The Old Gaffer

Everyone will know that I sound off from a basis of ignorance, and am doing it again, this time about Swine Flu. Before I explain why I am dazed, amazed and think the government crazed, I want to set down a few basic thoughts. Ever since the Falklands War, when it was bruited abroad that Maggie had taken that momentous step, to distract from the financial situation of the country, when America rashly went into Iraq, taking us with it, because America’s financial situation was tricky, and as I’ve never understood why we are in Afghanistan, I’m always a little suspicious when governments seem to act almost in a panic, and illogically.

Because Sophie and I are not only very old but infirm, and in consequence do not meet that many people, we have found our immune system to be very delicate, and if we come into contact with people who are suffering from colds and flu, the chances are we will too. We have seven great-grandchildren, most of whom attended preschool crèches, and they too had their immune systems heavily tested. I’m not suggesting this is unusual, it is a recognized fact, and for this reason I was aghast to find that people flying in from Mexico to Heathrow, appear to have no individual check on where they have been spending the previous week or so. To allow a child who had flown in from Mexico, without any isolation precautions, however simple, and instead was permitted to attend school, and thus disrupt the schooling of a large number of children, was something that was totally illogical and predictable. The government is going to deluge us with copious leaflets, and has upped the number of treatments of this virus from 30 million to 50 million, in-store. What the shelf-life of these pills is, I don’t know, but it is probable that people would require the treatment over a fortnight or three weeks, if it is antibiotic. But at this moment, while I am pleased to say that we have very few cases, I find it beyond belief, that the whole information system is clogged with repeated reports of very few cases, when at the same time the government is allowing people to arrive unchecked in detail, presupposing that they feel that the flight information is an adequate check in itself.

Because the opposition didn’t pick up on the fact that the returning people from Mexico were passing through a public causeway and on to trains, in contact with others, struck me as surprising, when one compares it with the hype that the disease itself is being given. Do they know something I don’t? Is it not as bad as they make out? I’m just at a loss. After all, it was apparent that the travellers were prepared to be questioned, possibly have further examinations, because of the seriousness of the conditions in Mexico. To have carried out some basic checks, possibly even limitation of movement for a given time, on the travellers, will be less disruptive, on a percentage basis, than letting them drift in to circulation, as would seem to be the case. I would have expected that if the government was making that sort of gesture, it would have been emblazoned across the headlines, and there would have been discussion as to whether it would be reasonable and effective or not.

When you get to my age, if you are a hoarder, you can become unpopular with the rest of the household, as they think they can see a day when they will be turfing all your rubbish into a skip. In consequence I have started to part with things that I have treasured, but that, to be honest, have really outlived their usefulness, because progress has made them redundant. The list is endless, those beautiful fountain pens that you received at Christmas, at great expense to the giver, that wrote elegant script; Groves concise dictionary of music, and practically all the rest of my books, except the Idiot’s Guides.

On the 29th of September, 2007, under Random Thoughts 40, which is still available, I wrote about the changing demands on the public library, and the way in which reading books has been severely overtaken by the Internet. I have probably about 600 hardback books, most of them non-fiction, which today are virtually worthless, not only because the information is out of date, but because one can find practically anything by a flick of a switch. As a child I read books that were for adults, and have been reading ever since, seeking knowledge, or just enjoying a level of English prose that to me anyway, is like music. When I was at school we had to read a large number of the classics, and miles of poetry, some of which was a total bore, but some, even to a boy, had beauty of thought and description. I write this because I wonder if the children of today, with their computers in school, their high-tech approaches, will ever have time to read what I read, or something of equally high-quality. The 60s changed a lot of the mores that we had lived by, and advances in the entertainment industry, at the same time, introduce a crudeness our parents would never have stood for.

I suppose one could say that I’m a Job’s comforter, a miserable killjoy, not moving with the times, but to my old eyes so much of the standards that we enjoyed have a been denigrated. British policeman rarely whacked the public, even at the times of those huge strikes. Young women in company were not heard to mouth foul language, whereas today it seems that this is the smart thing to do. We are so insular today, so high-tech, that we are divorced from the sort of association we had in the past. We used to buy across the counter, or from a stall, instead of serving ourselves, we went to church, our youngsters joined clubs, with the result that we not only rubbed shoulders with, but communicated with people mostly from every class and every walk of life. This was a university, where we learned communication skills, compassion, and respect for the other person. I hope that I am wrong in believing that the majority are leading not only an insular life, but to some extent a sterile one, bolstered by other people’s choice of what they see and hear, rather than broadening their outlook by their own choice. If this credit crunch has told us anything, it is that when the chips are down, not only our well-being, but our aesthetic is diminished. Cheap and cheerful seems to be the order of the day.

