Friday, 25 December 2009
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Depression has been in the News this Week: The invisible illness of War Survivors
Unfortunately depression has been with us for years and it is very much the quiet disaster waiting to happen. Although many would associate this illness with the pressures of the modern world covering marriage, career and financial failure the current publicity identifies plain old fashioned poverty. However, just having remembered the fallen from two World Wars I will just put a word in for the survivors of the many conflicts in the world that have been mentally scarred. In our parish Church there is a memorial plaque to the two men from the parish that died in the First War as well as a commemorative plaque listing the twenty two men who survived. How did those men cope with their memories and how many were left with the effects of Shell Shock such as depression? While the image of war veterans is that of the blinded or physically crippled those left with mental illness seem to have fallen from public view. It is a commonplace to hear people like myself talk of their veteran fathers as having said nothing of their experiences for the remaining years of their lives, except for the very occasional short reference. My father always referred to courgettes as Corselets, which many years after he had died I discovered was my Dad’s joke for a village on the Somme. He was one of the lucky ones to have coped whilet others were less lucky. When I was a bus-conductor one of my drivers, a tall man well over 6 feet would keep reaching up to imaginary controls above his head as though flying an aircraft. I never raised it with him but others told me that he had been severely tortured after being singled out because his height when a prisoner of the Japanese. Another hidden cost of War.
All of these horrible memories never become expectations by those who take us into wars and when there seems to be an unseemly rush to arms as now seems the case with the Iraq War, a selective memory makes it possible for politicians to sex up the documentation as well as indulge in a bit of ‘creative writing’ at the same time. Such was the rush nothing was planned for the reconstruction of a country which was about to suffer ‘Shock and Awe’. No doubt this would have been the tag line for Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the shallow thinking of the Bush regime had been available. Once the horrors of such events have been remembered together with the devastation of 9/11 then war against modern cities can be seen as genocidal madness. Multiply the Twin Tower images by a large number of city targets and you will soon get the picture. One can understand why those who prepare the next bombing campaign, or invasion or contemplate the use of nuclear weapons, prefer not to deal with consequences.
Prompted by the earlier post on Remembrance Joe, a correspondent with this site, has sent me a copy of a comment he left for Alistair Campbell after it became known the he was campaigning for more help for those suffering from depression. As I was reading it I could not help remembering that we are now approaching the first anniversary of the bombardment of Gaza and wondering what consequences in mental health terms we are yet to see there.
Dear Alastair,
I applaud your campaign to highlight mental illness and depression in society. As a child brought up by a depressed father I know first hand how mental illness devastates a family.
My father served in the Merchant Navy from 1939 to 1942 but was invalided out with “shell shock” when he was 21. Consequently he suffered from depression and insomnia all his life. As well as undergoing electric shock treatment he was prescribed barbiturates for 40 years to which he became addicted. When he died aged 61 in 1983 I found among his books one entitled Towards Diagnosis: A family Doctor’s Approach and I noted the well thumbed pages on the chapter entitled “Mental Disorders”. According to the book depression can be either endogenous or it can be psychoneurotic, ‘which follows from adverse circumstances’; my father’s psychoneurotic depression being the result of the horrors of the Atlantic and Pacific theatres of war.
In March 2003, exactly twenty years after my father’s death, B-52 bombers took off from Fairford in Gloucestershire to unleash “shock and awe” on Iraq, a policy defined by the Pentagon as “a simultaneous effect…to shatter Iraq, emotionally, physically and psychologically”. As the cruise missiles smashed into Iraq I remembered my father’s words: “Watch out when a generation who’ve never experienced war come to power”.
Given your obvious concern about depression, I wonder if you would be so kind as to read the following thoughts by mental health care professionals in Iraq today. Dr Majid al-Yassiri, at the Centre for Psychosocial Services in Iraq, writes: "Depression is at a higher rate than one would expect in a population this size - three times as high”, while Kholoud Nasser Muhssin, a researcher on family and children’s affairs at the University of Baghdad writes:“60-70 percent of Iraqi children are suffering from psychological problems and their future is not bright”; and Dr. Nadal al-Shamri, a paediatrician in Baghdad says: "I look into the eyes of children whose parents have been killed. The psychological trauma is so deeply ingrained that they may never lead a normal life."
Iraqi psychiatrists are seeing what they call a disturbing spike in mental health disorders, a problem compounded by Iraq's lack of mental health workers, facilities and services. Mental health care professionals suggest the number of untreated or under-treated people nationwide reaches into the millions and some like Bilal Youssif Hamid, a Baghdad-based child psychiatrist, write of an “"an immense and unnoticed psychological toll, with long-term consequences"; while Hadoon Waleed, a psychology professor at Baghdad University believes that since the war, “eventually, the entire population of Iraq will require some type of psychological healing”.
Milan Kundera wrote: “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”, and although you continue to enjoy a high profile and extraordinary career espousing high ideals about democracy and depression, there are many of us ordinary Britons who cannot forget the part you played in inflicting mental illness and psychoneurotic depression on a whole society.
All of these horrible memories never become expectations by those who take us into wars and when there seems to be an unseemly rush to arms as now seems the case with the Iraq War, a selective memory makes it possible for politicians to sex up the documentation as well as indulge in a bit of ‘creative writing’ at the same time. Such was the rush nothing was planned for the reconstruction of a country which was about to suffer ‘Shock and Awe’. No doubt this would have been the tag line for Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the shallow thinking of the Bush regime had been available. Once the horrors of such events have been remembered together with the devastation of 9/11 then war against modern cities can be seen as genocidal madness. Multiply the Twin Tower images by a large number of city targets and you will soon get the picture. One can understand why those who prepare the next bombing campaign, or invasion or contemplate the use of nuclear weapons, prefer not to deal with consequences.
Prompted by the earlier post on Remembrance Joe, a correspondent with this site, has sent me a copy of a comment he left for Alistair Campbell after it became known the he was campaigning for more help for those suffering from depression. As I was reading it I could not help remembering that we are now approaching the first anniversary of the bombardment of Gaza and wondering what consequences in mental health terms we are yet to see there.
Dear Alastair,
I applaud your campaign to highlight mental illness and depression in society. As a child brought up by a depressed father I know first hand how mental illness devastates a family.
My father served in the Merchant Navy from 1939 to 1942 but was invalided out with “shell shock” when he was 21. Consequently he suffered from depression and insomnia all his life. As well as undergoing electric shock treatment he was prescribed barbiturates for 40 years to which he became addicted. When he died aged 61 in 1983 I found among his books one entitled Towards Diagnosis: A family Doctor’s Approach and I noted the well thumbed pages on the chapter entitled “Mental Disorders”. According to the book depression can be either endogenous or it can be psychoneurotic, ‘which follows from adverse circumstances’; my father’s psychoneurotic depression being the result of the horrors of the Atlantic and Pacific theatres of war.
In March 2003, exactly twenty years after my father’s death, B-52 bombers took off from Fairford in Gloucestershire to unleash “shock and awe” on Iraq, a policy defined by the Pentagon as “a simultaneous effect…to shatter Iraq, emotionally, physically and psychologically”. As the cruise missiles smashed into Iraq I remembered my father’s words: “Watch out when a generation who’ve never experienced war come to power”.
Given your obvious concern about depression, I wonder if you would be so kind as to read the following thoughts by mental health care professionals in Iraq today. Dr Majid al-Yassiri, at the Centre for Psychosocial Services in Iraq, writes: "Depression is at a higher rate than one would expect in a population this size - three times as high”, while Kholoud Nasser Muhssin, a researcher on family and children’s affairs at the University of Baghdad writes:“60-70 percent of Iraqi children are suffering from psychological problems and their future is not bright”; and Dr. Nadal al-Shamri, a paediatrician in Baghdad says: "I look into the eyes of children whose parents have been killed. The psychological trauma is so deeply ingrained that they may never lead a normal life."
Iraqi psychiatrists are seeing what they call a disturbing spike in mental health disorders, a problem compounded by Iraq's lack of mental health workers, facilities and services. Mental health care professionals suggest the number of untreated or under-treated people nationwide reaches into the millions and some like Bilal Youssif Hamid, a Baghdad-based child psychiatrist, write of an “"an immense and unnoticed psychological toll, with long-term consequences"; while Hadoon Waleed, a psychology professor at Baghdad University believes that since the war, “eventually, the entire population of Iraq will require some type of psychological healing”.
Milan Kundera wrote: “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”, and although you continue to enjoy a high profile and extraordinary career espousing high ideals about democracy and depression, there are many of us ordinary Britons who cannot forget the part you played in inflicting mental illness and psychoneurotic depression on a whole society.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Prejudice derived from Labels
Prejudice to my mind arises out of the persistent habit of people, even so called well educated and enlightened people, attaching labels to others they may not have even met. A modern tendency seems to be that only one side of the label will be read, if at all, and even that may be confined to the large print. Even where an individual attempts to give an indication of what sort of person they are by using recognisable terms, the utterance is quickly reduced to a text which neatly fits onto a small label. Any other subtleties or major distinctions let alone a civilised discussion as to what the individual might actually believe are cast aside. For example, should a person describe themselves as a Christian Anarchist, for the majority of people this will probably be seen as a joke.Declaring oneself a pre-Marxist English Socialist, or a Leveller, or come to that matter, a Marxist would induce puzzlement rather than mirth. To begin to understand any of this self styling the recipient will have to ask a series of questions and do a bit or reading. Much easier therefore to reach a conclusion along the lines that the person is either a nutter or a Commi and to move on to the next person in the canapé line. Much easier than putting your prejudices to one side to find out what it’s all about. Better to judge them and establish another new prejudice of your own.
Over the years I have had so many labels stuck on me it’s a wonder I can still get into off the peg clothes. I have in my time been called many things, my favourite being a ‘faceless anarchist’ which appeared in an edition of the old Daily Herald circa 1963. Whilst this no doubt appealed to a sub-editor the fact that it had more to do with abuse rather than any facts, and showed that it had great potential as a label which to most people would be very sinister. I wonder if the editor had bothered to read anything on the subject and new anything about the different schools. If he had done some reading he would have seen that there are probably as many schools as there were anarchists.
Some labels can be a good starting point for a discussion or a title for an essay about an individual, but they are nothing more. I confess that mislabelling often occurs from a failure to fully explain oneself, but more commonly from a misplaced belief that the listener will want further and better particulars. This ignores the natural laziness of people, ‘No thanks, I only need the label with the brand name, the fact that it is produced by slave labour is too complicated a burden to take on’. And so it is that all Christians, Moslems and Jews will be afflicted by the ignorance of those who should no know better and be lumped in with the worst and most easily targeted adherents of a particular faith. The will go for anarchism, communism, liberalism and socialism and conservatism. Try to combine ideas from both the religious and the political worlds and for some you might as well be trying to convince Dawkins that there is such a thing as a Religious Scientist!
The danger is of course that many people will jump to a whole bundle of conclusions which doesn’t matter if the person doing it is the average ‘Saloon bar Johnnie’. (I always rather like that label).Unfortunately he could also be the local Special Branch Officer or one of his ‘Blairite’ reincarnations who acts on the label and the erroneous conclusions thus drawn. Until recently this was not a major threat but with the increasing powers and power of the police jumping to conclusions can have serious consequences for the person so labelled. Being shot on a tube train for example.
Consider this true story. A friend of mine had always been interested in amateur radio and pop music and with the advent of the Pirate Radio stations he got to wondering what would be involved. He had a brief chat with a work mate as to what would have to be done. Firstly a boat would be needed to get beyond the three mile limit, a generator source would be needed for the valve based generator and a rather large aerial would also be needed. He also mused that such a station would be very useful to his mates who were all ‘Ban the Bombers’. A few weeks later he was called in to the local police station to be asked questions about a stolen police radio transmitter. Needless to say my friend had stopped his musings as soon as he thought about bobbing up and down in a small boat in the English Channel but enough had been said to ‘bring him to notice’ as the police euphemism goes. In some totalitarian systems today he would have executed by firing squad the next day without all the fuss of an interview.
It could of course not happen here? Of course it could because of peoples preparedness to add labels of convenience when their political ambitions so require it. That is why when someone starts to draw all kinds of conclusions from one piece of information about me, without even knowing me beyond the glancing canapé factor; I feel that I have learnt more about the labeller already, than he will ever be prepared to learn about me.
Over the years I have had so many labels stuck on me it’s a wonder I can still get into off the peg clothes. I have in my time been called many things, my favourite being a ‘faceless anarchist’ which appeared in an edition of the old Daily Herald circa 1963. Whilst this no doubt appealed to a sub-editor the fact that it had more to do with abuse rather than any facts, and showed that it had great potential as a label which to most people would be very sinister. I wonder if the editor had bothered to read anything on the subject and new anything about the different schools. If he had done some reading he would have seen that there are probably as many schools as there were anarchists.
Some labels can be a good starting point for a discussion or a title for an essay about an individual, but they are nothing more. I confess that mislabelling often occurs from a failure to fully explain oneself, but more commonly from a misplaced belief that the listener will want further and better particulars. This ignores the natural laziness of people, ‘No thanks, I only need the label with the brand name, the fact that it is produced by slave labour is too complicated a burden to take on’. And so it is that all Christians, Moslems and Jews will be afflicted by the ignorance of those who should no know better and be lumped in with the worst and most easily targeted adherents of a particular faith. The will go for anarchism, communism, liberalism and socialism and conservatism. Try to combine ideas from both the religious and the political worlds and for some you might as well be trying to convince Dawkins that there is such a thing as a Religious Scientist!
The danger is of course that many people will jump to a whole bundle of conclusions which doesn’t matter if the person doing it is the average ‘Saloon bar Johnnie’. (I always rather like that label).Unfortunately he could also be the local Special Branch Officer or one of his ‘Blairite’ reincarnations who acts on the label and the erroneous conclusions thus drawn. Until recently this was not a major threat but with the increasing powers and power of the police jumping to conclusions can have serious consequences for the person so labelled. Being shot on a tube train for example.
Consider this true story. A friend of mine had always been interested in amateur radio and pop music and with the advent of the Pirate Radio stations he got to wondering what would be involved. He had a brief chat with a work mate as to what would have to be done. Firstly a boat would be needed to get beyond the three mile limit, a generator source would be needed for the valve based generator and a rather large aerial would also be needed. He also mused that such a station would be very useful to his mates who were all ‘Ban the Bombers’. A few weeks later he was called in to the local police station to be asked questions about a stolen police radio transmitter. Needless to say my friend had stopped his musings as soon as he thought about bobbing up and down in a small boat in the English Channel but enough had been said to ‘bring him to notice’ as the police euphemism goes. In some totalitarian systems today he would have executed by firing squad the next day without all the fuss of an interview.
It could of course not happen here? Of course it could because of peoples preparedness to add labels of convenience when their political ambitions so require it. That is why when someone starts to draw all kinds of conclusions from one piece of information about me, without even knowing me beyond the glancing canapé factor; I feel that I have learnt more about the labeller already, than he will ever be prepared to learn about me.
Monday, 30 November 2009
A Folk Music Workshop in the Hills
The following report has been received by our special reporter, John Barleycorn, who investigated a new community event in the hills above the Golden Valley. The organisers have asked us to thank all those who supported the Folk Music Workshop held on Wednesday 24th November at Newton Church Room. A provisional date for the next Workshop has been provisionally set for Wednesday 28th January at 7.30 p.m. This is much later than hoped but the previous two Wednesdays clash with other events which could reduce the number of people able to attend.
