Andrew Amesbury

2012-01-30T22:56:00.000Z

Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was floundering on Newsnight tonight. "As Tony says... as Tony says... as Tony says..." Not having anything original to say suggested she had not prepared properly for the programme - always a fatal mistake.

Numinous

2012-01-29T22:00:00.000Z

Above: drab day, overcast and cold. In the afternoon a drive to a village in the south east of the county. Half a dozen houses, a ringwork "castle" and a stone church outwardly medieval but actually 1865. I had to get the key from a cottage opposite. Large number of mud-encrusted wellington boots outside the back door, lying any old how. The churchwarden, an elderly lady, accompanied me round the church - coughing with the cold air. The graveyard spongy underfoot.

Above: the old rectory could be seen from the graveyard, monstrous in appearance. This is the back which is dated 1804 - the front was put on in 1888. Fragment of a Saxon cross used as a garden ornament.

Above: the interior was untouched Victorian. Plastic coverings everywhere because bats live in the building (and as a protected species cannot be ejected. I was very impressed by the candelabras either side of the altar.

A numinous building. I am glad I made the effort to visit it. The congregation is tiny, so who knows how long it will remain open.

2012-01-29T20:53:00.000Z

In the Observer today I read Andrew Rawnsley writing about the Scottish referendum.

Has Alex Salmond really referred to Scotland as an occupied country? What an idiot. Occupied by whom?

"Steampunk"?

2012-01-29T20:34:00.001Z

Above is a screen print from the BBC website.

Watching Andrew Neil's Sunday Politics earlier today I noticed the programme's logo. It is actually a logotype with a font that must have been especially created for the programme. Is this font "steampunk"?

I try to be well-organised - the past week at work

2012-01-28T21:50:00.001Z

Monday

Most key people were out the office today.

I wrote an article for a publication, listed my key objectives for the next 12 months, talked to John Johnson (IT assistant).

But mostly I was bored.

Tuesday

Back from holiday was Denise Cavendish who I had not yet met. Admin assistant and a silly woman, always gossipping (not in a nice way). Because she sits near me she is difficult to ignore.

A meeting with Senior Campaigns Manager Keith Chandler. Working with him is very stressful. He is badly organised and leaves things until the last moment.

Lunchtime I went to a new supermarket that opened today. It was almost completely empty of people with only a few shoppers wandering through. The aisles too high so that it had a claustrophobic feel.

In the afternoon I continued with the marketing plan.

Wednesday

For the third night running I woke from a deep sleep at 3.30 then found it difficult to get back to sleep. Eventually I got up at 7 not at all rested. Consequently I was tired all of today.

Most of the morning I was in a meeting with a list broker, trying to segment various populations.

In the afternoon a discussion with Campaign Manager Callum Smith about the merits of direct mail as opposed to digital communications (direct mail costs more and is less easy to evaluate but gets better results over the long term).

Thursday

I try to be well-organised, but this is no guarantee I will not feel stressed (which for me occurs when I am not in control of things.

Because I had a deadline to meet I left the office (too many interruptions) and went with my laptop to a coffee shop in a local mall. Coffee and Bakewell tarts. On sofas nearby were three young business women drinking coffee and talking office politics. I had no idea where they worked, but I understood immediately the situations they were facing. Eventually they tottered off on their high heels carrying ridiculous handbags (one covered in fur). When they had gone I was the only person in the coffee shop apart from the assistant.

Having sent my article off to a magazine I felt able to relax in the afternoon. I tried to establish a better relationship with Keith Chandler and talked to him about Newcastle United FC (he claims to know Mike Ashley). Also I talked to the Institute's Director Vijay Singh about the Balochi people in Iran.

Friday

Nearly two hours this morning replying to e-mails.

Then into a meeting with Deputy Director Lois Cooper. We were supposed to be discussing the launch of new campaigns, but often we talked about psychology, history, and the cultural legacy of the Jewish people in eastern Europe. We got on so well that I didn't like to mention that her marketing plans were completely unrealistic.

When I got home this evening there was a new moon in the sky and the church bells were ringing (practice).

2012-01-28T20:12:00.000Z

Having read in the Times Literary Supplement about chick maceration (the decimation of baby chicks by feeding them live into grinders) makes me seriously question whether I can go on eating eggs.

What further horrors has the world of factory farming got to reveal?

It's one thing after another.

Article by Vikram Dodd on the front page of the Guardian

2012-01-28T18:49:00.000Z

Disappointing article by Vikram Dodd on the front page of the Guardian today.

By giving credence to the claim that the Metropolitan Police are "institutionally racist" without investigating the charge dispassionately Vikram Dodd is just indulging in lazy journalism. It makes no difference that he was repeating an accusation made by Doreen Lawrence. He has a duty to compare and contrast the stop and search statistics he quoted, and balance them against the London crime figures by ethnic origin.

Otherwise the Guardian risks being relegated to the status of a sensationalist newspaper (intriguing perhaps, but without value).

Giving extended coverage to the views of Doreen Lawrence also presents difficulties. Obviously one can sympathise with a mother who has lost a child. But we should not expect someone suffering extreme grief over an extended period of time to look at the world rationally - any more than Mohammed Fayed was rational over the death of his son, or the parents of Stuart Lubbock were rational over the death of their son.

Certainly we should not allow emotion to decide public policy (which is where the 1997 political reaction that led to the MacPherson Inquiry and its aftermath made so many fundamental mistakes).

It is possible that the murderers of Stephen Lawrence were uniquely evil monsters created by the inherent racism of the British state (the MacPherson report singled out the Civil Service, local governments, the National Health Service, schools, and the judicial system) and that this requires a total cultural revolution to purge British society of "racists" at every level.

Equally it is possible that the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence was just another stabbing, among hundreds of other tragic stabbings, in a complex and pernicious pattern of gangs and gang-related crime that permeates London housing estates.

By allowing emotion to sway the arguments we risk going off at tangents and therefore not tracing the crime to its root cause.

I am also not happy at the way politicians jump on the Stephen Lawrence bandwagon - whether it is Diane Abbott and her Twitter posts or Jack Straw (on the Today programme talking to James Naughtie) shooting his mouth off about "racism" in football.

"Dogs of British imperialists"

2012-01-27T16:50:00.000Z

A leading academic at "Peking" University (not Beijing, even though the report appeared in the Guardian) has accused the population of Hong Kong as "dogs of British imperialists".

This is flattering to the United Kingdom in a number of ways.

1 It assumes we still have some kind of hegemonic imperial influece in the Far East, whereas in reality those days are long gone.

2 Two thirds of the population of Hong Kong do not feel any affinity with Mainland China, which indicates they prefer the old colonial set-up which ended in 1997 (being exploited and oppressed by the arrogant colonial British is preferable to the "liberty" and "freedom" of independence - someone should tell Alex Salmond this!).

3 In the days when China was genuinely communist the United Kingdom was routinely described as "top hat imperialist running dogs" but this new accusation indicates we now have running dogs of our own, which presumably is a promotion of some sort.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/24/chinese-professor-hong-kong-dogs

Melanie Phillips

2012-01-27T15:48:00.001Z

Question Time yesterday included Melanie Phillips on the panel.

Melanie Phillips is a writer for the Daily Mail newspaper and won the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 1996.

She is routinely attacked and characterised as a strident (to the point of hysteria) apologist for the extreme right.

But last night I thought she argued coherently and was logical and across all the questions (four or five - Iran, drugs, benefits culture etc) she made a lot of sense.

They need to refocus by placing the customer at the centre of their attention

2012-01-27T13:34:00.000Z

I don't often go into Tescos, but on a recent visit I noticed that the checkout assistant no longer hands you a receipt when you have handed over your money.

Instead you have to take the receipt from a dispenser at the end of the checkout.

Why have the stupid idiots done this?

They should be seeking to maximise interaction with the checkout assistant, who is representing Tesco and MUST say a proper "thank you" (and perhaps smile if they feel like it) when a customer has just spent £80 or £100 on their weekly shop.

Now the assistant just expects you to go away at the end of the transaction and by the time you take your receipt they are already directing their attention to the next in the queue.

Tesco recently reported a fall in sales and its worst performance in twenty years - they need to refocus by placing the customer at the centre of their attention.

Coriolanus

2012-01-26T19:37:00.000Z

On Monday I went to see the film Coriolanus at the Odeon in Tottenham Court Road.

I have never seen the play, so was not sure what to expect. The film is directed by Ralph Fiennes who also stars as Caius Martius Coriolanus. It is a very professional piece, credible and engrossing throughout.

In particular Vanessa Redgrave is magnificent as Volumnia. When you consider she is in her mid-70s, she has the energy, charisma and authority of someone in her thirties. This was a very great performance.

The film was set in contemporary times, but this did not intrude on the interpretation. In any case, in all his plays Shakespeare is exploring the human condition in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, and almost all the themes of Coliolanus (family, loyalty, patria, honour, political manipulation, the right of the majority to be wrong etc) are relevant to the United Kingdom today. Everything about the film is assured.

Coriolanus is two hours long, and before going into the cinema I wondered if I could endure it. Shakespeare done badly can be unendurable. But from the first moment I was entirely absorbed in the drama.

There is a good review in this week's Times Literary Supplement.

2012-01-25T23:55:00.000Z

Am watching Press Preview on Sky News. Both Zoe Williams and Iain Dale think Alex Salmond's proposed referendum question is "leading". Perhaps the Electoral Commission will intervene and insist on a neutral question.

SNP consultation paper on a referendum for Scottish independence

2012-01-25T11:37:00.000Z

Above: this year we are trying a vegetarian haggis (bought from Sainsburys) plus a bottle of Bells whisky.

Today is Burns Night - an annual celebration of the life and work of the poet Robert Burns.

This year the day has been hijacked by the Scottish National Party who have chosen to use today to launch the SNP consultation paper on a referendum for Scottish independence (they supposedly plan to hold the actual referendum on the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn 1314 although it is not clear they will be allowed to affiliate a historic anniversary for electoral purposes, especially as it would mean holding the election on a Sunday).

Therefore I think it is important for ordinary people throughout the United Kingdom to reclaim Burns Night from the SNP - great artists and poets are the inheritance of all humanity should not be retrospectively co-opted into nationalist programmes.

Probably any referendum will just be confined to Scotland, and people in the rest of the United Kingdom will not be involved (not even people who were born in Scotland).

However the ordinary people in the rest of the United Kingdom can go over the heads of the SNP and talk directly (via Facebook, blogs, Twitter etc) to the ordinary people of Scotland.

Therefore as someone who is entirely English my Burns Night message to the people of Scotland is: don't leave us. Stay with us in the United Kingdom. Let us continue to share our common island home and (I sincerely hope) share our common Parliament at Westminster.

Alex Salmond interviewed on Newsnight

2012-01-24T23:11:00.000Z

Have just watched Alex Salmond interviewed on Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman.

Why is this person so popular in Scotland? It is inexplicable. Or perhaps he is not popular, the other party leaders were so dire they made him look good (all the other main parties now have new leaders so perhaps the position will change).

Throughout the interview he was sarcastic and flippant and said "Jeremy" in almost every single sentence - presumably an attempt to patronise.

Echoes 2

2012-01-24T18:40:00.001Z

Above: Alfred Moore's Midsummer normally in the Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth (one of my favourite museums). Young woman in a white robe and orange cloak sits on a heavy wooden throne, head wreathed with flowers. She is attended by two women wearing white robes and orange cloaks.

The image is available: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Moore_Albert_Midsummer.jpg

Above: still from Lana Del Rey's official video of Born To Die. Young woman in a white robe (no orange cloak) sits on a heavy wooden throne, head wreathed with flowers. She is attended by two tigers, white and orange stripes.

Official video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bag1gUxuU0g&ob=av2n

The best way to absorb magnesium

2012-01-24T16:29:00.000Z

I have a family history of heart disease and so have to be careful about my health.

Someone advised me that putting Epsom Salts in a hot bath is good for you - not just for the heart but for all sorts of health issues.

So I bought some tubs of Epsom Salts (99p each) and put them in a bath and laid in the water for about fifteen minutes. It's supposed to be the best way to absorb magnesium, which many people are deficient in. Certainly made me feel very relaxed.

You would never get this advice from the NHS - any treatment the drug companies can't make a profit from they are not interested in.

2012-01-22T19:42:00.000Z

Two superb photographs by Tom Jenkins in the sports section of yesterday's Guardian. He has a knack of isolating elements so that they convey personality. The first picture made you look at the eyebrows of a soccer player; the second drew attention to the light on the hairs on a rugby player's arm (as well as outlining his profile with a subtle nimbus).

I waited and waited

2012-01-22T19:29:00.002Z

After lunch a drive to a village on the flat plains.

Windy day, but the air balmy and mild.

