Adverts

I hated a list program the other day that was the 50 "iconic" tv adverts of the decade or somesuch. Instead of only highlighting some especially funny or clever ads, they chose to intersperse them with the many of the most ubiquitous and annoying ones (e.g. Howard from the Halifax). A mistake I think. Just because some company has a daft budget and no taste, doesn't make its adverts worth watching. This was not a TV program, just a one hour long ad break. And that's not good TV.

Murdoch-spawn Sky+ is roaringly successful because most people object to their viewing pleasure being interrupted by some venal, grasping tosser trying to get them to buy stuff (ironic non?). The contempt aroused is only ameliorated if the importuning is done with some wit and flair for entertainment. Or perhaps if genuine added value is being offered to you that you would otherwise have been totally unaware of (though this is rarely the case).

The program started me off on a proper rant (that the flu-stuffed Mrs really didn't appreciate) about Advertising: "the least useful contribution western society had made to the world at large; decadent, navel gazing, unsustainable, fruitless, self indulgent, tiresome, needy, keening, superfluous".

My mate the Ad Exec would have lost it here, in an orgy of self justification. (The Mrs didn't hear me anyway as she was all bunged up, she tends to agree with me out of expediency). But shouldn't the internet make advertising obsolete and usher in a new era of freedom of choice? We should be able to find what we want and procure it instantly, without interruption from anyone we don't know. (Another irony is how much of the web is paid for by advertising as Mr Ad Exec would no doubt have pointed out)

The reason the idea of an ad-free world is appealing is because there are so many people out there - politicians, estate agents, car salesman - apparently trying to influence (or even deceive) you. How much better to be the complete master of your own will and decide, based on an appraisal of the true facts of the matter, where to live, what to drive and who to vote for. Utopia for me is no one telling me what to buy; just me revelling in an orgy of well-informed choice.

Of course you need advice. A trustworthy and knowledgeable advisor is a gift from heaven. There isn't even a big problem with paying someone for advice (although almost all my experience of consultants thus far has lead me to believe I am paying a dog and still barking myself). What about advice that is paid for by the person who stands most to gain from it though, whilst you adopt a passive role in the relationship? Choice has been eliminated; only one option is presented. That's not good. That's not freedom. What about two or three options competing for your attention? Flattering maybe, but all of a sudden you are in the midst of a cacophony of hectoring and pleading. That's not true choice. You can only choose the best presented, the best marketed, the best designed to appeal to your demographic, not the best per se.

Gordon, David and Whatsisname will be testing how free you really are by choosing to engage in a live televised debate before the next general election. It will be interesting to see the results (although not as interesting as some might think. These guys face each other over the despatch box all the time. It could just be PMQT without the hecklers on green leather sofas; imagine Jerry Springer with no studio audience). I desperately hope the effect of this exercise in "democracy" is minimal, especially on the result of the actual election. Despite TV-led telephone voting being discredited as more corrupt than the Zimbabwean elections (though somewhat more lucrative), the technology available to vote on single issues is fairly well proven. Let's face it, the trudge to the local school or village hall to use a pen and paper to register a vote in anachronistic. There is also stronger detectable anarchistic - in the philosophical sense of the word - tendency in us these days as a result of the MP's expenses scandal; we are curious about the idea of the abolition of the "representative" in representative democracy. What would it be like?

My own view (and I've come a long way from reading Robert Paul Wolff's In Defence of Anarchism when I was 19) is that representatives - despite the way they have eroded our trust this year of all years - are there to balance the interests of consitutents and weigh them in the balance. They are the essential barrier against a tyranny of the majority. Capital punishment and equal rights would never have been enshrined in the law of this land if a popular vote alone had been used as the mechanism to introduce them to the statute books.

Were elections to be replaced by some Cowellesque public TV husting, democracy would die. The reason is simple and we have, in the now concluded race for a Christmas a good example. Neither Climb nor Killing in the Name are anyones actual favourite songs (except for a handful of aging skate punks). Rage Against The Machine's tune was not the Christmas No.1 we all wanted. It was just the opposite of a song people didn't want. You don't get to vote on X Factor for any of the following: the end of X Factor as we know it, the ritual disembowelling of Simon Cowell, Sony BMG to be taxed 100% on the sale of any record in December, Dannii Minogue (shame: I'd vote yes). You only get to vote for what they offer you. X Factor limits your choice dramatically; down to a handful of chosen tweeny hopefuls warbling bad cover versions of R&B ballads. The only reason it is more popular than the product it is actually offering you - tweeny hopefuls warbling bad cover versions of R&B ballads - is "water cooler angst"; the fear of rejection embodied in the idea that people might be leaving you out of a conversation.

What we want might be more choice than the current system of party politics. What we will get will be more hype and less verifiable information; a clamour for your vote from vested interests, manipulation and subterfuge, cajoling and wheedling. There would be no "none of the above" box for you to tick. In fact voter apathy is truly the only anarchism we have left. The X Factor is not the wholesale model to re-engage us eitehr. Only the technology to register our vote more easily is needed, not the razzmatazz and bullshit that goes with it. And it would seem that not one of the TV programs made with a voting element can avoid suspenseful pauses, manipulated voting systems, decolletage or gushing congratulation (of others, self or just the format - you know something is rotten when a TV shows keeps telling you how good it thinks it is).

The Reithian doctrine still holds true - I want to be informed and educated as well as entertained, and TV is a great way of doing this. How notable that the BBC is more popular than ever - despite its wearing such commercial attire. This is mainly because of iPlayer, where the viewer can just choose what to watch and when. All of a sudden Radio 4 has loads more listeners than ever and demand for factual, news, political and documentary programs is on the rise. Surely, with the wealth of information the web has arrayed before us, the public has shown an appetite for truth and fact, a broad interest in a variety of subjects, and demonstrated that they value a reliable and trustworthy adviser to deliver it; one that is not burdened (too much) by conflicting commercial imperatives? Why is this welcome development - and not the popularity of voting shows - not being trumpeted by social commentators? Simon Cowell, they have decided, and not John Humphries, shall be our guide! Mary on a motorbike!

Rebuilding trust (and the government could learn from this) begins with education not obfuscation. When you are being educated you have the opportunity to test your assertions against reality and find them to be true and your confidence grows in the world around you and in your guide. Obfuscation, which is what the present government has been so good at, diminishes trust. It treats you like a child and says "there are things you can't know. If you search for them we will complicate them to a hellishly labynthine extent that you will become demoralised and give up". Strenuous efforts to show the public only what they want them to see has lead to a complete breakdown in our relationship with authority and it is this that has made our anarchic streak come to the fore. Start being frank, Westminster (starting with the iraq war enquiry). That's the way to get us back.

I am

The 13th July this year will be 216th anniversary of the birth of John Clare and the following day will see his house in Helpston opened to the public. I feel an affinity with Clare for a number of reasons. His deep knowledge of and abiding love for nature stands him apart from contemporaries. Many romantics were charmed by their surroundings but few chose to know them as well as he did, fewer still were as concerned about the possibility of their passing. 

Clare's illness was most manifest in confusion about his identity. I firmly believe that the tension between London high life and rural family life tore his mind apart. His mental health state was not helped by alcohol; I can certainly relate to that. We know now how much of a depressant it is.  He once walked from his Asylum in Epping Forest all the way to Peterborough and this walk is being recreated by enthusiasts from the John Clare Society in support of the Mental Health Foundation. I have often felt myself walking when it might make more sense to drive or take public transport and it really does leave you alone with your thoughts, with God and nature often, and with your mortality. Where running quickly exhausts you, walking offers a slow accretion of weariness that more closely resembles the passage of life. Your thoughts often slow with your pac,e and reflections and impressions grow deeper as they circulate in your mind. 

At some stage all walkers reach the point where they must decide to either rest of press on. Clare, in his most well known poem "I Am", so accurately sums up the agony of depression and describes the point at which, finally, the decision is made to surrender oneself ...to God, to the void, to fate; at least not to dwell any longer in the prison of one's own mind. I say God because his choice of the title was not only a reflection on his inner self, but also a reference to Mark Chapter 8 v 27. After claiming to be the reincarnation of Shakespeare and Byron, perhaps Clare related to Jesus identity being misunderstood by his followers. There is some dispute about whether or not Jesus was referencing Exodus 3 and claiming himself to be God. These days anyone claiming to be God would certainly be considered mad. And yet anyone who performed the miracles that Jesus did would have every right to claim immortality.