Having checked my destination on the Ordinance Survey sheet I set out into the night and eventually climbed 800 feet to enter the network of lanes which led me to the venue. GPS, mobile phones and even the traditional phone box cannot be relied on should the darkness and the matrix of lanes defeat you.
Having found the venue I was soon being made welcome in a warm cosy church room which was refurbished about 8 years ago. There were about 17 people present who had appeared out of the night from the two adjoining parishes of Newton and St. Margaret’s and others who had travelled from Rowleston and even Llanfihangel Crocorney across the border in Wales. Villages here do not have centres with village greens but have populations dispersed along the many lanes and at the end of tracks leading from what seem like field gates. The community therefore proves its existence at gatherings such as these, church services and funerals, and at the many events held at the larger Escleyside Community Centre. Some people make the mistake when visiting the area of thinking that they would not like to live in what seems to them to be an isolated place but it would seem you are isolated as much as you wish, unlike the forgotten flat in a city block where no one knows each other, and what’s more, don’t seem to care about it either.
I had no idea what to expect from a Folk Music Workshop. From the information which had reached me it seemed that turning up and being prepared to listen or join in with the occasional chorus would be sufficient, but things soon gained momentum after a warm up song, Drill Ye Tarriers Drill. We were invited to make suggestions as to what might be attempted and a suit case of song books was soon being explored by many of us. Decisions were also made as to whether an accompaniment could be provided either by the banjo or the guitar which had been brought along. A modern keyboard was usful for establishing a preferred pitch but otherwise many of the songs were unaccompanied. Although many said they came as listeners, judging from the pleasant group sound which emerged the majority seem to have been prepared to have a go.
The main objective, getting people singing, was soon achieved. This would not be a place for those who want well rehearsed pieces and brilliant musicianship. The ethos is one of encouragement and tolerance so that the songs really did come from the folk present. Sea shanties were a good mainstay with their strong rhythms and robust choruses. So too were the old community songs such as Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, the final song of the evening. Along the way we had old favourites like the Leaving of Liverpool, When the Boat Comes In (sung by a genuine Geordie visiting the area) and the undoubted hit of the evening, Down on Misery Farm, sung by genuine farmers, one playing an accompaniment on an accordion, recently released from a loft where it had lain for many years.
By popular acclaim it was agreed to try and make the workshop a monthly affair once Christmas was over. With five apologies received it would seem that an attendance in the twenties is perfectly possible. As I drove off into the night well refreshed by the experience and the combination of a hot drink and a small army of snacks and cakes I was reminded that things only happen when people turn up and have a go. Quite a simple idea really.
Having checked my destination on the Ordinance Survey sheet I set out into the night and eventually climbed 800 feet to enter the network of lanes which led me to the venue. GPS, mobile phones and even the traditional phone box cannot be relied on should the darkness and the matrix of lanes defeat you.
Having found the venue I was soon being made welcome in a warm cosy church room which was refurbished about 8 years ago. There were about 17 people present who had appeared out of the night from the two adjoining parishes of Newton and St. Margaret’s and others who had travelled from Rowleston and even Llanfihangel Crocorney across the border in Wales. Villages here do not have centres with village greens but have populations dispersed along the many lanes and at the end of tracks leading from what seem like field gates. The community therefore proves its existence at gatherings such as these, church services and funerals, and at the many events held at the larger Escleyside Community Centre. Some people make the mistake when visiting the area of thinking that they would not like to live in what seems to them to be an isolated place but it would seem you are isolated as much as you wish, unlike the forgotten flat in a city block where no one knows each other, and what’s more, don’t seem to care about it either.
I had no idea what to expect from a Folk Music Workshop. From the information which had reached me it seemed that turning up and being prepared to listen or join in with the occasional chorus would be sufficient, but things soon gained momentum after a warm up song, Drill Ye Tarriers Drill. We were invited to make suggestions as to what might be attempted and a suit case of song books was soon being explored by many of us. Decisions were also made as to whether an accompaniment could be provided either by the banjo or the guitar which had been brought along. A modern keyboard was usful for establishing a preferred pitch but otherwise many of the songs were unaccompanied. Although many said they came as listeners, judging from the pleasant group sound which emerged the majority seem to have been prepared to have a go.
The main objective, getting people singing, was soon achieved. This would not be a place for those who want well rehearsed pieces and brilliant musicianship. The ethos is one of encouragement and tolerance so that the songs really did come from the folk present. Sea shanties were a good mainstay with their strong rhythms and robust choruses. So too were the old community songs such as Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, the final song of the evening. Along the way we had old favourites like the Leaving of Liverpool, When the Boat Comes In (sung by a genuine Geordie visiting the area) and the undoubted hit of the evening, Down on Misery Farm, sung by genuine farmers, one playing an accompaniment on an accordion, recently released from a loft where it had lain for many years.
By popular acclaim it was agreed to try and make the workshop a monthly affair once Christmas was over. With five apologies received it would seem that an attendance in the twenties is perfectly possible. As I drove off into the night well refreshed by the experience and the combination of a hot drink and a small army of snacks and cakes I was reminded that things only happen when people turn up and have a go. Quite a simple idea really.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
The Destroyers in Concert :Birmingham Town Hall, 11 Oct 2009
There I was again, dancing like a mad woman at the front of the crowd to The Destroyers and as usual being moved by the creativity and talent of this 15 member ‘boy’ band! The Destroyers play Baltic gypsy music that just makes your feet want to dance, with tales spun by the great Paul Murphy. All I could think of was "Here we go!"The order of songs that evening is a bit of a blur, mainly because of all the frenetic dancing that me and my friends did for the evening at the front of the crowd. All the songs were familiar to me and drawn from their newly released first album called Out of Babel.
One of my favourites, Out of Babel, is really, for me, a great ode to Birmingham and the diverse cultures that contribute to its makeup. Its a crowd rousing song which ends in the chorus "Here we go" My favourite verse draws from the Biblical tale of the tower of Babel where the people of Birmingham, coming from both the East and West, all talking different tongues, must now learn how to sing as one. Its a celebration of the cultural diversity we have in the city and how we should celebrate what we have. And as relevant to Birmingham this song is, it could be an anthem for the UK as a nation.
Keeping with the times there is another track called "where has all the money gone", about the financial crisis we are in. There is quite a lot of jazz influences in this song which does not make it not one of my favourites, but it is yet another one to get the crowd singing along. There should be more of these songs in all idioms, especially folk: Please let us know if you have come across any and leave the details as a comment with a cross reference to it.
The Destroyers love to experiment and I have seen many of their shows where they allow individuals in the band to show off their talents and creativity such as the Halloween special a few years ago at the Glee Club, where they provided soundtrack to some famous black and white horror movies, a collaboration with the Dhol Blasters, and more recently, a sound track to the Flatpack show, Curzonara, at the Town Hall. I am notoriously known by my friends at Birmingham Friends of the Earth for stalking out the Destroyers at Glastonbury and usually have about 3 to 4 shows at this one festival. You will see from the review of their performance at the Sheep Music Festival back in the Summer that I have even infected by parents with the Destroyers bug.
This night they didn't disappoint either, where Copanistas starts with a slow solo on the Armenian duduk, I think from memory. I have visited the Armenian museum in Jerusalem and my family was very moved by the music played at this understated small museum in the shrinking Armenian quarter. There is something very haunting about Armenian m
usic and this song took me back to the beautiful sun-drenched courtyard in the middle of Jerusalem and memories of the tragic history of the Armenians'. This track moves forward with a solo on the oud and builds to a crescendo which then brings the whole of the band into the track before returning to the fast and frenetic music that the destroyers are so good at. As with all of the Destroyers tracks, even when they start slow, they build up speed and tempo towards the endthrough the track, and this is no exception.And then there are other very fun tracks, like The Glass Coffin Burial of Professor Zurinak which is a creepy tale of Professor Zurinak who is buried alive in his coffin and builds to the chorus cry of "Let me out". Yet another crowd rousing song and lots of manic dancing. The Destroyers have produced a great video to go with this. Then there was another favourite, the tale of Methuslelah Mouse, who will live for ever but sadly comes to an abrupt end. Then there are moving songs like Questa Canzone, beautifully sung in Spanish or it could be Italian (oops I didn't know I was so bad at identifying my languages!) about how music transcends borders and brings people together, another one of my favourite songs, and ideas.
The evening was ended by bringing out their support band the Old School Band and doing a frantic Irish jig, which I was told by someone at the back of the Town Hall brought the whole crowd to a bouncing reverie. Thank you Destroyers, till the next time!
Mary Horesh
(Photos courtesy of Ben Mabbett- cheers!)
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Don’t let them Rob us of our Election Night Results
Although the thought of an election is somewhat daunting and depressing I can’t help looking forward to them. For as long as I remember election results have been more a feature of election night rather than the following day. It was the ‘night’ which really made my day. At first this was on the wireless, yes it is still wire less, and I used to ask my parents who the various people were and why they were always having ‘Parties’. My parents were from a mixture of tradesman, military and professional stock and so I was always curious to know whether the latest result would help the Conservatives or not. I think the first election I remember must have been the one which resulted in the defeat of the Atlee Government and the return of Churchill in 1951. Ever since I have always taken an interest and with the coming of television coverage I have managed to stay up for much of the night to see how the villains and the saints would get on. The election of 1964 and the end of Sir Alex Douglas Home’s ambitions is probably the most memorable especially as I saw on my bed-sit TV that my then MP, Home Secretary Henry (babbling) Brooke, had lost his Hampstead seat. A close second must go to the defeat of Michael Portillo with what must go down as the one which drew the loudest response. I think most of the street where we were living at the time could not have missed the wave of cheers which rippled along the terrace at about 3 am.
Whether it has all been worth it is a recurring question but it has certainly been fun. I think I have managed to catch most of them down the years and a young teenage daughter eventually joined me in this late night lunacy. Imagine the disappointment then when I heard that more local authorities are planning to postpone their counts until the following day. Talk about hiding the democratic process. While trendy suited types try to convince us we should be able to vote in supermarkets and probably soon by hitting the red button, turn outs falls and fewer and fewer people vote. Consequently more and more people fail to recognise the dangers of going into to their own little private worlds as though this makes them comfortable and safe. It does neither; it simply makes them more and more ignorant of what is going wrong with the system. The tragedy of this retreat is that they have no idea what the growing British Mediocracy and Bureaucracy, which is stunting the growth of British Democracy, will lead to.
Is the hiding of the electoral process in the daylight hours when so many voters are at work, give or take 3 million unemployed, part of a cancerous plot? I suspect not, but I do think that it is part of this nations unwitting progress into undemocratic ways, which, if we are honest, have hardly advanced much since universal suffrage began to emerge after the Reform Act of 1832. The Duke of Wellington is reputed to have said after the passing of the Act that, ‘ the mob will now rule’. Unfortunately that mob, the ordinary working and trades people of the country, do not seem to have had much of a look in as the aristocratic embrace of the British Constitution has worked its magic and produced all kinds of leaders which eventually revert to the status quo of middle or upper middle England. We may well be about to see an election which will give rise to a government, which like that of Sir Alec’s or Harold Macmillan’s, owes more to the playing fields of Eton, rather than to those of the grammar school, let alone the New Universities, comprehensive and secondary moderns: yes they still exist as well.
. The minor public schools, Winchester etc, (Fetters?), have always been well represented in Parliament, and this will no doubt continue, although many Oxbridge students now see their destinies elsewhere. How can the less fortunate people get into Parliament, let alone feel they are represented by people they have something in common with? There are those who will say that this might not lead to better government, but judging from the social background of the many Parliaments I have seen come and go, I remain to be convinced that it has yet been properly tried. Robbing the ‘ordinary people’ of the traditional circus of Election Night will not help, and will probably do great harm, to any attempts to re-engage people in the political process. The move away from the depressing low turnouts that our ‘democratic processes’ seem to bring about will not happen. Perhaps compulsory voting will be the next bright idea to finally turn the electorate into the unthinking, obedient servants of the failed Jerusalem that Britain will have become.
Dacier
Whether it has all been worth it is a recurring question but it has certainly been fun. I think I have managed to catch most of them down the years and a young teenage daughter eventually joined me in this late night lunacy. Imagine the disappointment then when I heard that more local authorities are planning to postpone their counts until the following day. Talk about hiding the democratic process. While trendy suited types try to convince us we should be able to vote in supermarkets and probably soon by hitting the red button, turn outs falls and fewer and fewer people vote. Consequently more and more people fail to recognise the dangers of going into to their own little private worlds as though this makes them comfortable and safe. It does neither; it simply makes them more and more ignorant of what is going wrong with the system. The tragedy of this retreat is that they have no idea what the growing British Mediocracy and Bureaucracy, which is stunting the growth of British Democracy, will lead to.
Is the hiding of the electoral process in the daylight hours when so many voters are at work, give or take 3 million unemployed, part of a cancerous plot? I suspect not, but I do think that it is part of this nations unwitting progress into undemocratic ways, which, if we are honest, have hardly advanced much since universal suffrage began to emerge after the Reform Act of 1832. The Duke of Wellington is reputed to have said after the passing of the Act that, ‘ the mob will now rule’. Unfortunately that mob, the ordinary working and trades people of the country, do not seem to have had much of a look in as the aristocratic embrace of the British Constitution has worked its magic and produced all kinds of leaders which eventually revert to the status quo of middle or upper middle England. We may well be about to see an election which will give rise to a government, which like that of Sir Alec’s or Harold Macmillan’s, owes more to the playing fields of Eton, rather than to those of the grammar school, let alone the New Universities, comprehensive and secondary moderns: yes they still exist as well.
. The minor public schools, Winchester etc, (Fetters?), have always been well represented in Parliament, and this will no doubt continue, although many Oxbridge students now see their destinies elsewhere. How can the less fortunate people get into Parliament, let alone feel they are represented by people they have something in common with? There are those who will say that this might not lead to better government, but judging from the social background of the many Parliaments I have seen come and go, I remain to be convinced that it has yet been properly tried. Robbing the ‘ordinary people’ of the traditional circus of Election Night will not help, and will probably do great harm, to any attempts to re-engage people in the political process. The move away from the depressing low turnouts that our ‘democratic processes’ seem to bring about will not happen. Perhaps compulsory voting will be the next bright idea to finally turn the electorate into the unthinking, obedient servants of the failed Jerusalem that Britain will have become.
Dacier
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Why Quality Meat Producers Should Not Feel Threatened by Meat Free Mondays
Eating The Planet?, is a report produced by a collaboration between Compassion In World Farming, and Friends Of The Earth, and puts forward the view that vegetarianism is not essential for feeding the rapidly expanding world population. By ditching intensive forms of industrial farming there would seem to be a good chance of producing enough food for everyone without destroying the planet. The snag for carnivores is that they should eat less meat. For a refreshing analysis of the issues see respected food writer Joanna Blythman who tells it like it is when it comes to meat and the planet Less meat, more veg
You may have already read the article by Mary Horesh on Meat Free Mondays and the other items on this site on that subject. This is now a growing debate and there is much more to be said and there are some who would prefer to blur the arguments due to vested interests. Some will say that this is all a vegan or vegetarian plot to stop us eating meat, while others will question why they should see their diet as part of the environmental debate. There is a long way to go before these opposing camps are put into the side aisles while the majority of us get some facts and figures. Some of those figures do not make pleasant reading and the statistics for beef production are no exception.
The three issues which make beef an environmental problem are water consumption, the sourcing of animal feed and methane. This means that the piece of beef on your plate is there because of combinations of several inputs which raise questions of sustainability. My personal view is that these issues are worth confronting because I not only want to maintain my dietary choices to include beef but I want to see those who produce this product locally to do so by sustainable methods while keeping our farming economy. Although many will argue that the land taken up for producing beef should be used for producing food for a vegetarian diet, there is considerable doubt as to whether the local climate would allow this.
