I worry about America...

 

Seriously, I do.

For my entire life, the United States of America has been a beacon of hope and peace and democracy, whether under a Republican or a Democrat Administration. Amidst all the gung-ho posturing and often angry rhetoric - and sometimes it could be very angry indeed (and often about what in my view were the wrong things) - and despite a pathological Superiority Complex the size of the Andromeda Galaxy, I always felt the country could be relied upon to Do The Right Thing.   And mostly it did.

The Government and its spokespersons always trumpeted its successes, its "American values" and the sanctity of its Constitution; how there was no alternative - indeed, could never be an alternative - to Freedom, Democracy and The American Way, while at the same time leaving millions of its citizens in unemployed misery in ghettoes in every city, every large town, because of the colour of their skin or the place of their birth. I turned a blind eye and a deaf ear as they tried to force these beliefs onto nations that were never in a million years likely to accept them, in both the Middle and the Far East, even neighbouring Central America.   And of course Russia (sorry: the USSR) and its bloc.  And invariably at gun point.

I worked with many, many Americans in my banking career, much of it spent working for Wall Street behemoths like Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers and Bear Stearns, so I heard this refrain every day of my working life, along with lectures on how technologically advanced America was, and how wealthy (both due to Capitalism and education and health care systems that were world class) its population was (except for the unfortunates I mentioned above, who were never mentioned in these conversations). There was mystification when I innocently pointed out that some of the scientific breakthroughs, like the discovery of DNA, the development of penicillin, the first jet engines and the World Wide Web, were actually made by British educated and employed scientists and engineers, and told I didn't know what I was talking about. In the end, I gave up, went with the flow and stopped arguing (though without every changing my mind).

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I'm not sure when my live-and-let-live attitude towards America and Americans changed. Perhaps it was on my first trip to New York, when I was waiting in line at Passport Control at Newark Airport. I was next in line, behind a German family, harassed by an official because of their imperfect English (and ignoring his total lack of German). There were three kids, all under about 7 I would guess, tired, bored and a bit fractious (probably hungry too) because of the interminable delay. The youngest, no more than two or three, while his parents were again trying to answer another question, wandered off, a few paces past the desk where the parents were now close to tears of frustration. Suddenly a cop, behind the row of desks, dropped into a crouch, whipped out his pistol and pointed it at this little boy. "Who's is the kid?" he bellowed. "Who's? Come on, I'll fuckin' shoot!"   The mother leapt forward, scooped the confused and terrified child into her arms, and the pair of them dissolved into floods of tears as she tried to comfort him and his now terrified siblings.

The cop put his gun away, and he and the passport officer proceeded to berate the poor family for failing to control their kids, pointed out they were in America now not some shitty European dump, stamped the passports and told them to "get the hell out of here." Then they angrily waved me forward for my grilling. Welcome to America, I thought, as I stepped forward. 

This was in early 2000.  Or it may have been a couple of years later, after the shocking tragedy and carnage of 9/11. No-one who witnessed that (as most of the world did, like me at work on a variety of tv's, worried because I had friends in our American subsidiary with offices half-way up the North Tower: thank God, they all managed to get out before the collapse and survived) can fail to have been moved by it and understand that whoever was behind it had to be brought to justice. But the (probably understandable) anti-Muslim backlash, stoked up by the rhetoric coming out the Bush White House without any real facts behind it was probably not the wisest response. The subsequent invasion of Iraq (a country that had played no part at all in the actual atrocity) only added more fuel to the fire. The absence of a plan for a post Saddam regime and further attacks on Afghanistan made those sentiments even worse, and the resulting conflicts that dragged on for twenty years left tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands dead or maimed, most of whom were simply ordinary people unconnected with the criminal gangs and terrorist cells that filled the power vacuum created by US and Allied troop withdrawals. None of the terrorist actors the wars were supposed to destroy were defeated: they still exist, diminished perhaps, but still active and filled with a membership drawn from the sons and grandsons of the innocent victims, now seeking revenge. Religious fundamentalism, particularly Islamic but arguably spread to Zionism and the kind of anti-immigration Far Right regimes popping up and gaining popularity across Europe and elsewhere, has increased over these 20 years. The War on Terror is far from won.

Then there were Wikileaks scandals. I was working in Trinidad at the time Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning's trove of documents was released, and our entire project team (I was the only non-American or local working there) were up in arms. To a man, they called for Manning to be shot, on the spot, without trial, and demanded the arrest of Julian Assange and closure of his news platform for treason. I gently pointed out that Assange, as an Australian citizen resident then in London, hadn't actually committed treason and as far as I could see hadn't committed a crime, since publishing "news" on a "news website" was his job. Sure, you could argue that the information was stolen, but that has never stopped any news outlet from publishing something in the public interest (and arguably never should). When I actually saw some of the stuff, that clearly documented war crimes carried our by the military, I applauded (and continue to do so) Manning's courage in bringing it to a global audience and Assange for having the guts to help him. War crimes can never be justified. Ever.

Some years ago, after all this, I published a piece on my blog (in fact the Manning business was one of the triggers for my starting the blog: as an outlet for my views as part of the global discussion I felt was needed - I still believe that) that was critical of US conduct at the time and suggested that America needed a dose of humility (as in being more humble themselves, as a nation, as opposed to humiliating others or being themselves humiliated) and accept that other nations and religions and political systems and belief systems have a right to exist, and millions, even billions of people equally have an equal right to follow them. The American Way and Capitalism are fine for America and Americans, but not for everyone else. I still have no doubt at all this is the case.

If anything, the Trump years and their aftermath make me even more convinced that this is the case, and that, right now, there is something rotten at the country's core. I still cannot fully understand how this clown won his Term of Office: he has made and lost fortunes by bullshitting and bullying, and is a misogynistic serial liar. This was evident before his election and nothing he has done since has shown otherwise. And yet millions of Americans voted him into office and turned him into the most powerful man on Earth (if only because of America's vast wealth and military might: certainly not for any mental or political aptitude, which in him remain completely lacking). He did it off the back of internet conspiracists and religious fundamentalists (that word again) that somehow  convinced the Great Unwashed and the chancers who would do anything to turn a profit - uber Capitalists, if you like) that milked a political system that allows an Electoral College to win the Presidency despite losing, heavily, the popular vote. Not the first President to do that, nor will he be the last, but certainly the least intelligent or competent.