One's dissatisfaction with one's self is at the heart of depression. I think that's why Clare's poem resonates so strongly with people. I wish the walkers of the John Clare Society well and look forward to hearing not only of the sums raised for a worthy cause, but also of the fruit borne of contemplation on the long road from Loughton to Helpston.

Been a while

Self-discipline is not my forte. Maybe I need to get riled before I write on this and, now that our politicians are being upstaged by Iranians, I'm not so angry... One thing that is calming anyway though (and I haven't done it for some time) is fishing. I've never written about it, and now there's probably no point anyway, because it's being done terrifically well over at http://caughtbytheriver.net/ as reported today on R4.

The site was set up by the founders of Heavenly records (appropriately home of Doves and Saints such as Ettiene). A number of their roster are now converts to the divine art of fishing and some of their literary contributors are very impressive names who you might not have thought were likely anglers. But it is Britains most popular pastime. Anyone interested in where their food comes from (or what might happen if it didn't turn up one day), soon starts to think about how they would go and get wild food if they ever needed to. So knowing how to fish is a post-apocalyptic skill. It also presents the enticing posibility of being able to catch fish and then beach barbecue it over a massive bonfire before a bit of dancing and maybe getting off with someone. Think Man Friday in Big Wednesday.

But most little boys (and no small number of litle girls) simply want to get a glimpse of a fish up close and long to catch one and hold it in their hands. Take any six year old into a garden centre with an aquatic section and they will be rapt by the alien colour and exotic behaviour of tiny fish. The water is the first alien environment we encounter, the one we can't breathe in, one that is mucky and inaccesible. So it is the biggest mystery a child could unwrap. If there is a hint that there is life in it I am still intent on spotting it. We went to Mile End recently to help develop the park (a lot of weeding in the borders and painting in the ecology pavilion) and the section by the Hertford Union Canal had separating from the group of weary gardeners and dawdling the long way back just in the hope of catching sight of a suspicious eddy or a misplaced bubble, let alone a glimpse of sinuous movement below the surface. 

Tragically this week we were also reminded in the Anglian news of the dangers of being fascinated by water; a six year old cub scout drowned whilst on a river visit. The details haven't been released but such tragedies serve to highlight that the water is dangerous realm and knowledge of it must extend, beyond what it's natives like to eat, into how not to sacrifice oneself to it. I wonder just how much information children get about the risks of going near water, but it seems it would be a very good topic to take into schools. 

Having not done any fishing for over two years (the allotment having become my new outdoor mistress), I am very much looking forward to the day before my birthday in August when I go out on a cat into the channel with a few workmates to livebait for bass and fish a wreck or two. That's going to be some birthday week as I also have an Ashes ticket to Headingly. Feels like it should be a 40th birthday, with such treats going on, but it's only a 38th. 40 will be here son enough though; no need to push it.

One thing I won't be doing is going to glastonbury. Aforementioned Doves are there and I've heard they are good. I should have gone to see The Specials when they had some dates in London and I reckon that if you can't see them in a sweaty (preferably midlands) nightclub, then why not see them on a big sound stage and exploit Terry's singalong choruses; a very different vibe. Having Dreadzone on the Friday is almost like having the perfect support act for the Specials right there. And I don't doubt that a search through the listings would probably reveal a number of other glasto acts that would be worthwhile. But the event (an expensive and  oversubscribed invitation to lose ones personal effects and ruin one clothes in a field whilst trying to spot B list celebs) seems swamped by novelty acts that are not worth the grief. For that level of cost and aggro I would want a sincere and earnest band headlining who are on the very lip of a new cultural wave and who also happen to rock like f*ck. Rolf Harris and Status Quo and Spinal Tap, and even Madness and Bruce Springsteen, do not meet that criteria. Kasabian is the best they can offer and frankly Kasabian are recycling the baggy sound to distraction and I grew out of that in 1990 and have no intention of going back. 

Of course one is curious. And of course a considerable number of irony addled thirty somethings will appreciate the joke. But unlike a Bob Dylan, Nick Cave or Neil Young or when, a few years ago, Rev Al Green played his sunday morning gospel service (pitch perfect and definintely  something high quality that a lot of these attending would never have got into otherwise), these acts were never seminal, not even Springsteen. You can of course see Neil Young next weekend (and there is the tantalising possibility of seeing him hook up with CS and N as well, certainly more interesting than a reformed Blur). But that Neil Young is brilliant live is no longer a secret. The Specials have maybe the best chance of turning on a new audience. Amongst the more recent acts Friendly Fires may be in the box seat when it comes to taking momentum away from the festival on into the rest of the year. 

Heather Brooke

The MP's scandal has enough momentum to still be current when Britain goes to the pols to elect MEP's on Thursday. That it still has legs owes much to the piecemeal way in which the telegraph has used the information it has. They're not doing it methodically out of probity. It's because they spent money on it and want to recoup the maxium return on their investment one day at a time. I have far more sympathy with Heather Brooke who chose to go about getting this information using the proper means.

When the FOI came out, we all should have seen it for what it was - a fillip. Some information the government never has any intention of providing, no matter how politely you ask or how valid your reasoning. One of Heather's commentors included the following from the Beeb website (can't find the original):

“A cynic would say that the reason they were not too worried about Parliamentary information falling within the Act’s sway was that they were pretty confident that they could keep the most sensitive and damaging material from being released, whatever the legislation. They were probably right, generally speaking. The fact that they were short-sighted about the danger of expense claims being made public is more an indication of how complacent they had become about the system than their ability to calculate risk.

It is blindingly obvious that a UK government will always be able to keep the worst of its secrets, so the FoI Act was never going to be a great leveller. While I welcome its principles, I still think it is a very bad piece of legislation and when taken in conjunction with the Data Protection Act and similar legislation, it is a nightmare for public sector bodies to work within and a gravy train for lawyers.

As a person who once had to respond to FoI requests - many of them ridiculous pursuits of non-existent information by obsessives or blatent attempts by commercial organisations to harvest sales and marketing information - I have to admit to feeling somewhat pleased that the legislators are having a taste of their own medicine.”

Interesting point. Legislation to some factions is bad per se. Whereas in reality bad legislation is doing damage to the principle that some things require legislating. Some distinction needs to be made. We have a crecession that could have been avoided with proper legislative control of the banking sector. And the banking sector itself is able to argue still that legislation would stifle innovation and economic development in the teeth of foreclosures and redundancies. The poverty of some legislation seems almost wilfull, as if the ability to make laws is some how compromised. Now we know; lawmakers themselves do not have a unalloyed approach to their business. Not only are the compromised by lobbyists and compromised by the despearate need to maintain an image of themselves in the popular press and compromised by the whip of party politics and compromised by the careerist pursuit of the right side of a fence; they are now exposed as fatally compromised in their personal probity. You can shrug off the other things as "politics" because they are all circumstantial in comparison. And the point was made ably by Ian Hislop: Think about what other things MP's decide to spend tax payers money on.

I do have one slight caveat where the lovely Heather is concerned. Journalists who request information who are on fishing expeditions are really helping their own careers, win or lose the information they're after. They're not prioritising in the way that the public needs. I must admit that the scatter gun record of Ms Brookes requests on her website suggest either she selects her targets randomly in order to illustrate that evasiveness is endemic in public bodies, and to fortify her reputation as a slogger through all the knock backs she is inevitably going to get, or else she has some pattern relating to personal interest (although I can't piece together what that might be). Her requests for fire inspection reports from the LFEPA in 2005 seems totally random to me. Anyone who has conducted the brigade through fire inspections can be pretty sure there is very little dirt to dig. Either the brigade fail to inspect properly (and it would take a second inspection of the same building by another expert to verify, and on a different day through different eyes there will always be a different verdict - 10 building surveyors won't agree; either way it's not a job for a hack however clever she is), or there was a proper inspection, a building is in dire need of improvement to avoid very obvious fire hazards, in which case the landlord must be taken to task. But that is the job of the fire brigade. If they fail in that duty, and they very rarely ever do, their own colleagues will have to risk their lives putting out a fire. Fire Brigade inspections are carried out by brigade officers who have previously served on machines, fought fires and lost colleagues. There is literally nothing the fire brigade like less than risking their own men, despite what you might think. They really do take their duties very seriously indeed, have the powers available to prosecute and are always anxious do so where the risk is great, and have been freed up by the Reform Order to get on with inspecting genuinely risky properties and leaving low risk office buildings to the landlords. They don't believe the inspection reports meet the requirements of the FOI but they don't have anything to hide. It's not evasiveness for the sake of it. It's that they have a job to do. Exposing the rather prosaic proceedings of systematic checks that reveal some fire doors in M&S have closing forces below 30N is hardly shaking the foundations of the country. No one wants less fires thatn the fire brigade and no one works harder to reduce the number of them. How can you reproach them for not creating golden opporuntities to undermine their work, even were Ms Brooke the proud possessor of a Masters in Fire Engineering from Strathclyde. What Ms Brooke should investigate is the record of the CPS in bringing prosecutions where the fire brigade request them. 

