NEWS OF WEEK ENDING 26th OCTOBER

To my mind the important news of the week comes threefold. Firstly the Great Spying Scandal involving the intelligence services of the British and American Governments collaborating to spy on most of the political leaders of Europe along with those of Brazil and Mexico; secondly the showdown at the Grangemouth Oil and Petrochemical Refineries and finally, once again Andrew Mitchell and the Police. Never mind that the monsters who run Iran, now on friendly terms with the Obama-Cameron-Clegg Axis, have just hung 28 people without trial for being ‘rebels’ i.e. opponents of the vile regime running that state. I suppose that’s quite okay really, especially when you’re having an ongoing love in with a country like Saudi Arabia where stoning, beheading and arm and leg chopping is normal, let alone imprisoning women for driving!

I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE SOMEONE CALLED ANGELA MERKEL!

Good on you David, Nick and Barak, but alas, in the last week you’ve all been caught with your pants down doing naughty things that even schoolboys would blush at. Never mind the piss poor excuses made by Cameron and Obama that the now published revelations of Edward Snowden weakens their fight against terrorism. Quite frankly, if you people really wanted to fight terrorism you shouldn’t be playing kiss-kiss with Iran, its main global sponsor. Neither should you be sending weapons and lending support to the hard line Islamic fundamentalists trying to overthrow the nasty little regime in Syria. You’d say a plague on all their houses and turn your back on the lot! But then as we all know, many of these so called fighters grew up in Britain doing quite nicely on our benefits system. No, excuses like this simply don’t wash. They’re meant to deflect from what you’ve done together elsewhere in the world.

The British Coalition Government’s spying complex, GCHQ, acting in concert with the American CIA operation at Langley, Virginia, have worked together for many years now under a special quasi- military secret agreement giving them license to conduct covert, THEREFORE SECRET, intelligence gathering activities against the political leaders of many European States and their Governments along with, let it be said, their private citizens. Put coldly, America and Britain jointly spying on friendly European nations and their political leaders, the kind of people that British Prime Ministers and American Presidents shake hands with on a regular basis and in the case of American Presidents entertained like royalty at state banquets!

Yes, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, you and your citizens have been spied on for many years and they’re still doing it to you now!

Businessmen and bankers, trade unionists and scientists, political activists, fashion  gurus and sports stars… Figures from the world of entertainment… Anyone but anyone thought important just about anywhere were listened into. From Russia and China, Mexico and Brazil, the Japanese, the Israelis and just about everyone else, yes you were all being bugged if not buggered by Governments you thought were your friends.

Whoops Chancellor Merkel. Did you really think it could never happen to you? I mean, American spying technology getting into places where other stuff couldn’t reach. And France, with your belief in liberty, equality and friendship? Your belief in a free citizenry! Did you think it would hold back your fellow American believers in freedom who, when they’re not spying on people are shooting each other? I mean, you can excuse the British! They’re just a gang of public schoolboys who think they’re okay to say anything when they’re caught being naughty with the scullery maid. Squirm their way out of anything! It’s quite okay, they’re only Europeans, you know, Germans Italians and French. We beat them all in the War!

It’s this kind of blasé supercilious attitude to criminal conduct, clearly in breach of agreements, treaties and conventions that Britain has signed up to in Europe, that is frankly so shocking. This country revealed as treacherously aiding and abetting the Government of the United States to spy on their friends. Secretly hook up with and listen into their electronic communications networks, political and military; and the private telephone conversations of their leaders both public and personal… This is something that runs deep and disturbing. In Britain, where people are subjects - not free citizens as they are  in Germany and France - the ordinary guy in the street is of little importance except at election time. It’s politicians and the Establishment that count. The few not the many. Elsewhere in Europe however they take the freedom and liberty of ordinary citizens with a seriousness that is barely understood here. The leaders of both Governments have made it quite clear, it is one thing to spy on us, on political leaders… quite another to spy on our citizens.

Spying on British people doesn’t matter to Cameron and Clegg. After all, has any Liberal-Democrat come out and made any fuss, or for that matter any of the Milipede mob? No, spying’s okay. Just don’t get caught with your pants off!

It’s interesting that politicians like David Cameron should attack Edward Snowden for revealing the truth about the dirty things he’s involved in but then, if you don’t want to be caught out doing dirty things to your friends I suggest you stop doing them. It’s simply no good getting uptight and angry because you’ve been shown up as untrustworthy, immoral and conniving. Just think about how they must think of you now when you meet them in Europe. As a dirty little public school sneak! Well that may be okay for you, but please, don’t tar us all with the same nasty brush.

That said I want you to do the decent thing. Stand up and say, hand on my heart,

On behalf of my Government I apologize to the people of Europe and the UK for my illegal and immoral behaviour and sincerely promise never to spy on innocent people again.         

 GRANGEMOUTH

Now to the dispute between the workers at the Grangemouth industrial refineries and its shareholder owners.

Despite all the millions of words said in the media the story is simple. The shareholders of the company that owns the plant, chief of whom is Mr Ratcliffe, owning a majority stake, needed a sum of money to invest in its future development. Some three hundred million it seems. Without that investment he and his fellow shareholders maintained it had little to no future. That’s fair enough. A sensible management decision. The problem was where to get it.

It’s not a large sum. Not really when one considers the wealth of the majority shareholder of the company. However it’s not the sort of thing a man keeps in his pocket or a desk drawer. It has to be obtained from a bank. Formally, a bank guarantee to provide such a sum. True, it could have come out of his substantial capital savings. After all, it was money he needed to invest in the future of his company but that wasn’t a satisfying route for a businessmen so an alternative had to be found. One that wouldn’t place any liability on his already handsome assets. Well, if it wasn’t to be Mr Ratcliffe and his fellow shareholders it had to be someone else. Indeed, but who could it be?

The answer was staring them all in the face. If it wasn’t the owners it had to be the workers! After all, the company did them a favour. It employed them and paid them a wage. Put money by for their pensions. Without the company they wouldn’t have any work. They’d have no wage, wouldn’t be able to buy food and pay their bills. The company the shareholders owned gave them all this and in return for their labour which kept them fed and clothed they made a profit and took a dividend on their investment. It seemed only fair.

Trouble was they needed more money to invest. To keep their company profitable that is and therefore keep on employing their workers. It was a favour you see. Profits for us and work for the workers! That’s how they saw it. The workers being obligated to them! The owners needed more money to keep the workers employed so they put it to them. Help us out. We need to do a deal with you on the wages we pay you and the pensions we hope to provide. We can’t afford to pay you any more money over the next few years because we need it to invest in our company. We’re doing it for you, really, to keep you employed in the future!

The Trades Union leadership of those who worked at the plant didn’t like that. They saw it as an attack on their members standard of living. A three year freeze on their wages would mean an effective pay cut given current inflation and it also meant a diminution of the final value of their pensions. They called a strike vote and narrowly won the support of a majority of those who worked there. True, industrial relations had been poor at the site over some years. Management and workers simply didn’t get on and when a trades union representative experienced serious difficulty, a match was struck that ignited a fraught and fragile situation.

It was precisely at this time that the owners put their proposals to union representation for a freeze on wages and pension conditions. They couldn’t afford to pay increased salaries when money was needed for further investment. The unions rightly saw it as an attack on their workers, the owners rightly saw it as an attack on the future profitability of their company and the dividends they reaped for their investment.

Only this time it was different. It was the workers who would be investing in the company through an effective cut in their wages, not the owners. The workers paying up front out of their wages for future shareholders profits! It was all simple really. If the owners wanted to invest in the future of their company let them take it out of their own pockets not ours! The owners, i.e. the shareholders, didn’t agree. Maybe they were all really hard up. Mr Ratcliffe down to his last shilling. Anyway the workers went on strike, the shareholders met and said go ‘f’ yourselves, we’re closing the unprofitable petrochemical plant. Result, eight hundred workers without jobs along with thousands of contractors. Two sides opposing each other from what they saw as a logical place from their own point of view. The owners needing money to invest in the plant; guaranteeing their workers livelihoods and profit for themselves. Money which would have to come from the workers. Unions rightly viewing this as an attack on their members. If the shareholders wanted to invest in the future of their company they should use their own money!

