Waiting for the man to jump

Remember that scene in Lethal Weapon, when the policeman approaches the man on the high ledge? He handcuffs himself to the man, and (to our shock and amusement) the policeman jumps them both off. And he gets off the landing mat and says: That was fun, let’s do it again.

Now imagine, instead of one psychotic policeman there are fifty. And imagine the man on the ledge is the chief of police. And imagine they roped themselves to him inside the building, and then dragged him onto the precipice. And now they jump.

That would be silly.

But essentially, that is what is about to happen in the USA. And there doesn’t seem to be a soft landing – except if the Republicans land on their heads. Amusing? If America jumps off a fiscal cliff, we may laugh – just until we realise that the rope attached to the last man is tangled round our legs.

Collateral damage

Hemingway, I think, said that first-time spectators at bullfights are shocked, not at the death of the bull (for that is the point of the exercise) but at the death of the horses.

It seems that before the matador appears, men on horses stick spikes in the bull’s shoulders to make him angry. This works. He responds by charging at the horses. Their death is shocking because it is incidental: they are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like the police officers mown down like Space Invaders in Leon. Or Ben Kinsella.

Or Jacintha Saldanha.

I’m sure it is very amusing having a joke at the expense of someone rich and famous. I expect it is fun throwing rocks at fire crews, or attacking linesmen. And if those people suffer, I suppose they (like the bull) must accept this as their purpose in life. And if someone else dies because the fire engine fails to arrive, we shake our heads in sorrow and say we didn’t mean any harm.

But even convicted prisoners are protected by national and international law from being publicly humiliated. Nurses, it seems, are not. 

I don’t pretend, of course, that the UK has a clean record in the humane treatment of prisoners (or nurses). We used, for example, to send convicts to Australia. But these days, we recognise that this is cruel and inhuman. After all, Australia contains radio stations like 2Day FM.

Lest we remember

Can a TV celebrity – who turns out to have been a child-molester – be “erased” from the records? His blue plaques can be melted down; charities can drop his name like a hot (and diseased) potato. The damage to his victims is not so easily removed. Nor can we, who used to like the man, retrospectively alter that fact.

But, however symbolically, we can – and must – refuse to recognise any honour (formal or informal) which he enjoyed.

We are told, for example, that the Vatican need not posthumously withdraw a papal knighthood: because it ceases on the holder’s death. Not good enough. Better to declare that he never was a papal knight.

Can’t be done? Sure it can. Lance Armstrong is not a former champion: he never won the Tour de France. Look it up.

(Go further. Unlike papal knighthood, sainthood is intrinsically retrospective: it can only be awarded after the person dies. Can’t it similarly be withdrawn? Some of the church’s mediaeval “saints”, re-examined, might turn out to have been murderous bigots – in the manner of the 9/11 killers. Should they keep their honour?)

By the way, I’m not pointing any fingers at the broadcaster, the hospitals, the charities for whom a child-molester may have worked. They are rather victims (albeit very much secondary victims) of his duplicity.

In the same way, the Hillsborough revelations – however disturbing – will not erase the heroism of PC Bill Barker, who died defending a flood-hit community three years ago this month. Nor that of WPC Fiona Bone and WPC Nicola Hughes, recently murdered.

Nor (as we approach Remembrance Day) should we doubt the heroism of Lt Edward Drummond-Baxter and L/Cpl Siddhanta Kunwar, the latest of our soldiers to die in Afghanistan. If the war itself is idiotic, so was the “Great War” of 1914-18. And that does not stop us honouring those who served and died.

Their names will live forever.

Some names I would sooner forget.

Three cheers for the Olympic spirit

We welcome the Paralympics to the (alleged) home of disabled sport. And The Mail and The Sun are looking beyond the wheelchairs and the missing limbs, and seeing the visiting athletes for what they are. A bunch of foreigners.

Sorry, I’m being cynical. In fact, from what I read, the attitudes shown towards other nations at the Olympics were surprisingly good. With three notable exceptions.

First up were the Americans. A teenage Korean swimmer beat her personal best by several seconds: so of course they cried drugs. Michael Phelps made similar progress at a similar age; and so did an American youngster later in the London games. But when Asians succeed at American expense, they must have cheated. (Underground tunnels, perhaps.) How else did Tezuka get his work out before Disney did?

Next up were the French. Early on, when their swimmers were beating ours, they jeered at our lack of medals. Like we care. We had the last laugh. Just like seven years ago, when Jack Shoerack told the IOC that Britain had the worst cuisine in the world “except Finland”. I’d like to think the Finnish vote was crucial in bringing the Olympics to London rather than Paris.

And finally, not to be left out, came the British. At the football (although, I think, only at the football) there was jeering of the national anthems. And let’s not pretend it’s just an English thing (although it happens all the more in England as 1966 recedes.) In Cardiff, the crowd booed God Save The Queen. I wonder how the Welsh players felt? Maybe they’re all republicans.

Admittedly the England football team needs to use a distinct English anthem:  just as the athletes do at the Commonwealth Games. And use the English flag, if it comes to that. But is that what sporting xenophobia comes down to? Is it about a flag and an anthem? Is it about ingrained culinary pride? Or is it simply about being bad losers?

The moving (middle) finger

See the Kings of Ibrox

Eat dust, or imbibe rocks.

The writing is on the wall, and Rangers FC finds itself shaken from its kingdom.

And I now think that I was in error in my earlier piece (Rangers: good riddance?). It’s not something I said: it’s something I didn’t say.

I asked whether Scottish professional football could survive without Rangers. This remains a taxing question, as it were. But to their great credit, the SPL and SFL are treating it as irrelevant. The question: “What will benefit us?” has been swept aside by the greater question: “What is right, and what is wrong?” Moral considerations have, for once, outweighed market considerations: and for that the clubs are to be applauded.