Nevertheless, Ms Brooke does deserve the plaudits she is now getting for her persistence. I just wonder if the Torygraph hacks hadn't done a deal with brown envelopes in a darkebned multistorey whether her investigations into expenses would have been as fruitless as some of her other investigations have been. I guess the really great skill as an investigative journalists is the correctness of one's instinct that one is realy on to something. No one likes being asked questions. Ask anyone who has been cornered by revenue protection officers on a London bus and asked to show their oyster card to a portable reader. 

Been a few days

Had the week off (apart from going into work very briefly on Thursday to pick up a couple of compo CD's i made for two friends, taking part in the Law Society anual charity quiz (we came 4th) and then dropping in to the Coach for karaoke fun. So the allotment has improved markedly after some much needed attention. It looks occupied now. Also been enjoying the good weather and getting a bit red (hopefully brown will come later). But o twitters or blog updates because I'm relaxed and happy and not angry and bored.

I have been reading an interesting book called Albion about English legends, ghost stories, myths, old wives tales and the origins of various folk tales. It is fascinating stuff. It is noteworthy that the pattern recognition mode of thought is largely responsible for most folk tales. False etymologies such as the one that placed Camelot in the village of Upper Camel and wrongly propose the existence of a glass stone fort at Glastonbury, abound. Legends are appropriated, adulterated and transferred from one end of the country to the other. And the word welsh is a saxon word meaning foreigner. I mean to pass on more of this craziness when I've finished reading it.

Angry

I heard something today that turned my stomach. "What would Jesus do? Vote BNP". There is so much wrong with that it is almost impossible to keep my composure. I wouldn't do what Jesus would do. But I could readily do what Simon Peter did when I heard it; just put a sword in my hand. At a time when minority parties stand to make modest gains on the back of Westminster incompetence, Nick Griffin invokes the blood libel, out loud. One thing is certain. No one in the BNP knows Jesus. 

New England Bank Holiday NOISEFEST

Spent a part of yesterday down the allotment. The bloke across the way showed up and made a start on harvesting the vast swathes of cooch grass he has cultivated. Actually this is a bit unfair since he explained to me he had only just got over heart trouble and hadn't got around to doing much last year. He told me this as I was helping him to douse the flames of a wayward bonfire he had started earlier. Trying to sacrifice handfuls of grass to the allotment gods in the hope of a bountiful harvest is the mark of Cain. One must be like Abel and just flog out ones guts digging out weeds as they appear. But I am one of the allotment holders that doesn't seek out others and give them unsolicited advice, unlike a few "elders" who take great delight in the fact that their 20 years of making mistakes and their daily attendance on their plot are the real reason for their success rather than some innate communion with nature that you don't share.

John told me before he left for the afternoon how close our friend had come to setting himself alight earlier when getting it going with a container of paraffin and some matches. He has no hair or eyebrows. This could be either because of illness or pyromania, but more likely just venerability and the rigours of outdoor gardening. I noticed one or two pictures taken of me recently - bending down to weed some leeks - show a potentially monastic pate. If working an allotment causes one to lose ones hair, is that in itself the price of a Robert Johnsonesque deal with the devil to get carrots to sprout? 

Matey generously let me have some twine to tie up my tomatoes so I have decided to be his friend. It is just as well he has me as a new friend (a ready made fire warden). I went back at 6pm to do a bit of extra watering and pick some asparagus and he didn't even recognise me. There were several empty cans of White Lightning on the ground, the fire was out (having consumed only one third of the bonfire material, but most of the adjoining fence area between his plot and Johns) and he was tottering down the path commiting his brain first to controlling his left leg, and then his right, with barely enough capacity left to acknowledge any other task you might set before him, let alone incorporate it into his regime. I suspect his allotmenteering is an excuse to get away from it and get seriously trolleyed. I hope he continues to start his fires before he gets wasted.

I also had occasion to help the Romanian jazz-folk family next door with removing a satellite dish. This may mean they are leaving - to be replaced by who know who; we have had vietnamese cannabis farmers, lithuanian students, polish and kurdish families and the landlord himself lived there for a bit before he went to jail - or it may mean that their attempts (which included alot of shouting of advice from the wierd dad to the eldest of his sons) to jerry-rig Sky have finally been abandoned (you can't cheat Rupert Murdoch). 

They are a curious bunch. They organise improptu jam sessions and accompany traditional Romanian songs by conjuring of the lift music stylings of Earl Klugh as backing. On two occasions I have thought that the lady of the house was being murdered and have asked the local bobby to drop by. It seems she just gets hysterically upset, although she may have just been singing a transylvanian lament. Either way the noise was so blood curdling any self-respecting vampire would have considered investing in a new fridge. I have also seen the patriarch clip one of his lads round the ear. He speaks no english but tried to sell me some old boots he had found. They were obviously not a pair and he was disappointed that I didn't accept his bargain offer. The missus reckons he has occasionally loomed in at the front window and offered to play us all some music. She replied that we didn't need him to come round as we could already hear it perfectly well from our bedroom in the early hours of the morning . All of this is strange only because no one tells any of our foreign neighbours that English people have a thousand unwritten rules that you have to absorb by osmosis over many years and that the English are deeply troubled by any behaviour that doesn't observe these rules that are so impossible to learn, even for the earnestly rule-following races that do alight here on the journey arc from peasanthood to Martha Stewart.

Some rules, like the rules of the road, have now vanished from the streets around north Peterborough. In most cases though I think that the insulation provided by a car breeds selfishness per se. And the various nationalities - be it four shaven Polish lads in a 1989 Passat with no rear suspension, the British-Asian princess in the Peugeot parked so that no one can get by, the Mirpuri wideboy rapping on his mobile in the blacked out Range Rover, or the family of nine Kurds in the Toyota Camry - are ignoring the existence of each other in their cars as assiduously as they try to do in their houses. This is the first step to assimilation because it is mostly what we try to do; ignore one another. The only exception is the previously mentioned British male magnanimity when driving. Many people think this is a weakness, but generously allowing someone to cut in is a way of commenting on their relative incompetence at the wheel next to your own. 

A gang of boisterous starlings have taken up residence in the garden, feasting from the black bin bags next door and perching on the fence to argue vociferously with one another and to shit disdainfully when they hear a comment they don't like. They are the scruffy teenage thugs who will one day become a soaring smoky cloud, chomping early summer midges, undulating in massive columns and balls to confuse the sparrowhawks, and assembling in ever larger swarms before they flee to Eastern Europe. Although many do stay and many more will arrive in winter when the conditions in the East are even harsher than they are here. They might well have chosen another fence to sit on (not in a metaphorical sense; these fellows are extremely opinionated) but perhaps the contents of the black bin bags next door remind them of home. But their cacophony is the second element in an unholy trinity of noises that now beset the area. A satanic polish thrash metal band now practice in the back room of The Crown on Lincoln Road. They have a simple verse-chorus-verse style. The verses are plaintive angst-filled pleas for death to be swift and painless. The choruses are like the sound of a thousand demons bowels being emptied in an arctic windstorm. Quite catchy...

Triple A

Following on from the discussion about money and Westminster, do watch the latest Question Time on iPlayer. People are still mad as hell and it looks like they want a general election now. One slight problem I have is that it would not be good to have one whilst our blood is still up. Maybe better to ensure we have cooled our jets a bit before making any decisions. The Euro elections should give us an opportunity to see which way the wind is blowing. Ironically most people think those elections matter less when in reality they probably matter about three times more (about 75% of our legislation is derived from Europe). One bloke on question time asked the assembledMP's straight out: "what do we need you for?"

Standard and Poor have "considered dropping the UK's credit rating below AAA (our first negative rating for 30 odd years). They haven't done it though. They've jsut suggested there's a one in three chance that the next time they look at us, they might have too. And the two other rating agencies haven't even gone that far. Man, what do we have to do to get those guys to weigh up our massive debt, our lack of natural resources, our lack of any kind of serious industry, our overpopulation in relation to available land, our declining skills and our predominant lack of speakers of a second language and say "that really does not make a good basis for investment, people. What acronym do we usually give when we want to suggest investors would be better off putting cash under the mattress?".