Ultimately, as in all labour-capital relations the capitalists held all the cards and closed down the plant. They’d sell it, take the money, put it elsewhere and keep on earning money from profits. One thing was sure. Their capital was transferable and they wouldn’t go hungry! For the workers on the other hand, no jobs, no prospects of future employment in the area and real problems collecting any redundancy pay given the circumstances of the collapse of the company. They and their families were facing real trouble. No money to pay mortgages, household bills and food and a giant leap into poverty for the whole area. Despite all the blasé chatter on television and seeming reasonableness of the owners approach it was clear that they’d worked it all out. The Unite Trades Union was on a hiding to nothing and capitulated to the owners demands. A pay freeze and no strike clause well into the future. On the following day, as if by magic, the owners found good reason to reopen the plant!

As if by magic! The owners had won and the workers would pay for their future investment and profits out of their labour. They indeed really owned nothing except their labour and the whole incident was superb for a socialist study in labour-capitalist relations. There was of course another solution! Nationalize the plant without compensation and let the Government take over. Put in their own money or that of the taxpayers as an investment for its profitable future much the same as they’d done with the banks! Did anyone hear any politician mention this at the time. Anyone from the Labour Party or the Scottish Nationalist Government? Not a word. Only a deafening silence! It was a genuinely sensible solution but socialist and no-one could have any of that! That’s how far the Labour Party has come since 1945!

ANDREW MITCHELL AND THOSE NAUGHTY POLICEMEN!      

In the last week three senior members of the Police Federation appeared before a Parliamentary Committee investigating the conduct of the police towards former Coalition Cabinet member Andrew Mitchell and quite frankly they didn’t look happy. Their attitude throughout best being described as who the hell do you think you are to bring us here… There was little sign of remorse and no apology for what was in effect a situation of being caught out, verbally claiming that the man had said one thing and his taped recording of their meeting clearly showing that it had been something different. In other words that they’d been caught lying. The result was most interesting. They were clearly quite iffy, quite diffident about it. They really didn’t like being accused of lying. They were police and police weren’t liars… and they really didn’t like that!

However as members of the Committee pointed out, if police could lie about the conduct of a senior Parliamentarian, with all the support he could muster in his defence, what might they be likely to do in the case of ordinary members of the public! The issue, in this sense, was much more general than that involving a single politician and had indeed become a matter of public trust in the police, especially after a whole raft of incidents involving police misconduct in recent years. It was all very well then for the three members of the Police Federation to behave as though they had absolutely nothing to hide and were lilywhite all the way through. You could tell it from their manner and attitude. As though they wouldn’t have Parliamentarians, or anyone else for that matter telling them what to do. And it was this that Committee members were really worked up about. It was one thing for these people to organise demonstrations of police on active duty outside the constituency offices of a member of the Government, quite another for them to be caught out as liars and appear arrogant when summoned to answer for this.

Let’s look at it coldly. The police and the Federation that represents them are badly upset about the recent cut in pay their members take home, and rightly. No question of it. They claim to be doing a hard, often unpleasant, difficult and potentially dangerous job a lot of the time and quite frankly they’re right about that!

They never know what kind of situation they’re likely to find themselves in from one minute to the next with single individuals or groups and the professional skills they need for dealing with a multitude of complex situations are varied and many. And for all this they see their pay being substantially cut at the junior end of the scale and they don’t like it. In their eyes they’re doing an important job, work that’s increasingly risky, and they’re getting no thanks for it.

They’re almost certainly right. Trouble is, they’re all wrapped up in themselves and not thinking out of the box. They’re not the only people in society who are doing an important and difficult job, getting poor pay or having their pay cut. There are firemen, teachers, nurses, public health workers and so many others, all of whom like themselves are getting a poor deal, let alone so many other workers in general. The real problem with the police is that they have their own highly defensive self-affirming, self-supportive culture that makes them think that they’re different to and better than anyone else, and alongside this is the fact that they’re often poorly educated or semi-literate.

Their social role gives them an authoritative status which they too often translate into power. They don’t like being questioned or think they have the right to be questioned. That they have a separate status to anyone else. It’s a kind of cultural substrata of diffidence, even arrogance, that runs deep within their daily conduct towards people, particularly those of the working class. The educated middle and upper middle classes will only tolerate this kind of manner temporarily. They won’t have it imposed upon them, especially the politicians. Little wonder that the Government is cheesed off with the police and both the Home Secretary and Prime Minister have strongly suggested that they apologize to Andrew Mitchell for their clear attempt to fit him up for misbehavior because of their anger over Government pay policy towards them.

Yes it’s all clear enough. If a poorly educated group of people in our society are given power and authority then conduct themselves on our streets in an illegal, unjust or violent manner and do likewise towards the general public then they overstep the mark of trust and need to be made aware of just who they are. Namely that no matter their grievances, they are at all times public employees. That’s the heart of the matter. The job they’re required to do is special but it’s no more special than that of so many others like firemen, nurses or teachers, and when they think that their work is more special they begin getting funny ideas about themselves, who they are and what they can do! It is then that they overstep that mark and come into conflict with those who regulate their conduct let alone the general public.

The manner of their behaviour towards Andrew Mitchell is indicative of their frustration and the all too often unregulated authority they’ve been given to conduct themselves in our society. The frustration is something that they themselves have to deal with in an orderly manner just as they’d expect others to do. If not such conduct could be something that elected Government may have to seriously scrutinize.

MICHAEL JACKSON’S UNSCHEDULED VISIT TO BATH

I write about this extraordinary event perhaps because it occurred many years ago and was unscheduled. Something that was in its own way extraordinary. That happened quite out of the blue. Was never surrounded by any publicity or made the usual seismic splash in the media simply because it went unheard and unseen. In short nobody knew. But then I have to say that it was so very typical of Michael himself. Wanting to do something so very private. A bold spur of the moment thing just for himself. Out of the glare of public attention. Out of the limelight and the gaze of that multitude of his adoring fans. The Michael Jackson that few people knew. Shy, retiring, introspective and thoughtful. A world away from the manicured publicity image. The world that knew him as a great star for so many decades.               

It had been at the time of his last visit to Europe on tour. An only too brief day or so out of the hands of his agents and minders. A short hop by plane then a long distance taxi. With the money he had then he could arrange anything and no-one would know. That was the beauty of being the most public man in the world. No-one would ever expect him to be a man on his own. Indeed, I never recognised him at first when he turned up in front of the stall, but I certainly sensed something. A strange kind of magnetism and a growing realisation. It was only then that I knew how he felt. Don’t say anything… Don’t bring them all here… Let me have what I want… to be here on my own…

As I said, it happened many years back. During my first year selling fossils and healing crystals on markets. Before the time we set up proper in London we had a small stall in Bath down the lower end of the town. Trying our luck three days a week learning the trade. Building up a handful of regular customers. Tell you the truth my wife and I weren’t into popular music. We liked the more classical stuff. Even so we both read the papers. Got bombarded with the same sort of stuff as everyone else. I was never into their kind of music but I felt sorry for some of those stars all the same. Sure they made the money, only that said their lives were never their own. What exactly then did they own when their thoughts, their feelings and every detail of their lives belonged to millions of others?

That was the price they paid I sometimes thought to myself. Big names trapped in a whirlpool world of their own making, somewhere all the wannabe’s wanted to go, but then maybe it was all manufactured. A kind of media conspiracy with journalists and pop stars feeding off each other like vultures. Helping create a stupefied public for one another that sold newspapers, vinyl and plastic. Not that I ever listened to it. Not even Madonna, the Spice Girls or this group or that. And definitely not Michael Jackson.