Chaos reigned. At first it was funny, and how we laughed at his antics: self consciously doing a sword dance in Saudi Arabia, barging his way to the middle of the front row, desperate to be The Man, at his first NATO summit photo call. Wooing Putin (who couldn't believe how lucky he was and promptly invaded Crimea because he knew he could get away with it) and Mr. Kim (who equally couldn't believe his luck and increased his nuclear weapons production as soon as he got home). Denied Covid was anything more than a bad cold (even after his own hospitalisation) and suggesting ingesting bleach could be a good cure, while at the same time ignoring all his top scientists and medical advisors and refusing mask mandates until the death toll reached the millions (and doing little to stop individual cities and states that chose to ignore them).

He lost the next Election and refused to accept that either. His supporters, the same Great Unwashed conspiracists, with his encouragement, stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop VP Pence confirming the vote and the Democratic victory: an insurrection, said most sensible people, no just high spirits and righteous anger replied the Great Unwashed. Reluctantly, he headed to Florida, with his family and several hundred boxes of classified documents that, by law, belonged to the National Archives not him, still crowing about a stolen election, while his Democratic winner Joe Biden wandered in and tried to clean up the mess.

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And now we have a new Election year, and the reason for the title of this piece. Here is why I worry about America. 

The incumbent, dear old Joe, is 80 and clearly not in the best of health. Not to put too fine a point on it, he is an old man - he will be 81 come Election Day. He stumbles a bit when he walks, and his voice is weaker, sometimes indistinct; increasingly he loses track of what he's trying to say and fumbles his words. There are more and more people worried about his competence to stand for Election, never mind do the job if he wins.

Trump, meanwhile, despite losing a number of high profile court cases, including one for rape and another for property fraud, and facing another 90+ criminal and civil cases of various kinds, all of which in any other country I can think of would disqualify him from any public office from President down to road sweeper or toilet cleaner, and despite using $50m from his campaign funds to pay his legal bills (he is now demanding more donations - and will no doubt get them from his deluded army of Great Unwashed) is running away with the Republication nomination. Oh, and he will be 77 come Election Day.

So Americans must choose between two old men. One is a nice enough old codger, who is smart enough when pushed but increasingly frail and confused, suggestive of some deeper health issues, who, to be brutally honest, may not complete a second term. The other is a thrice (or is now four times? I've lost count) bankrupt serial liar and incompetent businessman, who is also a convicted sex offender, and a conspiracy theorist to boot. 

Biden is at least patriotic, law abiding, with a lifelong devotion to public service, and a love of the US Constitution, although prone to confusion in geopolitics (Sisi is the Egyptian leader, not the Mexican one, to quote one recent glaring error). But he is still a bit sensible, if old......   

But Trump is increasingly losing the plot. His latest pronouncements, suggesting that the NATO edict that an attack on one member state is an attack on all member states is only valid if the attacked state is paying its agreed NATO membership fee (now 2% of GDP or above committed to defence spending): if the state is not doing so ("delinquent" is Trump's favoured term) then he would happily "encourage the aggressor" - widely suggested to be Putin's Russia, based on the Ukraine war - "to do what the he likes" and the US will not interfere. Cue outrage throughout Europe and Democrat America, agreement from the Trumpian Republican Party and, no doubt, cheers and much vodka swilling in the Kremlin, North Korea, China and Iran (amongst other nations who follow Moscow's or Teheran's lead....).

In 2020, after Biden's electoral victory, I think most people expected that Trump would fade away and, in the wake of his failed "insurgency" (or at least his part in it) so would his more extreme supporters too. The Republican Party would purge itself of the Trump Rump and get back to bi-partisan, decently negotiated government.  A new, younger, more global generation would come through to replace the old guard like Trump himself, McConnell, Graham and the rest of the Grey Old Men who have been running the Party for years. The Democrats seemed on the way to doing that already, with a young, black, female VP, Kamala Harris in place to succeed Biden and lead a similar change.

Somehow, it hasn't happened. The GOP remains Trump territory, and all opposition to him has been weeded out, by fair means or foul, and the Grey Old Men are still there, still in place.

Harris remains VP, but has remained strangely silent - presumably out of loyalty - as the concerns about her boss have grown in volume.    The other young guns (to use a rather hackneyed phrase) have fallen by the wayside too.

America clearly has problems. But they are also our problems, the West's (again, a hackneyed expression) problems. Because whoever wins in November will be, as usual, considered the Strongest Man in the world because the economy and military they inherit will still be the strongest in the world. Are either of them, and the parties they lead into power, up to the task? Because the wealth and security of the entire world may well depend on the answer.

This is why I worry about America.

Privacy concerns

 

Privacy matters.  And not just on your internet browser of choice.  Nor on the internet as a whole.  It's one of the reasons Vivaldi is now my daily driver.  As well as being fast and offering more customization options than you can shake a stick at, and a host of productivity tools that for me, at least, are completely irrelevant, it has excellent security and privacy features baked in.  Specifically its own ad- and tracker- blocker that ensures my browsing choices and history

are not flogged off to the highest bidder, nor am I peppered with ads all the time.  It gives a running count of the number of ads and trackers it's blocked too, which makes interesting and

sobering reading - I've been using Vivaldi pretty much constantly for around 15 months and I'm told that in that time (as I write this...) I've had close to 300,000 trackers and nearly 150,000 ads blocked......  But even these tools are no match for the world's biggest advertising agencies (that's Alphabet and Meta, via their assorted Google and Facebook products) that continue to bombard me with unwanted crud if I go anywhere near them, via their own software that force you to disable your own ad-blockers if you want to continue using their services - and let's face it, most of still do.