Almost on my doorstep is a company that is being wound up, after being in business for 45 years, and surviving through the Troubles. The whole workforce is now in a sit-in, because it was made redundant, with terms that were totally unfair, and it would seem, by the way the discussion is progressing, that there may be some legal reason in their favour, for claiming they are being treated unjustly. I quote this, because it is regularly on our news, and must be replicated right across the country.
Throughout the land there must be young people, middle aged, and old, who are receiving termination notices. Some are being sacrificed on the altar of pragmatic accounting, some because the whole company has gone into receivership. Most of these people are hard working, loyal and competent, had a future they thought they could rely on, only to find that they appear to have no future at all.
The situation is the result of nothing more nor less than gambling. The boards of the banks certainly permitted, if not actually sponsored the most risky form of gambling that there is. With a bookie, you’re betting small sums on a positive outcome. In the case of gambling on the stock exchange, you have Bull and Bear markets where you can bet that the price will rise or fall, and the amounts that these people were handling, belonging, as much of it did, to the customers of the bank, must have been prodigious. What I find alarming, as everyone else does, is that they were doing it unheeded by the regulating authority.
Where this business is so unfair and so illogical, is that the banks, the instigators of the crunch have been bailed out, but the very people who were innocent of any misjudgement, to put it mildly, are not getting bailed out, and are now finding themselves in a financial situation where many of them have no idea just what awaits them. I was made redundant by the RN upon demobilisation, and was made unemployed later in life, and I know the stresses that this can bring, but I had an extended family; so many of those affected today, are on their own, facing losing everything.
There should be some mechanism which cushions the blow to these people, protects their homes, and gives them time to redress. When you read about the quantity of the money paid out to the building societies and banks, it makes one wonder how this would compare with paying some of the interest on the mortgages of those made redundant, and giving additional help when needed, in order to cushion the blow on the innocent, so that unlike me, as a child, being farmed out around the family in a similar situation, the families can stay together and have time to review their own personal situation, and perhaps come to a temporary solution that is equable if not perfect.

Accountants will probably say that I’m stupid, and they could be right, I just feel that the balance of who qualified for the help and who should be receiving it, is totally out of kilter, and unfair.

I don’t think I am being chauvinistic when I say that I believe the British Armed Forces are equal or better than any in the world. I can remember men telling me of the excitement they experienced in the First World War when whole batches of them went to the recruiting centres, it was like an hysteria. In the Second World War, when I was too young to join up, I got into every group connected with the war that I could, and I waited impatiently for my turn to come. The fact that the realisation is not up to the imagination never seems to filter down to the next generation.

I have always railed against the fact that our government has to get our men into the forefront of every conflict that is going at any time. Presumably it is the ‘leading the world syndrome’, a throwback from the days of the Empire. Now with a credit crunch, with young men throughout the world, having their futures made insecure, having difficulties in finding suitable work, we have an opportunity to build, under the auspices of the United Nations, an International Legion, which is supported financially by the wealthier nations, and can go to hotspots like so many areas in Africa and the rest of the world, putting down corrupt governments, for the sake of their people, tackling terrorism, fighting drug trafficking - need I list more? In fact, upholding reason, compassion and the rule of law. If they’re not fighting, they can be called upon to help with any emergency throughout the world.

One thing I would not want to see is conscription, as psychologically it is counter-productive in the long run. I firmly believe they would have an opportunity of selecting the very best candidates, because the supply, at this time, will more than outstrip the demand. Nations across the world would then be more closely tied in with the United Nations, which has developed from its original glittering ideal, into a weak talking shop, and perhaps, thereby, giving it more backbone.

I would be taking a very serious exception to Brown’s broad brush. Not only would I take it as a personal slight, I would object to the fact that he is telling the world, whether truthfully, or making a general statement, that I, and the rest of my colleagues are thieves.

When I was young we knew nothing of millionaires, they were so rare. We respected what we then referred to as ‘our betters’, the doctor, the clergy, the Lord of The Manor, our MP, and even our Councillor. They were rarely taken to task by the press, and we were too preoccupied with our own living to take much notice of what they were doing. I still believe that the average person is honest, truthful, and trustworthy, and for this reason I believe that the great majority of MPs are behaving with probity. Brown, by his sweeping changes, is telling me I’m stupid. I have a mantra that says ‘if it ain’t bust don’t fix it’, and if the system or expenses in Parliament has being alright up to two years ago, and the press in an urge to increase sales has recently done some serious digging, and exposed a few miscreants, I feel it is totally unfair to tar so many with the same brush.