Sure, I read the blistering headlines. The names he was called. Jacko… Whacko… Weirdo…Whako Jacko… Journalists creating a cheap public image. Easily identifiable for all agog semi-hysterical fans. The guy doing this or that in the spotlight. How did anyone know if any of it was true? All you had to do was see the bold letters heading the gutter-press dailies and you knew who they meant. It was a sickening part of the musical scene but then it wasn’t my scene. If I knew anything about the man it was through images seen on television. The pallid complexion, the equally strange squeaky falsetto voice, the india-rubber dancing gyrations on stage. Tales of his entertainment childhood career and rise to super stardom. It was all mixed up in a towering universal image that millions were a part of. Something almost bigger than anybody. The man a kind of icon. A thing for itself. Something unlike anything else and there was me, totally disinterested and not caring a shit about Wacko, Weirdo or Jacko. His music didn’t interest me in the slightest, same as the man. He was one of those ‘creations’ of American entertainment that gets forced on people and I didn’t want to be part of it.

I was simply disinterested! That said, I suppose it’s all history now in view of our meeting. Perhaps it’s best if I go back to the beginning and relate matters as they occurred. I have to tell you that the figure who appeared in front of the stall that Wednesday morning was quite unexpected. He seemed to come out of nowhere. It was a cold, wet mid-morning in March. People had been hurrying by on their way to somewhere or other with few bothering to stop or take in my stuff at a glance so quite frankly I really hadn’t been expecting anybody. For some reason the guy made me smile for a moment. A curious one-off I rationalized, relishing the unlikely prospect of taking a shilling!

He was slim. Strangely dressed in an ill-fitting suit. Cotton check shirt and a dark tie. A stylish mid-brown trilby covered his head and he wore what almost seemed fashionable dark glasses, but then I was wearing mine too and they were even more fashionable. I’d happened to be looking at some boxes under the table then switched to some of the crystals I had for sale off to one side when suddenly I saw him. Strange pallid face I thought, taking in its febrile aquiline sensitivity and through his darkened lenses noting a large pair of eyes. I said nothing. Not even my usual hello or welcoming invitation to look or ask any questions. I recall being curious though. Why here and now on this cold rainy morning? Best if I just let him take in the goods.

The silence lingered and so strangely did he. Interesting outfit I thought. Well he wasn’t off to work in one of the shops. I began to warm up. “Wet day,” I muttered encouragingly. If he was interested in anything he was welcome to ask any questions.

“Some nice things,” he replied, bending over the stall to take in the minerals, his voice strangely high pitched.

They were, I said positively, thinking now that there was something familiar about him. Funny, if it wasn’t for that short wiry beard of his… An image had come up in my head of the man in front of me. A strange bearded mirror distortion in a suit, tie and shirt. None of the tight pants and sequins! All the same there was that face!

I began talking minerals, disguising my curiosity under some science. Crystal habit, geology etc., even so taking in more of the overall appearance and thinking. Making certain connections. Trying to clarify things that were vague in my mind. Even building a picture. He must have sensed it all through the silences. Me having my thoughts. Making surmises. Wondering and not being sure. As he said later, he knew it must have all been going through my mind. And then his own thoughts. Wondering about what kind of person I was. One of the usual full of adulation admirers? The kind who freaked out. Begged for an autograph. Letting just about everyone know. Then it would be out all over town. The crowds, the police and the press. Everything suddenly undone. His privacy, everything he’d hoped for, a quiet anonymous visit blown out of the skies!

He seemed to study me for a moment. “You know who I am then,” he said quietly.

I shook my head. “For a moment you reminded me of someone,” I hedged, “but then I’m not one of his fans.”  

He seemed to like that. Was on a day’s visit to Bath on his own, he confided, replying to my unspoken question. Didn’t often get the chance to do that. Just getting away on his own. Finding his way to do things without so many others crowding around. I understood that I said. Even so I wasn’t one of his fans. My wife and I didn’t like modern pop music. We’d liked the Beatles and before that Buddy Holly.

He liked them too he said quietly. Good songs, for their time and now.

Soon I began telling him about Bath. Good places to see and easy walking,  I added, trying to be reassuring. “Not too many people. You should be okay, even in the Roman Baths if you go there.”

He liked the idea of the Baths. Been reading up on it all before leaving the States. Hoping to steal some free private time if he could away from the fans. Away from just about everything. The place seemed a good choice.

It was I said firmly. Plenty to see and far less busy than London. He knew what I meant. That it wasn’t so likely that he’d be recognised here dressed like an ordinary person. Even so I complimented him on his outfit. Ordinary with a real touch of style. Stylishly ordinary I laughed. His face lit up with a grin. He really liked that he purred. Stylishly ordinary… It was something he’d have to remember. Our conversation then turned in a different direction. About what I was doing there and where I lived.

I was making a living I explained quietly. I knew about minerals, crystals and fossils. Any money we made bought me free time to write. Short stories and novels, that kind of thing I explained. I was really a writer. The money I earned help pay the bills. I felt pleased he was interested, asking me if I’d had anything published. Some science fiction short stories I told him with pleasure, but none of the six novels I’d written so far. I mentioned A CONSPIRACY OF TRASH, my black comedy on the literary profession, going through some of the story. His face kind of glowed. He really liked that and knew how it was. It was tough for any good artist. You had to start young and work extra hard. Even then you had to be lucky and hope for a break. And once you’d gone all the way to the top you had to fight hard to stay there. One little mistake and the media would kick you all the way back down to the bottom. You had to keep them sweet then pay a whole army of people to keep you up at the top. Sure, he had to perform. Keep it new all the time. Even so he was surrounded with people. It was one of the evils.

He gave me a look. But then writers never made any money, he smiled. Not even the ones at the top.

I acknowledged. Sure, I’d never make any real money. It was only the publishers who did that. Truth was however that I was writing because I enjoyed it. I believed people would like what I wrote. That it would give them plenty to think about. Give them reasons to laugh. I wanted that more than anything. He’d been nodding his head. Listening hard and liked what I was saying. It was the same for him too. He was a creative artist. That’s what he wanted to be more than anything. Both in his dance and his music. Sometimes he felt depressed. Scared of losing it. Worried it might never come back.

It was the same for me and my writing I told him. Moments of doubt about my mind drying up! Suddenly a light fell over the stall. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out. We’d been so busy talking we hadn’t noticed anything else. Time had kept running by. Our conversation in and out of the personal and all so very easy. We both talked about family. Things that made both of us happy. I could feel his deep personal commitment and all the complexity in his life. It was more important than anything, I said calmly. There was nothing else like it that gave us that kind of joy. Without saying a word his face turned all the more serious. I could see how deeply it moved him. These were matters of emotions and feelings, and nothing ran deeper with Michael I knew. I guess we were two of a kind. From two different worlds but each with the same kind of heart. It was an understanding we shared. Of what was really important and then of each other. Him where he shouldn’t have been that Wednesday morning but somewhere he’d wanted to be. Taking time out in nowhere. That all important understanding between us.

He was working on a new kind of dance routine he said out of the blue. Something as good as the Moonwalk! I laughed. At least it was something I knew! No matter, I’d keep his intentions a secret.

I knew you’d say that… he let out a laugh, trying to sound like Stallone in Judge Dredd. He made me laugh too and I liked him for that. “Pick anything you like off the stall,” I said generously. “My gift to you for making me laugh.”

He looked at me for a moment. The pale whitened colour in his face seeming to flush. It was kind of me to say that but no, he’d enjoyed our conversation too much. I told him likewise. I’d really got to like him and the kind of person he was. I’d always remember our meeting.

I thought he was leaving when suddenly his eyes turned back to the stall. He was looking at the mineral specimens and one in particular, as though he was drawn to it. Could he pick it up he asked quietly? He was welcome I said. Did he know what it was?

He didn’t, but somehow I knew it held an attraction and told him so. “It’s Mookaite,” I volunteered. “A healing stone from Australia that gives people strength.” It was interesting that he’d picked it up.

He looked at me curiously. Why so he wanted to know.

“Because it contains certain attractions. It meets people’s needs on various levels, emotional, mental and physical…

“It doesn’t help everyone,” I added. “Depends on your affinity for its waves… its special vibration. Each mineral or crystal has its own special vibration, suitable for each kind of person… People and minerals choose each other. It’s mutual. A two way process. If something or someone’s not suited it just doesn’t work.”

We both knew he felt drawn to it and I wanted to know how he felt. I wouldn’t ask though. I wanted him to say. He was gently handling it now. Enjoying the sensation. “It makes me feel calm,” he confided. “I mean really calm. I can feel it all the way through, yet it’s also exciting.”

