31st March 2012

We were recently recommended a film which is showing at the local cinema here in Fuengirola.

As the weather was more Cumbrian than Costa del Sol we decided to spend a couple of hours in the Cinema.

The Exotic Marigold Hotel is at one level a fairly predictable and somewhat formulaic film with a very recognisable British cast.

At some levels it was more than reminiscent of Tea With Mussolini and appeared to have a number of the same actors cast as in that film.

There is no doubt that there is a certain, spirited, indomitable, elderly, English woman who manages to carry all before her and to withstand all the rigours life sends her way and to triumph in the end.

Often, as with the Judy Dench character in the film, these spirited women appear to blossom after their husbands die of heart attacks or other male, menopausal,catastrophes.

The classic of this elderly English woman was Aunt Dot in The Towers of Trebizond.

To be watching the film on the Costa del Sol was especially appropriate because of course the phenomenon of elderly men and women, leaving the UK and relocating to warmer, sunnier climes is very much in evidence here.

On any given day it is possible to review the progress of the ex pat community as, en masse, it wanders down the sea front in what in England is a promenade and what the Italians call passeggiata and in Spain is a paseo.

Like one of those pictures showing the ascent of mankind it is a reversal, from gentle walking, to walking with a stick, to a rollator, to a wheelchair.

This migration of elderly English people was predicated on two important factors, house price inflation and final salary pensions, both these factors are rapidly disappearing and after the budget's now notorious 'granny tax' the funding of elder care will take on a completely new aspect in the future.

All of this, coupled with the Euro Crisis and a poorer exchange rate, may well see less people choosing or being able to afford to relocate to a warmer climate in Spain or elsewhere and having to stay at home, even if the winter fuel allowance is retained at present levels and not means tested in the future.

I have visited India once, briefly, my flight was delayed and I was a day late in arriving in Cochin, so I had only two brief days in India, watching the film, I felt that I had in the two hours or so of the screening of the film, experienced as much of India as I had in my two days in Kerala where my hosts kept chuckling that I had 'missed' my flight because of 'mist' in London.

The film conjures up, as only art can, the sights, smells, mystery and magic of the sub continent.

I just hope that the Cabinet or the 'Quad' do not however have time to see the film, either in the cinema, downloaded or on DVD at some time in the future.

Why not?

Because it might inspire some blue sky thinking which might well appeal to the con-dem Government.

Old folk being a noisy nuisance about tax or fuel costs or bus passes?

Older patients making too many demands on an overstretched health service?

Old people refusing to give up their jobs in B&Q and make way for younger workers?

Well here is a solution, outsource their care and their accommodation and their maintenance to? .... well India is cheap and they respect their elderly.

We have, after all outsourced call centres and other commercial activities. This is just a logical step in a process.

I can see the bright eyed bushy tailed young civil servant leaving the Cinema for the nearest wine bar and busily developing the project proposal on his or her Blackberry or iPad and casting it under the bosses nose.

Soon the airports will be even fuller of elderly passengers being given special assistance as reluctantly or enthusiastically they accept the free tickets and set off to their specially selected elder care resorts in the sub-continent.

Take-away will be exchanged for get-away and a boring life in the old folks home for a bit of eastern spice.

What's not to like?

28th March 2012

Driving in Spain has been described to me as interesting.

We have had more than a few hairy moments on the road into Fuengirola. 

The nearest 'miss' was in a friends hire car on the road to Ronda, when a car overtook us on a blind corner, cut in front and then braked sharply.

Not so much a case of 'Help me Rhonda', as help me get to Ronda in one piece.

All the symptoms of mad car disease are there.

No lane discipline.

Overtaking when there is no view of the road ahead or oncoming traffic.

Tailgating.

Speeding.

But also double parking, stopping in traffic to chat to a friend on the road side or admire the view. 

It is contradictory

The handbook in our small, under powered car suggests that not every accident needs to be reported if it can be settled amicably between the parties involved.

Most cars bear the marks of such amicable solutions.

Following me must be irksome to other drivers because speed limits appear to have my name specifically attached to them, 20, 30 , 40 , 50 Kilometres an Hour, that means you Revd. Smith.

The new road has a 60 KPH speed limit again apparently with my name attached as it clearly does not apply to anyone else on the road.

Spanish number plates of course suggest local drivers, but not always, and some of the worst offenders are wearing British number plates. 

I have always thought I might get away with it if I could convince the police that I confused KPH with MPH.

However on this trip I am aware that if you are spotted speeding the first that might be known about it is when the car tax is renewed, at which point speeding fines can be added plus interest accrued.

So I have been unusually cautious and law abiding.

The high point of all this though came yesterday when we pulled out of the road leading from our urbanization and headed to Alhaurin.

