community project there in an inner city area just off the motorway and I always enjoyed visiting the project.

I enjoyed visiting Bristol partly because of the people you would meet, partly because of the cultural diversity and partly because we always found an opportunity to visit a Moroccan restaurant for a Tagine Lunch, either Chicken or Fish, both were equally delicious.

On one occasion the staff all went off to Friday Prayers leaving the restaurant full with customers eating and chatting, the owner came through from the kitchen and said 'We'll be back, just leave the money for your food on the counter if you haven't paid'.

It combined all the hallmarks of a truly integrated community.

I could recommend it as a destination for Mr Cameron if he wishes to offer an example of his big society in action and rethink his view of multi-culturalism.

The St Paul's area of Bristol became best known when it was described in a book called Endless Pressure and it is a tribute to both the community and its elected officers that the events described in the book have not become a default position for community feeling and anger in the City.

So I was suprised to read about riots.

Until that is I read an article the next day describing the opposition to the development of yet another Tesco Store.

It wasn't even a big Tesco Store, it was an express or convenience store, but so like much of Tesco's expansionist philosophy it was not clear whose convenience was being served.

So after protests and opposition to the planning application, appeals and direct action with people encasing their arms in concrete, the store was opened, it is in addition to the other fourteen Tesco stores located within a two-mile radius of Stokes Croft.

There is a developing movement against further expansion by Tesco, I know a number of people who have either stopped shopping in the stores or who now only visit for things that they simply cannot source from elesewhere.

Somehow a sense of resistance has crept into people's thinking about large stores dominating the economy and the environment.

Too big to fail was applied to Banks but will it apply to supermarkets? With more than 1,500 stores nationwide and over thirty per cent of the UK grocery market and with record profits Tesco is certainly big, but too big to fail?

In Bristol Tesco supported the police who said that they had to take action because public safety was ‘paramount’.

Spending time in Genoa offers an opportunity to reflect on these questions.

The Co-op here is well supported and very busy, but unfamiliarity with the foods on offer and the language make it an uncomfortable shopping experience for me to find my way easily through the aisles to the checkout, although the Rabbit is a great buy and the 2 Euro 39 Prosecco is very drinkable.

Carrefour also has a convenience store on every corner.

But the best shopping experience is found in the myriad of small stores and shops that this part of Genoa supports alongside the ubiquitous Carrefour.

Small greengrocers, a shop Polleria , specialising in chicken BBQ'd and fresh, but who also supplies the most wonderful cippola, onions, marinated in Balsamic Vinegar. From Prosciutto to cheeses, to foccaca the variety is endless and the slow food movement is in good heart, Fava Beans from the corner Greengrocer, shelled and eaten uncooked with grated Parmigiano Reggiano and Olive Oil are delicious.

On our second visit we are finding that the small shops and the Mercado Oriental offer the widest choice of delicious food and that their prices compete with the supermarkets.

That is bound to happen in the UK as people begin to resist the global ambitions of the big four supermarkets.

It will be a long time before the shopkeeper will say, oh help yourself just leave your money on the counter when you leave, but it could happen if shopping becomes more local and more co-operative ...... like it did in Rochdale all those years ago.

23rd April 2011

April 23rd is Britains' National Day.

The Feast Day of St George who, whilst he is Patron Saint of England, appears not to have been English, a fact offering an interesting dilemma for those wishing to use him to promote Englishness as a virtue above all others, but some comfort to the many nations and peoples and cultures which have gone into making England the country it is.

When we were in Genoa at Christmas we were looking for a Birthday present for one of our Grandchildren and we settled on a T Shirt, always a popular choice.

But our search for a T Shirt  taught us that St George is also the Patron Saint of Genova and the wider district of Liguria and whilst T Shirts bearing the slogan 'I love Genoa' were widely available (at a price!) alongside this ubiquitous design were shirts bearing the red cross of St George on a white background.

In fact the Red Cross of St George is probably more appropriate here in Genoa than in England because for nearly a thousand years all over the Mediterranean Sea, a red cross on a white background meant meant the City of Genoa, and ships who sailed under that flag enjoyed the protection of The Doges. Seemingly the red cross on a white field, was adopted by England and the City of London in 1190 for their ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from the protection of the Geonoese fleet a benefit for which, apparently, they paid..

Nevertheless, presumably using the principle of never letting the facts get in the way of a good story there are in England patriotic societies dedicated to St George and there is an active campaign to declare St George's day a National Holiday, although it was apparently suggested by the PM that rather than an additional public holiday, May Day, or International Labour Day, is swapped for St George.

Engels would be spinning in his grave at such a suggestion!

When I worked at  the Cathedral in Bradford, the St Georges Society gave a flag with the Red Cross on a White background and at a special service of Holy Communion on the nearest Sunday to April 23rd, using the Book of Common Prayer, to a setting by Haydn, (all very traditional and patriotic) the flag was dedicated and the service always ended with the singing of National Anthem introduced by the Provost declaring: God Save the Queen.

April 23rd is a good day to recall Englands Patron Saint whose day is widely shared across Europe.