“That’s your need for adventure,” I concurred. “It stimulates a deep inner calm yet also releases your need for adventure and change. It makes you both mobile and flexible. Able to grasp and understand a variety of things at the same time and help you find what’s right for you. What concurs with your emotional needs.”

“And how about the physical side… What does it do for your health?”… Would it make him strong. Clear out anything bad in his system, he asked casually.

These questions also surprised me and I think he knew that. These were places I wasn’t happy to tread.

“It’s not drugs or pills I’m talking about,” he said brightly. “I’m just asking generally. I mean my medical condition and what I’m like inside. I mean healthy and that.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. No drugs or pills of such kind. Nothing recreational and nasty. Nothing he couldn’t control. His smile broadened. He knew I felt concerned for him and hoped he liked me for that.

“It just stabilizes your health,” I assured him. “Strengthens your immune system against anything nasty and cleans out your blood. Kind of like amethyst but operates in a more general way…”

He hadn’t put it back on the table so I again interceded. “Take it as a gift!” I said forcefully, “and keep it with you all the time. In a pocket when you’re on stage or walking around with people you know. It’s something from me and my wife. Just something you’ll remember us by.”

He took my hand and I his, and I felt his emotions. He was a good man I thought and told him so. His face seemed sad for a moment then brightened up. He’d always remember our meeting. No need to exchange any cards or any more words. With the piece tucked away in his shirt pocket he was gone. Skipping away into the distance with that brown trilby hat he was wearing soon lost up the drag. It had been an emotional time for me too and I felt it. Yes, he was a good soul and I knew it, and I wished him well in his life but he knew that because those were my last words to him.

After that the day seemed lighter. I sold some stuff and later bought coffee from the market on my way home. I never did see him again but somehow felt his spirit had brightened my life and would always stay with me. His vibrant personality on the one hand then his warm inner spirit… And maybe he remembered me too, keeping that gift as a talisman, a small reminder of a human being he’d once met on his journey through life and that all things were possible!

ANTI-SEMITISM IN BRITAIN : ALIVE, WELL, AND HAVING A GREAT TIME

Anti-Semitism in Britain is a whole lot more than the sometimes masked sometimes overt malevolence you read from time to time in the Daily Mail, bless its dirty little cotton socks. When would so many Jewish people know exactly who they were if it wasn’t for their snide little remarks and innuendo, or equally  important, the shit coming out of liberals or left wing types they’d always thought of as friends until they made some filthy or hurtful remark like those rich troublemaking yids… they’ve always got plenty of money… or those fucking Israelis, always making trouble for someone or other… then see it hasn’t gone down well by the look on your face and ask in astonishment, YOUR NOT JEWISH YOURSELF ARE YOU? WELL I NEVER KNEW THAT… I MEAN, I NEVER MEANT ANYTHING BY IT…YOU JUST DON’T LOOK… etc. etc. Well most Jews have learned to hide their hurts! Anyway, most living in Britain were born here. Many go around eating a bacon sandwich and feeling like death when England lose at football to some crap team like Outer Mongolia, thinking of themselves as British until they get hit by some remark smack in the face. Then they’re a bit less secure. A little less British.

Jews aren’t supposed to mind. They’re supposed to be tough, thick skinned, but that doesn’t mean to say they don’t hurt. Many try to hide it. Deal with it inside themselves, but then every man has his own way of drowning.

Most Jews who live in Britain today are the descendants of immigrants from Russia-Poland who came to this country between 1870 and 1920 after endless persecution they could no longer tolerate. Only a handful compared to those who left altogether. One hundred and fifty thousand at most. Nothing like the million Poles we see in Britain these days. Others came from Germany and Austria during the 1930’s, also as a result of persecution. Many more might have come had not the authorities here placed serious restrictions on their entry. Many of this latter group were interned in prisons and camps after they arrived! By 1950, at its maximum, the Jewish population of Britain had never exceeded more than 450,000. Today it stands at some 220,000 adults and kids. In the intervening years half of Britain’s Jews have left. Some might say good riddance, others ask themselves why!

There’s a big myth going around, promoted by what may be best described as The Jewish Establishment, a small circle of Jews centered on The Jewish Board of Deputies whose members are kind of elected from orthodox synagogues, and then businessmen and public figures. The semi-official newspaper of this Establishment is The Jewish Chronicle which regards itself as the authentic voice of British Jewry. Hardly likely as many British Jews regard themselves as neither orthodox nor particularly religious. The myth is that one of the main causes for the decline of the Jewish population is intermarriage. That most Jews stopped being Jews because they married non-Jews. Quite frankly it’s a view that’s as nonsensical as blaming the decline on a conversion of Jews to other faiths. When that happens it’s rare. No, the reason for the decline is that half the Jewish population has simply upped sticks and left. Either emigrating to the Jewish homeland of Israel or moved to America because they weren’t happy here anymore

That’s the plain truth of the matter. There could be many reasons for this but the main one perhaps is that prior to the emergence of the modern Jewish State, the land of Israel has been the spiritual homeland of Jewish people everywhere for five, even six thousand years. It remains as such but perhaps even more so today. It’s the land they were driven out of and exiled from many times during their history. By the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans, but after all of these exiles they always returned. Somehow finding their way back after vile persecutions in strange lands. Coexisting with those who’d supplanted them in their original homeland and coexisting well, particularly with those of other faiths like the Muslims. A spiritual homeland in the face of persecution, perhaps, but today not all Jews are religious, particularly many of those born in Israel. Equally important, many Jews round the world don’t want to live in Israel, particularly the elderly who are emotionally settled and established in those countries of their birth. America for example has a population of over six million Jews and most are never likely to emigrate to their promised land. Some of its Jewish youth indeed have but only a tiny proportion. They owe a powerful loyalty to America where anti-Semitism has always remained at a low level, except of course in the McCarthy era when Jewish intellectuals came under serious attack.

Many of Britain’s Jews on the other hand, particularly the youth, have indeed emigrated and the reasons are important. Just over two hundred thousand remain altogether and their number is declining fast. The reasons I think are the steadily increasing manifestation of anti-Semitism and a plain lack of job opportunity. The first is plain noxious, the second dispiriting and troubling. The causes of the first are not difficult to find. Many Jewish youths, yesterday and today, are the children and grandchildren of emigrants who escaping from persecution came to Britain with liberal views and made themselves a home in a tolerant society. They almost single-mindedly adopted British norms and values, struggled to educate themselves and progressed through long years of hard work Most integrated completely and became demonstrably British. Because of their backgrounds however their sympathies in general were undeniably socialist and radical and within this political framework they co-existed admirably with all those radical elements of the society around them. In short they felt particularly at one with the left, especially during the period 1910 to 1960.

The emergence of the modern State of Israel however has drastically caused the situation to change. The spectrum of the British Left, from the Labour Party and its affiliated organizations to much of the Trades Union Movement was initially sympathetic to the new Jewish State that emerged soon after the Holocaust. Today the situation is almost entirely reversed. With victories in wars against the Arabs and the rise of Palestinian nationalism, the Israeli response, popularly represented in the British media as murderous and oppressive, has been purposefully conflated with a Jewish response. Israel IS indeed the Jewish State and as far as the ‘left’ is concerned, those responsible for such oppression and murder are Jews. Not just Israeli Jews but Jews everywhere. It’s so simple and easy! The British Left, forgetting that over a million Arabs have Israeli citizenship and live at peace in the Jewish State of Israel, and also the fact that Israel is the only country in the world whose agrarian collectives are entirely run on socialist if not communist lines, is not only hostile towards Israel but along with it malevolent and hateful towards Jews, especially Jewish youth throughout the universities and leftist organizations. A serious division, long in the making, has now opened up with plain anti-Semitism barely separable from an irrational hatred of Israel.