Herefordshire Beef is a product which should be up there in the marketing bright lights as a sustainable quality product with excellent feed stuff sourcing and high welfare standards. Provenance is therefore all important as is educating the consumer in such matters. If price is the only criteria that the shopper applies then a niche product will never compete against the cheap, poor quality meat products on the market. Consumers have to be confronted with the true environmental and welfare costs such products involve. Alongside this the consumer has to be made aware that we eat too much animal protein in this country and by cutting back on meat generally, better quality meat could be bought for the days when meat is on the menu. A prestige and preferably regional market should be developed in which quality producers make sure it is their product that is purchased for the Sunday roast.
You may have already read the article by Mary Horesh on Meat Free Mondays and the other items on this site on that subject. This is now a growing debate and there is much more to be said and there are some who would prefer to blur the arguments due to vested interests. Some will say that this is all a vegan or vegetarian plot to stop us eating meat, while others will question why they should see their diet as part of the environmental debate. There is a long way to go before these opposing camps are put into the side aisles while the majority of us get some facts and figures. Some of those figures do not make pleasant reading and the statistics for beef production are no exception.
The three issues which make beef an environmental problem are water consumption, the sourcing of animal feed and methane. This means that the piece of beef on your plate is there because of combinations of several inputs which raise questions of sustainability. My personal view is that these issues are worth confronting because I not only want to maintain my dietary choices to include beef but I want to see those who produce this product locally to do so by sustainable methods while keeping our farming economy. Although many will argue that the land taken up for producing beef should be used for producing food for a vegetarian diet, there is considerable doubt as to whether the local climate would allow this.
Herefordshire Beef is a product which should be up there in the marketing bright lights as a sustainable quality product with excellent feed stuff sourcing and high welfare standards. Provenance is therefore all important as is educating the consumer in such matters. If price is the only criteria that the shopper applies then a niche product will never compete against the cheap, poor quality meat products on the market. Consumers have to be confronted with the true environmental and welfare costs such products involve. Alongside this the consumer has to be made aware that we eat too much animal protein in this country and by cutting back on meat generally, better quality meat could be bought for the days when meat is on the menu. A prestige and preferably regional market should be developed in which quality producers make sure it is their product that is purchased for the Sunday roast.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Cometh the Hour: Goeth the Man: as the Wootton Basset Cortège Lengthens time is running out for Gordon Brown
I apologise for this somewhat gloomy article but as I sit here on this hillside with the mist still clinging to the fields this is the political landscape I see. These things will pass and some sunlit uplands will eventually appear. When that will happen and how it will be achieved is not for my failed generation to determine. Any ideas, especially from those involved in the political process, would be welcome.
As I predicted in a post some months ago (Sunday, 19 July 2009 Gordon, do you Remember Vietnam?) , as the number of deaths in Afghanistan mounted so too would the pressure on Gordon Brown. With the latest loss of life and further concerns about inadequate supplies of equipment we are assured by the Prime Minister that he has done his best. Unfortunately at some time or another we all have to recognise that our best is not good enough and I am afraid that, judging from his demeanour, he is beginning to realise this. His administration seems to be sleepwalking into an election without any real clue as to what it is doing and with no hope of winning. Is this a parallel with Afghanistan? Whilst we probably have some sympathy for a man that has been severely damaged by the failures of Blairite New Labour I can still find it in my heart to have some sympathy for the poor devils who will inherit the Brown portfolio of muddle and indecision. Will they do any better? I have my doubts.
It should not be forgotten that the funding and procurement strategies which have lead to the present peacetime budget for a war all started when Gordon was running a tight ship at the Treasury which was cutting back on defence budgets. The procurement of unsuitable equipment has been known of since the Iraq War and now the consequences showing in another. It is therefore no surprise that support for the Afghan War is fast evaporating and that the Sun newspaper is now starting to turn the electioneering screw.
As the public contrast all this with the support which has been given to the bonus junkies, previously known as bankers, with the increased taxation for the rest of us, they will see that the New Labour train, now in its Brown livery, is fast heading for the buffers. It is remarkable that within this decline time is still being found to emasculate Parliament and bring in changes without debate. MPs still allow a hyper-active Executive to undermine an increasing number of our civil liberties in the retreat from Democracy to Bureaucracy. Sleep walking into disaster seems to be catching with so many MPs no longer conscious of the fact that they are supposed to scrutinise legislation. So much so that their nods have now rubber stamped a vast volume of guillotined measures at the behest of the Home Office and the Association Chief Police Officers.
With a hopeless Government comes a hopeless electorate in the sense that they will have lost both the will to vote and any belief that our democratic system can be taken seriously. Our present Secretary of State for Defence for example is now putting forward the nonsense of a policy which will no longer defend vast tracks of Afghanistan but will concentrate resources to defend populated areas. This is not defence, but a managed retreat, and presumably proceeds on the assumption that the nice Taliban will not congregate in large numbers in the vacuums thus created, before encircling prior to delivering the fatal blow. It should be noted that the Taliban’s choice of transport, the small motorcycle, is already an improvement on the push bike of the Vietcong.
If our political leaders cannot properly support our armed forces, then why should the British public support the war? We have now come to the point where leading military men are doing the work of government in telling us that the war is necessary to prevent terrorism in the UK. This is not their job. Our so called elected leaders should be doing this but it would seem that even this is now beyond their limited talents.
Unfortunately we now have to watch the dying stages of this Rump Parliament and this incompetent Government with all its dreaded consequences. Our political classes have failed and there is little chance that we will get anything more than a bunch of apparatchiks to replace them who have got to Parliament by the modern route of party worker or research unit placeman. No wonder the details of the election debate cannot yet be faced by any of our political parties. They all know that whatever the outcome the result will be unpleasant. In the meantime I fear that Al Qaeda will have moved to Somalia and that British Democracy will still be waiting for a bed in Intensive Care.
As I predicted in a post some months ago (Sunday, 19 July 2009 Gordon, do you Remember Vietnam?) , as the number of deaths in Afghanistan mounted so too would the pressure on Gordon Brown. With the latest loss of life and further concerns about inadequate supplies of equipment we are assured by the Prime Minister that he has done his best. Unfortunately at some time or another we all have to recognise that our best is not good enough and I am afraid that, judging from his demeanour, he is beginning to realise this. His administration seems to be sleepwalking into an election without any real clue as to what it is doing and with no hope of winning. Is this a parallel with Afghanistan? Whilst we probably have some sympathy for a man that has been severely damaged by the failures of Blairite New Labour I can still find it in my heart to have some sympathy for the poor devils who will inherit the Brown portfolio of muddle and indecision. Will they do any better? I have my doubts.
It should not be forgotten that the funding and procurement strategies which have lead to the present peacetime budget for a war all started when Gordon was running a tight ship at the Treasury which was cutting back on defence budgets. The procurement of unsuitable equipment has been known of since the Iraq War and now the consequences showing in another. It is therefore no surprise that support for the Afghan War is fast evaporating and that the Sun newspaper is now starting to turn the electioneering screw.
As the public contrast all this with the support which has been given to the bonus junkies, previously known as bankers, with the increased taxation for the rest of us, they will see that the New Labour train, now in its Brown livery, is fast heading for the buffers. It is remarkable that within this decline time is still being found to emasculate Parliament and bring in changes without debate. MPs still allow a hyper-active Executive to undermine an increasing number of our civil liberties in the retreat from Democracy to Bureaucracy. Sleep walking into disaster seems to be catching with so many MPs no longer conscious of the fact that they are supposed to scrutinise legislation. So much so that their nods have now rubber stamped a vast volume of guillotined measures at the behest of the Home Office and the Association Chief Police Officers.
With a hopeless Government comes a hopeless electorate in the sense that they will have lost both the will to vote and any belief that our democratic system can be taken seriously. Our present Secretary of State for Defence for example is now putting forward the nonsense of a policy which will no longer defend vast tracks of Afghanistan but will concentrate resources to defend populated areas. This is not defence, but a managed retreat, and presumably proceeds on the assumption that the nice Taliban will not congregate in large numbers in the vacuums thus created, before encircling prior to delivering the fatal blow. It should be noted that the Taliban’s choice of transport, the small motorcycle, is already an improvement on the push bike of the Vietcong.
If our political leaders cannot properly support our armed forces, then why should the British public support the war? We have now come to the point where leading military men are doing the work of government in telling us that the war is necessary to prevent terrorism in the UK. This is not their job. Our so called elected leaders should be doing this but it would seem that even this is now beyond their limited talents.
Unfortunately we now have to watch the dying stages of this Rump Parliament and this incompetent Government with all its dreaded consequences. Our political classes have failed and there is little chance that we will get anything more than a bunch of apparatchiks to replace them who have got to Parliament by the modern route of party worker or research unit placeman. No wonder the details of the election debate cannot yet be faced by any of our political parties. They all know that whatever the outcome the result will be unpleasant. In the meantime I fear that Al Qaeda will have moved to Somalia and that British Democracy will still be waiting for a bed in Intensive Care.
In Defence of Remembrance Day
I am of an age that means my dad served in the First World War. My grandfather served with distinction in the Boer War, a war which gave rise to the invention of the concentration camp and thus should have little distinction. One of my uncles climbed from a shell hole filled with the dead and survived and a cousin was with the Tank Corps at the Crossing of the Rhine. Another uncle parachuted in on D Day as a War Correspondent for the London Evening News. I clearly remember my Grandpa Outten, RSM, mentioned in dispatches, introducing me to customers in the public house my parents ran, as the next generation of soldier from the family to be there for King and Country. In the attic I found a book of pictures of the battle fields of the battles of the Somme and of Passchendaele and wondering how my dad came through it all. Contrary to grandpas expectations I didn’t follow into the ranks thanks to a growing realisation that it all seemed rather pointless. Especially as we were now in what grown ups called a Cold War, a hot war in Korea, an invasion of Egypt and several unpleasant affairs with people who didn’t seem to like us very much in Kenya and then in Cyprus. Finally, I came across the details of the holocaust and then saw the pictures of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This can’t be right I thought and have been opposed to war as a marvellous adventure which will solve all, our problems ever since. Recent history not only seems to prove this but also and that we have landed ourselves with even more problems..
However, due to my ancestry and upbringing, I do not see Remembrance Services as glorifying war as many seem to think. I feel they should be seen as a warning from history but also a reminder that so many people, when called upon, have faced the unpleasant music of war, whether in the mud and trenches that awaited my Dad at the ripe old age of 18 or the prison cells or firing squads for the prisoners of conscience or the poor wretches who could not take another day of the shells. For much of my life I have asked myself whether I would have the nerve to face such a nightmare. Being one of a very privileged generation who has not been called on, I will probably never find that answer, but I like to think I would display some kind of courage, whether as an opponent to, or a participant in, some kind of unimaginable warlike experience. Once I was preparing to go off to cross the fence at Porton Down as part of a demonstration against germ and chemical warfare. My Dad tried to dissuade me and I rather unfairly asked him what he was doing at my age. As with all matters from the war, silence was the inevitable response.
And so on November 11th I will remember them: those fellow apprentices with my Dad from Salisbury who all went off with the Somerset Light Infantry and for whom the journey across the channel Folkestone was a one way trip. I will try to imagine what it must have been like for my Dad in one of the many artillery barrages on the Somme. When watching a documentary about the battle of El Alamein he once commented on the sound track, ‘you can’t begin to imagine what a barrage sounds like’. I am pleased to say I can’t, although when one reads that the opening explosions in the battle of the Somme could be heard in the quiet of Hampstead Heath, I get the idea.
Remembrance Day should be seen as a reminder of mankind’s persistent mistakes. It makes me thankful that I have not had to face such terrors, but it also reminds me that a time will come in everyone’s life when we all have to have courage. Whether the fallen of all our wars displayed that at their last we shall never know, but sadly they were there having to face it whether they liked it or not. That surely should be remembered and deserves our respect.
However, due to my ancestry and upbringing, I do not see Remembrance Services as glorifying war as many seem to think. I feel they should be seen as a warning from history but also a reminder that so many people, when called upon, have faced the unpleasant music of war, whether in the mud and trenches that awaited my Dad at the ripe old age of 18 or the prison cells or firing squads for the prisoners of conscience or the poor wretches who could not take another day of the shells. For much of my life I have asked myself whether I would have the nerve to face such a nightmare. Being one of a very privileged generation who has not been called on, I will probably never find that answer, but I like to think I would display some kind of courage, whether as an opponent to, or a participant in, some kind of unimaginable warlike experience. Once I was preparing to go off to cross the fence at Porton Down as part of a demonstration against germ and chemical warfare. My Dad tried to dissuade me and I rather unfairly asked him what he was doing at my age. As with all matters from the war, silence was the inevitable response.
And so on November 11th I will remember them: those fellow apprentices with my Dad from Salisbury who all went off with the Somerset Light Infantry and for whom the journey across the channel Folkestone was a one way trip. I will try to imagine what it must have been like for my Dad in one of the many artillery barrages on the Somme. When watching a documentary about the battle of El Alamein he once commented on the sound track, ‘you can’t begin to imagine what a barrage sounds like’. I am pleased to say I can’t, although when one reads that the opening explosions in the battle of the Somme could be heard in the quiet of Hampstead Heath, I get the idea.
Remembrance Day should be seen as a reminder of mankind’s persistent mistakes. It makes me thankful that I have not had to face such terrors, but it also reminds me that a time will come in everyone’s life when we all have to have courage. Whether the fallen of all our wars displayed that at their last we shall never know, but sadly they were there having to face it whether they liked it or not. That surely should be remembered and deserves our respect.
Monday, 2 November 2009
The Banjo as an Instrument of Liberation
When my daughter set up Tales from under Blackhill for me some time back all I knew was that after five years of not writing anything the time had come to return to the keyboard. I had no idea about what to put in a profile or how the blog would develop and so I included a mention of occasional references to the banjo. The time has come for an explanation.
Unlike so many politicians, most of whom are sadly, a long way off retirement, and probably have jobs and income which make their work fairly rewarding, I have always been a firm believer in retirement. I deliberately worked towards this end for many years and although I like to think I was pretty good at my job, I always felt there were other things I might do just as well, but would enjoy more. As my chosen time of retirement approached I was glad that I had the choice to go a bit earlier as the prospect of another five years on the educational conveyor belt was not an attractive proposition. I wonder whether all the advocates for raising the retirement age will feel the same as they approach their sixties?
Plans are always so attractive and I was quite prepared for the great retirement plan to hit the rocks at some point. The idealised image of my retired self which accompanied the concluding years of employment was that of sitting in a chair, in a bib and brace overall, with a banjo. I would like to have placed this image on a veranda on a silent, dry afternoon with just the crickets for the rhythm section, but that was going a bit too far.
Nevertheless, the new banjo already purchased, the day of liberation arrived. Sadly the number of hot dry afternoons over the past few years has not been very many and as with most of my DIY, the veranda has not got beyond the planning stage. But the banjo playing has come on a treat in so far as self amusement is concerned. When I say ‘come on a treat’, I mean that its five strings and its open back sound has accompanied me into a liberated life, which is now proving to be the true reward for what I look back on as a lifetime of obstacles, irritations and frustrations. Not from the many students that I had the privilege to teach, many of whom said thanks, but with the dunderheads who thought they knew how to run a teaching environment and were only trying to run the show because they neither liked, nor could perform, other than in a mediocre fashion, the teaching function. There were of course some notable exceptions but unfortunately they were in the minority.
