Farewell, Your Majesty.

 

It's taken a while to write this post.  

We all knew it was coming sooner or later, as it does to us all, but for all that, the news of HM Queen Elizabeth II's passing still shook me to the core.  It shouldn't have, of course.  She was 96 years old, a fine age for anyone to reach (and I hope I do) and apart from these unspecified "mobility issues" appeared in good health.  There had been rumours, rightly never commented on by Buckingham Palace, for a while, and she had started to look a little frail on her infrequent public appearances - but like most people I thought that was probably par for the course - I've never met anyone in their 90s so it's difficult for me to judge.

Then suddenly, after the first announcement at lunchtime that there was "a concern", in only a few hours she was gone.  It was even quicker (at least in my memory) than Prince Phillip's end.....and am I the only person who believes that a light went out in her life that day, and the strength and health began to fade? Losing you life partner like that, after more than 70 inseparable years, must be an absolute hammer blow, and one most people I'm sure would not recover from.  Whatever she was, the Queen was human, like all of us, and subject to the same pains and emotions and sadness at any bereavement: Phillip's death was not merely a passing, for her it was The End, in my view.

I won't go on about the records - the length of her reign, places visited and all that stuff: there have been more than enough obituaries and op-eds in the press to cover that better than I.  But quite simply, she was the real constant in my life, there from its very beginning.  Only my two elderly sisters and a pair of cousins, all of whom for very practical reasons of distance and cost I sadly see infrequently, can match that.  Her Maj became Queen in 1952, and her Coronation was in early June 1953, when I was just a couple of months old.  So for my entire life, it has been her face on stamps and coin and banknotes, her voice giving the Christmas Message and various other important broadcast speeches.  Her smiling face gracing the Royal Variety Show (in the days when it was Must See TV), attending the Epsom Derby and Royal Ascot, and opening exhibitions, hospitals and God knows what else.  Prime Ministers and Popes, Archbishops and Presidents came and went, and she greeted them all graciously, whether she liked and approved of them or not.

I never saw her, let alone met her, but often walked past Buckingham Palace on my way to and from Victoria Station, when I worked in London, and invariably I glanced across to see if she was at home (the Royal Standard flying being the sign), and for whatever reason - and I have no idea what it was - smiled when she was in residence.  I followed her comings and goings, and those of her kids - their marriages and kids and divorces, joys and scandals and tragedies - with if not exactly pleasure at least some interest, but would never call myself a Monarchist or a Royalist.  The Family was a figurehead for the country and the British Commonwealth, somehow set above the rest of us, but that was simply how things worked in my country.  

I remember a time, in the early 70s, having a blazing row with a couple of mates in the pub one lunchtime: they were both card carrying Labour Party members, verging on Communists, and were of the opinion that the British should follow Lenin's example and line our Royal Family up against the wall outside Buckingham Palace and shoot them, as they were privileged beyond belief, didn't deserve all their wealth - which should of course be re-distributed (but neither knew how) - and contributed nothing at all to the British Way of Life.  I thought that a bit extreme, and told them so, citing (as have many before and since) the huge amount of money the sale of Royal souvenirs and other tourist spending delivered to the Treasury even then......  It all got very heated, I remember, but we parted still friends and never mentioned it again.  I wonder what happened to them, and what their thoughts are now, fifty years later.....

With her death, the Second Elizabethan Age has ended, and I wonder how historians of the future will judge it.  Highly, I would imagine: a largely peaceful time with huge technical advances, the arts flourishing as never before, and (by and large) the highest ever standard of living.  There have been losers, of course: our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was ill-judged, the Troubles in Northern Ireland a terrible stain on the nation (and still casting a shadow in these post-Brexit days), and anyone who suggests the North-South divide wasn't exacerbated post-Thatcher simply hasn't been taking any notice.  None of which can be blamed on the Queen: as the Head of State in our constitutional Monarchy the elected Parliament (getting worse with each passing General Election) she simply rubber stamps the decisions made by that Parliament.  I strongly suspect she recognised those ills, and her sympathies lay with her public and not her Parliament......

She did her best, extraordinarily well for 70 years, in trying circumstances, and will be sorely missed.

--------------------------------------------------

If the events immediately after her death were emotional, the following days were more so.  The Family drew close together, even the black sheep Princes  Andrew and Harry heading to Balmoral and then back to London the next day (Harry travelling alone).  There followed a succession of walkabouts in major cities, meeting and greeting people and receiving the best wishes and condolences (and in Charles' case the odd kiss) with good spirits and kind words.  Proclamations were made to cement the change of Monarch in scenes never seen by the public before.  It was all history in the making, and fascinating stuff.

The State Funeral was of course a quite extraordinary spectacle, lasting much of the day, moving from Buckingham Palace to Westminster, the Hall and Abbey adjacent to Parliament, then out to Windsor Castle for the final commitment.  Much of it took place at a slow-march pace, as the Family walked slowly behind the gun carriage surrounded by the massed ranks of Army, Navy and Air Force, all military bands and bagpipes.  The service in the Abbey moved me close to tears, but I could do nothing but watch it through.  Then the slow drive out from Central London to Windsor, and all along the route crowds of people gathering, showing their respects, tossing flowers onto the passing hearse. And the final ceremony in St. George's Chapel, with the whole Family, Charles most of all, looking gaunt and bereft as the coffin was gently lowered into the vault below.....  It stirred memories of my own parents' funerals, and my own feelings of loss (they still come in the cold dark night sometimes instead of sleep) and a few tears came.

And it was over.  

---------------------------------------------------------

The Crown passes to her eldest son, who is now King Charles III.  

As Prince of Wales he divided opinion, and was often criticised for "interfering" in politics, in the sense that he had the temerity to speak out about certain causes that, in his view, were not being taken seriously enough.  Environmental issues, climate change, helping young people (especially underprivileged Inner City kids) find a direction in life through the Prince's Trust charity, organic farming and a host of others often led to derision.  It's interesting that now most of them are at the forefront of political life and public concern - not only in Britain, but globally.  It seems he was well ahead of his time.  

As King, he must take more of a back seat, as his mother did, and he has admitted this and made it perfectly clear, many times, that he will do just that.  But I have a sneaking feeling that, at his weekly Prime Ministerial Audience, he will continue to champion those same causes, but with more subtlety, as a constituent part of the help and advice that is the entire reason for the meetings.  And for my part I have absolutely no problem with that, given the lack of political talent and common sense that riddles Parliament these days, on all sides!

After serving the longest apprenticeship in history, he knows exactly what is expected of him and I have no doubt he will follow his mother's template - but with subtle modernizing differences.  The live broadcasting of the Privy Council Meeting that approved his Accession to the throne, his prompt speeches of reassurance - again televised - to Parliament, both in London and Edinburgh, and his immediate visits to Northern Ireland and Wales, all before the State Funeral, suggest his will be a more open and public Monarchy, more in touch with ordinary people.  He has always enjoyed getting close to we the people, talking to us, asking questions, and from the minute he arrived back at Buckingham Palace on the Friday his casual walkabouts have demonstrated that nothing has changed in this respect.

Someone suggested that it's all down to his PR advisors, but in my view there is more to it than that.  His parents (and arguably grandparents during World War 2) started the Royal Walkabout, and he has grown up with it, engaging himself during his youth and ever since.  He understands that the majority of people get a kick out of being close to the Family, seeing Royalty in the flesh so to speak, whether they be Royalist or not, and his sons and grandkids are doing their bit as well.  I think they genuinely enjoy it as much as the people do.

It will be interesting to see how he develops, but I believe he will be a fine King.

-----------------------------------------------------

Let me pay tribute as well to the media, in particular the much maligned BBC News outlet.  Their coverage was outstanding, their camera work perfect, and the historical and personal insights provided by their numerous studio guests and commentators fascinating.  BBC World News is my go-to news outlet at the best of times, and in coverage of events like this they have no equal in my humble opinion.  That said: by virtue of where I live the channel has a monopoly, no other British channel has a presence on my satellite package, so I don't get to see what's on offer from ITV, Channels 4 and 5, Sky or GB News - but I find it difficult to see them matching the BBC.  Sorry if that upsets anyone!