I know nothing about the inner workings of Parliament, but from the outside it seems to me that a fairly large proportion of MPs, who are expected by their electorate to be dedicated and attend Parliament on a regular basis, will require a second accommodation in easy reach of Westminster, and the differential in expenses between members will be proportionate to their travelling expenses, if a sensible cap is placed on the cost of a second home. I can’t see what the fuss is about in general terms, and I object strongly to our country being held up to ridicule across the world, yet again. This whole business is like so many other problems, like football hooliganism, where the majority are painted with the broad brush of censure, because of a few. This government treats so much in this manner, without due care and attention, because, in my view, they’re dancing to the tune of the correspondent, they are trying to distance themselves, because of electioneering considerations, rather than necessity. If you really want to castigate the expenses of a governing body, the place to start is in the EU, where waste seems to be endemic.

It all started roughly around the time that I was on honeymoon with Sophie, November 1944. She was frightened out of her wits when she heard her first Buzz-bomb, I was used to them, teaching in the South England, with them flying over everyday. If you heard them you were safe, once the sound stopped, one waited to see where it had fallen, thankful when it was not on you. Then followed in order, the V2, and the atrocities of the atomic bombs on Japan. We didn’t think of them as atrocities then, merely retribution, the change of heart came later. That basically was the beginning of the Cold War, and the Space Race, where scientists were given large sums of money to pursue their own private hobbies, without let or hindrance. Ever since there have been burgeoning space programmes, throughout the world, that to me seem nonsensical. I think it is time that an accountant brought up a balance sheet to see whether the gross, worldwide expenditure, on space travel, space stations, satellites and the rest, have provided the taxpayers throughout the world with value for money.

Yesterday there was a piece on television about the Jodrell Bank telescope which had been refurbished. I have no knowledge whether fibre-optics was the discovery as a result of the space programme, or was inevitable. What amazed me about this television screening was that by using fibre optics, with the refurbishment of Jodrell, they are now able to link up all the other telescopes in the UK, and then make such discoveries that will show all the features that the scientists have been trying to find, such as planets similar to ours, without going into outer space, at what must be a fraction of the cost.

That is only one feature of the way in which governments take decisions of how they are going to spend our money, often without reference to us, or value for money. Currently, according to the pundits, we are facing the slippery slope that could lead to a severe recession, and yet every day practically, the government is producing spending plans in millions, that clearly are off-the-cuff, and proposals, not thought out in any detail. Yesterday they were talking about leading the world yet again, which always cost money, and at the moment we are broke - they never seem to learn that the world doesn’t want us to lead them, even if we could.

There is a dichotomy between the approach of the individual and the approach of our leaders, and in that I include both opposition parties. They are fighting an election, and trying to achieve acceptance in any way they can. This in general, seems to be a modification of the tax system, and expenditure on eye-catching projects. The man in the street on the other hand is scared out of his wits in case he is one of the next ones to get the boot, so his approach is to save as much as he can, and in the future live conservatively, until there is day light. I wonder why the government and the opposition don’t take this into account, but are steadily intending increasing the long-term future tax burden with their current policies, which seem to be at variance with the grassroots approach, the people providing the taxes?

Yesterday I watched a film made in the 80s, by Jane Fonda. As the picture unfolded I discovered that I was watching a prediction of this credit crunch in which we find ourselves. I sat through it enthralled, Sophie slept through most of it. It was broadcast early in the day, when I had recorded it from Sky Movies to look at later. Basically it was a murder story, Fonda’s husband was the victim, because he had discovered an incredible scam, perpetrated by some of the top people in the financial field. The film was called ‘Rollover ‘.

I won’t bore you with all the details of the film, sufficient to say that a mechanism had been placed in computer systems of a dealing room, or rooms, which hived off 5% of the value of some of the bigger deals that were in hundreds of millions. This money was converted into bullion, on paper, then sent to the Middle East. Jane Fonda had formed an association with a banker, and between them they uncovered the scam, but as a result of which the whole of the banking system of the world collapsed, when remedies were tried. The head of the scam turned out to be a member of the government control unit of the financial system.