For two decades now Jewish youth have felt under attack and out of place. Hostility towards Israel and a sharp antipathy towards Jews are now coterminous, but that’s only one side of the story. On the other there’s the traditional hostility of the right, the British Establishment and other left leaning organizations and institutions such as the BBC and the pro-Arab Channel Four television. This has occurred alongside the mass immigration into Britain in recent decades of four to five million Muslims, the majority of whom are supportive of the Palestinian cause and have a fundamentalist Islamic faith. It is within this broader framework, not only of a political hostility towards Israel but one coming at them from all sides that British Jews and Jewish youth in particular have felt increasingly marginalized. The degeneration of hostility towards Israel within the left into a subliminal often overt anti-Semitism, coupled with the barely disguised anti-Semitism of liberal, right-thinking elements of British society is more than enough to make Jewish people feel under attack. Quite frankly, with so much ugliness coming at them from so many sides it doesn’t need the Daily Mail to get dirty to make Jewish people feel that maybe they’d be better off elsewhere and that’s exactly what seems to have happened.

It’s a particularly nasty kind of poison that Jewish people have to deal with. My little Jewish friend… Oh, don’t mind him. You know what they’re like, always got a chip on their shoulder… They’re very good at making money you know… Well actually they’re not! They’re lousy at making money and I ought to know! It’s just a tiny percentage, same as it is among any other group of people. And neither do they particularly like making money either. What they do have is a fondness for learning! And then of course there’s always that traditional mode of identification. He’s one of them, someone says, rubbing his finger against his nose… Yes, they know who you are by your nose! Another old stereotype that’s still up and running.

All in all the Jews may no longer feel as traditionally welcome in Britain as they once were. Together with all this however is the perennial problem of making a living. By tradition most Jewish immigrants into Britain were either workers or self-employed tradesmen. Those who worked for their fellow Jews, often in the garment making industry, went through years of hard labour in sweatshops. Workers they were and often workers they stayed. Their children however, got themselves educated and over the years became serious dedicated professionals… doctors, lawyers, teachers and scientists. It’s their children who are now looking around and wondering whether to stay. Get themselves an education and follow suit or try their hand elsewhere. Most Jews aren’t Alan Sugar and not into retailing at all! They like peace and quiet. Having time to think. And when they decide on doing something they do it! They’ve done their best to integrate wherever they’ve been and become part of the scene. Many have integrated so well that there’s nothing to say at home or abroad that they’re Jews. Unless there’s some chance filthy remark and suddenly they’re a bit more Jewish all over again instead of being right little Brits.

Most are a complex mixture of being so many things; but boring they’re not. But many are unsure of what they are and it goes deep, until that chance remark that makes them feel irritated and angry. They feel it’s unnecessary you see. Ignorant. Badly behaved. Not very British at all. But then most naively think that all British people love justice same as they do! The Daily Mail thinks it’s got the measure of them. It believes it represents Britain you see so Jews who criticize the paper for being an anti-Semitic gutter rag are really criticizing Britain itself! Hating the country that gave them shelter. It’s a kind of circular logic with the Mail at the center pulling the strings. After all, it’s Britain’s second most widely read daily. Criticize the Mail and you criticize Britain… Likewise, criticize the Fuehrer and you criticize Germany. But then, strangely enough that’s the role of a free press the Mail strongly argues. A free press should be able to criticize anyone or anything. True enough, but why take any Jews to task and say they’re anti-British if they’re at one with your sentiment? It doesn’t make sense and smells of irrational sentiment or prejudice.

Most Jews living in Britain feel comprehensively British, same as the Caribbean Community, but then do they also regard themselves as English or Welsh, Scots or Irish. That’s a more difficult question to answer. At the time when most came to Britain national divisions were of little importance. Britain was a single nation of peoples united as one. A nation of peoples facing their problems together. Now it’s ethnicity ruling the waves. When the Jews came they gave themselves freely to one single nation, not a collection of nationalities. United by a faith much more so than now they gave themselves over something new. A faith in the hospitality and tolerance of their new nation which wasn’t Palestine but Britain and they don’t like the idea of petty nationalist prejudices chasing them away.

Okay readers, having read this post so far here is something else for you to digest. Ever since watching the film Gentleman’s Agreement made in 1947 starring Gregory Peck I’ve always been interested in the issue of anti-Semitism. In the story he’s a journalist, Phil Schuyler Green, who’s been asked by his editor to write a series of articles for the paper about anti-Semitism and eventually comes up with a new take on the situation. In order to know what it’s like to be a Jew he’ll pretend to be one! With only the editor, his mother and best friend in on the secret he carefully puts it about that he’s Jewish and waits to see what happens, and when it does it’s fascinating, shocking and painful to him.

The idea made me think. In the film Peck held up the pretense for months on end. I got to wondering if I could do it. Not for months but a much shorter period of time. I mean maybe just for a day. Say two at the most! I even had the perfect title for my experience, I WAS A JEW FOR A DAY! I really liked it. Yeah, I’d be a Jew just for a day and see what happened. See what it felt like! Okay, so what did I need to make people think I was Jewish. I kept thinking about stereotype images of Jews then suddenly felt ashamed of myself. I was being some fucking Nazi or something. No, I just couldn’t allow myself to think that way. I just couldn’t dress into the part or become some kind of stereotype. Even so I needed something generally recognizable but harmless. Nothing orthodox, just something mildly religious. The main thing was that my own personal features didn’t conform with any recognizable stereotype. I had blonde hair, blue eyes. Little did I know that most Israelis looked the same! Even so I still needed something instantly identifiable with Judaism, with the religion itself. In the end a little research provided the answer. The film itself didn’t help because there was nothing in it about the pretend Jew that Gregory Peck was playing being religious so I decided that a couple of hours observation in a Jewish area of London might help and it did. A traditional Jewish head cap for men, a skull cap, would be perfect and a couple of hours later I’d acquired one.

I’d gone this far. Now did I have the balls to go through with it. Put it on and walk out into the street! Quite frankly, I have to tell you that it was a big ask. I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t know how I’d feel. All I knew then was that I was curious. A powerful impulse in me wanted to know what it would feel like to be a Jew for a day!

Wearing my usual tracksuit bottoms, joggers and tee-shirt I put on the skull cap and walked out of my house down the street. This was a small provincial town south of England. I’d never seen anyone here who’d looked like a Jew, but whoops, there were my prejudices at it again. Okay, take it easy. Look straight ahead. First one turn than another into my local corner shop. The guys there recognised me instantly, took in the cap on my head and sold me the tobacco I wanted. No look on their faces. Nothing moved, not even a muscle! I walked out the shop. Something was different! They knew me. I’d been a customer in there for years but this time no greeting. I thought hard for a moment. Impossible. It couldn’t have happened so quickly, so bloody soon. Anyway, maybe it wasn’t the hat!

Maybe, but now for the big test. Into the bank for some money. Everybody knew me in my local branch of… I was friendly with all the cashiers. They always gave me a smile. I got in the queue. Nobody looking. Nobody giving me the once over! Now I was at the front. Voice coming over. Will the next person go to…

I went. It was the lady I’d known for years. Very professional,  same as the others. I’d known them all for years! Handing over my card I told her how much money I wanted. Some tens, the rest in fives. That’s a new hat that you’re wearing Mr… I acknowledged, noticing some of the other cashiers were glancing my way. It used to be my grandfather’s, I casually remarked. She said nothing. Neither did anyone else but they’d noticed. It was okay. No-one had said anything but today I was different. Or was I?

I just didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure. Next stop the fruit and veg stall and a boisterous company of lads. I bought my usual bowls of fruit and paid. Some took in the skull cap and eyed it up but no-one said anything. When I left though I saw them looking my way. None talking among themselves, just looking. Along the street on my way home though quite a few people passing me by were clearly taking me in. Some definite glances but why, exactly why I couldn’t be sure. I got in with my thoughts buzzing. Maybe I was imagining it all? Being hyper-sensitive. Seeing things that really weren’t there. Was I or wasn’t I? I just didn’t know.

Over the next few days I repeated the experiment. I hadn’t been wrong. People were definitely noticing. I felt strange. I was publically becoming a Jew! It finally happened back in the bank. A look from one of the tellers then the question I should have been prepared for but wasn’t. Are you Jewish? she casually asked.

