We’ve all read the assorted U.S. diplomatic cables from Wikileaks which we’re told are embarrassing governments and politicians the world over and, like me, you might have been mightily amused. This morning the paper’s are revealing the former EU bigwig Chris Patten was horrified by Vladimir Putin’s ‘killer eyes’. There’s the claim that Italy’s Gary Berlusconi took kickbacks from the Russians, that the Saudis begged the U.S. to bomb the living shit out of Iran, that the Yanks decided after one year that Gordon Brown was a hopeless Prime Minister, that Karzai - the role model to end all role models - thought the British were useless. And on it goes.
I have to report that I am neither shocked by these candid comments and cheering Wikileaks to the rafters, nor shocked that what were intended as private communications between diplomats should be publicised, thereby undermining trust, confidence, relationships, the integrity of cat food, bus tickets the world over, blah-di-blah-di-blah . . . What does shock me, although ‘shock’ is rather over-egging the pudding, is the amateurish carelessness of the U.S. which means these secret cables were available to, reportedly, at least two million government personnel the world over and just crying out to be leaked.
Despite all the Yankee fascination with the biggest, the fastest, the most expensive etc and coming on to the rest of the world that they have got it sussed (where ‘it’ is more or less anything you can think of), they are still apt to get that crucial, vital detail wrong. In this case it was ensuring that confidential views and opinions whose value lay in their being candid remained confidential. By allowing two million people and their dog access to them seems rather to miss the point.
(Similarly with the invasion of Iraq: you feel it was never properly thought through, and now, several years and thousands of deaths later - both American and Iraqi - the situation there is still pretty bad. The crucial, vital detail: why bloody do it in the first place? I’m sure Bush and his staff would be able to trot out this and that by way of spurious justification, but the fact is there was absolutely no need or reason to invade. My suspicion - and it is so far-fetched that it is both highly unlikely and eminently probably - is that George Bush Jnr agreed to some neo-con voice whispering in his ear that ‘showing Saddam whose boss’ was the thing to do because it might impress daddy, one George Bush Snr and a former president. As I say, the suggestion is quite ludicrously silly but also not half as daft as it sounds.)
I have heard on the radio and read in the papers the reasons why this stunt by Wikileaks is both very necessary and highly irresponsible, and you know, dear reader, I find I can’t get too excited either way. On the one hand, I find all talk that what Wikileaks has done empowers the voter, advances democracy, is a necessary counter to increasingly high-handed government action and all that kind of thing nothing but overblown, hi’ falutin waffle verging on bullshir. On the other hand, and although it does to a certain extent undermine relations between governments by making them look very silly indeed, it does not harm at all that they should be made to look very silly indeed. There is never the wrong time or place to taking our politicians down a peg or two.
I would also be very surprised indeed if the Americans, the French, the Saudis, the British, the Germans, the Iranians and everyone else were in the slightest bit surprised by what has been revealed. Individuals might be embarrassed, most certainly, but are we really supposed to believe that the foreign ministries of the various different countries were somehow taken by surprise that they weren’t quite has highly esteemed by their counterparts as they thought they were? If diplomats around the world aren’t cynical and highly suspicious, not only of their supposed enemies but also of their supposed allies, they shouldn’t be doing the job. I can’t remember (as though I ever knew) who first claimed that it was a diplomat's job to travel abroad and lie for his country, but it seems to me to be a fair enough job description.
So the suggestion that intelligent men and women in Washington, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, London, Madrid and Rome are in despair because others are saying unkind things about them is more than rather silly. Does Valdimir Putin really give a flying fuck that Chris Patten thought he had ‘killer’s eyes’?
One positive outcome of this whole Wikileaks affair is that the Yanks will undertake a mass cull of staff involved in keeping these communications confidential (‘assistant heads will roll’) and do their very best to ensure that, in future, they do remain confidential. And once the world’s diplomats are satisfied that the opinions and views and whatever tittle-tattle has come their way and which they would very much like to pass on will not be broadcast from the rooftops but will remain entre nous, normal service will quickly and quietly be resumed.
. . .
But what of this Julian Assange chappie? Who he? What’s his game? Is he really some idealist intent on making the world a better place? Are the rape charges against him politically motivated or does he have something to answer for? Answers, please, on the usual postcard (and I shall this time not repeat the usual joke). As for Wikileaks itself, what is its motive? Revealing information which might be ‘in the public interest’? It doesn’t quite ring true, does it? And the revelations it has made and is still making, end up rather flatter than I’m sure their revelation was intended after just a few moments consideration. There are, admittedly, several which are important: the claim that the UK was ‘overruled’ when it objected to the U.S. using British airbases on Cyprus when flying ‘suspects’ off to Hell. It must be very uncomfortable for the world to know that it was ‘overruled’ by the Yanks. I mean, how sovereign is that? Then there is the obvious question as to why we simply didn’t close the airbases to American military traffic. And just how strongly did the UK react when it was ‘overruled’? I get the impression that when it discovered the purpose of these rendition flights, it raised a mild objection (‘It’s not really on, is it, sir? I mean these chaps might be innocent.’), but when the U.S. ‘overruled’, the UK meekly acquiesced. (‘It was just a suggestion, sir.’)
But what of the other revelations? So the Saudis urged Washington to bomb the living shit out of Iran. But it didn’t, so just how important is that revelation? Berlusconi is said to be taking backhanders from Comrade Putin (who has ‘killer eyes’)? Is anyone actually surprised (if it’s true)? Has that claim actually damaged a man who hereunto was regarded as having a character as pure as a baby’s bottom? There’s the claim that Sarkozy is a bit of a prima donna. Are staff at the Elysee Palace shocked that the truth has been revealed. Then there’s the scurrilous rumour that Germany’s Angela Merkel is steady, unimaginative, reliable and risk-averse. My strong suspicion is that - if true - the vast majority of the German voters will be greatly relieved. Who wants a national leader who stays up all night boozing, gambling, whoring and likes to play Russian roulette in his or her spare time? Well, apart from the Italians and the Russians?
Sorry, but do the maths and I’m rather more inclined to give Wikileaks and E for effort than the Nobel Peace Prize. Sorry, chaps.
. . .
I was rather amused by England’s dismay that it wasn’t chosen by Fifa to host the 2018 World Cup. Not weeks earlier our newspapers and television united in an unprecedented attack on the 22 members of the governing body and accused them of being thieves, killers, rapists and — not to make too fine a point — that all too often they behaved in ways which did not behove a gentleman (many have been extraordinarily rude to their tailor). That wouldn’t make any difference whatsoever, said England. Maybe our press and TV did go over the top a tad, but, you know these things happen, don’t they, and anyway it’s all water under the bridge and Fifa has assured us it won’t be held against our bid.
Well, that strikes me as being naive far, far, far beyond the call of duty. For blow me down! Fifa decides not to award the 2018 to England! Up until then, of course, we had been full of it: we won’t get it in the first round of voting, they kept saying, but then that’s not important: in the first round all the utter no-hopers are eliminated and the real business doesn’t start until round two and possibly three. And then, well, then we’ll pick up all the votes we didn’t get in the first round and Bob’s your uncle.
He wasn’t off course. In the event, England won only two of the first round votes - one of which was the vote of its own representative on the board - and off we were sent to join the utter no-hopers. Not even bonny Prince William and the two most important Davids alive today - Beckham and Cameron - could swing it.
In hindsight we should have done what Russia has obviously done and distributed the used fivers where they were wanted. Russia got the nod even though Vladimir Putin, her current prime minister, couldn’t be arsed to fly out from his palace in Moscow to Geneva to shake a few hands. Well, it is now pretty obvious why he didn’t: he knew he didn’t have to. The sports and bribes department of the SVR knows what to do with a few million roubles when needs must, so Vlad stayed home knowing that it was all in the bag even before the vote was taken. And England?
Spain and Portugal also lost out, though they did progress far beyond no-hopers league. I should imagine that - Russian bribes apart - Fifa wasn’t too optimistic that by 2018 Spain and Portugal weren’t provinces of the Greater German Empire, what with the euro doing so remarkably well, and all. I have heard a rumour that our Iberian cousins did try a bribe, but when Blatter and his gang realised it was to be paid in euros not roubles, they lost all interest. Well, that’s understandable, isn’t, it?
England will now have to content itself with knocking six bells out of Australia’s cricket team and bring home the Ashes. Never mind that, by general consent, Australia were ill-advised to make up their squad from the most promising fourth-former of Woolla-Woolla Academy instead of chose players from the ranks of seasoned professionals down under, England has what it takes. And when they do bring home the Ashes, won’t we bloody know about it.