So for me the banjo is my symbol of liberation which is apt, as the instrument comes to us through slavery. It is an African instrument thought to have originated in the Gambia. With the liberation of the slaves the banjo soon found its place in New Orleans Jazz. Those early jazz musicians, so close to their slave forbears, expressed their freedom in a way which I first heard in the late fifties and which continues to set my feet tapping. I later discovered white banjo music through the civil rights music of Pete Seeger and in the Britain of the sixties, the playing of Peggy Seeger which so often accompanied much of Ewan Mc Coll’s repertoire. I will never be bored with the instrument. It is rather like my public speaking, more suited to rabble rousing rather than the refined after dinner speech, and I love it for that, if nothing else. One day I will find a tutor and have a lesson but in the meantime my DIY veranda awaits and I am still waiting for that long hot summer afternoon with the crickets in rhythm section.
Dacier
Unlike so many politicians, most of whom are sadly, a long way off retirement, and probably have jobs and income which make their work fairly rewarding, I have always been a firm believer in retirement. I deliberately worked towards this end for many years and although I like to think I was pretty good at my job, I always felt there were other things I might do just as well, but would enjoy more. As my chosen time of retirement approached I was glad that I had the choice to go a bit earlier as the prospect of another five years on the educational conveyor belt was not an attractive proposition. I wonder whether all the advocates for raising the retirement age will feel the same as they approach their sixties?
Plans are always so attractive and I was quite prepared for the great retirement plan to hit the rocks at some point. The idealised image of my retired self which accompanied the concluding years of employment was that of sitting in a chair, in a bib and brace overall, with a banjo. I would like to have placed this image on a veranda on a silent, dry afternoon with just the crickets for the rhythm section, but that was going a bit too far.
Nevertheless, the new banjo already purchased, the day of liberation arrived. Sadly the number of hot dry afternoons over the past few years has not been very many and as with most of my DIY, the veranda has not got beyond the planning stage. But the banjo playing has come on a treat in so far as self amusement is concerned. When I say ‘come on a treat’, I mean that its five strings and its open back sound has accompanied me into a liberated life, which is now proving to be the true reward for what I look back on as a lifetime of obstacles, irritations and frustrations. Not from the many students that I had the privilege to teach, many of whom said thanks, but with the dunderheads who thought they knew how to run a teaching environment and were only trying to run the show because they neither liked, nor could perform, other than in a mediocre fashion, the teaching function. There were of course some notable exceptions but unfortunately they were in the minority.
So for me the banjo is my symbol of liberation which is apt, as the instrument comes to us through slavery. It is an African instrument thought to have originated in the Gambia. With the liberation of the slaves the banjo soon found its place in New Orleans Jazz. Those early jazz musicians, so close to their slave forbears, expressed their freedom in a way which I first heard in the late fifties and which continues to set my feet tapping. I later discovered white banjo music through the civil rights music of Pete Seeger and in the Britain of the sixties, the playing of Peggy Seeger which so often accompanied much of Ewan Mc Coll’s repertoire. I will never be bored with the instrument. It is rather like my public speaking, more suited to rabble rousing rather than the refined after dinner speech, and I love it for that, if nothing else. One day I will find a tutor and have a lesson but in the meantime my DIY veranda awaits and I am still waiting for that long hot summer afternoon with the crickets in rhythm section.
Dacier
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Notes in Contemplation of the Question Time Debut of BNP
Suggested membership clause for the BNP after the finding that their membership terms were discriminatory: ‘Persons of African descent will not be admitted into membership’. That way, since all of us are thought to have descended from ancestors somewhere in the Great Rift Valley, no one will qualify.
I like to think that I am fairly tolerant although I can be somewhat gruff and grumpy. I like to think I know a bit about where picking on the less fortunate or minorities can lead. I also like to think that I know where envy and greed can lead. More importantly I do not think, but I know, that ignorance is the greatest enemy to our race. By ‘race’ I do not mean Anglo- Saxon, white pink or brown or any other variation you care to think of. I simply mean that little mentioned race in the Race Relations legislation, ‘the human race’.
As a result the forthcoming presence of Nick Griffin on a BBC television programme ( the organisation of ‘and nation speak peace unto nation’) has been causing me some anguish this week. This is because I am just old enough to see where the BNP has come from since the fifties. I know very well the history of Sir Oswald Moseley and his successors who have peddled their views down the years. In hard times it is no surprise that the rise of such groupings occurs and the challenge to us all is what we think and what we do. As a true blooded mongrel who would have to be sent in at least four directions should I heed the call to go back where I came from, the option of joining the BNP would not be available to me. Racial/ethnic mix aside I have certain old fashioned views about the equality and fairness brotherhood/sisterhood of man/woman which would be a self denying ordnance in any case, should an application form come my way.
So what do I think about the BBC having Nick the Griffin on my screen? Firstly I believe in freedom of speech and I believe that unless there is a law saying that an organisation or the expression of certain views, is illegal, they should not and cannot be silenced. However, the counter balance to this must lie in the opportunity for those who disagree to put their point of view and so the selection of the panel for Thursdays programme is crucial. Jack Straw will be there as will Sayeeda Warsi, Bonnie Greer and Chris Huhne who I hope have all done their homework. I think Nick Griffin will be called to account as from what I have seen of him so far I think he may well get out of his depth pretty quickly. His populist views which go down well among his usual audience are unlikely to withstand the scorching power of the studio light. And, it is through light that I think I remove all ambivalence regarding the presence of such a person in the public arena. The cleansing light of public exposure is far better than a banning order or ostracism by our broadcasting institutions. The effect of exposure to light will allow the vast majority of the electorate to see that there must never be a return to the black shirts of the thirties, and the provocative marches on the East End of London, or come to that, the deportations of that decade. Most of the world has seen the folly, let alone the wickedness, of such dark paths and so it is the duty of all humans to turn up the light and expose the ignorant and selfish views of this outmoded minority to the excoriating effect of public debate. The risk is that some will like what Nick Griffin has to say, but my expectation of the British public is that they will see the BNP exposed for what it is and reject it.
I like to think that I am fairly tolerant although I can be somewhat gruff and grumpy. I like to think I know a bit about where picking on the less fortunate or minorities can lead. I also like to think that I know where envy and greed can lead. More importantly I do not think, but I know, that ignorance is the greatest enemy to our race. By ‘race’ I do not mean Anglo- Saxon, white pink or brown or any other variation you care to think of. I simply mean that little mentioned race in the Race Relations legislation, ‘the human race’.
As a result the forthcoming presence of Nick Griffin on a BBC television programme ( the organisation of ‘and nation speak peace unto nation’) has been causing me some anguish this week. This is because I am just old enough to see where the BNP has come from since the fifties. I know very well the history of Sir Oswald Moseley and his successors who have peddled their views down the years. In hard times it is no surprise that the rise of such groupings occurs and the challenge to us all is what we think and what we do. As a true blooded mongrel who would have to be sent in at least four directions should I heed the call to go back where I came from, the option of joining the BNP would not be available to me. Racial/ethnic mix aside I have certain old fashioned views about the equality and fairness brotherhood/sisterhood of man/woman which would be a self denying ordnance in any case, should an application form come my way.
So what do I think about the BBC having Nick the Griffin on my screen? Firstly I believe in freedom of speech and I believe that unless there is a law saying that an organisation or the expression of certain views, is illegal, they should not and cannot be silenced. However, the counter balance to this must lie in the opportunity for those who disagree to put their point of view and so the selection of the panel for Thursdays programme is crucial. Jack Straw will be there as will Sayeeda Warsi, Bonnie Greer and Chris Huhne who I hope have all done their homework. I think Nick Griffin will be called to account as from what I have seen of him so far I think he may well get out of his depth pretty quickly. His populist views which go down well among his usual audience are unlikely to withstand the scorching power of the studio light. And, it is through light that I think I remove all ambivalence regarding the presence of such a person in the public arena. The cleansing light of public exposure is far better than a banning order or ostracism by our broadcasting institutions. The effect of exposure to light will allow the vast majority of the electorate to see that there must never be a return to the black shirts of the thirties, and the provocative marches on the East End of London, or come to that, the deportations of that decade. Most of the world has seen the folly, let alone the wickedness, of such dark paths and so it is the duty of all humans to turn up the light and expose the ignorant and selfish views of this outmoded minority to the excoriating effect of public debate. The risk is that some will like what Nick Griffin has to say, but my expectation of the British public is that they will see the BNP exposed for what it is and reject it.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
In Memoriam of Royal Mail: Why does it feel like 1984?
The answer lies not in Orwellian parallels but in far more immediate factors. In 1984 we were witnessing the beginning of the end for an industry which had been the basis for the national economic strength, namely King Coal. The coal miners had been at the centre of industrial power while they gradually sought to improve pay and conditions. The successes of the NUM had not been forgotten so that the confrontation between Margaret Thatcher’s Government and the Miners was soon seen to be a fight to the death. It was, and the major part of the industry died. This was aided by poor tactics on the part of the NUM. Why for example go on strike when coal stocks had been deliberately built up over a long period and when the warmer months were fast approaching. Add to that the growing pace of the ‘dash to gas’, and the growing imports of coal, a quick resolution of the dispute was going to be more important to the union than the government.
Nevertheless, these were lessons yet to be learnt, but the similarity between then and now lies in the generally ominous feel to the growing postal dispute. A once much-treasured institution has been gradually undermined by the withdrawal of government business from the post office counter, more and more alternatives have been provided, while the convenience of the system has been reduced by fewer deliveries and collections. Somewhere along the line the pension scheme has got into difficulties and all this is going to be changed if only the union would co-operate in the modernisation of the industry. Whilst the miners strike was made difficult by the absence of a national ballot and the breakaway Nottingham miners who went on working, the postal strike will not be without distressing scenes on the picket lines as the hapless temporary recruits are brought in to clear the backlog of mail, which according to the Post Office, will not be doing the work of postal workers. By comparison with miners the postal workers are in a better position but I suspect that this does not worry the employers or the government
It was clear from the start of the Miners Strike that the government had little interest in maintaining a national industry. In this dispute the Post Office wants to modernise the industry although a subplot may well be that if the strike drives major customers away, the field will be clear for the modern, and presumably emaciated Royal Mail, to be sold off. A modernised coal industry was presumably achieved but it is hardly in a position to come up with much needed clean power due to having been sidelined for so long. Another lost opportunity due to the short term thinking of our politicians
Today we are told that the postal workers want to strike at its busiest and most profitable time of the year and I am already picking up the sound of government muttering under its breath, ‘ the trap is set, carry on and spring it’ and then we can get rid of it all. I also get the feeling that the present Post Office management are capable of bringing this decline about since I remain to be convinced that they will be capable of managing anything else. The conclusion that this management are not up to the job of managing the dispute, let alone the Royal Mail, is hard to avoid. And why does Secretary of State for everything, Lord Mandelson of variouds places, decline to call in ACAS. He claims they will have nothing to add. Could it be that a settlement is the last thing that he wants to see?
The other day I had to return a pair of shoes to the manufacturer who seemed incapable of sending the right pair. At Locks Garage what looked like an E-Bay seller was sending a sack full of stuff. Never mind I thought, I’m going to town I’ll go to the one in High Town. Having got there I was confronted by a touch screen, a gallery of overhead Argos type progress screens and a counter with numbers over them. Eventually I realised I had to take a ticket like at the meat counter in Tesco’s and then identify the appropriate window. The place seemed packed with customers and loads of staff standing around doing nothing, apart from an ‘ambient helper’ who kept asking me questions whether I would be needing an express delivery, or other services. Since there were only two cashiers dealing with postal matters, I explained that being served would be nice. After ten minutes without any numbers budging I returned my ticket to the ‘ambient helper’ saying I would pop down to the village post office tomorrow.
All this was apparently someone’s idea of modernisation with all the gizmos, screens and lights. The fact that two members of staff would not be enough for a town centre ‘post office’ at 5 pm on a Friday seems to have escaped the modern management. How much easier it is when a courier turns up and takes away your returned goods I thought. No doubt the modernisers will have the same idea about the postal service. How much easier it will be if someone turns up and takes it in.
So its ‘Strike On’ and ‘here we go, here we go, here we go’, again.
Dacier
Nevertheless, these were lessons yet to be learnt, but the similarity between then and now lies in the generally ominous feel to the growing postal dispute. A once much-treasured institution has been gradually undermined by the withdrawal of government business from the post office counter, more and more alternatives have been provided, while the convenience of the system has been reduced by fewer deliveries and collections. Somewhere along the line the pension scheme has got into difficulties and all this is going to be changed if only the union would co-operate in the modernisation of the industry. Whilst the miners strike was made difficult by the absence of a national ballot and the breakaway Nottingham miners who went on working, the postal strike will not be without distressing scenes on the picket lines as the hapless temporary recruits are brought in to clear the backlog of mail, which according to the Post Office, will not be doing the work of postal workers. By comparison with miners the postal workers are in a better position but I suspect that this does not worry the employers or the government
It was clear from the start of the Miners Strike that the government had little interest in maintaining a national industry. In this dispute the Post Office wants to modernise the industry although a subplot may well be that if the strike drives major customers away, the field will be clear for the modern, and presumably emaciated Royal Mail, to be sold off. A modernised coal industry was presumably achieved but it is hardly in a position to come up with much needed clean power due to having been sidelined for so long. Another lost opportunity due to the short term thinking of our politicians
Today we are told that the postal workers want to strike at its busiest and most profitable time of the year and I am already picking up the sound of government muttering under its breath, ‘ the trap is set, carry on and spring it’ and then we can get rid of it all. I also get the feeling that the present Post Office management are capable of bringing this decline about since I remain to be convinced that they will be capable of managing anything else. The conclusion that this management are not up to the job of managing the dispute, let alone the Royal Mail, is hard to avoid. And why does Secretary of State for everything, Lord Mandelson of variouds places, decline to call in ACAS. He claims they will have nothing to add. Could it be that a settlement is the last thing that he wants to see?
The other day I had to return a pair of shoes to the manufacturer who seemed incapable of sending the right pair. At Locks Garage what looked like an E-Bay seller was sending a sack full of stuff. Never mind I thought, I’m going to town I’ll go to the one in High Town. Having got there I was confronted by a touch screen, a gallery of overhead Argos type progress screens and a counter with numbers over them. Eventually I realised I had to take a ticket like at the meat counter in Tesco’s and then identify the appropriate window. The place seemed packed with customers and loads of staff standing around doing nothing, apart from an ‘ambient helper’ who kept asking me questions whether I would be needing an express delivery, or other services. Since there were only two cashiers dealing with postal matters, I explained that being served would be nice. After ten minutes without any numbers budging I returned my ticket to the ‘ambient helper’ saying I would pop down to the village post office tomorrow.
All this was apparently someone’s idea of modernisation with all the gizmos, screens and lights. The fact that two members of staff would not be enough for a town centre ‘post office’ at 5 pm on a Friday seems to have escaped the modern management. How much easier it is when a courier turns up and takes away your returned goods I thought. No doubt the modernisers will have the same idea about the postal service. How much easier it will be if someone turns up and takes it in.
So its ‘Strike On’ and ‘here we go, here we go, here we go’, again.