I had been to the church before, some years ago, and had obtained the key from the village stores. This time however the girl behind the counter looked at me blankly and had to ask someone "out the back". A middle aged woman directed me to the churchwarden's house, a confusing complicated route along local lanes.

Eventually I arrived at a farmhouse, but the churchwarden and farmer was in the packhouse - more confusing directions down rough tracks to a collection of remote barns.

In a prefab cabin I found a young man in grey overalls and asked for the farmer. He asked me to wait. I waited and waited.

After about twenty minutes the farmer appeared, a short wiry man aged 65 or 70, grey hair and a largish nose (enlarged pores). He was formally dressed in a light brown suit, white shirt and a tie. However the suit was smeared with large black grease stains covering about fifty per cent of the cloth and so ingrained that they were obviously of some age - layers upon layers of grease.

I asked for the key and he asked why I wanted it. I explained I was writing a book on the history of the area (not untrue, I do plan to write something eventually). He asked whether I had been confirmed and when I said yes he went over to a desk (unbelievably untidy and heaped with papers) and from a drawer produced a big heavy key, about a foot long.

2012-01-22T18:38:00.000Z

On Andrew Neil's Sunday Politics discussion of Ed Miliband's personal rating being only 4% among Labour supporters. Chuka Umunna MP anodyne and ineffectual in response. He should have pointed out that years away from an election the Labour party needs a policy wonk like Ed Miliband in charge developing ideas for 2015, not a rabble-rousing Neil Kinnock type who will make a lot of indignant noise then fall flat on his face.

It all seemed to go well - the past week at work

2012-01-21T21:25:00.000Z

Monday

The "highly confidential" excursion last week was a flop. Friday morning I did some freelance work, then early afternoon drove to the northern home counties and booked into the hotel, meeting Keith Chandler (Senior Campaign Manager). We seemed to have the hotel to ourselves. Half-bored half-excited we walked around the ground floor rooms, not daring to go out into the gardens in case "the balloon goes up" (an expression Keith Chandler used frequently). Director Vijay Singh arrived and fidgeted non-stop. At 7.30 we had dinner, then waited around some more.

At 3am it became clear that the meeting was not going to go ahead, so we all went to bed.

I the morning when Keith Chandler and I met at breakfast we found that Vijay Singh had already left. I asked Keith Chandler if this sort of expedition was typical. He told me no.

When I got to the Institute Monday morning Vijay Singh was in his office all morning and not to be disturbed. When we met at midday I half-expected a debrief about the failed presentation, but nothing was said. When I asked Keith Chandler what had gone wrong he told me "best not to ask".

The team that had gone to the exhibition on Friday asked Keith Chandler where he had been. He told them he had been ill. I spent the day writing Campaign Plans.

Tuesday

Most of the morning a briefing from telephone research supervisor Abi Reed (large young woman, black hair, pugnacious manner).

In the afternoon a briefing with the archive team downstairs - I tried not to appear bored.

Long discussion in the afternoon about magistrates' courts and whether they work properly or not.

An unannounced visit from the large "sister organisation" the Institute works for. Alec Nussbaum is supposedly a trouble-maker, always interfering in the Institute. On this occasion he rifled through our campaign plans rubbishing our efforts in a way that was highly offensive ("I'm inwardly seething" Campaign Manager Callum Smith told me quietly).

When I went home I tried a new route - there were no traffic hold-ups, and the scenery was nicer, but I didn't get home any quicker.

Wednesday

In my new position at the Institute I have considerable purchasing powers. I decided to hold a review of printers and designers the Institute uses, and invited Joey (a designer I worked with some years ago) to quote. Although he is based in south London, the projects are sufficiently large for it to be worth his while to travel to the Institute. He arrived this afternoon waddling into the office with his familiar bow-legged walk. Returned from an overseas holiday so that his face was almost black (no exaggeration). He talked about various football injuries he had experienced.

News that I had reviewed suppliers must have spread quickly, as the managing director of the main print and design company used for our reports came to see me in person later in the afternoon (I wonder who at the Institute had tipped him off). I told him he would still receive commissions but would no longer be the sole supplier. He hinted he might go over my head.

I had to hang around until well past 6pm before I could talk to Deputy Director Lois Cooper. We discussed an article that is to be "placed" in a magazine. Then I sat at my PC and drafted it, got approval from Lois Cooper, then sent it off.

Thursday

A whole day spent on databases - integral to the Institute's work.

Friday

I find myself drinking more coffee in this new job. This is mainly because people keep offering to make me one, and it seems ungracious to refuse. But I want to get back to drinking two litres of water a day.

At 3pm Callum Smith and myself presented a Campaign Plan to Director Vijay Singh. This was a key moment for me, as most of the plan was my work. It all seemed to go well, and the questions were interested ones rather than the critical pulling-apart that Vijay Singh is renowned for.

Echoes

2012-01-19T22:25:00.001Z

Above: I was interested to see this picture in The Guardian yesterday where one of their writers has recreated a painting by Van Gogh. Not sure why this sort of thing has an effect on me, but it does. You can see other echoes of great art elsewhere in the media.

Above: for instance, a recent TV commercial for Benylyn cough mixture showed a man in bed with an incubus on his chest. It seems to echo Henry Fuseli's painting The Nightmare. It's very effective.

Above: And the video for Aviici's Levels (a remix of Flo Rider's Good Feeling) shows an office worker pushing a rock up a mountain in an echo of Titian's Sisyphus in the Prado (copyright on this picture has expired).

Good Feeling is one of those songs that just goes round and round in my mind. Not sure how it got there. It's not the sort of thing I would choose to listen to.

The Levels video is fascinating (I think so anyway). A bored office clerk in a sort of "living death in the Buying Department" existence begins to behave erratically and is eventually tasered by Security. Hospitalised in a sort of Quincy MD facility, he vomits foam in the shape of a white flower. Two hospital attendants become contaminated by this foam and infected by the disorder. The infection spreads to a nurse who appears absolutely terrified (this is great acting!). Senior consultants literally run for their lives along the drab 1970s corridors.

It's a classic! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovdm2yX4MA&ob=av2e

John Bell is a "useful fool"

2012-01-18T09:40:00.001Z

Very biased pro-independence Thought For The Day broadcast on Radio 4 this morning. John Bell from the Iona Community told us (in very thinly veiled language) that the SNP's political programme was "holy", which suggests John Bell is a "useful fool" (in the Lenin sense). There seems to be an unusual and unhealthy link between religion and the SNP, with Alex Salmond claiming divine endorsement for his policies (which lets him off the hook of having to justify them on rational grounds).

What is unacceptable is that the BBC should allow this sort of thing to go out in the middle of a referendum campaign (presumably they are going to balance this with a pro-Unionist Thought For The Day?).

Reading

2012-01-17T19:47:00.001Z

Above: have finished reading Howards End and have now started Disputed Land by Tim Pears.

For all the quasi-socialism and proto-feminism of Howards End, basically EM Forster seemed to be endorsing the permanence of farming families living in a sustainable relationship with the land.

Appalled by the state of Knole and have just sent them a donation. Knole is inseparable (in my mind) from Vita Sackville-West's Knole and the Sackvilles (although the book is effectively a work of imaginative fiction). How can the National Trust just let the place fall down?

What is wrong with the Labour Party?

2012-01-17T19:32:00.001Z

Above: policy chart drawn up by Tom Clark for the Guardian in June last year (if you click on the image you should be able to read the text). I have often looked through this chart, as it places on a single sheet of paper all of Labour's policy options. A matrix of this kind is essential to effective PR - to my mind Ed Miliband is being let down by his PR operation.

I am currently watching Channel 4 News (I'm hoping to see a report on the YouGov poll for Channel 4 News on the Scottish referendum).

Have just seen Jon Snow interview Ed Miliband who dismissed Jon Snow's sneers that he was in the power of the union "paymasters". Ed Miliband seems to be coming under a lot of unreasonable criticism at the moment. What is wrong with the Labour Party? Do they seriously think that the party can have any effect on government policy so many years away from the election? All they can do is plan for the future, concentrating on innovative and attractive policies in each of the areas of the above chart. Anything else is just meaningless posturing that will count for nothing in 2015.

Royal Yacht

2012-01-16T23:55:00.002Z

Currently watching the Press Preview on Sky News.

Kevin Maguire from the Daily Mirror has just made an attack on the purchase of a new Royal Yacht, in what seemed an old-fashioned spiteful politics-of-envy spasm.

The project is to be financed by private donations, and the numbers are not great:

Eight people donating ten million pounds each; or eighty people donating a million pounds each; or a million people donating £80 each.

I am happy to pledge £80 to the Royal Yacht fund (and this is not taking money away from other good causes - I already give £70 a month to charities in direct debits and a further £14 a month to CAF for ad hoc donations).

Thank you Kevin Maguire for annoying me sufficiently that I am now motivated to support this fund.

2012-01-16T11:40:00.000Z

Various people seem to be of the opinion that if Scotland becomes independent the United Kingdom comes to an end.

This is not my understanding.

When southern Ireland left the United Kingdom in 1922 there was no change in status of the United Kingdom (the new title United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland being affirmed in a 1927 Act of Parliament).

Therefore the United Kingdom will continue, whatever the result of the Scottish referendum.

Overnight stay

2012-01-15T21:30:00.000Z

Above: overnight stay at a country-house hotel in Buckinghamshire. The house has a long history, and was once used by an exiled French king. Arrived late afternoon, the damp January day adding a melancholy air to the beautiful landscape.

Above: on a nearby knoll, as if it were a garden ornament, was the local parish church dressed in Strawberry Hill gothic. It was not raining, but there was a persistent drip of water from the trees, condensed droplets from the mist. A cold damp melancholy day.

Above: inside the rooms were very grand. Hardly any other guests, so it seemed as if we had the place to ourselves. After dinner I walked the enfilade of state rooms looking out at the gardens ethereal in the moonlight.

Above: fabulous gothic staircase. One of the waiters said the hotel is used as an overflow for Chequers (no idea if that is true or not). Another waiter said Margaret Thatcher came here to write her memoirs (again, no idea if this is true).

Above: I slept well, and waking the next morning I drew back the curtains to look out at the view. I could have sat on that window seat for hours, so mesmerising was the countryside. Although the morning was cold the freshness of the air was exhilerating.

Above: drawing back more curtains I found a narrow door that led onto part of the roof. Pot plants and garden furniture. Despite the dampness I made myself a cup of coffee (UHT milk) and sat out in this private little terrace.

Then I showered, dressed, and went down to breakfast.

How can they use another country's currency?

2012-01-15T20:10:00.000Z

Above: statue of Ariel (from The Tempest) on top of a cupola at the Bank of England.

Earlier today I watched Andrew Neil's Sunday Politics which discussed what currency an independent Scotland might use. The SNP insists they will use the Pound Sterling ("Sterling is a convertable currency and we would be using it" said an MSP interviewed on the programme - I didn't catch his name). But how can they use another country's currency? What are the mechanics whereby notes and coins are going to find their way into Scottish banks and cash points? Are they going to buy pounds from the Bank of England? If so, presumably they will have to pay for them in gold?

Or will they have their own version of the Pound (the "Poond" as suggested in yesterday's Guardian), print their own banknotes and fix the value to the Pound Sterling? This will presumably cause them a lot of problems as Alex Salmond's administration is a big spender. A PWC report in 2009 said that the public sector in Scotland was 50% of GDP - what will the credit rating agencies make of all this?

The SNP's strategy is to steer discussion away from issues such as the currency and focus on the process of the referendum. For instance there is currently a lot of sidestepping about when they are going to talk to the Westminster government about the legality and fairness of the way the referendum will be run. If there are to be extra questions on the referendum paper then surely a question on the currency must be a priority?

Mostly a "tarting up" of existing campaigns - the past week at work

2012-01-14T21:20:00.000Z

Monday

When I arrived at the office this morning I was met by Campaign Manager Callum Smith and talking to him took up the first hour. Then a drive across the city to a digital printer who was producing another of the Institute's reports. Because many of the reports are quite specialised they have small print-runs and limited distribution.

When I returned from the printer it was to go into a meeting with Campaign Managers Callum Smith and Keith Chandler and the Institute's Director Vijay Singh. I was conscious of not having much to contribute. One of the items they discussed was whether to do more press releases ("we find we are more effective when we work behind the media instead of putting our stuff in the media").

I rang my last employer (the NGO) to remind them I had not had my final payment.

The afternoon was quite hectic as I prepared for the exhibition the Institute is attending this weekend (I will not be going). A problem was the stream of wrong information that I kept getting from Keith Chandler. He is not a "details" sort of person.

Tuesday

The warm weather prevented me from sleeping. I woke at 3am and just dozed until 7. I have even turned off the heater in my bedroom and removed the eiderdown from my bed.

In the morning a meeting with Vijay Singh to fix my priorities for the rest of January. It is a relief to work with someone who is consistent. He is a mysterious character, saying little about why he is involved with the Institute.