Actually they can rate us with a series of A's if they like, either 2 or 3. They just need to indicate by that that they mean we're on the hard shoulder, the bonnet is up, we're looking puzzled, some steam is coming out, the kids are restless and we're waiting for some one to tow us to a convenient location before we're scrapped (or given us for "scrappage" as whatever department is now in charge of Transport likes to call it, the philistines). S&P triple A rated the very investment instruments that caused the credit crunch in the first place. They are craven and possibly willfully ignorant. The rating they give is effectively meaningless since people are still going to buy our cheap bonds. Luckily we have a government who use sophistry to turn our burgeoning national debt into an actual triumph of attracting inward investment! Genius.

You take a man who is a dangerous terrorist. You imprison him for years without trial and subject him to torture and deprivation. The rest of the civilised world is appalled by your treatment of him, no matter what he has done before (and no one is ever told what that was, it's taken completely on trust). He is completely within your power. And yet when it comes time to deal fairly with that person and try them, that beaten, broken, powerless person is suddenly still a threat. Like stamping on a spider that ran behind a curtain and you're not sure if it's dead; Americans have reacted to the logistical realities of the closure of Guantanamo Bay by standing on a chair, holding their skirts and shrieking like girls. There is also a racist overtone of contamination. When the US first began systemised immigration control, they also chose an island to house millions of foreigners for processing before they were privileged enough to set foot on the north American mainland. US soil is considered sacred, in fact sacrosanct. Ironically they seem to have confused imprisonment and trial on US soil with freedom. Is being in prison in the US still better than being free in, say, Yemen? And what happens when an accused terrorist actually puts a foot on the homeland. Does a yellow smoky cloud of evil snake out from under his sandal and poison a water course? Does a grenade he has concealed in his cheek and kept hidden for all these years explode and wipe out the American dream, the American way of life, a Ford Fusion, a donut factory and the Duluth branch of Wendy's in one sickening go? Does everyone who goes near him immediately fall ill with leprosy? It's an absolutely mediaeval response to the realities of the situation; one the US itself created. Try these people and convict them fairly, if they are guilty. It could not be simpler.

At the same time we are finally admitting the gurkha's to live in Britain, since they have fought and died for it. An overwhelming public majority in the UK is behind this move and our government resisted it for far too long. For so long we have been told how to behave towards our fellow man by politicians. And yet when a glaring example of how we feel about people who are considered brothers by everyone who serves with them, the MOD and by extension the government, cavil. It's a government department fretting about money instead of what people really feel strongly about. That proves that really that's all Westminster cares about. Cash and how to get it and keep it. This country has borrowed a ridiculous amount, and Westminster has pooled that cash and has a completely perverse system of spending it.

Schools in again

I have been appointed a school governor. I went down there regally in my pomp to do a bit of governing. Unfortunately I got lost - mired in a nightmare forest of tiny chairs and disturbing ghoulish poster painting - and I was late. I was greeted with the sight of school sec offering me a libation from the vending machine like it was some kind of gift from an aztec robot god that required appeasement. Failing to drink a hot chocolate would be to bring down wrath on all their heads. I felt bad when I asked for some water instead and she had to turn away from the "all giving hot chocolate god" to get me a glass from the kitchen. Good start for me, numpty new boy. See what else I can manage to foul up.

By this time HT had his laptop out and was logging on to the schools new learning platform. If I could have emailed homework when I was that age I would have been absolutely chuffed with it. Virgin have such a magnificent range of excuses. Instead of resenting them I would have been able to use each one consecutively to the powers that were. "Sorry Miss, my USB router had a modem fault on node 124".

Governors posse consisted of public spirited chairlady, long suffering chocolate worshipping school sec, HT and deputy HT, local rev, finance guru and two other parents (both very quiet and slightly overawed dads) plus me. There are more but I guess you never get a full house (who ever won in school but complete knobs? That's a rhetorical question. Nothing is wasted). A quorum has to suffice. We don't vote on anything. I get the feeling it is unwise to volunteer. Most people, in any kind of public need that doesn't require meths, tend to light up like Blackpool if I tell them what I do for work. Just the health and safety on its own is catnip. Funny that some of the same people will privately read a Daily Mail article about Kesteven flagpole nazi's and denounce my whole profession as a bunch of worthless lackeys of the nanny eurostate (no offence) might be quite happy to cradle me in their bosom if a risk assessment for a trip to Alton Towers needs the once over. We are Persephone supervising Sisyphus in his pointless labours.

Seems the modern HT job consists of trying to supplement the school income by ingratiating oneself with various quangoes keen to give cash to schools... if they can get back muchos kudos in return. They create the nefarious criteria for this and schools simply need to decide just how desperately needy they are. Proviso's (there are many, but this is the doozy one) include the fact that said NGO, sponsor, vested interest or charity decide for themselves what you can spend it on (like the dog trainer at crufts who not only makes you jump through a hoop but wants you to decorate a dog biscuit with fondant icing before you eat it). So you can be making redundancies at the same time as getting a new pottery wheel for reception class. Perverse. Why not just fund schools as much as they need. The more needy the area the more the funding. Simple, elegant and impossible.

Much of school business is taken up, like any other committee, with the important task of stating that everything is fundamentally OK. All the people who should be doing something are doing something and they are all doing what they should be doing and all that should be being done is being done. Hurray. All the big scary stuff is clearly a long way off . That suits me. In the meantime I need to go on various training courses, suss out the lie of the land, meet the remaining governors etc. And I need to figure out how to suss out those who think the same as me (that every child should be adequately funded and sympathetically supported to their needs, taught creatively, constantly encouraged and praised, and protected and served by adults who nurture their potential as the most precious posesion the world has) and those who don't. So far I think I'm on very good turf. But there will be some who don't agree; or rather some who have wider objectives. I only want to know why they are a governor if they don't ultimately have only the pupils best interests at heart. If they have a decent explanation for why anything else is important, that may provide me with a much needed insight into the very point of politics; something that I obviously lack.

Vote

Noticed people getting bored of the MP expenses thing and saying "can't we talk about something else?" Adam and Joe on R6 for example. It almost doesn't matter what a story is though, it almost always goes on too long for some people. I heard the other day that Madeline McCann's parents were releasing an artists impression of what she looks like now. And for a terrible second I thought to myself "who cares, we're never going to see her again". I do still have a small corner of my heart reserved for that little girl because I have two of my own and it would kill me if anything happened to them. But there was such a media overload on that story that if I never saw or heard about the McCanns again it would absolutely suit me fine.

So when does a story go? When a bigger or better story comes along (The Sun thinks Katie and Peter trounces MP's expenses; analogous to looking through the wrong end of a telescope, from their perspective maybe it is bigger). Or when people indicate they're bored (when the paper sales peak starts to drop off again). The interesting thing about many of the highest profile news stories, as the brilliant Charlie Brooker pointed out, is that they are often campaigns, or become campaigns quite early on. Representative Democracy has probably already failed and we didn't even notice it's demise. I remeber reading In Defence of Anarchism by Robert Paul Wolff as a teenager and thinking it would be great if technology could make it possible for us all to vote on each issue for ourselves (I had no problem with tyranising a minority in those days becasue I didn't think I was in one). And now that technology exists but our system of government cannot integrate it in any radical way. It can only cope with technology on it's own terms. 

Representative democracy as it was explained to me, never required your MP to vote for what you wanted. They would always vote for what they wanted and it was you voting for them that gave them that mandate. That would be fine if it hadn't become so complicated. As The Thick of It expertly dissects it, it is now necessary for your representative to be told how to vote by a combination of civil servants and party officials who take account of a variety of media sources but primarily tabloids, opinion polls, the manoevurings of other MP's, other civil servants and officials of all parties, advisors and lobbyists, friends and relatives, the great and the good, and Europe of course, and his or her own conscience if they can squeeze that in. And almost all the technology that can be brought to bear is employed in obtaining this information for the member of parliament to digest. All these things act as filters, so that actually almost no consistent thread of policy will run all the way through. And much of the time they are not even voting. they are just talking. So all this opinion is provided merely to tell the politician what opinion HE should have. And that would suggest that - if our representatives don't have their own minds any longer - the majority viewpoint of the elected representatives consituency must be the MOST important opinion forming component of this system and not the least. And it also brings us back to the possibility that all the electronically garnered opinion polls, twitters and texts and pagers and laptops and political blogs and online RSS newsfeeds, chat forums and videoconferences are a misuse of technology. Because we could all just use this stuff ourselves to get the information we need and then to vote directly for what we want, right? After all, Eurovision - which lets face it is one of the most nakedly political demonstration sports you will ever witness - managed it last night. Despite a few obvious mutual 12 point masturbations within various balkan, former soviet, scandinavian and mediterranean alliances, the public vote allowed Norway to soar past all previous voting records. That's because the public had a say and they overwhelming liked a violin playing waist coated laboratory hybridisation of Zac Efron and Graeme Le Saux who smiled like he had just been treated with Lithium. Ahh, sweet.