Dacier
Friday, 16 October 2009
Heat Store Sequel: Mad DIY boffin Meets Reasonable Woman
In my last post I described how a heat store works but nothing about its installation. This was thought unnecessary as that’s the plumber’s job and is no more than pulling out the old stuff and routing a few more pipes etc. Unfortunately with a slightly bigger tank than expected ( due to a tripartite combination of errors between myself, plumber and supplier) the airing cupboard door had to be removed and I will have to fit another one. I had thought this would be necessary from the very outset. Unfortunately the fitting of such a large new tank led to delays and an extra day’s work. By the end of the second day we all a bit tired and so when I raised the question of the anti-corrosion additive the advice was that all I needed to do was add a half a litre of the stuff.
Fine I thought, I will trot off and get some. Unfortunately the smallest quantity was 4 litres at £20. This put me on warning so a call to the supplier soon showed that I had a problem. The requirement for a tank of our size was that 6% of additive was needed. A quick calculation showed that this came out at 15 litres. After a stunned silence the supplier said the installer should have put this in and if I bought it I could deduct £80 from the final bill. I am tempted to deduct a charge for the following labour as well, but on the basis that no experience is a wasted experience, I shall delude myself into thinking that value was had.
The next problem was to make room for this extra liquid while not reducing the 6%. Firstly I siphoned out the contents of the small header tank. Since there was only about 2 inches of clearance bailing it out or pushing down a bucket so that the ovewrflow di its job, was not on. The siphon worked well but the amount removed was about four litres out. The next move was to fit a hose pipe to the drain tap and measure a drain off of about 4 litres. All these moves were intended to keep the waste of hot water ( at 56c by the end of the day) to a minimum. This worked well.
The next stage was to deliver the 15 litres to the header tank Enter the mad DIY boffin. The sensible method would be to decant about a litre at a time by means of a squeezee lemonade bottle but the scientific solutions was the fix a small pump to the Black and Decker Drill and hey presto 15 litres are delivered without difficulty. For this purpose I needed the hep of the reasonable woman. The first attempt failed as I had connected the inlet and outlet spigots the wrong way round. Result, loads of bubbles in the fluid which should have been speeding its way aloft. A quick, but splashy interlude, resulted in nothing. Tried to prime the pump; same result.
The next suggestion was to take a hose pipe upstairs and get gravity on our side. Assurances to the reasonable woman that the stair carpet would be safe and that there would be no more splashy intervals failed. The reasonable woman suggested the squeezee bottle solution and produced 2 such bottles but only 750 cls. However, 18 or so deliveries later the header tank was filled with the protective fluid and the spare litre was delivered to the back boiler header tank upstairs.
Mad DIY boffin was then put on mopping duties while reasonable woman retired to the lounge to watch one of her detective dramas. Shimples.
Fine I thought, I will trot off and get some. Unfortunately the smallest quantity was 4 litres at £20. This put me on warning so a call to the supplier soon showed that I had a problem. The requirement for a tank of our size was that 6% of additive was needed. A quick calculation showed that this came out at 15 litres. After a stunned silence the supplier said the installer should have put this in and if I bought it I could deduct £80 from the final bill. I am tempted to deduct a charge for the following labour as well, but on the basis that no experience is a wasted experience, I shall delude myself into thinking that value was had.
The next problem was to make room for this extra liquid while not reducing the 6%. Firstly I siphoned out the contents of the small header tank. Since there was only about 2 inches of clearance bailing it out or pushing down a bucket so that the ovewrflow di its job, was not on. The siphon worked well but the amount removed was about four litres out. The next move was to fit a hose pipe to the drain tap and measure a drain off of about 4 litres. All these moves were intended to keep the waste of hot water ( at 56c by the end of the day) to a minimum. This worked well.
The next stage was to deliver the 15 litres to the header tank Enter the mad DIY boffin. The sensible method would be to decant about a litre at a time by means of a squeezee lemonade bottle but the scientific solutions was the fix a small pump to the Black and Decker Drill and hey presto 15 litres are delivered without difficulty. For this purpose I needed the hep of the reasonable woman. The first attempt failed as I had connected the inlet and outlet spigots the wrong way round. Result, loads of bubbles in the fluid which should have been speeding its way aloft. A quick, but splashy interlude, resulted in nothing. Tried to prime the pump; same result.
The next suggestion was to take a hose pipe upstairs and get gravity on our side. Assurances to the reasonable woman that the stair carpet would be safe and that there would be no more splashy intervals failed. The reasonable woman suggested the squeezee bottle solution and produced 2 such bottles but only 750 cls. However, 18 or so deliveries later the header tank was filled with the protective fluid and the spare litre was delivered to the back boiler header tank upstairs.
Mad DIY boffin was then put on mopping duties while reasonable woman retired to the lounge to watch one of her detective dramas. Shimples.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Heat Store Story: the tale of the vented heat store tank with a solar panel, back boiler and Economy 7 immersion heaters
For a number of reasons our solar panel of some five years decided to stop working. I will not bore you with the details but, among a number of things, this was due to the micro bore pipes which take hot water to our immersion tank getting blocked. Along side this, our plumbing system was originally designed to handle a trickle supply of water from a spring two fields away. Because the spring was only a few feet higher than the location of the header tank the head of water in the house was probably not more than 12 inches above the highest tap in the bathroom. Running the hot water for a bath was therefore a slow job and even slower should someone want hot water downstairs.
To get the solar panel running again and avoid another blockage we would either have to install a water softener or convert to an indirect system whereby the hot water from the panel was confined to a coil and thus kept separate from the water in the immersion tank which was being drawn off for domestic hot water. The other solution was to have a heat store tank. This would have the same effect but by a different method, with the added bonus that all the hot water throughout the house would be at mains pressure and the space taken up by the header tank above the stairwell would be available for storage..
Although I had seen heat store tanks at various NEC exhibitions I had never picked up an explanatory leaflet nor found a sales rep capable of explaining how they worked. This is fairly simple once the basics are grasped. A conventional immersion tank has an electric element like a giant kettle that heats the water.. The hot water in the tank is drawn on when a tap is turned on and is replaced from below by cold water from a header tank. It is the height of that header tanks water which pushes the hot water round the hot water circuit. Unfortunately each batch of hot water as it is heated up will deposit lime scale and other minerals into the tank. Some of the chemicals will corrode the tank and other bits of the pipes. The local water might be treated by adding lime to bring the acidity down but whatever the chemistry there is always a danger that this constant process can corrode the electric element first. Once removed, we discovered that our old tank, fitted 20 years ago, was already leaking.
When the mains water eventually gets pushed through a solar panel from such a system further deposits can be left behind after the high temperatures reached in this ‘roof top boiler’ and so the risk of blockages. With direct systems such as the SolarTwin the softer the water the lower the risk of blockages. This system pumps water directly into the top of a conventional immersion tank and avoids the need for a replacement tank, anti-freeze solutions or a separately powered electric pump as a PV panel is built in for this purpose.
It would seem our local water is rather acid but has lime added to it but it probably varies. The theory goes that for a solar panel that is heating constantly replenished mains water of this type deposits will soon occur if high running temperatures are achieved. The same happens with the constantly heated new water in the tank as well.
As we found that we had no room for a water softener and we were fed up with a slow supply of hot water we opted for a heat store tank. This retains the same water all the time and will only change if it gets so hot the water expands to the point that it returns to its own nearby header tank and the water is thus replenished. Even here the amount of new water entering the tank is small. It is this water, stored in a highly insulated and extra large tank, some five feet tall or more, which heats up and cools as heat is put in and heat taken away. That transfer of heat is brought about by a coiled pipe passing through the heat store tank containing water at mains pressure. The miracle of the system is that the heat store is sufficiently hot and the coil sufficiently long to achieve an instant heating of the mains water passing through the coil which never comes into contact with the column of permanent water in the heat store. Result, hot water at mains pressure at a temperature you can select by a special valve that will mix some mains cold water into the mains pressure hot water when it exceeds the required temperature, usually about 60c but lower temperatures will be ok for hand washing and a or showers. As no cold water enters the heat store it is cooled down much slower than a conventional tank and hence is more efficient. The system makes a shower easier to install because with hot and cold water both at the same pressure all that is needed is a mixer shower valve and you have a power shower depending on what pressure of supply you choose.. Even in the bathroom you can make sure your mixer is thermostatically controlled so you won’t be trapped in a scalding shower ever again. As the meerkat sayeth, ‘shimples!’
To get the solar panel running again and avoid another blockage we would either have to install a water softener or convert to an indirect system whereby the hot water from the panel was confined to a coil and thus kept separate from the water in the immersion tank which was being drawn off for domestic hot water. The other solution was to have a heat store tank. This would have the same effect but by a different method, with the added bonus that all the hot water throughout the house would be at mains pressure and the space taken up by the header tank above the stairwell would be available for storage..
Although I had seen heat store tanks at various NEC exhibitions I had never picked up an explanatory leaflet nor found a sales rep capable of explaining how they worked. This is fairly simple once the basics are grasped. A conventional immersion tank has an electric element like a giant kettle that heats the water.. The hot water in the tank is drawn on when a tap is turned on and is replaced from below by cold water from a header tank. It is the height of that header tanks water which pushes the hot water round the hot water circuit. Unfortunately each batch of hot water as it is heated up will deposit lime scale and other minerals into the tank. Some of the chemicals will corrode the tank and other bits of the pipes. The local water might be treated by adding lime to bring the acidity down but whatever the chemistry there is always a danger that this constant process can corrode the electric element first. Once removed, we discovered that our old tank, fitted 20 years ago, was already leaking.
When the mains water eventually gets pushed through a solar panel from such a system further deposits can be left behind after the high temperatures reached in this ‘roof top boiler’ and so the risk of blockages. With direct systems such as the SolarTwin the softer the water the lower the risk of blockages. This system pumps water directly into the top of a conventional immersion tank and avoids the need for a replacement tank, anti-freeze solutions or a separately powered electric pump as a PV panel is built in for this purpose.
It would seem our local water is rather acid but has lime added to it but it probably varies. The theory goes that for a solar panel that is heating constantly replenished mains water of this type deposits will soon occur if high running temperatures are achieved. The same happens with the constantly heated new water in the tank as well.
As we found that we had no room for a water softener and we were fed up with a slow supply of hot water we opted for a heat store tank. This retains the same water all the time and will only change if it gets so hot the water expands to the point that it returns to its own nearby header tank and the water is thus replenished. Even here the amount of new water entering the tank is small. It is this water, stored in a highly insulated and extra large tank, some five feet tall or more, which heats up and cools as heat is put in and heat taken away. That transfer of heat is brought about by a coiled pipe passing through the heat store tank containing water at mains pressure. The miracle of the system is that the heat store is sufficiently hot and the coil sufficiently long to achieve an instant heating of the mains water passing through the coil which never comes into contact with the column of permanent water in the heat store. Result, hot water at mains pressure at a temperature you can select by a special valve that will mix some mains cold water into the mains pressure hot water when it exceeds the required temperature, usually about 60c but lower temperatures will be ok for hand washing and a or showers. As no cold water enters the heat store it is cooled down much slower than a conventional tank and hence is more efficient. The system makes a shower easier to install because with hot and cold water both at the same pressure all that is needed is a mixer shower valve and you have a power shower depending on what pressure of supply you choose.. Even in the bathroom you can make sure your mixer is thermostatically controlled so you won’t be trapped in a scalding shower ever again. As the meerkat sayeth, ‘shimples!’
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
The Big Apple in the villages around Marcle Ridge: October 11th and 12th
The Big Apple is a great little festival in the middle of an important fruit growing area. Every year the seven parishes of the Marcle Ridge country south of Ledbury in Herefordshire celebrate their heritage of apples and cider, and pears and perry.
For the avoidance of doubt both cider and perry are made by crushing and then pressing the fruit and the reason that most people don’t really know of perry is because the output of perry pears is usually consumed by the local demand. Perry was big in the fifties in the form of Babycham but real perry, whether still or fizzy, is a fuller bodied drink. Purists like us are annoyed by the appearance of products under the name of Pear Cider which is a contradiction in terms but it is presumably intended to create a new drink for people taken to be incapable of understanding the difference. Drinking either can of course make you incapable of anything especially with some hand crafted farm versions going to 8% ABV or above. If the drink is made from 100% pears then it is perry but if pear juice has been added to cider we would claim is a pear flavoured cider. Many mass produced products will fall back on imported concentrate when supplies are tight but not the genuine products you can find at this event.
A few years ago there was a lot of concern with all the orchards being grubbed up around Herefordshire but we can report that the cider business is growing and on the way to Much Marcle the sight of lots of orchards being re-established added to the glorious views of the Malvern Hills, Marcle Ridge itself and beyond to the Black Mountains. Such is the growth of cider that despite a hugely reduced acreage we are drinking record volumes of the stuff. This productivity has been achieved by growing traditional varieties as dwarf trees with high yields easier harvesting.
The big name producer in Much Marcle, the centre of the festival, is the family run firm of Weston’s Cider. Their works are well worth a visit especially if you take the tour of their modern cider mill/factory. We would claim that their Stowford Press Ciders and their traditional perry are right at the top of the mass produced roll of honour. Their traditional fizzy perry makes a sound substitute for many white wines at a fraction of the cost so a trip to their shop is both a bargain and an education all in one.
Some photos from the festival are here.
At the other end of the scale is Greggs Pit which is found at the end of a farm track and situated in a cottagers plot with its small orchard of traditional fruit trees. The production process is what we would call ‘artisan’ with the result that award winning perry and cider is produced here. A custom built barn for the vats with an open front for the crusher and apple press never fails to prompt dreams of creating such a unit on our own hillside plot. The old cottage orchard has cider trees as well as cooking apples, damsons and other fruits. Not all is used for cider and perry but we are happy to report that redwings and other birds don’t let anything go to waste. Apples and pears are also bought in from nearby farms so that single variety brews can be created. If you have never tried top quality ‘champagne method’ ciders and perrys this is the sort of place you need to track down. At Lyne Down Cider you can try your palette at more traditional brews as well as fresh apple juice straight from the press.
On the Sunday at Hellens, the local ’big house’, they get their old crushing mill going with visitors helping to push the crushing wheel round in its trough; a task usually carried out by a horse! Hellen’s Perry is made from pears collected on the Saturday and as with all of the events you can usually by a bottle or two. The house itself is well worth a visit and is one of those places that always seems to have been connected with many of the great events down the centuries but it, and its residents, seem to have survived by good judgement and luck. A return visit to this house on a quiet summer afternoon makes a great outing. During the festival the adjoining barns are devoted to the sale of fruit (Flight Organics) and the study of apples and pears (Marcher Network) and there are helpful experts who will try and identify the mystery apple tree in your garden. The variety of local food is usually well displayed at this event. Added to all this bustle was the appearance of the Leominster Morris dancers who drew a large crowd.
An essential visit during the afternoon is to the Memorial Hall where you will usually find an art exhibition as well as ‘a cup of tea and a slice of cake’ as Wurzel Gummage would describe his favourite refreshment. One year we were in front of a novice ‘Big Appler’ who asked whether they had any apple cake? Yes, came the reply, about fifteen different choices! We bought about five different types and sampled pieces from each. We have our own popular recipe which was found in a book on Yorkshire cooking where it is described as ‘Somerset Apple Cake’. Althought not a local recipe, we do not find this hard to live with as we all have a fondness for counties where apples are a specialist crop and so whether it comes from the land of the Wurzels’, Gloucestershire, Devon, Kent or Cornwall, or our own dear Herefordshire, if it’s good, we’ll have it. Especially with cream, in moderation of course, as with cider and perry.
A short distance from the Memorial Hall is St Bartholomew’s Church where local produce and crafts were on sale in aid of church funds. A brief rest beneath the 1,500 year old yew tree might just restore the energies sufficiently for a visit to Awnell’s Farm.
