Journal of the Plague Years

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• The Scum of the Earth.
• Great Britain plc.
• Not Again!
• On A Field Azur; A Lion Rampant Argent, E-maled.
• Sometimes, we need to live in Dreamtime.
• Britishness.
• Love means having to say you're sorry - properly.
• I should Draw A Line and Move On...
• All Around I See...

The Scum of the Earth.

19 December 2007 .

I was invited to dinner, recently, in a picturesque village in the Home Counties. The company was affluent, successful, mostly old money. Accents were educated and genuine-model up-market. I would imagine that attitudes were shared and assumed to be shared.

A chap started talking about the hospital where he was a governor. He clearly thought that his work was important, and I would guess that he did it punctiliously. But, while he was talking, he described the patients who used the hospital as 'the scum of the earth'. He clearly meant it, in the most conversational way: he used the phrase easily and naturally, without apparent irony (affectionate or otherwise), a couple of times.

Around the table, the attitude seemed to be, 'yes, they are the scum of the earth, but one has his duty'.

Should I have said something? Were there others there who felt as chilled as I did but, like me, were too polite (read, feeble) to protest? Or did I completely misjudge his meaning?


Great Britain plc.

19 December 2007 .

Years ago, when I was teaching during the Thatcher era, I came into my (shared) classroom to find a new set of educational posters had been posted up on the walls. If I remember rightly, they were from the Banking Information Service. As a large part of each poster, almost as a sort of logo, was the title "Great Britain plc".

I almost lost my cool (but didn't). I said that I didn't want my teaching environment to carry such a message. My point was that Britain is the pupils' country, their home, not a resource to be marketed for profit; that certainly as children they are citizens, not equity holders. The posters were taken down - but because I obviously felt strongly, not because I had won the argument.

I have met so many people who feel that there is no conflict between these two roles which they are asking our youngsters to take on. I have argued for the ordinary people who either have no inclination to capitalism or no base from which launch themselves (who are, as we now see, increasingly left out of the loop). I have even argued the obvious religious point, that you cannot serve God and Mammon.

The reply, more than once, has even been that if someone can't hack it, they pretty much have only themselves to blame. How do I begin to deal with that mindset?

And now, we're reading in the papers that upward social mobility in Britain is even less than the fairly miserable level we had been led to believe.


Not Again!

18 December 2007 .

Nick Clegg says that it will all be about change.

So no change there, then.

I'm not at all sure about this Clegg guy. Frankly, I'm getting the same sinking feeling as when Blair was elected leader of Labour (which he then destroyed in the name of getting elected) and when Cameron was chosen. They're of a type: young, pretty, and alarmingly lacking in crucial areas. I was all for Menzies, even though he was a Campbell. (That's my trace of Highland Scot showing through.)


On A Field Azur; A Lion Rampant Argent, E-maled.

17 December 2007 .

The Nordic Battle Group's heraldic lion: here he is, before and after a complaint by some women from Sweden:

It's been reported in several papers here (including the observation that such a deprivation, in heraldic terms, is awarded to persons who have betrayed the crown).

Should we complain that Britannia has breasts? Pace women's opinions, but, who on earth goes to all the trouble of complaining that a heraldic symbol has a male member?

Nobody yet, that I've seen, has commented that the poor, emasculated animal still has a mane. So that, rampant or not, he remains a male.


Sometimes, we need to live in Dreamtime.

15 December 2007 .

We have an endless perceived problem with hard drugs; we're told that we have a crisis with alcohol; after a generation of education, price rationing and ever tightening restrictions, a quarter of the population still smokes and levels are actually rising amongst sections of the young; nobody even knows what's really happening with cannabis, beyond that use among the young is up - but it's certain that what's on the market now has nothing to do with the mild stuff of a generation ago. When the use of Es or marijuana falls, cocaine steps in. Those who stay within legality are taking caffeine by drinking coffee in unhealthy amounts or tea in even vaster quantities, or they're addicted to nicotine from gums or patches, or to chocolate, or brufen, or aspirin, or God knows what. Sometimes the drugs aren't (directly) chemical - such as gambling or sex.

Some of those who tear themselves away from addiction are glad of it, but many range from yearning for the drugs, possibly all their lives, to physical and mental illness. Plenty return to addiction, often worse than before, and sometimes to more dangerous drugs.

Doesn't there seem to be prima facie evidence that a large proportion of people may need the support of these materials. That to be free of such a need may, in fact, be unusual. It would be politically impossible, of course, to actually sanction research to find out if that is the case... but what if it is? What if retailing and gadgetry do not have the power to make life tolerable? What if the government is condemning vast numbers of people to stressful, rather than healthy, lives.

But of course... the government's party trick is to demonise, not to try to understand. Tough on everything... but never the work needed to understand.

[With an honourable exception, namely Blunkett's reclassification of Cannabis - but even here he got it wrong, choosing almost exactly the time when the most toxic, dangerous forms of the drug was becoming universal. (Why can't they distinguish between marijuana and skunk?) (Still; heartwarming to say something nice, if qualified, about Blunkett for once.)]

I gave up smoking 15 years ago. I have regretted it, often. I believe that I should have smoked and risked an early grave. After all, some people are asking what being old in this country promises anyway, now?

Never mind; I've taken to alcohol instead.


Britishness.

12 December 2007 .

I'm not crazy about being lectured to on my Britishness by a sour-tempered Sassenach from Fife, even if he is The Supreme Leader.

I will probably be in a minority in this view, but I'll bet it's not a minority of one.