Well done Norway. I thought Iceland should have won myself but I didn't vote so I only have myself to blame. I abdicated from the political process and have no right to criticise. Also thanks to a few glasses of Wolf Blass Yellow Label I ended up hysterically twittering the entire event to no-one whatsoevers benefit. I now have the Azerbaijani entry stuck with me as an ear worm. I think they were singing about hobbits.

 

Interesting developments

Some interesting developments in the MP's Expenses Scandal. Actual resignations and firings and demotions. I thought it had taken them a while to get around to taking action and I now find it's been an issue for even longer than I imagined. Heather Brooke had been trying to obtain information about expenses since 2004, legitimately, using the Freedom of Information Act. She was taken all the way to the High Court at taxpayers expense to try and get this information that, gallingly for her, has now been freely leaked. Incredibly, alongside spurious sounding arguments about personal security, MP's even tried to engineer an amendment so that the FOI Act didn't apply to them!

Slightly vindicated also in Alexander Chancellor taking Stephen Fry to task. Not how I would have put it, but Fry certainly is an unlikely champion for MP's and they don't have many friends left. To be fair though, I don't think Fry was doing anything other than pointing out the potential for journalists hypocrisy and perhaps taking a John 8:7 viewpoint. I'm sure if he met Miss Brooke (maybe he has, he famously knows everyone who is anyone), he'd find it quite a difficult view to maintain in the face of a fiercely determined and upright (and also rather pretty) young woman. And as more and more is revealed by the Telegraph (which is presenting the story in the manner of a burlesque artiste; one wonders whether there is anything really saucy left to be shown before the lights go out), he might also regret making the point about the public interest being "bourgeoise". As Paul Weller once sang, the public gets what the public wants, and "national treasure" status may not be a permanent award, and the appearance of arrogance or snobbery would be a good enough reason to withdraw it.

Another bible verse brought to mind is Romans 3:23 when reading James Macintyre in the New Statesman who names only four MP's that can have a clear conscience out the 650. I'm happy to name one of them as Ed Milliband. As the Climate Change Secetary was appearing at Old Billingsgate for the most recent Prince of Wales May Day Summit, he disembarked from a snazzy silver Merc and went into the street entrance at the same time as me. I think I may have been mistaken for one of his entourage as I got into the evnt with barely any security checks. I noted that there was a massive queue on the riverside public entrance. Another non-transgressor is Hilary Benn (son of Tony), who is environment secretary. Could it be that having the brief of concern for the future of the planet (one of the many things that Fry rightly pointed out MP's should be getting on with) is allied to a sense of probity in other areas. Maybe not in my case, but it is an interesting coincidence. Hilary's old man managed to make Paxman wriggle in his seat on Newsnight the other night, almost getting to the point of "doing a Foulkes" and asking the famed BBC public servant, vicious attack dog and University Challenge host how much he earned.

Coke

Watching the BBC News yesterday I came across a report - worded rather differently than one would expect - regarding the falling price of cocaine. It was unusual because they inadvertently made the trade in the infamous egotoxin sound like a legitimate business that had fallen on hard times; pointing out a diminution in quality, accompanied by rising price of yer high street gram, as if coke should be in the RPI basket of goods alongside eggs and tights. It was almost a lament. I half expected some vox popped Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells to say, "It's an outrage. I paid thirty quid for a wrap of Sniff the Difference Charlie from Sainsbury's and four hours later I was still struggling with my self-esteem. Something should be done about it". I agree, Major. We should at least have a regulator. May I suggest OFCRACK? Also, is this an industry that the government might deem worthy of bailing out? Perhaps a £30bn loan to the beleagured farmers of Colombia? After all, MP's happily spend tax payers money on almost anything else they feel like. And marching powder might still represent good value compared to £650 to have your wisteria trimmed. (Anyone else think that sounds like a Carry-On-esque euphemism, by the way?)

Cash

Anyone who thinks petty corruption isn't worth dealing with because there are more important things to concern officials (and I'm looking at the normally so rational Stephen Fry whose 140 character vignettes I follow so avidly on Twitter), should read this dispatch from Manila http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/manila/1dispatch6.html. Books are something Mr Fry (and all other right thinking people) cares about, and money grabbing officials are keeping them from the people. Is this one of those important things our MP's should be doing something about? Could they perhaps give the Phillipine government some advice about how to deal with corruption?

The furore presently engulfing Westminster over dodgy expense claims might seem bourgoise, but honestly if the majority of people are genuinely angry about something, that's not tyranny, it's democracy and we are seeing a response - knee jerk and piecemeal and without great chagrin, but a response nonetheless. Of course it is very hard to sign a cheque whilst simultaneously wringing your hands. Actually it's quite odd to see chequebooks rematerialising in this electronic payment era. There's something quite bourgoise itself about writing out a cheque for tradespersons and sundries. Did MP's have to fumble around in a dresser drawer before emerging with a folded inkstained tattered chequebook? Did the cheques have the address of the old defunct branch they joined when they were a student, on the promise of a £1,000 overdraft, the gift of a plastic pig moneybox and a 25% railcard discount; the branch that is now a winebar?

One good thing for bankers is that MP's are fielding more flak. They can get back to the markets. And it seems that some of the stimulae the government and the Bank of England engineered are beginning to work. Unemployment is going up but that always lags the other indicators in a recession. But there were 30,000 mortgage approvals last month. that's a bit more like it.

A friend of mine in Australia just busted his gigabeat. That's an MP3 player - or iPod as they are now known. In the way that we all use Hoover as a verb, so most owners of non-Apple MP3 players call them iPods to save having to explain why they bought an iRiver or a Creative Zen. It's a conversation worth avoiding, as Saab owners will know. We might value eccentricity collectively but individually an eccentric is a prophet without honour in England. Anyway, he thought about paying $500 for an iPod touch and that sounded like a lot. Unlike ex-pats, I never know rates of exchange from one day to the next (although I keep an eye on the CAN$ because Mum and Dad live there and I might one day want to visit again). I responded:

If you used it for games and movies it's worth it apparently. If you just want it for music, maybe not worth $500. But then at current rates of exchange AUS$500 is worth about a million pounds. And if I had a million pounds I'd buy two ipod touches and rub them together to make fire so I can heat up some carrots I scavenged growing wild in a layby.

My mate Glen found this quite funny only because every other time we have had a conversation about how much things cost in our respective corners of the world, I have made great play out of the plastic monopoly money they use. For instance, he should be checking to see if it has "Hamleys Bank of Toytown" on it or if the illustration appears to show that the first Governor of ANB was actually Big Ears from the Enid Blyton books. Obviously hilarity ensues.

I'll try not to obsess about money too much (although we'll find out if there will be any performance bonuses in the next day or so; with pay having been frozen and standard bonuses abolished, this is a blue letter day). Although I keep saying the money is not the important factor in the MP Expense Scandal, the fact that they can nonchalantly write cheques for tens of thousands of pounds is indicative of the relative level of remuneration, and the respective wealth, of members of parliament. Did they hive off the expenses received into a separate account in anticipation of the day when they'd be called to pay it back? Surely not. No, these are people who can pay the Inland Revenue the equivalent of an entire years salary for someone on the minimum wage, as soon as they are asked to do so by their chief whip. When I got stung by the Inland Revenue it was because I misread the self assessment form. Trying to be honest, I declared things I had already been taxed once for. The Tax Office cared very little about that (as it happens I should never have been on self-assessment in the first place). The forms were very complicated, and my sarky letter to them about the subject definitely didn't smooth things along. But when a tax bill dropped onto the mat for a couple of grand, I nearly cacked my knickers, cried and punched something hard, all in one smooth (fluid) motion. It was terrifying. I had no option but to protest because I have rarely if ever seen more than £1,000 credit and those occasions were when I took out a personal loan. Where would I produce that kind of lolly except by borrowing it? Maybe that's what MP's are doing. In which case ,I'd like to be the bank manager who gets to approve that one. I'd ask them first what they think about bankers. Do they think bankers are really responsible for the mess everyone is in? I'd watch their face carefully, with my Mont Blanc fountain pen poised delicately above the approval form. Actually that's old fashioned. The pleasure of making bank customers squirm has been all but eradicated. Now bank clerks only joy is to frustrate people by making them memorise ten different sixteen digit numbers for their online bank account, knowing that if they can't bank online, they probably can't bank at all (try looking for a member of staff in your local bank branch. Where are they all hiding?).