Various versions of the story describe both bravery, the confronting and slaying of the Dragon that has occupied the entrance to a spring and then demands sacrifices starting with lambs and bullocks and then upping the price for access to the essential water until he is demanding young maidens as a scrifice at which St George appears, slays the dragon and rescues the maiden who is also a princess.

His act of valour causes the grateful inhabitants of the village to abandon paganism and convert to Christianity.

Definitely a good story and an ideal saint to have on your side if dragons have pitched camp over your spring and are devouring your maidens.

There are various other stories of Martyrdom on spinning wheels with sharp knives and he even appears in Muslim writings despite his association with the crusades, where he is also depicted as a martyr, so he is really a kind of saint for all seasons, times, places and people .

From Georgia (always on my mind) to the Georgian Steppes, from Gaudi's Barcelona to Stockholm Georges' fame has spread far and wide across the world.

Whatever the truth and indeed whether he existed at all or whether his reputation is simply the stuff of legend he is St George of England and he is our National Saint and April 23rd is the day when we recall his Martyrdom.

Should it be a National Holiday? of course!

Should it replace Labour Day? Absolutely not, you can't have enough public holidays in a big society!

21st April 2011

Apparently China (now there's a big society) is offering the Chelsea Tractor a reprieve.

Apparently increasingly high disposable incomes and boredom with the family car is making the SUV the transport of choice to delight the emerging Chinese middle class.

Of course there are other justifications, terrain, weather, Tibet and Outer Mongolian holiday destinations amongst them.

But it does seem to me that in the matter of getting from A - B there is still little or nothing to beat climbing into your own car, on your own drive way, starting the engine and driving away in your own time and at your own pace, always assuming that  the M1 has reopened for business!

Two recent trips have rather confirmed this for me.

Carlisle to Genoa can be achieved reasonably easily on paper. A lift to the station. A one hour train journey, a two hour flight, another one hour train journey and a short taxi ride and that's it, four hours and you're there.

Except.

You have to be at the station at least half an hour early, then there is the bus to the Airport. Then you have to be at the check-in two hours before the flight, which is delayed, that adds nearly three hours waiting at the airport, as Mr and Mrs Cameron discovered at Stansted.

Then you have to be treated as a potential terrorist, shoes and belt removed, through the gate, frisked, water bottle and nail clippers in the bin, you tell yourself, as I am sure that Mr and Mrs Cameron did, that it is in the interests of your safety, but at the same time you just cannot help wondering .....

Finally you are seated, the aircraft takes off and you reset your watch and land, and, well the train actually goes from another terminal, so three quarters of an hour later, having missed your connection, you are waiting for the later train and suddenly it is mid-night and you have been travelling for sixteen hours.

It certainly is a big society.

As a teenager I used to hitch hike with my copy of On the Road in the back pocket of my jeans imagining I was Jack Kerouac or Cassidy, then a I graduated to buses, always cheaper than trains, now I prefer my own personal transport option whenever possible.

And I have to admit that it is neither an electric car nor a mini.

For my Birthday I have a new T Shirt with the a slogan that will delight the emerging economies of both India and China, it says: On The Eighth Day God Made Land Rover.

There are all sorts of reasons for owning a Chelsea Tractor and all sorts of justifications can be made from  Tibet to Outer Mongolia to the Cumbrian winters, but the best reason of all is being able to step out of your own front door and climb into and drive away in your very own, personal, Tonka Toy.

20th April 2011

The Staglieno Cemetery in Genova is quite stunning.

The burial grounds are extensive and those who rest there are allowed thirty years before their remains are removed to make way for new residents.

But what is especially remarkable is the statuary.

We were taken to the Cemetery by Mario who was born in Genoa but who lived for much of his adult life in the USA. Mario is a citizen of a big society, a society that has its roots in both the old world and the new. Mario was especially keen that we should see the tomb of Caterina Campodonico, the nut seller.

When we were in Genova over Christmas and the New Year when we bought chestnuts from the sellers in Piazza Ferrari, we might have bought our chestnuts from Caterina's children or grandchildren.

While she was still alive, she commissioned her own funeral monument and paid it with the money she earned through selling her goods in the streets of Genoa and in Fairs and Street Markets.

The staue is remarkable for the detail of her dress and shawl, the nuts carried on a string around her neck and the two Bagels that she carries, as though, in death she is still plying her trade. A visitor could almost stop her and ask to buy what she is selling, so lifelike is the statue.

Inscribed on the base of the statue is a poem in which she asks for our prayers.

The nut seller is just one, although possibly the best known, of thousands of statues in a remarkable collection of memorials and statues reflecting and memorialising the dead of Genova.

On our visit we saw many famous and not so famous individuals.

In one the deceased was lying on a bed, the bed clothes were so realistic that you could almost have turned the sheets to settle the sleeping figure for the night ahead.

The big society is an intriguing concept because it is so this worldly.

But for many, and not only Christians or people of faith the idea that life in some mysterious way extends beyond this life and into a future existence which is both a mystery and a matter of faith takes the idea of a big society a step further.

