Journal of the Plague Years

• Pigs Flying (Gadarene Style).
• A Failure in Reporting.
• 10 Days To War.
• They're the bad guys, and so we're told; so there's no need to look deeper.
• A Bit of Number-Crunching.
• Closing Time.
• Ex Cabinetta.
• Jodrell Bank.
• The Truth Is Out There.. and it may annoy you.
• A Continental Air.
• The Lisbon Referendum.
• Our unspoken, commercial assumptions about the world.
• From The Guardian, 29 Feb.
• The Best Interests Of The Country.
• 'Dirty scalpels bring 5,000 ops to a halt.' (The Observer, today.)
• Why buy a video-game?
• Anti-depressants don't work. If you say they do, you are wrong.

Pigs Flying (Gadarene Style).

10 March 2008 .

Building a new runway at Heathrow, or a new airport in the Thames Estuary, is all to do with Britain's international competetiveness and economic survival...

No, it isn't. It has much more to do with tourism, especially, it seems, with cheap long haul minibreaks. Last year 3.7 million Britons flew for a short holiday (less than seven days) to a destination involving flights of seven hours or more. This year the figure is expected to be 4.9 million (Independent).*

To the damage of many of the destinations, the distress of the poor and the destruction of the environment.

*The Independent also quoted 5.5 billion air miles rising to 7.4 billion: their maths doesn't actually work out, but the principle's the same.


A Failure in Reporting.

10 March 2008 .

There's a letter in yesterday's Independent on Sunday, from Bill Haymes of Coventry, which refers to an assertion by the IoS that the British should remain in Afghanistan because 'schemes to diversify cultivation in the poppy fields are working' - an assertion which is being made all the time. Mr. Haymes said that poppy cultivation had actually risen there by 18% last year, and asked how the IoS quantified success.

Yesterday I quoted Private Eye:

• US State Department announced on 29 Feb. that opium poppy production in Afghanistan is at a record high.
• Number of articles in the British National Press about it: Nil.

I just had a quick check on the net to see if Private Eye was correct about the State Department's announcement (it was). It would seem that the IoS (and others in the media who quote the same argument) fail to report the news because they have no idea what the news is.

I'll take this opportunity to mention that when, from time to time, I express some admiration for the Independent, this doesn't extend to the Independent on Sunday, the quality of which I regret to say nose-dived at about the time Janet Street-Porter took over editorial duties.


10 Days To War.

10 March 2008 .

BBC2 showed the first of a series of short films marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq today. It was the dramatised story of a government lawyer resigning because of the illegality of the war which caught the claustrophobic inevitability of the time excellently. I just wonder whether the BBC is in the right position to present such a drama - I'm thinking of their craven collapse under government pressure over the Dr. Michael Kelly affair.

I have to remind myself that it was the management of the BBC, and not the investigative programmes or reporters, who were so craven.

The discussion which followed, on Newsnight, was a bit disappointing - positions were reiterated; but Philippe Sands QC (see also Impeaching Blair) was able to emphasize what seems to me one of the important consequences of 2003 which seems sometimes to be forgotten, that Britain lost a lot of the goodwill we need when (if) we try to do some of the good things which need to be done (Kosovo right now, perhaps Darfur or even Zimbabwe).


They're the bad guys, and so we're told; so there's no need to look deeper.

09 March 2008 .

When Turkey was planning its invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, the US was advised in advance (although Iraq, apparently, was only told at the 'last moment'); it seems that the US urged 'restraint' - but not cancellation. Now the president of Iraq is in Turkey, discussing measures to deal with the PKK (the Turkish-Kurdish insurgents who have been fighting the Turks for decades) - whom the US, Iraq and Turkey, plus the media in this country, all describe as terrorists.

The PKK are certainly not nice people, any more than, say the IRA; the difference is that the Kurds in Turkey have a great deal more to complain about than the Catholics in Ulster. The Turks are trying to destroy Kurdish culture altogether, banning the use of the language in schools and elsewhere; but they are also given to wiping out populations whom they feel don't conform. The Armenian Holocaust took place, after all, within living memory, and the Turks are still denying that it ever happened (and throwing their own citizens in jail for saying it did). At least the British government kept talking with Sinn Fein - I know the British media aren't very interested in the Kurds, but I never notice anything about the Turks trying for dialogue with the PKK.