I had reason to rue the fact that the UK does not have plastic funny money the other day. I went into my local corner shop to get a four pack of Kronenbourg (to accompany the cricket highlights) and be told my money was no good. The reason the rather bored Asian shop assistant maintained was that it was a fake fiver. I explained that it had just been washed in my jeans and that accounted for the unusual texture and the appearances of little yellow blotchess on the Queens face watermark, but he would not believe me. I can see how racial tensions boil over in situations like this. I was fuming (lager lust). Only afterwards I realised that small retailers don't turn away good money for no reason (actually many small shopkeepers practically rip a note out of your hand when you pay for something these days such is the need for cash), so he had probably been passed false notes recently and lost out. Bad luck that. I also thought about Michael Moore's contention that one always ought to be more frightened by a white man than by any other colour man because the chances are he's done you more harm (and can do you even more harm) than anyone else on the planet; not to single out our predominantly male, white, middle-class, independently wealthy, two-house-owning members of parliament as a example, obviously...

Day One

I feel bad for sneakily checking on who the for and against law firms were in the upcoming Trafigura case. I don't think it is quite Bopal level but it is serious and I'm glad that our firm isn't on the wrong side of this one. Evasion seems to have already been a feature of the story and it may be that Trafigura have run out of goodwill. "Everyone is entitled to a defence": so say Law firms defending the indefensible when defending themselves.

Paying it back is just the start

It seems that if Lord Foulkes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045371.stm

 

and Stephen Fry http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045040.stm are one one side of an argument, as my friend Stu indicated to me they were today, it's quite hard to take the opposite viewpoint. But personally I have to stick to my guns. The row over compensation claims by MP's is not a storm in a teacup. The first point to make to Lord Foulkes is that £92,000 is not twice £64,000. No wonder they can't cope with expenses claims, if that's the level of numeracy. But actually MP's know perfectly well how to add up; as repeated calculating behaviour has shown.

When Stu expressed to me his sympathy with Foulkes, I felt compelled to respond because I am genuinely angry about this. And it is not personal either. I'm not the man without sin casting the first stone. The Telegraph revelations were hidden, deliberately, from public scrutiny. I told Stu: 

"This is the single most important breach of trust (and there have been many) in my living memory and it is multi-party, root and branch corruption. It's not the amounts that matter. It's trusted public servants on the fiddle. They made the rules they're now blaming. No one will stand up and say, "yes I played the system". Only four MP's did not make an expense claim on their second home. They are the only ones who should be re-elected when this parliament dissolves (and I agree with Lord Naseby, it ought to dissolve now).

 

AND they tried to cover it up. In this so called freedom of information age, it took a mole to air their soiled laundry in public (whoever leaked this should get a knighthood, but unfortunately politicians choose who gets those). We used to throw out parliaments for less. This is "Rotten Borough II" - - subtitled just when you thought it was safe to start expecting probity from public officials. And there are no Levellers now to lay siege to them, because the tabloids have gone all "Katie and Peter". Maybe all those numbers and all that corruption weren't as good a story (which tells you all you need to know about what an intellectually moribund apathetic celebutard culture this country now promotes). 

Or maybe journalists are also on the take and were scared that MP's would flag up a few of those costly lunches. But why should that be? Journalists have commercial employers and a commercial employer can choose to can your ass for stuff like that. Some employers search employees bags, or have CCTV inside offices, or ping you on dodgy emails. Most tell you how to dress and almost all censor what you can say, and generally run your life like they own it. But who governs MP's? They made the very rules they have bent; rules that would never make it past the first draft of a company policy for A&M Nitwit Window Cleaning Company Ltd, let alone the mother of all parliaments. Examine those claims, tell me they don't stick in your craw - moat cleaning, claiming Tesco staff discounts, switching your second home three times in a year and a half just to get repairs done, claiming that the taxpayer fund undersoil heating for your tennis court?

 

If it was an excuse that we're all of us on the take, and that they're merely reflecting society, well how is that qualifying them to lead us or direct us? And if so, they can drop the honorific Right Honourable from the parliamentary form of address right now, and become plain old Dave Cameron, Margret Moran, Stuart Jackson (who I voted for) and Gordon Brown from now on. And even if that were an excuse, which it isn't, I don't swear an oath to do my job and they do. I sign a contract of employment and I know exactly what might happen if I breach the terms. They have a contract of trust with every British citizen, and all but four of them breached it, and had barely a qualm about it, and are apparently most annoyed because they got found out. The kind of blustering fuffle they have been spluttering, from Michael Martin downwards, hardly constitutes the reasoned dialectic the House is supposed to be famous for, either. Any decent magistrate would shut them up on a witness stand for wasting the courts time.

 

I commute to London daily for my job, which pays a damn sight less than a backbenchers job. I don't claim a second home at tax payers expense or get taxpayers to do up my other house for free, whilst I reside in a posh London flat. I get up in the morning early enough to get tow rok on time and stay on late enough to get my job done. I sometimes stay on without overtime beyond that; out of a consienctious desire to do my job properly. Contrast that with the times I get home, turn on the telly and see a mostly empty commons debating chamber talking nonsense and achieving eff all. And with the times I have written to ministers and received scant or pat responses (Stuart Jackson excepted, to be fair to him). I don't have my hand in the till at work and nor would I ever condone it from a colleague, however small the amount. Theft is theft, and theft is literally taking something to which you are not entitled. I take my salary and this year I took a pay freeze and my basic bonus was frozen (and at a time when MP's voted themselves a payrise, something most of hard working Britain is unable to do). I am completely comfortable with that, despite the inflation lies I'm told (we can all see how many things have gone up), because I know that it means my colleagues won't lose their jobs. I also claim only the expenses I believe that the firm should meet, not spurious ones. I expect - actually, I demand - that a member of parliament who I, or my fellow citizens, elects meets the same standard. No more - who could ask for that in this day and age - but certainly no less".

 

Stu then responded with the point made by Stephen Fry (bless him and his luvvie bretheren. If this crisis presages a dissolution, Labour will not even crawl back in to power) that MP's have more important things to deal with than this. I was outraged - not Stu's fault, but this is an even bigger nerve - the sciatic to my previously tweaked median.

"If Stephen Fry thinks there are more important things for them to do than sort this mess out (and can I just say they are making a right hash of all of those things by the way), and he doesn't seriously believe our democracy hangs by a thread, how does he know this bunch of self serving bastards will work for the things he thinks ARE important? They can be bought and sold. We presumed this, but never voiced it until now because it was always just one individual and not a quorum as it now is. Now we know they will not need olive oil and leather pants before grappling with their consciences, because they vanquished ithem years ago. They remind me of children who throw stones through already broken windows; absolved of the need to question their own participation by the throng. They grab a loophole with both hands a swing from it, whilst mooning the general public. They lie and cheat and finagle. They have more fiddlers than a missing symphony orchestra getting pissed in O'Neils. They have failed their duty, and been caught out, and we need to elect new ones, not keep this shabby lot. I wouldn't keep an incompetent employee just because they are honest. But I certainly wouldn't permit a dishonest employee to continue, no matter how effective they are.

 

And if they can't sort out a simple thing like how to make a rule for themselves that disallows them the opportunity to fleece the tax payer for personal gain, they cannot have the wit to sort out the big things like global warming and getting us out of this recession. When bankers screw up, we demand their heads and their jobs, not defend them. MP's should be no different".

The beeb tonight is concentrating on the value for money of some of these claims - you can get horse manure for free, clean chandeliers for much less, and probably should pay much more than £100 to get rid of moles. They make this point like the money is the thing (or maybe I'm the only one who doesn't think that the amounts don't matter). The parliamentary rules on expenses say that one should avoid extravagance and maybe some of these claims don't interpret that accurately, but why fondle such sophistry when we know that MP's themselves have already stated that the rules are flawed. I resent the use of "flawed" or "misguided" as well. These are our rulemakers. THEY make rules for US to follow. When those rules are flawed or misguided, we get rid of them. 