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However, this piece is not intended to be an advertisement for Vivaldi, nor a rant against Google and/or Meta (that's one for another day).  No, this is simply a few thoughts about privacy and the occasional lack thereof, that plagues our modern world.

As an introvert, my privacy is important to me.  It's why I have net curtains and blinds on the windows of my apartment, and crave decent fencing at my dzialka. Right now I have waist high wire fencing, plus some bushes that in time (say three or four years) will provide additional screening, as does the mature hedge at the front boundary of the plot.  As things stand, the neighbours all around have a clear view into my "private" space (as indeed I have into theirs, should I want it - which I don't), and it makes me uncomfortable.  I don't want people seeing what I and my family are doing when we're there - we're not doing anything to be ashamed of, but it's our business, nobody else's.  But this is par for the course here, as it is in many other parts of the world. I crave the 6 foot high waney-lap fencing I had around my entire gardens, in pretty much all the homes I had back in England, but to add it to my plot here would cost me even more than it would there.  You get used to it, of course, but that doesn't mean you can simply ignore it (at least I can't).

Apartment living has its own privacy challenges.  I remember the first couple of homes I owned: a small, old, middle terraced semi-slum on top of a railway bank and an end-terrace in a better neighbourhood.  Both had entrances shared with our next door neighbours and wafer thin walls, and you could clearly hear what tv program they were watching and every word of any argument they might have.  You could also hear the more, shall we say, intimate activities going on, and I suppose it was as unsettling for them to hear ours as it was for us to hear theirs. Moving up market put paid to that, especially in my last big detached house.

But it's all back again in the apartment living that is the norm in my life now.  Our place is relatively new, so of better construction than many blocks, but I can still hear the kids running around in the place immediately above ours, often earlier in the morning than I would like, and I have no doubt they, and the people below us, can also hear us.  I know that the regular arguments that happen in any family can be clearly heard - we had a good one last week, all four of us, and a couple of days later the upstairs neighbour, who we bumped into in the lift, joked about it: we responded in kind (they're decent friends of ours) but I found it unsettling - even those from people across the shared garden.  We had a young couple in one of the ground floor apartments and they were quite, shall we say, demonstrative in their conjugal activities: one summer afternoon so much so that most of the balconies were full of people  listening to their antics (there was no choice actually, such was the din) and gave them a rousing ovation after the third time in an hour and a half. They moved out a week or so later.

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It seems to me that, with all this move to apartment living rather than houses (at least in my neck of the woods) privacy is on the wane.  The rise of social media has resulted in people, especially the younger generation, being more prepared to share their lives on-line, with their friends and relatives, and this I believe is a dangerous development - I tend to be much more circumspect with what I share on my own Facebook account (it's the only platform I use and, frankly, far less than I used to) than I used to and rarely post pictures now. 

Then there are the activities of the press and paparazzi.  There is no doubt the press will do whatever they deem necessary to get a story, even stuff there is barely (or not at all) legal - phone hacking and stalking being prime examples - especially where the story relates to a celebrity, politician or royalty, or a serious crime is involved. Reporting seems much more prurient and unpleasant than I remember it before the rise of the internet, even in the gossip columns that most tabloids carry, and its alternative news organizations like Buzzfeed or Huffington Post, with formerly respected outlets like the Times and the Mail and the Washington Post dumbing down to compete and selling their support to the highest paying political party.  Smartphones, with their built in cameras, and sites like X (or Twatter if you prefer), Instagram and TikTok mean that everyone potentially is a citizen journalist and can post any old garbage with little fear of anyone fact-checking it, and find an audience.

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Sorry - I've drifted off-piste a little, but never mind: all of the stuff in the last couple of paragraphs is still very relevant.

All of this citizen journalism (or shit-spreading, if you prefer) has it seems to me eroded everyone's right to privacy, and this can only be seen as a Bad Thing.  Whatever you think of Prince Harry (for instance - he's not my favourite person in the world), he should still be entitled to some privacy for he and his family.  If he and missus are at a film premiere or something then it's obviously different, as they are "working", and to be expected, but under normal circumstances there should be no phone hacking or packs of paps on motor bikes dogging his every move, just because of his background (he didn't choose to be born into the royal family) and actress wife.  At the end of the day, they are both human beings, the same as the rest of us.  

It struck me particularly strongly last week how far reporting has degenerated into scummy tittle-tattle last week when I watched the first Pentagon new conference Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin made after his recent treatment for prostate cancer. Now, I don't know much about the bloke, know nothing of his past military career nor his performance in his current job. Wikipedia tells me he is 5 months younger than me, a devout Catholic, married for over 40 years and has two step-sons.  So a decent bloke then.  It also briefly mentions that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year and underwent corrective surgery over Christmas.

Now in this briefing, more time was spent discussing this ailment than the conduct of US forces in the Middle East, or American support for Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression, or his country's commitment to NATO - all of which seem to me far more relevant to a defence briefing than his state of health.  But no: because of press tittle-tattle, especially from the Trump supporting alt-right media, and the strident complaints of a Republican party that has lost touch with reality, Austin spent half of his time giving a tortuous and very personal explanation of what happened to him and when, and then answering innumerable questions on the same topic..  One no-mark wannabe hack, probably from Trump's favourite Fox News, asked why, in view  of his "conduct" (as if developing cancer, in any form, should ever be considered "conduct"!) he hadn't resigned or been sacked. 

It just so happens that I was diagnosed with the same condition last year, so I have a very good idea of what Lloyd Austin and his family have been going through.  My diagnosis was in May, and I had surgery in mid-November, so we had almost exactly 6 months living with it - six months of blood tests, scans and painful and distressing biopsies to see how bad the tumours were and if the disease had spread (potentially fatal).  Then waiting for the surgery to be scheduled and completed, with its embarrassing and difficult after effects. I was lucky: the surgery was completely successful and the recovery (so far, and touching wood!) much easier and complete than I - or the doctors - had anticipated. But it's still been a tough time for us, and I still have six months and more blood tests before I can be pronounced cancer free.....