We're told who are the 'good guys' and who are the 'bad'. Except that 'told' is the wrong word... 'subliminally instructed' would be closer... No change there, then.


A Bit of Number-Crunching.

09 March 2008 .

From this week's Private Eye:

1. US Defence Intelligence reports that Taliban recaptured 10% of Afghanistan and that the Government there now only control 30% of the country (28 Feb).

Articles in the British national press: 2 .

2. US State Department announces that opium poppy production in Afghanistan is at a record high (29 Feb).

Articles in the British national press: 0 .

3. News released of Prince Henry's deployment in Afghanistan (28 Feb).

Articles in the British national press: 250 .

To which, add:

1. Days to get Prince Henry back to the UK once his cover had been blown: 2
2. Days to get basic equipment from UK to Afghanistan (resulting in deaths): 25

-/-

The relative news coverage, even if distorted, is probably to be expected.

The time required to meet the basic needs of fighting men is a (bloody) scandal - but not much changed since the Great War, or Crimea. We do, after all, live in a country where servicemen and women are given orders not to wear their uniform while out and about because the abuse the uniform attracts...* much like the eighteenth century, there, then.

*Blair never did (so far as I know) visit any wounded in hospital, or meet their families. I've not read any reports about Brown doing so, either. It's a matter of perception, really, isn't it?


Closing Time.

08 March 2008 .

There's been a lot of fuss about the (scarcely concealed) xenophobia shown by the white, working-class subjects of yesterday's BBC 'White Season' documentary. What seemed the sadder part of it was their lack of understanding of a far more basic fact - that every group among the less secure classes, whether indigenous or immigrant, has its own problems and fears, and that there ought to be a great deal more in that to unite the races than to divide them.


Jodrell Bank.

07 March 2008 .

In a country which has made the collective decision to cut costs in every way it can, it is no use complaining that closing the Jodrell Bank observatory project will save each taxpayer less than 10p a year (2.5 million p.a. total) and will waste the 8 million which has just been spent upgrading it. The government's prudent logic is that a penny here and a penny there soon adds up.

It's been one of the few areas of pure science where, for tuppence ha'penny, we were still in the forefront of research. Never mind.

The comparison with other things we would lose to save two-and-a-half million might give one pause. Perhaps MPs expenses are unavoidable; Prince Charles does do a good job (although I doubt if it's as historically important as Jodrell Bank). But the money would buy only a tiny fraction of the war in Iraq which we asked not to have; it's one four-hundredth of our unnecessary exposure to Northern Rock (resulting from the criminal greed of the directors). Never mind.

I'm hoping that this is one of those exercises the government goes in for: when they tell us that Jodrell Bank is actually going to be privatised, we'll be so relieved that it's not shutting down that we won't examine the fine print too closely. Perhaps one of those creationist car-salesmen who are so keen to buy our schools might be persuaded...


The Truth Is Out There.. and it may annoy you.

07 March 2008 .

One of the promises of the London Olympics of 2012 was that they would be car free.

However, it seems that there is a contract between the IOC and London, under which the IOC is demanding that London supply over 3,000 chauffeur-driven cars; additionally, chunks of the city's roads will be closed to all traffic except these cars and 3,000 traffic lights will be adjusted so that these cars can sail through at the highest possible speed. The cars will be available to senior IOC members, 'dignitaries' and executives from the corporate sponsors (companies like McDonald's), but.... not to the athletes themselves, who'll travel on coaches. The rest of us will (rightly) make do with public transport.

So much, once again, for promises. More serious are questions about the contract itself: why, if we're being asked to stump up taxes for the next several years to pay for the Olympics (plus, come to that, give the use of our city), are Londoners not to know what's in this contract signed on our behalf? And; what other little surprises are there in it?