I hesitated for a moment. My reply when it came actually startled myself! No, I’m not, I replied calmly. It’s only an experiment. I’m wearing the cap because I want to know what it feels like to be one. Her smile broadened. Oh Mr … We all know you’re a bit of a wag! No-one thought that you were anyway!

On the way home however, still wearing the little skull cap I met someone I knew. A guy who’d been active in the Anti-War Coalition. We’d always been on affable terms, me quietly listening to some of his views. He took in the cap with a look on his face, turning angry it seemed. What happened next I hadn’t expected. He said something then called me a filthy fucking Jew boy…Suddenly a fury bubbled up in my head. I stepped back, spat at him full in the face and used harsh language. He was a big guy. Raised his fists and looked like he meant business. If you want to try your luck why not do it, I said coldly looking like I also meant business. He backed off, with me standing my ground glaring at him. It only lasted a few minutes then I was on my way home again. Only this time I was trembling. I hadn’t been scared. Just overwhelmed with my emotions I suppose.

Now here’s the point of the story. I’d always wondered what it felt like being a Jew. Funny that because that’s what I am! Only truth to tell I’d never felt like I was one. Sure, I’d gone through the coming to manhood ritual of the bar mitzvah when I was 13 but that was just about it! I’d become a rock-ribbed atheist a few years later in life. Didn’t believe in God and had never gone back to a synagogue. I couldn’t pray to something I didn’t believe in. My wife, a lovely English lady to whom I’d been happily married for over 40 years was even more irreligious! I knew I was Jewish but never thought anything of it. We’d never kept a kosher household and few things I loved more than a bacon sandwich. I was one of those people that orthodox Jews might regard as not being Jewish at all. Yet there it was, I was from a Jewish immigrant background that went back a century and remembered loving all that Jewish food! A poor excuse for all the muddle I was in, now definitely out on the surface. I really didn’t know any Jews. Met them once in a blue moon. All the same, if I’d ever been asked I’d never denied being one. Not till earlier that morning that is, playing some kind of game in my head.

I’d never worn a skull cap in the street till now. Never known what it felt like to be thought of as Jewish. And quite honestly I suppose I’d never wanted to know. Only now I did know, and I didn’t quite know what to make of it. Except that I’d instantly felt angry being insulted that way. Why should a Jewish man be called a boy anyway? I was a man. No, I didn’t like that but it was more… Just something filthy. Something nasty I hadn’t expected from someone I’d thought was a friend. It made me think back to the film. Gregory Peck was a non-Jew who wanted to know how it felt to be one. I was a Jew who rarely if ever felt like one and had gone out playing a game, pretending to be something he was or he wasn’t, according to how other people might see him. What I’d actually done was externalize some existential fantasy inside my head!

Now get your own head round that one!

It all made me think more. Particularly about experiences I’d once had. About Jewish history. About the Daily Mail and all that. One thing I knew. My wife had always thought of me as being Jewish. She’d always accepted me that way. A Jewish atheist! It’s a real contradiction but one I can live with. Some rabbis we’d met had once said that my wife was far more Jewish than I and it strangely pleased me! As things stand I feel Jewish within myself. Many might say I was deluded. That may be true but I’ll handle it.

Finally, added to it all is our unquestioning support for the Jewish State of Israel. It’s neither religious or biblical, nor is it emotional. I just know too much about the history of the Jewish people. And then I personally am not hostile to the Palestinians. They should have their own state and find their own peace, just like the dregs of European Jewry did, surviving the concentration camps and coming out to build a new life.

Anti-Semitism is alive and well in Britain and having a great time… But then it’s only some smelly tickle. Taken seriously, maybe, but then people in Britain still know how to laugh and laughter is something that anti-Semites don’t like. They want to be taken seriously and British people, fundamentally, don’t take anything seriously. They don’t need to. Their history’s too great, and they themselves are too big for that!

It’s only the small minded who need to get nasty!

NEWS OF THE WEEK : 19th OCTOBER

AMERICA

In the last few desperate days America seems to have resolved its political crises. The Republicans and Democrats coming together in Congress to agree President Obama’s fiscal Federal Budget. With only hours left before the country defaulted on its debt, making it unable to loan more money on the international market to prop up its finances, a deal was agreed. Temporary I hasten to add because under its terms the whole question comes up again in January next year. Just a few months’ grace to find a way out of its debt and impossibly bankrupt economy to which, quite frankly, there’s just no solution except to borrow more money and plunge deeper into the shit it’s got itself into with unnecessary foreign wars, hopeless fuel poverty and dependence on Saudi Arabia, more of which soon, buying up cheap crap from China to the tune of billions of dollars and exporting just about nothing itself. That’s the price you pay for playing policeman on the world stage. It happened to the Romans 2000 years back and look what happened to them!

It wouldn’t be so bad if their financial crisis was strictly limited to them only it isn’t. The United States is supposed to have the world’s largest economy but what kind of economy is it that’s bankrupt, with half of its population living in poverty, with its money printing machines churning out billions to loan out to and prop up dozens of other bankrupt economies and corrupt Governments, and the whole mad merry-go-round process churning on faster and faster, whizzing round at a fiscal breakneck speed until all the horses and riders fall off. It’s an everyone gets hurt situation. Meanwhile the whole American political process from the President to the political parties down is turning a gun toting population into a nation of unhappy psyched out desperados. The whole nation from its political apex down to the people is turning increasingly desperate with its consequences impinging on the economic stability of Europe, Asia and the rest of the world. Financial markets keep plunging, steadying, then rallying every time America has a budget crisis with nerves run out to dry on a string.

Meanwhile the British news media establishment, the BBC, twerps on with trivialities assuring people that all will be will well as long as the Duchess of Cambridge is out and about playing netball. Yes, that should sort it all out.

ENERGY PRICES

Anyone watching the wretched Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy, Ed Davey, sliming his way out of recently announced further energy price increases in a recent House of Commons televised debate, couldn’t have helped noticing the sick look on his face. He’s had the six big energy suppliers in a totally unregulated industry effectively operating a cartel within his own Department and every six months or so he stands up in Parliament to explain why they’re all putting up their prices at TRIPLE THE RATE OF INFLATION to domestic users most of whom who can’t possibly afford them and have to make a choice between heating and eating. British Gas domestic prices up 9%... Lovely for the shareholders, devastating for customers! And the slimy Ed Davey, because that’s how he looked, trying to sleaze his way out of the increase by mumbling well-hashed rubbish about rising wholesale prices! Well that’s a real joke. When wholesale gas prices fell drastically last year was anything passed on to consumers? Don’t be daft! His recipe, trotted out of his miserable mug with assuring regularity is that people can always and easily change supply from one energy provider to another where they might find a better tariff.

For those who’ve tried IT’S A PLAIN TWO WAY LIE. Firstly the big six suppliers make it exceedingly difficult to switch between themselves. Secondly, when you sit down and compare the price tariffs you’ll find they work out almost exactly the same! Effectively there’s no competition and all Liberal Democrat claims along with those inside the industry that there is should be taken for what they actually are. PLAIN LIES… 

The Liberal Democrats, those friends of the people, are propping up a Tory Government with plain endless lies. I mean, what can you actually say about these disgusting people? If they were Tories that would be fine but it’s not. They’re pretending to be something else, a liberal-democrat break on the nasties and every experience we have of them through everything they’ve done shows that they’re not. They’re far worse than the nasties themselves. They’re relationship with the Energy Supply Industry ever since they joined the Tories in Government has been to give the suppliers absolute freedom to charge what they like and furthermore justify and support these increases with mealy-mouthed jerk-off excuses in Parliament.

There are those in our society who regard the Tories as disgusting. If that’s the case what possible words can you have for the Dirty Liberal Democrats? I challenge my readers to find them!

GOOD OLD SAUDI ARABIA

So Saudi Arabia has turned down a non-permanent seat offered it on the United Nations Security Council, having accused the organisation of having “double standards” with regard to the conflict in Syria and others elsewhere. Yes, they’ve accused the UN of having double standards. Well good for them for making that kind of criticism. Let’s take a look at it for a moment.

Firstly one has to ask why the United Nations offered the country a non-permanent seat in the first place?