Within the Cemetery this faith or hope is extended by the use of  artistic language from Neo-classicism to Realism,  to Symbolism, through Art Nouveau and Art Deco and on into the more modern examples using photographs to recall and fix the image of the deceased.

Staglieno has been visited and described by artists, writers and philosophers from  Mark Twain and Guy de Maupassant to Nietzsche. There is an English section where amongst others is buried the wife of Oscar Wilde who died in Genova.

Staglieno is a Necropolis, a city of the dead.

But it is also a vivid reminder that those, who created in their day, a society that was bustling, entrepenurial, alive and artistic left an amazing legacy that enriched the lives of the generations that followed them.

There is little evidence in the current rhetoric of the big society of great foundations being established in the UK to benefit future generations, with the exception of the Wellcome Trust almost all of the current and future foundations are American, all those bankers bonuses appear to be spent on material rewards rather than benefitting future generations.

If the big society is ever to prove a lasting benefit it needs more than great memorials, otherwise it will sink into the sands of time like Shelleys tragic character Ozymandias:

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

18th April 2011

Libraries have become the windmills against which all the Don Quixotes of the big society project are currently tilting.

Libraries are set for closure. Given a choice between cutting services for the elderly or the very young, local councils are seeing spending on Libraries as the easier and less controversial way of reducing expenditure.

The commentariat are united in their view that this is neither fair nor reasonable.

In communities local people are stepping forward to maintain their libraries, volunteers are emerging to stamp books out and check them back in. The society of authors is heard complaining of the cuts that mean fewer books will be borrowed and read. It would seem that these particular cuts are energising a big society response.

Above the grand staircase of the City library in Stoke -on Trent is a quote from Samuel Johnson: 'Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it', the quote of course referred to the libarary and specifically to the library in Stoke on Trent, which is in Hanley.

But if it had been invented in the C18th Johnson could have been describing google.

If you don't know: google, he might have said instead.

Or as Donald Rumsfeld had it: There are things we know we know, things we know we don't know and things we don't know we don't know, the famous unknown unknowns.

If you know great, if you know you don't know google, if you don't know you don't know surf.

So we have to ask, what are Libraries for?

As depositaries of knowledge? As places of reference? To borrow books from? For many people the library, and even more importantly for older people, the mobile library, is a crucial resource it maintains a steady supply of books, keeps folk reading and thereby excercising their minds as they enjoy a new story, try to solve a new mystery or just excercise their neural signalling mechanisms as their eyes stray across the printed page.

Students and researchers like to study original documents on the original yellowing parchment but the rest of us, well we google.

The Samuel Johnson quote 're-tweeted' in the C21st might read: 'Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know how to google it.'.

My first school was St Mary’s, a Church of England primary school.

Of this school I have only one memory.

When we started we were given loose sheets of paper to practice our handwriting. As we progressed we graduated to an exercise book. I cannot now remember how long I attended the school but when my family moved I was still writing on loose sheets of paper.

In my new school, under the tutelage of a young, attractive and gifted teacher I made rapid progress as both a proficient writer and reader.

I joined the library and recall taking Puck of Pooks Hill as my first title, challenged by the Librarian I had to read two pages to her to satisfy her that I would be able to read and understand the book.

But having started I stopped using libraries years ago and started buying books, I reasoned that it was cheaper than paying the fines.

When I have popped into my local library on a rare occasion I recognise that it is a great local resource for information, the reference section; for catching up with the news, the reading room; for surfing, free internet access; for borrowing books and CD's and DVD's, the lending library, but I am also convinced that its time has passed.

The internet, google, wikipedia, ipads and iphones are raising questions over the need for the continued physical existence of the public library.

At a recent conference organised by the Catholic Church one of the Archbishop's advisers stated:

'The political question that hangs over the Big Society is its provenance ... Has the Conservative part of the Coalition simply seized the economic crisis as an opportunity to push through the unfinished neo-liberal agenda of the last Conservative administration?

We should not forget the enormous social division that was entailed in this. It signalled the end of a humanist and humane consensus in British society.

And that is true, no matter how much information and how many books are digitised, the library is a sign of a humanist and human society.

15th April 2011

So now to immigration ........... again!

We want a big society as long as society doesn't get any bigger?

According to David Cameron people are 'sick of seeing taxpayers' hard earned money 'given to people who refuse to work'. 

That apparently was the message on the doorstep during the election campaign.

I fnd this an interesting reading of the current situation because I have known and worked with people who were (just about) surviving on benefits during my time in Newcastle between 1978 and 1987 and during the founding of the campaign Church Action on Poverty.

Most of the people I met desperately wanted to work but the previous Conservative administration had effectively exported most of  the jobs traditionally undertaken by working class people.

A soiologist called C Wright Mills described this phenomenon in his book The Sociological Imagination in the following way. When in a City of 50,000 one worker is unemployed then it is right to look for the resolution of his unemployment in his skills or mental attitude but when in that same City 20,000 people are unemployed then says Wright Mills, 'the very structure of opportunities has collapsed'.