As to newspapers, again I have a limited choice.  I tend to go with The Guardian, mainly because it's the only major provider that still doesn't operate a paywall - news is free with the option to voluntarily donate.  They also don't really try and ram their proprietor's views and those of a political party down your throat in the way say the Mirror does for the Labour Party, and everyone else does for the Tory Party.  

The Guardian's coverage of the events is what I would I expect from the paper: detailed and well written reporting, superb photo spreads, and some pieces written by their team of columnists that, while mostly respectful, did pose questions (for instance about how the Queen might be remembered in some of the old Empire and Commonwealth countries in Africa and the Caribbean that broke away and replaced her as Head of State).  Sycophantic the paper is not - another good reason to like it.

Other papers were less generous, printing click-bait scribbles - like for instance the furore over a couple of tv presenters allegedly jumping the queue viewing the Lying in State: the articles were completely one sided, lacked any kind of fact checking and merely prompted a hail of social media abuse demanding the presenters' sackings.  It took a full three days before a clarification came from both their channel, the Government and the Palace that showed they had done nothing of sort.  Of course, no apologies have been forthcoming from the rags that libelled the reporters, nor from anyone on social media for their over-reaction.  Sad, but to be expected.  

I'm afraid it left a very sour taste in my mouth. 

-------------------------------------------------------

A final thought.

Throughout the Queen's reign, until his death last year, Prince Philip was there for her, walking a couple of paces behind her, sharing jokes and smiles with her, and helping her get through times good and bad.  Inevitably, the internet has made the most of that, with countless memes featuring the couple getting back together in the Afterlife.

My Christian upbringing makes me hope that there is indeed something to look forward to after death (even if it remains still the Great Unknown in my life because sadly I still can't quite turn that hope into a firm belief), and that such meetings are commonplace.  If any couple deserves to share a cloud somewhere it's this one.

The Changing of the Guard.....or more of the same?

 

So the Serial Liar, the Rt.Hon. Alexander Boris dePfeffel Johnson, 80th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has wandered off into the sunset of the Tory Back Benches.  Earlier this year he had stated a desire to serve further terms of office, remaining in power for perhaps another ten years - like so many things he has said, no-one was sure whether he was being serious or just having a laugh.  Given his childhood ambition of being "world king", I rather suspect he was serious.

As things turned out, his behaviour during his brief (less than three years, at least until his ignominious resignation, though he clung on for another three months until the Nasty Party found a new leader) term of office was riddled with lies, deceit, self-promotion, incompetence and general all-round crapness.  Despite this, his opinion of himself as a hero and the best PM in British history was been unwavering and on display at every opportunity - even as he delivered his valedictory leaving speech outside No.10 this morning.

The speech was a typical BoJo performance, riddled with nonsense about his achievements and those of his Party, glossing over the parlous state of the British economy, and opaque allusions to ancient Greek philosophers (or was it a Roman dictator?) that anyone lacking his Eton and Oxford University education - which is to say pretty much everyone else in the country (or world?) - could possibly understand.  Within half an hour, a number of videos popped up on You Tube highlighting at least 6 "lies" spoken during the lecture.  So par for the course, then.

Anyone expecting him to go quietly into an early retirement writing newspaper columns for the party's official news outlets (the Mail and the Telegraph) and anyone else prepared to swing a few grand into his (offshore?) bank accounts, or scribbling more historically inaccurate history books and biographies, or popping up on the odd tv show (Have I  Got News For You?  Strictly...?, that weird Jungle thing with Ant and Dec....?) are probably going to be disappointed.  He remains MP for Uxbridge & South Ruislip and shows no sign of letting that little earner go: expect him to continue spouting bollocks from the Back Benches for the foreseeable future.

-------------------------------------------------------------

His resignation gave the Party an ill-deserved chance of a policy re-set, an opportunity to restore public confidecne in politics generally and themselves more specifically by adopting policies that actually would benefit the ordinary man in the street.  But no, true to form, the Constervative and Unionist Party (a.k.a. the Nasty Party) ignored common sense and the public-at-large and went its own sweet way.

The leadership contest wound on its way as a motley crew of MPs vied for the job.  Only one was able to run on the ticket of  "I never served in the Cabinet under Johnson, so I really do offer something different".  Jeremy Hunt (for it was he, runner up to the Serial Liar in 2019) fell at the first hurdle.  Every other candidate was a Minister or ex-Minister in Johnson's Cabinets and hence paid to implement all the madcap legislation that he demanded (even those that were legally and constitutionally questionable). 

The final run off between "Ready for Rishi" Sunak and Liz "for Leader" Truss was a grubby and confused month's slog through hustings and local committee rooms between an uninspiring but at least half-way sensible Chancellor (Sunak) and a barely competent Foreign Sectretary who at least said all the rubbish that Johnson himself blabbered on about, only not so well (Truss).

The vote of Tory Party members - for they were the only ones with a say - came down in favour of Ms.Truss, by  around 20,000 votes of the 150,000-odd cast.  So that handul of people chose the new Prime Minister on behalf of the remaining 60-odd million British voters (most of whom would probably not agree with the choice).  That less-than-silent majority must now wait two years to deliver their own verdict, for that is when the next General Election is due.

Ain't democracy grand?

--------------------------------------------------------

So this evening, having flown to Balmoral so the Queen, bless her, could offer the job (and having spent several orbits of Aberdeen airport waiting for thick fog to clear), Liz the Leader arrived back in Downing Street......in a brief gap between monsoon rain showers.  As portents go, they are perhaps not the best.

She has a bad reputation when it comes to speechifying, being politely referred to as "a bit wooden", and tonight's opening four minutes was true to form.  But at least it was confident, and businesslike, if a bit light on detail when it came to delivering on her pledges (understandably after only about four hours into the job, I suppose).  

But it was Johnson Lite, and started with a few words of praise for her predecessor, quoting three tired old Johnsonian Lies:

"He delivered Brexit" - no, he didn't.  He negotiated and signed off on a legal Agreement with the EU to bring Britain out of the bloc, and reneged on crucial parts of it within a few weeks.  This triggered dispute proceedings that continue to this day, and Truss is due to meet the EU leaders in a couple of weeks to discuss.   If she continues her Brexiteer convictions (freshly minted when the Serial Liar appointed her to Cabinet, having voted Remain in the Referendum) the dispute proceedings may well escalate to legal proceedings - i.e. Britain sued in a Court of Law.  It seems to me Brexit is far from delivered yet.

"He delivered the Covid vaccine rollout" - no, he didn't.  The major pharmaceutical companies, not all of them British, delivered the vaccines, and the National Health Service nurses and doctors delivered their roll-out.  For which they were (eventually) rewarded by a grateful, Johnson-led government with a paltry pay rise not even sufficient to pay for their daily car parking fee and a cup of coffee from vending machines.

"He stood up to Putin's aggression" - no, he didn't.  Volodymyr Zelenski and the Ukrainian people are doing that.  A handful of flying visits to Kyiv to stand next to Zelensky and say all the right things in front of the press cameras is not standing up to anyone, let alone Putin.  Nor is sending some weapons to the country, and some troops to train the Ukrainians in their use standing up to Putin: it's simply what many other countries are also doing, a face saving gesture.  Making it diffuclt for Ukrainian refugees to enter the country, even those with relatives already in Britain, is not standing up to Putin either - it's just petty, but that's probably as much down to Pretty Priti as BoJo.

Frankly, I will have no respect for Truss or any other Tory politician until such time as they start admitting that these claims are perhaps not strictly true and simply repeating Johnson's bullshit.  I will be waiting a long time.

But for now, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.  She may surprise us all and be a very good Prime Minister and actually deliver on her promises and improve the country, solve the economic meltown and all the other stuff.  Much will depend on who she appoints to the Cabinet and the names being bandied about don't fill me with confidence (Chancellor Kwarteng?  Home Secretary Braverman??  Foreign Secretary Cleverly??? Ye Gods.....).

Time will tell, I suppose.

"There is no Planet B": the anthropocene and today's youth

"The Anthropocene (Noun):

            a proposed term for the present geological epoch (from the time of the Industrial Revolution onwards), during which humanity has begun to have a significant impact on the environment."