. . .
I have been ever so gently rapped over the knuckles for not splitting my blog entries into a sufficient number of paragraphs. I’m informed that it makes reading the blog just that much harder. So, today’s innovation: more paragraphs. The change will, of course, go through a pilot stage and will be introduced strictly on a trial basis, and if feedback is such that the majority of readers prefer fewer paragraphs, so be it. They will be done away with. But I’m sure you’ll all agree that we should all be forwarding-thinking and embrace change - not for itself, of course, but for the progress it can achieve. And what is life about if it isn’t about progress?
Friday 3 December 2010
Wednesday 1 December 2010
Preaching to the converted: utterly pointless. So a warm welcome to the Spectator and the New Statesman
There are a few moments every day when each and every one of us is obliged to spend a little time alone. I shan’t be more specific than that because some readers might feel it would be a little indelicate, but if you don’t know what I mean, you might well be entitled to remedial help. Such moments alone can be regarded as a brief and necessary, though irritating, interruption as we go about the serious business of building our career. Or if, like me, you have given up all hope of every building a career, you can make the most of them and use them to snatch a little peace and quiet from the hurly-burly of being obliged to work for a living. And like me, you might also perhaps use those moments to catch up on a little light reading.
Working, as I do, in a newspaper office, there is always something knocking around which you can grab to take with you to read and this morning I spotted a copy of the Spectator and grabbed it to take with me. (Incidentally, there is a certain simple etiquette involved when picking up and taking a book, newspaper or magazine with you to that place where you will spend those personal moments alone.
You are not obliged to put it back where you found it. In fact, I should imagine most people would prefer you not to do so. So that would, of course, rule out taking with you first editions, reference books or hard-to-come-by reading material. Best stick to what will not be missed or which can easily be replaced, if necessary, by buying another copy.) I am not a regular reader of the Spectator. My brother and aunt are, but I find it, in a certain sense, quite insufferable. That doesn’t mean, though, that an occasional read doesn’t pay off and isn’t interesting – I wouldn’t have filched it from some feature writer’s desk if I thought I was about to spend the next five to ten minutes being bored out of my tiny mind – but there is something about the ‘Speccy’ which I find ineffably pointless. Anyone familiar with that magazine will know that its politics are right-of-centre, and given the overwhelming and almost compulsory liberalism of these past 15 years, the ‘Speccy’ might even be described as defiantly right-of-centre with an almost tangible tendency to unashamed fogeyism.
Many of its writers take a real pride in not ‘being modern’, in swimming against the tide, in being archaic. Everything which is even vaguely modern is ‘quite awful’. (‘I used one of those modern “mobile phones” the other day – well, I felt obliged to as my brother/sister/mother/father/wife/husband gave me one and it would have been rude not to – but what is the point? I mean, you poke around on them with your forefinger as you have seen other people do a hundred times and you pretend you know what you are doing, but all you finally get is some terrible noise in your ear telling you the whole exercise hasn’t worked. They are simple quite awful.’) As young men and women they will have adopted that kind stance as a pose, quite possibly to try to impress those they regarded as their elders and betters. Later in life (and later in life is always, unfortunately, far later than you ever thought it would be) the pose is not so much second nature as first nature. Its counterpart in politics of the left, and a magazine I similarly find to be ineffably pointless, is the New Statesman. The writers of that magazine also seem to take a perverse pride in harking back to the past, although in their case it is a past which consists, in their eyes at least, as a golden age of socialist triumphs, a celebration of the working man and when briefly society saw sense.For those it employs who are on the point of death, the Spanish civil war is praised as a beginning which came to nothing because of the combined forces of European fascism. Rather younger writers hail back to the glory days of the Seventies Labour governments before they were betrayed by the money men. And those the New Statesman employs who – boys and girls – who are just out of short trousers hail to the New Labour past as a lesson in what not to do (‘We betrayed socialism
by sucking up to the middle classes’.) At its most extreme the News Statesman is plain barmy, which might be typified by the occasional article claiming that Stalin might have been a bit of a wrong ’un who admittedly had a lot to answer for but he did succeed in dragging Russia out of the 19th and into the 20th century and we should, at least acknowledge that. But to be fair such out-and-out lunacy is pretty unusual these days. Mainly, its writers take an anguished look at how the ‘left is going wrong’, ask ‘what happened to our ideal’ and ponder ‘is there hope for progress’. (By the by, it might be illuminating and certainly very entertaining if at some point I compiled a list of all the young turks who fought tooth and nail to destroy the class system, bit who now, after many years of public service, find it rather comfortable indeed to spend their twilight years ensconced in lordly ermine. Plus ca change . . .
I must be fair, though, and concede that the New Statesman, and publications like it, are usually the first to champion and, in time, to help to bring about what, on reflection, are welcome changes to our values and morals. So, for example, being gay in Britain today is, as far as I know – I’m not gay, far easier than it was even ten or 15 years ago. To a far greater extent than ever before homosexuality is accepted (I shan’t describe it as ‘tolerated’ because I find such ‘tolerance’ quite offensive) as an alternative to heterosexuality, and the New Statesman and the Guardian are far more open to such changes than other publications.
But what I find utterly pointless about both the New Statesman and the Spectator is that they are always, always, always preaching to the converted. So when the New Statesman writes about how evil bankers are, it will be cheered along by its readers as though it had announced the Second Coming. And when the Spectator writes about how awful modern TV programmes are, it is similarly cheered along as though it had revealed an arcane truth. When the Spectator champions the Conservative government’s attempted reform of a welfare system which (even I agree) is horrendously complicated, inefficient wasteful and almost out of control, its readers will not only concur but insist ‘that chap Cameron isn’t going far enough by half. Not at all. He’s scared’. The New Statesman, on the other hand, which in an honest moment might quietly agree that what the welfare system has become is a dog’s dinner like no other, will still insist that the Tories’ attempts at reform are nothing buy a cynical smokescreen to do away with it entirely according to some shadowy ‘right-wing agenda’.
To a great extent these two magazines simply reflect that futile divide between ‘them and us’ (and you can identify both ‘them’ and ‘us’ with whoever you like as long as you acknowledge the dislike, contempt and, at times, seething hatred the one feels for the other). They also do what all partisan newspapers and magazines do – it doesn’t half boost sales – which is to tell the reader what it thinks the reader want to hear. (It is a very effective form of flattery: if you see your prejudices articulated by people you quietly suspect are rather brighter than you are, your self-esteem will briefly be boosted and for a short while you can be persuaded that you are not quiet the outright dunce you always feared you were.) But the Spectator and the New Statesman cannot be judged in the same way as other newspapers and magazines. For one thing their prime purpose is not to make money (which, believe me is the prime purpose of all our newspaper despite what they will tell you), but to provide a platform. Naturally, those who own them wouldn’t usually tolerate a loss (although a former owner of the Spectator, a millionaire, did just that) and would hope that ‘their journal’ at least paid its way, but they see themselves, in their conceit, as protagonists in their country’s political drama. (A ‘journal’, by the way, demands to be take far more seriously than a mere ‘magazine’, which is why the Spectator and the New Statesman regard themselves as ‘journals’.)
And that makes their preaching to the converted all the more futile. Surely to goodness if you believe your view if right and that the other man’s is wrong, you set about trying to persuade him. Yet it’s just as unlikely that your average Speccy reader will choose to plough his or her way through the New Statesman as a New Statesman reader will choose to investigate what the Speccy believes. That’s not the name of the game. Well, nothing bores me more than sitting around with a bunch of farts who all agree ‘that ‘- - - -’ is terrible, isn’t it!’ What I want is debate – honest debate, certainly – but real debate. And you won’t get that if the guy you are debating with you is four-square behind you. Unfortunately, it would seem that I am very much in a minority. And I don’t like it. Political ‘debate’ all to often degenerates into sloganizing and tribal insults. Well, if that’s your game, count me out. And that’s why the lavatory is one of the few places I will ever allow myself to be seen reading the Spectator or the New Statesman.
. . .
Further to my gibe about the brother and comrades who - no doubt against their better instincts but in the interest those dispossessed in whose cause they have struggled all their lives - have grudgingly accepted a peerage, I must extend some sympathy to those assorted lefties who can’t, in their private moments, deny they wouldn’t mind a bit of the action. Look, you struggle, worry, campaign, battle, fight, debate and agitate on behalf of the left for more than 30 years and all you have to show for it is a badly paid job as a secondary teacher, a run-down terrace house and a 15-year-old, beaten-up Ford Mondeo.
