Brexit gammon fallout

'It was awful. He was sat watching the voting in parliament, then his face went all red and he shouted something about spitfires and the White Cliffs of Dover, and then he just burst into flames. The Parker Knoll's ruined'.

Returning to the Greengrocers

I first read Living in Truth, a book of essays by and about Václav Havel that was published just after the Velvet Revolution which brought him to power as the President of post-Communist Czechoslovakia in early 1990. Havel was a fascinating figure. A playwright who lived most of his life in Prague, he became a well-known dissident during the darkest days of repression after the short-lived Prague Spring of 1968. He was imprisoned by the Soviet-backed puppet regime led by Gustáv Husák (to whom Havel – cheekily – addresses the essay that was to become the first chapter of Living in Truth, about the long-perceived shortcomings of the regime). Later, Havel become the leading voice of the Czech human rights group Civic Forum – for which he would incur yet more official disapproval – but which would propel him on to a much wider stage as a leading advocate for reform. Havel believed, at the time Living in Truth was published in 1985, that the totalitarian regimes of the former Soviet satellite states – along with that of the Soviet Union itself – had effectively run of out steam, and he, along with millions of others, were living in a ‘post-totalitarian’ period, when people would start to ‘live in truth’ again. What he didn’t foresee, however, was that the end was to come a lot sooner than he believed when he started writing. Barely four years after the essays were written, Havel found himself propelled from dissident and former prisoner to the highest office in the land, and all without a shot fired in anger. It’s the second chapter, ‘power of the powerless’ that I remember best, largely because of the story of the greengrocer. In this chapter, Havel describes the actions of the manager of a fruit and vegetable shop, who – along with many other sales outlets at the time – was expected to display signs extolling the virtues of Maxist-Leninism with their wares. In Havel’s version, the manager has to display signs, with slogans such as Karl Marx’s rallying cry of ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ or ‘socialism is the light of a child’s smile’, in amongst ‘the onions and carrots’ so that they blend with the everyday. Failure to do so, Havel goes on, could lead to the manager being officially reproached for not having the proper, approved window decoration – a failure that will be noted and could be held against him at a later date. But Havel then explains that the signs are ignored, they have no meaning, no-one – probably the manager least of all – actually believes them anymore. They are merely going through the motions of putting them in shop windows, and shoppers pay no attention to them whatsoever. The command to display them is part of the hollow rhetoric of a repressive, out of touch, and increasingly hated power structure. I can’t remember my first response to the story, perhaps I thought it was just one more stupid manifestation of totalitarianism; mind control of the masses, but something that showed that such control was essentially futile. I certainly would have felt that it would never happen in the ‘West’. Yet the story of the sign was not destined to stay among the onions and carrots in my mind. Fast forward 30 years and the otiose signage of totalitarian eastern Europe has now spread like onion blight and carrot fly throughout privatised industries and global economies. Equally pointless exhortations are laid before us in the name of professional development and human resource management (a phrase in itself redolent of repressive power control). We are now required to display the thinking of ‘owning’ our work, or to take team building and commitment to banal –even at times farcical – extremes. We might ignore messages like ‘team work makes the dream work’, but failure to display means we’re not accepting of our place in the hierarchy; a crime to be recorded and for which expiation will be demanded at the next appraisal, or kept on file for future reference, or even references. The ‘power’ of the powerless that Havel uses in the title is the essential power of dissent: the right to be able to say that the emperor is, in fact, stark bollock naked, without fear of repression or harm. That is what is necessary for a return to sanity in public and political life. The rise of populism, along with the derision heaped on empirical evidence, exemplified by Michael Gove’s ‘having enough of experts’ will have to be countered at some point. The alt-right and right wing elected politicians will have to be faced with the reality of their ill-thought through utterances. Not even President Trump can evade responsibility for the duplicity and danger created by double-speak, distortion and populist excess tub thumping. For there will come a time when ‘great’ will become ‘grate’ in his favourite red baseball cap slogan. And when that reckoning comes it will owe much to Havel’s belief that extremism can be defeated by the truth that has to be lived by each and everyone who has been damaged or denied by the politics of division and empty rhetoric. I recently saw an ID lanyard around an employee’s neck which carried the slogan: ‘I never settle for good enough’. Never, really? Not even when you’re running late and the kids need collecting from after school club, or when you’ve arrived at work angry and upset after a row with your partner? It insults the intelligence of the wearer and anyone who reads it. Instead of giving credence to the slogan, my thought was that this person’s thought processes have been commandeered by their bosses, an insult to her intelligence and the collective wit and understanding of herself and her work colleagues. Milan Šimečka, Slovak Philosopher and friend of Havel’s, described this form of propaganda as ‘the big insult’, which he defined as ‘a situation where intelligent people have to listen to bunkum and talk bunk, fully aware that it is bunk, because otherwise they would only have themselves to blame for the consequences’.