This film raised for me a number of questions. The first is obvious, if in the 80s they could make a film which was as detailed and as a logical as this, then a large number of people at the top of the financial markets must know and have known how this scam could be perpetrated. So why was it allowed to continue from its outset? The fact of the film being made and exhibited away back in the 80s, should have alerted the financial sector to the possibility, and I would have thought that the financial sector would have been alerted, by word of mouth, that this film was on show. Perhaps like Sophie they were all asleep. Sophie and I are fortunate, in that, we are told that a certain portion of each of our savings is sacrosanct, presupposing that the government keeps its word. If I was a young man today, of honest and sober nature, who thought he had a future that was buttoned-down, and then discovered that through no fault of his nor his employer, his innovative and burgeoning firm had gone bust, I would be looking for a few heads to roll among the well off, who had perpetrated or allowed the scam to go on unheeded.

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph had a headline ‘Death of the traditional family.’ I have been writing about the fact for three years. They were quoting the national statistics, which have recently been published. I won’t bore you with them all, just say that the extended family died in the 70s, and they’re only waking up to it now. I blame the governments since then, firstly, for allowing youngsters, wet behind the ears, disillusioned, or in a fit of pique as a result of a falling out in the family, to get pregnant, and then be given and supported in a small flat. Other causes are the drop in religious adherence, affluence which is a route to self-indulgence, and places the responsibilities of marriage, parenthood and a more restrictive life, as the brake on freedom of enjoyment, whether it is in fact, real or imagined.

The Nanny Society is partly to blame. The level of help offered by the various government, local government and charitable outlets, is incredible today, compared with the post-war era. Since I have been injured, and are not as independent as I was, I have found it amazing how many different functions are on offer to the aged the handicapped, and presumably the unemployed and single parents, than there were all those years ago, from allowances right up to cheap taxi fares. When I was demobbed from the Navy, I was skint, unemployed, and had a daughter seriously ill. Not only the family, but neighbours and friends clubbed together and helped us at a time when we really needed it, and the family stood by us while I was being educated, until I was earning, and then later I was able to repay this in-kind. You notice that I included neighbours and friends in the list. We have very kind neighbours where we now live, who would help us at the drop of a hat, but we have outlived our friends, and our family is scattered to the four winds. We are naturally independent, but when illness takes over this isn’t sufficient.

The world is much more sophisticated, and in consequence the young, if they are able, have higher expectations, to achieve this they leave home and can travel halfway round the world to find it. When I was young a lot of the people in our street would have known me by my Christian name, my antecedents, and our family history, because people tended to remain in the vicinity where they were born because life then was rather like a rubber stamp, what was good enough for dad was good enough for the son, and as this applied right across the board, extended families were common.

There’s been a lot of talk by the government, prior to the crunch, about building houses, and criticism of the multi-storey flat. The flats do not have to be multi-storey, but when young people are starting out, they need simple, affordable, rented accommodation, until they can build their future. In the case of the elderly, presupposing that they are still in that old mode of frugality and saving for the future, they want to reserve their assets for the benefit of the children and their grandchildren, and are conscious of the fact that they could be forced to pay for care if they have more than a certain amount of savings. They too, in many cases, would be happy living in a small flat, in a well-designed complex, either bought or rented, but mainly easy to maintain, thus avoiding the problems that detached or semi-detached properties derive. I believe it is time the government reassesses its housing programme, for the sake of green fields, those starting an adult life, and those who are elderly, infirm or handicapped. We can’t put the clock back, but I think we should step back, reassess where we are, and try and predict the future, and act accordingly. The environment, those fields and pleasant hills, are essential to our well-being, both for pleasure and psychologically. We must stop taking the easy solution of digging up Greenfield sites, and start utilising Brownfield areas and renovation, imaginatively, and with an eye to the future. We can no longer go back to the extended family as a rule, but rather as a pleasant accident, and must cater accordingly.