This is what Lloyd Austin has faced and is still going through: his use of a golf buggy shows clearly his recovery is proving much more difficult than mine.  He's clearly a strong and determined guy, and I have no doubt he will get there - and I wish him every success in his personal journey. 

But here is the thing: just because he holds a senior position in the current Administration should not mean that he has to go through this process in the full glare of publicity, nor should he be condemned for a perceived "lack of judgement" during his hospitalization. At the end of the day, he is just an ordinary man who is going through a health crisis, albeit one that does not necessarily impact his ability to do his job properly.

He should be entitled to do that in privacy.

As should we all.

Facing trials.

 

Today has been a good day.  It's not quite 11 in the evening, and I'm sitting on the balcony in my old and rickety IKEA rocking chair that I fear is nearing the end of its useful life. (It come to all things, including ourselves. But do not think I am coming to that stage - far from it.  So please don't worry - as if you would!)  The day was hot, approaching 30C I think, not bad for early September in Warsaw, and even now it's a comfortable 19C and in my old blue shorts and new black Red Hot Chilli Peppers tee, I'm warm. I have a chilled Lech beer on the table beside me, a full belly from My Beloved's cooking, and the sublime music of Mozart fills my ears.  It truly is a fine ending to a fine day, and I feel thankful and satisfied with my life right now.

Of course, it hasn't always been so.  There have been trials to face and there will be more I doubt not.  It's what we humans have to go through (probably all living things do, come to think of it). And that doesn't matter in the least.  It's how we face those trials that matters. An example: my dad died of cancer when I was 19, and left me the main breadwinner.  I coped, comforted my mum and my sisters, and buried him. But I shed not a tear, it would have upset everyone, so I bottled it up and hid in a beer barrel for several years, before marrying and having my family.  So essentially I didn't face that trial at all, and it took nearly 30 years before I cried it out, and another 20 before I faced the guilt I carried and buried it.  In fact, the final exorcism only happened last year, when I wrote a short story around it and cleared my mind finally. Now I'm comfortable with it.

I've had other pains in my life, too, and faced them rather better.  Losing my mum in similar circumstances, and not mourning her properly either (I did that at the same time as I did dad), but it wasn't so painful because I was closer to her and she knew it (in a way my dad never knew how I felt about him...).  In and out of work more frequently than was ideal, and a couple times it was no-one else's fault but mine - again, this new found honesty has made me realise it.  Illness: of course, not least the two Covid infections that left me in poor mental health, leading to the depression that forced me to look at all this stuff with different eyes (and gave rise to this honesty).  

It's been tough sometimes, but accepting things about myself and my life that I previously had not recognised (or worse, denied) has laid ghosts I never realised I had to rest, and given me an inner peace at last.  But none of it has been close to how tough life is for millions of people. Those in Ukraine, for instance, victims of Putin's war, watching their country reduced to rubble as their armed forces fight to turn the tide.  Those in Syria and Yemen, for instance, victims of brutal civil war and oppression by their own leaders (propped up by superpowers fighting a proxy war).  The hundreds of thousands of migrants in this world, walking and hitching rides and paying people smugglers, for thousands of miles, in a vain attempt to find better lives in the West but finding mostly hate and victimisation instead of help and comfort. The millions of people across the tropical regions, especially in Africa and low lying island nations, destined to become climate refugees because of the selfishness and stupidity of the richer nations incapable of weaning themselves off their carbon fuel addiction. 

I can of course do nothing about any of that, beyond showing my support, voicing my disgust and advocating in conversations with friends and acquaintances and total strangers on various social media platforms or face to face.  So I focus on my own life, and those of my nearest and dearest, and try to make our lives as good as possible.  I do my best, although often it's not enough, but at least I face my trials now, instead of hiding away.

Money is always too tight: being over generous and trusting people I should have walked away from has seen to that, but we manage.  We are not wealthy, far from it, but as long as we are fit and strong and work hard and honestly then we are fine, and can have clear consciences.  That is more than can be said for some people who have taken advantage. There is little, realistically, that we can do about any of that, except make the best of what we have: a good and comfortable home full of love and laughter (and sometimes tears - we are human after all), clothes to wear and food on the table.

Aging is a frustration, but I'm becoming more settled with that.  For years I've refused to recognise the passing of time, trying to do things increasingly beyond me.  It's led to hospitalisation and various aches and pains, so now at 70 (and a half) I've come to accept I'm no longer a young man and started to live my life accordingly.  I feel better for it, fitter after changing my diet and exercising more.  And happier: I'm in a better place now, mentally, than I have been for years (perhaps even since childhood).

Which is just as well.  I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, until quite recently a killer.  I've had loads of scans  and blood tests and a painful biopsy, and thanks to God it's not as bad as we initially feared.  I need surgery, which has been scheduled today for a few weeks hence, but with luck I will be through this, cancer free and living a normal life, by the end of this year.  My mindset has been positive since I found out, and the doctors have all been confident my good health and strength will be a great help in my recovery, and foresee no major issues.  But still - it's serious, and surgery, and there can be no 100% guarantees.  But I will be fine, I know this in my bones. 

So until the next time, good night.  I'm off to bed now.  Happy and content.

Whatever happened to Travellin' Bob?

 

I've been a bit blocked lately. Not in the digestive-y way, you understand, but....well, in the head. Which is why there's not been a lot posted so far this year. My Muse, always a bit hit and miss for me, has buggered off.  Again. Truth to tell, I'm out of ideas.  No inspiration.  Not for blogs, not for longer stuff like short stories. Or essays  And as for complete book length writing.......not a snowball in Hells chance!

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I mean, it's not as though is there is nothing going on in the world to bring a little inspiration. There's Putin's War for a start, but I've lost a little bit of, I suppose, focus as it drags on through the winter months. There are war crimes being committed on a daily basis by the Russian invaders, and heroic resistance by Ukrainian forces to counter them. Life goes on mostly, as people try to live as normally as possible amid the power cuts, lack of heating, food shortages, and the constant fear of being blown to bits. I should be able to write tons of stuff, full of righteous anger and frustration at the still patchy assistance and support being given by the West - the US, and EU and NATO are doing more than ever before, but it still seems insufficient somehow. But it's all so sad and depressing, and I can't bring myself to even follow closely the news coverage, never mind try to write anything to add my own spin to it.