110,000 vacancies in adult social care - some suggestions from a recent recruit.

Two suggestions to help the government fill those vacancies Ban zero-hours contracts - the bane of the sector for anyone with a family, rent or mortgage to pay or even a half-decent life to live. Pay at least £10 per hour - Again, how can care workers afford to live? Currently, by denying both, the government and employers are expecting the workforce to pay the price for their failure to understand or acknowledge the basics of 'supply and demand'. By doing so, they're denying care workers a decent reward for their very worthwhile labours and ensuring the NHS will continue to shoulder the burden for their misconceived policies. And they could also start to realise that families can no longer be expected to pay for spiralling social care costs - much of which end up being paid out in dividends to private sector providers' shareholders.

Texan public library book storage facilities

Just received a copy of Diana Athill's Stet, from the excellent Better World Books. I see from the stamp on the top that it came from the Houston Public Library Service. Can't help wondering if they have a depository that also overlooks a grassy knoll, like the more infamous institution in Dallas. My dad once made a worrying admission about the events of November 1963. We were watching TV together, when a voice declaimed 'everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news of Kennedy's assassination', to which dad - whose memory was never good at the best of times - replied that he didn't. I half expected the Green Berets or CIA to come bursting through the living room door...

Could you tell me about a time when you...?

I was enduring yet another competency-based interview recently when a thought came to me. Although these things are intended to show a potential employer how an applicant fulfils a job spec, in reality they are deeply biased against older applicants. To illustrate this, picture Candidates A and B: A has four years recent and relevant experience in the position they're applying for. Candidate B, however, has a working life extending back 40 years, with a wide range of experience culled from working in a range of different industries or workplaces. An interview panel member asks both: 'could you tell me a time when you flange wangled a spurrfler successfully?'. Candidate A did this for the second time only last week and gives a faultless answer. Candidate B, however, has flange wangled for decades but can't immediately remember a specific spurrfler related episode; she could well be able do it in her sleep, but this time-limited interview scenario doesn't operate in her favour, and she comes across as a flange wangling ignoramus. It's only on leaving the interview that a classic spurrfler wangle from 2002 floods back into her memory, but by then it is too late, and Candidate B is well on the way to receiving a generic bum's rush rejection, along the lines of '... strong field, impressive qualifications... unfortunately...' and so joins the scrap heap. I wonder if the HR gurus who come up with this torture ever have to face competency-based interview questions along the lines of 'can you describe a time when you successfully screwed over the career prospect of older job applicants and would you like to tell us about it?'

Spirit of the Aire

My reading of Ben Aaronovitch's latest Rivers of London title, Lies Sleeping coincided with a walk around Granary Wharf and the Dark Arches in Leeds last week. Watching a full and turbulent river Aire following its man-made course underneath the city's railway station, I wondered if rivers really do have spirits or deities of their own - and if so, how the Aire feels about the latest interruption to its flow. After all, the Aire's seen monks washing fleeces in its waters, powered textile mills, used its strength to forge iron - even make putty. And springs along its course have brewed beer in Kirkstall, the city centre and Woodlesford. Since 1816 it has been forced to share its valley with the Leeds Liverpool Canal. But the canal, with its stagnant, managed portions of water, that can only move through locks under human control, is not free like the Aire, whose unbridled rush and flow of water makes it a living thing, such that no-one can enter the same river twice. The Aire moves to its own rhythm and varigates its own depths. Even when forced underground, it has a raw power and strength. The city's life now travels over or around the river that even once gave landlocked Leeds a dock. In our sterile modern world where the only flow worth having is data, the Aire's spirit needs to connect again with the city it bisects.