                                                                            Source: Collins English Dictionary (online edition)

-------------------------------------------------------

Yes, the term was a new one on me as well - at least, until I read There is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years (Updated Edition) by British researcher and author Mike Berners-Lee recently.  I confess to buying it by mistake - I confused him with his brother Sir Tim, widely acclaimed as the Father of the Internet - but having read the thing I'm very glad I did.

Berners-Lee describes himself in the book as "a generalist", which is to say someone whose career has followed many different, mainly scientific, paths with unexpected turns (in one paragraph he lists many of them - and an interesting list it is, too), and not in any way an expert on climate change, global warming or any of the other terminology used for what is happening today.  But in recent years, his consultancy work with many leading international companies in a variey of disciplines has convinced him of the very real and imminent danger we all face, and inspired him to spend increasing amounts of time researching and learning all he can about it.  The book, together with two fore-runners that look at different aspects of the anthropcene, attempts to condense all of that acquired knowledge into a simple and entertaining narrative that anyone of average intelligence can understand, explaining in detail what is going wrong, providing details of potential solutions and suggesting ways in which we can all, in small ways, take action to contribute to that solution.

It's a cracking read.  The writing is light and simple, even when addressing the most complex topics, with unexpected bits of humour to leaven the dark prognoses.  There is a huge amount of information included, much of it grim and all illustrated by a selection of graphs and charts, but with a lot that is hopeful and encouraging, as well as detailed appendices and a glossary that dig deeper into the detail of most topics and terminology.  I am not going to attempt to summarise it.  Simply, this book should be mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in the future of this world, especially educators and politicians (with an emphasis on those in senior government office, no matter the country, who have a genuine duty to understand).  If they don't understand what we are going through, and what it is likely to lead to, they are simply not fit for public office (any Tory members reading this take note: neither of your candidates have any interest in the subject).  But some bits did jump out at me and stick.

For instance, there is absolutely no good reason why there are so many millions of people across Africa, south Asia, central and south America and even Europe and the other developed countries going short of food and starving, when the total food production globally is more than two and half times in excess of what is needed (in calories per day) to feed more than the current global population (currently 8billion and rising).  But most of the excess is used to make fertiliser, feed farm animals or make bio-fuels of at best questionable value.  Or simply thrown away in the trash.  The food production is also hopelessly unbalanced, with for instance the US able to produce many times its actual needs while countries like Ethiopia and Bangladesh much less than their most basic needs (and lacking the fertile land to do much about it).

For instance, even if the Paris target of 1.5C average temperature rise is achieved (and this in itself is highly unlikely) it will not alone solve the climate emergency but merely delay its final act - essentially the global extinction of virtually all life, including ours - by a couple of hundred years.  Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels by 2050 is only a start - and all the time countries like the US, Russia, India, China and even the UK conspicuously fail to be serious about meeting their agreed targets that too is highly unlikely.  Nor will it improve until not a single drop of oil or lump of coal is extracted from the ground and we perfect ways of extracting the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, to lessen their effect and give temperatures a chance to drop back, permanently.

For instance - and in my view this is THE most important point of them all - the battle (for it is a battle) cannot be fought in isolation: every country in the world MUST co-operate and join together if we are to stand a chance.  This means a complete overhaul of the way we live, the way we think, and the way we treat each other (and every other living thing).  Forget all the competing ideologies: Left v Right, Republican v Democrat, Christianity v Islam, black v white - all of that is just shit, of no importance or consquence when measured against the survival of our species: except insofar as their continuation will effectively guarantee our demise.  We need a total global societal change like no other in human history - and optimist though I am, I have a problem envisioning how the hell we are going to achieve it.

But I have not a shred of doubt we have to try!

------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of the bad stuff has happened in the last 120 years or so, since the start of the 20th century.  And yes, I know the Industrial Revolution dates back to the 18th - but since the invention of the internal combustion engine, the development of cities more or less as we recognise them now, mass transportation and a decline in agricultural societies the pace of it has accelerated dramatically.  Put simply, the more power we generate, in whatever fashion (wood burners, coal fires, petrol engines, atomic, wind and solar.....it makes no difference), the more we demand (as opposed to need).  The more stuff we have - radios, tv's, cars, mobile phones, houses - whatever: even food and clothing - the more we want.  The more money we have, the more we want to (and do) spend, and the more debt we create. It's human nature, I suppose, but with the huge inequalities in the world - most of which are fairly recent developments - causing so much anger and resentment, we somehow have to change.  Boris Johnson calls it Levelling Up and even created a Cabinet Ministry to achieve it during his ill-fated Premiership, as well as a Clinate Czar - but both have achieved virtually nothing during this Parliament  If one relatively small country fails at this challenge, then what hope is there for a global change?

It seems to me a generational problem.  By that I mean that older people are more set in their ways and hence more resistant to change, whereas younger generations will happily embrace the most daunting challenges and major changes.  Look at any news footage of street demonstrations to call for climate change action, and you will see the vast majority of participants are in their 20s or younger: Greta Thunberg, 16 when she hit international headlines, being a perfect example, and she is not alone.  Sure, there are older people there, including people of my age - nearly 70 - and older, but we are very much in the minority.  

The Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement has been in the headlines several times with their peaceful protests, in particular those that involved sitting down on the M11 motorway amd closing it (by police action on safety grounds: quite rightly).  I saw very few people, certainly in the news reports I read, that were supportive of their actions, but it was noticable that the most swingeing criticism - the calls to just drive over them, or drag 'em off and lock 'em up for life - came from we older people.  I may be generalizing here, but I know that I can be impatient and intolerant about some things that younger people do (notably time spent gaming rather than playing sports or doing something more active - because that's what I always did) but I do try to understand why this is so and (sometimes grudgingly) respect the young's right to do their own thing - as I used to. But I have never doubted or criticised the XR activists for their actions, and fully accept and defend their democratic right to do so.  It's ntoable as well that the British press generally portrays XR as a local student and unemployed mob of anarchists out to cause trouble, when it is nothing of the sort.  It's a global organisation, active in 84 countries, with over 1100 affiliated groups, with a very clear and distincg ethos that goes far beyond supergluing yourself to the tarmac in the fast lane of the M11.  I seriously urge you check out their website at  Extinction Rebellion | Join The Fight Against Climate and Ecological Collapse for more information: with no imperative to agree with them or join in

Peaceful protest is historically a prime mover for peaceful change.  The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) recognized this 50 odd years ago, with marches at Aldermaston and elsewhere in their campaign to remove nuclear weapons from the UK.  Eventually, they won a partial victory in that since then there have been many international treaties signed that have vastly reduced the number of nuclear weapons in existance and arguably made the world a safer place, but some still exist on British soil. Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela led similar movements in India and South Africa respectively that used by and large peaceful protest to gain their independence (in India from British rule, in South Africa from apartheid).  Earlier still, the Suffragettes won the right to electoral votes for women in Britain and elsewhere.  These were all major societal changes that came about as the message eventually reached a majority of people and won their mass acceptance.  And they were all movements that in their earliest days were roundly denounced as madness, their leaders victimised and imprisoned and demonised as terrorists.  I suspect in time the same will prove true for Extinction Rebellion.

-----------------------------------------------------

There can be little argument that the last few generations have made a right royal fuck up of running this world and its society.  I would argue my own and the one before - popularly called The Best Generation, in honour of their wartime exploits: rightly so - have done more to create the mess we are living through, usually for what they genuinely thought were the best of reasons, and it would be wrong to be too harsh in criticism.  The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing but not available when you're decision making, and the scientific knowledge and technology we now possess wasn't available then to guide.  

But such has been the "progress" and so universal its adoption that we have managed, in little more than a century, to reach a stage where our formerly pristine and naturally wealthy planet is now in a dreadful state.  Air pollution chokes the inhabitants of cities and countryside alike.  Rivers and lakes and oceans are choked with the detritus of human society made from materials, notably plastic, that will take thousands of years to fully decay, and that, broken down into microscopic particles is already entering the human foodchain (with still uncertain consequences) as it is ingested by the animals and fish we eat.  The stuff has even been found in creatures that typically live in the deepest parts of the ocean, and Coke bottles spotted on the floor of the Marianas Trench, the deepest point anywhere on Earth.  And no-one knows for certain how long the stuff will be with us, nor even the vaguest idea about how to manage it.