Lunchtime I went to a service (half-hour Holy Communion) at a local church - cavernous and High Church, with lots of Marianist touches. Holy water just inside the door. The altar-piece was Edwardian - a Madonna and Child (Mary holding a pomegranate) with nasturtiums and what looked like periwinkles).

Work on the Institute's various databases of opinion-formers.

Wednesday

During the morning a meeting with Campaign Manager Callum Smith. We got on very well and outlined the various campaigns he wants to take place over the next six months (some new initiatives, but mostly a "tarting up" of existing campaigns). Then we were called into Vijay Singh's office to watch a presentation about a problem area he wishes us to address.

In the afternoon I finally got the literature done for the exhibition this weekend.

Thursday

The leaflets for the exhibition were delivered by the digital printer (we had to pay rush charges to get them done in time). Several compliments about the leaflets from various people. A rehearsal for the exhibition held in Vijay Singh's office (I just sat at the back and watched).

In the afternoon there was little to do so I allowed myself to relax (and do nothing).

Friday

Because most people from the Institute had aready left to go to the exhibition I took today as holiday. At home I used the day to catch up with my work for two freelance clients I give marketing advice to. These two clients pay me more than the Institute, and only take a few hours each month, but the work could end at any moment.

Joan McAlpine will be Chairing the Committee on Un-Scottish Activities

2012-01-14T20:23:00.001Z

I watched the Parliament Channel while waiting for Dateline London to come on. It was a session from the Scottish Parliament. And there was Joan McAlpine in the notorious incident where she says people who do not agree with the SNP are "anti-Scottish".

Presumably if Scotland does become independent Joan McAlpine will be Chairing the Committee on Un-Scottish Activities.

However, the incident does identify one flaw in the SNP - Alex Salmond does not have complete control of his party and various individuals are liable to make embarrasing off-message remarks.

How many of these remarks will be necessary to bring his party down - the number is not great.

2012-01-12T23:11:00.000Z

Douglas Alexander made Nicola Sturgeon squirm over some statement about patriotism made in the Scottish parliament "by Alex Salmond's aide".

Not sure what this is all about, but it made the Deputy First Minister squirm.

2012-01-12T22:59:00.000Z

Nicola Sturgeon rather wasted her opportunity to talk about Scottish independence by joshing with Kelvin McKenzie and making silly comments about the World Cup (she is not good a humour).

Question Time

2012-01-12T22:57:00.000Z

I am watching Question Time - David Dimbleby has just made Kelvin McKenzie look a complete idiot over whether Labour needs its Scottish seats to form a government.

John Swinney just huffed and puffed

2012-01-12T13:56:00.000Z

At lunchtime I watched the BBC's Andrew Neil interview MSP John Swinney about the Scottish referendum.

John Swinney was unable to answer any of the questions put to him.

It was a pathetic performance.

So far the SNP ministers have just had deferential local media to deal with. To have someone of the stature of Andrew Neil actually in the Edinburgh parliament building asking them hard questions is an entirely new development. John Swinney just huffed and puffed.

The referendum campaign is going to last until "autumn" 2014. It will be a bruising experience for the SNP, and one they may not survive in the long run (unless they get their policies seriously sorted out). One thousand days of squirming and trying to change the subject is going to make them look ridiculous.

Alex Salmond's contemptuous rejection of David Cameron's offer of a referendum within eighteen months may prove to have been a miscalculation.

The referendum campaign has begun in earnest

2012-01-11T10:24:00.000Z

Above: Alex Salmond is supposedly Scotland's most popular politician, but to my eyes he appears pompous and very slightly camp. His party have appropriated the Scottish flag as their emblem, although this is clearly an improper use of the saltire. Because Scotland is such a small world politically, it is difficult for a critical press to operate - "difficult" journalists tend to get frozen out.

It would appear that David Cameron set a trap for the SNP and Alex Salmond walked right into it.

By making an issue of the timing of a referendum, David Cameron has provoked the nationalists into announcing (in a way that brooks no argument) that the plebiscite will be in the last quarter of 2014. Now that the date has been announced the referendum campaign has begun in earnest, and all the areas that the SNP has so far preferred not to discuss (border arrangements, Euro membership, debt allocations etc) are going to come under intense scrutiny. The length of the campaign is also likely to count against the SNP as there are a number of contradictions in the independence argument that they are now obliged to address in some detail.

The date of the referendum, the number of questions to be asked, the electorate that will qualify to vote, and the electoral monitoring authority are all areas that are now being prised from Alex Salmond’s grasp.

To look at these in turn:

Although a late date for the referendum is supposed to be to the SNP’s advantage this is not necessarily so. The “arc of prosperity” (central to SNP economic policy) is not likely to return any time soon, and a longer campaign is going to tell more heavily on the nationalists than on the unionists. Also, by provoking the SNP on an issue of relatively minor importance David Cameron has made Alex Salmond appear obdurate and unreasonable.

The number of questions on the referendum paper is a crucial element, and it is by no means certain that Alex Salmond will get more than a simple Yes or No question. Although the SNP won a mandate for a referendum on independence, they do not have a mandate to ask additional questions. And if more questions are to be added, why just one additional question on “Devo Max”? Why not ask whether an independent Scotland should join the Euro, or become a republic, or indeed whether the new country should remain in the EU (since in the last poll on the subject a majority of Scottish people wanted to leave the EU)? Alex Salmond says that the wording of the question needs to be decided “in Scotland” but this is not entirely correct. The Coalition government has a legal duty of care to ensure that the referendum is carried out fairly and democratically. Alex Salmond cannot complain that Westminster has this duty of care as the “reserved power” over constitutional issues was in the Devolution settlement of 1997 which Alex Salmond himself campaigned for. If Westminster failed to exercise a proper duty of care then they would be open to legal challenge and the referendum itself could be declared by the courts as invalid. So it is very far from certain whether the SNP are going to get their way over the wording.

On the issue of whether 16 and 17 year-olds should be given a vote in the referendum, this appears (to my eyes) as a blatant attempt at gerrymandering and may well backfire on Alex Salmond if he insists of the point. In any case, young people do not tend to vote. And if the point if conceded that the electorate should be widened, why not also include people born in Scotland who now live elsewhere?

The issue of whether the referendum should be monitored by the Electoral Commission or not is another area where public opinion is surely going to favour the status quo (the alternative would be to risk Scotland looking like a banana republic where dodgy electoral fixes take place).

Adela Quested

2012-01-10T20:07:00.001Z

I have seen the film Howards End many times, but I had not read the book until last week.

In one of the early chapters EM Foster describes a luncheon of blue-stocking women, and one of the party is referred to as "Miss Quested" who plays an unidentifed musical instrument.

Is this the same Adela Quested from Forster's A Passage to India? If so, it helps to explain the development of one of the most complex and enigmatic characters of twentieth-century literature. Howard's End was written in 1910 and A Passage to India in 1924, so assuming Miss Quested was 20 in the first book, she would have been 34 in the second - just desperate enough to go out on the "fishing fleet" to India.

A Passage to India is on one of the satellite channels on 29th January.

2012-01-09T22:46:00.000Z

Watching Nicola Sturgeon on Newsnight, she is saying that the proposals on the independence referendum have "backfired" on David Cameron. That the government is in "disarray" over the issue. That it is already back-tracking.

And yet everything we know about David Cameron indicates he has probably laid a trap for the SNP.

2012-01-08T22:03:00.000Z

It's been a week since I made my New Year's Resolutions, which included not buying any books for a whole year.

And yet I still find myself hanging onto book catalogues which continue to entice me.

A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology - Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past by Margarita Diaz-Andreu.

Ancient Rome as a Museum - Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting by Steven Rutledge.

Rural Settlements and Society in Anglo-Saxon England by Helena Hamerow.

I wonder if other addicts have this craving?

"This is of course confidential" - the past week at work

2012-01-07T22:59:00.000Z

Tuesday

The long Christmas and New Year finally over. The weather, a loud storm, kept me awake so that I didn't get much sleep. When I got up at 6.30 the storm was still raging although the temperature seemed fairly mild.

Thirty mile drive to my new job, which is at an Institute located in an office on an Enterprise Park in a nondescript city. I was immediately welcomed by Office Manager Bridget O'Farrell (tallish, slim, aged about twenty-five, fair curly hair cut short and boyish, green eyes, very freckled face and arms). She showed me my new desk, brought me some coffee, told me all the general office things I needed to know.

A tall young man (a boy really) came up and introduced himself as IT and Accounts Assistant John Johnson. He gave a rough overview of the technical facilities available. He then set up my new work e-mail (I declined the offer of an official mobile phone as I can barely keep track of my own one).

Then Bridget took me on a tour of the offices, introducing me to the twenty-nine staff who were in that day (the Director of the Institute was out all day).

A programme of briefings had been arranged for me, and I spent the rest of the morning talking to Development Manager Tim Watts (aged about thirty, short ginger hair, very pale blue eyes). He was hesitant and unsure about what he should tell me. Everything he said was prefigured "this is of course confidential".

In the afternoon a briefing with Campaign Manager Keith Chandler (aged thirty-eight, ex-RAF, very hearty, well-built, double-breasted dark suit, moustache clipped short in the military style). He gave me a not entirely coherent description of forthcoming projects. He told me I would enjoy working at the Institute.

When 5 o'clock arrived I went home.

Wednesday

The new journey to work is congested, so that I had to wait in a line of traffic just to get into the city.

I was due to have another meeting with Keith Chandler this morning but he put it off, while at the same time giving me vague requests to produce some literature. I rewrote a letter of his that needed some care in drafting. Then I looked through the library of reports produced by the Institute over the years.

In the afternoon a briefing meeting with Lois Cooper, Deputy Director (aged about fifty-five, fairly stout, no-nonsense attitude). She had started at the Institute about ten years ago as a PA and gave me a history of the organisation - a tremendous start, then some years of stagnation, and then the current regime. She explained that funding was key and when the money ran out (as it sometimes does) everything stops until they can get some more.

Broadly the Institute researches areas of interest, develops policy ideas, and promotes these ideas in various campaigns.

Thursday

Limited parking spaces at the Institute so that I have learned to arrive early.

At my desk I began to plan the layout of a booklet, and also plan an exhibition stand (both of these were for Keith Chandler).

Then into a meeting with Director Vijay Singh (aged about forty-five, chubby face with glasses, very shrewd). He gave an overview of the Institute's work and how he wants it to develop. He then talked about what my contribution would be - research, literature production and PR.

The meeting with Vijay Singh lasted all of the day, and when it ended I went home.

Still the mild storm rages.

Friday

Most of the morning I spent compiling a newsletter which is to be given out at an exhibition. This entailed a lot of discussion with Keith Chandler, who is so disorganised he is infuriating. Vijay Singh interrupted one of the meetings to give me a list of people at a "sister organisation" he wants me to cultivate.

Drama when the bickering on the Accounts desks (other side of the floor from me) broke out into swearing and shouting. Marcia Walsh, who supervises the section, ordered the two miscreants (who included John Johnson) into an empty room close to my desk ("Get into that office NOW"). Through the thin partition I could hear sobbing from the female Accounts clerk and lots of self justification.

Although it was a trivial scene, and soon over, it was at variance with the sober, almost staid, image the Institute has.

Another long meeting with Vijay Singh who explained the complex relationship we have with a big national organisation that currently provides most of our funding.

As I came out of the meeting John Johnson crept past me into Vijay Singh's office, presumably wanting to get his version of events in first before any recriminations begin.

2012-01-07T21:17:00.001Z

Not sure who is advising Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on her personal style (perhaps no-one is) but she should avoid wearing eliptical glasses with pointy sides. They make her eyes look spiteful, and that is surely not what she wants. Especially as many of her comments are barbed.

2012-01-05T22:43:00.000Z

When I turned over onto BBC2 this evening I caught the end of Never Mind The Buzzcocks with a loud-mouth presenter screaming out the f-word.

Then Newsnight began and Emily Maitlis (in a quotation) used the b-word.

The second incident seemed by far the more shocking.

Difficult to see how Diane Abbott can retain her post in the Shadow Cabinet

2012-01-05T14:17:00.000Z

Difficult to see how Diane Abbott can retain her post in the Shadow Cabinet following accusations of racism on social media.

Have just watched BBC News 24 and the presenter Matthew Amroliwala pointed out to Keith Vaz MP that Diane Abbott had admitted the comments were offensive by apologising for them.

Diane Abbott is of course a much-loved national icon, but this will not save her. As we have seen with another much-loved national icon (an icon possibly more loved than Ms Abbott) all it takes is for a mischief-maker to send a simple e-mail of complaint to the Metropolitan Police and the police MUST take the complaint seriously, investigate it formally, and arrest Diane Abbott. I emphasise the word "must" as this is what the law absolutely requires.