There are other conflicts going on, of course, that perhaps understandably don't get the coverage. In Yemen, for instance, where oil rich Saudi Arabia, armed with American and British weapons, is still trying to subdue a small, poorly armed but strategically important country that doesn't agree with its views. Then of course American backed Israel, with a new Far Right coalition headed by the thug Bibi Netanyahu in government, continues its attempted genocide of the Palestinian Arabs (who admittedly are no shrinking violets when it comes to lobbing home made bombs, bricks and bottles around). Skirmishes as usual in Africa, in the Far East (Myanmar springs to mind) and of course the Butcher Assad's civil war in Syria that has been dragging on for more than 10 years. And the poor sods in the northern province if Idlib now have to contend with the after effects of a massive earthquake that has killed nearly 20,000 people (and still counting) there and across the border in Turkey. God, what a world we live in!

That delusional oaf Trump, despite a lengthening list of court cases lined up against him and a shrinking list of loyal supporters, says he's going to run again in 2024, against an ageing Joe Biden (assuming he decides at 80 to stand himself). What a choice America will have to make!  Back home in Britain the chaos caused by a combination of Brexit and Tory greed and incompetence continues to drag the country into the doldrums. Cost of living crises, the NHS, railways, postal workers, border control force officials and civil servants striking, beg for a change of government that isn't likely to come for another year or more.... But, shit, I'm repeating myself: I'm sure I scribbled something about all that in December last or January this ....... The fact that not a thing has changed simply underlines the state of the nation (to borrow an American term).

But I can't find anything to say about any of it (at least that I haven't already said).

See what I mean about "blocked"?

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As to stories and stuff.......well, that's even worse.

The last new thing I wrote was in May/June last year, an addition to my short story collection, and I think it's another pretty good one.  But since then, I've not had the glimmer of an idea. Nothing. Complete radio silence from My Muse. How I envy writers that can bash out a full length book or short story collection every year or so, and still find stuff to say! I'm buggered if I can. The Match remains unpublished, mainly because I don't want to bung it out on Amazon without having something to follow it up with quite quickly, so this ancient saga of sex booze and football in the 1970s (originally written in the 1990s, for God's sake!) remains a PDF on my hard drive. Another couple of shorts added to the collection would do the trick..... 

Where the hell are you, Muse, you tetchy and unreliable bitch? Come back, please (I'm asking nicely), and give me a nudge....

The memoir keeps it company. I re-worked a big chunk of it in the summer, but yet again I've become bogged down. That's stupid, really, because I know what it's about, the entire plot is my life. I don't need to make anything up, just recount my memories. Perhaps I've just fallen out of love with it (or myself...) because I can't see anyone except my close family having the slightest bit of interest in it and it just seems like a lot of work for basically nothing. But then that's always been the point, not making any money out of it - just something for them to remember me by while they toast me on birthdays and Christmases when I'm gone and my ashes scattered to the four winds.... It's a companion to The Match on my hard drive (but not even a PDF because it's not finished yet).

But I dumped the travel book. Copying over all the travel pieces I've written for the blogs since 2010 (I know - that long!) and ordering them into some kind of logic gave me a first draft of well over 500 pages. I made some changes and expansions, filling in background about the places visited to add to my own experiences and thoughts that took it up closer to 600 pages - and I was still less than a quarter of the way through and I hadn't started editing the essays themselves. It was too daunting for me. I deleted it - probably a mistake, but it seemed like a good idea at the (foggy, post Covid) time....

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And here I am now, the start of a new year, struggling to find something new, preferably both interesting and entertaining, to say and bleating on about My (missing) Muse - again. And coming up with close to eleven hundred words in little more than an hour...... 

 That's not bad, actually. When it comes, it flows, quickly and easily.

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Muse? Are you there?

Off with the old, in with the new - 2023

So here we are, the first post of the year - better late than never, but at least it’s not February yet.  I hope you all had a good and pleasant Christmas, and a riotous New Year’s Eve (mine was sober but a nice family one), and wish you every success and happiness for 2023.

As for 2022, I’m kind of glad to see the back of it.  My ambition last January was to get through the year without being hospitalised, and in that at least I succeeded, despite some sciatic problems that needed some physio in a clinic, but I don’t really class that as “hospital” - so I’m calling it a win.

Apart from that, at least on a personal level, not a lot happened.  For a number of very good reasons, it was a quiet year.  Finishing off the new place meant there was not a lot of spare cash so for the first year in my life (at least as far as I can remember) I never got to the seaside, and I’m rather surprised at how much I actually missed it.  Since childhood I’ve loved the sight and sound of waves, big and small, rolling in, and the taste of the salty air, whether the sun is hot on my back or the day cold and miserable - there is something hypnotic and fascinating to me.

I had two relatively brief trips out of town all year.  In August it was a long weekend in the Mazurian Lake District in north east Poland visiting friends, and just before Christmas I had ten days in England, visiting sisters, kids and grandkids, and enjoying the strike-bound rail network - and snow, which is unusual: I don’t think in all the years I’ve been away a trip home has coincided with a snowfall.  It

made an enjoyable trip more interesting……

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At a wider level, the war in Ukraine rumbles on with Putin’s rabble committing war crimes on a

daily basis (I suspect more civilians have died or been maimed from the indiscriminate bombing

and shelling of non-military targets like schools and hospitals and apartment blocks, than armed

forces).  The resolve of the Ukrainian people and President Zelensky is quite extraordinary as we

approach the first anniversary of the Russian invasion.  They are being supported by NATO, but

so far little has changed - the sanctions imposed on Putin and his allies and apologists, and

Russian business generally, have so far not worked as well as had been expected.  If anything,

the man has been able to use it as a means of uniting a doubting public to support the “special

military operation” in defence of the Motherland.  Patently untrue, but it does seem to have

mustered support.

