Abandon currency!

Former chancellor Nigel Lawson was in entertaining form this morning discussing the current EU economic mess, though it did sound as if he’d been celebrating too early. The ‘solution’ wasn’t so much for Greece to abandon the euro, but for the EU to abandon its dream of a single currency. As he put it, monetary union requires fiscal union; and fiscal union would require political union, something most Europeans don’t want.

I remember several occasions when people voted “No” and were ignored; in the case of Denmark threatened with the consequences and told to vote again, presumably as often as needed to produce the ‘right’ result. I can easily imagine many wanting monetary union, but not the foundations required to make it work. Just as I continue to find it difficult to square the Liberal Democrats championing of local democracy, whilst pushing for deeper European integration; and if this doesn’t mean political union, what does it mean?

The tragedy of our day

I wonder if the Labour party thought it a good day to bury stupid policy; they have form. I should thank them, and the TUC, for the light relief provides distraction from what might have been a grim day. Not so much the tragedy of what those zealous idiots started ten years ago, more the reaction of those who even now conflate Afghanistan and Iraq with alarming ease; or, for example, the Guardian’s intellectual vacuity in insisting it an act of terror, rather than one of war. Presumably without a formal declaration it isn’t such; and thus becomes the perfect excuse for any state harbouring an organisation wishing to slaughter the citizens of another. The US and its allies prosecuted a just war in Afghanistan, if there can be such a thing; to do otherwise would have been monumental folly, a signal to others that sheltering Al Qaeda carries no risk, no penalty, no matter what.

Yet I am disingenuous, for my daughter has left on a week-long activity holiday with her school. That grim feeling is better described as nervousness; it is her first time away. Much as I feel I ought to, I find I cannot concern myself with the murderous stupidity of others. At least not to the extent - I hope - of changing the way I think, the way I behave. I refuse. We've been through this before.

The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism.
-- Adlai Stevenson

Dispelling not-for-profit

I can understand arguments that proposed NHS changes may make the service less efficient. I can understand suggestions they won’t, as claimed, put the patient - or his/her GP - in the ‘driving seat’. I disagree, but I can understand, and in truth can imagine failure. I am less impressed with warnings of impending privatisation; what arrant nonsense. Nor do I care for the consternation apparent at the notion of a private company making a profit. That so many decry the idea of an NHS-run hospital closing - as a result of being open to competition and unable to compete - suggests either wilful obfuscation or an inability to understand the basics.

When the running of the national lottery was open for bids, Richard Branson made much of his group’s tender being not-for-profit; however, the relevant detail is revenue generated. Branson was courting public opinion, that he felt able to throw in this red herring is indicative of how easily confused we are. For example, should we accept a bid that will generate £800 million for the country and £100 million profit for the organisers, or should we accept a not-for-profit bid generating £750 million?

Understanding ‘commission versus provision’ is equally simple. When the NHS spends money on our behalf, would we for instance rather spend £3000 on an ‘in-house’ operation, or out-source to a private hospital charging £2800 for the same service, of which £300 might be profit? Of course these numbers are made up, I use them merely to illustrate that profit should have no bearing on the decision made. Accusations of cherry-picking by private consortia should, if we procure sensibly and ensure multiple providers, also prove irrelevant. An informed choice, one that allows for profit, will result in an NHS that costs less and/or one that can do more.

Look at those silly men

As befits a good book, I’m having a hard time categorising On the Road. It defies easy rating; it’s good literature that was no doubt ground breaking for the time, yet time has not treated the movement well. When I think of the beat generation, I think of the dated patois, of Jerry Lewis or numerous other parodies; and in my less forgiving moments I found myself weighing whether this wasn’t a fetid existentialism; less ‘on the road’, more ‘on the turn’.

There are some great moments; I particularly liked the description of roads being widened and laws abated to make way for one of Dean’s visits. The latter stages in general, the trip to Mexico and the slow unravelling of Sal’s sometime companion prove to be more sympathetic. There were a number of genuinely moving occasions where I felt Kerouac really got ‘it’, and his observations of friends worked well too, even occasionally of fellow travellers:

…because her heart was not glad when she said it I knew there was nothing in it but the idea of what one should do.

There’s nothing particularly revelatory in this observation, but it works. Most supporting characters however fair less well. For example when Sal finds himself...

... wishing I could exchange worlds with the happy, true-hearted, ecstatic negroes of America.