Immediately there is a 40 KPH speed restriction leading into a roundabout, it is a single lane road.

When I looked to the left there were no cars in view, so I pulled out but almost instantly in my rear view mirror I saw that I was being tailgated.

The driver of the car was a young woman, she must have been travelling extremely quickly and hidden from view by the brow of a low rise in the carriageway.

At this point we were 100 metres from the roundabout, I started to slow down for the junction at which point she pulled out and started to overtake me, by now I was on the junction and entering the roundabout as there was no traffic from the left, the driver of the car then tried to undertake, then overtake and finally as  I signalled that I was heading to the right, swept by me on the inside at high speed and disappeared onto what the sat-nav calls, the third exit.

I was reminded of the story of the clergyman who died and went to heaven, he was kept waiting by St Peter who wasn't sure if they had a vacancy.

At that point a young woman arrived and was immediately welcomed by St Peter.

The clergyman remonstrated, I have served God all my life, etc. etc.

St Peter smiled, well he said, she was given a sports car for her 21st Birthday and in the two weeks she has been driving it she has put the fear of God into more people than you managed in your whole ministry ........

26th March 2012

After a fairly dodgy start to summertime the sky above the Garden of Allah is once again blue and the weather forecast is for scorchio tomorrow, but worryingly, rain for the rest of the week.

So the beginning of summer in Spain is, to say the least, hesitant.

My business card says Locum Chaplain and blogger.

Fortunately summer time has no especial effect with regard to blogging.

If the clocks go forward you simply blog an hour later and no one cares.

Indeed if my stats page is to be believed I am read in all sorts of time zones, at all sorts of times of the day and night.

When I publish this blog the time will be quoted not as CET but in some distant time zone somewhere in the blogosphere, aka gooogle time!

Not so critical then as when in locum Chaplain mode?

Sunday morning I woke as usual at about 6 00 am, a hangover from when I was usefully employed, after a couple of hesitant attempts I was in the shower at 6 30 am.

All according to plan I breakfasted shaved and then sat down with my iPad, called up the Sunday Times, didn't especially notice the time and began to read, after attempting to digest the right wing opinions I switched to The Guardian on the iPhone, that was when I noticed that the iTime had changed, Apple was ahead of the rest of the world, then I googled British Summer Time, it had started already, so I googled Central European Time to be advised that it was not 9 30 but 10 30, aagh! I was late, for a very  important date, get  me to the church on time.

So that is how summer time arrived, forget easy living and fish jumping and your mummy being good looking. I was late, but when I arrived the congregation was still there, singing hymns, very relaxed and so the service began, and according to my watch, we ended before we had begun.

Time is an interesting phenomenon.

I thought that we were moving forward as a society to a time when the human thirst for justice, fairness and equality, will be realised, once called by Superman, The American Way until it was re-christened by a band called the The Tunes, The Mancunian Way, it began with the Post war Settlement, all those houses for heroes, with the NHS and the Welfare State, as the New Labour project sang along with D:ream, Things can only get better.

Sadly they are getting worse.

If you want to keep the welfare system as the woeful, pitiful, factory of hopelessness it is today ....


This is a quote from a speech that David Cameron made to the Scottish Conservative Party.

Beware, Beveridge and Bevan will be spinning in their earthly resting places.

The Kingdom of Bevan is not nearly nigh, it has been cancelled.

If you are too comfortable on your pensions, we'll sort that out.

If you are old, or unable to work, or have young children, or are disabled, we'll sort that out, we are introducing a cap, so you wont ever need to feel rich on benefits, goodness me no, it'll pay you to work and if it doesn't we'll make you work without pay.

We'll soon get you out of the woeful, pitiful, factory of hopelessness into the factory of ........
aah! there are none left, Oh dear!

Well let's send you all packing off to China or India there are factories there, aren't there?

For the past sixty plus post war years Britain has invested in the education of its young people, in the health of the population, in ensuring that the public can go about its business safely enjoying equality under the law.

It is called civilised progress.

It now seems that whilst we were turning the clocks forward someone is turning them back .....

24th March 2012

I have for some time thought that I should change the strap line for this blog.

A wry look at the big society no longer seems applicable, after all the idea of a big society seems to have gone away.

We don't hear much about it anymore.

Maybe my wry look has had an effect? Maybe I could claim some credit? After all humour is often the best form of both attack and defence.

And of course after the budget it seems, we are no longer all in it together.

The wealthy are rewarded because they create wealth and live in the Virgin Islands whereas the poor are criticised because they are always with us?

The future is being steadily privatised, all too soon we will be going through a door marked Virgin Health Services for our treatments, driving along privately managed and maintained roads, buying our books from the Amazon or iTunes or Kindle Library and wondering how and when all this happened.