Awnell's Farm is run by the Countryside Restoration Trust, this conservation charity aims to protect and restore Britain’s countryside with wildlife-friendly and commercially viable agriculture. The trust is committed to promoting the importance of a living and working countryside through education, demonstration and community involvement.
It has another farm just down from us at Turnastone Court where the National Hedge Laying Championships will be held this coming 24th October, hopefully ‘with a caterer in attendance’. This usually means a beer tent at the very least. Taking farming back to sustainable practices by working with nature is a welcome contrast to some of the industrial farming that can be found in Herefordshire such as the ever present expansion of growing fruit under plastic and the efforts the Potato Barons which sometimes results in our precious pink soils being washed away in heavy downpours.
Most years the event has attracted large parties of cyclists. This is an encouraging feature although we sometimes thought that their awareness of pedestrians could have been better. Was it perry they had stowed in their drinking flasks we asked? Now in its twentieth year the number of visitors cars can be a problem but it is not yet on a scale which needs major management, and a parking space is usually available somewhere. Bringing a bike to tour the various events is a good idea and means that the car can be left at some distance. I think we will try it next year, although a good set of panniers will be needed for our liquid purchases.
For a community run event the Big Apple just shows what can be done. This lengthy article is not just the perry talking but it comes from people who know how important it is for everyone to reconnect with nature, our traditional sustainable local produce and the communities who still have the skills and vision to bring it all from farm and orchard to your table.
Dacier Outten and Mary Horesh
For the avoidance of doubt both cider and perry are made by crushing and then pressing the fruit and the reason that most people don’t really know of perry is because the output of perry pears is usually consumed by the local demand. Perry was big in the fifties in the form of Babycham but real perry, whether still or fizzy, is a fuller bodied drink. Purists like us are annoyed by the appearance of products under the name of Pear Cider which is a contradiction in terms but it is presumably intended to create a new drink for people taken to be incapable of understanding the difference. Drinking either can of course make you incapable of anything especially with some hand crafted farm versions going to 8% ABV or above. If the drink is made from 100% pears then it is perry but if pear juice has been added to cider we would claim is a pear flavoured cider. Many mass produced products will fall back on imported concentrate when supplies are tight but not the genuine products you can find at this event.
A few years ago there was a lot of concern with all the orchards being grubbed up around Herefordshire but we can report that the cider business is growing and on the way to Much Marcle the sight of lots of orchards being re-established added to the glorious views of the Malvern Hills, Marcle Ridge itself and beyond to the Black Mountains. Such is the growth of cider that despite a hugely reduced acreage we are drinking record volumes of the stuff. This productivity has been achieved by growing traditional varieties as dwarf trees with high yields easier harvesting.
The big name producer in Much Marcle, the centre of the festival, is the family run firm of Weston’s Cider. Their works are well worth a visit especially if you take the tour of their modern cider mill/factory. We would claim that their Stowford Press Ciders and their traditional perry are right at the top of the mass produced roll of honour. Their traditional fizzy perry makes a sound substitute for many white wines at a fraction of the cost so a trip to their shop is both a bargain and an education all in one.
Some photos from the festival are here.
At the other end of the scale is Greggs Pit which is found at the end of a farm track and situated in a cottagers plot with its small orchard of traditional fruit trees. The production process is what we would call ‘artisan’ with the result that award winning perry and cider is produced here. A custom built barn for the vats with an open front for the crusher and apple press never fails to prompt dreams of creating such a unit on our own hillside plot. The old cottage orchard has cider trees as well as cooking apples, damsons and other fruits. Not all is used for cider and perry but we are happy to report that redwings and other birds don’t let anything go to waste. Apples and pears are also bought in from nearby farms so that single variety brews can be created. If you have never tried top quality ‘champagne method’ ciders and perrys this is the sort of place you need to track down. At Lyne Down Cider you can try your palette at more traditional brews as well as fresh apple juice straight from the press.
On the Sunday at Hellens, the local ’big house’, they get their old crushing mill going with visitors helping to push the crushing wheel round in its trough; a task usually carried out by a horse! Hellen’s Perry is made from pears collected on the Saturday and as with all of the events you can usually by a bottle or two. The house itself is well worth a visit and is one of those places that always seems to have been connected with many of the great events down the centuries but it, and its residents, seem to have survived by good judgement and luck. A return visit to this house on a quiet summer afternoon makes a great outing. During the festival the adjoining barns are devoted to the sale of fruit (Flight Organics) and the study of apples and pears (Marcher Network) and there are helpful experts who will try and identify the mystery apple tree in your garden. The variety of local food is usually well displayed at this event. Added to all this bustle was the appearance of the Leominster Morris dancers who drew a large crowd.
An essential visit during the afternoon is to the Memorial Hall where you will usually find an art exhibition as well as ‘a cup of tea and a slice of cake’ as Wurzel Gummage would describe his favourite refreshment. One year we were in front of a novice ‘Big Appler’ who asked whether they had any apple cake? Yes, came the reply, about fifteen different choices! We bought about five different types and sampled pieces from each. We have our own popular recipe which was found in a book on Yorkshire cooking where it is described as ‘Somerset Apple Cake’. Althought not a local recipe, we do not find this hard to live with as we all have a fondness for counties where apples are a specialist crop and so whether it comes from the land of the Wurzels’, Gloucestershire, Devon, Kent or Cornwall, or our own dear Herefordshire, if it’s good, we’ll have it. Especially with cream, in moderation of course, as with cider and perry.
A short distance from the Memorial Hall is St Bartholomew’s Church where local produce and crafts were on sale in aid of church funds. A brief rest beneath the 1,500 year old yew tree might just restore the energies sufficiently for a visit to Awnell’s Farm.
Awnell's Farm is run by the Countryside Restoration Trust, this conservation charity aims to protect and restore Britain’s countryside with wildlife-friendly and commercially viable agriculture. The trust is committed to promoting the importance of a living and working countryside through education, demonstration and community involvement.
It has another farm just down from us at Turnastone Court where the National Hedge Laying Championships will be held this coming 24th October, hopefully ‘with a caterer in attendance’. This usually means a beer tent at the very least. Taking farming back to sustainable practices by working with nature is a welcome contrast to some of the industrial farming that can be found in Herefordshire such as the ever present expansion of growing fruit under plastic and the efforts the Potato Barons which sometimes results in our precious pink soils being washed away in heavy downpours.
Most years the event has attracted large parties of cyclists. This is an encouraging feature although we sometimes thought that their awareness of pedestrians could have been better. Was it perry they had stowed in their drinking flasks we asked? Now in its twentieth year the number of visitors cars can be a problem but it is not yet on a scale which needs major management, and a parking space is usually available somewhere. Bringing a bike to tour the various events is a good idea and means that the car can be left at some distance. I think we will try it next year, although a good set of panniers will be needed for our liquid purchases.
For a community run event the Big Apple just shows what can be done. This lengthy article is not just the perry talking but it comes from people who know how important it is for everyone to reconnect with nature, our traditional sustainable local produce and the communities who still have the skills and vision to bring it all from farm and orchard to your table.
Dacier Outten and Mary Horesh
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Would Wild Horses make you stop eating meat or is climatic disaster sufficient?
Comments by an omnivore prompted by the speech of Shadow Secretary of State (DEFRA), Mr Nick Herbert, at the Conservative Party’s Annual Conference: Cutting out meat is not green solution: 5/10/2009
I have been unable to find a complete version of the above speech and so there may be some details that would strengthen the argument Mr Herbert has presented but from what I can judge the argument is as follows. Eating less meat is not a green solution to reducing emissions and will not have an effect on climate change. Furthermore, the West should not try to dictate to India and China that they should not increase the amount of meat they eat and that technologies should be developed to reduce emissions from the meat production process. It would seem that Mr Herbert is getting at the campaign for Meat Free Mondays whilst placing some of the blame for the campaign at the feet of vegans and vegetarians.
Although the Meat Free Monday campaign only asks that we cut out meat once a week he is such a committed carnivore that he is quoted as saying that wild horses would not stop him eating meat. He is either missing the point or sees this moderate suggestion to forgo meat on a Monday as the thin edge of the wedge, since the campaign is not about giving up meat completely, however much the vegan and vegetarian community might like to see that happen. His speech challenges a lot of current thinking on food production and climate change and I would advise him to make sure he has all the facts and figures at his finger tips as, never mind the wild horses, there will be many of us wild omnivores, let alone wild vegans and vegetarians, who will be vigorously challenging his viewpoint during the election campaign.
All this got me thinking about dietary diversity and the amount of energy the production of food involves. Having an egg nog made from a fresh egg laid by a free range hen wandering at will in the woods would take little energy apart from that used by your body which had been derived from the previous day’s diet. Eating an egg as part of a mass produced cake delivered to your local baker from a plant somewhere in Europe strikes me as energy greedy. Taking up Mr Herbert’s reference to wild horses also suggested the following analogy. Let us suppose that somewhere beyond the wood there are plains where wild horses roam. This could be a tempting and substantial addition to the food supply, if only one could be caught. Whatever might be involved would certainly take a lot of energy to achieve compared with picking up an egg in the wood. The egg could be stored quite simply for quite a period whereas wild horse meat would have to be preserved unless a lot of meat was thrown away.
In the event of wild horse catching on, especially where population growth meant that more and more people would like some, ‘wild horse’ production might well increase, the grass of the plains could not keep up, and so a new industry would have to be created to produce the feed, preserve and package the meat and then move it to places where no such meat would otherwise be available, thus incurring more energy costs and so on. Welfare considerations for live transport, additives for fast growth and the prevention of disease would all eventually become part of the food chain, as would land clearance to make way for the mass production of the meat.
The analogy comes close to how beef production has grown over the years and where it is going. Instead of developing a new market for horse meat the growth in beef consumption could easily succeed in exacerbating environmental deterioration with increasing climate change impact. Whatever meat production is expanded, the laws of thermo dynamics remain the same as will be the changing patterns of land use which will be required. Can we really afford to expand either an existing industry such as beef anymore than find a new one to develop? It all adds up to the same recipe for disaster. Whatever the meat being mass produced might be it is hard to see how it can be done without affecting the climate and the amount of land available to sustain the world’s increasing population. This is where we are already going with beef production as new markets and products are found for expanding the demand. To claim that technologies should be developed to reduce emissions from the industry is not a solution and is reminiscent of the George Bush fiction that pollution need not be reduced at source, but will be dealt with by technology once it is being created. This simply puts off the evil hour in the short term thinking of politicians. There is not enough time, Mr Shadow Secretary, and it is better to get started on what we can do rather than pin hopes on things we haven’t yet learnt to do.
We must all strive to be fully aware of where our food comes from. Whether the meat is beef or horse, as responsible trustees of this planet for future generations, we should know whether the source is truly sustainable; we should know whether it was harvested to a high welfare standard and whether it was worth all the effort in culinary and climate terms. There would have to be no risk of either wild horse or mad cow disease. We should not eat any meat where vast tracks of forest have been cleared to grow the feedstuffs to sustain an unnatural population and where all kinds of pharmaceutical products have to be manufactures to create fast growth and prevent disease. In any type of diet we should certainly not want to see the product become so popular that the continuously expanding world population wanted more and more of the stuff while it moved onto green field sites for more and more living and manufacturing space: especially at a time when such space was shrinking due to climate change induced desertification and rising sea levels, causing the northern and southern hemispheres to become more and more overcrowded. In the short term the obese proportion of the world population, whether in the West or in India and China can presumably go on munching their way to an early and expensive grave without a word of discouragement from Mr Herbert.
By designating one day a week when other agricultural and horticultural foods can take precedence seems a small step towards making more and more people ask where their food comes from and what the consequences might be. As in most things, a bit of knowledge will encourage a wider world view. Unless we do some clear thinking, ignorance, in the end, will prove to be the ultimate mass killer. I realise that a report of a speech is not the same as being there but in what I have read so far I fear Mr Herbert has much to learn on the long journey ahead of him. When in Brussels, in the interests of dietary diversity, perhaps he should consider both the horse and, if there is one, the vegetarian sections of the menu. I was always told that travel broadens the mind, to which I would add, ‘...and so does thinking about what’s on your plate, how it got there, and what the consequences might be’.
Dacier
See:
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.foodanddrink
and
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/06/global-land-use/
It goes without saying that comments from Mr Herbert or like minded meat eaters are welcome.
I have been unable to find a complete version of the above speech and so there may be some details that would strengthen the argument Mr Herbert has presented but from what I can judge the argument is as follows. Eating less meat is not a green solution to reducing emissions and will not have an effect on climate change. Furthermore, the West should not try to dictate to India and China that they should not increase the amount of meat they eat and that technologies should be developed to reduce emissions from the meat production process. It would seem that Mr Herbert is getting at the campaign for Meat Free Mondays whilst placing some of the blame for the campaign at the feet of vegans and vegetarians.
Although the Meat Free Monday campaign only asks that we cut out meat once a week he is such a committed carnivore that he is quoted as saying that wild horses would not stop him eating meat. He is either missing the point or sees this moderate suggestion to forgo meat on a Monday as the thin edge of the wedge, since the campaign is not about giving up meat completely, however much the vegan and vegetarian community might like to see that happen. His speech challenges a lot of current thinking on food production and climate change and I would advise him to make sure he has all the facts and figures at his finger tips as, never mind the wild horses, there will be many of us wild omnivores, let alone wild vegans and vegetarians, who will be vigorously challenging his viewpoint during the election campaign.
All this got me thinking about dietary diversity and the amount of energy the production of food involves. Having an egg nog made from a fresh egg laid by a free range hen wandering at will in the woods would take little energy apart from that used by your body which had been derived from the previous day’s diet. Eating an egg as part of a mass produced cake delivered to your local baker from a plant somewhere in Europe strikes me as energy greedy. Taking up Mr Herbert’s reference to wild horses also suggested the following analogy. Let us suppose that somewhere beyond the wood there are plains where wild horses roam. This could be a tempting and substantial addition to the food supply, if only one could be caught. Whatever might be involved would certainly take a lot of energy to achieve compared with picking up an egg in the wood. The egg could be stored quite simply for quite a period whereas wild horse meat would have to be preserved unless a lot of meat was thrown away.
In the event of wild horse catching on, especially where population growth meant that more and more people would like some, ‘wild horse’ production might well increase, the grass of the plains could not keep up, and so a new industry would have to be created to produce the feed, preserve and package the meat and then move it to places where no such meat would otherwise be available, thus incurring more energy costs and so on. Welfare considerations for live transport, additives for fast growth and the prevention of disease would all eventually become part of the food chain, as would land clearance to make way for the mass production of the meat.
The analogy comes close to how beef production has grown over the years and where it is going. Instead of developing a new market for horse meat the growth in beef consumption could easily succeed in exacerbating environmental deterioration with increasing climate change impact. Whatever meat production is expanded, the laws of thermo dynamics remain the same as will be the changing patterns of land use which will be required. Can we really afford to expand either an existing industry such as beef anymore than find a new one to develop? It all adds up to the same recipe for disaster. Whatever the meat being mass produced might be it is hard to see how it can be done without affecting the climate and the amount of land available to sustain the world’s increasing population. This is where we are already going with beef production as new markets and products are found for expanding the demand. To claim that technologies should be developed to reduce emissions from the industry is not a solution and is reminiscent of the George Bush fiction that pollution need not be reduced at source, but will be dealt with by technology once it is being created. This simply puts off the evil hour in the short term thinking of politicians. There is not enough time, Mr Shadow Secretary, and it is better to get started on what we can do rather than pin hopes on things we haven’t yet learnt to do.