That is what happened in the United Kingdom in the Eighties and the legacy of that collapse continues to be felt in inner city and outer estate communities today a generation later..

There is much to be done to ameliorate the effects of this collapse of the structure of opportunities but the current savage cuts to public expenditure will not help.

However what was new in David Camerons speech was linking welfare spending on 'people who refuse to work' directly with immigration.

Again, apparently, it was the talk of the doorsteps of Britain during the election:  'We are concerned about the levels of immigration in our country'!

Really, not on our doorstep it wasn't?

Of course the sub-text of this speech is probably more important than the content.

Two words stuck out for me in the televised speech. they are typical of words  used by David Cameron in that they have clear meanings but are used in a context which subtly changes the meaning.

Discomfort for example, is used either as a Noun or a Verb, depending on the context in which it is used. As a Noun it could refer to a pain, a worry or an embarrassment, as a Verb to embarrassing someone, the OED traces the word back to Old French, desconforter, very much an immigrant word then!.

Disjointed is an adjective defined as lacking a coherent sequence or connection which must make us ask,  what is the connection between those who refuse to work and those who seek to come to this country in order to work?

I was somewhat discomforted to hear the British Prime Minister setting out his philosophy of 'good immigration' as against 'mass immigration' because the text of the speech which is both long and complex has a strong sense of an argument being marshalled to achieve a conclusion that has already been drawn.

Interesting then that the Lib Dems Vince cable is once again at odds with both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister.

In the global village dramatic changes are causing wholesale movement of people. Global warming is part of the problem, economic re-alignment as India and China battle for economic supremacy, Western Nations, even America, beginning to sense that their pre-eminence is about to be challenged.

In the future there will be both individuals who for whatever reason cannot find work and will need to be supported if they are to maintain a place within consumer society, housed, fed and entertained and there will continue to be mass movements of people seeking to flee war, pestilence, famine and the grinding poverty of their lives.

If we are to be a big society we need to learn how to be a generous society and we need a vision of that society set out in terms that are both generous and inclusive .........

13th April 2011

After last nights Champions League Quarter Final between Manchester United and Chelsea ended, through a combination of tweeting and facebooking and googling ( note the new verbs) the whole world knew the score within seconds of the final whistle.

Manchester United fans from Algeria to Zaire could be heard cheering.

How different from my childhood when the results were either broadcast on the Radio or you had to wait for the Manchester Evening News Pink Final before the result was known, the Pinks own final edition was last published in 2000 because it had been overtaken by more instant news media.

Instant news is now available 24/7 with the goals shown in videocasts on your mobile.

I am still amazed by email.

Back in the day you would have a pad of that blue lined paper called, I seem to remember, Basildon Bond and an envelope, then you would have written a draft in pencil before carefully copying out the letter in your best pen, a couple of smudges later, with the wastepaper basket rapidly filling you would have a 'fair copy'.


Then you would go down to the Post Office for a stamp and, after telling the man behind the counter all your business, who the letter was for etc. He would take it off you, three weeks later the Post Man would struggle up the stairs cursing and blinding and there would be a reply.

But now is now.

It is miraculous really.

Of course high speed communication is not new, for e.g. there were Beacons.

They were fast and effective, whether it was the Spanish Armada or the Border Reivers, beacons would be lit and the news spread rapidly from Beacon Hill to Beacon Hill, until all were warned.

A friend of mine tells the story of teaching  a lesson about Beacons and setting a small test question, What happened when the villagers saw the Pirates?

One child wrote: They rushed up the hill and set fire to the deacons!

Pity the poor Deacons.

Now my Post Man brings pieces of paper advertising stuff I neither need nor want, from double glazed windows to yet more insulation, all paid for by the sender, almost invariably it is torn up at the door and immediately placed in the recycling.

Anyone who wished to communicate with me over anything remotely sensitive or important or urgent sends me an email or a message on facebook or tweets me.

So communication in the big society is key.

In Cumbria there is a great campaign to extend broadband into the valleys of the Lake District where reception is difficult and where electronic communication is poor.

On holiday in Scotland last year the only place where mobile 'phone reception could be had was in the middle of the bridge over the river, so on damp August mornings holiday makers would gather to make their calls, like so many villagers lighting their rain soaked Beacons.

We were more fortunate because we worked out that the local hotel had wi-fi and we could sit outside in the car and 'borrow' the signal from their router so not only did we have mobile communication but email as well.

But if we are so sophisticated that we can communicate so readily and easily without resorting to Beacons, why do we have to go into a polling booth and scrawl our crosses on a ballot sheet?

Why can't we do it on line, or by 'phone or email?

And why do we need to elect politicians to shout abuse at each other in the House of Parliament and then decide to raise our taxes? Why can't we simply have a referendum whenever an important decision needs to be taken?

TV appears to have shown the way with Big Brother and Pop Idol and the X Factor. Apparently more people voted on these reality 'phone-in shows in recent years than in General and Local Elections.

My TV remote has a voting button, perhaps we need more experiments to extend the franchise and encourage more people to participate in the democratic process.

It might be a way of extending the reach of the big society and making it more interactive .........