It seems to me about time that there is an escalation of some kind.  Expelling every Russian

diplomat and the forced closure of Russian embassies from every NATO country might be a

start, accompanied by the withdrawal of diplomatic immunity, and this should be extended to

Putin and his cronies like Lavrov and Peskov and their families.  Close the borders.  Extend

the sanctions to every company, big or small, still doing any kind of business with the country. 

Let the fuckers stew in their own juices, pariahs all. Meanwhile, provide Ukraine with all the

weapons they need and ask for, to take the fight to Russia. Putin must be defeated and shown

to be defeated - nothing less than a date at the ICC in The Hague on charges of crimes against

humanity and mass murder will end this satisfactorily.

Global warming continues to bite, with extreme weather events occurring somewhere every day. 

The ski slopes in Poland and elsewhere are devoid of snow, record rainfalls are causing catastrophic flooding in California as I write, a week after record low temperatures and snowfalls paralysed the eastern and central US.  I watched the New Year’s Eve fireworks from my neighbour's balcony at midnight, wearing a t-shirt and did not feel in the least bit cold. And yet licences are being dished

out by British and German governments to open new and extend old coal mines, to compensate

for fuel shortages caused by the Ukrainian war.  The COP commitments are clearly being ignored.  The climate activists, meanwhile, continue their protests, and are rewarded by the wrong kind of action: new legislation tabled to imprison them for causing a public nuisance, and widespread

threats of violence against them by politicians, public and police.  The world has clearly gone to

hell in a handcart.

What else?  Well, Britain is gridlocked by strikes on the railways, hospitals are overstretched and

beyond crisis point as nurses, ancillary staff and junior doctors strike for better pay and conditions,

the post office workers are striking to protect jobs, and the border control people and civil service

are on strike for……well, something to do, I think, not wanting to be left out…  Brexit continues to

divide a country that is in the middle of fuel and cost-of-living crises, and an incompetent and

corrupt Tory government that went through three Prime Ministers in the space of a couple of months

last year has run out of ideas and ability just when those qualities are most needed.  A general

election is sorely needed, but there is unlikely to be one for another couple of years because the

government won’t commit electoral suicide and the opposition seem incapable of forcing the issue. 

Christ knows what will happen this year……

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But enough of the doom and gloom already!  It’s a New Year, and I must be positive.  What I can’tdo anything about - like the above - I will merely rage about as and when I feel like it, but

I refuse to let it dampen my spirits.  I am fit, and healthy (to the best of my knowledge) and I have

much to look forward to.  For a start I turn 70 in March, an age I somehow never thought I’d reach

(touching wood…), certainly not when I was younger.  I have no idea how I will celebrate, but doing

it somewhere on a hot and sunny beach has its attractions!

I expect that we will finally get to move sometime around mid-year after what seems like two years

of hard labour, and that will be interesting - probably my last home move.  Not being dramatic about

that, but I’ve lived in this place for close to 20 years, so if I stay in the new place for a similar time

I’ll be close to 90 and probably past caring. In any event, I’ll have a bit of personal space to work

at, on this blog and other writing projects, relax and read and listen to my choice of music rather

than someone else’s choice of tv.  And have my books in one place rather than several.  Happy days.

And I plan to travel more.  I want to do a few solo weekend (or for that matter midweek) trips to

places in Poland that I haven’t visited yet (or liked and want a return to), just wander around and

look at stuff at my own pace.  My Beloved and I want to do a couple of trips, just the two of us, to

do likewise - Switzerland is top of the list to visit family, maybe England in the autumn, and God

willing a couple of weeks in Croatia.  So we’ll probably end up doing none of those things!  But,

hey, there’s nothing wrong with making plans, right?  And whatever I do end up doing, I intend to

chronicle it here - the good bits, in any case.

 A Happy 2023 everybody!

A story about a prose poem

 

I came back in from the doctor's, satisfied with the news that the tests I had a couple of weeks ago have revealed nothing to worry about.  For an old geezer rapidly heading for his 70th birthday I'm not in bad shape (the selection of aches and pains in various leg joints, relics of my sporting days 40 and more years ago notwithstanding).  A little overweight, perhaps, and inevitably slowing up, suffering from fatigue (too much for my liking) and with vision not what it once was, but still......reasons to be cheerful.

I gave My Beloved a quick call, just to let her know the worries she's been carrying since the tests can be largely discounted, but please carry on with the better diet she's insisted I follow, then settled down in my armchair for little R&R: not too long, as I had another medical appointment elsewhere, this one to help a recurring sciatica problem.  I placed my legs up comfortably on the adjacent settee, laid my head back and closed my eyes, relaxing my muscles and my mind.  It was peaceful.....

Unbidden, a few words came into my head, words I hadn't thought about for a good 40 years.  "Go peacefully through all the trials and tribulations," they said, "and remember how nice is the silence." I remember smiling at them, and thinking, what silence? There is no silence.  And it's true: there is no silence in my life.

Beside me, my dog lay snoring as only a snub-nosed English bulldog can snore - which is to say, loudly. From behind me, through my daughter's room, I could hear the constant hum and roar of traffic on the road outside: nowadays it's there virtually 24/7. In front, outside from the block's courtyard garden, I could hear faintly a hoover in another apartment somewhere in another wing, and over that the engine noise of another flight taking off from the country's main airport, six kilometres from me as the 737 Max flies.  All perfectly normal, the background sounds of my life, every day, every week - every waking hour (and some when I should be sleeping). Mostly my mind filters them out, but today I opened my eyes, my rest quickly over. Those words were still running through my head, and I remembered where they came from.

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Many years ago, in a previous life, my then wife had a tea towel with them on, and many more besides.  It was a very hippy-ish set of verses that she absolutely adored, insisted they made her feel happy whenever she read them, which she did whenever she was feeling down.  With the arrogance of all my 25 years, indestructible, with the strength of youth, I had read them and they had made no impression on me at all....just words. For a while, the tea towel was pinned to the wall, and I countered it with a poster of The Lord of the Rings: a mountain landscape with the Fellowship standing before Minas Tirith, looking not at all like Peter Jackson's imaginings (apart from Gandalf of course), all glaring balefully at you from whichever angle you viewed it.  The book was (still is) my favourite, read every couple of years, and always I find something I missed previously.  