Given the partisan world which Diane Abbott inhabits it is inevitable that an e-mail of complaint will be sent to the Metropolitan Police, that she will be arrested, and subsequently there will be months of uncertainty while the case proceeds to court.

As critics will complain that Diane Abbott cannot properly perform her duties as a Shadow Minister while under criminal prosecution the pressure for her to go will be irresistible.

Therefore it is difficult to see how she can retain her post.

2012-01-04T09:35:00.002Z

On the Today programme this morning former Home Secretary Jack Straw and BBC presenter James Naughtie linked John Terry's name with the Stephen Lawrence murder trial as if the two were connected.

It happened in the last eight minutes of the programme.

John Terry is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. How can John Terry possibly have a fair trial when a supposedly responsible politician and a leading BBC news presenter have broadcast to millions, through the respected institution of the BBC, that he is no better than the murderers of Stephen Lawrence? This was a disgraceful smear, and makes it very unlikely that the John Terry trial will have any credibility.

Someone in the legal profession needs to ask these two clowns to explain themselves - perhaps they should be called into the trial (whenever it is held) to explain their contempt for the legal process?

2012-01-03T18:55:00.000Z

Books I have read over the Christmas holiday (I'm still reading Howard's End).

The surprise was A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. I was given this some years ago and put off reading it - because it had tractors in the title; because it was set in Peterbough (a town I know only too well); because it was recommended by someone who has very middle-brow tastes. But its very funny and full of insights about the big themes of life.

There seems to be a persistent connection between trainers (sneakers) and violence

2012-01-02T23:09:00.002Z

Above: one of the news items over the Christmas holiday was the fatal stabbing of a young teenager in a Foot Locker shop in Oxford Street. The motives for the stabbing are unknown. However the report caught my eye as there seems to be a persistent connection between trainers (sneakers) and violence.

Above: one of the more bizarre aspects of the London riots is that the rioters did not on the whole steal food, or rob money, or target the institutions of the rich and powerful. Instead they looted trainers (as reported in this article by Tessa Hadley in the New Yorker as well as many other news reports). Why are trainers so desirable that they are worth risking a 12-month gaol (jail) sentence?

Above: obviously trainers have been integral to youth culture for about thirty years (Chris Brown even starts his video for Yo Excuse Me Miss in a sports shoe shop - no idea what the hand sign means). But the obsessive nature of the trainer cult seems at variance with other fashion trends which come and go as each part of the body is fetishised. It's as if footware became sexualised and fetishised round about the year 1980 and the frenzy has never been switched off.

Above: a Foot Locker TV commercial in which a young couple play out a sexual fantasy which involves the girl beating her partner with a succession of trainers. What is happening here? Why has violent contact involving trainers (in the context of harmless role-playing) become a substitute for more routine sexual contact?

Above: if we accept that trainers first became mass consumer items circa 1980, what else happened at that date that might be relevant to this discussion? Football (soccer) emerged at that time from a generally working-class spectator sport to a mega-consumer industry encompassing all social groups and with a 20% female following. A report by the British Social Issues Research Centre revealed that 70% of Spanish football fans prefer watching the game to making love, which indicates some form of sexual sublimation (and obviously football is a game that is focussed on feet).

Above: finally there is the 1998 study by Giannini, Colapietro, Slaby, Melemis and Bowman that links the fetishisation of feet with the prevalence of venereal disease. The study only looked at the sexualization of the female foot, but I wonder if there is a correlation with the male foot also. The venereal disease that became prominent in the early 1980s was of course AIDS, and fear of this disease has never really gone away.

So is there a connection between the arrival of AIDS, the associated fetishisation of feet, the subsequent consumer cult around trainers and football, and the increasing violence that is associated with sublimated homoerotic sexual frustration, particularly of young men? (note: stabbing is a form of sublimated penetration by one male of another).

Caveat: these are just my thoughts. I have no evidence for any of this. I could well be wrong.

Twelve Days of Christmas

2011-12-30T21:56:00.000Z

Currently in the middle of the long Christmas holiday that for most people (but not retail workers) will last until 3rd January.

In many ways this long period of rest is an approximate return to the medieval Twelve Days of Christmas which was first recognised and enforced as a holiday in the law code of Alfred the Great.

In medieval times this was also the period when the wassail bowl came into prominence (there is a fine example of one of these bowls in Swansea museum).

The Nine Ladies Dancing in the carol the Twelve Days of Christmas is supposed to refer to the arrival of the wassail bowls at a Christmas feast.

Atkinson Grimshaw exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery

2011-12-29T20:07:00.000Z

I went to see the Atkinson Grimshaw exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery (it's on until 15th January).

Although it is a good show, it should really be four or five times larger to do justice to such an original artist.

The genius of Atkinson Grimshaw was to paint conventional scenes by moonlight, achieving an entirely new way of looking at the world (Simon Marsden does this today with his use of infra-red photography). The result is a heightened sense of awareness - everything is the same and yet simultaneously totally different. Not sure I am explaining this very well.

Atkinson Grimshaw was wildly popular in his day. Councils asked him to paint landscapes to encourage tourism. Newspapers used to review his individual paintings (can't think of any artist who gets that treatment today).

Moonlight, Wharfedale - capturing the ethereal transition of twilight.

Waterloo Lake, Leeds - fabulously still lakes - limpid pools is not a cliche.

The Port Light, 1890s - serene combination of water and sky.

On Strike, Leeds 1879 - even an industrial landscape appears romantic and full of sympathy.

2011-12-24T16:32:00.000Z

The shops are all shut now, there is hardly any traffic on the roads.

Everything is closing down for Christmas (except the churches).

Dateline London was still going earlier today (did the journalist from Le Monde really mean to describe Germany and its Eurozone alliances as the "Axis" powers? - as Abdul Bari Atwan said, this is back to the 1930s).

Probably there will be no posts on this blog until about Tuesday.

"It's the wrong person leaving" - the past two weeks at work

2011-12-24T00:33:00.000Z

Above: the Christmas tree in New Palace Yard seen from the path into Westminster Hall (the lights of Portcullis House in the background). I have a new job (starting in the New Year) working for an Institute. My role is mostly research (which is basically the focus of the entire Institute - researching various areas and coming up with suggestions and ideas). My first official "work" for the Institute was to help with an presentation to MPs held at Westminster a couple of weeks ago. The Institute is supposedly non-party, but only (a few) MPs from just one of the political parties turned up. Not sure if I will blog about my new job - I have a strong suspician that one or two senior people at the Institute know about this blog so presumably they are happy about the kind of things I say.

Monday 12th December

Still dark when I got up. I was at the office by 7.30 and once again found PR Officer Josie S there before me. I suspect she gets in early for the same reason I do - it means less exposure to the more unpleasant people at the NGO.

Josie and I worked on PR for most of the day. As arranged a journalist doing a feature on the NGO arrived and we set up a continuous sequence of interviews for her. Probably a two-page piece will result (but there is never any guarantee of this, you just have to hope they are not exaggerating their importance and the Editor is not going to reduce it to 300 words and a picture).

We also did a post-conference evaluation report. Positive comments and e-mails are still coming in, so we were able to arrange these into an Anecdotal Comments section. Josie was very helpful with this report, Marketing Officer Ron J less so.

Work on the Business Plan for 2012 - it is so pointless for me to do this, as I will be gone at the end of next week. Who is going to deliver this plan? What is going to happen when the office reassembles on the 3rd of January?

In the afternoon Operations Director Ryan M came down to cancel a meeting we were due to have to discuss his marketing plans for 2012. He sounded less confident than usual, taking a great deal of time apologising although I told him it was no problem (standing close over me and whispering so that his breath was on my face, a smell of cherry cough sweets). Josie, his former lover, sat absolutely still in the desk opposite listening to every word.

Tuesday 13th December

With the help of temp Catherine (disabled and walks with a pronounced limp, shortish, very pleasant personality) most of the marketing section of the NGO's 2012 Business Plan was done.

In the afternoon Ryan M came down to sit beside me to talk through his part of the plan. I am someone who likes to maintain personal space so I found his tactile closeness off-putting (for such a short slight man he has big thighs which spilled over the edge of his chair and kept pushing against my leg, rolling his chair closer every time I moved my chair away - he was like a dog that has to sit absolutely adjacent to its owner). Once again Josie S seemed to go into a trance, and while talking to me Ryan M would often direct deliberate looks in her direction so that I wondered if there were things going on that I was not aware of.

I left early to go to a city radio station to give an short interview. They were only in a couple of rooms, a lively noisy atmosphere. I was aware that I was floundering at the end of sentences.

Wednesday 14th December

A day off, using up my holiday.

Thursday 15th December

All of the day I was on my own, the rest of the Communications team being in a training course. I had rashly said I would set up the NGO's stand at an exhibition in a town about thirty miles away. Long drive there, and a struggle to put the various things up (I had never had to do this before - I had to ring Josie S to ask how it all fits together).

Back at the NGO I felt at a loose end. First Thursday afternoon for ages that I have not played golf (it gets dark too early). I deleted hundreds of e-mails, mainly for the pleasure I got from pressing the Delete button.

Friday 16th December

Josie S away at the exhibition. A meeting with Research Officer Jane and Ron J to discuss various projects. Tom D was out so we held the meeting in his office ("I would like to know what exactly Tom does" said Jane defiantly).

The afternoon grew progressively busy, so that I had to start turning things down.

After work I gave Felix S (formerly Research Manager, now an Operations Manager) a lift home as his car is out of action. He has an apartment in a big Victorian villa in a built-up village. His wife's BMW was outside but there was no sign of her. The apartment was cold. Cups of coffee and then he gave me a glass of scotch. The apartment was self-consciously Provencal in decor (self-conscious in the sense that it seemed contrived). We talked about Tom D (my boss and his former boss) and we laughed at his snobbish love of Elgar. Felix put some Elgar music on and we laughed even more, recalling Tom D's pretentious speculations about the mystery person in the Enigma Variations. I was there for hours and got home very late.

Monday 19th December

My last week at the NGO. I was the second person to arrive at the offices, followed by Josie S and Ryan M (they walked in together, although they arrived in separate cars). At my desk I made a rough plan of how I wanted the week to go.

A meeting of the Working Group. I took Josie S into the meeting with me, so that she can carry on with the project after I have left. As the plans are now fairly advanced the rest of the Group suggested making a presentation to all of the NGO's staff on Friday morning. I was asked to give this presentation, but I said it would be better if Josie delivered it with my help. I thought that this would give her an opportunity to raise her profile in the NGO. The rest of the meeting was dreary. A date for the next meeting was set, and it was poignant to think it would happen without me.

Lunchtime I went with my team (Josie, Ron, Jane) to the pub, drinking lager in front of the open wood fire.

In the afternoon a "leaving interview" with my boss Tom D. He praised my hard work over the last year and then talked about the team and how he was going to make changes (the Information Team made redundant, Josie and Ron "evaluated" etc). He was obviously telling me so that I would tell the people concerned and they would have a chance to get over their anger before he informed them officially.

I left the meeting thinking how despicable and dishonest Tom D was.

In the evening with Josie S to a restaurant in the city to see various young people presented with their certificates; photographs in front of a big Christmas tree lit up with lights; a buffet meal afterwards.

Tuesday 20th December

At my desk this morning I thought about yesterday's meeting with Tom D and decided to make a formal complaint to CEO Alec Pressberg about Tom D's incompetence. I knew that Tom and Alec were friends and that no real action would be taken, but if I copied it to the HR manager at least it would be recorded. Coward that I am, I sent the complaint by e-mail instead of delivering it personally.

Cheery appearance of Ryan M, with a campaign for the Operations department that had been prepared for him by Josie S.

"How do you want to take this forward?" he asked me.

"It's up to you really" I said.

"I'll file it" he said off-handedly, going back through the door to the stairwell, leaving Josie S looking crestfallen.

A lot of the day I spent signing off invoices as I know Tom D will not do so after I have left.

It was a relief to get away from the office at 5pm, and I will not miss the place when I am gone.

Wednesday 21st December

Christmas cards on my desk when I arrived this morning. Do I just give Christmas cards to people who give cards to me, or do I give cards to everyone, or do I give cards to no-one? It's always a quandary.

The scale of the outstanding work concerns me, especially as I see no prospect of any of it getting done after I leave.

An air of chaos developed due to the unreasonable demands of the Training & Direction department. I had left Josie and Ron to deal with this, so that they would get used to doing things on their own. However they were not very good working together - I suspect they do not like each other much.

Thursday 22nd December

As soon as I arrived in the office Jane and Josie wanted to talk to me. They complained about my deputy Meryl P, saying that she bossed them around and was always being nasty to them. I told them not to be so stupid (I actually used the phrase "She is not your enemy").

Everyone seemed to be winding down for the Christmas holiday.