Those of us with more than the memory of a flea will remember that members of the IOC are not entirely free of the taint of self-interest: not entirely bothered to rid themselves of the taint, either, it would seem.


A Continental Air.

06 March 2008 .

Allowing 24 hour licences for pubs was meant, by government thinking, to promote a 'cafe culture' along continental lines.

The point of having a cafe culture is to have plenty of cafes. And plenty of variety...

It's true that we have innumerable Starbucks and Costas; some of them are very pleasant, but on the whole they're as exciting as chains of pubs and not the sort of places where a Bohemian, intellectual, artistic or engagingly social culture would ever take root. And by cafe-culture standards they're expensive.

And even with these cafes on the high street, at the times when families might walk together they're often closed, so through large swathes of the country there's still nowhere appealing for families to go.

So for too many people there's nowhere to go but the pub. So youngsters get bored or drunk, either of which leads to trouble, and young adults go binge drinking, which... leads to trouble...

It defeats me how anyone could think that simply opening the pubs longer would help. As it is, we have the government spinning the experiment as a success, many police forces and residents saying exactly the opposite, and most of the rest of us hovering somewhere in between. A lot of heat and gas is being generated, but I don't think anyone can look at our society's pavements and see any sort of wonderful renaissance.

I would like to see a whole range of estaminets replace some of the endless (expensive) restaurants which seem to be all we can think of as alternatives to pubs. Small cafes and cafe-bars? A few brasseries? A few conditorei? Perhaps The Supreme Leader could be sent on a tour of central Europe for a few months.

It can only be private creativity and enterprise, of course, which could lead us to these particular sunny uplands. But I will make a suggestion, which is that culture minister Hodge (instead of slagging off the Proms - one of our few great, inclusive, cultural successes) spend some time persuading the Treasury to reduce business rates for small businesses providing a social-cultural service (instead of trying to promote anything that raises tax revenue).

Another suggestion: stop taxing and banning live music. Brown visiting Europe might make him realise how vibrant a city full of singers and buskers, with bars and cafes full of gigs, can be. Perhaps he could tax muzac instead.


The Lisbon Referendum.

06 March 2008 .

Over 80% of the population demand a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, according to parts of the press.

The idea of leaving any fundamental decision to that bunch of baboons in parliament is chilling. But I still have to ask: What on Earth's the point of a referendum on a document which virtually nobody has read - and which isn't understood by some those who have tried to read it?

The realistic opportunity for an 'In or Out' referendum - which might have made sense - seems to have been lost some time ago.

Mind you, I suspect that some majority who are opposed to the Lisbon treaty hold their position as a result of unremitting propaganda by an Australian who lives in the US; but perhaps I'm being patronising.


Our unspoken, commercial assumptions about the world.

05 March 2008 .

In the endless discussions about the parlous state of foreign language teaching in the UK, people are forever quoting Willy Brandt: "If I'm selling to you, I speak your language. If I'm buying, dann muessen Sie Deutsch sprechen ..."

It reflects the reality of our economic world, of course. It's depressing, because it's a drably utilitarian argument for learning - which, unfortunately, makes it the one which is likely to appeal to our leaders.

There's worse, if you choose to be idealistic: it reflects a world in which the reason we're all buzzing around like evicted bees is to sell. Reality, yes; but possibly the reality which, by creating markets and fuelling economic growth, is speeding the resource-exhaustion crisis which looms over us.


The Best Interests Of The Country.

03 March 2008 .

David Cameron has vowed that a third of jobs in his first government would go to women.

Surely, he's making the very mistakes he's trying to correct. The government of the country may well have been damaged in the past, and the careers of individuals blocked, by discrimination favouring men over women. Reversing the discrimination will not reverse the damage.

At the beginning of the next parliament, those who have been elected will have been elected, whichever gender they may be: prejudice, if it has occurred, will be likely to have affected those women (or indeed racial minorities) who never made it to selection. So those Tory members who are in the parliament will be starting on a fairly level playing field; the question of whose grandmothers were affected by prejudice will be an irrelevance, since the grandmothers of men will have been just as affected as those of women. Appointing a woman to a post now will not 'compensate' (in some sense) women in the past.