And yet.......and yet there is hope.  It lies, not with my generation, nor that of our children, but more likely with our children's children.  Whatever happens, they and their own children and succeeding geenerations are the ones who will face the worst of the climate crisis that we are beginning to experience now.  They are the ones who will have to adapt their lives to a world that will be very different from the one we live in, and find and master the solutions hinted at in Berners-Lee's book, and find even more workable solutions.  If they fail, then we really are coming to the end of all things...

---------------------------------------------------------------

Earlier this year, my youngest boy hosted a party for a bunch of his school friends, all 17 and 18 years old, all Polish and speaking almost fluent English as well, so we were able to chat over a beer or three.  They shared the same desires and ideas as I did when I was their age, back in the dim and distant late 60s and early 70s Hippie Era - which is to say as much sex and booze and rock'n'roll as they could lay their hands on.  They just wanted to have Fun (with a capital F) and not worry too much about school and Uni and exams and what the rest of their lives might bring, not that night anyway.  Some of them had visited England on holidays and school trips, and we had a lively discussion about whether Polish sausages were better than English (they aren't),  was fish & chips and cottage pie really the best grub in the world (it isn't but I love 'em both anyway), and why British beer tends to be warmer than Polish beer (and nowhere near as strong).

Of course, we touched on politics.  None of them were fans of the current Polish government; there was complete condemnation for Putin's Special Military Operation; most thought that Brexit had been a disaster for both Britain and an EU that in their view was badly in need of reform; and all were concerned about the continuing after effects of Covid on our health and national economies.  We didn't agree on everything, of course not, but I left thinking that they were all really bright and sensible kids with promising futures, no matter what crap they inherit from my generation and that of their parents (who all seem of an age with my eldest son, give or take a couple of years - which is a sobering thought: I could easily have been their grandad).

They were all much more international in their outlook than I was at a comparable age, and wanted to travel and see the world before settling down (but responsibly). They understood what was happening with the climate crisis better than I (it was before I read Planet B...) and I could easily envision them joining a ER demonstration somewhere, and perhaps going into a career that offers the chance to contribute to building a better society and world.   In my day we were more concerned with nuclear proliferation but hadn't got a clue what to do about it and left it to our "elders and betters" - a concept thankfully absent from today's youth.  And thank goodness for that!

The future, for better or worse, is theirs, and I sincerely hope they will do a better job with it than my lot did with our inheritance.  I have a feeling they will. 

The Premier League? No, thanks!

 

 

 

So here we go, another epic Premier League season.  As Sky continues to trumpet, the 30th since they "created" it, launched the "Premier League Era" and changed the face of British - and arguably world - football forever.  Another season where billions of pounds are pumped into the Beautiful Game (or at least The Premier League: how much of it filters down through the pyramid to the smaller clubs, whose full house crowds of a few hundred probably number less than the bloated press and tv crew that covers even the smallest EPL fixture, is a point for serious debate!), and even the worst PL team, relegated after a season of huff-and-puff incompetence, goes away with a hundred million or more  in "prize money".   Is there a competition anywhere else in the world where the rewards for being absolute shit are higher?  Can't think of one myself.

It will be another season of hyperbole, with commentators yelling their heads off at very little in an effort to create excitement, of players falling over at the slightest (often imaginary) touch and rolling around as if shot. Of managers who couldn't pick their noses never mind a winning team bemoaning a perceived incompetence of the match officials (sometimes justified, to be fair) or VAR and/or seeking to defend the indefensible when it comes to their own performance and that of their players.  A season of fans paying obscene amounts of money for the Matchday Experience (whatever the hell that means).  A season of endless over-analysis  in press and on television by under-qualified hacks and overpaid pundits, only some of whom were decent players back in the day.  

Of fans - ah, the fans! The lifeblood of the game! - trading insults and opinions, loves and hates, opinions and self-congratulation in equal measure on social media, even if it comes down to racially abusing players and their families and threatening all kinds of dire consequences for "that open goal you missed, you useless [insert epithet of choice here]!"   Most of it, of course, is mere delusion, not to be taken seriously - but it will be, by press and tv and other fans because, well, it's the Prem....

----------------------------------------------------------

It will be a bit different this season, because it stops in the middle to allow for the first ever "Winter World Cup", hosted in Qatar in the Middle East, "where it's simply too hot to play in the summer", say FIFA.  There is so much nonsense written about how hot it's going to be, and how it will harm the players (never mind the fans, but then there probably won't be too many there, given pricing).  But here's the thing (well, a couple actually): the Qatari organisers have invested billions into building genuine state of the art stadia, complete with closable roofs and air conditioning to help players and spectators cope with the heat.  And secondly, having spent a winter working in Doha a few years ago, I can speak from experience when I say that, although it's hot, mid to high 20s C in the November/December I was there, that is actually no hotter than it is at the moment here in Northern Europe, and with today's fitness levels that is something players should be able to handle.  In fact, they do, happy to play here, and on summer tours (simply money spinning operations with team building and fitness secondary concerns) in the US, the Far East, Australia and elsewhere, in temperatures and humidity to match anything Qatar can offer in winter.  Not that the press would ever say that - they are too busy bleating on about sportwashing.......

That is a term that seems to have crept in lately, to describe any sporting event in which a foreign source, typically Middle Eastern, Chinese or Russian, has invested a significant sum of money.  The allegation is that "they must be hiding something..."; "how do we know it's clean money?"; "what about human rights, they've got a terrible record.....".  At which point, if I'm drawn in to reading an article on the subject, I switch off, from a boredom overload.   Because all the complaints are essentially complete and utter bollocks.  Shall we discuss some?  Of course.....

"They must be hiding something".  "How do we know it's clean money?"  Typically comments like this are aimed at wealthy businessmen, say Russian oligarchs or American tech multi-billionaires, or Chinese online entrepreneurs. Well, yes, I suppose there may be the odd bad apple investing his (un)earned billions into a club, but then London, or more correctly the City, has been nicknamed the Laundromat for years now: it's an open secret.  But you could argue that the successive governments, largely but not exclusively of the Blue interest, that have allowed this culture to develop, allowing the more exclusive areas of the city to be sold off to shady networks of shell companies hiding the true beneficial ownership, in return for substantial donations to party funding (generally rewarded by a peerage, like the ex-KGB officer who has a seat there....) are actually responsible for the sportwashing more than any club.

"Human rights."  A bugbear of mine: what exactly are they, and in what way are/have they been abused by, let's say, Qatar?  Or Abu Dhabi?  Or Saudi Arabia?  All of whom have bought Premier League clubs more or less successfully in the recent past.  What exactly are "human rights", for a start?  I would suggest the right to life and a decent education - but even those are questionable, as the recent Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision and its fallout show.  If a decent education is a "human right", then define "decent education" - and prove that every kid in Britain is not having his human right to that abused on a daily basis because not every kid is getting a decent education.  What about health care: is that not a basic human right?  Ask any poor American with inadequate insurance, dying from cancer as a result, or for that matter the guy dying for want of a transplant that cannot be carried out because of yet another NHS crisis, whether his "human rights" (that to life itself) is being violated. 

It seems to me that allegations of sportwashing are merely another way for the green-eyed monsters who support a club not taken over by wealthy owners (of whatever nationality or provenance) and hence less likely to win something, to express their irrational dislike of the clubs that have been fortunate.  It's not even a new activity, as far as I can see - go back a hundred years or so, and there were ample cases of wealthy businessmen - bankers, mill owners and others - buying their local football clubs, professing to be "lifelong supporters" and being applauded for doing so.  Rarely were questions asked about the treatment their workers received in their factories, mills, coalmines or whatever, nor about the low wages earned for 16 hour working days from the age of 14 or 15.  It seems to me the only difference between some of them and today's buyers is that the older generation were invariably white and local, rather than of a different skin colour and from overseas - that old Britisn parochialism again.