As it happens, I'm a Londoner by birth. Apart from my God-given right to assume that one Londoner is worth ten from outside, I don't assume that being one makes me any better or worse than anyone else. It does mean, however, that I see my nationality in a certain way. I've across the Channel more often than I've been north of the Severn-Humber line, and I feel that I have more in common with a Parisian than with an Ulsterman or even a Geordie. I'm not particularly proud of it any more, but my sense of self is very much tied up with being English. Close behind that comes being a European. Despite having family from both Scotland and Ireland in the dim past, I have never felt 'British'. In fact, I have always found the word British rather drab - redolent more than anything of British Restaurants or, at best, British Leyland.

Why should I have anything especially in common with the smell of the Fife manse rather than an Italian bar? Why, indeed, should a Welsh hill-farmer feel that he has anything in particular in common with a Londoner? I have no objection to any of those people - in fact, for each of the above examples, I have carefully selected from among friends and relatives. But my loyalties lie with Europe (which is not same as the EU) and very little with 'Britain'. (They certainly don't lie with a man who behaves so appallingly crassly as brown has over the treaty. Although, to be fair, it's no more or less than I've come to expect. I am a European and, as such, I am actually profoundly offended, quite apart from my pre-existing contempt for the man.)

When it comes to immigrants, I hope they'll want to speak English when they're out and about, and that they'll respect the indigenous cultures, but beyond that they also have the right to be themselves: if that means they choose to acquire a sense of Britishness, then that's cool - although I'm quite happy if they become Londoners, or Geordies, or maintain the identity they were born to. What I don't like is the idea of a government that instructs them to be British, decides what being British means, and gives them tests on it. (Have you seen some of those questions?) [This paragraph is written in the heat of the moment. I may have a totally different opinion tomorrow.]


Love means having to say you're sorry - properly.

11 December 2007 .

There are two similar phrases which people use, especially schoolboys, politicians and people in the public eye, when they are supposedly apologising: they are along the lines of, "I'm sorry if I caused any trouble," and, "I am sorry for any trouble I may have caused."

They would be fine phrases, except when it is absolutely and starkly clear that there is no 'if' or 'may' about it - trouble (or grief, or pain, or whatever) has demonstrably and visibly been suffered. Then they are not fine phrases at all, but weasel words. (The required phrase is then, "I'm sorry for the trouble which I have caused.")

One of the princes fell into that trap over an incident involving a Nazi uniform: in his case the wording was apparently formulated by an advisor. Yes, I can imagine.

Mrs. Darwin, the Canoe Man's wife, apologised to her family, I read today. I know very little about this case and I have no idea whether or not her apology was genuine, but it was one of the 'may' variety. If I were a member of her family who had (clearly) expressed his or her outrage at the deception that has been perpetrated, I would tell Mrs. Darwin where she could put her apology.

Talking of schoolboys: I can say that experience of teaching, especially at - I should say - about year 10 level, has come in very handy for understanding the shenanigans of more than a few of our party politicians.


I should Draw A Line and Move On...

08 December 2007 .

I've been exposed to a lot of cable TV recently. Virgin, as it happens; not a subscription I'll ever be making, what with blank screens, pixelating, freezing, 'service' messages from Virgin all the time... I'm not sure I've ever actually seen an uninterrupted programme from that company. There: now I've had my rant, I'll get on with what this item is all about.

There's a new channel, 'True Movies', which, as its name suggests, shows the sort of film that starts with a notice that 'the following is based on actual events': they tend to deal with causes célèbres, or stories around (emotional) issues of the past few decades; the genre, I suppose, is 'Hollywood Worthy'. I admit that I was very dismissive, at first. But I've seen four films now which have resonated for me; a couple of them so close to my own experience that I have become, I admit, quite agitated.

As a rule, I find that my experiences are seldom particularly unusual; so, I assume that other people have felt the same as I have. I'm not sure yet if that means that the channel will be a great success or if it will fold very soon....

Hollywood tends to show a happy resolution; in real life, that is often far from the case. This lack of resolution of some events in my own life has obviously been bugging me subconsciously, because it's rather come to the surface again. Perhaps because I'm still new to writing a journal, I'm tempted to use it as a vehicle for expressing - I'll be frank - my anger.

Difficult. Is anyone likely to be interested? If I suddenly start exploring emotive personal issues, would I be well advised to ensure my anonymity? I've never been one for counselling, or self-help groups, or what have you, and I find our touchy-feely age a bit alien... yet it is tempting.


All Around I See...

07 December 2007 .

I suspect that I bring a viewpoint to this site which may be very much to do with where and when I was born.

1. I've lived my life aware of the sense of decline of the society around me. In some ways this has been justified: Imperial decline, obviously; industrial decline, palpably; moral decline - Suez and Iraq suggest so. Whether we're politically decadent, I can't say (corruption, ignorance and arrogance have, after all, always plagued us). Are our cultural self-confidence, strength, vibrancy and potency fading or changing into something new? Far too early to judge, I'd say, but there's an awful lot of shallowness and emptiness around.

2. I've lived too with the possibility of imminent extinction: when I was young nuclear war sometimes felt very close; now, it's not madness to accept that there is an unquantifiable but real possibility that we won't solve the problems of pollution, climate change, resource depletion and population crisis that face us.

Unless I ignore these influences completely - which, like everyone, I do, most of the time - they are bound to slant my opinions when I am creating a journal of this type.

Helpful or not helpful to bring these influences to the table? Maybe time will tell. But, I hope they show through my writing, because if what I producing is going to mean anything, it must reflect how I see the world. If I'm alone in this, then my writing will come to nothing; but I suspect that I'm far from alone.


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