11th April 2011

Getting on in the world.

Going up in the world.

Doing better.

Improving.

Bettering yourself.

A leg up.

Aspirational.

Class of origin and class of destination.

For me the escalator that helped me climb from the working to the leisured classes was not a placement in a company arranged by my Father, he went from driving buses to become a Driving and Traffic Examiner, no, it was leaving work at twenty and heading off to theological college.

On my first day at college, I met some other new students who said that they were going for tea would I like to join them? Well, yes. but tea was the main evening meal of the day in our house, so I was puzzled as tea was meant to be at six o clock in college.

It turned out to be 'Afternoon Tea' ...  how posh is that?

The waitress came round with the Tea Menu, Tea Menu? I had only ever heard of '99' Tea from the Co-op. Lapsang what?, Earl who? I realised that I had a lot to learn and term hadn't even started.

Then the cakes came round, now the thing is, it is always better to know that you don't know, then you can watch others who do know and copy them, that way you learn.

When you don't know that you don't know, that's when you get into trouble.

For some reason I was offered the Cake Plate first, 'I'll have this one' I said, picking up this creamy, gooey cake and placing it on my plate.

That was when I noticed the shocked silence.

Then each of my new friends was served, pointing delicately at their cake of choice whilst the waitress used cake tongs to lift the cake and place it elegantly onto their plates.

There was no point in blushing I was working class and they were posh. Simple as that!

After three years I had worked out the difference between St. John's Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels and also between dry, medium and sweet sherry.

Years later in a pub in Newcastle this came in handy when I ordered a medium sherry for my partner and a bottle of Brown Ale for myself. The lady behind the bar, having carefully examined the bottles, announced that there was either sweet or dry, then added, 'I can mix you a medium?'.

Brilliant!

So that's the point really. Nick Clegg wants us all to be upwardly socially mobile like him and Dave were. But he doesn't want us to have unfair advantages by being given work experience through the old boy network that they used.

But that is classically having your cake and eating it.

Karl Marx in his treatise on the big society, The Communist Manifesto, helps us to see that in society what determines class is the economic structure of work and property. For Marx the proletariat sell their labour to get a share of the cake whilst the capitalists (bourgeoisie) own the means of producing the cakes, and generally keep the best cakes for themselves..

As Marie Antointette is supposed to have said, 'Let them eat cake'.

Nick Clegg apparently wants us to have our cake, served elegantly and eaten with a cake fork ............

9th April 2011

According to my newspaper, David Cameron recently took a Ryan Air flight from Stansted for a weekend away with Mrs Cameron.

I really hope that they enjoyed their flight and their weekend away from the pressures of Downing Street, the NHS, Education, Libya, Inflation and the financial crisis.

Getting away from it all, like the big society, is not a new idea.

In the C18th Century many well to do British people travelled extensively in Europe and had ambitions to develop both their knowledge and their citizenship beyond the narrow confines of the British Isles.

Two well known 'names' are associated with Genova which is also now  a Ryan Air destination

James Smithson was born in Paris, France in 1765, lived in England, travelled widely in Europe. He died and was buried in Genoa in 1829 and is memorialised in the English Church, The Chiesa Anglicana.

James Smithson was a chemist and mineralogist, he was both a European and an Internationalist. He travelled extensively throughout Europe collecting specimans and even wrote a paper on how to brew a better cup of coffee.

Smithson was the illegitimate son of landed Gentry, he was obviously both industrious and a wise investor and after his death left his considerable fortune to America to found the Smithsonian Museum to encourage scientific research.

His body was eventually disinterred and removed to America.

No one knows why he left his money to America and not Britain but it could be that he had a sense that in time America would become a bigger society than Britain.

The second visitor to Genova is Oscar Wilde. He wrote a sonnet called 

Holy Week at Genoa

  

I wandered through Scoglietto's far retreat,
The oranges on each o'erhanging spray
Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;
Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet
Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet
Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:
And the curved waves that streaked the great green bay
Laughed i' the sun, and life seemed very sweet.
Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,
'Jesus the son of Mary has been slain,
O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.'
Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours
Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.

The sonnet form is written in what is called 'iambic pentameter' and this particular sonnet form is  sometimes called the 'Italian' sonnet possibly adopted by Wilde because he was writing in Genoa.                                                   

Scoglietto, is a park around Villa Rosazza, near the Di Negro Metro Station. Today the oranges hanging from the trees are still a  feature of Genoa in Via Negro or in Piazza Marsala outside the English Church.

The imagery of the oranges as lamps their brightness shaming the day is powerful. The flower blossoms, disturbed by the birds fluttering, fall as snow, an unusual feature of the Genoese climate but not uncommon as we found when we were here in January.           

The sweetness o f life here is underlined with the imagery of the sea and the Narcissi and contrasted by the announcement of the death of Jesus by the boy-priest, an image that reminds us possibly of Wilde’s own troubled sexuality. The snows of the fifth line become flowers again to fill the sepulchre a common practice as Christians decorate the Church for Easter.  
     