--------------------------------------------------------------

There is a column in The Guardian newspaper's football section, dedicated to The Premier League and headed "10 Talking Points from the weekend's action", with Comments invited from readers about the journalists' talking points.  It's always worth a read, rarely of much relevance to what actually happened and as fine a forum for taking the piss out of opposing supporters or simply letting off steam as you can find.  I thoroughly enjoy it, even though it's all nonsense.  Yesterday, there was a bleat from a guy in response to the Manchester United talking point, quoting a friend of his, a United supporter, who after ONE game was apoplectic, calling for the manager's head (he only joined the club in June and is highly successful and repected) because United will never win anything...... The supporter demands that the club is "expected" to win every year, he cares nothing for cup competitions or any European competition except the laughably and inaccurately named Champions League because "they're an irrelevant waste of time and money".  I can't remember ever reading such a bunch of tripe in all my life, and like others I took him to task.  I commented as follows:

Thing is, the Prem isn't really football. It's a glossy, media fuelling business full of over-paid, egotistical overpaid clowns - and that's just the managers. It's no surprise that clubs like Mans U and C, Liverpool, Chelsea, the Arse and so on attract similar followings - viz. glory hunters. There are 92 clubs in the Prem + Championship, EFL and 2, and only a handful of trophies to win, or European competition spots to fill. The majority of clubs are living from hand to mouth with little or no propsect of winning a damned thing and more concerned about surviving for another season. The lower down you go the more of them there are and the harder it is. The people who loyally spend their hard earned pennies to watch Sutton Utd, or Bristol Rovers, or Leyton Orient and their peers (and I mean absolutely no disrespect to any of those clubs or supporters, quite the reverse in fact) - THAT is football. Not the plastic nonsense rammed down our throats on Sky or the sports pages of any news outlet.

This is a simple and obvious truth that any football fan with two brain cells to rub together would agree on.  It is the way football has always been, and was part of its excitement.  Even the lowliest of clubs could dream of winning something, and had something to play for.  The most famous example is probably Wimbledon: I saw them play at my then local club, Tonbridge, back in the late 60s, when I was a kid, and they were horrible.   But something wonderful happened: they were bought by a Lebanese businessman - and I remember no questions beings asked about the provenance of his wealth, nor accusations of sportwashing - and in a relatively few years the club rose all the way to the First Division (as The Premier League was then called), established themselves as a force there and even won the FA Cup by beating Liverpool, then the best team in the country.  They were still horrible, and the wheels eventually came off, they were sold, moved out to Milton Keynes and deserted by their original fanbase plummetted back down the leagues, but as MK Dons (a limp nod to their Wimbledon roots). The local fans eventually formed another club, called AFC Wimbledon, started at the bottom of the pyramid and have worked their way right back up into the league.  Neither club is likely to reach The Premier League, given today's financial inequalities - thank you, Sky!  - but it remains a brilliant story.

It's a story every lower league club, including my own, aspires to.  The sad thing is that with every passing season it becomes less likely it will ever be repeated. Perhaps that is just the price of progress, but it seems to me a hell of a price to pay.  A goverment enquiry a year or so ago into football governance and finances made a large number of recommendations to help the grass roots game.  Unfortunately most of them were dependent on The Premier League's support and co-operation.  It's been very quieot on the subject for months now - which is no surprise.  It's like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas......

The Premier League Era is, in my view, killing football.  And that is not something to be proud of, Sky, BT Sports, Chelsea, Mans U and C, the Arse or anyone else involved.  This is not a 30th anniversary to be celebrated.

It is quite simply a sporting tragedy.

Where would I be without You Tube?

 

 

 

 Retirement.

It comes to us all, like death and taxes (to paraphrase Sam Clemens), but I'm betting I'm not the only one to neglect planning for it. But it happened, incredibly four years ago already, and without a backward glance I walked away from the workplace with a spring in my step (as far as dodgy knees and hips allow, in any case).

A weight fell off my shoulders. I had plans, places to go and things to do. A backlog of books to read. Others to write and one to (finally) publish. Time to relax a bit away from the business treadmill - time for myself. Sure, money would be tight, but that was inevitable: I had been very well paid for several years so was bound to take a bit of a hit because, in retrospect foolishly, I hadn't saved as much as I should have. But that was ok, I decided, I'd manage.

I soon discovered it wasn't quite what I had expected. I'd not done my sums right at all, maths never being my strong point, and my income plummetted far more than I had anticipated when the salary was replaced by pensions. To make matters worse, during the good years I had failed to msake voluntary contributions to top up the funds, too busy having good winter and summer vacations with my family and enjoying good meals out. Investing in the present rather than the future is never a good idea...

Then Covid came along and blew the entire planet out of kilter - and of course my life too. Travel basically stopped, people worked from home or lost their jobs altogether, economies collapsed and everyone was stuck indoors for safety (or had to wear masks and sometimes gloves when going out, say for shopping) while the scientists and doctors fought to engineer a cure and save lives respectively. It took a couple of years but they managed it, by which time I had been quite ill with the virus myself (and I'm still carrying the consequences in various ways), and everyone tried to get back to normal. All things considered, I, and my nearest and dearest, didn't fare too badly.

Economies were inflated by governments injecting huge sums of money to support struggling businesses and the new unemployed - and I'm not being critical at all, it was needed - , and that has inevitably caused inflation rates to jump alarmingly. I'm no economist, obviously, and I'm sure there are yet other reasons for the parlous state of European and British economies (not least Bloody Brexit and the War in Ukraine) but what I do know is the costs of everything have shot up and my pensions haven't. The result, inevitably, is that it doesn't go far enough.

Times are indeed tough, but we're managing.

-------------------------------------------------------------

But my retirement plans have been shot to Hell in a handcart.

The reading is going ok, slow but sure (like many things, that Covid hangover has had an effect, in this case focus issues), and the writing improving. The books are still either unfinished or unpublished, but after a very slow couple of Pandemic Years I'm getting back into the swing of it (as this ramble demonstrates: the words come at odd times and not how I originally envisaged them - this is my fourth re-write of a relatively small piece - but at least they do come) so I'm happy with that.

I have time to myself, though not as much as I want or expected. Partly this is because I still have my family responsibilites (and thank God for that!) and they have increased with the acquisition of Lulu, a soppy but adorable English Bulldog who demands my attention too. The kids are old enough to be left to their own devices, whether during term or vacation time, but Lulu - not so much. She needs exercising and feeding at certain times that don't always coincide with the kids being here (my Beloved is at work full time) so I can't hop on a train to, say, Białystok for a wander and a change of scenery for a day or two - even going into town to meet a mate for lunch can be a challenge.

In any case, money is still tight. Besides the inflation stuff (currently 13% here and rising) that I mentioned, there is another major issue that I'm not going to detail here - at least not now: maybe in the future - that is also very restrictive. Trips anywhere are difficult to organise and even more difficult to fund, at least for the moment. I'm hoping we'll be back to relative normality come 2023 and I can dig the passport out again. Despite all the Bucket List items I had, and indeed have added to over the past months, since my retirement I've made only a handful of out of town trips: a couple to the Baltic Coast, a couple to England and one terrific two week trip to Switzerland (I wrote about that at length in earlier blog posts). Nowhere near what I had planned and to nowhere new - the Bucket List has nothing ticked off yet. So I have some ground to make up.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I've watched a couple of videos on YouTube recently about retirement planning (not the financial variety). They were both from a channel that carries an extensive catalogue of videos from the TEDTalk series. This is an organisation, I believe American, that runs a program of big conferences with an extensive range of short and invariably entertaining lectures on every subject under the sun. I watched a few relating to mental health and coping with problems therein a year or so ago and found them helpful.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across one given by a retired University professor that was funny and serious and pertinent all in one go. He basically talked about the importance of (non-financial) retirement planning - about setting goals beyond spending every spare moment on the golf course (which I can't afford to do and in any case don't play); not cutting yourself off completely from friends and family by, for instance, moving hundreds of miles away to be by the sea and achieving the ambition of permanent vacation; of finding things to occupy both your mind and body; and above all about meeting other people and finding new interests. He gave some examples that work fine in your home country perhaps but must be difficult elsewhere, when language issues creep in. But it was a good talk, and gave me food for thought because I had done little of that.

