Taunted in Taunton

          I remember once watching a young lad performing cartwheels. He was standing, talking with a family group, yet he was so full of beans that every minute, it seemed, he would cartwheel on the spot then return to the conversation as if nothing unusual had happened. Such restlessness, I thought, such energy and fitness – qualities that I can lay some claim to as well, though much diminished over time and never in such abundance that they were ever manifest in gymnastics.

          Still, what remains of these attributes was called upon this week when I volunteered to lend practical assistance in the case of an aunt-in-law, who is old, disabled and becoming quite confused. My task was to take a train to her house in Salisbury – which is currently vacant as she is temporarily in a care-home, following a period of hospitalisation – and prepare it to accommodate a live-in carer. It may not sound like much of a job, but there were challenges. It’s a dilapidated old rabbit-warren of a place, in which the aunt has lived alone, except for dogs, for 50 years. During that time, she has accumulated a great deal of medical apparatus deemed useful to her condition, along with all the paraphernalia associated with her interests and hobbies. All this has been added to family heirlooms, furniture, doggy accoutrements, utensils and the everyday household effects that she has acquired without ever having willingly discarded a single item. Simply walking through the front door is an obstacle course and a foretaste of what to expect in the less frequented parts of the house. Still, I knew what I was in for and, for three days, put my shoulder to the task, the nub of which was to rearrange the contents without disposing of anything – for she would surely notice if I did. It was a logistical and physical challenge.

          Yet it became more than that. It had been the urgency of her need for practical support which led me to volunteer for the task, rather than personal empathy which, I must admit, was somewhat lacking. With none of us being allowed to visit the aunt for the past year, the lack of face-to-face contact had perhaps diminished familial intimacy and relegated it to second place in the caring stakes, leaving practicality to hold sway and nuisance to take its corrosive toll (I speak for myself). However, the balance changed due to the intimacy of my task. Whereas I began by surveying the scene in a critical, judgemental frame of mind, I found that, by handling the stuff of someone else’s life, poking through documents, clothing, mementoes and redundant equipment alike, I soon came to some understanding of how and why her way of life looks as it does, so different yet neither better nor worse than mine. Handling someone else’s shoes is as close as I got to standing in them, but it had the same effect, flooding me with empathy for the expectations, triumphs and disappointments that are common to everyone’s life.

          At the end, I made my weary way to the station through the centre of old Salisbury, where the threadbare  gentility of the fabric of this medieval cathedral city is evident in the discreet pandering to paying tourists. At least the church is attempting to embrace modernity while hanging on to the best of its legacy. If only the aunt, who lives within its ambit, could do the same…but there I was, back to being judgmental. Out of sight, out of mind?

          Having bought some refreshments for the journey, I settled into an almost empty carriage with a sigh of relief and, after a couple of glasses of wine, dozed off. I was awoken by the announcement that we were arriving at Taunton, where, during the brief stop, I watched a young girl on the opposite platform execute perfect cartwheels in front of her apparently uninterested family. I hope things turn out well for her.

All In the Same Boat?

          Yet again, a copy of Socialist Worker lies unread on our coffee table. It has been there for a week, since it was bought at the last protest demonstration – the impromptu one staged in outrage over the Government’s proposal to prioritise the protection of statues over the safety of actual people, in this case female victims of male violence – yet still I have managed only to flick through the headlines. This happens every time: I buy the paper because I am sympathetic to its cause but am put off reading it by its prolific use of vehement adjectives and the generally strident tone of its journalism, reminiscent of revolutionary-era Russia. It’s a style that may go down well with acolytes but is unlikely to win over converts: stridency is not persuasive. Besides, when it comes to political change, old-fashioned revolution is no longer the accepted English way.

          It was not always thus, as Glenda Jackson reminds us in the BBC’s Elizabeth R, showing again on this, the 50^th anniversary of its first airing. Back in the rough-and-tumble of Tudor politics, power could change hands only through violence, whereas nowadays we can vote for change – in theory, at least, for the dopamine of liberty also delivers long-term side effects such as nonchalance, smugness and complacency. Once freed from tyranny, it is easily forgotten that the ongoing cost of maintaining that freedom is eternal vigilance, as may be deduced from the present government’s sometimes sneaky, sometimes blatant attempts to curtail our civil liberties.