We must all strive to be fully aware of where our food comes from. Whether the meat is beef or horse, as responsible trustees of this planet for future generations, we should know whether the source is truly sustainable; we should know whether it was harvested to a high welfare standard and whether it was worth all the effort in culinary and climate terms. There would have to be no risk of either wild horse or mad cow disease. We should not eat any meat where vast tracks of forest have been cleared to grow the feedstuffs to sustain an unnatural population and where all kinds of pharmaceutical products have to be manufactures to create fast growth and prevent disease. In any type of diet we should certainly not want to see the product become so popular that the continuously expanding world population wanted more and more of the stuff while it moved onto green field sites for more and more living and manufacturing space: especially at a time when such space was shrinking due to climate change induced desertification and rising sea levels, causing the northern and southern hemispheres to become more and more overcrowded. In the short term the obese proportion of the world population, whether in the West or in India and China can presumably go on munching their way to an early and expensive grave without a word of discouragement from Mr Herbert.
By designating one day a week when other agricultural and horticultural foods can take precedence seems a small step towards making more and more people ask where their food comes from and what the consequences might be. As in most things, a bit of knowledge will encourage a wider world view. Unless we do some clear thinking, ignorance, in the end, will prove to be the ultimate mass killer. I realise that a report of a speech is not the same as being there but in what I have read so far I fear Mr Herbert has much to learn on the long journey ahead of him. When in Brussels, in the interests of dietary diversity, perhaps he should consider both the horse and, if there is one, the vegetarian sections of the menu. I was always told that travel broadens the mind, to which I would add, ‘...and so does thinking about what’s on your plate, how it got there, and what the consequences might be’.
Dacier
See:
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.foodanddrink
and
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/06/global-land-use/
It goes without saying that comments from Mr Herbert or like minded meat eaters are welcome.
Saturday, 26 September 2009
A Quiet Day on Twitter
One of the Tweets today observed that it was all very quiet. This prompted the following observations. I know I am now a senior citizen because every so often I have to resist the temptation of starting a sentence with the words, ‘in the fifties...’ I am afraid I look back on those rather bleak times with great affection, even though I didn’t fully appreciate what it meant for me i.e., practically no chance of higher education or a job that required the use of a brain. Such was the lot of many of us Secondary Mod types. (That explains a few shoulder chips I hear you say). With school being a bit predictable many of us tried to specialise in technical matters. Chemistry sets were all the rage, mainly with a view to making smells and bangs, while Amateur Radio was another. It was this latter interest that I devoted some time to. Living right in the middle of a town my parents preferred Rediffusion whereby top quality sound from the Home Service, the Light Programme and Radio Three was piped into our home, which happened to be a pub. I mention this as reliable reception was essential for the big fight nights when the bars would be full to hear Freddie Mills, or one of the other boxing heroes of the day, do the distance to a usually bloody victory. With trolley bus cables and four sets of traffic lights conventional radios would deliver programmes through a haze of interference.
My main ambition was of course to get tuned into some of the radio stations coming from Europe. Radio Luxembourg was the main target because from the mid-fifties it was picking up on youth culture and playing records which would never get to the BBC’s limited popular music coverage. True Ham ( Amateur) Radio was all about , men, and they almost usually were, building transmitters and communicating with people all over the world by means of the short wave frequency. This was rather ‘hit and miss’ as atmospheric conditions and the randomness of the ionosphere would determine whether or not another enthusiast would be contacted. At the centre of this pastime for me was the magazine ‘Practical Wireless’ which contained many advertisements for radios you could build from kits. The one I bought looked good but even my science teacher could not get it to work. I soon went off the idea of amateur radio when I learnt that I not only had to pass an exam but under the then licensing laws the only conversations permitted were with regard to the technical details of the respective sets involved and other spoddy type info. When I was able to buy old valve sets from auctions, Radio Luxembourg and Voice of America, as well as the American Forces Network, soon replaced the BBC as I was able to tune into jazz programmes beyond my limited knowledge. This was achieved by climbing over the pub roof and putting up a hundred feet of aerial wire. I never did tell my parents. In 1961 we moved to the Kent coast where the reception was astounding compared with that at the pub. I even caught JFK live when he broadcast to the world setting out his brinkmanship policy over Cuba: a tad worrying at the time.
So it is with this background that I came to the internet, e-mail, blogging and Twitter. It really is a system of communication which far, far, exceeds our smoggy ambitions of the fifties. Political action was all to do with leaflets and pamphlets laboriously produced by means of a stencil and a hand cranked Gestetner. If there was a bit of money then you might be able to get a professional printer to run some leaflets off. In my part of the world there was a firm run by a Quaker family so the regional CND was greatly indebted to them. Letters to the editor l seem rather quaint now. We did toy with the idea of a pirate radio outside the three mile limit but transmitters, not to mention boats, were well beyond our teenage means or abilities.
By way of contrast I can now be in contact with like minded people all over the world should I care to put in the effort. I can play my part in the dissemination of information and receive as much as I want in return. I can achieve through Skype what radio hams could not do within the technology and licence terms of their day. This is why Twitter and the like is so important to small businesses, environmental campaigning and why the boundaries between town and country can be crossed with ease. It also means that the coming generations of elderly people need never be lonely as long as they can log on and take part. It also means that those who are oppressed by their rulers will always find ways of getting the facts through to the wider world, which will eventually become a ‘global village’ ( see www.marshallmcluhan.com/ ), if we can sustain it. I think it was G.K.Chesterton who said that the village was the highest form of civilisation. To get a global village is surely a worthy aim. Ghandi would probably say, as he did of western civilisation, ‘Now that would be a good idea’.
Dacier
My main ambition was of course to get tuned into some of the radio stations coming from Europe. Radio Luxembourg was the main target because from the mid-fifties it was picking up on youth culture and playing records which would never get to the BBC’s limited popular music coverage. True Ham ( Amateur) Radio was all about , men, and they almost usually were, building transmitters and communicating with people all over the world by means of the short wave frequency. This was rather ‘hit and miss’ as atmospheric conditions and the randomness of the ionosphere would determine whether or not another enthusiast would be contacted. At the centre of this pastime for me was the magazine ‘Practical Wireless’ which contained many advertisements for radios you could build from kits. The one I bought looked good but even my science teacher could not get it to work. I soon went off the idea of amateur radio when I learnt that I not only had to pass an exam but under the then licensing laws the only conversations permitted were with regard to the technical details of the respective sets involved and other spoddy type info. When I was able to buy old valve sets from auctions, Radio Luxembourg and Voice of America, as well as the American Forces Network, soon replaced the BBC as I was able to tune into jazz programmes beyond my limited knowledge. This was achieved by climbing over the pub roof and putting up a hundred feet of aerial wire. I never did tell my parents. In 1961 we moved to the Kent coast where the reception was astounding compared with that at the pub. I even caught JFK live when he broadcast to the world setting out his brinkmanship policy over Cuba: a tad worrying at the time.
So it is with this background that I came to the internet, e-mail, blogging and Twitter. It really is a system of communication which far, far, exceeds our smoggy ambitions of the fifties. Political action was all to do with leaflets and pamphlets laboriously produced by means of a stencil and a hand cranked Gestetner. If there was a bit of money then you might be able to get a professional printer to run some leaflets off. In my part of the world there was a firm run by a Quaker family so the regional CND was greatly indebted to them. Letters to the editor l seem rather quaint now. We did toy with the idea of a pirate radio outside the three mile limit but transmitters, not to mention boats, were well beyond our teenage means or abilities.
By way of contrast I can now be in contact with like minded people all over the world should I care to put in the effort. I can play my part in the dissemination of information and receive as much as I want in return. I can achieve through Skype what radio hams could not do within the technology and licence terms of their day. This is why Twitter and the like is so important to small businesses, environmental campaigning and why the boundaries between town and country can be crossed with ease. It also means that the coming generations of elderly people need never be lonely as long as they can log on and take part. It also means that those who are oppressed by their rulers will always find ways of getting the facts through to the wider world, which will eventually become a ‘global village’ ( see www.marshallmcluhan.com/ ), if we can sustain it. I think it was G.K.Chesterton who said that the village was the highest form of civilisation. To get a global village is surely a worthy aim. Ghandi would probably say, as he did of western civilisation, ‘Now that would be a good idea’.
Dacier
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Making a Virtue out of a Necessity: Or, Trident Lite
Having been a ‘ban the bomber’ on those marches in the early sixties I still feel guilty at having failed. I also still feel guilty that underneath all of my marching, speecheefying and giving the thin blue line a bit of a run around, I was always thinking, ‘I hope those Marxist Fascists over there don’t march in when we get rid of these stupid bangers’. By the seventies I was thinking, ‘Well if they do we will go down with our own personal bang which is probably better than inflicting it on the rest of the planet’. Little did I know that the peril to be inflicted would come more from a global economy which made some very affluent, others very poor, and all of us heading for hell in a bucket.
What is my point? Just hang in there a second. Well, at least I recognised the perils and had to decide what the right route was in moral terms. There were those among us then who had no such doubts. Bertram Russell was one, Canon John Collins another. The Canon had been a bomber pilot at the time of Dresden with Hiroshima and Nagasaki yet to come. Not only listen to your radicals but listen to those who have seen into the abyss. Between the two perspectives we all know that ‘MAD’, i.e., mutually assured destruction, is not a defence mechanism but a suicide pact. Against such people I used to feel a bit of a moral coward, and I think I still do, as it is easier to be brave when you have had a great life.
This really does bring me to my point. Why start proclaiming that we will reduce the number of our Trident submarines down to three from four? Come off it Gordon! You know as well I do up here in the agricultural hills that your mini ministers have done so much to undermine, that you can’t afford to do anything else. You can’t really afford three Trident Subs, let alone an ID Card Scheme not to mention a properly conducted land war in Afghanistan. You have written on ‘Courage’ and now is the time to put that noble concept into practice and have the courage to set out the reality. How about saying, ‘We cannot afford a nuclear deterrent so we will reduce it, and at the very least, we will make every effort to further multilateralism’. Not exactly the moral high ground but at least it is honest and will take a bit of courage to express. You have nothing to lose. In any case, and this will appeal to your fragile political judgement, the environmental flip over point might well be reached before anyone actually has to press the button. At least one thing is pretty clear by now. It won’t be you on the hotline to Washington or to Naval Command at Northwood authorising any such depression. Your vaporisation will have already occurred within the next 9 months. ‘Another fine mess you’ve got us into......’
Dacier
What is my point? Just hang in there a second. Well, at least I recognised the perils and had to decide what the right route was in moral terms. There were those among us then who had no such doubts. Bertram Russell was one, Canon John Collins another. The Canon had been a bomber pilot at the time of Dresden with Hiroshima and Nagasaki yet to come. Not only listen to your radicals but listen to those who have seen into the abyss. Between the two perspectives we all know that ‘MAD’, i.e., mutually assured destruction, is not a defence mechanism but a suicide pact. Against such people I used to feel a bit of a moral coward, and I think I still do, as it is easier to be brave when you have had a great life.
This really does bring me to my point. Why start proclaiming that we will reduce the number of our Trident submarines down to three from four? Come off it Gordon! You know as well I do up here in the agricultural hills that your mini ministers have done so much to undermine, that you can’t afford to do anything else. You can’t really afford three Trident Subs, let alone an ID Card Scheme not to mention a properly conducted land war in Afghanistan. You have written on ‘Courage’ and now is the time to put that noble concept into practice and have the courage to set out the reality. How about saying, ‘We cannot afford a nuclear deterrent so we will reduce it, and at the very least, we will make every effort to further multilateralism’. Not exactly the moral high ground but at least it is honest and will take a bit of courage to express. You have nothing to lose. In any case, and this will appeal to your fragile political judgement, the environmental flip over point might well be reached before anyone actually has to press the button. At least one thing is pretty clear by now. It won’t be you on the hotline to Washington or to Naval Command at Northwood authorising any such depression. Your vaporisation will have already occurred within the next 9 months. ‘Another fine mess you’ve got us into......’
Dacier
Saturday, 19 September 2009
What we have in Common: the School Run, whether Urban or Rural
Not so long ago we lived just round the corner from a popular primary school. Nice for property values, but bad for a quiet life and one’s faith in human nature. I thought that parents might not only care about their own children but might just have a thought for the safety of their child's class mates, not to mention other road users. It would seem that this is a thought which will never be fully fulfilled as I have recently noticed two recurring themes.
Firstly, that a late parent is a menace. They will have no qualms about approaching bad bends at speed and in the middle of the road, nor will they pay much attention to avoid driving in the middle of the road when they are trying to give an impression of a being a champion drag racer. Luckily there are not many other road users coming in the other direction so most seem to survive.
The second thing I have noticed is the way in which the zig zag lines which indicate a dangerous place to park outside a school are universally ignored. Should any unfortunate toddler forget the perils, even of a minor road, and step out from behind such an illegally parked car, then I think a manslaughter ( child slaughter?) charge should be brought against such a parent as well as against the 2 brain celled driver who can't manage to observe a 30 speed limit, let alone engage the limited brain power quickly enough to avoid a post school hyperactive child.
Both these steps of misdemeanors seem to be practised whether the parents live in the countryside or the town. The only difference seems to be is that there are more 4x4s in the town and the urban dweller has a great talent for continuing to turn into a narrow street, even though it is clear that fifty other cars are now stationary due to a badly parked 4x4 owned by a parent who is still gassing with other parents back at the school gate, oblivious of their child’s frustration and the mega traffic jam that has developed. This happened when we lived in Worcester and I took the trouble to walk round the corner and inform the parent of the consequences piling up out of sight. ‘Oh, it’s my husband’s car really; I’ve never learnt how to park it’. I politely advised that this was probably not the best comment to make should a policeman be taking the details of the obstructing vehicle when she got back to it. An idle thought of course because should such a thing have occurred, it would have been as rare as the last sighting of a sword fish at Worcester, as reported in ‘Rural Sports' published in 1812 by the Rev. Daniel. As though that was not rare enough, it is reported that a hapless swimmer fell victim to the fish and died. The fish itself was captured as proof of these events. Such a conclusive outcome cannot be guaranteed with road fatalities, a fact of life which those on the school run, whether in town or country, would do well to remember.
Dacier
Firstly, that a late parent is a menace. They will have no qualms about approaching bad bends at speed and in the middle of the road, nor will they pay much attention to avoid driving in the middle of the road when they are trying to give an impression of a being a champion drag racer. Luckily there are not many other road users coming in the other direction so most seem to survive.
The second thing I have noticed is the way in which the zig zag lines which indicate a dangerous place to park outside a school are universally ignored. Should any unfortunate toddler forget the perils, even of a minor road, and step out from behind such an illegally parked car, then I think a manslaughter ( child slaughter?) charge should be brought against such a parent as well as against the 2 brain celled driver who can't manage to observe a 30 speed limit, let alone engage the limited brain power quickly enough to avoid a post school hyperactive child.
Both these steps of misdemeanors seem to be practised whether the parents live in the countryside or the town. The only difference seems to be is that there are more 4x4s in the town and the urban dweller has a great talent for continuing to turn into a narrow street, even though it is clear that fifty other cars are now stationary due to a badly parked 4x4 owned by a parent who is still gassing with other parents back at the school gate, oblivious of their child’s frustration and the mega traffic jam that has developed. This happened when we lived in Worcester and I took the trouble to walk round the corner and inform the parent of the consequences piling up out of sight. ‘Oh, it’s my husband’s car really; I’ve never learnt how to park it’. I politely advised that this was probably not the best comment to make should a policeman be taking the details of the obstructing vehicle when she got back to it. An idle thought of course because should such a thing have occurred, it would have been as rare as the last sighting of a sword fish at Worcester, as reported in ‘Rural Sports' published in 1812 by the Rev. Daniel. As though that was not rare enough, it is reported that a hapless swimmer fell victim to the fish and died. The fish itself was captured as proof of these events. Such a conclusive outcome cannot be guaranteed with road fatalities, a fact of life which those on the school run, whether in town or country, would do well to remember.