The new Rangers administration is to be equally admired. They declared in advance that they would accept entry into the Scottish Third Division. Did they have an alternative? Well, yes. They could quite easily have picked up their ball and walked away across the border. I am sure the English Premiership would welcome an Old Firm club with open arms. Who would stand in the way? Glazer? Abramovich? Mansour bin Zayed? Oh, please. What about the sponsors? That’d be Barclays Bank. Enough said.

But aren’t newco Rangers being punished for the sins of the oldco? On the contrary: the newco is benefiting from its association with the oldco. Most new clubs can’t just walk into the professional leagues. They start in the bottom division of a local league somewhere, and work their way up.

It’s still hard on the players and staff - at Rangers and elsewhere. But real and material questions (about mina and shekels, if you will) have been weighed and found wanting.

Simply Redtop

No connection with the item below (about reds and redtops). Simply an amusing resemblance.

There Is No Alternative

The other day, suspicious as I am of free-market Capitalism, I looked through a Communist newspaper. It was full of prefabricated screaming slogans. (A bit like the X-Factor build-ups, but with long words.) Nevertheless, from its pages I learned many things.

Firstly, I learned that the Syrian government is “magnanimous”, its agenda “peaceful” and its people “heroic and dignified”. (I will accept the last point.) And I learned that Colonel Gaddafi – who harboured Yvonne Fletcher’s killer and feted the Lockerbie bomber as a national hero – was “great” and that his works command “a feeling nothing short of awe”.

I’m aware that the West has an agenda. We routinely intervene in (say) Libya or Iraq, but not in Zimbabwe or Rwanda – which see equal atrocities but don’t have oil. Funny, that. But if we elect, or tolerate, people like Bush and Mugabe, that doesn’t suddenly make Saddam and Gaddafi good guys.

Secondly, I learned something about the Royal Jubilee. I don’t mean the revelation that the royal family (and all rich people) are a bunch of parasites. I wouldn’t expect a Communist newspaper to say anything else. I’ve blogged elsewhere (Sons and Daughters) about the useful role a ceremonial head of state plays in a democracy: but I don’t suppose democracy interests Communists any more than it does Capitalists.

No:  the surprising news about the Jubilee was quoted from an online commentator, who wrote: “The only sentiment allowed to be expressed in the media was pro-monarchial.”

Fair enough, it’s not everyone’s plate of cucumber sandwiches. But the only sentiment allowed? I’m sorry, but this is paranoid nonsense. The press includes reds as well as redtops. You may produce The Morning Star as freely as The Daily Star, and I may as freely buy it. There are countries where this would be impossible: where one cannot speak (much less write) against the establishment.

A more interesting question might be: why do we overwhelmingly buy newspapers with a pro- Establishment slant?

But maybe it’s a trick question. The attitude of the mainstream press (and its readers – chicken and egg) is more complex. In 1992, when Royal Divorce memorabilia was selling 3-for-2, the papers were largely anti-monarchial. The church, the Lords, the banks, politicians in general, are routinely pilloried. Fat-cat salaries and dodgy Middle East wars are fair game.

True, the mainstream press doesn’t really question Capitalist assumptions. The Guardian (for one) has a go, but it doesn’t hack at the roots. The redtops don’t even behave as though the questions exist. They would rather tell us about Wayne Rooney or … well, Kate and Wills.

And perhaps that is the problem with the coverage of the Jubilee. It has become another celebrity story with which the redtops fill their front pages. And they are free to do so.

The Communist press, by contrast, is quite happy to hack at the roots of the system. (Not with subtlety; nor with evidence of independent thought on the part of individuals. That’s OK.) Or they too can obsess about the royals. And they are free to do so.  

There are places where this precious freedom does not exist. Syria springs to mind.

There are other countries whose leaders oppose sanctions against the Syrian regime. (Perhaps because they look at its actions and they see nothing wrong: they see normality: they see themselves.) Which countries would those be? Ah, yes, of course.

Thatcher said “There is no alternative.” She was wrong. There is an alternative. There has to be an alternative. But this isn’t it.

Rangers: good riddance?

Many of us, sick of the obscene overpayment of footballers by the richest clubs, are secretly (or openly) pleased at the prospect of a top club going out of business.

If (as seems likely) Rangers are refused entry to the Scottish Premier League, that is surely where the road leads. For why should the Scottish League let them in? Surely the only ways into the League are by relegation from SPL or promotion from feeder leagues. Do they join at the bottom of the pyramid, or what?

But hold it. Barclays Bank has been accused of – well, I can't quite make out what. But it looks as if we have all been thoroughly swindled. A serious financial penalty is in order, for starters. But nobody speaks of punitively closing the bank down: because it would solve nothing, serve no-one, and punish the innocent along with the guilty. A major bank going out of business would destabilise the whole sector.

So it is with Rangers. The punishment should be severe, certainly: but (effective) extinction – even if we don't think it too harsh – would have difficult consequences for the rest of Scottish football.

Here are two possible alternatives:

(1) The other clubs could vote newco Rangers into the SPL: but then apply such a points penalty that the team is immediately relegated. (Presumably instead of one of the teams currently going down.) That would give the new club legitimate entry into the League, as a club relegated from the SPL.

This would limit the punishment suffered.  Of course, a year out of the SPL and a further year (presumably) out of European competition would represent a sizable hit, and rightly. Or:

(2) The approximate financial weight of that penalty could be calculated. Then the newco could be fined the equivalent amount, to be paid over those two seasons, but spared the actual relegation.