Your brother – who has no principles, absolutely none at all and who never worked at school or college - is now in the City earning millions selling ‘financial instruments’ and licking the arse of the ruling class, living in Surrey, two kids at private school and apparently enjoying it all. Where, where, where is the justice! Answers, please, on that traditional postcard, which you can yet again then rip up and throw away.
Working, as I do, in a newspaper office, there is always something knocking around which you can grab to take with you to read and this morning I spotted a copy of the Spectator and grabbed it to take with me. (Incidentally, there is a certain simple etiquette involved when picking up and taking a book, newspaper or magazine with you to that place where you will spend those personal moments alone.
You are not obliged to put it back where you found it. In fact, I should imagine most people would prefer you not to do so. So that would, of course, rule out taking with you first editions, reference books or hard-to-come-by reading material. Best stick to what will not be missed or which can easily be replaced, if necessary, by buying another copy.) I am not a regular reader of the Spectator. My brother and aunt are, but I find it, in a certain sense, quite insufferable. That doesn’t mean, though, that an occasional read doesn’t pay off and isn’t interesting – I wouldn’t have filched it from some feature writer’s desk if I thought I was about to spend the next five to ten minutes being bored out of my tiny mind – but there is something about the ‘Speccy’ which I find ineffably pointless. Anyone familiar with that magazine will know that its politics are right-of-centre, and given the overwhelming and almost compulsory liberalism of these past 15 years, the ‘Speccy’ might even be described as defiantly right-of-centre with an almost tangible tendency to unashamed fogeyism.
Many of its writers take a real pride in not ‘being modern’, in swimming against the tide, in being archaic. Everything which is even vaguely modern is ‘quite awful’. (‘I used one of those modern “mobile phones” the other day – well, I felt obliged to as my brother/sister/mother/father/wife/husband gave me one and it would have been rude not to – but what is the point? I mean, you poke around on them with your forefinger as you have seen other people do a hundred times and you pretend you know what you are doing, but all you finally get is some terrible noise in your ear telling you the whole exercise hasn’t worked. They are simple quite awful.’) As young men and women they will have adopted that kind stance as a pose, quite possibly to try to impress those they regarded as their elders and betters. Later in life (and later in life is always, unfortunately, far later than you ever thought it would be) the pose is not so much second nature as first nature. Its counterpart in politics of the left, and a magazine I similarly find to be ineffably pointless, is the New Statesman. The writers of that magazine also seem to take a perverse pride in harking back to the past, although in their case it is a past which consists, in their eyes at least, as a golden age of socialist triumphs, a celebration of the working man and when briefly society saw sense.For those it employs who are on the point of death, the Spanish civil war is praised as a beginning which came to nothing because of the combined forces of European fascism. Rather younger writers hail back to the glory days of the Seventies Labour governments before they were betrayed by the money men. And those the New Statesman employs who – boys and girls – who are just out of short trousers hail to the New Labour past as a lesson in what not to do (‘We betrayed socialism
by sucking up to the middle classes’.) At its most extreme the News Statesman is plain barmy, which might be typified by the occasional article claiming that Stalin might have been a bit of a wrong ’un who admittedly had a lot to answer for but he did succeed in dragging Russia out of the 19th and into the 20th century and we should, at least acknowledge that. But to be fair such out-and-out lunacy is pretty unusual these days. Mainly, its writers take an anguished look at how the ‘left is going wrong’, ask ‘what happened to our ideal’ and ponder ‘is there hope for progress’. (By the by, it might be illuminating and certainly very entertaining if at some point I compiled a list of all the young turks who fought tooth and nail to destroy the class system, bit who now, after many years of public service, find it rather comfortable indeed to spend their twilight years ensconced in lordly ermine. Plus ca change . . .
I must be fair, though, and concede that the New Statesman, and publications like it, are usually the first to champion and, in time, to help to bring about what, on reflection, are welcome changes to our values and morals. So, for example, being gay in Britain today is, as far as I know – I’m not gay, far easier than it was even ten or 15 years ago. To a far greater extent than ever before homosexuality is accepted (I shan’t describe it as ‘tolerated’ because I find such ‘tolerance’ quite offensive) as an alternative to heterosexuality, and the New Statesman and the Guardian are far more open to such changes than other publications.
But what I find utterly pointless about both the New Statesman and the Spectator is that they are always, always, always preaching to the converted. So when the New Statesman writes about how evil bankers are, it will be cheered along by its readers as though it had announced the Second Coming. And when the Spectator writes about how awful modern TV programmes are, it is similarly cheered along as though it had revealed an arcane truth. When the Spectator champions the Conservative government’s attempted reform of a welfare system which (even I agree) is horrendously complicated, inefficient wasteful and almost out of control, its readers will not only concur but insist ‘that chap Cameron isn’t going far enough by half. Not at all. He’s scared’. The New Statesman, on the other hand, which in an honest moment might quietly agree that what the welfare system has become is a dog’s dinner like no other, will still insist that the Tories’ attempts at reform are nothing buy a cynical smokescreen to do away with it entirely according to some shadowy ‘right-wing agenda’.
To a great extent these two magazines simply reflect that futile divide between ‘them and us’ (and you can identify both ‘them’ and ‘us’ with whoever you like as long as you acknowledge the dislike, contempt and, at times, seething hatred the one feels for the other). They also do what all partisan newspapers and magazines do – it doesn’t half boost sales – which is to tell the reader what it thinks the reader want to hear. (It is a very effective form of flattery: if you see your prejudices articulated by people you quietly suspect are rather brighter than you are, your self-esteem will briefly be boosted and for a short while you can be persuaded that you are not quiet the outright dunce you always feared you were.) But the Spectator and the New Statesman cannot be judged in the same way as other newspapers and magazines. For one thing their prime purpose is not to make money (which, believe me is the prime purpose of all our newspaper despite what they will tell you), but to provide a platform. Naturally, those who own them wouldn’t usually tolerate a loss (although a former owner of the Spectator, a millionaire, did just that) and would hope that ‘their journal’ at least paid its way, but they see themselves, in their conceit, as protagonists in their country’s political drama. (A ‘journal’, by the way, demands to be take far more seriously than a mere ‘magazine’, which is why the Spectator and the New Statesman regard themselves as ‘journals’.)
And that makes their preaching to the converted all the more futile. Surely to goodness if you believe your view if right and that the other man’s is wrong, you set about trying to persuade him. Yet it’s just as unlikely that your average Speccy reader will choose to plough his or her way through the New Statesman as a New Statesman reader will choose to investigate what the Speccy believes. That’s not the name of the game. Well, nothing bores me more than sitting around with a bunch of farts who all agree ‘that ‘- - - -’ is terrible, isn’t it!’ What I want is debate – honest debate, certainly – but real debate. And you won’t get that if the guy you are debating with you is four-square behind you. Unfortunately, it would seem that I am very much in a minority. And I don’t like it. Political ‘debate’ all to often degenerates into sloganizing and tribal insults. Well, if that’s your game, count me out. And that’s why the lavatory is one of the few places I will ever allow myself to be seen reading the Spectator or the New Statesman.
. . .
Further to my gibe about the brother and comrades who - no doubt against their better instincts but in the interest those dispossessed in whose cause they have struggled all their lives - have grudgingly accepted a peerage, I must extend some sympathy to those assorted lefties who can’t, in their private moments, deny they wouldn’t mind a bit of the action. Look, you struggle, worry, campaign, battle, fight, debate and agitate on behalf of the left for more than 30 years and all you have to show for it is a badly paid job as a secondary teacher, a run-down terrace house and a 15-year-old, beaten-up Ford Mondeo.
Your brother – who has no principles, absolutely none at all and who never worked at school or college - is now in the City earning millions selling ‘financial instruments’ and licking the arse of the ruling class, living in Surrey, two kids at private school and apparently enjoying it all. Where, where, where is the justice! Answers, please, on that traditional postcard, which you can yet again then rip up and throw away.
Tuesday 30 November 2010
Drinking then writing, or writing and drinking? Just don't kid yourself. And then there's Wikileaks...