Passata purchasing problems

I turned right at the end of an aisle in our local Sainsbury's yesterday to see my wife's unmistakable blue coat. It seemed odd that she was looking at passata; indeed, I breezed up to her, observing that: 'we don't need any of that, there's loads at home'. Unfortunately, I then looked down the row, to see my wife, resplendent in her dark turquoise parka and a yellow hat, staring back at me. The blue-coated imposter took it all rather in her stride, and asked me who I was looking for. Which was rather better than asking who was looking after me. We left the store soon after. I think it will be a while before I go back...

World War I Centenary: poppies and raincoats

'Poppy?' 'Must be on my other raincoat, mate.' My grandad Alf was in Muckydonia, go on, find it on the map. With the ASC he drove bully beef, bombs and bullets amid the horror there. So who the hell are you to tell me the sort of poppy I should wear? Grandad Jack was with the DLI at Wipers amid the mud and carnage there. So who the hell are you to tell me what raincoat I should wear? For more WWI family history, read Heirloom

A dark mark on the CV

I suspect, like me, many people have a job with a particular company or organisation that they'd rather forget. A blot on their employment history that marks a wrong decision or an oversold set of promises that never quite lived up to recruitment hype or expectations. Mine happened several years ago and only lasted 7 months; fortunately a previous opportunity became live again and I was able to jump ship, but the painful memories remain. Fast forward, then, to last week when a 'recruitment partner' (what that?) contacted me to say that he'd like to 'source' me for a role. As an aside at this point, I suppose it's inevitable, but depressing nonetheless, that the monstrous regiments of the CIPD, having so thoroughly infected HR and recruitment with their mendacious spin and psychobabble should now turn their rapacious gaze on the English language as a whole. But it's worth stating, perhaps if only for the grammatical record, that source should remain a noun and not become a verb on their dodgy say so. Putting the aside to one side. The company name wasn't one I'd heard of before, but a quick Google showed the area of work - and geographic location - to be a rather uncomfortable match with the black hole in my CV, into which hopes and dreams vanished - if only for 7 months. I acted quickly, thanking for interest etc., but pointing out the match to the worst job I'd ever had, and closed wishing the partner every success in filling the vacancy. But the thought remained: no matter how good an HR professional is at weaving their 'magic' - not even they can beat the golden rule that you can't polish a turd. Though in my mind, he had at least tried to cover this one with glitter.

Going down in the Subway

Probably an unintended marketing consequence, but hearing a burly builder asking for a 'six inch Italian' brought on a fit of the fnaar fnarrs while I was queuing in a well-known sandwich outlet yesterday.

Set course for Shetland: printing outside the box

Scotland's passed a law to stop Shetland being placed in a box on maps, which tend to show the islands being somewhere to the NE of Aberdeen, as opposed to their true location It seems the practice really annoys Shetlanders, which, given their liking for dressing as Vikings and brandishing swords and axes is something to be avoided at all costs. Even if it does mean that maps in the future will have to carry a lot of blue water: can't see the Scots being too pleased having to pay for all that extra, empty blue...

September 1918

Those poor beggars. To us, they looked to be either young boys or old men. Dressed in rags, starving. They just threw their guns onto a pile at the side of the road and shuffled off into the distance. My Grandfather, then serving as a Driver in the Army Service Corps, remembered watching the Bulgarian surrender at the end of September 1918. War in a land without a name Southern Serbia, Alf called it where maps now place (Northern) Macedonia or FYROM from Salonika’s dubious attractions to a frontline where even water had to be delivered by mule or lorry train. His war was a sideshow to a sideshow: out of the birdcage, out of the garden. Where boredom and malaria took a greater toll than bullets and shells. Tiadatha’s braves moved out over Muckydonia to face the Bulgar and the Hun. Soil too shallow for trenches; in this land you froze in winter, baked in summer fought mosquitoes and ennui in between, watched all the while by an enemy from Crowns Big and Small and the Devil’s Eye.   Then from Dobra Polje to Doiran the line began to move – following Desperate Frankie’s urgent plan to capture the Vardar and Strumica. In the bloody aftermath, corpses packed standing in lorries the easier to transport, silent sentinels of death. So standing on that dusty road he watched that vanquished army walk away to a shattered land that had bleed so much but now could not bleed anymore. Bulgaria - the first Central Power to fall. An end forming the birth pang of fractious new nations: freedom’s allure mingled with nationalism’s latent dangers. There were no winners in that, Alf said. He was no military hero, never keen on the soldiering life. There because he had to be, yearning to go home: after going through that, I wouldn’t even join a library his response. I owe it to his memory to staunch centenary ‘celebrations’ because there were no winners in that. Nothing for idiot politicians to exploit, nothing to glory in, not after what he saw on the road from Doiran. For Alf and all those of the Entente or Central Powers who fought in 'Southern Serbia' and the Salonika Front. Serb, Greek, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, French, British, Irish, German. It was the beginning of the end and a century on, we still haven't lived up to your legacy, or honoured your suffering and loss.