But of course we are all in it together because we all at some level, at least for now, pay for it through taxation and as I have commented previously inflation is the most insidious tax of all because it catches everyone whether they pay income tax or not.

Taxation is defined as a means by which government finances its expenditure by imposing charges on citizens and corporate entities.

So apparently, neither the Chancellor nor the revenue can be bothered to continue with the 50p tax rate after all it only raises a trifling £100M because the wealthy with their troops of retained accountants can find ways around it and anyway by implication, £100M is neither here nor there unlike the size of the welfare budget.

No discussion here about finding ways to police it better and remove the loopholes, no review of Council tax banding just an increase in Stamp Duty, the obvious loophole is, don't sell your house or buy another, just extend up or down if you want a bigger garage or a swimming pool and that will be easier because the planning restrictions will be relaxed soon enough.

So the post budget knockabout rumbles on with the commentariat wringing many thousands of words out of the coverage of the Chancellors speech.

The nation is beset by word inflation.

And here I am adding my own two pennyworth.

When the raising of the tax threshold to £9000 was first proposed by Nick I wondered what would happen to the older persons threshold, would it simply be subsumed into the higher rate or would a premium continue to be added?

Now we have the answer.

I have to admit that it seems fair enough really the higher rate has not been abolished it remains more or less where it always was it's just that the standard rate has risen and will presumably overtime overtake it, I suspect that no-one will actually be worse off, but then equally few will be better off.

There is much that the Chancellor can be criticised for, this was a budget that both apparently and actually benefited the rich, it is also clear whose interests are being defended by this coalition Government and whose are not.

So I must give it all much  more thought.

I have a new blog title ready to go, The Irresponsible Socialist: in which I will spin the arguments for a socialist vision of the future including higher taxes for the wealthy, a health service free at the point of need, accessible public transport, free libraries, tax free pensions for the elderly, free higher education and guaranteed jobs for young people, of course it could just as well be called, back to the future ..........

22nd March 2012

I guess if you are a teetotal, non-smoking, millionaire who is not planning to move house then you welcomed the budget with a smile.

If on the other hand, back in the real world, you are a pensioner who likes a G&T before supper and a smoke after, then you wouldn't be best pleased with the news that you are about to have most of your pension increase, that is the part not eroded by inflation already, disappear in increased taxes.

And be frightened, be very frightened because the Chancellor's words will come back to haunt you when he returns to demand that another billion or two is to be wiped off the welfare budget.

I was waiting to hear the chorus again, the one about all being in it together?

This is a quote from the Eton College web-site:

'Our primary aim is to encourage each Etonian to be a self-confident, inquiring, tolerant, positive young man, a well rounded character with an independent mind, an individual who respects the differences of others'.


By the time he leaves the (sic) school, we want each boy to have that true sense of self-worth which will enable him to stand up for himself and for a purpose greater than himself, and in doing so, to be of true value to society'.


If you are in the slightest bit interested you might like to know that there is a sale on at the Eton College Gift shop, 25% off until Sunday, so if you rush you might be lucky and save yourself a bit of money.

For example:

A meticulously modelled pewter school boy (Cameron? Osborne?) wearing school dress sitting snugly (should that be smugly?) on top of a pencil.

Pencils come in Red or Blue, (blue preferred I imagine!).

This gift (was £4 25 now priced at a bargain £3 19) comes with a warning, Keep away from small children and babies, to which we now add pensioners, young unemployed and anyone on welfare!

Imagine the fun you could have with two figures, Tweedle Cameron and Tweedle Osborne, figuratively knocking their little pewter heads together whilst revising your budget downwards (Lidl Gin it seems from now on?).

Also of interest at www.etoncollege.com is the Political Society Report.

Recent Speakers include:

Former President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, whose protection reputedly costs the Metropolitan Police £25000 a day, Andrew Lansley talking about health reforms, former Defence Secretary Liam Fox, speaking about defence, but who apparently answered, in reply to a question about Margaret Thatcher, that she was 'the greatest living conservative without a doubt'.

David Blunket appeared arguing for a 'comprehensive political narrative' or was that a comprehensive school political narrative or just a different narrative to the one propounded by the con-dem Government about Labour spending all the money on keeping people luxuriously unemployed?

Another speaker was Lord Pearson, (described by the BBC as the Eton educated insurance broker who is always up for a fight, the bigger the opponent the better, apparently in the past he has laid into Lloyds of London, the Home Office and Marxism!) who argued that we (should that be Eton or the UK as a whole?) were better off out of the EU.

The Liberals of course, agree with Nick, that the tax thresh hold has been raised but if that is the headline it hardly denotes fairness all round because as usual the unfairness is in the small print ..........

19th March 2012

Have Cassock will travel.

Technically that is have Alb, but I guess cassock is a better known term for a clergy persons frock!