Both that poster and the tea towel disappeared somewhen, probably during the divorce and separation of belongings, or perhaps during a prior house move or two.   But I remembered the verse on the tea towel was called "Desiderata", so I Googled it (as you do.....) and read it for the first time in all those years.  My mind had played tricks on me, and I had remembered the words wrong, but the meaning at least was correct. I read it again, thinking. Here is the incantation, in full: 

 Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

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Maybe my advancing years have something to do with it - certainly the arrogance of youth and invincibility are long gone, never to return - but the more I read it (thrice more while writing this), the more sense it makes to me. As well as the beauty of the language and composition, that for me are as good as anything I've ever read and better, far better, than most, I can see universal truths there. Rules for life if you prefer, expressed in clear terms that even the most idiotic reader should be able to understand (whether or not said idiot agrees with them or not). Without realising it, I believe I've tried to follow many of them myself, and mostly failed in the effort. But I continue to try, for all I really want is a quiet life now.

It was written by a guy called Max Ehrmann in 1927, according to Google, about whom I knew nothing, never heard the name before. Wikipedia says he was an American writer, poet and attorney from Terre Haute, Indiana, who lived between 1872 and 1945, and this prose poem (I still prefer "incantation": it just seems a better description to me) seems to have been his crowning glory. As legacy's go, it's a pretty damned good one.

I can't help thinking that if more people were aware of Desiderata (it was a very popular hippy text back in the days of my youth) and tried to follow its tenets, the world might be a little better place: but then again, perhaps not. Most people aren't that way inclined - I haven't been myself all these years when the verse was out of sight out of mind. Perhaps many millions of people are the same as me: knew it, ignored it, then forgot it for years without number.

Maybe when I finally get my own little office space, with my book shelves and a desk to work at, away from the hubbub going on all around me, I might have to invest in a poster of these words, and my LOTR one (both are still on sale if you go to the right shop or website) and put them up side by side above my desk, not competing for attention on different sides of the room. They would remind me, whenever I looked at them, I think, that for all the garbage in the world, all the bad stuff going on, that it's really a place worth looking after and enjoying in the days and months and years left to us. It might make me pause and take thought when I'm about to blow my top over something that is really not that important, in the wider scheme of things.

I suspect that would be a good thing for me to do.

The Qatari World Cup

 

Somehow, I simply can't get excited, even slightly, about this year's FIFA bean-fest.  As World Cups go, it's the first one I've failed to have any enthusiasm for - and it has nothing to do with the controversial location.

I understand the controversy.  I watched the draw that awarded the competition to the country live on television while working in Trinidad, way back in 2010. Like everyone else, it came as a surprise, as did the award of the 2018 competition to Russia.  In all honesty, that was more annoying to me, since England had bid for it too, and it was disappointing not to get the nod again after nearly 50 years since the glorious summer of 1966.  Although the worst excesses were still years ahead and perhaps unforeseeable, I had even then doubts about Putin, who at the time was strutting around on the world stage as it he owned it.  It seemed to me that such behaviour was out of character - way out of character! - for someone who had formerly been a high ranking KGB officer. It seemed to me, even then, that he undoubtedly had blood on his hands, and was not the benevolent modern leader he was being made out to be, leading his country into a powerful but peacefully dominant position in world affairs.   On the basis of the saying about leopards and their spots, I didn't trust the man at all.  Without wishing to blow my own trumpet and say I told you so......I think I've been proved spot on.

But my American colleagues were absolutely outraged, since Qatar was awarded 2022 instead of the USA.  Coming so soon after the Snowden affair and WikiLeaks publishing the cache of classified material given to them by (then Bradley) Manning which proved that America's conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan had been, shall we say, less then professional (highlighting as it did avoidable friendly fire incidents and cases of completely ordinary men, women and children - not to mention foreign reporters - all unarmed, being essentially murdered by air-strikes based on the most spurious, if any, intelligence) being snubbed by Blatter and FIFA was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I can't remember such total outrage over something so relatively unimportant as that shown by my esteemed colleagues.  They were angry, they felt victimised, they insisted, possibly correctly, that it was all funded by brown envelopes stuffed with cash being handed out with the name tags at the award meeting and wanted the CIA involved....  I fell about laughing, which didn't do me any favours at work, but what the hell: I just found it funny.

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Fast forward three years, and I found myself working in Doha.  The company had made me redundant and after several months of job hunting, and setting up my own consultancy, I managed to get a six to twelve month contract at a bank there.  In the event, I was only there for about four months, as for reasons totally beyond my control, the project was cancelled amid a flurry of lawsuits between the three companies that were project stakeholders,  But I was there long enough to form an opinion of the place and the people.

Doha, then, was a growing city, springing up from the surrounding desert, and a vibrant, multi-cultural place to be. It had some of the most spectacular modern architecture I've ever seen anywhere in the world: in my view it exceeds even Dubai, despite the existence there of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa - and that is saying something.  The picture at the top of this piece I took one November evening on a waterfront stroll after work - there were similar views all over the place. Mixed in with all the modern stuff were smaller, traditional Arab houses and shops, and a big souk at one end of the bay that, like all such places, sold silks and carpets, spices of all kinds and scents, and cages full of animals and birds - it was a fascinating place, especially one guy I saw, strolling along with about four wives in tow, three or four laughing and chattering kids, all dressed in the full Arab robes, including a big curved knife stuck in his belt.  On his shoulder, watching everything closely with its beady eyes in a constantly swivelling head, sat a full grown falcon.  Apart from me, no-one batted an eyelid: perfectly normal behaviour.  I found it all fantastic.