Then Rangers have to live within restricted means, as if they had been relegated.  But the SPL as a whole keeps Rangers in their portfolio when touting for TV and sponsorship deals – and receives a healthy bonus in the form of the fine levied. So the SPL does not take a financial hit, and newco Rangers do not gain financially from the sins of oldco. (But are not crushed out of existence.)

Or let Rangers die, and no doubt serve them right, and see what happens to all the other clubs when there are no Rangers matches in the calendar.

Morality and the free market

The other day David Cameron said Jimmy Carr's tax arrangements, though legal, were morally wrong. Then yesterday the courts said the same about HBOS's actions towards Farepak savers.

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that, for money earned (and unpaid), Carr pales into insignificance alongside many sly businesspeople whom Cameron obviously doesn't want to upset.

The puzzling thing is to find a committed free-market capitalist suddenly discovering morality. Milton Friedman (Thatcher's monetarist guru) famously said that the only "social responsibility" of business is to make maximum profits for its shareholders. You do what is profitable for you, I do what is profitable for me. In this world-view, the only "immoral" thing is to go against the dictates of greed. The market knows best: the market is the only wisdom, the only morality.

It's not a new philosophy. Friedman just pushed an old one to a new extreme. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" means my happiness, not my neighbour's happiness. He should pursue his own happiness. That is why the talk is always of a Bill of Rights - not a Bill of Responsibilities. That is why there is no such thing as society: and I am certainly not my brother's keeper.

Ed Miliband said: "I'm not in favour of tax avoidance obviously, but I don't think it is for politicians to lecture people about morality." Nor for the courts, perhaps. But it is for politicians to legislate against wrongdoing, and it is for the courts to interpret legislation accordingly (by the spirit, not the letter, one might say).

To challenge Carr, or even HBOS, is to miss the point. We might rather question the whole ultra-captialist experiment and the (often unstated) assumptions on which it is founded. Perhaps, to reverse the flow of Ed Miliband's comment, it is for people to lecture politicians about morality

When I were a lad

A few days ago Geoff Boycott said on a BBC cricket blog:

“Harold Larwood had to walk eight miles just to go the cinema. And then eight miles back.”

Two things strike me about this comment. Firstly, it sounds like the Four Yorkshiremen, with their competitive tales of childhood deprivation.

“Cinema? You were lucky! We used to walk twenty miles to look at a hole in t’ground.”

“Oh, we used to DREAM of looking at a hole in t’ground. We walked a hundred miles before breakfast to look at a cardboard box.”

“Breakfast? Ha!”

(And so on.)

Secondly, I am struck by Boycott’s evident surprise that the distance was the same in both directions. Maybe that’s what went wrong with his running between the wickets.

Digger scrapes bottom (of barrel)

The England football team has a new manager, and all The Sun can do is snipe at his speech impediment. They then publish a similar jibe at “Wossy” (that’s Jonathan Ross – I’m helpless with laughter here) as if that makes it OK.

Let’s leave aside that Roy Hodgson’s rhotacism has not stopped him speaking five languages (while many Sun journalists struggle with one). It’s not about Hodgson and it’s not about Ross. They are successful enough, secure enough in their skill and vocation, not to care tuppence what jokes a semi-literate “newspaper” makes about them. It’s about the thousands of kids with lisps and stammers, who suffer endless piss-taking, and who now see this bullying (for that’s what it is) encouraged by a national red-top.

Mind you, are the broadsheets much better? In yesterday’s Independent, one page made comments similar to the ones I make above. On almost the next page, a story about the Russian president referred to “Mr Medvedev, a diminutive lawyer”.

Excuse me? What has his height got to do with anything? (And no, it was not in the context of describing his treatment by satirists. It was a throwaway word which added nothing to the thread of the article.) What about: The fat Mayor of London? The bald Foreign Secretary?

How about if a new teacher addresses kids as “Spotty” or “Big Nose”? It’s disrespectful, it’s damaging, it’s degrading. It’s bullying and encourages further bullying. It leads to depression, and in some cases suicide.

I expect this rubbish from the tabloids (sadly). But in my estimation, The Independent ranks higher. And you can pronounce that as you will.

Famous for 15 minutes

A man was arrested for swimming into the path of the University Boat Race. With almost equal stupidity, the media told us his name, thereby giving him the publicity he craved, and advertising this as a route to fame. (At least he kept his clothes on, unlike some others who disrupt sporting events.)

There are many ways to yell “Look at me,” if that is what you live for. Some people get a car number plate that declares their name. Like Postman Pat or Noddy. (Bless.) Some people try to catch the coat-tails of someone else’s fame – for example, by shooting them. One general (whose name is ironically only approximately remembered) had his shot at fame by destroying the Temple of Diana.

A very popular method these days is to sign up for a reality show on TV. Of course, you have to choose carefully. You need a grain of talent to gain a place on Masterchef. (Unless of course you are already famous for something else. In that case you are readily offered further fame regardless of talent, as a chef or dancer or ice-skater. To him who has, it will be given.)

But those lacking talent can still get their 2 minutes of fame (falling short of Andy Warhol’s utopian 15) on the freak-show of the X-Factor auditions.  Or simply Big Brother, which openly embraces the fact that its participants simply want to be famous.

I have a proposal for the next series of Big Brother. At the start of this piece, I objected to our being told the name of the boat race swimmer. Following the same logic, I would like to see the identity of the next lot of self-publicists carefully concealed. Let them preen into the Big Brother house in front of a crowd of carefully-chosen unbelievers, who will dutifully wave and cheer and then utterly forget the utterly forgettable. They will be there again, when the suckers emerge.

Let there be cameras all over the house, and let no film be made. (This seems to work quite well with CCTV. The bad guys see cameras and tailor their behaviour accordingly.)