In her book The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macauley portrays the Anglican missionary with his portable altar and vestments in the person of Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg, doubtless with red buttons on his cassock.

High Anglicans love their red buttons and, at least in the Diocese of Europe, enjoy driving through foreign countryside, often like Fr Chantry-Pigg, using ancient names or anglicised names of the places to which they travel and then opening up their portable altar/stroke treasure chest, to celebrate the ancient mysteries according to the rites of the 1662 Prayer Book.

I guess that I stand in a long and proud tradition of eccentric clergy travelling to foreign parts and keeping a small corner of some foreign land forever English.

Yesterday I left my first service twenty minutes late and had to travel the 15 Kilometres to the next Church along the Autopista, fortunately the speed limit is 120 KPH and our Citroen C3, not unlike Father Chantry-Piggs' Camel, managed to keep pace with a Ferrari and we arrived with enough time to spare to welcome the congregation for the Baptism of the twins whose parents were anxiously awaiting our arrival.

Then it was off to catch Man U at Wolverhampton, fortunately that was more of a virtual journey than a real one and then an altogether more entertaining evening service in the secular chapel at the Cemetery in the Garden of Allah, the Irish writer Gerald Brenan who lived in Alahaurin, referred to it as the Garden of Eden, which is an interesting connection given that when I am not playing at Fr Chantry-Pigg,  I live in the Eden Valley in Cumbria, which to the best of my knowledge was never governed by the Caliphate.

I have recently been made aware that Giles Fraser also thinks aloud, although he thinks aloud for the Guardian and is probably paid rather more for his thoughts than I do for mine, the going rate seems to have been a penny for some time now.

Well I have also been thinking aloud about Archbishops and their appointment.

Fr Chantry-Pigg was a fictional character although it is not unusual to meet him where the Diocese of Europe meets the desert, red buttons are the clue to instant recognition of this increasingly rare species, Cultus Anglicana, if he wasn't fictional it might have been worth nominating him on the grounds that a) he was harmless, b) buffoonery has a certain charm, and c) he appeared to believe in where his vocation was leading him - to Trebizond.

Of course The Prime Minister will be given a great deal of carefully considered advice before the two names are submitted to him.

In the days before job descriptions and interviews found their place in the Anglican system of preferment (a much better word than promotion?) a Bishop friend of mine said he always knew when a job offer was being turned down because the first sentence of the letter from the person invited to consider the parish read, After much prayerful consideration ...., doubtless the possible candidates will not be starting their letter to Her Majesty, after she has received Mr Cameron's advice, with those words.

I was asked outright this morning who I thought the next Archbishop would/should be.

Difficult question to answer is that, the papers are of course full of supposition, anyone but York has already gained legs as a theory, then there is the jump a generation theory, but in a denomination where promotion (preferment) is based almost exclusively on patronage, perhaps the key question is who has the strongest, best placed, best connected, patrons.

Some years ago I was advised by an Archdeacon friend of mine to get onto General Synod, how do you think I got this job? He asked.

It transpired, as he told it, that he went to the toilet during a coffee break and was offered the job whilst washing his hands in the hand basin in the Church House toilet.

Cleanliness quite clearly next to Godliness.

So as I never use the Loo in Church House and am not on General Synod and therefore cannot spot who is:

.... waiting on the shingle or whether they will join the dance.

I will be as surprised as the next person when the name is announced.

Unfortunately for me I was given the heads up the last time.

I was at dinner with a friend who had invited another Priest who was apparently well connected, after discussing various issues that had arisen at supper the previous evening in the Downing Street kitchen, he was also indiscreet as well as well connected, a certain name was mentioned, yes, that name, should have put twenty quid on it there and then, but I'm not a betting man.

In Rose Macauley's book the great fault line was adultery which doesn't appear to bother Fr Chantry-Pigg enormously and bothers folk today even less.

Women will be consecrated eventually, probably sooner than later, same sex unions will be celebrated and the Church of England will divide as today's fault lines open up.

I rather suspect that the next Archbishop will preside over a great splitting asunder and a foot in either camp will only cause a splitting asunder of a different kind as the red buttons pop all the way up his cassock.

15th March 2012

Driving back from Fuengirola yesterday we saw a roadside stall selling Oranges.

We had seen the trees groaning under the weight of fruit as we passed. So we decided rather than buy Orange Juice from the supermarket in a carton, we'd juice our own.

The sack was huge, any number of Oranges, possibly forty in the sack, possibly more, I asked the price, 3 Euros.

As I reached to pick up the sack I was told no and the stall holder lifted them and placed them in the boot of the car.

The Oranges were so fresh that they immediately scented the car interior.