Josie S rehearsed the Working Group presentation she is to give on Friday morning.

"It's your chance to shine" I told her.

"It's my chance to really screw things up" she said.

Felix S asked for a lift home again (it's on my route so no trouble). Once again he asked me in for a drink and we sat around for about two hours laughing about work in a very cynical way. He said how nice the people in Marketing seem to be, which surprised me as all I see is the bickering.

Friday 23rd December

My last day at the NGO and last day for all staff before the long holiday. The offices were to close at 2pm with everyone going early. I was expecting a quiet day.

However I was puzzled that there was a meeting of the Senior Management Team (the directors) occurring when I arrived at 9am.

Up to the Board Room to help Josie set up the projector for her presentation. She ran through the slides again and it all looked good. People began to arrive and take their seats, mince pies on the table.

I went downstairs briefly to collect my mobile phone which I had left charging. Tom D appeared and briskly asked for Josie S. I told him she was about to give a presentation in the Board Room. I could tell this information affected him as he faltered then said she must come down to his office immediately. I told him this was impossible and she would come down after the presentation in about an hour. Then I just walked away from him.

Up in the Board Room all the NGO's staff were crammed in, some people sat at the table the rest standing around the sides. About forty people in all (a lot of staff had taken the day off). Josie's presentation was excellent, and she was confident and sincere. She also handled the questions very well. Lots of applause when she finished. I noticed Ryan M sitting at the table looking fixedly away.

After the presentation I went back downstairs. Tom D called Josie into his office and I could see through the glass partition that HR manager Yasmin S was also in the meeting. After a few minutes Josie came out to get a notepad and pen from her desk and said to me "I'm being paid off". On impulse I asked if she wanted me to sit in on the meeting with her, and she said yes. In Tom's office I said I was in the meeting as Josie's staff representative (which is allowed). It was a long and acrimonious meeting, and very confused. No reason was being given for Josie's dismissal. At one point Tom D said she was being made redundant, but Yasmin S corrected him and said it was not a redundancy.

Eventually the meeting came to an end and Josie was given her cheque and various documents. She hinted she might appeal to a tribunal. Then she packed up the things from her desk, said goodbye to Jane, Ron and myself, and walked out the door.

As the news circulated there was a wave of sympathy for her ("I feel sick" said Carol, "I'm bloody annoyed" said Danielle, "It's the wrong person leaving" said Jan, hinting it should be Tom D getting the sack).

The last couple of hours of my time at the NGO were without incident. Everyone in the Training & Direction department came round to shake my hand. There was a little presentation from the Communications department who gave me a present, and then I slipped away.

Criminal charges against England Captain John Terry are disquieting

2011-12-22T11:20:00.000Z

The criminal charges against England Captain John Terry are disquieting for three reasons:

1. The huge media coverage makes it appear impossible that he should receive a fair trial. In this country you are supposed to be innocent until proved guilty and yet many journalists are talking (in newspapers and on the BBC) as if he had already been found guilty and routinely bracketing his name with Luis Suarez who has already been found guilty of a similar offence (thus creating guilt by association, which is undermining to the principles of justice). Which makes me ask whether the Guardian’s treatment of John Terry is any different from the Sun’s hounding of Christopher Jefferies?

2. I don’t like the idea of trial-by-YouTube where candid moments are edited for dramatic content and presented before tens of millions of people for their titillation and comment. This seems uncomfortably Orwellian to me. I think you could film anyone (including Guardian journalists) in a moment of passion and they would say things that might be interpreted as technically illegal.

3. The complainant in the John Terry case is described variously as “a fan” and “a member of the public”. Did this person witness the incident personally or just watch it on YouTube? What motives does this person have in making this complaint (for instance, do they hope to gain a competitive advantage against Chelsea Football Club by knocking out their captain)? It is mandatory for the police to investigate all accusations of racial abuse, no matter how frivolous they may appear (for instance if someone were to complain about Greg Dyke calling the BBC “hideously white”, the police would be legally obliged to investigate whether Greg Dyke intended to describe white people as hideous), therefore it is not clear whether this case would ordinarily have come to court. It does seem ridiculous in several ways. Is it really desirable for the law to regulate the interactions of football players in the course of a football match?

Beowulf

2011-12-21T22:40:00.001Z

Above: screenprint from the movie.

I saw Beowulf on DVD at the weekend (I missed it when it came out on the big screen in 2007). The film is an animation, with considerable visual impact. Director is Robert Zemeckis.

Above: I first read Beowulf in a children's translation when I was about fourteen. On Monday I got this original version of the epic from my local library. It is a facsimile of the Cotton manuscript VITELLIUS A. XV in the British Library.

Above: I thought it might be heavy going, but actually you can get the sense of it quite well. The facsimile has a transcription opposite and although many of the words are unfamiliar you can sense the poetry (especially if you read it aloud). You can also look up difficult words on Google.

Post-Modernism exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum

2011-12-19T23:35:00.000Z

Recently I went to see the Post-Modernism exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum.

It's on until 15th January 2012.

On the whole I was disappointed by the exhibition. Going around the galleries I felt the interpretation was confused, although at the time I couldn't exactly analyse why. Later it occurred to me that the curators didn't have any real sympathy for post-modernism. They seemed to think that post-modernism was everything that wasn't modernism. Post-modernism was examined in a patronising way that assumed it was merely anti-modernism. Above all there was no attempt to capture the romance of the style (post-modernism was a return to the romantic tradition).

Also the exhibition was too ambitious for the space (and presumably money) it had available.

Considering how close in time the 1980s is to us, there should have been no difficulty in obtaining hundreds (perhaps thousands) of exhibits and creating a more densley textured and nuanced show.

I felt the stuff from the 1960s and 1970s didn't really fit.

I liked the quote "After Modernism there will only be a choice between Versailles and Las Vegas" but this wasn't developed in any way or tested for veracity.

Only when I walked through the columns of Strada Novissima and saw the screens showing Blade Runner (the 1980s was the era of video installations!) did I feel that the exhibition had any impact.

Vivienne Westwood cardigan. Alessandro Mondini redesign of Michelangelo's Madonna and Child rondo. Various impractical arty designer gadgets (was this the period when "gadgets" became desirable objects in their own right other than merely utilitarian devices?).

My favourite item was a blue aluminium desk by Garry Knox Bennett.

Costume for the Blade Runner character Rachel by Charles Knade and Michael Kaplan (all black, the shoulders fetishised and exaggerated).

Laurie Anderson.

Louis XIV by Jeff Koons (with a mirror behind it so that I could see myself looking at the exhibit).

Large number of teapots (these teapots had been jeered at on the Review Show). Was there something about the post-modernist style that was connected to tea drinking? In films and books of the period does tea-drinking take place?

Sequence from the film Koyaanisqatsi with music by Philip Glass.

Huge photograph of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (this was the period when Japan nearly overtook the USA as the world's biggest economy.

Doesn't reflect very creditably on either the Guardian or Mansfield College Oxford

2011-12-19T23:29:00.000Z

Misleading article by David Marquand in today's Guardian, telling us that only England is sceptical about the European Union.

Hardly any facts in the piece, but David Marquand does say that the Conservative Party only represents England, and that Euroscepticism will break up the United Kingdom with Scotland and Wales staying in the EU and England leaving.

This is such a stupid argument it hardly warrants refuting.

However David Marquand is a clever person (Principal of an Oxford college no less) so he must be aware that in Wales the Conservatives are the second largest political party, polling three times as many votes as the Plaid Cymru nationalists in the 2010 election; also that in the most recent poll on the EU a majority of Scottish people wanted to leave the EU.

He must be aware of these facts and yet he chooses to tell us (through the Guardian) the opposite - doesn't say very much for his integrity and doesn't reflect very creditably on either the Guardian or Mansfield College Oxford (which was mentioned in the by-line, giving David Marquand added gravitas).

2011-12-18T21:52:00.002Z

All of today I have spent writing Christmas cards and wrapping presents ready to be posted.

No time for blogging.

All you need to know about the British and French economies

2011-12-17T19:56:00.000Z

The recent anti-British invective spouted by French politicians is comical more than anything else.

Especially amusing is the idea that Nick Clegg is some kind of "honest broker" (when everyone knows where his sympathies lie).

To hear the various French politicians talk, you might think they were unaware that there are hundreds of thousands of French economic migrants living in London.

There are of course many English people living in France.

But whereas English people go to France to retire and sit in the sun, French people come to England to work.

I think that tells you all you need to know about the British and French economies.

2011-12-15T22:31:00.000Z

The Guardian television guide said Rev (a comedy on BBC2) was at 9.30.

But when I switched on at 9.30 I found I had missed it - it had been broadcast at 9pm.

This is really annoying.

Especially as I have a lot of sympathy for the "Nigel" character - there are many Nigels in the Church of England.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, on the Today programme

2011-12-14T12:30:00.000Z

Evan Davis interviewed Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, on the Today programme this morning.

Steve Wozniak talked at length about how "counter culture" environments create innovation more easily than formal hierarchical societies. Up to a point I agree with him, relaxed cultures are more open to new ideas. But I do not agree that there is any correlation with wearing t-shirts and trainers and building world-class companies (and I would guess that in the Apple corporation wearing t-shirts and trainers has itself become a normal "uniform" and anyone who does not conform to this is probably informally ostracised as "not one of us").

During the interview Steve Wozniak made an outrageous attack on the culture and society of Singapore (the BBC broadcast of these remarks probably breaks United Kingdom discrimination legislation which bans denigrating people according to national origin - Evan Davis should have challenged these statements as soon as they were made).

And I was annoyed that Evan Davis failed (once again) to ask the obvious question: if formal hierarchical societies are incapable of innovation how does Steve Wozniak explain Japan? Japan was utterly destroyed during the Second World War and yet within a generation emerged as an economic superpower mainly through applying the principles of Dr W. Edwards Deming who espoused a philosophy of continuous innovation and improvement (which the Japanese later developed as "Kaizen"). Japan has done this by remaining a very conservative and formal society (and pictures of Dr Deming himself look fairly conventional!).

Also it is worth remembering that Japan has remained a great trading nation and a world economic power without being part of any trans-national bloc like the EU. No-one goes on about Japan being "isolated" in Asia. No-one calls Japan a "pygmy" nation of no significance, sidelined and marginalised, floating aimlessly in "mid-Pacific".

For forty years the EU elites bullied, frightened and cajoled member states into "ever closer union". David Cameron has courageously shot that fox. He has set the ordinary people free.

He must not move

2011-12-13T20:27:00.000Z

David Cameron is coming under a lot of pressure to reverse the veto he exercised on ever-closer European union.

He must not move from his original position - the majority of the people are with him (as John Harris points out in today's Guardian, including a majority of the people in Scotland).

He need not worry about Nicolas Sarkozy as he is likely to be gone in a few months.

He need not worry about the Liberal Democrats as if they pull out of the Coalition there will have to be an election and on this issue the Conservatives will be returned with an outright majority (especially as the Liberal Democrats will collapse, and this will mostly benefit the Conservatives, not Labour).

He should take a hard line with the 26 European states and tell them to set up their own Eurozone institutions.

100th anniversary of the 1911 Durbar in Delhi

2011-12-12T21:56:00.001Z

Today is the 100th anniversary of the 1911 Durbar in Delhi, supposedly marking the zenith of British imperial power (although in terms of territorial extent the greatest land area under imperial control came in 1921 - but by that time the signs of decline were already evident).

Nothing in today's Guardian, nothing on the BBC, nothing on the Indian government's website.

For various reasons I think that the experience of imperialism was bad for Britain (and obviously pretty bad for the subject nations). But I find this selective amnesia about a major historical event distasteful. And I am not sure that British imperialism in 1911 was any worse than Indian imperialism today - or Chinese imperialism, or Iranian imperialism, or Russian imperialism etc (or indeed EU imperialism over its member states).

Is it perhaps the rise of India as a new economic power that is making everyone careful not to notice the 100th anniversary of the Durbar? Are we all politely looking the other way? Are we afraid that modern Indians would somehow be offended to be reminded that there was a time a hundred years ago when their traditional rulers (all of them great potentates in their own right) were required to get down on their hands and knees in front of the symbols of British power?

India has been an independent country for over sixty years. India is a vast sub-continental territory with a population of a billion inventive and ingenious people and huge natural resources. And yet despite running their affairs for sixty years their economy is barely equal to the United Kingdom's (and this on a day when Nick Clegg described Britain as a pygmy nation!).

By any standards the economic performance of India vis-a-vis the United Kingdom must be described as pathetic.

There is no pleasure in saying this as the human waste over those sixty years is staggering. And obviously (as the Indians keep reminding us) they are going to overtake us "soon". But sixty years of the Indian giant spent catching up with a tiny "pygmy nation" must be acknowledged as pathetic.