What it boils down to is whether 'rectifying' a perceived unfairness - which probably will not actually be rectified - is more important than the 'best' persons being put in each post, in what is going to be a very difficult time in our country's government.

Who knows? Choosing the best might mean an all-woman government... It would certainly beat a bevy of patronising men.


'Dirty scalpels bring 5,000 ops to a halt.' (The Observer, today.)

02 March 2008 .

The sub-heading to the report is 'Surgery is being cancelled, sometimes as patients lie anaesthetised, after outside firms return theatre equipment unsterile and broken.' There follows a sadly unsurprising list of delays in the return of equipment and equipment returned filthy as hospitals outsource their instrument sterilisation. The figure of 5,000 is probably an underestimate - two hospitals in Birmingham alone reported a total of 3,000 'decontamination clinical incidents' in six months of 2007.

The first of several quotes from nurses: 'Following outsourcing we experienced instruments being returned still with blood and bone clearly visible.'

Most of the instruments were rejected because the doctors and nurses could see that they were unsterile, or because the protective paper wraps were broken. It makes you wonder what slipped through because it appeared to be clean.

-/-

The list of Snafus by those parts of the private sector which have taken over what used to be run by the government or by the public corporations just grows and grows. When I was a kid, Britain's was a mixed economy, private and public sectors side by side. Where the state had an effective monopoly (telephones and the mail, for example), standards of service and innovation could be pretty dire at times - the GPO most certainly needed to feel the chill winds of competition; but where the sectors had an element of competition the industry was often world class (television and airlines). There were public sector organisations which bucked the trends, too, of course: London Transport had a monopoly but was excellent, BLMC in competition was hopeless.

The point seems to be that it's not privatisation or nationalisation which solves the problem (or the private profit motive or setting endless targets in what remains of the public sector), but something in the management or the corporate spirit. So far as this private citizen is concerned that much of what is offered now is more slapdash, less dedicated, more rapacious than it was 30 years ago; some of this is probably the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia - but too much is supported by the facts. I suspect that it's the endless changes in ownership, together with the insecurity of much of the workforce (spun as 'flexible working'), that's at the bottom of much of our troubles. It seems self-evident to me that the way we organise our economy is going have a great effect on our national welfare not too far down the line: all I can see at the moment is the political short-termism into which both the main parties are locked.


Why buy a video-game?

02 March 2008 .

ITV News tonight tells us that tomorrow evening they will be able to give us a soldier's-eye view of the fighting in Afghanistan. Men 'on the ground' will be wearing cameras on their helmets - as ITV put it (I do hope wrongly): so that we can see the action. I think they may even have used the word 'live'.

War as entertainment.


Anti-depressants don't work. If you say they do, you are wrong.

01 March 2008 .

Today's wisdom is that anti-depressants don't actually do anything - we just think they do.

A few years ago, a consultant (psychologist, I think) told me that if a depression wasn't ameliorated by Prozac, then the condition wasn't depression. It was nonsense, of course, but he was adamant and he was 'the expert'.

The way that some interesting research on the drugs has been taken as an absolute by so many in medicine, the press and government is itself depressing - just as depressing as my consultant's obdurate certainty the other way. The fact is that is that we hardly understand anything, in the grand scale of things, about mental problems - we don't even know with much certainty what the genetic component is, how much is nature and how much nurture. It won't stop most of them knowing the truth, though; such is human nature. Meanwhile, people who rely on the drugs which have sometimes saved their lives are being terrified, in their hundreds or even thousands according to the mental health organisation Sane: I can affirm that in at least some cases it is because a government which frequently shows a very poor understanding of science and its limitations will take the new research as irrevocable gospel (until the next swing of the pendulum).

Equally depressing, and very worrying, is the use of the word 'unhappiness' to describe depression by many professionals. It's the clearest indication that the professionals concerned do not know what they're talking about. The two are intimately linked (obviously) but they aren't synonymous.

Return to Current Journal

Go to Previous Journal (21 Feb 08 - 29 Feb 08)

Site Map