And then (this is the clever bit) comes the “real” reality TV. Let secret cameras follow each emerging contestant into the outside world, and let us all watch their bemused response as they realise that nobody knows who they are.

But above all: we do not want to know their names.

(Or maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe Big Brother is a necessary conduit. Maybe without it, people would be reduced to shooting people, destroying religious buildings, wrecking sports events, or demonstrating their catastrophic inability to sing.)

How to save the planet

My wife remarked the other day how many baby-wipes we get through with our toddler. It's a small thing, but it reminded me of a question on QI a year or two ago, about environmental damage. And it seems that if you're looking for the biggest carbon culprit, you can forget about dogs or horses: and presumably the Porches and petrochemicals and fossil fuels and fighter planes which sustain our democracy. The greatest carbon damage, it turns out, is achieved by having children.

That is: to save the planet, stop having children. This will probably work: but taking the human race out of circulation seems a little drastic.

I expect there are some with an agenda who would approve. Our extinction would doubtless be well-deserved, might be pursued (by quicker methods) by certain religious sects seeking divine approval, and is also  the logical end of eco-terrorism. I don’t know whether there are militant nihilists out there, who reckon creation “ex nihilo” was a bad move, and would like to restore our bit of the universe to its pristine chaos.

I wonder, though, about the Buddhist take. The end of the world would free us all from that troublesome reincarnation business: but I don’t think Buddhists are actually meant to kill people. So would Buddhists approve the “QI agenda" of letting humanity die by simply not having children? It is probably the surest way of saving the planet.

But what does it mean for the path to Nirvana? If I’ve got this right, current reincarnation arrangements allow you to be - as it were - promoted (eventually to a life as a monk, and thence to Nirvana) or relegated. Someone relegated to (say) a flea can presumably work their way up through the leagues of newts and newspaper magnates.

But if all the human divisions are removed, will it be possible to gain Nirvana? Or will the spiritual Premiership forever be out of reach? It’s like removing the Championship and League One and Two, along with the various feeder leagues: so that qualification for the Premiership will depend on improbable performances in the pub leagues.

Meanwhile we are rapidly filling the air, sea and soil with stuff with unguessable side-effects. It’s quite likely that we will all soon be infertile, the QI agenda will be fulfilled, and the planet will be saved. (Without abandoning the consumerist agenda! Win-win.)

Old Firm, infirm

Other football matters were put into perspective by events concerning Fabrice Muamba. But media attention has quickly and tastelessly returned to the "survival" of Rangers FC, that older patient through whose veins it is proving difficult to pump money.

I expect a way will be found to let the club continue in business. After all, the media assures us (with the same idle metaphor), Scottish football cannot survive without Rangers.

Excuse me? Certainly, clubs traditionally feed on and into their local communities, and the loss of a football club can leave locals as bereft as the loss of a local factory. And certainly, the lack of competition at the top of Scottish football is a pity – compared with twenty-odd years ago, when Aberdeen and Dundee United were reaching European finals. And perhaps, if Celtic have no credible opponents, the sponsors will go home.

But kids will still kick a ball around on any available patch of land. I mean, if the Scottish league goes part-time, will the kids switch to baseball, or croquet, or caber-tossing? Football as a sport will hardly notice the difference. Football as a multi-million-pound circus may well be affected, but that is a business affair – not a sporting one.

In fact it is probably that very circus, that same sea of cash, that is destroying football clubs as a community resource. Manchester United has long since ceased to be part of its local community. It is a global brand with a global support base, and a largely non-UK playing staff (in common with other top “English” teams). If it relocated to Sheffield or Shanghai, there might be the merest blip before business continued as usual. Remember the Brooklyn Dodgers?

The excess of money may also contribute to a growing culture of cheating and ref-baiting. If a missed offside flag can cost a million pounds, or a sly elbow gain 10 million, what antics may not result?

It’s also the excess of money that causes a growing minority of us to lose interest – not that this hurts the owners, as long as Sky and the sponsors keep the taps turned on. Really I’m beginning to think I’d prefer to watch croquet or caber-tossing. (I’ll draw the line at baseball.)

A few months ago I opened my bank statement. I shan’t (and needn’t) name the bank: but the envelope proudly proclaimed the bank’s association with the English Premiership. And I realised: I’ve been bitching about the money “earned” by top footballers, and here I am – in effect – sponsoring those salaries.

I’m not surprised at the bank in question: after all, who better than a bank chief to understand the value of handing out obscene salaries for non-achievement? But I have moved my bank account. And I dare say the bank will notice this about as much as England would notice the demise of Rangers.

And you thought school league tables were bad

I blogged the other day about illegal quota-setting by a privatised traffic warden service. I expressed shock that, within days of the court’s finding, David Cameron would announce the contracting-out of certain areas of police work.

Now, in the aftermath of the murder of 16 civilians by a “rogue” US soldier in Afghanistan, the BBC revived a link to an earlier story referring to the atrocities at My Lai and elsewhere. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15499138

“Officers were under pressure to produce high body counts of enemy in Vietnam and those pressures persist.” That is to say, groups of soldiers had “kill quotas” to fulfil. But I imagine the bad guys had guns, too. So I guess it was just natural to fill the quotas up the easy way, by killing unarmed women and children.

Can this be true? Surely the BBC is making it up. In any case, I imagine American military training nowadays extols discipline, not merely a Space Invaders mentality: so this week’s gunman no longer has the defence that he was “obeying orders”. But can you imagine what might happen if the US, or the UK, sent a privatised peacekeeping force to Afghanistan? Or we could both send one - just to add that competitive edge?

Can David Cameron still be serious about privatising law-enforcement? Altamont could shortly look like a walk in the park.