The people at the bank were all perfectly friendly and helpful to we foreigners, even the few who were part of the Family that owned the bank and half the country.  I hadn't realised some of them worked there, until I bawled out one very beautiful girl, mid-twenties I suppose, who worked in the bank's Product Sales department, because she was playing about on her mobile phone when I was running a training course she was attending.  I told her if she was going to take thing seriously, the phone had to go off or be given to me immediately, as it was disturbing the other participants.  Failing that, then stop wasting all our time and leave the group.  She was as good as gold, apologised to us all, switched her phone off and placed it on my desk, and gave her full attention for the rest of the day's training. I told my boss about it over a drink in the hotel bar that evening, and he was horrified: her father was Sheikh Someone Or Other, part of the Qatari royal family and the bank chairman.  I'd essentially been bollocking Princess Anne, which as a working class council house kid I though was great.  We both expected fireworks the next day, (and I expected to be on the next flight out of there, in disgrace) but no-one ever mentioned it, and the girl was great for the rest of the course.  For me, it was an undoubted career highlight!

Even then, eight years away from the tournament, construction work was gathering pace, and there were metro lines being built to serve the football grounds under construction, the new airport was two-thirds finished, and work was beginning on an ambitious undersea tunnel between the airport and the downtown business area across the bay: it was supposed to have glass walls so you could look out at the fish and sharks and whatever else as you drove through it (or, more likely, were chauffered).  For all Doha's beauty and modernity, it was also like living and working in a huge building site.

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With this construction work came the influx of migrant workers that have been flooding the news for years.  Any article in any news outlet, newspaper, telly, internet, the lot, about Qatar's preparations for the tournament focuses on the issue of the country's record with human rights, slave labour and so on, at the expense of everything else.  There are accusations of migrant workers dying at work because of safety issues, about them being treated badly, housed in barracks, passports taken away from them, underpaid and so forth.  There may be some truth in some it: certainly, there have been deaths, but major construction programmes are invariably dangerous and accidents do happen.  There were deaths and serious injuries on the Channel Tunnel project, for instance. I can remember workers living in caravans beside the M25 motorway and elsewhere (Bob Geldof had stories of that in his autobiography, he was on the crew that built the M23/M25 intersection at Redhill), so living in barracks could be seen as an improvement on that.  Passport withholding, the so-called kefala problem, was an issue when I was there, being roundly condemned by the UN amongst others, and the practice was removed soon after I left.

I honestly believe a lot of it has been blown up out of all proportion, as has been the sportwashing outcry over the ownership of Manchester City, Newcastle United and other clubs with Middle Eastern ownership.  Similarly, complaints about human rights abuses have been exaggerated: I saw many work gangs in Doha, largely from places like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, all of them earning as much (or more) in a couple of months as they would in an entire year at home, and able to send most of it home to their families.  And I honestly can't remember seeing anyone looking sad or frightened or wishing they were elsewhere - but I did see a lot of cheerful faces and hear a lot of laughter, games of cricket taking place on closed roads during lunchbreaks, none of which appeared to me then or, on reflection, now, as evidence of people whose human rights were being abused.  

In any case, it seems to me "human rights" are difficult to categorise. and most (if not all) major, developed nations are guilty of abusing them.  I would suggest the human rights of the Native Americans counted for nothing when tribes were being wiped out across the USA and Canada in the 19th century (and those of their descendants dumped into poorly maintained  reservations still are).  The same could be said for the Aboriginal population (the First Nation) in Australia, the Maori in New Zealand, even those who were wiped out or enslaved in Colonial India.  This is without considering the victims of the Slave Trade from Africa, or the Amazonian Rainforest indigenous people still struggling to survive in modern Brazil.  Or the Palestinians bottled up in Gaza and the West Bank by an aggressive Israel supported by the US.  Or even people in Ukraine currently struggling to survive Putin's War.  I seriously can't see that Qatar's behaviour is either unique or much different - which is NOT to condone it.

There also many complaints about LGBTQ+ rights and fears that such people may find themselves in difficulty, or somehow persecuted because homosexuality is illegal in Qatar.  This again is an exaggeration: it's illegal in most Arab or Muslim countries, and frowned upon in many western countries, but that doesn't always lead to any kind of persecution. I believe a gay person is more likely to face problem in eastern European countries than in Qatar: in Poland, for instance, being gay is considered (and promoted thus by the government) to be an "ideology", and illness to be treated medically, for instance by electroshock therapy - I kid you not.  There is a loudspeaker van, funded by a nationalist organisation that receives financial support from the government, that spends the summer touring the country, spouting anti-gay propaganda (I prefer the term hate speech) - I've seen it a few times. Amid all the anti-Qatar stuff in the press, this is never mentioned, for some reason..... 

And this is why I find getting excited simply not possible.  It's not Qatar, or its human rights record. Or even the way it was awarded the tournament in the first place.   I can't get excited simply because of the reams and reams of hypocrisy, slanted press reports and simply  misrepresentative YouTube videos that have killed it for me.

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That said, I have no doubt I'll watch some of it.  I'm not sure which television channel(s) will be broadcasting it here in Poland, I still need to find that out. I'm betting that once it kicks off, it will be an entertaining few weeks of football, with its heroes and villains, the way it always is.  I expect my home country will make the quarter finals, then lose on penalties to Germany, as England tends to do a lot.  I also expect Poland will struggle to get out of its group, and if it does so will promptly lose to an unfancied surprise packet who will in turn be eliminated next game.

As to the winner: I suspect Argentina (Messi's Last Tournament is a hell of a driver for them) or Brazil.  Germany cannot be discounted (they never can be), nor France (provided they don't implode this year, as they have a tendency to do).  But I hope The Netherlands do it: they are possibly the Best Country Never To Have Won it, so it's about time they did.  They also have the remarkable Louis van Gaal coaching them (as he was when they lost the Final to an ascendant Spain in South Africa a few tournaments ago). He is 71 now, but as cantankerous and filled with self-belief as ever.  He is also suffering from Stage 4 prostate cancer, meaning he has to use a catheter (under his track suit when he's coaching) and increasingly nowadays a wheelchair.  Whatever happens, this will be his swansong.

And what a wonderful goodbye it would be!