A Pound for Every Time I've Heard That

Waiting for a bus in Heckmondwike the other day, I was fascinated by a conversation between two women of mature years, who were talking in the shelter at the town's bus hub (too small to qualify for a grown-up bus station, apparently...). Anyway, these two were discussing the merits of the town's several pound shops; that retailing phenomenon of post-industrial northern towns that blots many a once proud high street. The latest, housed in yet another former bank building (as the pound shops proliferate, so the banks seem to disappear in inverse proportions) caused a divergence of opinion: while one thought it was the best yet, the other announced she'd boycotted it as it was 'illegal'. The argument in support of this finding betrayed a fascinating mix of faux outrage and mangled consumer law. The proponent said that she refused to shop there, because they were selling 'loads of stuff for more than a pound' but it's name had pound in the title, therefore it was 'illegal'. Now, I always like a well-argued legal discourse, but there were a number of problems here. First, as with the bus analogy I used when teaching Law, the title doesn't mean you can buy exactly what it says on the sign. For example, buses sometimes have words like 'Mars' or 'Tetley's tea' on the side, but you can't demand either to be taken to the Red Planet or served a refreshing cuppa - because these are adverts, or in a glorious legal formulation 'mere puffs'. These don't constitute an 'offer' that is capable of 'acceptance' in the contractual law sense. So, unfortunately, our bus shelter advocate's boycott is 'wrong in law', to use a great judicial slapdown, because there's nothing on which the phrase can be used to base a valid contract on. I felt it would have been advisable to point this out, but she then rather destroyed her own argument by pointing to her shopping trolley, which she said she'd bought from a pound shop in Bradford for fifteen quid. I think that's called 'cognitive dissonance', but was constrained from taking up the issue as my bus to Dewsbury had just arrived, and time and Dewsbury wait for no-one, whether travelling with a shopping trolley or without.

Fenella Fielding

Sad to read of the death at 90 of the Queen of Vamp Camp. A classical actor with a long list of stage drama to her name, she would be forever associated with the Carry on howler 'Do you mind if I smoke' from the 1966 film Carry on Screaming!. The BBC obituary takes the classical high ground approach to Fielding's work, emphasising how she turned down further Carry On roles. But there's a curious anomaly here: she is said to have refused the title role in Carry on Cleopatra - a mistaken reference to the 1964 film Carry on Cleo. The obituary clearly suggests that she was offered the title role in a film made two years before 'Screaming on the back of her smoking hot performance with Harry H Corbett. Interestingly, while Fielding got to deliver her knock out line in 'Screaming', her 'nemesis' (as her obituary has it), Kenneth Willams got his laugh-out loud howler in 'Cleo, 'infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy'. The Carry Ons gave us some great performances and laughs that stand the test of time, but time travel wasn't one of the gifts shared by the performers. I would get out more, but I seem to have got a little plastered...

Sex toys that spy on you: a data protection leak too far?

Imagine, getting down and dirty with a vibrator, only for it's inbuilt sensors to pass every moan (or whatever happens when you're buzzing...) to the manufacturer, only so they can improve your experience, of course. The Daily Wail or Murdoch's grubby minions would be over this like a rash: being spied on by your smartphone's bad enough, but when your dildo does the dirty on you and tells the waiting cyber world, it's really time for what happens in the boudoir/dungeon/garden shed to bloody well stay there.