Just hand over the money and we'll say no more about it

In late January a tribunal found that a traffic warden, Hakim Berkani, had been unfairly dismissed after blowing the whistle on illegal quota-setting by his employer.

Three things are worrying here.

Firstly, he was not employed directly by the authorities, but by NSL – a private contractor. To place law-enforcement in private hands is surely asking for trouble. Tax-collectors in New Testament Judea were widely known to be creaming it: and I am sure the Mafia, experts in collecting revenue, would love to do so with official sanction.

Secondly, NSL is the largest such contractor in the UK, working for 60 local authorities. So there is no reason to be optimistic that the same practices are not operating throughout the country.

Thirdly, and astonishingly, within weeks of Berkani's tribunal, the government is proposing to allow the contracting-out of police work.

Berkani said to reporters: "Do you tell a police officer he should arrest a minimum of 10 people a day?" He was joking. David Cameron is not joking.

Unmasked

I blogged a couple of months ago (Masks) about the Occupy London protest. This is a group of people in V for Vendetta-style Guy Fawkes masks, who camped between St Paul’s Cathedral and the Corporation of London to protest against economic injustice.

Their presence must have been very scary for London’s financial elite. So I am sure their recent eviction has brought sighs of relief and saved the stock market from meltdown.

I was interested to see one Occupier interviewed – without his mask. It is now the powerful who are keeping a low profile. The Corporation of London continues to hide – behind the bailiffs and police officers who carry out their bidding.  But the Corporation at least expressed “regret”, while St Paul’s has (to my knowledge) remained silent.

Mary Ann Sieghart wrote recently in the Independent celebrating the tolerance she sees in the Church of England. She links this to its status as the Established Church: belonging to all, it seeks to be the servant of all. (David Cameron celebrated the same tolerance in a recent statement about this country’s Christian values.)

Certainly, in a world where some religious groups preach death to homosexuals or to poets they don’t approve of, the C of E – by contrast – is certainly a broad church. It tolerates many voices, including scepticism of its own stated beliefs.

But is it possible to be too tolerant? Pastor Niemoller spoke with regret of the failure of the German church to oppose the Nazi regime. In Kenya, Bishop David Gitari challenged economic injustice and political corruption – and at one point was actively asked by government figures to make sure the church maintained its role of prophetic moral challenge to those in power.

The Church of England has the same role and the same invitation. The role (shared with other denominations) derives from a Biblical call for justice, and has led people (from Wilberforce to Barnardo to Desmond Tutu) to show us that the world can be better, if we will it so.

The invitation derives from its status as the established church, which places its senior bishops in the House of Lords. Thus (if the mood so takes them) they can challenge our thinking from Parliament as well as from pulpit.

And from time to time, they have done so. David Shephard wrote Bias to the Poor (and thereby ruled himself out of contention for the Canterbury post while Thatcher ruled). John Sentamu cut up his clerical collar on national TV in protest against the Mugabe regime.  I think it was David Jenkins who dared to “pray for our enemies” during the Falklands war.

But on the whole, the established church, understandably, does not want to rock the boat. Sieghart values a church “that is prepared to move – albeit a generation behind the rest of society – with the times”. I would like to see a church which moves ahead of society: which takes the lead, like Wilberforce, like the Quaker reformers, like the Jubilee campaign: which sides with the vulnerable in the (often hidden) face of the comfortable and the corporate.

The trouble is, challenging the government has been portrayed (at least since Thatcher, perhaps longer) as disloyal. But the opposition’s official title is Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Opposition to bad legislation – indeed, forcing the government to properly justify good legislation – is an essential function in a democracy.

It is also a function which the church forgets at peril to its relevance. We do not make the gospel “relevant” by changing the message to fit what people already believe, any more than we make the speed limit “relevant” by changing it to match the speed people already drive at.

The new fundamentalism

A Devon town council was told by the High Court it was acting illegally by allowing (presumably Christian) prayers to be said before meetings. The council found a surprising defender in Baroness Warsi, Britain’s first female Muslim cabinet minister. She wrote in the Daily Telegraph:

“To create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds. … You cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes."

The British Humanist Association waded in, saying Baroness Warsi’s comments are “outdated, unwarranted and divisive”. Let’s take those one at a time.

Outdated? The intellectuals at the BHA can do better than this. To value an idea according to whether it originated long ago or last week – or on a Thursday, to paraphrase Chesterton – is like saying that job interviewers should appoint the candidate born first, or last, or under Scorpio.

Unwarranted? Means: without basis. Richard Dawkins gives the game away by declaring that Warsi’s comments have “no logical basis” (italics mine). I think he mistakes the nature of faith. I have no logical basis for believing God exists, just as he has no logical basis for believing God does not exist. Or for believing that new ideas are better than old ones. Dawkins and the Baroness each take up a position with a clear basis – in their respective faiths.

(Meanwhile, the idea that God would submit himself for examination by Dawkins is laughable. The opposite may eventually occur, but that is another matter.)

Divisive? This is the most puzzling accusation. I would say Warsi's comments are the opposite. A person of one religion is finding common cause with people of another religion, even though important differences remain. If a secularist tries to discourage this, if a humanist wants Muslim and Christian to disagree: who is being divisive?

The Baroness speaks of “militant secularisation” as a form of totalitarianism. I look forward to the BHA showing us that this is not so – although there is “no logical basis” for that hope: since there is no logical connection between loving one's neighbour and hating God.

First among sequels

Time to reflect on another year’s Hollywood output. And beneath the smart oak veneer of the Oscar lists lurks the usual compressed sawdust of remakes, adaptations and (above all) sequels. Sadly, I haven’t managed to see Hangover 2, Transformers 3 or Mission Impossible 4: so my comments will be generalised, taking in films from earlier years. But nothing much changes.