Cameron has at least got stuck into his own party and got them to pay it back. Alan Duncan reckons his end is £4,700. He says he'll pay it back just as soon as there is a system to do so (like we all need more of their blessed systems). I don't care for Mr Duncans smirking hand-in-the-till gesture much. Give it to charity, because we're not actually talking about the money. The principle is the thing and giving back the money only balances the fiscal accounts, not the moral ones. An accounting exercise must not be allowed to make this all go away. It must be the start of the process towards reform. And if parliament cannot approach that reform honestly and earnestly, with a sincere desire to root out any opportunity for abuse of our trust, then we need new parliamentarians.

Addenda: Hazel Blears has written a cheque to the Inland Revenue for the money she should have paid in capital gains tax for flipping her homes. She says "what is important to me is what people think". That is the crassest thing I have ever heard and so typical of the modern focus group loving media hugging politician. What people think is not what should matter to them , what is RIGHT is what matters. 

Last night there was a program on TV about the South Pacific. Featured in it were albatross chicks taking their first tentative steps, wings outstretched down a narrow beach runway. At time you could see the prevailing wind lift their massive outstretched wings and see the power and potential they had despite how ungainly they were on their tiny feet. Then after a few experimental wingbeats they would get to about three feet above the gently lapping waves and turn from windward to the open sea. But being unpracticsed, this maiden flight was not sustainable and they landed clumsilyback into the water. At that exact moment Tiger Sharks, who had waited patiently, gobbled them up for lunch with one wing protruding either side of their comically vicious grins transforming them into creatures of myth, before a second gulp disposed of the struggling bird.

Difficult for an Arsenal supporter not to see that and think what an accurate metaphor for how the last couple of weeks have gone.

Public standard bearers

The Telegraph has decided to milk the mole. That conjures up an image doesn't it? They want to release the dirty details of MP's expense claims on a daily basis. This helps them sell papers but it also means that the public is assailed relentlessly with waves of corruption. If you want to make someone angry, repetitive irritation to the point of combustion is a far more effective tactic than a short, sharp shock. I am already boiling hearing about the Luton consituency MP Margaret Moron who claims for repairs to her Southampton home. This person feels that the tax payer has responsibility for preserving her work life balance. "She is important, we are not. We should pay to treat her  dry rot" as outgoing dogerel expert Andrew Motion might have put it. 

Well there is definitely some rot that needs treating. She is saying she should not have to make ANY sacrifices. Those of us who don't work where we live, make those sacrifices all the time. And we don't ask others to pick up the bill. I pay £4,500 pa on train fares out of my own pocket to work 12 hour days in London, because I can't afford to live there. My family see less of me because of this. But there is no job with my skill set where my family lives (believe me, I applied for the only one that ever came up). Do I expect other people to make sacrifices in order to provide me with a flat in London? No I don't. If someone offered me a flat at tax payers expense by bending the rules, would I take it? No I would not. It would be wrong. I know the difference. 

Moran says  has not done anything outside the rules, and acted in good faith. That self-righteous indignation she displays is reminiscent of Ashley Cole. She sums up the modern view - "I'm entitled" - that suggests it is only right to milk the system for whatever you can get out of it, because it is set up for your benefit, and it would go to waste if you didn't use it; like there was a mountain of free cash somewhere which dissolves if it goes past an expiry date unclaimed. Moran is implying one would be stupid not to claim. I must ask how we teach our children to listen to their conscience and act with self discipline, if the leaders of our country conflate conscience with stupidity?

What I would have preferred would be for a single newspaper article to come out listing the MP's who are NOT making impertinent and immoral personal expense claims that stretch the definition of allowance to its absolute limit. That would be nice. I'd be keen to know how long that list is as well. If  it is a minority of parliamentary members, then that would suggest an endemic lack of conscience amongst those in public service. It would also be nice to hear one of our representatives come out and say "actually you know I had serious misgivings about claiming for something as frivolous as scatter cushions. It has bothered me ever since. I have decided to resign". What does it actually take for someone to fall on their sword? 

It is doubly distressing to hear someone like wounded paraplegic RMP officer Maj Phil Packer talk about how guilty he feels leaving behind 120 troops in Iraq that he was responsible for. Packer has just completed the London marathon on crutches, taking  13 days to do so. Shame the route of the marathon didn't go through Westminster. I would like to have seen Major Packer's stately and noble progress within shaming range of that anthill full of mercenaries. 

Phil Packer walked the marathon route for charity and hopes to raise £1m for Help for Heroes.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claims public money to pay for porn and scatter cushions. You decide which of the two is setting the better example.

If it turns out that more MP's have made spurious personal expense claims for second homes than haven't, can we campaign for the right not to refer to them as Right Honourable any longer?

  

Captains Log

It's tough to keep a blog going because you should have something to say rather than just writing tat for the purposes of self discipline. I have violated this rule by having nothing to say andalso waiting 4 days to say it. 

Actually I have loads to say but when I log in here I forget all of it. I need to write down the things I'm going to blog somewhere. In some kind of diary. Or log. Maybe an electronic log. When will someone invent such a thing?

Actually they already have. Is the log of Captain James T Kirk not such a thing? And everything on Star Trek ends up in real life (Or even in REALLIFE). You can now get a phone that looks like an old fashioned star trek communicator. It even makes the right noises. 

Will have to go and see the new star trek movie. Just to see if they really have kept the proper sounds. The Fssshht of the doors to the USS Enterprise bridge is one of my favourite noises. 

On the subject of New England, someone was stabbed the other day in broad daylight outside the Blue Lagoon pub (which used to be the Scotch Corner). Stabbed in the head as well - evil. Evil really is banal. No one strokes a cat whilst plotting in real life. There are no baddies like in Star Trek who want something really quite obscure - and could be mistaken for well meaning but just ridiculously powerful and deluded -  like to be able to right a misperceived wrong by going back in time. They just do something vicious because their own pride and selfishness has no boundaries. Respect for other people is the starting point for good. 

My new friend Richard Herring is growing a small oblong moustache. For charity. Having had some experience of growing moustaches for charity I applaud his effort. I just wish he wouldn't call the moustache after one of it's more controversial wearers, Adolf Hitler. He should be reclaiming that style of moustache for posterity; for the people!! Yeah!. 

It will take a long time though. Many Germans still can't name their kids Adolf. And it's such a nice big goofy sounding name, if you can get past the image of one particularly snitty little weasel owner who never got his own way and respected no ones boundaries and did whatever he wanted because his pride was hurt. I refuse to give Hitler any kind of evil genius bond villain style credit. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Snitty little gits triumph because they won't take no for an answer and quite a few people stand to gain from letting them get on with it. I watched the movie of Graham Greenes brilliant Brighton Rock the other day, with Richard Attenborough playing Pinkie. The Pinkie character is a 17 year old self made gangster in the interwar years and manages to make older wiser men do his bidding only because he has no boundaries, and they do. Highly recommend the film or the book, not just as a character study and for Dickies brilliant acting, but because Brighton escaped much of the Luftwaffes attention, you can retrace the steps of the charcters to this day in brighton if you like, as you can with bits of Quadrophenia. I'm a Sussex lad at heart, despite being born in Hants, workling in London and living in Cambridgeshire.

I showed Tony a bit of Borough Market where they filmed Lock Stock when we were on the way to the Roxy to watch the football. I like the fact that I know my way around London. When I retire I'm going to be a tour guide and tell incredible porkies to American old ladies. 

Update: Speaking of Brighton, that's the hometown of iTunes free single of the week to download. Band called The Mummers - Bjork-like. Check it

Uh oh

Blog posts reduced to one or two liners. Probably because I'm busy playing REALLIFE TM ...great new game that is subject of massive bidding war between Apple, Microsoft, Google and Hamleys. What you do is live in this unlikely world where you have to eat, sleep, breathe, drink, work, reproduce and otherwise interact with other "characters" and ...get this...NONE OF IT NEEDS TO TAKE PLACE ONLINE! That's right it is completely wireless and hands off.

Tonight I would like to spend my time mostly in "my own little world" TM . That's a spin off of REALLIFE that allows you to retreat into a solipsistic bubble where all the other characters are imaginary. But unfortuantely I have elected to watch the Arsenal bravely battle against the odds to maintain a faint silverware lining to their cloud nine dreams. And I have elected to do this amongst friends since my family do not want Mr Hyde showing up again - that beast who kicks holes in doors and snarls the incantation "adebayor, adebayor" endlessly.

So I'm off to The Roxy - 13ft HD screen, draught staropramen, steaming baked cod, leather sofas. Hopefully no mancs (I will ask Malcolm to throw them out - he's a scouse landlord and very obliging). Tomorrow I am going to 15 Hatfields - host of the fantastic LSA launch party and now celebrating one year as being the capitals most environmentally friendly conference venue. I hope to find out more about "sustainable meetings". I may drink some champagne, but that is only so I fit in.