Just home from work after a drink with a friend who had persuaded me that as the weather was cold and miserable, we should treat ourselves to a whisky. I had a one to one whisky and Drambuie (officially a Rusty Nail, unofficially a Drambuies Shandy) and as that first went down well, I treated myself to two more. I don’t have far to walk home, and I had written at least three quite brilliant novels by the time I arrived there. Alan Bennett was once asked whether he ‘wrote when he drank’. No, he said, he didn’t, but he often ‘drank when he wrote’. This might sound as though the chap were being disingenuous, but there is a difference. In a way it’s related to ‘the urge to be creative’ and the ‘ability to be creative’. And the distinction between the latter two is probably a little clearer than that between ‘drinking and writing’ and ‘writing and drinking’. How often have you, dear reader (and forgive that rather arch address, but I am encouraged that bit by bit rather more people are reading this blog and I do prefer to address you directly) – how often have you walked home from the pub (the bar in Med countries), your belly full of booze and your heart full of optimism and faith in your talents and ability, and felt moved to create? You pick up your guitar and start strumming, you sit down at your desk and take out a pen and paper or you switch on your PC or laptop (as I have just done) and start writing, you find a pencil and start doodling or perhaps you even haul out your oils and start painting. And all because the booze has rather raddled your judgment and led you to believe that what you are now appreciating – the stars, the city lights, a woman’s beauty, the sounds, whatever it is must be immortalised, or at the very least, recorded. And how often have you read what you wrote, listen to what you recorded (something I have done far too often since computers and software made it all so easy) or look at what you drew and though: Lord what crap. Incidentally, as a former fan and long-term user of cannabis I should add that what I write here applies just as much to smoking, sniffing or, I suppose, though I have never tried it, injecting as boozing. The result is the same: if you are only in the slightest bit honest, you are obliged to admit that what you produced was unadulterated crap. But that is ‘writing while drinking’. ‘Drinking while writing’ might not necessarily be so unproductive, although there always comes a point where you are obliged to call it a day – or, more probably, a night – because the quality of what is being produced is becoming pretty dire.
I should imagine everyone reading this has, as I described above, had a skinful or two and persuaded him or herself that as far as artists go, they have the right stuff. But appreciation does not amount to a creatively ability and nor does a desire to be creative mean that you have what it takes. Any teen who has attempted verse and poetry will be all too familiar with the illusion that intense feeling equals high art. But no, it doesn’t. Intense feeling can lead to the creation of high art, but is by no means the same thing. As for booze, or cannabis or, I should imagine cocaine or heroin, the one thing they most definitely do is to cloud your judgment. That is why one of the best pieces of advice given to a writer is to write, then put aside what he or she has written for a day or two, and then to read it with a dispassionate and critical eye. You'll soon edit it down and might throw it out entirely. One of the best pieces of advice that one can take to heart is that it doesn’t necessarily matter who you bullshit as long as you never, ever bullshit yourself. Unfortunately, that is something all of us do all too often. I know I do, even though I know full well I shouldn’t. It’s at its worst when I think, as I tell myself, as I sometimes do, ‘you’re a pretty down-to-earth sort of chap, Patrick.’ It’s at the moment if thinking as much that I realise that I’m not and have quite a long way to go before I am. And even writing that last bit doesn’t change a thing. Or even that last bit. Or even that bit. Or even that. If you’ve been there, which I suspect you have, you’ll know exactly what I am talking about. If not, this blog isn’t for you. Oh, Lord.
. . .
By way of drawing breath, I should tell those who might not know who Alan Bennett is who he is. He is a playwright and writer who first came to prominence as one of the four Cambridge graduates who wrote and performed a revue called Beyond The Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival. All four – the other three are Jonathan Miller, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore – all went on to have successful careers of one kind or another. Cook and Moore are now dead, Cook ending his life as an alcoholic, and Moore having made several bad marriages. Miller went on to direct theatre and opera and has become a darling of the cultural London establishment (and, as far as I’m concerned, seems to take himself just a little too seriously). I have just looked up the history of Beyond The Fringe and learny a little more. The show was, in fact, put together by an impresario specifically to perform at the Festival. It didn’t actually do too well, but found success when it transferred to London. Bennett has become something of a grande dame in Britain about whom no one has a bad word to say. And he is remarkably unpretentious, with a very dry wit which is usually a delight. I have not seen any of his plays, but I have seen one or two of the films for which he wrote the screenplay, most notably The History Boys, which was based on his play of the same name. It was OK, and I suspect the – longer – play upon which is based was rather better. The film almost seems to proselytise for homosexuality, and I found that theme rather odd and a tad hamfisted at that. Bennett has in recent years come out as gay, although it is not quite as clear-cut in that as he was also linked to a woman for many years although quite what the nature of their relationship was I don’t know. Anyway, that is Alan Bennett. But back to ‘creating’ and the fact that boozing can make us think we are far better at doing what we want to do than we really are.
. . .
I hadn’t actually been drinking last night when I decided to write about the Wikileaks revelations, but on reflection I thought my views were rather crap and didn’t add my two ha’porth to this blog after all. But the whole affair still does make me wonder. First of all, how on earth can the Americans be so stupid as to have a system which reportedly allows something like two and a half million of their employees around the world – from enlisted men to I don’t know who else – access to the database of emails from diplomatic staff? It is breathtaking in its naivety. They have made themselves look remarkably silly, although I can’t really see that a great deal of damage has been done. What I find far more interesting is Julian Assange, his merry gang of leakers at Wikileaks and his motives. Why is he doing it? The obvious answer that it is all in the interests of ‘openness’ doesn’t convince me for one second. Just how ‘empowered’ are we for knowing what we know? Rather less than we might think. Of course, for the media this is a great story, but in all honesty there is not a great deal to it. I’m sure the Saudis are rather peeved that their private thoughts about the Iranians have been aired, but I would be very surprised if the Iranians were fully aware of those thoughts and have been for some time. Likening Russia’s president Medvedev as Robin to prime minister Putin’s Batman won’t exactly massage his ego but I can’t see anyone in the Kremlin losing any sleep over the matter. As far as Russia is concerned no one in the West has the faintest clue as to what is going on. In these past few days I have heard both that there is a growing ‘rift’ between Medvedev and Putin and that they are still the same double act that they always were. Both claims can’t be true, and I am more inclined to go with the Mutt and Jeff routine. But whatever the ture explanation is, Wikileaks revelations will do very little to alter the course of the river. As for the claim that U.S. diplomats were allegedly urged ‘to spy’ on Ban Ki Moon and other UN officials, the former British ambassador to the UN rather devalued it this morning on the radio. He pointed out that the diplimats were urged to do whatever ‘was possible’ and that they all knew full well that any outright spying and similar skulduggery was pretty much ‘impossible’ if they wanted to remain effective as diplomats. These revelations have most certainly caused the U.S. a certain amount of embarrassment, but they can live with that, and know they can live with that. What could be going on? Will we ever find out? You know, I don’t think we ever will.
I should imagine everyone reading this has, as I described above, had a skinful or two and persuaded him or herself that as far as artists go, they have the right stuff. But appreciation does not amount to a creatively ability and nor does a desire to be creative mean that you have what it takes. Any teen who has attempted verse and poetry will be all too familiar with the illusion that intense feeling equals high art. But no, it doesn’t. Intense feeling can lead to the creation of high art, but is by no means the same thing. As for booze, or cannabis or, I should imagine cocaine or heroin, the one thing they most definitely do is to cloud your judgment. That is why one of the best pieces of advice given to a writer is to write, then put aside what he or she has written for a day or two, and then to read it with a dispassionate and critical eye. You'll soon edit it down and might throw it out entirely. One of the best pieces of advice that one can take to heart is that it doesn’t necessarily matter who you bullshit as long as you never, ever bullshit yourself. Unfortunately, that is something all of us do all too often. I know I do, even though I know full well I shouldn’t. It’s at its worst when I think, as I tell myself, as I sometimes do, ‘you’re a pretty down-to-earth sort of chap, Patrick.’ It’s at the moment if thinking as much that I realise that I’m not and have quite a long way to go before I am. And even writing that last bit doesn’t change a thing. Or even that last bit. Or even that bit. Or even that. If you’ve been there, which I suspect you have, you’ll know exactly what I am talking about. If not, this blog isn’t for you. Oh, Lord.
. . .