Generally, I don’t get the point of remakes. I can understand that you remake a foreign-language film in English to spare your audience the trouble of mumbling as they read the subtitles aloud to themselves. And before anyone starts, no, The Lion King is not a rip-off of a Japanese original. Disney says so, and the American courts agree. So I’m not going to argue. 

(Osamu Tezuka, 1965)

But to remake The Ladykillers or Psycho? What's the point? Why not re-release the original? If I want to come up with a great painting, I’m not going to try to update The Mona Lisa.

Or you could have another go at a film that didn’t quite work first time around. The Twelve Chairs had a great plot and some fine moments, but somehow the whole thing fell flat. An idea like that deserves a second chance. And Judge Dredd could be watchable, but needs a lead actor who’s prepared to wear the helmet at all times, as the comic-book character does. (Maybe it needs an actor recognisable from his chin alone, as Kirk Douglas was. Any ideas?)

Ah yes, Judge Dredd. I’ve nothing against adaptations as such. The idea of turning Romeo and Juliet into a ballet seems barmy (“Hey, this would be good if we could just get rid of all the words!”) – but it works. Monty Python had fun imagining Wuthering Heights in semaphore, or the smoke-signal version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And I’ve read some novels that would make perfectly good haiku, or toilet paper.

Perhaps my disappointment is in how persistently film-makers go to the back catalogue of novels, sixties TV series, or fairground rides. Or pen-and-paper games (Battleship). What next: Noughts and Crosses of the Caribbean? Doesn't anyone have ideas of their own any more? (See my earlier posting: Harry Potter and the Search Engine.) (And check out Remake: redux part 2 – scroll down to the second cartoon – on http://christopolisillustration.wordpress.com/2010/03.)

And then there are the sequels. These days people seem to actively expect sequels. It is alleged that The Madness of King George was so-called because The Madness of George III would have confused Americans who hadn’t seen the first two. What would today’s filmgoers make of Henry V? Malcolm X? Catch-22? Fahrenheit 451?

Sequels are such big business that we have invented new words for follow-ups differently related to the original: such as prequel, for a film set earlier than the original story. The idea isn’t new: El Cid dies at the end of his story, so people wanting to write another story about him were short of options. But the word is new – along with simulquel, threequel, and (ouch) squeakquel.

Again, I don’t object to sequels as such. But it’s the sheer number of them, compared with original output. Wikipedia says 2011 saw twenty-eight sequels made, and I expect that's just in Hollywood. Of the top ten grossest films, excuse me, the ten top-grossing films of 2011, eight are sequels and another is already called "Part 1". If Never-Ending Story truly was never-ending (and it felt like it), why did we need a second one?

A wunch of bankers

So, they have annulled Fred Goodwin’s knighthood. Serve him right? He was clearly motivated by greed to gamble with other people’s security. Mind you, we tolerated this – and our government did not challenge his obscene bonuses – as long as he kept rolling a double six.

On the one hand, we might ask whether his punishment is sufficient. In China they go to the other extreme. Adulteration of baby milk by Sanlo led to a scandal of Nestlé proportions – such that it was necessary to jail protesting parents – and dealers Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping were executed. Of course, China is run by a bunch of commie tyrants. Couldn’t they just have annulled their fishing permits, say, like any civilised nation? We can’t be handing out serious penalties to oligarchs.

On the other hand, I wonder where else we might apply a similar sanction to that inflicted on Mr Goodwin. If an award “for services to banking” (i.e. for making money) can be revoked if one loses money, then can a lifetime Oscar be revoked if the recipient turns out a couple of real turkeys? Or all those Oscars for Titanic, if we ever decide it was actually quite a dull film?

Olympic medals are already routinely withdrawn from people who turn out to have been using drugs. (But not from the steroid-pumped East German women swimmers from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Why not?)

Then there’s Henry Kissinger. Suppose someone spotted that he was involved in the bombing of Cambodia, not to mention Operation Condor: might the Nobel people cancel his Peace Prize? And what about Menachem Begin? 

And if we’re thinking about Nobel Prizes, then let’s not forget Milton Friedman, winner of the Economics prize in 1976. This is the guru behind Thatcher’s Cainite policies (not noticeably changed by her successors), which have allowed some people – such as Fred Goodwin – to become very rich. Hooray! But their fortune has come at great cost to others (and to society, if we still believe that such a thing exists). Now that we know this, now that we have seen the despair and the decay, is it time to annul Friedman’s prize along with Goodwin’s honour?  

Business as usual

 

I’m aware that I may have occasionally made disparaging remarks about America: but here is a belated cheer for a news story I saw a few months ago about the new US ambassador to China. His name is Gary Locke, and he made a good impression as soon as he arrived. How? He and his family carried their own bags at the airport.

Chen Weihua wrote in the China Daily that to Chinese people "the scene was so unusual it almost defied belief. In China even a township chief … will have a chauffeur and a secretary to carry his bag." Another Chinese commentator said: "American officials are to serve the people, but Chinese officials are served by the people, that's the difference."

Now I don’t habitually cheer for America. And western regimes in general are far from perfect. (Yes, one could name infinitely worse regimes. But to say that we’re better than (say) Stalin’s Russia or Saddam’s Iraq is not to set our sights very high, and is no excuse for some of the stuff we’ve done in the name of that proud boast.)

Nor do I imagine that Gary Locke thought he was doing anything unusual. But perhaps that’s the point. Even in small everyday actions, he is (consciously or not) an ambassador – as we all are, as soon as we step out of the door. Ambassadors for our country, for our workplace, for our generation, for our sex, for our subculture, for our faith. People judge us on the little things they see us do when we think no-one’s watching: and they judge whatever group of people we seem to belong to.