I was once advised by a second hand car dealer that a trick of the trade was that placing Orange peel under the seats made a second hand car smell fresher and more attractive to a prospective purchaser.

We were not planning to sell the car because it doesn't belong to us, but the scent of freshly picked Oranges made it altogether more attractive.

Again we commented on our experience in this part of Spain, fresh picked fruit for 3 Euros a sack is ridiculously cheap but the costs of labour can mean that much of the fruit is left to fall because it is too expensive to pick and migrant labour is no longer available.

But, like the petrol station where an attendant fuelled my car, sin plomo,  the purchase was supported by customer service, I cannot remember the last time that someone offered to carry goods I had purchased to the car.

In England it seems, all these activities have been outsourced to the customer, get your trolley, load it up, take it out to your car and load your own shopping and the day is almost here when you have to scan it yourself too.

On the BBC News last night we were told that the good news is that unemployment is rising more slowly.

Public sector jobs continue to be shed in shockingly large numbers, there is some evidence of private sector jobs being created, but unemployment continues to rise.

Whilst many of the service jobs are low paid and low status nevertheless it seems that there is an inherent contradiction between on the one hand outsourcing jobs to the customer/consumer and on the other appearing to be surprised that there are fewer jobs in the economy.

So in a leading economy in the first world we herald as good news that unemployment is rising more slowly, we continue to criticise those without work in derogatory terms and we continue to award massive bonuses to bankers.

When we settle down tonight with a mug of tea to watch the TV at 7 00 pm CET we will do so nervously.

Can Manchester United manage to do what they failed to do at Old Trafford and contain a youthful and exuberant Athletic Bilbao side and overturn a deficit by scoring enough goals to cancel out the away goal advantage?

Chelsea managed to defy the odds last night can Manchester United manage the same tonight?

It was with interest that this morning I read that the Athletic Bilbao team are pretty much exclusively recruited from the Basque region, they are local youngsters playing as much for Basque pride as for success and the wealth that come with it.

That seemed to me to be refreshing.

Maybe the mercenaries' day is over in football. Maybe the mercenaries day could be numbered in banking and huge supermarkets and other aspects of our community and social lives.

Maybe it is time to start thinking once again how employing local people, sourcing local seasonal goods, paying a fair price and distributing bonuses is the way not only to reduce the rise in unemployment more slowly but began to manage it out of the economy all together.

The Co-op manages to share its profits across the broad range of its members who are owners and shareholders, its communities, through community fund grants and suppliers by operating a fair trade ethic across its supply chains.

This morning we juiced our locally grown Oranges and sipped the sunshine.

13th March 2012

Standing on the steps of the crematorium waiting to take my first cremation in 1969 I was told a joke by the Funeral Director.

It was a ploy of course.

Get the new curate chuckling just as the hearse drew up and see if he could contain his laughter long enough to get through the service with due solemnity.

The joke concerned a funeral, the crematorium was at the top of a steep hill and as the hearse slowly climbed the hill the unsecured rear door burst open.

The coffin shot out and careered down the hill.

There was a T junction at the bottom of the hill and a Chemist’s Shop.

The coffin burst through the open door of the Chemist’s, bumped up against the counter where the lid flew up and the body sat up asking, have you anything to stop me coffin?

Of course what is being proposed for the NHS is no joking matter.

The market will rule OK!

At least it will determine some 49% of what will be offered in the form of treatments and services and increasingly it will be cheaper and easier to go to the Chemist, which is what happens in a large part of Europe and in the USA, where self- treatment with proprietary medicines accounts for the largest part of the treatment regime available to the poorest, the elderly and children.

The problem with NHS reforms, as currently proposed, apart from the fact that hardly anyone except the Government wants to see them introduced, the majority of Health Care professionals having argued against them, is that the only beneficiaries will be the private providers.

It doesn’t really matter who decides what treatment is appropriate if the choice they have has been reduced and what is available within the public side of the NHS has been handed over to the private side.

For most people a visit to the Doctor is an occasional, even a rare event.

Increasingly people enjoy better health as a result of improved diets and prophylactic treatments.

But for those who have a chronic condition, however it has been caused, the proposed changes do not look like reforms but deforms.

If you need regular monitoring of blood to check co-agulation or glucose levels, those services and associated costs will not be eagerly assumed by private providers, and so you will slowly drift toward the US system, which at one level is the best health care service in the world, hi tech, deeply sexy and successful in treating difficult critical conditions but much less able to offer the low tech, tedious, but no less crucial monitoring required to keep the chronically ill well and functioning normally.

MS is not a specific condition it is description of symptoms and as the condition progresses sufferers may need to be supported and monitored and that will be costly over the long term.

The funding is never sufficient because it can never be sufficient.