Oscar Wilde’s tomb is in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris whilst his wife Constance was buried here in Genoa in the Cimitero Staglieno.

Both James Smithson and Oscar Wilde were citizens of a big society, men with large and spiritual visions of what was possible, they will both be remembered at services during our time in Genoa ..........

7th April 2011

Fast forward one hour. Cabin Crew prepare for landing. Milan.

Central European time is an hour ahead of British Summer Time so it stays lighter even later.

There is now a debate about whether Britain should advance its own Summer Time (quite brilliantly called Single/Double Summer Time) by a further hour so that it is in line with the rest of Europe.

There are two strong arguments for change.

The first is that if British Summer Time is maintained during the winter months, it would have the effect of reducing the number of accidents as a result of the lighter evenings.

The second argument focusses on the potential energy benefits of  Double Summer Time, which could apparently save almost 500,00 tonnes of CO2 a year, although how anyone can measure this is entirely beyond me. But apparently it would have the effect of taking nearly 200,00 cars off the road.

Against these two seemingly compelling arguments is the other side of the coin as it were, which argues that in Northern Britain winter sunrise would not occur until about 10:00 am or even later and that the dark mornings could result in increased risks of accidents amongst younger children on their way to school.

I even read in my newspaper that older people who apparently rise earlier would more at risk.

I must say that suprised me because when I was communting the forty or so miles a day from Bedford to Aylesbury via Milton Keynes at 6 30 in the morning I rarely if ever saw an older person out and about and these days I think 8 00 am is a perfectly reasonable time to get up unless I fancy a lie in.

The most unreasonable argument is one which appears to belong to the Eurosceptics who want to resisit  the UK adopting the same time zone as central European countries. It could be that those who hold this view are afraid that it could result in shops and businesses closing during the afternoon and reopening later in the day and then remaining open into the early evening, resulting in a fundamental change in the British character.

That could of course be both good and bad.

I arrived in Milan just as the Italian Parliament had decided that Berlusconi should not have to answer to the court in Milan, something about communist judges and a fair trial apparently.

On the Malpensa Express, in the washroom, I read an amazing piece of angry graffiti. I had enough Italian to recognise that it was a comment about the Berlusconi 'trial' and that it contained some words best not repeated in a Blog aimed at a family audience!

I guess that all nationalities have their individual characteristics, modified by the personal temperament of the individual. When we arrived at Milan Centrale station last time we made this journey, we arrived with less than twenty minutes before the last train of the evening left for Genoa.

We presented ourselves at Sala Bleu the office that provides assistance for disabled passengers, the official behind the desk saw this as a challenge he got us onto the train and arranged for us to be met in Genoa, Perfecto! indeed he was on the same train as his shift had ended and he was on his way home,  as he left the train he wished us Buona Sera.

This time, as soon as I saw the chap behind the desk, I knew that he wasn't going to co-operate.

Even though it was just after 7 30 and the 8 10 train for Genova was on the platform and the person who helped us off the Malpensa Express said he could get us on the train, we were made to wait for the 9 10.

I protested and pointed out that the train was there, we were here, Manchester United - Chelsea was on TV and we were missing the match, it was all to no avail .............. he was a big man in his version of the big society .....  there just are times when you have to admit defeat as they (might) say in Italy ..... Ther c'è luce senza oscurità .....

5th April 2011

The Turkey Shed is a noisy place in the spring.

Indeed the whole farmyard can be a noisy place in spring.

But the Turkey shed tends to become quieter the closer it gets to the years' end as if the Turkeys realise that every little noise they make can make it seem that they are voting for Christmas (or Thanksgiving if they are American Turkeys!). 

Whilst being aware of the danger of voting for Christmas I've always thought voting was important.

George Orwell caricatured the undemocratic nature of  Soviet Style 'Democracies' in Animal Farm by pointing out that any society which regards it citizens as equal must offer the opportunity to elect a new government periodically, otherwise the principles of democracy will be eroded until it becomes accepted that whilst 'all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others'.

That's why, because I can't attend the polling station in person, I have asked for a postal vote in the forthcoming election.

I want to exercise my right to make my opinion matter and have my vote counted.

Universal Suffrage is too hard won a right to let slip away through lack of use. It is a right that we enjoy in our democratic society, even the result of the last election, whilst disappointing for many, reflected the general mood of the country and the sense of ennui that seemed to affect most of the electorate.

If you didn't really want any of the offers on the table at least the outcome of a coalition gave an opportunity to experience a different approach, even though in some ways it has turned out to be much the same approach.

Current events in Egypt and Libya emphasise the desperation of people who don't have the right to vote and who are taking to  up protest and arms to ensure a change of Government, one that will reflect their hopes and aspirations.

One that they can elect.

And the power of the vote is remarkable. In Iraq and Afghanistan the opposition simply tried to stop people voting by intimidation, but the queues formed and held firm and people left the voting station with their fingers, dipped in purple dye, having had the sense that they had done something that was important (it was also brave).

Most of the significant changes that have occurred in the modern world, have happened because of the ballot box. Perhaps the most significant being the election of the ANC in South Africa.