I’m reminded a little of Trevor Huddleston. Not heard of him? He was an English clergyman in South Africa, who spoke out against apartheid long before such opposition became fashionable.

But perhaps more significantly, he raised his hat to a black woman – with far-reaching consequences. For that act, small and unremarkable for him, had a deep impact on the woman’s 9-year-old son: Desmond Tutu.

Speaking to the BBC in 2003, Tutu said this was: “the biggest defining moment in my life. … It blew your mind that a white man would doff his hat. And subsequently I discovered, of course, that this was quite consistent with his theology that every person is of significance, of infinite value, because they are created in the image of God.

And the passion with which he opposed apartheid and any other injustice is something that I sought then to emulate.”

Nelson Mandela said:  “No white person has done more for South Africa than Trevor Huddleston.” And one might argue that nothing Huddleston did or said had greater impact for South Africa than his greeting to Desmond Tutu’s mother. But one might equally argue that such an action, in the face of such a regime, was possible for Huddleston precisely because it had become natural and normal for him to treat people this way and not that way.

It grew out of who he was, by vocation and by training. It followed naturally from knowing what, and Whom, he served as an ambassador.

Once more onto the beach

In the bleak mid-winter, we moan. And the travel brochures show us pictures of warm beaches: so like the Eloi we obediently troop into the shop and book a holiday in the sand. It was boring last year and the year before that, but somehow that fact escapes us.

On the other hand, a few years ago I went to Ravenna for a short holiday. No, I hadn’t heard of it either. It is separated from the coast – and therefore from tourist fame – only by a few miles, but I didn’t go there for a bus ride to the beach. I went with my wife to see a performance by her favourite dancer, Sylvie Guillem.

But we did some homework, and booked a few days there. Ravenna is full of the most amazing 5^th and 6^th century mosaics. They are contained in churches, baptisteries and a mausoleum, which are attractive in themselves: but the mosaics are jaw-dropping. There are eight World Heritage sites – seven within a half-mile radius, I would guess, and one a couple of miles further.

(The dancer was excellent, too.)

I was reminded of this by a recent article by David Thomas in The Independent. He went to Birmingham because his wife wanted to see Take That. And he too was surprised at what he found there. I hope this link works: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/david-thomas-birminghams-a-great-place-for-romance-6287052.html?origin=internalSearch

As David Thomas says, Birmingham is not the first name on most people’s must-see holiday destinations list. That’s understandable. Despite the seagulls above the (beautifully renovated) canals, Birmingham is almost as far from the sea as England gets. But he evidently enjoyed it.

(He also liked the concert.)

Our two trips were made under a similar pretext, and with a similar result. Perhaps we chaps need to listen when our wives demand a trip somewhere unexpected to see a favourite performer. Perhaps there is a sort of protective holiday angel, or a patron saint of husbands who accompany their wives to distant gigs. (Ferry godmother?)

By the way, what is it about sand that obsesses us? Vienna is stuffed full of palaces, museums and that funny wheel thing Harry Lime rode on in The Third Man. But it is a long way from the beach (a lot further than Birmingham), and so is treated by the holiday industry as a fringe destination. When I first flew there, the ticket said London to Vienna to Void: as if Vienna really were halfway to nowhere. (I got off in Vienna.)

Whereas Las Vegas has vast quantities of sand: but I wouldn’t go there if you paid me. Unless, of course, I went to see Rita Rudner – a brilliant comedienne, who I’m told only performs in Vegas these days. Trouble is, she’s not my wife’s favourite, but mine. So perhaps the trip would fall outside the holiday angel’s remit: and perhaps we’d find that Vegas – for all its undeniable proximity to sand – is in fact loud, bright and boring.

Hitting a moving target

The government proposes to increase the national speed limit from 70mph to 80mph. The Institute of Advanced Motorists are rubbing their hands (for example) at the prospect, although I’d really rather they had both hands on the wheel. The argument goes: people already drive at 80mph, so we may as well make it legal.

This is a strange argument on many levels. In the first place, we have the idea that what (some) people do is by definition blameless, and should not be limited in the first place. As a view of human nature, this is delusional. As a view of what government is there for, it is almost American.

Shall we legalise theft of office stationery? Phone tapping? Tax avoidance? Throwing rocks at fire engines?

Then we have the idea that, where people’s actions differ from the law, it is the law that is in the wrong. This is utterly strange. There is an old puzzle about a gun which always fires to the right of the target. You could hammer the barrel (not recommended) or adjust the sights – but which way?

I can’t remember the “official” answer: but the IAM have a simpler solution. You move the target. The trouble is, when you now take aim, you end up firing even further to the right.

I was in Spain in the early 1980s and was struck by how many young people would fall out of bars asking each other for “chocolate” – which I finally figured out meant marijuana. But they didn’t seem to be unconscious, and they didn’t appear to be fighting. I was told that all drugs were illegal, but the police turned a blind eye to “soft” drug use, while coming down like a (metric) ton of bricks on hard drugs. The kids got to rebel within (fairly) safe limits, and the problem was at least contained.

Not long after that, someone said: the kids are doing cannabis, we may as well make it legal.

So they did, and within a short time the kids moved onto hard drugs.

The law has to allow a safety margin. If people respond to the current limit by driving at 80, why should we not think they will respond to an 80mph limit by driving at 90 or 100? We are asked to believe that these drivers are naturally careful and scrupulously law-abiding: but that the target is simply wrongly positioned, and if the limit were 80, they would stick to it.

Tell you what, shall we lower the age of consent to 12? After all, plenty of 12-year-olds are already doing it. It’s easy to foresee that men will then be arrested for sex with a 9-year-old and will say: “I thought she was 12.” But that's probably not a fair comparison. As the Insititute of Speedophiles will doubtless say, it's different in a car.