It is this worrying aspect of the proposals that are of concern. There are no guarantees, the McKinsey and KPMG advisers who are actively promoting the privatisation of the NHS are unlikely to have given any thought to access and the need for wheelchairs and other aids and adaptations.

Anyone who suffers from a chronic condition will have to increasingly rely on charitable support as they seek to continue to function within their own home or environment because they will almost certainly fall through the gap that the 49% represents.

No doubt the consultants will be on view in the hospitality rooms at the Para-Olympics patronising the athletes, perhaps they’ll share a few jokes, but I somehow feel that I know who will be having the last laugh …………

12th March 2012

On the seafront in Fuerengirola there is a restaurant that offers a dinner with a Flamenco floor show.

As you eat the singing and dancing swirl around you and the waiters carry the plates of food and glasses of wine to your table without spilling a drop.

Breathtaking entertainment.

With the Mediterranean as the back drop.

I imagine that the singers and dancers and musicians are well paid.

The Restaurant charges an inclusive price and you can settle back and enjoy the show.

Reading about Mervyn King's comments about bankers made me think about how banks have changed over the years.

No longer the secure, risk averse institutions that they were, it seems that the old lady of Threadneedle Street has kicked off her pin stripes and shiny shoes and begun to behave in a decidedly racy fashion.

She has thrown caution to the wind, broken the rules and declared herself too big to fail so the Government has bailed her out.

Now Mr King is calling for a new banking model, the failed model needs to be restructured, he says.


Banks have according to Mr King operated with double standards, lecturing people on living within their means and then demanding to be bailed out by public money when their speculative plans and deals failed.


The narrative that has been maintained by the con-dem coalition since the last election continues to use the refrain, 'the financial mess left by Labour'.

Like a song with a nagging chorus it refuses to go away.

But it is starting to wear a bit thin.

Unemployment continues to rise.

Mortgages remain difficult to find.

The promised reductions in the deficit have not happened.

The economy remains on the cusp of recession.

And the perfectly sensible proposals put forward by Labour's Ed Balls to help assist with rebooting the economy continue to fall on deaf ears.

At last, however, the Governor of the Bank of England calls attention to the public anger over the bank's very real failures which led to the financial crisis and which he describes as understandable.

Perhaps refocusing on the banks contribution to the 'financial mess'  means that a new narrative can be developed.

John Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath characterised the irresponsible and untimely intervention of the banks in the lives of the dust bowl families and their communities.

The bank manager who was a neighbour and doubtless a member of the church and social community, tells the farmer whose farm he is repossessing, it's the bank, the impersonal and distant, unfeeling monolith, thereby denying any responsibility for his own actions.

It is galling for any business man to be in a situation where effectively a bank takes over the running of his company, charging huge fees for it's intervention, which they simply add to the debt burden he is carrying, whilst demonstrating that in practice they lack the expertise to run the company whilst he has to ask their permission to pay his staff each and every month.

It is even more galling then to discover that not only can they not run your business, they cannot run their own but unlike you, they can then hold the treasury to ransom because they are too big to fail.

But this is a situation that has arisen again and again.

Banks promote debt, lend money with or without security encourage speculation and then run back to their political masters when their strategies fail.

Part of me is delighted to hear Mr King's views on his banking colleagues but part of me is suspicious. What is the real music behind the words? What else is being done and said? How much is this simply a diversion? Will anything really change?

8th March 2012

Lionel Messi scores, again and again.

Hardly a headline is it?

The main way to tell the difference between the sea front at Fuengirola and the sea front at Blackpool, they both have fish and chip shops and Bingo, is not the weather but the many shops selling Barcelona mementos, from shirts and shorts, pennants and photos of the team, to bracelets and badges.

When I lived in Newcastle business and civic leaders used to say that production was up and people smiled more on a Monday after Newcastle had won on a Saturday.

In Spain with unemployment running at 25% people are smiling because Barcelona keep winning and Real Madrid aren't doing too badly either.

Football as the barometer of national pride and a measure of success is not a new idea.

But to put seven goals past Bayer Leverkusen is enough to put a smile on any self respecting supporter.

Lionel Messi accounted for five of them so he keeps the match ball again.

With a budget around the corner and the Chancellor desperate to kick start the economy maybe there is a clue for him and his treasury colleagues in the success of Barcelona.

Of course he would have to pick the right team, the two Manchester Teams are doing OK on their own, but Tottenham could fly the flag for UK Plc or maybe a team from one of the towns with a Japanese car maker, Derby, Swindon or Sunderland?

With some help possibly Arsenal could be re-configured with a new striker to help the South East recover its position as the industrial heart of the nation, making things as well as earning money through the always hard to comprehend financial services?

Who knows?

It could be a winning formula.

Forget mansion taxes and reducing child benefit for the averagely rich.

Invest the national wealth into a winning football team.