A couple of days later, a similar talk popped up, this time by a younger psychotherapist and counseller, that was equally interesting and thought provoking (if not quite as funny). It said much the same thing only without the golf analogy. The conclusion in both talks was that the people who enjoyed retirement most, and who benefitted from a long happy and healthy life after retirement tended to be those who had actually done some planning, set out their goals and interests and plans properly before leaving work. Half-assed walking away with some vague ideas but none about how to realise them was simply not the way to go. But it's basically what I did.

So I'm doing a bit of re-planning right now: I have some ideas that, maybe, one day I'll achieve and chronicle here. So watch this space.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

And mention of YouTube brings me finally to what this piece was supposed to be about (see what I mean about the words flying off in unexpected directions?), when I first had the idea and jotted down some notes: "Where would I be without YouTube?"

Now I realise the platform deservedly has come in for a lot of criticism (and still does), and is certainly not perfect. It's the primary repository for scare mongering, misinformation, conspiracy theories and assorted other social ills that in my view are making a right mess of society these days. But in my view, calls to regulate it more closely are misplaced: the internet was designed to be the home of free and unfettered information - good, bad or indifferent - for everyone - and I have no problem with that. There's some wonderful stuff there but also a whole lot of pure shite.

And, yes, I accept that's a matter of personal taste - which is what makes policing it next to impossible, in my view. In any case, I truly believe the internet is like Pandora's box: once the lid is off and the stuff inside - good and bad - has escaped, you'll never get it back in and close the lid again. What's done is done, and we users must police oursleves rather politicians police the web.

I spend a lot of time on the platform. For a start there is the subsidiary YouTube Music, dedicated to, well, music. It's owned by Google (not exactly a plus point but still...) and a year or so ago became the replacement for Google's own music streaming platform: we users were effectively forced to transfer our library of music, whether down-loaded or ripped from CDs as much of my own was, that was stored in Google's cloud service into a similar storage in the YouTube Music bit of the cloud and into your own account (of course with your main Google account sign-on). Bit of a chore, but what the hell - before I did so, I looked at YouTube Music as a guest, tried a few searches for obscure 1960s prog rock stuff and was nicely surprised by its content. So I duly opened my account, moved my Library over, created a shortcut on my command line and use it quite a bit (though perhaps not quite as much as Spotify). Parenthetically: I've just dipped into YTM and there is absolutely no sign of all "my" stuff, the Library I moved over from Google Music - Christ only knows where it's all gone but it's a good job I kept a copy on my hard-drive....

The real pleasure for me in YouTube is the range of video content on the platform that covers, quite literally, every subject I can think of (which is a lot) and many more besides. But you knew that already. As someone with, I like to think, a decent range of interests, it's been a Godsend these Covid years, especially as my travellin' days ground to a halt. For a start, I can get my football fix, my club's match highlights, player and management interviews quickly - it's the only way, given the Vanerama National League South is not covered by any tv or satellite channel operating in Poland. I can dig out documentaries on some of my favourite bands; arguments about who was the better drummer, Keith Moon or John Bonham (IMO technically Bonzo but for creativity and unpredictable genius Moonie); old Monty Python tv shows; WW2 documentaries; movies about why DeLorean failed; which is the best browser today; commentary and opinion pieces on the parlous state of British politics; and old and forgotten sci-fi movies. It's all there, in black & white and living colour, and much else besides.

What makes it indispensable for me is that I can browse it and find so much travel related content to not only entertain me but inspire me too. I ignore stuff by airlines or travel companies or tourist boards - the professional stuff - because all of that is essentially there to sell a product or a country and hence is nowhere near objective. OF COURSE Lufthansa is going to plug its Business Class as being the best in the skies (it isn't), OF COURSE WizzAir is going to push its low fares (but check the small print on the website for all the extras and understand its refund policies), and OF COURSE SNCF is going to say its TGV service from Paris to Milan is the best (ignoring competitor services offered by rival private train operators at a lower price for an identical but sometimes faster journey).

No, I search out the army of vloggers, independents like you and me, that travel at their own expense on these trains and airlines and coach companies and cruise lines (and in the odd occasion when the ticket is provided by that airline or train operator, own up to the fact) and provide warts-and-all films of their experience, good or bad. And in a non-boring entertaining way.. I have a list of perhaps a dozen Channels that are my Go-To's, and they rarely, if ever, disappoint. I've subscribed to them all so get Notifications for their weekly output.

Some focus on airline travel - be it Economy Class exclusively or Business Class (or a combination thereof). They give detailed videos: toilet and lounge reviews, good food or inedible, lie-flat beds or cheap seats, legacy carriers or the cheapos like RyanAir. I don't always agree with their opinions (and why should I?) and tell them so in the Comments: had some fun dialogues doing that. Favourites here include Simply Aviation (it does what it says on the tin: flying only, mainly Economy Class); DennisBunnick Travels (Aussie tour operator tours the world in Business and First Class - something I will never do now); and, now and again, NonStop Dan (Swedish/American kid uses only Business or First Class and whinges about how BAAAD it is...).

Others focus more on rail travel, and provide similar videos to the flight ones, again in an invariably entertaining way. These are probably more relevant to me, since the prices and locations are more likely to be within reach - from Warsaw I can get trains to pretty much anywhere in Europe (after a bit of research). For these vlogs, my Go-To channels are Superalbs Travels (young English guy who is very good indeed at foreign place name pronunciations - even Polish and Turkish...); Dylan's Travel Reports (young Yorkshire bloke and his girlfriend go all over the shop in trains); and The Man in Seat 61 (close to an industry sponsored channel, but the routes covered are the kinds of rides I want to take and the linked website is a great source of booking informations and prices).

Coach travel is another popular category, and many vloggers combine all three for often entertaining films where things go wrong. Here, try Planes, Trains, Everything (Scottish guy tries a Paris to London trip using pre-Eurostar routing - train to Calais, ferry to Dover, train to London - and is beset by line closures in France, restrictions on foot passengers on the ferries and train strikes in Britain); Noel Phillips (English guy suffers stomach and heat problems in India and Africa and the US while journeying on awful airlines, filthy trains and Greyhound buses - but eats a lot of chips and curries), and, slightly more upmarket, WinginIt!Paul Lucas (former civil servant does flights and long train trips, typically in First or Business Class, but sometimes Economy - and some of the train trips have been epic....lucky bugger!).

There are others I dip in and out of when something pops up on my feed that catches my eye - notably Tips for Travellers and Emma Cruises (middle aged Englishman and young English woman who specialise in cruise vacations: not sure I fancy that - the thought of being stuck on a ship with two or three thousand strangers for a fortnight does not appeal to me at all - but perhaps a trip along the Rhine or Danube on a smaller vessel and only a hundred other people might be fun).

I had a good find a few weeks back where a guy tried to explain how far back in time an Englishman could travel before being unable to understand the English being spoken - turned out to be soon after the Norman Conquest. Another compared and contrasted provision for cyclists between Swiss cities like Zurich and Geneva and Basle with Canadian cities like Calgary and Windsor Ontario - the Canadians did not fare at all well. He made a similar film relating to the Swiss rail system and the Canadian, and once again the Canadian system fared poorly: surprisingly Calgary, one of the biggest cities in Canada, isn't served by a single transcontinental rail service - it doesn't even have a station for freight. Gas guzzling cars and trucks rule the roost there.

----------------------------------------------------

Go to YouTube, type in a random search query - Firefox, say (since I'm giving that browser another run out, and liking it: it's definitely been improved lately): I just tried it, and the top choice was a clip from the classic 1982 Clint Eastwood film of that name (it's a top-secret Russian stealth plane that he is sent by the CIA to steal), followed by a film about why the browesr and its Mozilla Foundation must survive for the sake of the internet, followed by another clip from the movie, then a guy explaining why he's ditching the browser for something else.......and so on. Pages of suggestions.

And its the same for pretty much everything. It certainly beats the hell out of daytime tv here because I know I will definitely find something I will enjoy, something new that I haven't seen before, rather than an umpteenth Top Gear or Doctor Who re-run or awful local soap opera.

"Where would I be without You Tube?" Climbing walls, quite probably.

My space - at last!

 

Today is a good day.