In republics, presidents have to be re-elected and even though it seemed to be only yesterday, President Obama will soon be hitting the campaign trail, seeking a new mandate from the American people.

On May 5th we are being asked to change our voting method from a single vote cast for a single candidate to the alternative vote.

A group of senior academic historians have challenged the thinking behind the change arguing that it flies in the face of the English democratic tradition which had its beginnings in the Magna Carta.

The view appears to be that each time your alternative choice is triggered it gives you an 'extra' vote, so it is no longer one person, one vote, but one person, two, three, four votes.

It is also thought that the Alternative Vote could have an adverse effect on the outcome of an election.

This could happen if in the first round no candidate received fifty per cent of the vote, then, when second preferences were transferred, a candidate who might have been leading could fall behind and second or third choice candidates emerge as winners.

I have voted in an AV election process. But have usually only voted once because I didn't want second or third choice candidates to benefit from my transferred vote. Clearly faced with the choice of listing candidates some voters may well simply write one, two, three right down the list of names.

I am sorry that the leader of the Labour Party has come out in favour of AV not because I am worried about more hung parliaments or more coalitions but because, if I want to vote for one party, I want to vote for them to win the election. Even in a safe seat, I would rather vote for my candidate of choice even if I knew that they couldn't win.

It would be likeTurkeys voting No to Christmas as their first choice, then opting for Boxing Day and Easter as their second and third choices, unless of course fifty one percent of all Turkeys voting, voted No ........

4th April 2011

The philosopher in me has been reflecting on bankers.

I first came across the problem that bankers and banking represent as a mature student, I was over twenty one and over drawn, nothing new there you might say, so the Bank wrote to my father and asked him to pay down the overdraft.

My father reacted in his own inimitable way and so I was called into the Bank.

I can't recall the actual conversation in any detail but the gist of it was that I was a delinquent customer and should consider making a new arrangement with another bank.

Which I did.

But that was then, now I would have been offered a new loan to pay off the old loan, a new credit card, although they hadn't actually been invented then , that was a year or two later, and probably been given the new facility on deferred terms, with capital only being repaid after my pension became payable.

In the bible usury is condemned, lending money to pay off debts is seen as a way of reinforcing indebtedness rather than, as much credit card advertising suggests, lifting the burden. Only the other biblical concept of Jubilee achieves that.

Debt is after all the most effective form of social control there is.

Over my lifetime I have banked with Williams Glyn's now defunct, Nat West, and The Midland. I now have two accounts which handily doubles the overdraft facility!

When I was working in Birmingham in the late eighties, I did some work on Banking (theology and the economy) and I recall one junior official from a High Street Bank calling me to complain that when he started out with his Bank he was undertaking a traditional role as a Bank Manager, which he enjoyed, meeting people, advising people, becoming friends with his customers and fulfilling a role as a reliable friend in times of need or crisis .

His role was largely advising his customers, offering facilities when they were required, monitoring the customers management of their accounts and generally ensuring that his customers remained solvent and were able to live comfortably and save a little for the inevitable rainy day.

But even though he was younger than me and had not been working for the Bank that long, his role had changed. Now he was under huge pressure to sell 'products', there were essentially two kinds of products insurances and loans.

So if a customer came into the Bank to discuss his financial needs or undertake an exercise in financial planning he was required to sell these products and effectively tempt his customers into borrowing and spending more than, in most cases, they could afford.

This change in role disturbed him and he was beginning to look at a change of career. But what does an ex banker do? Join a Rock and Roll Band?

How have bankers contributed to the Big Society?

Some of them have of course benefited personally and enormously, with huge bonuses, and all the trappings of personal financial success from mansions to fine cars and luxurious lifestyles reflected in the their bigger share of the big society cake.

But they have also brought UK plc to the verge of a major financial catastrophe.

Of course the coalitions' narrative says that it was the previous Labour Government that presided over a major overspend, reducing the country practically to bankruptcy, resulting in the necessity to see the deficit driven down by unprecedented cuts in public expenditure.

Any attempt to bring the banks under some form of control or to draw them into the proposed culture of conservative social responsibility presumably as opposed to 'socialist irresponsibility'? Has been met with the threat of withdrawal, the excellent folk who got us into this fine mess will move abroad in search of the rewards that their talents deserve?

We won't be able to hire the staff if we don't pay the salaries they demand and they will leave and work for our competitors.

If that is so there are going to be thousands possibly millions of folk looking for work by the end of this year, so advertise, recruit, who knows, I am yet to be convinced of the so called brilliance of these guys.

I have seen their work at quarters rather too close for comfort and was hugely unimpressed.

One senior banker recently commented that, now the crisis was over, we should all get over ourselves and let them get on with making money.

Well that would be fine if we got to enjoy some of it or if some of it found its way round the economic loop and actually passed however briefly through our wallets, but it never does.

So what has all this got do with philosophy or the big society?

As a student at Durham in the sixties I was told about an exam question that was set in the Philosophy examination.

The question was: Why?

Various attempts at an answer were made but the highest marks were given to a student who had answered:
Why Not?