It would lift the nations spirits, restore pride in our once again great nation and perhaps even persuade the Scottish to stay in the union, although in truth the Catalans have quite a strong sense of independence so that might not work unless Celtic or Heart of Midlothian become the team chosen to carry the spirit of UK Plc forward into the next century.

Of course it won't change the weather unless the Chancellor also invests in Cloud Technology and sends bombs into the atmosphere to drive away the grey cold and bring some blue Spanish style skies so we can watch our iconic British team play in sunshine every Saturday.

It won't happen, there will be the usual fiddling whilst Rome burns, taxes will go up or down, the price of petrol and diesel will continue to rise and the poor will be with us always.

Except ..........

Mr Abramovitch is hoping to persuade Pepe Guardiola to switch allegiance and to come over to London to manage Chelsea maybe his first signing will be a young Argentinian and it will start raining goals and years of optimism will come to replace the ennui of coalition government?

5th March 2012

The Buzzcock's song, Have you ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with? came into my head this morning.

A punk anthem to teenage sexuality and gender confusion.

It was a great favourite in the gay teenage youth group I hosted in Newcastle.

Now I am reminded of it because Mr Cameron appears to be on the verge of introducing legislation that I can only welcome and approve of, and doing it to a cacophony of protests from Bishop's, Archbishop's and Cardinals, which I cannot approve of.

Wow! It could almost be the big society.

Allowing same sex couples to have their relationships celebrated and blessed and to be able to call it marriage.

I always like Rabbi Lionel Blue on the Today programme and this morning his joke about the dangers of mixed marriages was a telling riposte to the preceding report.

What better way to counter the arguments being marshalled by Archbishop's and Cardinal's who should know better, than a little gentle humour.

Whilst I welcome the legislation and the changes it promises I cannot promise to like Mr Cameron any more than I do now, which is not at all. I still hope that for all their scheming the coalition disappears into the political shadows from which they emerged, but I hope that this liberal, human, heart warming and entirely right minded legislation is voted in first.

It seems to me that the churches general opposition belongs to the same poor reading of the Bible that questions the ordination of women, we must always in reading the bible take the text and place it in the context not only of when it was written and why it was written, but in the context of when it is being read and by whom.

The spirit of the age is as important as the Holy Spirit if we are to read the Bible intelligently.

Scholars have a view certainly, as does the churches general understanding over time, but times change and as they change we develop a more human understanding of what it takes to be who we are meant to be under God.

And why cannot a couple who have committed themselves to each other in a relationship bring that relationship before a registrar or the church and ask for it to be recognised or blessed and call it a marriage with all the legal consequences of that recognition or blessing?

I was ordained in 1969 after three years at a Theological College where it was common knowledge that amongst both the student body and the staff there were clergy and ordinands who were gay.

Somehow a small minded, mean spirited part of the church has managed over the forty years or so that I have been ordained to hold the church to ransom by threatening to withhold  its money. Well as the Episcopal Church in the USA found over the ordination of women it is quite possible to continue to be church without them or their money, and to flourish.

One of the issues that makes this a difficult argument is the fate of the Ugandan Martyrs who were killed for resisting the sexual advances of the King after they converted but Archbishop Sentamu's reference to Dictatorship does not refer to this tragic event in the life of the Ugandan Church, instead he challenges the Government for seeking to redefine marriage, but he is wrong, as anyone who has fled a dictatorship to seek asylum in the UK, knows.

We live in a liberal democracy that has slowly and painfully moved far from the day when homosexual practises were illegal to a time when we are free to express ourselves openly and honestly about our sexuality and who we wish to share our lives with.

That is a great thing and to be welcomed.

Have you ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?

3rd March 2012

I had a nice surprise when I put fuel sin plomb into my car.

An attendant pumped the gas for me. I've become so used to pumping gas that I had to actively fight back the impulse to grab the fuel pump.

So after getting us to pump gas the latest wheeze in supermarkets is outsourcing the check-out function to the customer.

You know the kind of thing that caused Mr Worrall Thompson such embarrassment.

Apparently a store is about to open in London which has no staff on the check outs, you just push everything through the bar code reader yourself and type your pin number into the debit card reader.

I find this trend deeply disturbing I can only hope that it is capitalism's last fling.

Capitalism suffered a typo in my last post sadly it wasn't fatal.

I have corrected it, a before p especially after C unless its pc or should that be PC?

Capitalism is clearly the economic system de jour of those who run our public affairs, how else are they or their friends to make any money?

It makes sense, Adam Smith said so. Apparently?

Capitalism is the economic system that inspires achievement, success and profits.

How are people ever going to be motivated to make enough money to make themselves rich with enough left over to trickle down to the rest of us?

Adam Smith did however warn against Capitalists.