The sun shines brightly and warm in a cloudless blue sky. Not as hot as in other parts of Europe in this blistering heatwave, for sure, but a pleasant 25C nonetheless. Certainly hot enough for me.

Outside, there is peace and tranquility. Butterflies flutter aimlessly past the door, bees flit clumsily from bloom to bloom - not too many in this place, not yet, but it's coming. The grass is green in patches, bare in others, and freshly cut this past weekend: I need to get some lawn feed and nourish it. All in good time.

In the distance, I can hear the constant thrum of traffic on the Warsaw by-pass, the A2 that leads away westward to Pozńan and beyond (unless you branch off a couple of kilometres from here and head southerly through Wrocław to the Czech border, and on through Austria to Croatia and the warm and clear Adriatic deamlands. Or an hour's drive further, and branch off north towards Gdańsk and the Baltic coast). Eastward, beyond Warsaw, the road heads off to Lublin and Białystok to the conflict lands of Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus.

But here, where I sit typing on my battered old Lenovo ThinkPad, the traffic noise is no real distraction: it's simply background, like the dog occassionally barking nearby, or the roar of another LOT Dreamliner blasting off for Chicago or Seoul from the main runway of nearby Okęcie airport. There goes one now.......would that I were onboard!

Instead, I have the beautiful sounds of The Nutcracker Suite from my Music Library on my laptop to soothe me as I write this piece. When it finishes, perhaps I'll switch to Vivaldi's Four Seasons, or maybe Frank Zappa. I'll see how I feel.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I am at my działka.

I've written of it previously, how much I enjoy it - an oasis of green peace and tranquility away from the hot and sticky and polluted city centre. Away from the confines of our apartment, where the only greenery is on the balcony planting boxes and the courtyard garden four floors down, overlooked by all my neighbours and I.

Much as I love it there, here there is more space. I am surrounded by trees: many pines in neighbouring plots, and fruit trees - apples and pears, mostly - and on my own plot, towering over the roof of my cottage, a productive walnut tree, with the green cases growing fat and juicy now, to drop in October and provide an ample supply of nuts for Christmas for family and friends.

The front and back boundary hedges have grown tall and thick, almost overgrown - certainly in need of a good cut-back: my job for the weekend. The tall yellow sunflowers are everywhere, here and next door, and the roses, planted by the gate last autumn, are beginning to bloom nicely. The rhododendrons by the cottage door are some way from bloom - probably next season now, they are relatively new plantings - as are the freshly planted lavender in the corner. Next summer will be beautiful.

It's a good sized plot, I can't remember the square metreage - but enough for me to handle anyway. Unlike my late father, I'm not much of a gardener, no green fingers, me. But it is all we need. There is a nice cottage here with a good brick patio before the doors, all built and installed new last summer, and wintered in nicely. This spring and summer we've done much work to improve the flower beds and get the place how we want it, and we're pretty much there.

It's an oasis we can come to at weekends, potter around pruning and weeding and watering the plants and mowing the grass, or relaxing over a good barbecue and cold beer and a good book. Or just sitting and enjoying the sun. A place to escape to. And the bike ride, a 16km round trip, does me good too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

My music has moved on to Swan Lake now - Tchaikovsky was a wonderful composer: the music matches perfectly the gentle surroundings here. Perhaps I should move to Beethoven's Pastoral next instead......

It's clouded over a little now, but that is ok. I'm not here to work in the garden, nor to sunbathe (though I could do both quite happily). Instead, I'm finally - after three or fours years' good intentions unrealised - using the cottage how I've always planned to use it. As my creative space.

I have a pair of glass-fronted bookcases overflowing with the best part of 20 years' worth of purchases to read and re-read, and hopefully inspire me. I have a fridge with food and drink (note to self: must get some beer, there is none). I have a comfortable settee I can sprawl out on if the Muse deserts me and I need a break from writing.

I have a solid wooden table to work at, and an old office chair that makes this as close to an office space or library or study (all the terms can apply) as I'm ever likely to get, now. It's fine. I can do my thing here, with minimal interruption: for a start, I do NOT have an internet connection here (unless I use my phone as a mobile hot-spot, which I am avoiding....).

It's what I've wanted, yearned for really, through these depressing Covid years. Somewhere to get all these ideas and thoughts banging around inside my skull into something resembling coherence. Work on my memoir - which means thinking about sixty odd years and events and people, crises and triumphs, good times and bad, and putting it all down so that, before I croak, I can give it to my kids and say, "there you go, this was me...". Re-write the novel (again) and maybe publish it one day. The same for the short story collection (that I need to add to).

Or simply sit here, and watch the world go by, planning where to go next when money allows, or just letting my mind go blank (something I've been told frequently is close anyway) and let time drift.

I'll take all of that, thank you very much.

WHY I write. And HOW....

 

I'm currently reading a book by acclaimed author Salman Rushdie called Languages of Truth.  It's a collection of essays and speeches he has written or made between 2003-2020, rather than the novels he is more well  known for, and I have to say I'm enjoying it more than the novels I've read (his two most famous: the Booker Prize winning Midnight's Children and the Muslim upsetting Satanic Verses - and I enjoyed both of them very much).  The essays cover a wide range of topics, from appreciations and criticisms of different authors, both old and new(er), a section on what Rushdie terms "WonderTales" - the age old myths and legends from Greece and elsewhere, and in particular his native India, that led him to become a writer, their influence on his work, and what it actually means to be a writer, its trials and tribulations and triumphs.  It's a fascinating portrait of a renowned author at the top of his game, and for anyone interested in the craft I give it a strong Recommend.

It's also made me look again at my own attempts at scribbling stuff - I wouldn't call myself an author by any stretch of the imagination, not yet! - and what it means to me.  I thought I'd share it with you, my handful of loyal readers.  Because - why not?

--------------------------------------------------------

First: let me explain the WHY?  What makes me sit down at a desk or table with my laptop and attempt to write something? 

I write.  I always have done, since I was a kid.  I've written stories, short ones and longer ones, almost novella length.  Poetry.  A novel.  Currently, I'm battling through penning a memoir as well.  For 10 years or more - actually, now I think of it, it's 12 years - I've been writing this Blog and its two predecessors..  For most of my working life, I've had to write a wide variety of documents, factual things like procedure manuals, training guides and system requirements, as well as slideshows and presentations of varying complexity and then deliver them to audiences from a couple of people to a dozen or more learners in a proper training room.  So the written word, and creating it, has been a huge part of my life.

It's always been challenging, and sometimes an absolute pain, and now and again I've found myself completely stopped in my tracks - the fabled Writer's Block that everyone who does this for a living (or otherwise) has experienced.  But still I carry on. It's like an itch, somewhere in the middle of my head, that compels me to do this, and there is little rhyme or reason to it.  It's just there and I must scratch it.....

It's not as if I've made any money from it.....well, discounting the professional stuff, the procedures and training guides and presentations, but they were just a part (albeit an important part) of my day job, for which I received compensation of varying quantity.  But the personal stuff, the stories and the book and so on - no.

Well, apart from one thing.  When I was I think 12 (so nearly 60 ago now, for God's sake!) I entered a story into a competition run by the Surrey Mirror newspaper to write a Christmas story.  I can't remember the terms and conditions of the competition, nor much in the way of detail about the little yarn I sent in - it was, I recall, about a bloke hitchhiking home for Christmas from Northern Alaska to I'm not sure where, so I guess it featured snowmobiles and big lumbering timber trucks, maybe a train and airplane or two: I really can't remember.  But Our Hero made it, and walked through his front door at 5 to midnight on Christmas Eve, to the delight of his family.  To my surprise, and that of mum and dad, the paper printed it in their Christmas edition, along with several others, and what's more paid me £5 for it.  My dad bought several copies of the paper and my mum cut the story out and posted it off to friends and family scattered all over the country and indeed the world, and insisted that I would one day earn my living from my pen. Which, I suppose, I did, although not in the way she meant.

And that is the sole direct payment I've receivcd for all the hundreds of thousands of words I've written since, in my poetry and my stories and my books and my Blogs.  Not a single word has been published (apart from the several hundred Blog posts I've written and published via this Blogger platform or LinkedIn, which I left when I retired four years ago).  