A well Settled afternoon

The town of Settle in North Yorkshire's Craven district has always held a fascination for me. Before the A65 bypassed the town, it was an unavoidable, but picturesque bottleneck on the way to the west coast or Lakes. My dad liked the place, and would always opine that it was 'just like Switzerland' when he drove under the railway viaduct. It turned out that his only experience of Switzerland had been a journey in a sealed train at the end of WWII, and the totality of Switzerland to him - as a thankful soon-to-be ex Sapper - was a peaceful land with big hills through which his train to freedom and home wended it's merry way. I remembered this yesterday when I returned to the town. Off the bypass at the Settle/Horton-in-Ribblesdale turning, past the Falcon Hotel and into the main square, with its Ye Olde Naked Man Cafe, the house where Edward Elgar stayed with his friend, the local doctor, and centre-piece stone shops with upper floor galleries. My purpose in going to Settle was to show off the town's railway station - the starting point for the Northern Rail's Settle-Carlisle line '72 miles of splendour' as the station sign unselfconsciously, and entirely truthfully, proclaims. If you're heading west from Skipton, turn off the A65; third exit from the roundabout just after the railway bridge. Follow the Settle/Horton-in-Ribblesdale, visit dad's Switzerland and a railway station that, if anything, rather downplays the wonders it plays host to.

Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia: 50th Anniversary

Fiftieth anniversary of Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia seems to be rather muted. Amongst Russians, there's widespread ignorance of the move by Brezhnev to end Dubček's limited programme of political reforms known as the Prague Spring. To paraphrase Václav Havel: this is no time for forgetting; Dubček's aims might be seen as minimal and non-threatening now, but the Soviet response reveals a lot about Russia's obsession with the 'near abroad' - those neighbouring states both Putin and the Soviets viewed as a special sphere where influence and control were, and still very much are, central to Russian power. Read Gnosis

When a sub-clause gets its claws into you.

BBC West Yorkshire local news headline begs the question, how many times can you crush a car? - "'Fly-tipping car' is crushed New powers have been used to crush a car, which was involved in fly-tipping in Barnsley, for the first time. Beware the sub-clause...

Pissed off or pensioned off?

I booked a Pension Wise appointment to discuss my future pension needs. Now, Pension Wise ask for details of your existing pension providers, which can amount to quite a list if you've worked for decades and changed employers. It also means you get to listen to a lot of Four Seasons and other hold muzak as - no matter what time of day you call - Aviva and NOW pensions always have high call volumes. In Aviva's case they also have an IT dept that can't seem to find its arse with both hands; over a year ago I queried why my policy wasn't on the customer website, and was told it soon would be. Well, the grunts in the 'turn it off and on again' cupboard obviously didn't get the message, because the policy (and I would hazard a guess mine's far from the only one) still hasn't made it online. The government wants us to save for retirement, and there's a lot of money sloshing around the pension pots managed by these companies; it would be nice if they invested some of their no-doubt hard earned bonuses/commissions on maintaining the close customer links and relationships they're blurb prattles on about.

Bradford's anti-Trump demo: a soft fart on a warm evening

Yesterday, full of anger at the visit and unable to get to London, I googled local planned protests against Trump's visit. The nearest was shown as Bradford, 17.00 in Centenary Square. Duly fired up, I was there in good time. Sure enough, there was a stage, chairs set out, food stalls and security stewards on hand - they seemed friendly, if decidedly under-employed. Then it dawned, the Trump protest seemed to have been tagged on as an afterthought to Bradford's 3 day city centre festival. A Souzaphone and Sax marching combo opened proceedings, with Daft Punk at the head of their running list. By now the anti-Trumpers seemed to be arriving: a couple in Corbyn T-shirts and a bloke in a suit with a Palestinian flag. Then the trickle stopped and I realised the fire in my belly wasn't going to be kindled by fine oratory or a march through the city. Deflated but not defeated, I made my way to the Kashmir, a wonderful Bradford institution, where the fire in my belly was replaced by fire of a different kind, that which can only be supplied by fish pakora, followed by spinach and daal balti. My initial disappointment at the lack of radicalism in contemporary Bradford politics, in the birthplace of the Independent Labour Party, and also one-time parliamentary seat of the radical Liberal politician William Forster; and, yes, the place that also gave us Eric Pickles, but atoned for that by producing the definitive account of his predictable rise to power, was replaced by a feeling that this city - with all its faults and failings - is still a fine testament to common humanity and tolerance. As I finished my curry, the realisation struck me that Bradford struggles against Trump and all his kind stands for every single day. Long may it continue to do so.