Dacier
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Tweeting and the Twitter Twits at the BBC
Two weeks ago the Today Programme, mainly through the agency of Mr John Humphries, had a go at Twitter. Apparently Mathew Paris had been asked to judge some kind of student competition and the audience and participants were invited to tweet each other throughout. What the competition was and why the invitation was extended I have no idea, nor do I wish to have one. Mathew Paris responded in a brilliant piece of prose within the character limit which was admirable, if rather scathing. I have no argument with Mr Paris at all. I respect him both as an ex-politicians, journalist and excellent commentator. What I take exception to was the patronising, and at times dismissive response of Mr Humphries and the background sniggerers in the studio. It was clear that the gargling classes in this matter did not understand what Twitter could be about, would rather not know, and displayed their technophobe credentials, rather like the primitive who might spurn the benefits of an invention like the parachute.
In my experience the phobia to which I refer is displayed by a mocking laziness which denies the possibility that there might be something in the subject under discussion. Those who will decry what I have called the ‘privatisation of society’, namely the cloistering of us all into out little boxes where we are unlikely to know who is in the next box, also decry the expansion of communications which are now available to us all. From our ‘isolated’ residence, as journalists often describe this part of the world, I can be in touch with any number of people , check out my facts and e-mail my MPs and Councillor should I so wish. I am as isolated as I want to be or as much in the swim as I feel I need to be. Granted, there are all sorts of people using Twitter, many of whom you will quickly block, but there are others who you will gladly spare some time to see what they have to say or what information they want to pass on. This can be both entertaining and informative, as well as plain nosy.
So why all the mockery? In the first place it is a natural response when confronted by something new, which requires a bit of effort to understand, and which consciously or subconsciously threatens the status quo, to resort to mocking the messenger. Secondly, and I have banged on about this several times already, perhaps the antagonism is prompted by seeing all this ‘talking’ to each other as a threat. They are quite right to do so because it may well expose the fragility of their own democratic principles. All I can say is to tell them to read, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, and they might just see that it really is better to communicate, rather than to remain silent.
Dacier
In my experience the phobia to which I refer is displayed by a mocking laziness which denies the possibility that there might be something in the subject under discussion. Those who will decry what I have called the ‘privatisation of society’, namely the cloistering of us all into out little boxes where we are unlikely to know who is in the next box, also decry the expansion of communications which are now available to us all. From our ‘isolated’ residence, as journalists often describe this part of the world, I can be in touch with any number of people , check out my facts and e-mail my MPs and Councillor should I so wish. I am as isolated as I want to be or as much in the swim as I feel I need to be. Granted, there are all sorts of people using Twitter, many of whom you will quickly block, but there are others who you will gladly spare some time to see what they have to say or what information they want to pass on. This can be both entertaining and informative, as well as plain nosy.
So why all the mockery? In the first place it is a natural response when confronted by something new, which requires a bit of effort to understand, and which consciously or subconsciously threatens the status quo, to resort to mocking the messenger. Secondly, and I have banged on about this several times already, perhaps the antagonism is prompted by seeing all this ‘talking’ to each other as a threat. They are quite right to do so because it may well expose the fragility of their own democratic principles. All I can say is to tell them to read, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, and they might just see that it really is better to communicate, rather than to remain silent.
Dacier
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Wanted prime Movers: No Previous Experience Necessary
I’m afraid some of my regular readers may have noticed I whinge on a bit. This is not a symptom of age, it’s just me. However, I have always felt that if you are in a position to do something about the subject of your whinge, you have not earned the right to whinge unless you try to do something about it. If this rather untidy life has taught me anything the low art of whinging is no more than throwing paint in the air. Whinging needs something more to elevate it to the heights of grand art. The real art lies in the development of arguments which show that the whinge is not only justified, that it is perfectly sensible to do something about it, and that other ‘no action whingers’ should either shut up, or roll their sleeves up. When I hear someone declare, ‘Well, we didn’t have a safe footpath to the school, so we decided to do something about it’, I am filled with admiration. If someone says they like moaning in the absence of action I put them down on the list somewhere in the region of the Nihilists and politely point out that their attitude is not only negative but is proving to be rather irritating.
On a very minor scale Sian and I have taken up a few issues over the years, usually on points of fairness, and dare I say Justice, and given the objects of our attention a good run for their money. This can sometimes be a worrying process but what is the point of just existing if you do nothing? These little campaigns have often failed but the small successes remind us that something can always be done, even thought it may lead to nothing. We have found that there is no need to go looking for trouble and when there is none about, we go about our lives in a perfectly normal manner. Others may disagree. Why should the bullies have the best advocates, or claim the victory because there is no one to take them on. The famous McDonalds libel case should remind us that every so often, a few individuals, two in that case, can have enormous strength to keep on going against all the odds, and serve as a great beacon to us lesser mortals that sometimes we can have an effect.
In my well spent youth as an enthusiastic unilateralist, syndicalist, vegetarian and drifter, I used to be, and continue to be, very amused by people who think there must be a person in charge who can command the unruly mob and remove the problem for the sometimes unruly representative of authority who wishes to tidy things up. Or more prosaically, who will be in charge of the refreshments?
Should we ever be asked who is in charge Sian and I would now encourage all present to recite, the words of the Clown protesters at the G 8 summit at St. Andrews a few years back. Asked by a bemused police Superintendent, ‘Whose in charge? ’ the Clown Collective, after muttering nonsense in a huddle, burst forth with the reply, ‘We are!'.
In my more verbose moments, and these are difficult to ascertain, as most of my moments are verbose, I can scale the heights of condemnation, assisted by exaggeration, hyperbole and sarcasm, none of which talents, if talents they be, I admire. I like to think I still recognise them however. But, I will never respect ignorance, albeit coming from a great height, especially when seasoned by the salt of patronisation, although I will pity it when it comes from those who know no better. I will listen to objective reason seasoned by humanity, and I will attempt to expose fallacies and untruths. In all of these I will fail, but once in a while the power of the spoken or written word, and sometimes the forces of embarrassment, will succeed in some small measure and I feel that for once we have had a glimpse of whatever that notion of Justice might be. Those who moan and do nothing should try it. It might do them some good. Why not become a prime mover?
On a very minor scale Sian and I have taken up a few issues over the years, usually on points of fairness, and dare I say Justice, and given the objects of our attention a good run for their money. This can sometimes be a worrying process but what is the point of just existing if you do nothing? These little campaigns have often failed but the small successes remind us that something can always be done, even thought it may lead to nothing. We have found that there is no need to go looking for trouble and when there is none about, we go about our lives in a perfectly normal manner. Others may disagree. Why should the bullies have the best advocates, or claim the victory because there is no one to take them on. The famous McDonalds libel case should remind us that every so often, a few individuals, two in that case, can have enormous strength to keep on going against all the odds, and serve as a great beacon to us lesser mortals that sometimes we can have an effect.
In my well spent youth as an enthusiastic unilateralist, syndicalist, vegetarian and drifter, I used to be, and continue to be, very amused by people who think there must be a person in charge who can command the unruly mob and remove the problem for the sometimes unruly representative of authority who wishes to tidy things up. Or more prosaically, who will be in charge of the refreshments?
Should we ever be asked who is in charge Sian and I would now encourage all present to recite, the words of the Clown protesters at the G 8 summit at St. Andrews a few years back. Asked by a bemused police Superintendent, ‘Whose in charge? ’ the Clown Collective, after muttering nonsense in a huddle, burst forth with the reply, ‘We are!'.
In my more verbose moments, and these are difficult to ascertain, as most of my moments are verbose, I can scale the heights of condemnation, assisted by exaggeration, hyperbole and sarcasm, none of which talents, if talents they be, I admire. I like to think I still recognise them however. But, I will never respect ignorance, albeit coming from a great height, especially when seasoned by the salt of patronisation, although I will pity it when it comes from those who know no better. I will listen to objective reason seasoned by humanity, and I will attempt to expose fallacies and untruths. In all of these I will fail, but once in a while the power of the spoken or written word, and sometimes the forces of embarrassment, will succeed in some small measure and I feel that for once we have had a glimpse of whatever that notion of Justice might be. Those who moan and do nothing should try it. It might do them some good. Why not become a prime mover?
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Getting to Grips with Rural Housing
A full discussion paper is available on request by leaving a comment
Firstly, let me make it clear that I appreciate that this can be a sensitive and highly charged topic. Having been observing the trends and listening to people’s views on the subject for more than forty years I have no illusions as to how strongly some people can feel. Secondly, I think we must all appreciate that market forces sweep us all along whether it be in past or present generations. More often than not people finish up being swept up on their residential beach by virtue of economic forces expanding or reducing their choices. Fairness to the individuals or the communities concerned does not come into it. The modern mantra seems to be that you cannot fight market forces. It would seem that in recent times, whatever the rhetoric, we cannot even moderate or mitigate their effect either.
The consequence for rural housing is that young people who have grown up in the countryside cannot afford to stay, a fact recognised this week by the Federation of Master Builders in their press release of 1.9.09:
‘The Federation of Master Builders has demanded action to increase the supply of affordable rural housing following today’s announcement by the National Housing Federation, the National Association of Small Schools, and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, that Primary schools are closing at a rate of one a month in rural England’.
Granted you can accuse them of having a vested interest in taking up this cause, but all of us who live in the countryside, for whatever reason, have a vested interest in seeing that market forces do not rumble on towards their inevitable conclusion of an absence of young people beyond higher education age. The demographic imbalance is already seeing schools, shops, post offices and pubs closing with those left behind in a landscape with an ageing population. There is a need to assess whether we like the outcomes predicted and then discuss whether there is anything we can do about it. The aim should be a viable and sustainable community.
The question at the centre of that assessment is whether intervention by central or local government is possible, whether it should be done at all, and how can competing interests be resolved. The government will say that it has already intervened into the housing market by introducing measures to reduce the number of unoccupied houses and by encouraging the building of affordable homes for local young people through housing associations. This is undoubtedly true, but it is not enough. Last week it was reported that the desire of the Government to see that social housing rents fell in line with interest payments for mortgage borrowers, would lead to a fall in the already limited funds available for new builds.
The Master Builders also reminded us of the ever present threat to our schools. Having lived in a village where the school was closed there is nothing more effective in killing a community spirit, closely followed by closing the shop, the pub and the church. Twenty percent of us live in the countryside, so why not recognise it as a worthy contrast to the city sprawls of the rest of the nation and try and maintain a healthy inter relationship? If the question has even been considered there does not appear to have been much of an answer as the original life blood of the countryside, agriculture, is seen as a marginal industry. Who cares if 50% of our milk producers have left the industry in the past 12 years or that pig farmers are following suit, or that there are many other products are having to be sold for less than the cost of production? One milk producer whose withdrawal from the industry was reported on Farming Today on BBC Radio 4 this Tuesday (1.9.09) said that he was no longer prepared to do a 70 hour week for £2 per hour. To achieve a sustainable countryside we need affordable housing, and jobs, at least within reach, so that we keep the young families we have. Without children there will be no need for schools and so the possibility of attracting young families who can afford rural properties, will have also gone. Trying to balance these competing elements while preserving the quality of the landscape is by no means easy and it is not surprising that many would rather deal with more easily solved problems. A search under Rural Housing will reveal loads of papers and bodies reporting on the problem. Meanwhile the inexorable forces do their worst in the absence of positive action.
So where should we go from here. Firstly, we should stop ignoring the question and leaving it to the hierarchy. Inhibitions and prejudices about where we are from and how long we have been here must be set aside and, as country dwellers, if we really believe this aspect of civilisation is worth maintaining, we should have a good think and press for change. As a starting point, should you want to be e-mailed a rather long draft discussion paper, please leave a comment.
Dacier
Firstly, let me make it clear that I appreciate that this can be a sensitive and highly charged topic. Having been observing the trends and listening to people’s views on the subject for more than forty years I have no illusions as to how strongly some people can feel. Secondly, I think we must all appreciate that market forces sweep us all along whether it be in past or present generations. More often than not people finish up being swept up on their residential beach by virtue of economic forces expanding or reducing their choices. Fairness to the individuals or the communities concerned does not come into it. The modern mantra seems to be that you cannot fight market forces. It would seem that in recent times, whatever the rhetoric, we cannot even moderate or mitigate their effect either.
The consequence for rural housing is that young people who have grown up in the countryside cannot afford to stay, a fact recognised this week by the Federation of Master Builders in their press release of 1.9.09:
‘The Federation of Master Builders has demanded action to increase the supply of affordable rural housing following today’s announcement by the National Housing Federation, the National Association of Small Schools, and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, that Primary schools are closing at a rate of one a month in rural England’.
Granted you can accuse them of having a vested interest in taking up this cause, but all of us who live in the countryside, for whatever reason, have a vested interest in seeing that market forces do not rumble on towards their inevitable conclusion of an absence of young people beyond higher education age. The demographic imbalance is already seeing schools, shops, post offices and pubs closing with those left behind in a landscape with an ageing population. There is a need to assess whether we like the outcomes predicted and then discuss whether there is anything we can do about it. The aim should be a viable and sustainable community.
The question at the centre of that assessment is whether intervention by central or local government is possible, whether it should be done at all, and how can competing interests be resolved. The government will say that it has already intervened into the housing market by introducing measures to reduce the number of unoccupied houses and by encouraging the building of affordable homes for local young people through housing associations. This is undoubtedly true, but it is not enough. Last week it was reported that the desire of the Government to see that social housing rents fell in line with interest payments for mortgage borrowers, would lead to a fall in the already limited funds available for new builds.
The Master Builders also reminded us of the ever present threat to our schools. Having lived in a village where the school was closed there is nothing more effective in killing a community spirit, closely followed by closing the shop, the pub and the church. Twenty percent of us live in the countryside, so why not recognise it as a worthy contrast to the city sprawls of the rest of the nation and try and maintain a healthy inter relationship? If the question has even been considered there does not appear to have been much of an answer as the original life blood of the countryside, agriculture, is seen as a marginal industry. Who cares if 50% of our milk producers have left the industry in the past 12 years or that pig farmers are following suit, or that there are many other products are having to be sold for less than the cost of production? One milk producer whose withdrawal from the industry was reported on Farming Today on BBC Radio 4 this Tuesday (1.9.09) said that he was no longer prepared to do a 70 hour week for £2 per hour. To achieve a sustainable countryside we need affordable housing, and jobs, at least within reach, so that we keep the young families we have. Without children there will be no need for schools and so the possibility of attracting young families who can afford rural properties, will have also gone. Trying to balance these competing elements while preserving the quality of the landscape is by no means easy and it is not surprising that many would rather deal with more easily solved problems. A search under Rural Housing will reveal loads of papers and bodies reporting on the problem. Meanwhile the inexorable forces do their worst in the absence of positive action.
So where should we go from here. Firstly, we should stop ignoring the question and leaving it to the hierarchy. Inhibitions and prejudices about where we are from and how long we have been here must be set aside and, as country dwellers, if we really believe this aspect of civilisation is worth maintaining, we should have a good think and press for change. As a starting point, should you want to be e-mailed a rather long draft discussion paper, please leave a comment.
Dacier
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)