Partly this has been because, for whatever reason (and I still can't quite get my head around why) my AdSense settings on Google have never generated any income (and now seem to have stopped working altogether), so the Blog is simply an exercise in creativity, a hobby, with an audience that has never really grown beyond a handful of views per post, and try as I might I haven't found a way of growing it via social media, word of mouth or whatever.  I put it down to most people having way more important things to do than to read the demented witterings of an ageing retiree ex-pat.  Or perhaps the writing simply isn't as good or interesting as I think it is....  It's a question I've posed a few times in previous posts, but never yet had any answer, which is, shall we say, frustrating!

So - the big question here I suppose is this: If I never make any money from all this, WHY do I still do it?  Simply: because I need to.  I have to scratch that itch.  And I always try to finish what I started.  And because, who knows, one day I might figure out how this Amazon Publishing thing works and actually do something with it all.

And there's a bit more to it even than that.  Over the past couple of years, because of the well known pitfalls of finding a new direction and purpose after retiring, and of course that bloody Pandemic, and a couple of relatively minor accidents that led to hospitalisation, I plunged into some nasty mental issues.  They're largely gone now, or at least under control, but still linger in the back of my mind and make the odd comeback when least expected.  I've written in more detail about them recently, but the essential point is this.  My writing has helped, and continues to help, with the healing process.  It gives me something to get out of bed for in the morning (besides walking the dog and getting my Beloved off to work and the kids off to school) and something to focus on besides what a mess the world is in right now.  If I can make my mind focus on the creative process, even if not every day, then it keeps it from wandering off into darker places I really don't want to visit.  

It's been therapeutic too, in that a couple of the stories I've written have, quite by chance and totally unplanned, directly addressed some of the problems that caused the Depression, and trying to marshal all my distant memories into a cohesive and hopefully entertaining narrative in the memoir have helped me realise that, despite the problems I've faced over the years - and like everyone else continue to face - it's actually been a good life, one I can be proud of with more ups than downs, and not the disaster area that mental problems can often suggest.

But, mostly, I write because I love doing it.

-----------------------------------------------------

So that's the WHY.  Now: what about the HOW? Where do the ideas come from and what do I do to convert them into something that makes sense and is even vaguely readable?

Without wishing to sound pretentious, this is where the magic happens, but since I'm not Gandalf I can't really answer very clearly how or why.  For the Blog, most of the ideas that drive content are in turn driven by the daily news cycle - and, let's face it, there is an awful lot of stuff going on to write about now.  What with the War in Ukraine; incompetent and possibly corrupt government in a number of countries including both my birth and adopted homelands; global warming; the food crisis; rampant inflation across much of Europe; extreme weather events causing chaos globally; no end to senseless gun violence in a divided USA; the football season including the first winter World Cup (happening in November); a Covid pandemic that is still roaring on.......the list is endless.  I'm spoilt for choice - as is every other journalist, blogger or YouTube vlogger on the planet.  So the difficulty is to somehow make my stuff different from everyone else's - and that is incredibly difficult, and possibly (even probably...) not something I've succeeded in doing well enough.  

Re-hashing someone else's ideas or points of view is a pointless exercise, so I have to spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about stuff and searching for a personal angle or viewpoint that I can build a piece around.  Then more time, from a few hours to a couple of days, writing and reviewing the piece before hitting the Publish button - by which time, as often as not, it's no longer News.  It's also, because of the news cycle driven nature of the content, in constant danger of becoming repetitive: it's one thing being paid, as a journalist, by a paper or news website, to specialise on a specific subject, follow it and immerse yourself deeply in it, and write pieces every day to keep people informed, and something altogether different to express a personal opinion in an entertaining way independently.  

Do I try to write a short piece on something every day, specifically to cover a "story" (for want of a better word), or do I take more time, produce longer pieces but less frequently, that are not only driven by the news cycle, but also personal, things that I care about?  Right now, I tend to fall between the two - there is newsy stuff here when something jumps out and bites me (the sudden death of a favourite sportsman, for instance, or a Prime Ministerial resignation, or another US mass shooting atrocity), but also plenty of personal stuff too: book reviews, pieces about trips made to Switzerland or the seaside, and some deeply personal things covering my own struggles with both Covid and Depression (they have even crept into this essay).  

But when I sit down to write, I typically have little in mind but a very very general idea about what I want to say.  I stare at a blank page, type a handful of words, and see what happens.  Sometimes it flows, and the thoughts burst out of my fingers and fill the page, almost without a conscious effort. Those are good times....  Other times, those few words are all that comes and after a few hours of angst and increasing panic it's scrapped.  Read, review, take a break, then read review again.  Maybe again. However many times it takes to polish it to my satisfaction.  Then Publish (or less often Delete).  Tougher, for sure, but somehow even more rewarding.

With longer pieces, the book and the memoir and the stories, it's not so very different.  I am not a planner: there are no wallposters with timelines, maps, cast lists, key events or anything like that.  Very rarely are there even any notes to refer to - it's all in my head.  The closest I've come to that was The Match, my sex booze and football novel, where I started the original draft with a couple of pages, mocked up like the Teams page in a football program, that listed all the characters, major and minor, that would appear.  That exercise took perhaps an hour, then I made myself a coffee and started writing.  Somehow - I have absolutely no clue how it happened! - in the time it took to brew the coffee the very nebulous idea I had had that started the creative process solidified in my mind, and when the pen tip hit the paper, the entire story poured out in a single collosal brain dump.  Every setting, the timetable and events, individual incidents in the football match that is central to the yarn, even dialogue was there, complete.  It took me perhaps three weeks to finish my dump and commit it all to paper, in a couple of Ryman Jumbo exercise books, and it was done.  Extraordinary, mysterious and frankly unexplainable......  Since then the book's been reviewed and edited many times, but the finished story, the one sitting as a pdf waiting for me to do something on Amazon or whatever, is not significantly different to the version scribbled out by Ball Pentel all those years ago.

And that is how I write..  Ideas come to me, at odd hours, and I try to remember them (not always possible: the lingering effects of my two brushes with Covid include increased fatigue and a lack of focus and concentration - the so-called brainfog) but sometimes the ideas drift away as fast as they appear.  But if the idea comes back, it seems to come back in a bit more detail and that gives me my start.  And off I go to another blank page and start bashing keys again, to see where that leads. Now and then it's a dead end, but often, eventually, the result is a completed yarn.  

And because I've not planned anything, it grows and changes and develops as I go along, and often in unexpected ways.  I wrote something recently, a longish short story that came as an initial idea of a guy going for a solo swim in a warm sea somewhere, and is eaten by a shark - I dismissed that out of hand: way too depressing.  But it kept nagging away, and eventually, after a couple of weeks, it grew into a story about a bereaved husband dealing with his loss and the guilt around it, coming to terms with it and moving on.....kind of.  From the outset I could see a couple of possible conclusions, and more came to me as I wrote, but I had no idea which one to use - until I got to the last few paragraphs, when my subconscious mind settled on one and somehow, to my suprise, it works and makes sense......but in an odd, open ended way that actually allows the reader to perceive a couple of the choices and settle on whichever conclusion seems right - to that reader.  Weird?  Well, yes, I guess it is. And (spoiler alert) with no sign of a shark - unless summoned by the reader.

So: it's all for want of a better term, ad-hoc creation, words coming to me on the fly and hitting the page for a period of time that may be a few hours or a few minutes.  While I'm typing, I'll often go back over a couple of paragraphs, correcting typos and punctuation, and most importantly reminding myself where I'm going and keeping things on some kind of track.  Then at the end of that writing day or period or story section I'll go back through it again and correct it.  When the whole thing - be it a blog post, a story or another section in the memoir - is I think complete I'll go through it all a couple more times and polish it.  Only then will I move on and Publish (the blog) or take a break and seek a new idea for the other stuff.  It's undoubtedly an unprofessional way of working, but it works for me, and in any case it's, to an extent, the only option I have because I don't have the luxury of a dedicated work environment, no place where I can shut myself away from distractions and get my head down to at least try and focus for an extended time.  As things are now, and likely to remain for the foreseeable future, I have to continue with the Wing And A Prayer method of writing, whenever and wherever I can.

So I will.