By way of drawing breath, I should tell those who might not know who Alan Bennett is who he is. He is a playwright and writer who first came to prominence as one of the four Cambridge graduates who wrote and performed a revue called Beyond The Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival. All four – the other three are Jonathan Miller, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore – all went on to have successful careers of one kind or another. Cook and Moore are now dead, Cook ending his life as an alcoholic, and Moore having made several bad marriages. Miller went on to direct theatre and opera and has become a darling of the cultural London establishment (and, as far as I’m concerned, seems to take himself just a little too seriously). I have just looked up the history of Beyond The Fringe and learny a little more. The show was, in fact, put together by an impresario specifically to perform at the Festival. It didn’t actually do too well, but found success when it transferred to London. Bennett has become something of a grande dame in Britain about whom no one has a bad word to say. And he is remarkably unpretentious, with a very dry wit which is usually a delight. I have not seen any of his plays, but I have seen one or two of the films for which he wrote the screenplay, most notably The History Boys, which was based on his play of the same name. It was OK, and I suspect the – longer – play upon which is based was rather better. The film almost seems to proselytise for homosexuality, and I found that theme rather odd and a tad hamfisted at that. Bennett has in recent years come out as gay, although it is not quite as clear-cut in that as he was also linked to a woman for many years although quite what the nature of their relationship was I don’t know. Anyway, that is Alan Bennett. But back to ‘creating’ and the fact that boozing can make us think we are far better at doing what we want to do than we really are.
. . .
I hadn’t actually been drinking last night when I decided to write about the Wikileaks revelations, but on reflection I thought my views were rather crap and didn’t add my two ha’porth to this blog after all. But the whole affair still does make me wonder. First of all, how on earth can the Americans be so stupid as to have a system which reportedly allows something like two and a half million of their employees around the world – from enlisted men to I don’t know who else – access to the database of emails from diplomatic staff? It is breathtaking in its naivety. They have made themselves look remarkably silly, although I can’t really see that a great deal of damage has been done. What I find far more interesting is Julian Assange, his merry gang of leakers at Wikileaks and his motives. Why is he doing it? The obvious answer that it is all in the interests of ‘openness’ doesn’t convince me for one second. Just how ‘empowered’ are we for knowing what we know? Rather less than we might think. Of course, for the media this is a great story, but in all honesty there is not a great deal to it. I’m sure the Saudis are rather peeved that their private thoughts about the Iranians have been aired, but I would be very surprised if the Iranians were fully aware of those thoughts and have been for some time. Likening Russia’s president Medvedev as Robin to prime minister Putin’s Batman won’t exactly massage his ego but I can’t see anyone in the Kremlin losing any sleep over the matter. As far as Russia is concerned no one in the West has the faintest clue as to what is going on. In these past few days I have heard both that there is a growing ‘rift’ between Medvedev and Putin and that they are still the same double act that they always were. Both claims can’t be true, and I am more inclined to go with the Mutt and Jeff routine. But whatever the ture explanation is, Wikileaks revelations will do very little to alter the course of the river. As for the claim that U.S. diplomats were allegedly urged ‘to spy’ on Ban Ki Moon and other UN officials, the former British ambassador to the UN rather devalued it this morning on the radio. He pointed out that the diplimats were urged to do whatever ‘was possible’ and that they all knew full well that any outright spying and similar skulduggery was pretty much ‘impossible’ if they wanted to remain effective as diplomats. These revelations have most certainly caused the U.S. a certain amount of embarrassment, but they can live with that, and know they can live with that. What could be going on? Will we ever find out? You know, I don’t think we ever will.
Friday 26 November 2010
The Brits are in a class of their own (though no compliment is intended). Where does this obsession come from?
Courtesy of Google Blogger’s stats facility, I know that although the number of those who read this blog can be counted in the tens rather than the thousands, they come from countries around the world. Each of those countries will have its own preoccupations and hang-ups, but the British obsession with ‘class’ must be unique.
It is a multi-lateral obesession: self-styled (I almost wrote ‘self-appointed’) ‘working class’ folk claim to loathe the ‘middle-class’ and ‘upper class’, ‘middle-class’ folk really do look down on those they regard as being ‘working class’, and some snobbish ‘middle-class’ folk who, for various reasons, do not like to be lumped in with other ‘middle-class’, will often describe themselves as ‘upper-middle’ class. That, of course, tells you nothing except that those who describe themselves thus are simply crass snobs. Finally, we come to the ‘upper class’, which, as far as I am concerned, is even more amorphous than any of the other ‘class’ groupings. Who are they?
Just how bizarre this British obsession is occurred to me again today when I was doing my daily morning online trawl through the newspaper (or at least the Mail, the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Sun). For today’s Telegraph carries a piece by Labour leader Ed Miliband on how ‘Labour failed the middle classes’. The piece is notable for several reasons: until the rise of that out-and-out charlatan Tony Blair, who might in many ways been a sandwich short of a picnic but did have a canny streak (he was canny enough to get out while the going was good and is now a multi-millionaire), Labour, on a good day, despised the ‘middle classes’, or rather purported to do so. That all changed when Blair realised that the traditional constituency of ‘old Labour’ — solid, honest, unpretentious working folk engaged in heavy industry boilermaking and living a grimy, but cheerful existence in row upon row of terrace houses — had long disappeared into the realm of myth. In their place, and, ironically, courtesy of the reviled Margaret Thatcher, was a wealthier, ‘more aspirational’ noveau middle class whose support Labour would need if it wanted to regain power. This Blair did successfully by dropping Clause IV of the Labour Party constituency (which stipulated that ‘All enemies of the solid, honest, unpretentious working man and woman must, under standing order One, be lined up against any nearby wall when apprehended and shot without mercy’) and admitting to driving a Ford Mondeo, on the understanding that the Ford Mondeo is the middle-class car of choice. But Blair could not afford to alienate Labour’s core supporters in the process and had somehow to keep them sweet, too, and so to woo those, he sporadically dropped his aitches (‘Hs’) to demonstrate that although he was the barrister son of a barrister who had attended the ‘leading Scottish public school’ Fettes, he could still mix it with the plebs when political expediency demanded it.
Since Blair’s ‘landmark speech’ in 1993 to drop Clause IV, wooing ‘the middle ground’ is now an accepted and quite vital political principle, which both the Left and the Right in Britain ignore at their peril. And this is exactly what young Miliband is doing in his Telegraph piece.
(Note to non-British readers: Ed is the younger brother of David, a former foreign secretary, who also wanted to be Labour’s leader, but who was pipped at the post by young Ed. David was very pissed off, believing the leadership was his by right. He is currently rumoured to be agitating against younger brother Ed in the hope that when and if young Ed fucks up, he might graciously take over the reins).
That 'wooing the middle class should be so important merely underlines how obsessed Britain is with ‘class’. The Daily Mail (who are, to a man and woman, marvellous, marvellous people producing a marvellous, marvellous paper — I know which side my bread is buttered on) has made Britain’s ‘middle classes’ is own and delights in it. Earlier this year it almost parodied itself when it declared there was now definite proof that Jesus Christ was middle class.
The story (if you can't be arsed to follow the link and find out for yourself, is based on a claim that what had previously been translated from the Greek as 'carpenter' should actually be translated as 'architect'. It seems Joseph, Christ's father was, in fact, an architect and, as every Daily Mail reader knows, architect are by definition 'middle class'. Thus, runs the subtext of the Mail story, Christ was 'one of us'. To put the Mail's pretensions into perspective, Lord Salisbury, who was Prime Minister three times at the end of the 19th century, once noted that the Mail 'was written by office boys for office boys'. No great fan of the Mail, then.
Then, last week, a day after Prince William announced his engagement to Kate Middleton, the Mail's op-ed page rejoyced that finally — finally — a member of the middle class would be Queen and ‘save the monarchy’ (not that I knew it was in any imminent danger — no one tells me anything). In publishing these stories, the Mail is most definitely parodying itself, but, to be fair (as I say, I know which side my bread is buttered on) it is only providing its readers with what it feels its readers want. And if one thing is certain, Mail readers are desperate to be middle class and desperate to be reassured that the middle class are the salt of the earth. Desperate. It is one reason why they read the Mail.
All the other papers, of course, play exactly the same game: the Sun plays up its rough and ready credentials, because is calculates that is what will go down well with its readers; the Mirror still — still after all these years — bangs the working-class man drum; the Telegraph does the same as the Mail, with the added precaution that it pretends all its readers wear uniform (Telegraphy readers like to be seen as 'military men' or the wives of 'military men' or if not that, they like it to be acknowledged that, by Jove, they know one end of a rifle from the other). The Guardian portrays itself as being on the side of the angels because it knows its readers like to see themselves as intelligent, discerning people with a conscience who care ('Well, someone's got to'); the Independent attempts the same kind of thing but also plays, subtly, the middle class card, and The Times — well, as far I am concerned The Times gives the term ‘middle-brow’ and even worse name than it already has.