Part of the problem is that Indian politicians continually blame "colonialism" for all their woes. After sixty years this excuse is wearing a bit thin. It is time they stopped the victim culture of blaming others for their own mistakes, and in this context they need to face up to their history - and "owning" the significance of the 1911 Durbar might be a good place to start.

Odd sort of situation - the past week at work

2011-12-11T22:53:00.000Z

Monday

I had spent the weekend putting my URGENT folder into order so that when I arrived at the office this morning I felt in control. Although I am leaving at the end of next week there is still a major conference to organise, plus several projects to hand-over. It was a busy day with lots of interruptions (which made me feel irritable).

In the afternoon I took the whole Communications team (including the eight Information Officers) up to the Board Room where we spent three hours going through every detail of the conference on Thursday.

Tuesday

Incoherent meeting with Operations director Ryan M.

More conference planning.

Wednesday

Odd sort of situation today. I have lots to do, but because I am waiting for others to respond I can't get on with any of it. I met with my boss Tom D and "handed over" various projects - he tried to resist but I was insistent.

I completed various evaluation reports, and was lavish in my praise of others.

In the afternoon a meeting with a small external team that has lost its funding and now has to raise money from commercial sponsors. They wanted my advice on how to go about this. I was as sympathetic as I could be, but I can't see any way they will be able to raise the money they need.

Thursday

Day of the social leaders' conference. I was at the office by 7.30, where all the Communications team were gathered. In four cars we drove to the Conference venue, a large hotel in a small town north of London.

I was surprised at how smoothly things ran. The hotel's conference staff did most of the work, allowing us to just walk around checking everything was in place. The Chairman of the conference (a leading academic) arrived, and also a former television presenter hired to run the Questions session.

Then all of the Communications team ran the conference reception desk, checking people as they arrived and giving them badges and directions to the coffee room. I had been keen for my team to do this task as it looked as if we were in charge of the whole event. There had been a lot of criticism in the NGO that a conference of this kind so close to Christmas would not be well attended, but actually the hall was full with about 350 attendees (all "leaders of society" in various capacities).

By the time the lunch (a big formal meal with toasts) was over it was clear that the conference had been an outstanding success.

In the afternoon the attendees went into various different workshops. By this point there was little for the Communications team to do, so I told most of them to go home. Because of the early start I was beginning to feel tired, and I slipped away at 5, leaving PR Officer Josie S in charge of the clear-up (with instructions to ring me if any problems arose).

Friday

A meeting with my boss Tom D. I was amazed at how jovial he was, and this immediately made me feel suspicious. It is like dealing with a madman.

2011-12-11T20:44:00.001Z

On Fox & Friends this afternoon the presenter was interviewing a sports celebrity (Robert Griffin III) and used the phrase "academic all American". This mystified me (are there non-academic all Americans? are there academic partial-Americans? are there non-academic partial-Americans?). Looking on Wikipedia is no help, it just refers to something called a "recognition program".

Later the word "romneyesque" was used to describe a monogrammed shirt.

The right to say no

2011-12-10T21:46:00.001Z

Above: very interesting and perceptive article by Simon Heffer in today's Daily Mail. I don't normally read the Daily Mail, but Agnes Poirier was so outraged by the newspaper on Dateline London earlier that I thought it would be worth buying. Agnes Poirier cultivates a sort of pantomime-villain style of offensiveness (rather like a French female Jeremy Clarkson) and presumably the BBC includes her in various broadcasts because they knew her rudeness will get attention.

The symbolism of yesterday's veto of the European treaty continues to fascinate me. Since its inception the EU has progressed inexorably towards "ever closer political union" with no-one brave enough to say no. David Cameron's veto not only stopped that process dead, it has also made it a lot easier for other politicians, of all nationalities, to exercise the right to say no.

On the whole I do not think David Cameron was acting to "protect the City" (which as several commentators have pointed out was not at risk anyway). I think the veto was ideological, and came from his convictions (which presumably is why Merkel and Sarkozy find it so inexplicable). Coalition policy in any case is to reduce dependence on the City.

In another of its bizarre front page articles the New York Times today describes the United Kingdom as a "big loser" without actually saying what Britain is supposed to have lost. Is it possible that the New York Times is being disingenuous in its coverage of the Eurozone negotiations? Is it possible the New York Times wanted the United Kingdom fully integrated into the new treaty set up so that when the City of London was trashed a lot of the financial services would migrate to New York?

Interesting article in the New Statesman by Owen Jones looks at the veto from the perspective of the Left.

Reading the Daily Mail has been a revelation (for which I must thank Agnes Poirier). Normally I don't pay any attention to accusations of "bias" in the BBC, but an article by Sam Greenhill in today's newspaper about pro-Euro reporting has made me wonder how many staff in the BBC have been on Common Purpose training courses? A Freedom of Information request to see the details of the BBC's training expenditure would presumably reveal whether Common Purpose has an undue influence in the Corporation.

What a great leader David Cameron is proving to be

2011-12-09T09:49:00.000Z

Driving to work this morning listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 I felt in a euphoric mood at the news from Brussels.

What a great leader David Cameron is proving to be.

It would have been so easy to have gone along with the majority, to have fudged things, to have used the small print of various Treatys to bamboozle the people.

Instead he has looked at the Eurozone proposition and said "no thanks" and walked away.

The front page of the New York Times is describing this as a "defeat". How little they know about the mood of the British people. It is a great victory for the fundamental principles of freedom and democracy.

Inevitably a chorus has arisen warning of economic doom and gloom but personally I don't believe it. And in any case, if a certain amount of economic difficulty is necessary then so be it ("we must go into the storm and through the storm"). Economic comforts bought at the price of the surrender of sovereighty and freedom are not worth having (as the members of the Eurozone will soon begin to realise).

Ignorant front page article for the New York Times

2011-12-08T17:54:00.001Z

Staggeringly ignorant front page article for the New York Times today.

Stephen Castle and Sarah Lyell seem to think the Euro crisis is all about economics. They have no idea what they are talking about. Have just heard an American economist (I think he was with the World Bank) on the Radio 4 PM show refer to the New York Times front page and tell us it is better to be a bystander in this crisis (we could hear them all laughing in the PM studio at the ineptitude of the New York Times).

Personally I think nothing can save the Euro. Merkel and Sarkozy are both going to be ejected by their electorates. Therefore there is nothing to lose (NOTHING to lose) if David Cameron goes into the negotiations vetoing everything in sight until every possible concession is given to the United Kingdom (although ultimately we need to leave the EU - and now is possibly the best time to do it).

"These differentials are really important..."

2011-12-07T20:43:00.000Z

Debate on the economy. Three eminent economists, one from each of the main economic faculties in the United Kingdom. In the chair a former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Professor 1 (an authority on the American housing market):

"Look at the decline in US saving rates... look at the integrated data on the growth of credit, money and asset prices... look at falling IT costs..." (not sure why we were supposed to look at falling IT costs - did he mean that historically falling IT costs have accelerated the rate of electronic financial transactions?).

"Look at the political pressure to extend credit to the poor... consumers are not rational optimisers... look at the impact of housing wealth on consumption... high debt is bad for consumption... rising market panic on the feedback of shrinking credit supply undermining the solvency of governments and the banking sector..."

"German brinkmanship may lead to Eurozone disintegration... stagnation in the US and policy paralysis... China hits the buffers - Chinese government income is not based on taxation but is based on land sales for property development - a China slowdown would hit Germany hard as it exports to China but would reduce oil and commodity prices and for the UK this would be a big plus..."

Professor 2 (formerly with the Central Bank of Iran and formerly Professor of Economics at UCLA):

"Compare cumulative inflation deviations in Europe and the US... look at the inflation of the Euro economies relative to German inflation... these differentials are really important... compare with inflation in all the states of the US where there is much more convergence... look at purchase power parity and uncovered interest parity... link long-term interest rates to inflation differentials... there is more quantitative easing on the way... we need to put a cap on interest rates and print money as much as possible to hold the cap... the UK financial position is better than other countries so could expand construction to create employment... need to spend more on high-tech education and training..."

Professor 3 (member of the World Economic Forum):

"Germany has succeeded by exporting to China and developing Asia... Germany has redesigned its economy to look east... Germany is being asked to pay more than 5% of its GDP to the Eurozone periphery and the Germans will not stand for this... the UK needs to engage fully with the emerging economies... the UK needs to unleash its creative industries... the UK needs to work hard and save for the future..."

At the end each of the professors was asked about the future of the Eurozone:

Professor 1 - "The Eurozone will survive in a truncated form".

Professor 2 - "The Eurozone will evolve - remember it is politicians who are pushing for the Euro, not economists".

Professor 3 - "The Eurozone will not survive".

Prime Minister's Questions, 7th December 2011

2011-12-07T12:52:00.000Z

Have just watched this week's PMQs.

Ed Miliband asked why the government was so slow in taxing private jets - I thought the Prime Minister was very quick-witted in responding to this (referring to former Labour prime ministers use of private jets).

John Baron MP called for a fundamental renegotiation of the United Kingdom's relationship with the EU.

Tory grandee Sir Peter Tapsell referred to the Eurozone and said "fiscal union will pose a great threat to the liberty of Europe" (by creating an undemocratic power bloc within the EU). In reply the Prime Minister praised Sir Peter's "great knowledge, wisdom and foresight". But he didn't really answer the question.

Incompetent, lazy and dishonest research

2011-12-06T11:21:00.000Z

Have at last got round to reading yesterday's Guardian.

Several pages of analysis about the causes of the August riots, relying on a study carried out by the Guardian and the London School of Economics.

However the methodology of the study appears to be flawed.

In seeking to understand the reasons why the interviewees rioted the researchers seem to have just recorded the first answer they were given.

This is incompetent, lazy and dishonest research.

Anyone who is concerned with human motivation will know that you have to ask the same questions four or five different times, using different wording, before you will get an understanding of the REAL motivation for a certain type of behaviour.

For instance, it is extremely unlikely the rioters are going to say they rioted "because I was racially motivated" or "because I like stealing" or "because I enjoy being violent". And yet those may well be the reasons they joined in the riots. It is not good enough to simply record the first answer given (especially after months in which the respondent has rationalised their behaviour, perhaps even to themselves, in socially-acceptable terms).

Also in the Guardian Gary Younge compared the August riots with the uprising in Tunisia - laughable stuff.

2011-12-05T23:17:00.000Z

Newsnight now looking at the Eurozone.

Not sure Paul Mason has any credibility as an economic commentator.

Everyone knows he is a Marxist.

He is never going to give an impartial view.

And can the BBC find a different person to interview than Agnes Poirier - she is one of the most irritating and irrelevant commentators.

The report on the riots has made me feel very angry and fed up with all of "the left".

2011-12-05T23:08:00.000Z

David Lammy is going on again about "policing with consent".

"Policing with consent" was the problem in the first place.

"Policing with consent" was the reason the police held back on the first day (and we saw on television after the Tottenham riots David Lammy not giving his consent to policing, thus giving the rioters a signal to continue breaking the law).

2011-12-05T23:03:00.002Z

David Lammy MP is a disgrace.

Completely unfit for public office.

On the first day he failed to back to police, thus giving moral support to the rioters.

2011-12-05T23:01:00.001Z

One after another of the interviewees is saying they have a problem with the police.

I want to put on record that I fully support the police and if the rioters have a problem with the police they also have a problem with me.

(But I do think the police held back on the first day through misguided political correctness).

2011-12-05T22:57:00.000Z

Currently watching Newsnight and an analysis of the August riots.

All the anger I felt when I saw the riots has returned.

The majority of interviewees (appearing in silhouette) seem to be Afro-Carribbean.

What the riots show is the complete FAILURE of Afro-Carribbean immigration into the United Kingdom - perhaps they would feel happier and more "respected" back in the West Indies?

The Russian elections

2011-12-05T09:18:00.003Z

Report on the Today programme this morning about the Russian elections and how the United Russia party had done relatively badly. Analysis by Edward Lucas from The Economist. At least it shows that Russia is a democracy (or does it?).

Ancient Monuments Society

2011-12-04T21:08:00.001Z

Still don't feel entirely well, so after lunch I sat in front of the fire all afternoon and watched the last hour and a half of Fox & Friends, then read the Observer (Dalya Alberge on the latest discoveries at Flag Fen) and then looked through the new Newsletter of the Ancient Monuments Society.

Points of interest in the AMS:

Kenwood House (where you can see Vermeer's The Guitar Player) has received a restoration grant of £3.4 million.

An appeal has been launched to buy the house and studio of Victorian painter GF Watts.

Wrest Park in Bedfordshire is now open to the public - it opened in August so not sure how I missed that (Wrest Park features in Lily Allen's video The Fear, festooned with balloons).

Tredegar House (where I got locked in the garden after closing time and had to climb over the wall) has now been taken over by the National Trust.

Casts of the Elgin Marbles have been incorporated into the athletes' accommodation in the new Olympic Village.