Given the current disastrous track record of the banks from Northern Rock to RBS both of which are effectively state owned, why not create a new model of mutual banking? Why not allow those Banks which threaten to leave do exactly that? Why not create a National Investment Bank operated on a not for profit basis. Why not just re-invent financial services in a way that means they are there to help and support people to go about their daily business, buy goods and services, invest in Businesses and realise their dreams? The co-operative model here has much to commend it from ethical investment to savers and borrowers having a stake in the business.

In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath the Bank Manager who arrives to call in the farm loan and make the man who has been both a neighbour and friend not only loses his living but his home, apologises, with the words 'it's not personal it's the Bank'.

Maybe for the many thousands who have been made homeless or redundant in the current financial crisis such a response is simply not adequate. The Bank is not a force of nature, an earthquake or a Tsunami it is a human institution, run by human beings, many of whom feel thoroughly compromised by the role they play and by many others who should ......

 

2nd April 2011

On an April morning a couple of years ago we set off from Newcastle backpacking with a Wheelchair on an easyjet flight to Barcelona the easyjet flight crew were really helpful and the wheelchair was tagged, and two hours later the ‘chair’ was waiting for us at the door in Barcelona.

We had booked the whole holiday ‘boats and trains and planes’ (and hotels) on the internet, so landing in Barcelona we took the train into the city centre, arriving at the Estacion France we consulted the map and set off – in the wrong direction.

The Hotel was ten minutes from the station, if you turn left, I turned right! Duh! Two hours later we arrived in the Place de Palau, having asked directions and received the reply in Spanish, ‘wouldn’t start from here if I was you’.

On arrival at reception I produced my voucher at the desk to be told that the booking had been cancelled on April 13th ( a Friday?) and the hotel was full. Maybe it was the heat, or the two hour walk, or the weight of the back pack or the language barrier but I didn’t have the energy for a fight, ‘not by me it wasn’t’ was the best I could offer.

But it was clearly the right response because, twenty minutes later (don’t ask) we had room 101, and then following a shower, a change of clothes, a short walk to the marina … a cold beer and bliss.

We had decided that within the limits imposed by the wheel chair – restricted access etc we would aim to do one thing every day, so on Tuesday we headed for the Picasso Museum, we then ‘did’ the Cathedral, some shopping, a walk to the Olympic village and a ramble down Las Ramblas.

Barcelona is a wonderful city and because of the pre Olympic investment ideal for a backpacking wheelchair user, access is universally excellent and the green lights on the crossing chirrup like birds … safe to cross … safe to cross …..

On Wednesday we had to get to another station for the train to Madrid. Again access to the platform was excellent (follow the yellow footsteps) there was a lift, a Renfe official took over wheelchair pushing duty and we were shown to our seats.

The train left on time, there was service at our seats, a film (in Spanish) a café bar, lunch and a complimentary glass of sherry, before we arrived at Atocha in Madrid, the scene of the terrorist bomb, at the scheduled time.

In Madrid, the weather changed for the worse, it was raining, and it kept on raining for the whole of our stay. Madrid was noisy and the access was poor and the pavements cracked and broken. We made it to the Hotel but the tyre came off the (same) castor twice and I had to repair it with Araldite.

In Madrid we made our one thing the Passeo des Artes a 14 Euro ticket that gives entrance to the Prado and two other galleries, we stood transfixed in front of the powerful ‘Guernica’ at Goya in the Prado and following a wonderful lunch, more pictures and an uphill push to the hotel, by 4 00 pm I was the one having the afternoon nap … I dreamed about puddles, pushing wheelchairs with one hand whilst holding a brolly in the other and the rain in Spain ………

Friday back to Atocha and on to Algeciras, and the fast ferry from Tarifa to Tangier. Following the advice in the guide book we got our visas on the boat and were able to walk straight past customs and immigration with no problem. Although we took a taxi to the hotel and were grotesquely overcharged, 10 Euros which was about ten times the going rate, but the hotel was expecting us and we were soon very comfortably ensconced in Room 603.

The streets in Tangier were not that wheelchair friendly but we managed to get around enough to see the Casbah, the Medina, the Grand Socco and the Petit Socco and we ate Tagine and drank The de Menthe.

Too soon we were leaving for the ferry and back to Spain. Trying to find the entry to the first floor emigration hall proved a challenge, I asked directions from a policeman who pointed to a flight of about 20 steps I pointed to the wheelchair, ‘Ah! You have this woman?’ I nodded and then to his eternal credit he walked me round to a long ramp which wound its way up to the first floor hall and we were set to go …..

And then it was the return journey by public transport, all local buses, to La Linea where we had lunch with friends who live in Spain and then a return flight from Gibraltar to Luton before heading back to Carlisle.

Would we do it again, possibly is the answer but previous trips with a hire car or our own car were a lot easier but we met more interesting people and had a lot of fun on the way.

The high point was definitely the Renfe train from Barcelona to Madrid, the low point the two hour walk around Barcelona in 26 degrees of heat pushing a wheelchair in the wrong direction ………