Does it have an elected Government with a Parliament of any kind and political parties? Well NO, the country’s ruled by a King and his Family so it’s not any kind of democracy. Okay, are women allowed to vote. I mean vote for anything? The answer to that’s also No. Absolutely not. Not for anything!  Well, is freedom of religious worship or practice permitted? Definitely not! Nothing except a strict form of Islam! Okay, how about the judiciary then? Laws covering such things as social or personal conduct? Hmm, there’s only a strict form of religious law governing this that permits the severing of limbs for stealing and stoning women to death for adultery after a brief hearing in an Islamic court. Hmm, that also doesn’t fit well into the United Nations Charter for Human Rights!

Okay then, no democracy, no freedom of worship, no votes for women, no modern legal system. Only practices that in any normal sense may best be described as barbaric. Well what about a free press and freedom of communication? Alas, no free press. The monarchy controls all forms of communication, electronic or otherwise, and there’s definitely no freedom of speech!

Oh dear, oh dear, it’s not looking good, but remember, Saudi Arabia is one of the closest allies of Britain and the United States on the world stage, so exactly what does it have that gives it such friends? Is it a democratic political and legal system, a convergence with their human rights policies and practices and attitudes towards women? Well not really any of these! So exactly what does Saudi Arabia have going for it that helps gain support from its friends for a non-permanent seat at the United Nations over Japan, Brazil, India or Nigeria?

Well I suppose you could call it stable because just about nothing else is allowed except men trading in markets, smoking pipes or drinking coffee in cafes and practicing Islamic worship. In short, it contravenes every aspect of just about every United Nations Charter yet they offer the country a seat at their top political forum after which it turns round and accuses them of having double standards!

Good for them! They’re almost certainly right in that respect!

THE CITY OF BATH

Today I read in the local Bath newspaper that a man in his late eighties was attacked in broad daylight in the city center with large numbers of people walking by and doing nothing. Sounds just about right for this tight self-satisfied little place whose lower middle class populace think they’re better than anyone else anywhere! Collectively they may believe that butter wouldn’t melt up their arses and that their city is the best place to live anywhere in the known Universe but then many of them are outsiders from London who’ve given themselves over to the carefully manufactured up-front culture of the place. However, if you are a genuine outsider, even though one who’s lived here for many years, it’s still possible to be an observer and look at the town and its people through plain ordinary glasses and make an independent assessment of exactly what’s what with the people who scurry around the place from shoppers, shopkeepers and the legion of tradesmen to the youth and those making money out of the property racket.

Bath’s history goes back a long way. Before the Romans got here it was the ancient British who put down roots around the hot springs. The Saxons came later after which a long medieval spell with Chaucer writing about The Wife of Bath. Some of those medieval passageways are still visible! Later the landed gentry got hold of what is now called the center and flogged off some of their fields to imaginative architects and jobbing builders during the Georgian era who did the businesslike thing of creating fine terraces and crescents for housing, making a mint designing wonderful facades around which they added rubble and breeze block to fill out the sides and the rear. You might call it being all front and you’d be right because Bath’s speculative building era in Georgian times is where the phrase originated. One thing though is for sure. Architecturally they created a beautiful city from 1750 to 1850, one which attracted many famous people and names of the time.

From 1900 to the 1960’s the town fell into decline and became a backwater until new sections of the M4 Motorway were built connecting Reading with Newport, South Wales, bringing Bath within an easy car journey of London. After that the place took off again. The Admiralty it once housed gave way to large numbers of well to do incomers from London. The city center, long been blackened by soot from Victorian and Edwardian coal fires was scrubbed up and a great rush of speculative property development ensued with countless single owner-occupier Grade One listed buildings being turned into flats and new blocks being built onto the backs of the old, the local council turning a blind eye to the activities of builders and their gaggle of surveyors, tradesmen and solicitors. With the town spruced up and a fine collection of buildings already in place, to say nothing of the city’s Roman Baths and Georgian Pump Room, a place where its swells once congregated in a kind of musical marriage market, it became a major mecca for tourism!

That’s a brief history, but only for the city center. Tourists arriving here in a steady stream during the summer take in the medieval Abbey, Roman Baths, Georgian streets, crescents, fine buildings, parks and superb Palladian bridge, stay for a few hours, maybe even a day, then rush off to Stonehenge. For them that’s Bath. Same as it is for most of those who live in its center. The truth in fact is so very different. Most of Bath’s population live miles away in a great working class, underclass sea of housing estates stuck behind the railway, river and the canal to the far south west of the center. And sea of low grade terraced housing and semis it is. Miles of it perched high over the grandiose Georgiana below. A place which tourists never see and is likewise never frequented by the middle class ‘townies’. The only contact between this vast invisible area and the center is on weekend nights when its youth descend on bars, pubs, the cinema complex and cheap takeaways, get a skin-full of booze and become easy prey to police waiting in vans, or else during the day when many of them commute into town by bus to work in shops or as apprentices in garages and tradesmen’s workshops. Whatever the case, their employment may be best described as cheap labour.

The population of the center is small compared to its inner and outer suburbs. Small but firmly up its own arse. Bath to them is what they are or more accurately what they think they are. Generally speaking more righteous but actually self-righteous than anyone else and certainly of a better class than the great volume of a poorer citizenry living miles away out of sight. Because they live in or are surrounded by fine architecture they have adopted superior, to an outsider, supercilious ways and if it actually wasn’t so sad the capers they cut would be comical. This was once noted by a lady possessing great observational power, Jane Austen, who mercilessly sent up the caper-cutting capacity of the city center citizenry in her novels. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that she detested the place and only stayed in it because she had to. Nonetheless, prompted by the local council, ever-conscious of making money from tourism, the town has a flourishing Jane Austen industry in which the Georgian streets are regularly descended on by fruitcake Americans all dolled up in Georgian costume parading around on the pavements playing silly make believe before being fleeced at the local teahouses over oh so very English cream cheese and watercress sandwiches, scones, jam and clotted cream. All part of the Bath tourist experience in paying money for nothing but that’s what they come here for because there’s nothing like it at home, especially America!

To an educated outsider it’s a deliciously sick joke! The local authority preens and prides itself on Bath’s tourist trade but in truth it’s not even a piss in the Atlantic compared to somewhere like Venice with its hundred thousand new visitors each day! Most adult tourists visiting Bath are Chinese, Japanese or American. Most of the kids are Spanish or French. Most come by coach, stay for a few hours then get the hell out. The hotels are only for the rich and the guest house ghettos not easy to find.

Bath has no proper market. The one at the Guildhall is an apology at best, without any competition between its handful of stalls and the once a week so called Farmer’s Market is a fabulously overpriced rip off with the same sour-faced traders flogging their soggy overpriced products or organic, joke-joke, comestibles week after week primarily to the liberal greenies who think that any craft made foodstuff or hand reared livestock product fertilized by something they normally don’t want to think about is the best thing since crusty brown bread. It’s a place frequented by terribly sensible thirties type people who think they’re doing themselves good by munching once a week on something reassuringly, healthily expensive. Their corollary are those who feel a similar status need to walk round the town holding a coffee cup with a brand name on it so you know that they’re drinking the right stuff from somewhere else reassuringly expensive! It’s what those who live in the City Centre do best. Parade around casually showing everyone else that they’re drinking and can therefore afford the reassuringly expensive because that’s what the parading around means. An existential drama of status.

With this kind of casual weekend showmanship, the status game of city center Georgian Bath is replayed in the modern era by the local middle classes. It’s fascinating to see people sipping what they think is real coffee because the important thing is the price they paid. There are many who must know that it’s barely coffee at all but that doesn’t matter. The cup they’re holding is a status accessory and status is what city center Bath is all about. It’s something regularly confirmed in a direct and most interesting way. In a generalised manner the city has a decidedly upper-crust image, especially to those living in towns forty, even fifty miles away. When visiting such places with my wife and chatting to people we’re often asked where we live. When I say ‘Bath’ their reaction is invariably to make the gesture of putting a finger under the end of their nose and raising it upward. In a general sense it means very posh, or upper-crust, conveying the view that we must have plenty of money! It’s what they think of everyone who comes from Bath. That anyone living there must be rich! Perhaps it’s got something to do with the fiendish house prices or flat rentals in the Georgian center, something that’s spread into the suburbs in recent decades making the whole property market industry jump with joy. Bath a booming city of general wealth!