Now saturday

Knew I wouldn't keep it up. May turn this into an allotment blog now - still looking for a theme or idea that ties all random thoughts togerth. Still I may have time to blog something as it's a bank holiday weekend (yeah right)

Not the worst result for Arsenal I think. Not sure what Diaby contributed in the game. Expect a team like United to be able to punish ten men (or nine when bendtner came on).

Bad guts

Returned home from the Arsenal game on Sunday by way of a crappy bar in Peterborough (Bogarts has been closed due to allowing underage drinking). Met with some locals and decided it's about time I got to know the denizens of this city. And they were horrible. I tried to like them but the group I met were insincere, obnoxious and spoiling for a fight. And that was just the girls. Pugnacious and vituperative. They also liked to appropriate personal belongings. It was like being back at school and running in to the bullies. This is what happened to them. Their moment of triumphant success was in the playground and they want to prolong it.

I have a stomach ache - irritable bowel I guess you'd say. Took the time off work just as the swineflu thing was appearing. I have done loads of work on preparednes for bird flu and it all applies. I feel like I ought to be there in order to busybody around with bird flu but in fact as an advisor I am only one or two steps ahead of them and in my absence they have taken all the right decisions. Maybe I'm not really needed although I suspect it would reassure them to know I'd had some involvement.

One aspect of the Mexican outbreak that hasn't really been revealed is the age and prior state of health of the fatalities. Flu is survivable with prompt medical care, as is secondary pneumonia. But in an overcrowded smoggy place like Mexico City would flu have a higher rate of attrition than in San Diego? I suspect so, especially amongst the elderly, the poor and neonatals. We should still have only a watching brief rather than a reactionary response at this stage I think. At the moment the WHO are discussing changing the alert status to 5. That would be to say that the virus has reached pandemic potential status and would trigger antiviral production. If they do that we could have just as many fatalities from seasonal flu amongst those who would normaly be vaccinated in the approaching season. They will be elderly and infirm and children. Big decision. Most of the recent typed patients with swine flu in the US and Canada and now the UK have pretty mild symptoms. Testing positive for A(H1N1) doesn't mean you are going to die. The important thing is to quarantine those who test positive (for one thing to prevent further mutation possibilities interacting in a host with another virus).

It's safe to eat pork as well.

It emerges now through the WHO press conference that Mexican victims were apparently healthy young adults and that the similar virus was cropping up in different locations. This doesn't explain why they have a large number of fatalities in Mexico and none abroad. But it does bear the hallmarks of early stage pandemic in that, like 1918, it isn't just attritional amongst those who would not have a high probability of surviving an acute febrile infection. I think the next trigger point will be a fatality in another country.

Panorama - may contain nuts

The Panorama program approached the subject of health and safety exactly like any member of the public. They resent being told what to do, don't like well paid consultants, will not countenance any risk for their own loved ones but are happy to accept significant personal risk if the rewards are there, feel someone should always be blamed for any failure, hate bureaucracy but demand accounatbility, think that government agencies are incompetent and do not like beauty spots or burial places for their loved ones desecrated. All of these things sound like "common sense" but are actually complex and interdependent issues and some must always be sacrificed for others. The primary tool is good risk assessment (and the program did point this out and should be credited for that at least). The National Trust got it right and Bassetlaw got it wrong. The greater the risk, the greater the need for rigour and intelligence in risk assessment. Noise is never fatal so the control measures must be proportionate but it is complex - sound not just a level on a db meter. You can't do sound level monitoring on an iphone and the noise regs when properly applied using a proper judgement of risk should never interfere with a cellists interpretation of Elgar. That there are serious uncontrolled risks on construction sites up and down the country going begging for a good H&S intervention whilst our artists are being assailed by over fussy regulation is a travesty and they are right to point this out. As professionals we need to avoid jerking our knee every time an investigation uses a slightly mickeytaking style to address genuine concerns about how much regulation and enforcement is enough.The fear of getting sued is massively overstated and the threat of it allows all sorts of busybodying disguised as H&S. This is giving the whole profession a bad name and providing ammunition for our detractors. It's some of the professionals that need training first; training to get out of the restrictive uptight and hidebound mindset and to explouit deregulation rather than beg for proscription and invent it where it's lacking (guidance is only guidance, it's ACOPs that have less wiggle room). Training to open up their creative processes in finding novel solutions to allow the right amount of risk; to faciltate, as one judge put it "well thought through risk taking" . Training to understand that some people follow rules and some don't, to find out why, and to properly decide where different control measures are needed for each circumstance. We are getting better all the time I think and we're only really being undermined by a handful of instances of poor judgement. But we must be aware that every single one is food for lazy journalists. A bit of self criticism in the business of H&S wouldn't go amiss. Just because we're criticised collectively for one individuals barmy misreading of a reg or cotton wool control measure doesn't mean we should't examine our solutions sometimes and ask ouselves if we really took all our possible stakeholders into account when we chose them

New England

I had a very productive day. This is what happens when I'm not knackered from work. Tongued and grooved the bath panel to a rocksteady beat, bought some tools from B& Q and went down the dump twice. The dump is a difficult place to be if you're not either a mouth breathing simpleton in a hi-vis vest or a middle aged woman with an Audi full of cardboard and paving slabs. The latter, blissfully unaware of the queue behind her, decides to park nearest the skip she needs and then blocks off parking for anyone further up. Selfish; but then women never discern the unwritten road rules most men implicitly understand. It's why we let each other out of junctions in turn and park 2 ft (no more, no less) from each other. It's a kind of graciousness but it's really born out of competence. I leave another driver enough room to get out of a parking spot but not so much that another car can't park in the remaining space. In this age of equality why have women not adopted the characteristic courtesy they have always expected from men, along with the rights they so desparately desired? Rhetorical questions should of course avoided in blogs, but luckily I have had no comments yet and no one seems to have twigged this blog (although a couple of people asked for a link - which is nice).

I had some weird philosophical experiences yesterday. I went to the corner shop and the owner was chatting with another asian man and felt the need to explain the gist of his conversation to me after his friend left. "He thinks I look Indian" he said. I shrugged. The owner then went on to explain that people from the subcontinent should be distinguished only by whether they are Hindu or Muslim, as any other type of classification risks causing offence. He then went on to explain that Christian snd Muslims have more in common with each other than with Hindu's. "90 percent of the bible" he said, "is the same as the Qu'uran". By this time I was edging towards the door. He didn't speak enough English for me to argue with the obviously crackers conjecture even if he had left room for me to respond. Seeing my anxiety he told me, "I'm not Al-Qaeda". "I'm sure very few people really are" I said. "Well Mohammed", he retorted, "was persecuted for 10 years and when the Angel Gibril came to him and asked him if he'd like the city of his persecutors destroyed, he answered No".

I didn't know this story. I take it that this is a significant story of compassion and forgiveness. But to point it out as if it was the semi-divine character of The Prophet that stayed God's hand - like the normal and obvious thing to have done was to have beseeched the angel to raze the place to the ground - seemed like sophistry. I would not have wanted to see the destruction of a whole city either, even if a few of it's inhabitants had cruelly abused me. And I'm not a prophet. That's because I know bigotry is limited to the ignorant and insecure and is ultimately only going to lead to defeat. The Jews know this. They do not burn with desire for the destruction of Germany. They can tell the difference.

Then I went to the second hand shop to look at a bookcase (which was knackered as it turns out). Inside is a man of east mediterranean extraction ranting about how he hates the Poles. He went so far as to say that Hitler had the right idea invading them. I didn't stay to hear the rest of his sermon. Nevertheless I could deduce he clearly has the idea that any mass extermination of a swathe of people who belong to a group a member of whom has recently pissed you off, is perfectly reasonable - like Hitler was some kind of personal valet-cum-bodyguard working to clear the park of oiks so you could picnic in peace. No suggestion that when - to paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller - they have finished with whichever group it is you detest they won't march right on and get you as well.

In the mainly Mirpuri area of Gladstone Street there was, for about four days, an abusive anti-Polish slogan on the side of a Muslim grocery store. This is what New England is like (no irony and no bullshit, that's where I live). I wonder if so many people from so many disparate countries and cultures end up in "New" England precisely because it sounds like an invitation to a reconstruction. I plan to write a book this place though. But I'll just stick with the blog for now.

Incidentally, whilst I'm writing this XTC's "No Thugs In Our House" just came on the stereo. The beauty of random shuffle.