He saw them engaged in a collusive relationship against working people.

When I lived in Bradford I lived in a house built over a charnel pit where the bodies of children who were killed in the Mills were buried in Lime.

It wasn't a healthy place to live.

Protecting those children cost the capitalist mill owners time and time was money, so the children who cleaned the machines were often killed or maimed when the machines were switched back on with them still inside.

Child Labour Laws, Education and School Meals were pioneered in Bradford against opposition from the capitalists whose vested interests were threatened.

It is usual in the Church to read a Lent book. The book I am reading is called The Christian Consumer by Laura M Hartman.

The author is American she is writing about shopping and a lot more.

The principal argument is that our consumption should avoid sin, it should embrace creation, it should love neighbour and envision the future, so it is no surprise that after various discussions about the ethics of consuming that the author brings into her discussion the first co-operators, often referred to as the  Rochdale pioneers. The author credits them with introducing the principles that underpin most if not all co-operatives today.

Capitalism proved in 2010 that it no longer offers a way forward for community, enterprise or human well being.

The sight of disconsolate traders leaving Canary Wharf with their card board boxes made it clear that making money out of money is an ultimately foolish and unfulfilling enterprise if that is what capitalism is, then it is a failed scheme.

This year is the International Year of co-operation.

After a hundred years mutualism is positioning itself as a credible alternative to capitalism.

So when you go shopping consider the positive impact that your spending decisions can make, be a cheerful shopper, thank the person on the check out, shop locally, buy fair trade goods and things made, reared and produced in your area, support farmers markets and make sure that what you buy is renewable.

1st March 2012

Today I had to visit a local clinic in Alhaurin to book a blood test.

When we were in Italy we had to do the same thing but in a different language.

Within minutes despite the barriers of language and the fact that the clinical names are different we had been registered temporarily with a Doctor and given an appointment for next Monday which had both the name of the clinic and the clinician on the appointment, at the end of the interview the booking clerk shook my hand.

Not, it seems too difficult.

Watching Channel Four News however it seems that in the UK it is increasingly difficult to do simple things, such as treat an older patient with respect.


It is an old fashioned view I know, but I am sure that attitudes are shaped by the tone in which the narrative is debated.

Parliament may be the mother of democracy but listening to the exchanges between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister was embarrassing.

Unnecessary legislation has forced the Government into a position where it has to press forward with changes which it would appear no one supports so as not to lose face, in the same way that the Chancellor appears to find it hard to stimulate the economy to promote growth as he is being urged to do by the opposition, by the commentariat and by business leaders.

So the contempt shown by politicians for the Doctors and Nurses will I am sure influence the view that Doctors and Nurses show to their patients, too often if someone has no time for you or your opinions and appears not to value you, then with the best will in the world, you will reflect that contempt in your dealings with others.

When you are valued you value, when you are not, you don't.

There is a hysteria about Parliamentary Debate at the moment.

The other great fiasco which the Government has introduced under the guidance of Mr Duncan Smith is the system of, apparently voluntary, work placements.

Those who oppose the scheme on the grounds that what is needed are real jobs, created by a growing economy, are dismissed as Trotskyites or interestingly I believe by Mr Duncan Smith as Anarchists.

Well, if that name is being used, as it often is as a term of abuse, it might be worth reflecting on what Trotsky believed and practised and worked to achieve.


In 1924 the American Trotskyist, James Cannon wrote that, Trotskyism is not a new movement, but the restoration or revival of genuine Marxism as practiced in the Russian Revolution.


Trotskyism, he argued, could be distinguished from other Marxist Theories because he, Trostsky, supported a permanent revolution, opposed Stalin, called for social revolution in advanced capitalist countries through mass working class action and supported internationalism.


We all know what happened to Communism, and now we can see something similar happening as Capitalism begins to feel the first pains of a new order emerging and change happening.


Post Communist Russia threw up the Gangsters and the Oligarchs, it is hard to know what a Post Capitalist society will look like but the Billionaires throwing their money away on football clubs and trophy wives offer a clue.


Change when it arrives is always painful.


History tells us that we are subject to constant flux, things change, so the idea that a permanent revolution is possible is simply advising us to ride the changes as well as we are able, Stalin was history whilst Lenin was embalmed, if those opposing the Government's version of workfare are Trotskyites then the protesters at St Paul's and anyone who seeks social change as a way of challenging the capitalist ethic and improving the conditions of people generally would presumably not be offended by the name, indeed might take a certain pride in it? Certainly as the world grows smaller courtesy of easy jet and Ryan Air and support for internationalism grows that can hardly make the Boards of those companies Trotskyites?


We are in a tough place, socially, economically and politically, we need a new narrative for the 21st Century, let's at least conduct the debate in a grown up fashion, please ......