Oh dear, the last time I read something that patronising was a Guardian account of the working class. Unfortunately this isn’t isolated either; the otherwise excellent trip to “Mehico” has a wince-inducing indigenous population who supposedly speak ‘a leetle like theees’ and descriptions of women that wouldn’t be out of place in an airport novel. “We don’t understand our women”, says Sal, that much was obvious; men are predators and most women exist to be nailed; the 1950’s expression for this is to “work” or “make”, but let’s not argue terminology.

Camus wrote “it is not a matter of explaining and solving, but of experiencing and describing", appreciation doesn’t require empathy; the question is whether these slight descriptions are a failure of Sal or the author. Since it is a largely autobiographical work I tend toward the latter view; on the Camus test, Kerouac scores highly on one criterion but has mixed success - and some notable failures - on the other.

Yet here I am, over a week later and still I think of “On the Road”. For a large part, even after I had finished, I found the central friendship of the two frustrating; Dean is a horrible character, less shaman, more charlatan; but in this, bizarrely, lay my hope. Sal knows who Dean is but loves him just the same.

Smurfing hell

Somehow I contrived to raise my hopes, and suffered the consequences; The Smurfs was terrible. It only took a few comments of 'exceeded low expectations' for me to take leave of my senses; it might prove to be a guilty pleasure or a hidden gem... well maybe not that far, but I'd thought there might be something to enjoy, beyond a flimsy excuse to post a picture of Katy Perry.

And in eye-popping - I mean that literally - 3D too. I have only seen one film done well in 3D, though from a sample of four it’s hardly scientific. Coraline managed to make it part of the story; its use restrained in her ‘normal’ world, it’s only in the ‘other’ world that we get the full effect. In the other three films, which it occurs to me would have been crap in any dimension, it was full-on, all the time. This has two immediate side-effects; the first is the eye-wrenching alluded to earlier; the second is that you notice the limitations. I could distinguish layers, but with the result that each seemed more flat than if I’d been watching something ‘normally’; it reminded me of those cheap cartoons of the past, with a few overlaid backgrounds to give a sense of depth. Perhaps it’s a drawback pertaining to films converted to, rather than made in 3D. Hence I’ve not given up altogether, despite the film industry’s seemingly suicidal tendencies with this technology. I’ll have to be a little more discerning instead; not easy when you have a ten year old.

Rambling

Once, there used to be a wide old footpath at the top of the embankment running the entire length of that side of town. It was known as the ‘old railway line’. Though the last remnants were removed when I was a child, you could still, walking the length, cross a couple of stone bridges to remind you of the past. The embankment has long since gone, flattened and brought down to our level to accommodate housing, business and a bypass to the small industrial estate. It stays the ‘old railway line’, though all that remains is a thin tarmacked path between old and new.

It’s still used for the walk to the shops, and the bridges are still there, though barely noticeable; where there were fields on one side there are now estates and an office. On one occasion my mother, having noticed the rubbish over several such walks, the small plastic cups and empty sweet wrappers from vending machines, took action with a large bin bag and deposited the results in reception. I used to think that mildly embarrassing, now I cheer; that’s mums for you.

Poor eyesight, not nearly as fast as she used to be - I no longer have to run to keep up – and a catholic; I figure religious enough to make up for those in the family who aren’t. In mass last week she stopped to appreciate a stylish top. At the end of the service, a young member of the congregation sitting behind, put their arms around my mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek before leaving. It was only when my mother stood up that she realised she had a new cardigan draped around her shoulders.

A decade in the life of

On one trip to the Cribbs Causeway cinema, the whole complex - cinema, bowling rink, restaurants and all - suffered a power cut moments before the film was due to start. We were there to watch the Disney/Pixar film Up - which I was looking forward to, and on a subsequent visit I really enjoyed - so we were a little disappointed. If there is any balance in the world I hope for a similar fate tomorrow, when I will be taking Little Miss R to see the new Smurfs film, may God have mercy on my soul. I’ve tried - I’ve really tried - to get out of this one, but I fear there’s to be no escape.

We are celebrating her tenth birthday which falls this week, and hasn’t the time just flown by? Well, no actually, though I typically rue having wasted so much. I can clearly remember, and will never forget, holding her for the first time, the moment when her eyes opened and... maybe she couldn’t see me, but I could see her. Likewise a year later; a visit to Bristol Zoo, or a few weeks ago and her first swim in the sea; I love those moments. One day, if I’ve done a good job, I will need her more than she needs me, and those moments will be all I have. So I shall smile loudly with the time I have left, endeavour to make better use of the next ten years and smile when I fail. There’s the teenager to come, bothersome boys, exams to fret over, university perhaps? To think I worry about enduring a group of small blue fictional creatures - I shall save my wishes for later.