The British Archaeological Association has published Coventry: Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology. The destroyed city of Coventry fascinates me. I don't understand why more effort isn't being put into its restoration.

Also some advance notice of the Pugin 2012 celebrations.

2011-12-04T18:31:00.000Z

Back in 1997 when Gordon Brown made his raid on private pension funds were there any protests from union leaders?

Or were they happy to see the private sector looted to pay to expand the private sector?

It is not good to see the private sector pitched against the public sector, but we need to understand why this has happened.

In part it is because the public sector has been so thoroughly politicised and identified with the Labour party.

2011-12-04T18:26:00.001Z

On Fox & Friends earlier today there was an interview with Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.

Just filling in time

2011-12-03T22:45:00.001Z

Monday

My cold has mostly gone, but I have been left with a hacking cough. This cough goes away for a while, but then comes back again. Especially when the wind blows - which has been frequently this week.

I arrived in the office about 8am, at the same time as my deputy Meryl P (who is moving to another department). She made coffee for both us and we spent the next hour chatting. She shares my view that the entire Communications department is going to be dismembered in the next round of economies.

Operations director Ryan M came in and paused to talk to us. Not for the first time I thought what an inadequate little man he is. How he has got to a senior position in the NGO is a mystery.

It was an odd sort of day. I couldn't seem to settle to anything. Ron J, Marketing Officer (who is disabled) does not do anything unless I specifically ask him to do it.

PR Officer Josie S, who recently received a warning about her work, has become frantic in her production of press releases, showing an inventiveness that is very impressive. However this late flurry of work is unlikely to save her. I fear she is marked (not by me) for dismissal.

Tuesday

Although my work has been scaled down (I am leaving at the end of the year) I am still involved in planning the Conference for society "leaders". This morning I was in a meeting in the Board Room with several partners of the NGO who are helping to fund and organise the event. I left at noon to go into the tea room to watch the Chancellor's Autumn Statement.

More evidence of unprofessional conduct by Josie S. She was responsible for editing a guide to the NGO's Operations department, and although this was an entirely functional booklet she had put a full-page casual portrait of Ryan M, her former lover, on the inside front cover. The portrait makes him look like a pop star. Ryan M was furious about this as almost everyone who saw it started laughing at him. A complaint was made by Ryan M to the NGO's CEO Alec Pressberg. He complained to Communications Director Tom D (my boss).

Tom D called me into his office and blamed me for not proof-reading the document (I had no idea it had gone to the printers otherwise I would have stopped it). Josie S was called into the meeting, but instead of referring to the booklet Tom D talked to her like a father, asking about how she was getting on, and how her life was outside of work. This sounded very ominous - I am extremely wary of Tom D when he is in this avuncular mood, and I wondered whether Josie was about to be sacked.

Ryan M appeared at the internal glass window to the office and motioned to Tom D that he wanted to talk to him. Tom D went out and I saw the two of them muttering. Then Tom D came back into the meeting and Ryan M went off after loudly and unnecessarily shouting "See yer Andrew" through the window.

Tom D ended the meeting without anything actually being resolved. It occurred to me that they don't know what to do with Josie S. Perhaps they are afraid she is going to do something "stupid" while still employed by the NGO.

Wednesday

Day of the public sector strike. Although the NGO's employees are not directly employed by the government there is enough of an overlap for some of the staff not to come in today. No-one seemed to notice their absence.

A meeting in the morning to plan the launch of an NGO initiative. CEO Alec Pressberg was there and seemed very hostile towards me. Not for the first time, I felt glad I was leaving.

Another meeting in the afternoon.

Thursday

As I am still using up my holiday, I only went into work this morning. I discussed Ron J's training schedule with HR Manager Yasmin S. Then a meeting with Preston from the Innovation department.

In the afternoon more golf with Felix S and Ryan M. First some putting practice then round the course, stopping when it got too dark. I declined to go for a drink in the clubhouse.

Friday

Slow sluggish sort of day. I have the feeling I am just filling in time until I leave. Also the unsettling thought that I have not achieved anything of value in my time at the NGO.

The NGO was being "inspected" today, which added a serious atmosphere to the day.

2011-12-03T20:00:00.000Z

Jeremy Clarkson even mentioned on Dateline London earlier today.

More evidence of dumbing down?

2011-12-02T10:33:00.000Z

Very interesting comment on last night's Question Time about the need to trade more with Africa.

This would create a much more balanced trading pattern instead of the current heavy reliance on trading with the EU countries (the incompetence of the Eurozone economy is a threat to our economy - it represents a failure of the "European vision" that so many politicians have been going on about for decades).

Starbucks is opening three hundred new branches in the United Kingdom

2011-12-01T09:52:00.001Z

On the Today programme this morning there was the news that Starbucks is opening three hundred new branches in the United Kingdom creating five thousand jobs.

When you consider that high-price cups of frothy flavoured coffee are an entirely discretionary purchase does this indicate an increase in consumer optimism? Presumably Starbucks did some market research before commencing this programme of expansion. Starbucks sales are not just about coffee - they also relate to consumer confidence, consumer leisure time, the ever-changing rituals with which modern urban individuals regulate their lives etc.

And wasn't it Howard Schultz, Chief Executive of Starbucks, who helpfully told the world back in February 2009 that the United Kingdom was "finished" and no-one should invest here - has he now changed his mind?

2011-11-30T11:14:00.001Z

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave the ten past eight interview on the Today programme this morning.

It was an impressive performance.

At no point did he wobble, hesitate or get caught out.

Either the interviewer (Evan Davis) had failed to prepare properly, or George Osborne gave a genuinely flawless performance.

2011-11-29T23:04:00.000Z

Heseltine is currently talking on Newsnight.

He is such a pompous idiot.

He told us he is in charge of regional growth fund - what idiot gave him that job?

When I see Heseltine I seriously start to question whether I will vote Conservative again.

Elephant & Castle

2011-11-29T20:45:00.000Z

Above: the Observer last Sunday thought that the Autumn Statement might refer to the redevelopment of Elephant & Castle district. Although several major spending projects were announced, Elephant & Castle was not among them. The area is already so blighted by modernist architecture that it is difficult to see how it can recover.

Above: an example of the intellectual arrogance that has divorced public design from popular appreciation is the Faraday monument in the middle of the roundabout at Elephant & Castle. Obviously the idea of a monument to Faraday in the form of a Faraday Box is very clever. But how many of the thousands of people who pass by this roundabout each day get the joke?

George Osborne's Autumn Statement

2011-11-29T16:30:00.000Z

At lunchtime I watched Chancellor George Osborne's Autumn Statement to the House of Commons, broadcast live on BBC2.

"Live within your means" was one of his opening remarks (with the unspoken Thatcherite rebuke: if you can't afford it you can't have it).

He told us the United Kingdom was the only major western economy whose credit rating has improved recently (and is still triple A).

He said that yesterday we were even able to borrow from the money markets at a cheaper rate than Germany (which presumably implies the money markets regard the United Kingdom as a safer place to put their money than even the sober, boring, excessively-hardworking Germans).

Personally I am not impressed with the view that Germany is responsible, prudent and restrained in their spending.

The PIG countries (PIG = Portugal, Ireland, Greece) are condemned as spendthrift wastrel nations, splurging on things they could never realistically afford, paying for it all with borrowed money, and now trying to default on the loans.

But the Germans have also been extravagant in their national spending, buying vanity projects at enormous cost and making (implied) promises to pay that they could never hope to keep.

The difference is that instead of pouring their money into sub-prime mortgages for very low income social groups (like the Americans) or a bloated public sector to soak up the unemployed (like the Greeks) or vast number of silly consumer goods that no-one really wants (like the Irish) the Germans wasted their financial reputation on a white elephant called the Eurozone.

They would like you to think that the Eurozone is simply a rational currency system set up by agreement with the rest of the EU. In reality it is a vanity project, of no more practical value than the British Crown Jewels in the Tower of London (beautiful to look at, of immense symbolic significance, but of no real value unless you break them up and sell the component parts). The Eurozone is the German equivalent of the Millennium Dome or the Athens Olympics or the new city of Naypyidaw.

Of course the Germans have been very careful not to actually commit themselves to paying for the Eurozone project. But everyone knows that the Euro would never have got underway unless backed by theoretical access to German financial assets. And sooner or later they will have to either back the Eurozone debts or share in the defaults (for if the Eurozone goes down German credibility in the field of financial planning will evaporate).

An image of Peterborough cathedral tattooed onto his arm

2011-11-28T11:43:00.000Z

Above: picture from the Daily Mail website. Not sure why the camera flash is reflecting off the arm. It makes it look as if the skin has been covered with some kind of gloss varnish.

According to the Daily Mail Aston Merrygold has had an image of Peterborough cathedral tattooed onto his arm. Aston Merrygold is an X-Factor finalist (winner? participant? bore? not sure how you would describe these people). Yet another example of the X-Factor sub-culture forcing itself into the media you might think.

But this story attracted my attention for several reasons.

Firstly because the west front of Peterborough cathedral is one of the glories of world architecture, and yet hardly anyone knows about it.

Secondly because references to Peterborough cathedral in popular culture are rare. Betjeman mentions it in his 1929 short story Lord Mount Prospect. Erasure's Andy Bell (himself a former resident of Peterborough) might be referring to it in the 1991 song Am I right? ("I can see the old cathedral. But I have to play it down").

But otherwise Peterborough cathedral is unknown.

The third reason is that I know the building extremely well. After I left university I worked in Peterborough for two years and every working day would have to go into the centre of the city (we had a very demanding client). The city is an unbelievably ugly place, with no redeeming features of any kind, except for the cathedral.

Whenever I walked along Bridge Street (which was virtually every day) I would always turn right through the medieval gateway into the cathedral close and walk around for a few minutes (sometimes going into the great church itself, sometimes looking at the remains of the monastic ranges, picturesquely incorporated into later styles of architecture).

I must have walked around the cathedral close several hundred times and can still picture every part of it.

What I most liked was the surreal sense of going from the ugly modern world into a half-hidden paradise.

I suppose that is also what I like about this story - that someone from the X-Factor (which is a fairly ugly and intrusive TV show) should permanently honour one of our national artistic treasures.

Egypt

2011-11-27T21:35:00.000Z

Above: because I have been ill this weekend I was not able to go to the seminar yesterday organised by the Egypt Exploration Society. The seminar was about the excavations at Naukratis in the Nile delta. Naukritis is important as it was a centre of Greek culture and influence in Egypt (supposedly this influence goes back to pre-Minoan times).

Above: the Review Show on BBC 2 on Friday looked at the refurbished Egyptian galleries at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. One of the panellists, Sarfraz Manzoor, told us in all seriousness that the new galleries showed the influence ancient Egypt had on surrounding civilizations. This sounded suspiciously as if he was advancing the discredited "Black Athena" theory (described by Professor Lefkowitz as incompetent).

Above: a few weeks ago I went round the Petrie Museum of Egyptology at University College London. They currently have an exhibition of Flinders Petrie's work analyzing foreign influences in ancient Egypt. Far from being some kind of "pure" well-spring of civilisation, it appears that ancient Egyptian society was a beneficiary of multiculturalism.

Above: sculptured heads of different ethnic groups. One of the things I love about the Petrie Museum is the way everything is crammed into a few small rooms so that you are intimately pushed up against this ancient culture. Also the labels are either typed (on a real typewriter) or handwritten, adding to the "authentic" experience.

Above: the famous "Hebrew head" is tiny, and you almost stumble across it. In any other museum it would be given a room to itself, with acres of explanatory blurb and security guards warning you not to touch the cabinet. Not sure how long the Petrie Museum is going to survive without a "makeover" - you should go and see it while it is still untouched.

Above: the Greco-Romano mummy portraits discovered by Petrie were an influence on the painter Alma-Tadema. You can see similar portraits at the British Museum. They are important because not a great deal of ancient Greek painting survives (these are clearly examples of Greek culture, whatever Sarfraz Manzoor might tell you).

Above: "identity politics" has blighted archaeological research in recent decades. Bonnie Greer (who is a trustee of the British Museum and ought to know better than to make political statements) has publicly and provocatively told us that there are no indigenous inhabitants of the British Isles. What the Petrie exhibition demonstrates is that there are no indigenous people anywhere if Ms Greer's strictly pedantic interpretation is to be applied.

I wondered whether everyone was going to be swept away - the past week at work

2011-11-26T23:11:00.000Z

Monday

All this week I suffered from a cold, which made sleeping difficult. As soon as I laid down in bed I struggled to breath, and after about an hour of this torture I would get up and go downstairs to sleep in an armchair, covered by a blanket. On average I had about five hours sleep per night over the week.

When I arrived at the office PR Officer Josie S was already there. She told me that she had a premonition that something unpleasant was going to happen to her. I just told her she was imagining things.

