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.