But I have gone off track: I was talking (ranting? rambling?) about the British obsession with class. I have a theory, admittedly not based on any research at all, that it all started with the Norman Conquest in 1006 when the indigenous Anglo-Saxons were treated as sub-human by the Norman invaders and a real hatred grew. And make not mistake, there is still something akin to that real hatred of ‘the other side’ abroad in this country today. There is, and always, will be a lot of loose talk about Britain these days being ‘classless’ Oh really?
There are in Britain something like five different middle classes, and none particularly likes the others. They will all get on famously in public, but in private when no one can hear them, all the old ‘class hatreds’ are resurrected. Some middle classes will not thank you for being identified with some of the other middle class. That is how the concept of ‘upper middle class evolved’: it is a haven for those who, in all honesty, could not describe themselves as ‘upper class’, but who still feel a tad superior and are damned if they are going to be lumped together with those they regard as in many ways below the salt.
So, for example, William Windsor’s bride-to-be Kate Middleton, the ‘middle class girl’ whose future as William’s queen so excites the Daily Mail, is the daughter of millionaire parents, who was educated Marlborough College in Wiltshire. She then went on to study history of art and speaking nicely at St Andrews University. In the jargon associated with Britain's obsession with class, she might well be entitled to describe herself as ‘upper middle-class’. Contrast her with other ‘middle class’ folk, who describe themselves thus because they earn comparatively well (in the lower bracket) and, crucially, want to describe themselves thus.
What is so odd about all of this is that it doesn’t necessarily have much to do with wealth and prosperity. It is almost like a caste system: it is how you behave and, in many ways, how you speak (although what with the spread of estuary English and the spread and adoption of many urban whites of immigrant speech patterns, that distinction is becoming increasingly blurred). Then there is the political dimension to ‘class’: some left-wingers — for example the comedian Mark Steele — insist on calling themselves ‘working class’ although they are now anything but. What to them is important is that they are making a political point (and bugger whether or not they are talking complete bollocks).
But the fact is that with the transformation of Britain’s economy in these past 40/50 years from a broadly productive industry into a broadly service industry, and the concomitant disappearance of almost all the country’s heavy industry, there is no longer a clear-cut ‘working class’ as there once was. But that has not spelled an end to this damn stupid obsession with class. And as it seems to have been going on since the Norman Conquest, I don’t think it will ever end.
. . .
Speaking of supermarkets, there is most certainly a class distinction apparent in who shops where. Furthermore, each of those chains (or rather the ad agencies they employ to attract the shopper) is well aware of those distinctions. So Asda staff all wear a rather garish green apron and adopt a very matey attitude to customers as well as play on their store being ‘cheaper’ and providing ‘value’. Nothing will frighten off a class-conscious would-be middle-class shopper than being thought interested in value, the clear implication being they haven’t got quite as much money as they like you to think. Kate Middleton wouldn't shop at Asda and probably not at Sainsbury's. She would most certainly consider Morrisons and Tesco, mainly because they are pretty neutral. Sainsbury, latterly, tries to push itself a little upmarket but tends to shoot itself in the foot. When a branch opened in Bodmin, I went along as was delighted to discover it was stocking quite a range of different pates. Several weeks later that range had been reduced to two. Why, I asked. Because there's not call for a wider range, I was told. Bodmin, is not 'middle class'.
Then there’s Waitrose: unashamedly middle-class to their cotton socks. If you are looking for bread flavoured with olives grown in a certain valley in Tuscany, Waitrose is your heaven. There’s a rather funny joke about the mission statement of Sainsbury’s: to keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose. Says it all, really.
. . .
Finally, there is surely some smartarse out there asking him or herself: exactly why is this chap pfpgowell so himself so preoccupied with 'Britain's obsession with class'? Could it be that he is, ironically, equally obsessed, which might explain this post?
Well, all I'll say to that is any more in that vein and I'll come around and break your windows, whether you live in the Ukraine, the U.S., Canada, Russia, South Korea or St Mabyn (which is just down the road. That's, possibly, an impeccable working class response, though the chances of a working class blogger using the word 'impeccable' are virtually nil.
Bring on the revolution, I might finally make a little money wheeler-dealing on the black market.
It is a multi-lateral obesession: self-styled (I almost wrote ‘self-appointed’) ‘working class’ folk claim to loathe the ‘middle-class’ and ‘upper class’, ‘middle-class’ folk really do look down on those they regard as being ‘working class’, and some snobbish ‘middle-class’ folk who, for various reasons, do not like to be lumped in with other ‘middle-class’, will often describe themselves as ‘upper-middle’ class. That, of course, tells you nothing except that those who describe themselves thus are simply crass snobs. Finally, we come to the ‘upper class’, which, as far as I am concerned, is even more amorphous than any of the other ‘class’ groupings. Who are they?
Just how bizarre this British obsession is occurred to me again today when I was doing my daily morning online trawl through the newspaper (or at least the Mail, the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Sun). For today’s Telegraph carries a piece by Labour leader Ed Miliband on how ‘Labour failed the middle classes’. The piece is notable for several reasons: until the rise of that out-and-out charlatan Tony Blair, who might in many ways been a sandwich short of a picnic but did have a canny streak (he was canny enough to get out while the going was good and is now a multi-millionaire), Labour, on a good day, despised the ‘middle classes’, or rather purported to do so. That all changed when Blair realised that the traditional constituency of ‘old Labour’ — solid, honest, unpretentious working folk engaged in heavy industry boilermaking and living a grimy, but cheerful existence in row upon row of terrace houses — had long disappeared into the realm of myth. In their place, and, ironically, courtesy of the reviled Margaret Thatcher, was a wealthier, ‘more aspirational’ noveau middle class whose support Labour would need if it wanted to regain power. This Blair did successfully by dropping Clause IV of the Labour Party constituency (which stipulated that ‘All enemies of the solid, honest, unpretentious working man and woman must, under standing order One, be lined up against any nearby wall when apprehended and shot without mercy’) and admitting to driving a Ford Mondeo, on the understanding that the Ford Mondeo is the middle-class car of choice. But Blair could not afford to alienate Labour’s core supporters in the process and had somehow to keep them sweet, too, and so to woo those, he sporadically dropped his aitches (‘Hs’) to demonstrate that although he was the barrister son of a barrister who had attended the ‘leading Scottish public school’ Fettes, he could still mix it with the plebs when political expediency demanded it.
Since Blair’s ‘landmark speech’ in 1993 to drop Clause IV, wooing ‘the middle ground’ is now an accepted and quite vital political principle, which both the Left and the Right in Britain ignore at their peril. And this is exactly what young Miliband is doing in his Telegraph piece.
(Note to non-British readers: Ed is the younger brother of David, a former foreign secretary, who also wanted to be Labour’s leader, but who was pipped at the post by young Ed. David was very pissed off, believing the leadership was his by right. He is currently rumoured to be agitating against younger brother Ed in the hope that when and if young Ed fucks up, he might graciously take over the reins).
That 'wooing the middle class should be so important merely underlines how obsessed Britain is with ‘class’. The Daily Mail (who are, to a man and woman, marvellous, marvellous people producing a marvellous, marvellous paper — I know which side my bread is buttered on) has made Britain’s ‘middle classes’ is own and delights in it. Earlier this year it almost parodied itself when it declared there was now definite proof that Jesus Christ was middle class.
The story (if you can't be arsed to follow the link and find out for yourself, is based on a claim that what had previously been translated from the Greek as 'carpenter' should actually be translated as 'architect'. It seems Joseph, Christ's father was, in fact, an architect and, as every Daily Mail reader knows, architect are by definition 'middle class'. Thus, runs the subtext of the Mail story, Christ was 'one of us'. To put the Mail's pretensions into perspective, Lord Salisbury, who was Prime Minister three times at the end of the 19th century, once noted that the Mail 'was written by office boys for office boys'. No great fan of the Mail, then.