I never watched Big Brother because the whole basic principle of the thing seemed forced, it was putting people, who were stupid enough, and egotistical enough, to put themselves under stress, in the hope of some financial profit. Recently a programme entitled The Apprentices has been shown on a weekly basis on BBC television. This programme has all the hallmarks of Big Brother, the sniping, the boasting, the ill manners, and the hype. For a start, I believe most of these people have a university education. In my day an apprentice was someone with a certain amount of talent who was sent, on leaving school, to serve his time under the guidance of a journeyman, in one of the many skills of tradesmen, not managers. Managers were articled to a profession. These people put themselves forward as potential managers. The whole programme is allegedly under the guidance of Sir Alan Sugar. This is a man who is allegedly running a large number of companies, successfully. In this role he is irascible, critical to a level of ill manners, and making decisions that no sane manager of his standing would dream of making, unless there is the guiding hand of a BBC producer behind him. For a long time I was a manager, with a reasonably large workforce, a design budget and construction budget in millions, and if there was one thing I discovered early on, was that if you are going to get the best out of the staff, you treated them with dignity. What you never did was correct them or praise them in front of their contemporaries. In consequence of this, I find the whole project nothing but angst for the sake of angst. I have only watched snippets, but the general consensus must be that what these people are asked to do, in two days, is something that in industry will be done in two months. What they are asked to do is also tantamount to asking the pilot of a jumbo jet to compose a requiem. Anyone who has sat on a business boardroom will know that people talking over one another is counterproductive, and provides an atmosphere where there is an underlying dislike. In most circumstances it would not be tolerated.

In the first few episodes the contestants were divided into two groups, male and female, they were told to choose their own project leader, and each group was given the same task. It was then discovered that the same people were being picked as leader, not necessarily for the right reasons, and in the fourth episode Sir Alan chose the leaders, not in a random fashion, because he chose for one team, a man who was clearly overawed by the whole atmosphere, was reclusive and would never have made team leader. On the other team he nominated a woman who was intelligent, constructive, and within the choice available, would have been thought suitable. It was a policy of the programme to give the people a project and then send them off in taxis to some point, and during the journey, with the teams split into two taxis for each group, communicating on mobile phones, were expected to start forming a strategy. It might have been easy to photograph the people, but the whole concept was unfair, it was difficult for them to see one another, when in the same taxi, they were distracted by being in a taxi in traffic, and communication between the two vehicles was absurd.

I found the backbiting, the boasting, and constant jumble of a number of people all talking at once, and then the savage criticism when the project was completed and examined, to be nothing more than a rude hype. I believe Sir Alan is enjoying his role, perhaps a little cynically, because I am naive enough to believe he could never have arrived where he is if he had always behaved in this manner. I think what this programme says, more than anything, is the quality and format demanded by the audience, and the BBC is happy to pander to that. For me, it is another symptom of what is wrong in our society today, people taking dross for gems.

I am banging on again about the paucity of quality light entertainment that is also humorous. Light entertainment today is more a matter of hysteria, shouting and waving, and poor quality scripting. From the dawn of the cinema, entertainment has been, right up until the 60s, both here and across the pond, in periods when the masses were under stress due to slumps, wars, and post wars. In consequence the films and radio plays tended to be light-hearted, with a very large number of comedians and entertainers, such as Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Ronnie Barker. Today we have products like the Bourne series, where impossible technology is at the forefront, the story is dark, and there is little or no humour.

Writing, in my experience, can be a means of solving a problem, and often it is a subconscious urge that cannot be denied. Not all writers write for publication, only for their own amusement and to solve problems. I have written 15 novels, copious short stories, doggerel, and poetry, together with these posts, but when I tried to write humour, that was a stumbling block. Setting aside the technicalities of writing, whodunnits are probably the easiest to write, stories about relationships need to have a problem that requires solving, and then they tend to write themselves. I once started a pantomime, and found it easy, but didn’t finish it. Writing humour of the quality of some of our better television series, such as Open All Hours, is not only difficult, it needs a background of the music halls, that long gone university of the comedian where every other line is a joke. The response to comedy for the individual has not changed, how could it, it is a reflex action? What has changed I believe is the writers, their personal humour, and a background, that is different from the old time comedian. John Cleese and his little band and their own offbeat humour, which most of us learned to appreciate, was a case in point. There are also other gems, like Blackadder, but these are far and few between. Writing for a joke every few minutes, for a weekly half hour series, was mostly founded on a music hall training. Recently, there was a repeat of Love Actually that made me realise that amid all the humour, and drama, there were some interesting social questions being posed to our subconscious. There was however, a level of love in its simplest universal terms that constantly lifted this film out of the ordinary. About five minutes into the story there was a scene at a wedding, within which it raised a social reaction, but above all was of a level that had me not smiling but grinning, and when I looked across at Sophie, she was grinning as well.

What I have quoted here is not a one-off, there are other very clever and funny films, such as Dolly Parton’s 9-to-5, the problem really is that there doesn’t seem to be enough light-hearted humour and amusing stories to go round. Television today seems to be dredging the bottom of the barrel, producing films from as far back as the 30s, few of which have stood the test of time. We are drowned in dark murder and criminality, at a time when the country as a whole could do with a lift.