          Yesterday, for example, the Home Secretary effectively pronounced it illegal to travel to British shores on a boat: it isn’t – yet – and in saying so, she has deliberately conflated the issues of immigration, asylum seeking and the alleged “criminal” behaviour of “gangs” that sell boats to would-be migrants. Unpicking her argument is not what I am about to do but, if I were, I might start at questioning the criminality of selling boats to people. And, if she is sincere in her concern that the boats on offer are inadequate or unsafe, she might like to consider setting up a Government-sponsored boat shop at Calais, where good quality boats would be available, at a competitive price, thereby practicing sound Tory capitalism while, at the same time, whipping the carpet from under the feet of the “criminal gangs” who currently hold the monopoly (and from under her own argument). This assumes, of course, that the French would allow us, as ex-Europeans, a licence to set up in business on their soil. If not, perhaps a swift and painless trade deal can be negotiated with them or, alternatively, they might like to take up the idea themselves.

         This was going through my head, yesterday, as I was laying prone in the dentist’s chair. It is just over a year ago that the covid outbreak caused my dentist, then in Manchester, abruptly to cancel my appointment for a repair job. At last, I have connected with a new practitioner here in Plymouth and resumed the treatment but, in the process, something seems to have changed. Whereas dentists’ surgeries always seemed busy, bustling places, with cheery staff trained to make you feel at ease and encourage you to buy merchandise, now they seem deserted and sinister, with an air of covert activity about them and staff who would really rather you didn’t come in at all but, if you must, can provide no comfort, no magazines, no merch and, definitely no toilet – unless it’s an “emergency”. However, in this case, having made it past security and into the surgery, the dentist himself was delightful: kindly, considerate, gentle, reassuring, professional, thorough – and an immigrant. Now that’s the way to win hearts and minds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beware the Mamil

          When I’m out with my litter-picking stick, I often get comments from passers-by, some of whom offer thanks and encouragement, while others tell me that my effort is futile – Sisyphean, even. Two little girls once asked me if it was my job, so I attempted a simplified explanation of the concept of civic duty. They seemed to understand and helped me out for a while, but they soon got bored and wandered off. But it was the mamil (middle-aged man in Lycra) on a bike that worried me.

          He freewheeled up, stopped, smiled and nodded approvingly, tut-tutting about people who toss litter. But he clearly had more to say and soon moved on to fly-tipping generally and abandoned boats in particular. I began to realise that we were not quite on the same page, so I nudged the conversation away from his demonisation of others and towards resolving our common environmental issues. Unfortunately, as soon as he heard me talk of the “ecosystem” and “excess plastic packaging”, he sussed me for a ‘woolly liberal’ and his true colour, Trump red, began to show. He raised his voice for emphasis and proposed punishments – including hanging – for transgressors of his rules, brushing aside my suggestion that it is not lack of discipline, but economic and educational deprivation that cause social problems. Then he started on what he really wanted to talk about – his conviction that covid is not a serious threat and that lockdown has violated our freedoms and ruined our national economy. He would not be queueing for a vaccination.

           I urged him to consider facts, such as the overburdened NHS staff and the statistics of excess deaths but by then he was not listening, rather looking for a fight. At last, giving up on persuasion, I thanked him for the robust exchange of views and pottered off on my mission. People do not like to lose arguments. In an ideal world, our opinions would derive more from demonstrably successful outcomes than hostile declarations and hollow slogans. But hollow slogans, loudly and repeatedly declaimed are, as we all know, highly successful in fixing the views of people who do not, for whatever reason, relate cause to effect.