Boring day at work, and I created a reason to go and see a local government agency just so that I could get out of the office in the afternoon.

Tuesday

All of today I was at a training course for the NGO's managers about the media. Very little I didn't already know, although the other managers seemed fascinated by it. We had to interview each other on radio in the morning and then television in the afternoon.

Very poor lunch, and afterwards I had three whiskies at the bar.

Wednesday

One month from today will be my last day at the NGO (I am on a fixed term contract which is not being renewed supposedly due to lack of funding, although who knows the real reason). I have hardly anything to do, and fill in my time at the office by a number of self-imposed tasks. If I stopped working entirely no-one would notice.

After months of stalling by the Finance department I was finally given a budget to buy an office camera. I immediately drove to a local town and bought a Nikon D5100. Back at the office I showed it to Josie S and Marketing Officer Ron J and we spent the rest of the afternoon taking pictures of each other.

Thursday

During the morning I held a team meeting with Josie S, Ron J and Research Officer Jane B. We discussed a marketing project for the Innovation department. We generated a lot of good ideas and soon had a strategy in place.

Half day holiday in the afternoon, and despite my cold I joined Felix S and Ryan M (Operations Director) for another golf session. The course we go to has a resident trainer and he gave us half an hour tuition in chipping and putting, and then we played nine holes. During the game Ryan M took me aside and said that Josie S had been "stalking" him in the office (they had an affair earlier this year, which Ryan M ended). Stalking is a gross exaggeration, but I knew that she had been hanging around the Operations department and finding excuses to talk to Ryan M when he clearly could not be bothered with her. At first I had tried to dissuade her from doing this, but nothing I could say would influence her (you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped). Ryan M has complained to CEO Alec Pressberg who has agreed she should go.

I wish he had not told me this as it means I now have to pretend I don't know.

Friday

Nothing to do today. My cold, which had been getting better, is now a lot worse. So few tasks are being given to the Marketing department that I wondered whether everyone was going to be swept away in the new round of economies (I am going anyway).

Fox & Friends

2011-11-26T20:17:00.000Z

Not sure whether I have a cold or 'flu. I know it's easy to inflate the common cold into influenza to get more sympathy from people, but usually I resist doing this. But after a difficult night I finally got to sleep about 4am and didn't wake again until 11am.

Feeling very weak, it took me nearly an hour to get washed and dressed and go downstairs to an armchair in the sitting room, with the electric fire on full.

Didn't really want any lunch, so I just had cups of tea, one after another.

I watched Dateline London and then drifted through the channels to Fox & Friends, which is an American morning television news show.

Reports of the sales in America, including frantic scenes at various branches of Walmart and an overhead film of hysteria at one particular store showing a large woman's trousers falling down in the melee (the commentator, who I think is Alisyn Camerota, told us "consumer spending seems to be robust").

Most interesting item on the show was a Gallop poll that revealed 81% of respondents wanting a third party Presidential candidate (independent of the Democrats or the Republicans) - this does not seem to have been picked up by the BBC.

There are three presenters to Fox & Friends each of them talking loudly and very fast. Of the three Dave Briggs is the most compelling. Whatever the subject he manages to speak with sincerity which creates trust in what he is saying (which is a valuable asset for a news presenter).

2011-11-25T14:33:00.000Z

Deputy Prime Minister Chris Clegg was interviewed on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning in the prestigious ten past eight slot.

His performance was weird - haltering and stuttering and repetitive.

At one point the interviewer told him "you've made that point many times".

2011-11-24T23:52:00.002Z

Newsnight (the first half), then Question Time, and now I am watching This Week.

Thanksgiving - a national holiday in America and part of the American ritual year

2011-11-24T21:16:00.001Z

Above: today is Thanksgiving - a national holiday in America and part of the American ritual year. Obviously it is an American event, but since New England was an English creation the day has made me wonder if there are any corresponding influences on England we can trace (I'm talking about the specific New England cultural identity rather than the more general influence of American culture). There is certainly evidence of absence - the original colonists left behind memories, preserved in local traditions.

Above: the Pilgrim Fathers memorial on the east coast. I took this photograph just as the sun was coming up. Hardly any American tourists come to look at this pillar, probably because it is so remote.

Above: a few yards away is the salt water creek where the Pilgrim Fathers planned to set sail. Bleak but also beautiful. Lots of place names in the area have correspondences in New England.

Above: Sweet England is a folk song about a family emigrating to America and everything going wrong and how they long to come back again. I listen to this CD all the time in the car. Shirley Collins has an amazing voice.

Above: I never watch X-Factor so all the performers that everyone else seems to know about are usually a mystery to me. But usually once a week I watch the top 10 videos on MTV and this week One Direction suddenly appeared at No 1 (or No 3 depending on the chart). Although the band is British the look is unmistakeably New England, set in one of the small colleges the area is renowned for (I know Lake Placid is technically New York state but it was in the old Dominion of New England).

Above: I am not sure who the director is (a Google search produces nothing). Ostensibly simple, the video has a subtle brooding quality. If I had to guess I would say the video was directed by John Urbano (who did the band's previous video), written by John Knowles (author of A Separate Peace) and based on a poem by Thomas Parke D'Invilliers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvfejaHz-o0

Stephen Fry is to be the voice of the Olympic mascot

2011-11-24T11:01:00.001Z

Above: at the top of my In Box this morning was an e-mail telling me that Stephen Fry is to be the voice of the Olympic mascot. Why Stephen Fry? Are we so bereft of talent in this country that Stephen Fry has to appear in EVERYTHING?

Or was he just the safe option chosen because every other creative director chooses him for every other voice-over?

"Approval of what is approved of, is as false as a well-kept vow" (Betjeman quoting Oscar Wilde).

Above: the first thing visitors from Paris see when they arrive in London by Eurostar are these giant Olympic rings. Personally I am already bored by the Olympics, especially as all the tickets have gone (I did try to buy some for the boxing). For me it is just going to be a television event.

Time to own your own history

2011-11-23T21:33:00.001Z

Starting with the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning and continuing throughout the day the news has been dominated by a report produced by the Equality & Human Rights Commission absolutely damning about home care services for the elderly.

Commentators on the report have been so shocked that I can hardly add anything to the outrage already expressed except to say that I am also shocked beyond belief.

However I hope I can be forgiven, in this unimportant little blog that hardly anyone reads, for pointing out that we have been continually lectured about how the care services "would collapse" in the United Kingdom without large scale immigration, particularly from the Indian sub-continent and the West Indies. We are endlessly told, whenever anyone attempts to discuss immigration, that "we wouldn't have any carers in this country if it wasn't for the hard-working immigrants". Therefore if the apologists for large-scale immigration are claiming the care profession as a triumph of "hard working immigrants" presumably they must also share responsibility for the evil behaviour that has taken place.

This is not to construct some tenuous connection that doesn't exist. The local council caring professions have already been claimed by the pro-immigration lobby. To quote Gary Younge, it's time to own your own history.

And doesn't this episode illustrate just why large scale immigration is so pernicious? Carers need to be well-paid, well-motivated and well-supported (as they largely were in the 1950s). Instead, the importation of cheap labour willing to do "the dirty jobs" for next to nothing has allowed councils to shirk their responsibilities, cut local taxes, and at the same time sanctimoniously praise the imported carers as a model to be emulated by the lazy work-shy indigenous population (and if anyone tries to protest they are called "rascist").

Difficult to see what can be reclaimed from this mess. But perhaps next time immigration is discussed in a serious context possibly we can do without the lectures about the caring professions "collapsing" if it wasn't for immigration. The caring professions have already collapsed if this report is to be believed.

Hugh Muir, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Darcus Howe etc - time to own your own history.

Stuffed chine

2011-11-23T16:29:00.001Z

Plate of stuffed chine which is a great delicacy in the county.

Pork shoulder cured, then stuffed with various herbs including onions, parsley, thyme, celery, borage, lemonbalm, applemint, dandelion leaves and whatever other herbs happened to be in season (the taste varying with the seasons).

A famous farmhouse kitchen dish, it is best when freshly made - which is probably why you do not find it in supermarkets.

Usually served as a cold meat with salad and boiled potatos (buttered).

Channel 4 film about Alan Turing Britain's Greatest Codebreaker

2011-11-22T20:17:00.000Z

Last night I watched the Channel 4 film about Alan Turing Britain's Greatest Codebreaker. Really interesting piece of work, with even the dramatisations done sensitively (for once). Not sure however that Alan Turing would want to be remembered for his sexuality (which seemed to be one of the subtexts).

Almost by accident I have been carrying out an informal study of British intelligence activity during the Second World War. My brother gave me the David Garnett book on the PWE - a comprehensive and conscientious piece of historical writing. Also very familiar for anyone working in PR today, especially the in-fighting, office politics and monomaniacal empire building.

I also have a desire to visit Bletchley Park to see for myself where much of this secret work took place.

Above: not sure why I keep press cuttings. Usually I tuck them into books I have on related subjects. This obituary appeared in The Times on 25th July 2008 and is about the capture of the Enigma machine in 1940.

2011-11-22T19:43:00.001Z

The Scottish National Party has been given a million pounds donation by a Lottery winner.

It somehow seems appropriate since that party appears to be made up of political chancers promising get rich quick policies.

2011-11-22T14:20:00.000Z

Interesting article in today's Guardian about the Sami people of northern Scandinavia.

Why Mahler by Norman Lebrecht

2011-11-21T21:46:00.000Z

Above: Why Mahler by Norman Lebrecht - how one man and ten symphonies changed the world.

The challenging complexities of classical music… a world of feeling and ideas… Nikolai Korndorf wrote the 1990 Hymn in Honour of Gustav Mahler… Thomas Mann did not expect anyone to recognize Mahler as Aschenbach in Death in Venice… Ken Russell's film Mahler (1974)... Mahler’s music is a fast track to deep-core emotion and a way of connection with true self… Mahler offers depth and breadth to the thought process… the Mahler fortress becomes a private refuge… the symphonies are dauntingly long and the songs are in German… The Vienna of Freud, Mahler, Mach, Wittgenstein, Schnitzler, Herzl, Trotsky forged the world we know today - a meeting point of individualism and collectivism, of egotism and idealism, the erotic and the ascetic, the elevated and the debased... the most popular and influential symphonist of our age...

2011-11-20T20:58:00.000Z

Another weekend when I have been disappointed by the books section in both the Saturday Guardian and the Sunday Observer.

Given the huge number of books that are published each year, why are the reviews so patchy in quality and few in number?

Eventually we will see the emergence of a Chinese George Orwell

2011-11-20T20:47:00.001Z

Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, was interviewed on Sky News this morning about the economy. WPP was one of the original "predatory" companies of the 1980s, using leveraged money in a hostile takeover of J Walter Thompson. So Mr Sorrell's credentials as a respectable commentator are somewhat flawed - he represents part of the problem, not the solution.

Anyway, this morning he was complaining about the amount of "China bashing" in Europe, telling us (in that obnoxious I-know-everything way of his) that our only hope was growth in China (with India and Brazil mentioned as an aside).

Was he referring to the short term or the longer term?

In the short term the BRIC economies will continue to grow and globalisation-predators such as Martin Sorrell will no doubt make a personal killing.

Over the longer term the West would be unwise to become economically dependant on countries such as China until they have reformed their political systems.

Each of the BRIC countries contains serious contradictions that must inevitably lead to social revolution (in which case stable economic growth and overseas investment will evaporate).

To take China as an example, this economy now contains millions of newly-enriched middle classes with relatively large disposable incomes (compared to the majority of the Chinese population who are still living in poverty).

Martin Sorrell is presumably hoping that this money is going to be spent on consumer goods (cars, refrigerators, televisions etc), the purchasing decisions of the Chinese consumers fuelled by advertising presumably provided by advertising agency subsidiaries owned by Mr Sorrell and using media channels owned by Mr Murdoch.

However we know that one of the first priorities of family expenditure is on education, with the aspiration of university education for their children.

How is it possible for millions of university-educated students to be co-opted into the totalitarian system that runs China? A genuine university education will teach them to look at the world critically which will include looking critically at their own system of government. Eventually, and soon one would expect, they must bring the system down, in which case economic growth is going to be a casualty (as it always is in times of social revolution).

It might be possible for the Chinese to develop a non-critical university system, but docile compliant graduates are not going to deliver economic innovation necessary for growth.

It might be possible for some of the graduates to be incorporated over the short term into the ruling elite, but even among these there will be rebels and eventually we will see the emergence of a Chinese George Orwell, challenging the system from within - perhaps thousands of Chinese Orwells.

Therefore China must either transform itself into a democracy or cease to grow as an economic power. But it cannot transform itself into a democracy without a huge number of "losers" among the current ruling elite who are going to fight their impoverishment. That is why we cannot say that China is a safe place for long-term investment.