Harry Potter and the Search Engine

A recent BBC headline asked: "Why didn't Harry Potter just use Google?" It seems that on one occasion Harry and his friends looked something up in the library (shock, horror). Which of course is a waste of time, especially when you are busy saving the world. 

People quickly wrote in pointing out that Rowling wrote that book before Google existed. But it turns out Harry Potter wasn’t really the focus of the article. He was simply name-dropped to get people reading it. (Good idea. Maybe it’ll work for me, too.) The article commented on the wealth – or rather, the sheer quantity – of information available. How can we know what any of it is worth? (Without asking a librarian, which is apparently cheating.)

For example: Who awarded a doctorate to Gillian McKeith, and on what criteria? Or: which is the more reliable source – Fox News or Al Jazeera?

Of course, the answer to the second question is obvious. George W. Bush is a well-known friend of democracy (Florida 2000 being an unfortunate aberration): and his tanks found it necessary to fire on the offices of Al Jazeera. Therefore Al Jazeera is an enemy of democracy, and cannot be trusted. QED.

But the point is: where someone’s villainy has not been proved in such a clear manner, how do we know who to trust? I am a little alarmed at the idea that schoolchildren (and postgrads and Presidents, come to that) think they can find out all they need to know by Googling it.

I think at least two things are going on. One is that we would like something for nothing. And the other is that we would like it instantly.

In the past, serious study involved serious work. Now, we just borrow someone else’s work (as I have borrowed a BBC headline, but without declaring the fact). We used to look for wisdom as for needles in haystacks: now we pick needles from piles of needles. Better: Google has arranged the needles for us into neat rows. It used to be called plagiarism: now it is called innovative research.

In the same way, this country used to generate wealth by making things. (From materials we had stolen from around the world, granted.) But that takes time. It is quicker to invest in “financial products” – so-called, although nothing is visibly produced. You push a few buttons and hey presto! Nobody produces any goods or any original ideas: we all sponge off each other.

And we are so impatient! Half the charm of cricket used to be its stately pace. Now we invent quicker and quicker versions of it, in a vain attempt to turn it into baseball.

Or again, I read somewhere that goldfish have a short-term memory of 8 seconds. (How do the scientists know this? Perhaps they googled it. Or perhaps they stood with a stopwatch and said to a goldfish: “In 1938, the FA Cup was won by Preston North End. (Pause) … Who won the FA Cup in 1938?” – and the goldfish just opened and closed its mouth.) By comparison, the rapid-fire snippets announcing each X Factor performance last (on average) 3 seconds apiece. The show clearly expects its audience to have half the attention span of a goldfish.

The performers, who seek “instant” fame, have to be a little more patient than that: but it probably grates on them. One contestant was pleased to have given up a serious career in orchestral music for her X Factor shot. I suppose she started to think of the time and effort involved in gaining the expertise required to play the cello to a professional standard. Mind you, these days you can probably google it.

Masks

A few weeks ago BBC news interviewed people in Guy Fawkes masks, based on the one worn by the main character in V for Vendetta (the graphic novel and film). The wearers were part of the Occupy London street protest against economic inequality. They claimed not to support violence: but the interviewer wondered whether hiding their faces would provoke public fear. After all, the original Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament: and the Vendetta character actually did so. In any case, if they have peaceful intent, why were they hiding their faces?

At around the same time, the news carried a story about the French burqa ban. Again, there was a protest. On this occasion a Muslim woman wearing a full-face veil was detained by police. BBC news did not ask whether she was provoking public fear. Instead, she was said to be a “burqa martyr”.

I have to say that this phrase is inappropriate – for two reasons. Firstly, people have been killed for failing to subscribe to someone else’s agenda (whether Christian or Muslim or atheistic). These are martyrs. To use the word of a person facing a 150-euro fine is hysterical, in more senses than one.

Secondly, the French law does not mention burqas - or full-face armour or Ku Klux Klan outfits. Or Guy Fawkes masks, come to that. It is about hiding one’s face in public, and it is about public security. (I have been here before, on a discussion site somewhere.) If I stroll into the bank with my crash helmet hiding my face; if I hover opposite the cashpoint with my hoodie up; if I prance up and down the Falls Road in a balaclava helmet - people are going to worry.

Obviously, hiding one’s face does not prove violent intent. Not everyone in a pointy hood is a Klansman. (Some are Seville penitents.) But in terms of legitimate public concern, there is little difference between one mask and another.

Since then, David Cameron has told us that Britain is a Christian country built on Christian values. He argues that our tolerance of other religions is built on our Christian heritage – as compared with more secular countries (like France, perhaps). He does not pursue a comparison with Muslim regimes. 

However, I cannot help wondering how much Christianity and capitalism have in common. Or whether in fact Christianity has more in common with Islam (which at any rate worships God) than with capitalism (which worships Mammon). Which brings us back to the Occupy London protesters. The Guy Fawkes masks are catchy but are a distraction from the Occupy statement, which includes the following comments:

·         The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet.

·         We call for a positive, sustainable economic system that benefits present and future generations

·         We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed.

These express a concern for “good news to the poor” which sits well with Christianity but is an irrelevance to Capitalism. The protest’s location, between St Paul’s Cathedral and the City of London Corporation, is symbolically appropriate.

Giles Fraser, Canon of St Paul’s, took sides with the protesters, declaring that they occupied a “fault line between God and Mammon”. Wikipedia describes Fraser as having had “special responsibility for contemporary ethics and engagement with the City of London”. This dual role became unsustainable: and, to his credit, he resigned. Let this brave churchman – not a terrorist mask – be the face of the Occupy protest.