Then, last week, a day after Prince William announced his engagement to Kate Middleton, the Mail's op-ed page rejoyced that finally — finally — a member of the middle class would be Queen and ‘save the monarchy’ (not that I knew it was in any imminent danger — no one tells me anything). In publishing these stories, the Mail is most definitely parodying itself, but, to be fair (as I say, I know which side my bread is buttered on) it is only providing its readers with what it feels its readers want. And if one thing is certain, Mail readers are desperate to be middle class and desperate to be reassured that the middle class are the salt of the earth. Desperate. It is one reason why they read the Mail.
All the other papers, of course, play exactly the same game: the Sun plays up its rough and ready credentials, because is calculates that is what will go down well with its readers; the Mirror still — still after all these years — bangs the working-class man drum; the Telegraph does the same as the Mail, with the added precaution that it pretends all its readers wear uniform (Telegraphy readers like to be seen as 'military men' or the wives of 'military men' or if not that, they like it to be acknowledged that, by Jove, they know one end of a rifle from the other). The Guardian portrays itself as being on the side of the angels because it knows its readers like to see themselves as intelligent, discerning people with a conscience who care ('Well, someone's got to'); the Independent attempts the same kind of thing but also plays, subtly, the middle class card, and The Times — well, as far I am concerned The Times gives the term ‘middle-brow’ and even worse name than it already has.
But I have gone off track: I was talking (ranting? rambling?) about the British obsession with class. I have a theory, admittedly not based on any research at all, that it all started with the Norman Conquest in 1006 when the indigenous Anglo-Saxons were treated as sub-human by the Norman invaders and a real hatred grew. And make not mistake, there is still something akin to that real hatred of ‘the other side’ abroad in this country today. There is, and always, will be a lot of loose talk about Britain these days being ‘classless’ Oh really?
There are in Britain something like five different middle classes, and none particularly likes the others. They will all get on famously in public, but in private when no one can hear them, all the old ‘class hatreds’ are resurrected. Some middle classes will not thank you for being identified with some of the other middle class. That is how the concept of ‘upper middle class evolved’: it is a haven for those who, in all honesty, could not describe themselves as ‘upper class’, but who still feel a tad superior and are damned if they are going to be lumped together with those they regard as in many ways below the salt.
So, for example, William Windsor’s bride-to-be Kate Middleton, the ‘middle class girl’ whose future as William’s queen so excites the Daily Mail, is the daughter of millionaire parents, who was educated Marlborough College in Wiltshire. She then went on to study history of art and speaking nicely at St Andrews University. In the jargon associated with Britain's obsession with class, she might well be entitled to describe herself as ‘upper middle-class’. Contrast her with other ‘middle class’ folk, who describe themselves thus because they earn comparatively well (in the lower bracket) and, crucially, want to describe themselves thus.
What is so odd about all of this is that it doesn’t necessarily have much to do with wealth and prosperity. It is almost like a caste system: it is how you behave and, in many ways, how you speak (although what with the spread of estuary English and the spread and adoption of many urban whites of immigrant speech patterns, that distinction is becoming increasingly blurred). Then there is the political dimension to ‘class’: some left-wingers — for example the comedian Mark Steele — insist on calling themselves ‘working class’ although they are now anything but. What to them is important is that they are making a political point (and bugger whether or not they are talking complete bollocks).
But the fact is that with the transformation of Britain’s economy in these past 40/50 years from a broadly productive industry into a broadly service industry, and the concomitant disappearance of almost all the country’s heavy industry, there is no longer a clear-cut ‘working class’ as there once was. But that has not spelled an end to this damn stupid obsession with class. And as it seems to have been going on since the Norman Conquest, I don’t think it will ever end.
. . .
Speaking of supermarkets, there is most certainly a class distinction apparent in who shops where. Furthermore, each of those chains (or rather the ad agencies they employ to attract the shopper) is well aware of those distinctions. So Asda staff all wear a rather garish green apron and adopt a very matey attitude to customers as well as play on their store being ‘cheaper’ and providing ‘value’. Nothing will frighten off a class-conscious would-be middle-class shopper than being thought interested in value, the clear implication being they haven’t got quite as much money as they like you to think. Kate Middleton wouldn't shop at Asda and probably not at Sainsbury's. She would most certainly consider Morrisons and Tesco, mainly because they are pretty neutral. Sainsbury, latterly, tries to push itself a little upmarket but tends to shoot itself in the foot. When a branch opened in Bodmin, I went along as was delighted to discover it was stocking quite a range of different pates. Several weeks later that range had been reduced to two. Why, I asked. Because there's not call for a wider range, I was told. Bodmin, is not 'middle class'.
Then there’s Waitrose: unashamedly middle-class to their cotton socks. If you are looking for bread flavoured with olives grown in a certain valley in Tuscany, Waitrose is your heaven. There’s a rather funny joke about the mission statement of Sainsbury’s: to keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose. Says it all, really.
. . .
Finally, there is surely some smartarse out there asking him or herself: exactly why is this chap pfpgowell so himself so preoccupied with 'Britain's obsession with class'? Could it be that he is, ironically, equally obsessed, which might explain this post?
Well, all I'll say to that is any more in that vein and I'll come around and break your windows, whether you live in the Ukraine, the U.S., Canada, Russia, South Korea or St Mabyn (which is just down the road. That's, possibly, an impeccable working class response, though the chances of a working class blogger using the word 'impeccable' are virtually nil.
Bring on the revolution, I might finally make a little money wheeler-dealing on the black market.
Thursday 25 November 2010
The magic of the market, or how you can pay whatever you like for the same radio (usually way over the odds). Oh, and bad losers, I loathe them
Now here’s a thing. If you have the good fortune to fly BA, you will, at some point, be informed that you can benefit from many inflight bargains, items which, according to the airline, are substantially cheaper if bought in the air than down below. One such item featured in the airline’s inflight magazine and also on its ‘BA Shop’ website is a rather neat and very useful portable wifi internet radio which also doubles as an FM receiver. It is small – only around 10cm by 7cm by 3cm – but the sound is exceptional for a radio that size. I know, because I own one. If you buy one
onboard your BA flight, you are promised a bargain: the radio (BA’s is pictured left) is being sold for just £85, which, BA assures us, is £44 off the ‘recommended retail price’ of £129. I seem to remember spotting one in the inflight magazine when I shot off to Freiburg for Paul Meyer’s birthday bash. Or perhaps I am just imagining it. But at some point in the past few weeks I came across the radio again and decided I wanted one (at which point I must be honest and admit to being something of a gadget queen, which is why my previous criticism of other gadget queens was a little disingenuous). I don’t actually need one, but that – as I’m sure you’ll all agree – is decidedly beside the point. So I googled it, and came across quite a few sites selling that same radio. I stress that in all instances the radios offered for sale were identical, and my pictures will show that what is offered for sale is always the same model. Nothing much in that, you’ll be saying, so what is the chap burbling on about now? Well, it’s this. On the ebuyer.com website, these radios are being sold as ‘Foehn & Hirsch’ wifi radios by – well, not Foehn & Hirsch because that seemingly solidly German firm doesn’t actually exist: Foehn & Hirsch is a tradename of ebuyer.com. Their reasoning in choosing the name was, no doubt, that the German’s produce quality goods (which, by and large, they do), so the punter is more likely to buy their gear if they believe it to have been put together by efficient German hands. Dixons did a similar thing when all things Japanese were in and began marketing its own-brand gear under the ‘Matsui’ name. On the ebuyer website,
you’ll get quite a bargain compared to BA’s bargain. It is selling its radio (left) at £30 off the rrp of £79.99 for just £44.99, which price is all the more remarkable because it has gone to the added expense of having its logo marked on the back of each radio. Quality or what? The identical model is also sold by a firm called Viewquest. and here it will set you back £79. Viewquest, which calls it’s model the WiFi 200 (why 200?) obviously does not feel obliged to pass on any saving to the punter. And on the Amazon site, you’ll find any number of people selling the very same model. Visit Amazon and you will see them for sale at £79, £89 and £99, prices all around BA’s bargain price of £85. That’s where I bought mine. If your are feeling very flush and think that ’bargain prices’ are just for the plebs — people like that do exist; they imagine that paying way over the odds for something marks them out as being rather superior — you could always visit the Langton Info Services, England website and pick up a 'View Quest Portable Internet Radio’ for a very reasonable £109.57, which really
does make BA’s offer look like a bargain. If you have decided that you, as one of life’s more superior types, most certainly do want to pay over the odds, but not that much over the odds, buy your 'ViewQuest Pocket Wifi Radio (pictured) for just £89.99 at Firebox.com website. You might on the other hand think £89.99 is still just a tad expensive, but that £44 is far too cheap, and that £79.99 is about right. In that case chunter over to HMV.com and grab your radio there. Then there is a company called Sovos UK which informs the visitor that 'The Sovos UK Wi-Fi Internet radio receives a
prestigious iF Product Design Award!' You can marvel it this superb design on the right, although quite why its 'prestigious' radio is identical to that sold by ViewQuest, Foehn & Hirsch and many others and quite why it's version was singled out for a design award isn't made clear on the website. And anyway, if you want to buy one of these 'prestigious' radios, SOVOS UK redirects you to BA's online shop (see above) although I first came across the company I was browsing eBay where you are able to byt the radio for £80, a little cheaper than the BA Shop version. You can rest assured that it will be the identical to all the others, whatever they are called.