          Days later, I picked up a book called Basic Income and Sovereign Money, in which the author, Geoff Crocker, condemns the currently accepted model of capitalist economies and, better still, proposes a demonstrably superior one. His starting point is not controversial: “Modern high-technology economies are dysfunctional, delivering not only crisis and austerity, but also pervasive debt, poverty, low pay, inequality and ecological damage.” Anyone who wishes to argue differently must a) have been asleep these last few years or b) marshal evidence to disprove the conclusion. Crocker then proceeds to argue how the proposal that a combination of basic income (e.g. the U.S. government’s recent grant of ‘stimulus cheques’ to every citizen) and sovereign money creation (e.g. the State’s creation of money to bail out the private banks) will uniquely counteract these ills. To follow such an argument, a certain degree of understanding of economics is needed but, far from being seen as a chore, the acquisition of such knowledge should be fundamental to every person’s education, or else we remain pawns in the game of those who do understand and use it to accrue wealth by propagating myths about the creation of value, the distribution of money and the inevitability of debt.

          This is the kind of argument I would like to have with my mamil acquaintance, should we meet again. But, until he personally receives a basic income, experiences freedom from consumer debt and sees the restoration of local authority funding to pre-austerity levels (such that waste collection becomes feasible once more) I fear his mind will remain as tightly bound by misinformation as his body is constrained by its Lycra skin.

 

Gathering Pace

           For 300,000 years our biggest problems were too few calories and too little information. For about 30 years our biggest problems have been too many calories and too much information. That’s a very sudden turnaround, but with technology speeding everything up, it may not be so long before the next big leap.

          On an individual level, I have both those surfeits under control (as in keeping the lid on a bubbling-over saucepan) and am preoccupied with another human dilemma: how to cultivate a new social life, under lockdown, 400 miles from the one I abandoned three months ago. There are three obvious avenues of approach – neighbours, introductions and chance encounters – and, fortunately, I can report progress on all three. It is too early to call this a network, since it is a random assortment of people with whom I have no shared history and between whom there may or may not be connections. However, one thing is certain: I will have to adopt a degree of flexibility if I am to weave myself into this new cast of characters.

          Take Pete, a man of about my age that I was introduced to. He and I now meet for walks of urban exploration, investigating features such as redundant railways or remnants of long-gone buildings and other historical traces. Only recently have I learned that he has an angle-grinder, which he uses to “liberate” gates that “they” have padlocked and that he considers an infringement of public rights of way.

          Then there is the topically named John Lewis, an ex-Royal Marine Commando, who is engaged on a solo mission to ensure the upkeep of our local park, Mount Wise, (despite the fact he lives miles away) by means of guerrilla-maintenance. He eschews contact with any such organisation as “friends-of” on the grounds that committees are ineffective, whereas he, as a man of action – trained as such at the public expense and steeped in the ethos of self-reliance in the face of adversity – gets on with it. “What about getting the council’s agreement?” I asked. “No Chance! They would prevaricate on the grounds of insurance liabilities, whereas my work actually makes the park safer while they waffle.”

          Then there is Fred, a man who walks his dog regularly around here. I have only spoken to him twice, but he talks at length and with a troublingly neo-liberal take on things. He is especially outraged that the two ex-Admirals’ residences, that sit grandly atop Mount Wise with “millionaire” views, are occupied by Social Services for the care of disadvantaged youngsters. “They ought to be converted to boutique hotels to promote the tourist trade”, says he.

          So, have I fallen in with a bad lot? Well, it is certainly refreshing to come across people with diverse views. As with delving into a newspaper that is not your habitual read, mixing with people who are not your habitual company can challenge your entrenched attitudes. The thing is, I find it hard to disagree with Pete and John over the efficacy of taking unilateral action for the public benefit, just as I cannot disagree with Fred over the need to transition the local economy from military to tourist-based. What prevents me, however, from embracing wholeheartedly any of their stances is the logical conclusions that would ensue. Is it right that individuals should decide for us what is in the public interest? Where is the balance between privatisation of property for profit (and the supposedly ensuing economic bonus of employment opportunity) and utilisation of property for public benefits other than financial?

          These are big questions but, now that we have enough food and information, perhaps we can make some progress towards their resolution? If so, let’s make it quick. I would love to live to see the outcomes.