It may be true for the property companies, estate agents, solicitors, building surveyors and other leeches that grow fat feeding off it and it may fill the Lib-Dem/Tory Council that runs the place with delight but then most of these self-satisfied petty politicians who think that they’re so terribly important are little different in mentality from their local self-satisfied electorate whose values they so closely imitate.

Bath has very few museums. As I’ve said in a previous post, it’s culture and art lie in its architecture, a static thing of the past. There’s nothing really modern, imaginative or innovative going on in the place. It’s somewhere for festivals and book signings. A pretense that this kind of thing makes it an intellectual center which it’s most certainly not! Those who live in the Georgian buildings of the center occupy a finished thing out of the past. Something completed that they feel satisfied with and self-satisfied about. It gives them an irredeemable smugness that is as pathetic as it is laughable. That said, the place is a fascinating mixture of the nice as well as the nasty. Working class people are rarely seen except those serving in shops who’ve been taught to address potential customers in the particular Bath manner. They never ask if they can help you. Instead they ask if you’re ‘alright,’ as though you might be ill or something. Small shopkeepers on the other hand are more often plain rude and in the more ‘exclusive’ type shops, staff often won’t serve you if they think you’re not dressed well enough to purchase their goods. I once asked for a piece of salami in a frightfully upmarket delicatessen and was ignored despite being first in the queue. The lady passed on to the person behind me as though I simply wasn’t there and when I insisted on being served was loudly told, “the salami is very expensive!” and then, as though I’d been cast into oblivion by the price, again went on to talk to the man behind me! My insistence on being served had an amusing conclusion. Having cut me a large slice on my insistence and telling her I didn’t want it wrapped because I’d eat it in the street, she triumphantly said the price was eleven pounds sir with a sneer after which I pulled out the bundle of fifties I had in my pocket after visiting the bank and slapped down a note! Her response was a treat. “Oh sir, we can’t change one of those,” she said pathetically to which I responded, “what, you can’t change a miserable fifty?”

The nice things in Bath contrast beautifully with those that are unpleasant. The parks in the City Centre particularly, but also those of the inner suburbs are magnificent. Superbly tended and cared for by the Council garden staff who work there and a real treat for many flat dwellers without gardens. These places however are blighted by large numbers of homeless drinkers and drunks who make a point of talking so loudly that you can’t hear yourself think and publically urinating just about everywhere. Some of these parks have well displayed signs notifying restrictions on dogs but have little effect on countless dog owners, many being single women of middle years who address their charges as ‘baby’ or ‘darling’ bring them in and allow them to run around off lead pissing over benches and shitting in the flower beds right in front of those who’ve gone there searching for peace. Complaining to neurotic owners about their likeminded charges may be unwise!

It’s similarly the case with walking along pavements. Some of the almost boulevard-like thoroughfares in Bath such as Great Pulteney Street, surely one of the most magnificent streets in the entire country, have splendid well maintained wide pavements that are a pleasure to stroll, except for the fact that they’ve been taken over by cyclists. Such conduct has become a neurotic obsession by a singularly neurotic group of people, usually middle-aged men, who speed along often narrowly missing pedestrians or at times going  into them. Their response, it has been remarked, when asked to ride in the road, has invariably been hostile and threatening. The police don’t allow it but they’ve never been seen stopping a cyclist riding a pavement. They’ve taken them over it seems. Think it’s their right and get seriously ratty with pedestrians, especially women with prams who sometimes complain after a near miss.

The center of Bath then is frequented by an ever increasing number of neurotics. The city itself seems to attract this kind of person, usually single, middle-aged and without family who lovingly direct their affections on treasured dogs and bikes, both of which become weapons of deliberate aggravation and offence. To those in the medical profession it must undoubtedly lend the area a certain degree of psychiatric charm but to visiting tourists or others having to deal with them it’s a challenge at best.

Of course, if you like your exclusive cheese shops, places that sell an endless variety of chutneys and jams, utterly exclusive hand-made breads or sitting out at tables looking terribly self- satisfied while eating a salad of ‘leaves’ with a solitary tomato stuck in it somewhere or other priced at a king’s ransom, then the center of Bath’s your kind of place. Alas, there’s only a single butcher’s shop in it but no matter. Along with being Liberal Democrat the place is very much ‘green’ so you can sit on a painted ironwork chair and be seen lovingly eating ‘leaves’ or alternatively an half inch wide piece of carrot cake! The café in the Guildhall Market however does a superb bacon sandwich and more with mushrooms, fried bread, egg, sausage and beans. One of the best fry-ups in the Galaxy I do declare!

Alternatively the supermarket situation is fascinating. Sainsbury’s clearly has the town by the balls only somehow the main store never seems clean and its prices are strangely expensive. Waitrose by way of contrast is fascinating. An enlarged store was recently opened at the expense of closing eight or nine first class retail outlets on the ground floor. The result has been a poorly lit offering where it’s genuinely difficult to see anything in wide isles that resemble grey canyons. And oh my goodness me! It’s ropping with utterly exclusive brand name products at utterly exclusive prices which takes the cost of a basket of shopping over the Moon. The place is often out of standard necessities by four in the afternoon and those asking why they’re out of stock of this or that item are advised by management that their custom is no longer welcome and they ought to shop elsewhere. Equally important is the small number of cash checkouts operating at peak times in the afternoon. Having to wait in long queues to buy a few items is standard but it’s not a problem that bothers management. The city center Waitrose purports to be a supermarket but actually it’s a convenience store more than anything, though ‘inconvenience’ might be a better description!

Morrison’s on the other hand is one of Bath’s pleasures, thanks to its excellent management. It may best be described as a community store. Great staff, first rate products at good prices, always clean, well lit and with a pleasant atmosphere. A genuine family store and a pleasure to shop at. The thing about Morrison’s is that its staff really try. That’s my experience anyway. Shopped there weekly five years or more and never had one bad experience! Waitrose on the other hand has got its head up its self-satisfied posterior and typically, these grey shopping canyons are invariably empty of customers, with anyone there wandering around like headless chickens.

Every Spring the city center goes a ritual that lasts till October. It’s the time when building works can begin so the area becomes a home from home for a legion of scaffolders, maintenance and repair men, electricians, carpenters, brickies, roofers, tilers, letting agency operatives and surveyors, most working for private property companies or landlords hot to make their tenants pay for various forms of repairs the cause of which they had nothing to do with but result mostly from plain dilapidation. This endless cycle of repairs and maintenance swindling by landlords, supported by seriously rude and aggressive jack the lad tradesmen is the great untold story of Bath and possibly its main daily character. The property companies themselves, with supercilious surveyors at their head, form the City’s commercial heart. Their rudeness and arrogance let me tell you is not only breathtaking it’s legendary! Perhaps it’s because their surveying qualification is something minor in the broad educational scheme of things, that they behave as though it’s an honorary doctorate and that they hold Emeritus Professorships in Measuring! But actually one can detect a sad sense of inferiority driving their often unpleasant temperament because when they come across anyone of serious intelligence with academic qualifications and experience to go with it they seem to get all bitter and twisted!

Such are the intellectual ‘leaders,’ makers and shapers of Bath’s property industry, or as others much less kindly disposed might say, property racket. It’s great architecture that may have shaped the town in recent centuries but it’s property dealing and development that has sustained it with tourism and retail adding to the creation of its manufactured mystique of being a great place to live. Without a carefully manicured psychology however the mystique could never have taken off as it had, beginning from the mid-Georgian epoch and now in full swing. This is the psychology of status, one-upmanship, being all front, putting yourself about, self-delusion and more often than not the sometimes plain nasty, sometimes plain ignorant little arrogances of its populace. All in all it creates the fundamental core of that characteristic for which the people of the center and inner suburbs may best be described. Jane Austen knew it only too well! In a word, it’s a miserable, oh so utterly provincial PRETENTIOUSNESS!     

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