When I first decided my life would be incomplete without one, I did a little hunting and came across the radio on the Amazon site for £58. Ah, I thought, my kind of price, and I bought it. I now wish I had done even more hunting. Then, having used it for several days, it occurred to me that my aunt Ann, who lives in France and listens to Radio 4 a lot, might also want one. She already has two Logik wifi radios (one of which doesn’t work) but the great thing about these is that they are truly portable. So I had a look on eBay and discovered that they are for sale there from various people at a Buy It Now price of around £69. But some people were selling them at auction, and I bought another – boxed and brand new (BNIB in eBay jargon) for £42. Admittedly, had there been more competition, the price might have crept higher, but there wasn’t and it didn’t.
The point is that all of the radios, whether from ebuyer.com, Viewquest, BA or the dodgy chap down the pub are identical. All are made in China and none has any distinguishing feature, which allows them to be sold by anyone who wants to do so, under any name they choose to sell them. And they are also free to charge whatever they want, whether at BA ‘£44-saving’ bargain price of £85 or the £58.98 I picked my first one up at. Isn’t the market marvellous? It might explain the agony the eurozone is now going through. It seems you can now buy Irish, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish and, most recently, Belgian govenment debts ('bonds') at rock bottom prices.
. . .
Heard in the news this morning that Belgian bonds are already being eyed up as a bit dodgy. The 'euro contagion' is spreading. Also on the news was an appalling report that the cholera epidemic in Haiti is also spreading. I wonder if they are somehow related?
. . .
One of the reasons why I bought a Samsung laptop running Windows (to but it into context, in addition to the two iBooks, one Powerbook and on works IBM Lenovo I had at the time. I have since sold one of the iBooks) was because since XP (I think, it might have been earlier) Microsoft has run an online gaming facility, including playing backgammon online around the world. And I do enjoy playing backgammon. The graphics in XP were pretty Mickey Mouse, but the Samsung came with Windows 7 is something else entirely, lovely graphics. But to get to the point: I loathe bad losers. All to often if, in a match of the best five games, an opponent knows he or she (but I’m guessing mainly he) is going to lose, he simply quits. I don’t do that. If I am going to lose, I lose. I’ll repeat: I loathe bad losers.
onboard your BA flight, you are promised a bargain: the radio (BA’s is pictured left) is being sold for just £85, which, BA assures us, is £44 off the ‘recommended retail price’ of £129. I seem to remember spotting one in the inflight magazine when I shot off to Freiburg for Paul Meyer’s birthday bash. Or perhaps I am just imagining it. But at some point in the past few weeks I came across the radio again and decided I wanted one (at which point I must be honest and admit to being something of a gadget queen, which is why my previous criticism of other gadget queens was a little disingenuous). I don’t actually need one, but that – as I’m sure you’ll all agree – is decidedly beside the point. So I googled it, and came across quite a few sites selling that same radio. I stress that in all instances the radios offered for sale were identical, and my pictures will show that what is offered for sale is always the same model. Nothing much in that, you’ll be saying, so what is the chap burbling on about now? Well, it’s this. On the ebuyer.com website, these radios are being sold as ‘Foehn & Hirsch’ wifi radios by – well, not Foehn & Hirsch because that seemingly solidly German firm doesn’t actually exist: Foehn & Hirsch is a tradename of ebuyer.com. Their reasoning in choosing the name was, no doubt, that the German’s produce quality goods (which, by and large, they do), so the punter is more likely to buy their gear if they believe it to have been put together by efficient German hands. Dixons did a similar thing when all things Japanese were in and began marketing its own-brand gear under the ‘Matsui’ name. On the ebuyer website, you’ll get quite a bargain compared to BA’s bargain. It is selling its radio (left) at £30 off the rrp of £79.99 for just £44.99, which price is all the more remarkable because it has gone to the added expense of having its logo marked on the back of each radio. Quality or what? The identical model is also sold by a firm called Viewquest. and here it will set you back £79. Viewquest, which calls it’s model the WiFi 200 (why 200?) obviously does not feel obliged to pass on any saving to the punter. And on the Amazon site, you’ll find any number of people selling the very same model. Visit Amazon and you will see them for sale at £79, £89 and £99, prices all around BA’s bargain price of £85. That’s where I bought mine. If your are feeling very flush and think that ’bargain prices’ are just for the plebs — people like that do exist; they imagine that paying way over the odds for something marks them out as being rather superior — you could always visit the Langton Info Services, England website and pick up a 'View Quest Portable Internet Radio’ for a very reasonable £109.57, which really does make BA’s offer look like a bargain. If you have decided that you, as one of life’s more superior types, most certainly do want to pay over the odds, but not that much over the odds, buy your 'ViewQuest Pocket Wifi Radio (pictured) for just £89.99 at Firebox.com website. You might on the other hand think £89.99 is still just a tad expensive, but that £44 is far too cheap, and that £79.99 is about right. In that case chunter over to HMV.com and grab your radio there. Then there is a company called Sovos UK which informs the visitor that 'The Sovos UK Wi-Fi Internet radio receives aprestigious iF Product Design Award!' You can marvel it this superb design on the right, although quite why its 'prestigious' radio is identical to that sold by ViewQuest, Foehn & Hirsch and many others and quite why it's version was singled out for a design award isn't made clear on the website. And anyway, if you want to buy one of these 'prestigious' radios, SOVOS UK redirects you to BA's online shop (see above) although I first came across the company I was browsing eBay where you are able to byt the radio for £80, a little cheaper than the BA Shop version. You can rest assured that it will be the identical to all the others, whatever they are called.
When I first decided my life would be incomplete without one, I did a little hunting and came across the radio on the Amazon site for £58. Ah, I thought, my kind of price, and I bought it. I now wish I had done even more hunting. Then, having used it for several days, it occurred to me that my aunt Ann, who lives in France and listens to Radio 4 a lot, might also want one. She already has two Logik wifi radios (one of which doesn’t work) but the great thing about these is that they are truly portable. So I had a look on eBay and discovered that they are for sale there from various people at a Buy It Now price of around £69. But some people were selling them at auction, and I bought another – boxed and brand new (BNIB in eBay jargon) for £42. Admittedly, had there been more competition, the price might have crept higher, but there wasn’t and it didn’t.
The point is that all of the radios, whether from ebuyer.com, Viewquest, BA or the dodgy chap down the pub are identical. All are made in China and none has any distinguishing feature, which allows them to be sold by anyone who wants to do so, under any name they choose to sell them. And they are also free to charge whatever they want, whether at BA ‘£44-saving’ bargain price of £85 or the £58.98 I picked my first one up at. Isn’t the market marvellous? It might explain the agony the eurozone is now going through. It seems you can now buy Irish, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish and, most recently, Belgian govenment debts ('bonds') at rock bottom prices.
. . .
Heard in the news this morning that Belgian bonds are already being eyed up as a bit dodgy. The 'euro contagion' is spreading. Also on the news was an appalling report that the cholera epidemic in Haiti is also spreading. I wonder if they are somehow related?
. . .
One of the reasons why I bought a Samsung laptop running Windows (to but it into context, in addition to the two iBooks, one Powerbook and on works IBM Lenovo I had at the time. I have since sold one of the iBooks) was because since XP (I think, it might have been earlier) Microsoft has run an online gaming facility, including playing backgammon online around the world. And I do enjoy playing backgammon. The graphics in XP were pretty Mickey Mouse, but the Samsung came with Windows 7 is something else entirely, lovely graphics. But to get to the point: I loathe bad losers. All to often if, in a match of the best five games, an opponent knows he or she (but I’m guessing mainly he) is going to lose, he simply quits. I don’t do that. If I am going to lose, I lose. I’ll repeat: I loathe bad losers.
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