The Fault Lines

Today in Los Angeles it is over 40 degrees Celsius, which is more than I am comfortable with. I love air conditioning. This is one of the best inventions along with hats and umbrellas when it’s this hot. LA has them all. It is the idea that this place might have to live with heat like this one day in the future without air conditioning that is the subject of this posting.

The reason for fat and flabby is that you don't have to be fit and fast. We have so ordered our world that we have to now find ways to get the exercise and discipline that has always been part of our everyday lives previously. We eat too much and move too little. It hasn't always been like this, and I suspect that this will not always be the case in the future.

We, in the affluent first world have become used to adjusting our world to fit our needs. We simply turn up the heat when it’s cold, the air-cooling when it’s too hot. Too dark and on come the lights, too far away and we get on a car, train, bus or airplane to bring it within reach. This all demands fuel, and that is finite. The primary source for future wars will be conflicting demands for raw materials such as fuel and food.

Will we choose to live less well to be fair to our fellow man? I don’t think we will unless we have to. That’s called losing the next war. It’s the people who were on the losing side who get the raw deal. They don’t get to write the history, or to be at the front of the line to pick up the goody bag.

We met some friends today from the UK in the bright sunshine in the excellent Marmalade café for breakfast. They were commenting on the fact that prices in LA were much higher than a year back. I think they’re right. The dollar’s weakness is beginning to impact on the price of imported goods.

Like most people, America is living in a bubble of suspended reality. We all tend to believe tomorrow is going to be much like today but have no evidence except yesterday to sustain this assumption.
The truth is that tomorrow is never like today. Most days the changes are small but sometimes they are much bigger. It’s a bit like an earthquake fault; many tiny cracks will appear before the big bang rips the place apart. That’s what I believe is happening to the World economy. I don’t expect that we are about to collapse, but I do anticipate a lot of fault lines becoming apparent. If we don’t address the problems we will get very big, potentially uncontrollable problems.

Will we in the old Anglo Saxon alliance sit back if we can’t obtain fuel or food or anything else of substance? I don’t think we will and I believe the rest of the world should be aware of this. I am not saying this makes everything we might do in the future right. Our pragmatism means that we have almost always followed what could be considered our enlightened self-interest. Most often that has turned out to be beneficial for the World community because our moral compass has been aimed in the right direction. That doesn't make us right, but it has generally made us less bad than we might have been. This might not continue to be the case.

Being Unwell

Let me start by saying I am now fine, but one day last week was heavy. I use the term heavy because it sums up what a fright it is when you’re suddenly unwell. I have long been fortunate with my health but yesterday was scary. I will, in fact, not post this blog until a few days have gone past since I want those of you who care to know that I have fully recovered before you read this. I am, in fact, now back to normal, but that day last week was a different story.

It started normally enough, for those of you who have traveled to wonderful foreign parts in a big cruise liner that is. I awoke in my beautiful room on the Golden Princess and looked out over the Mexican town of Mazatlan. I was eager to explore it and went to the bathroom to undertake my ablutions. There was a towel on the floor, I bent to pick it up and that was when the world began to spin on its axis in a most peculiar and undesirable manner. I felt awful, and it was unlike anything I had ever suffered from before.

I nudged my wife and sought help as I collapsed on the bed. She summoned the medical staff who first told her to get me to walk down to the medical center. I was totally incapable of unaided walking, so they sent a nurse with a wheelchair. I would normally do anything rather than allow myself to be wheeled in my pajamas through a shipload of fellow travelers, but somehow none of that mattered.

After arriving in the medical center they quickly took my blood pressure, which was unusually low, as was my heart rate. I then started to feel even worse and they now wheeled me to a more complicated room, full of monitors and curious machinery. But I have to admit I was unable to focus on anything as consciousness begin to ebb and flow. I felt like being violently ill as they were taking blood samples, and started pumping me with saline and injecting me with heart stimulants. I heard them call out my blood pressure readings as I was now being attended by two doctors and a couple of nurses who were simultaneously hooking me up to heart monitors. The readings were the kind of numbers you witness on U.S. television programs like “House” or British counterparts like “Casualty” just before the slap on the electric shock paddles. It wasn’t good. But the good news for me is that they soon got everything going again.

Within a short while my blood pressure started to move towards more reasonable levels and the color apparently came back to my cheeks. To be honest it scared the hell out of everyone in the room. Even the medical staff admitted afterwards that they were very concerned, but not half as concerned as I was when they were using me like a pincushion.

I then had to stay under total observation for twelve hours as a safety measure and then I was allowed back to my cabin. We missed Mazatlan totally and then we had to stay on board when the ship berthed outside Cabo St. Lucas in Baja, California. Do you know what, I couldn’t care less as I am just thrilled to be able to write this and to say thank you to Doctor Mark Mason, and the nurses Mark and Faye who were terrific to me when I needed them to be efficient, cool under pressure and unfailingly honest throughout my small ordeal.

I shall not bother the reader with my medical condition other than to state for the record that luckily there was absolutely no damage to my heart and it was not a heart attack. I’ll still be here, writing for a long while yet.

I would like to say an especially big thank you to my wife, Avril. Without her dealing with this emergency quickly and with great determination it could have all got a lot worse. She was very brave, bright and wonderfully supportive. Sometimes we lose sight of the more important things in life, we look at the bills, or the petty annoyances and people that aggravate and forget what really makes the world go round. My father used to say you’ve got nothing if you haven’t got your health. He was right, and how lucky I am, that today I’m here and I’m back to normal. I’ll sign off by wishing you all well. Tomorrow is another day.

America - Where Did You Go?

There was a moment some time in the recent past when America started to lose its confidence. Years ago it was its friends like me who saw its superficial excellence and thought it great. Americans seemed taller; the girls were blonder, figures more perfect, and eyes bluer, their teeth whiter and straighter. American roads were straighter, longer and wider, the buildings taller, the universities more plentiful and better and more widely accessible to a bigger percentage of the population.

The rest of the world bought into this image and sought to imitate it. As a child my parents rented out half of our small house in London’s West Acton to a U.S. Army Sergeant and his family who were stationed in England. I have always idolized black Americans in uniform, like my kind friend and mentor. The special magic of the man was that he worked in the PX, which was actually the forerunner of American style supermarket culture. These Aladdin’s caves of plenty ushered forth unimagined luxuries for a small boy borne when rationing still prevailed. This tall smiling demigod neighbor supplied me with different flavors of chewing gum that I can still taste. Exotic fruits like pineapple and pomegranates passed my eager lips. I thought America was somewhere to the West of England, but on a higher plane, nearer to heaven.

My uncle Eddie was living in Los Angeles and he would send me more multi flavored gum which I chewed as I avoided the cracks in the sidewalk, dreaming of America as I walked to school. The dominant films the television and the modern music were all pouring out from that shining light across the big shining ocean. We wanted to dress, eat, talk and even walk like Americans.

This started to dissipate when America and the world perceived the Vietnam War to be a mistake. Not many remember the now reviled Domino Theory in which the American State Department declared that if Vietnam fell to the Communists then so would the rest of Asia. The American withdrew in ignominy from Saigon. This was the first time in modern history that America’s step faltered. Many foreign missteps followed, but to my mind, and those of other friends I mostly felt that their motives were honest and well meant. But for those of America’s enemies, who are many, each perceived mistake was seen as an excuse to lambaste everything American.

Now America’s emblematic currency, the once mighty dollar, is openly sneered at everywhere from South America to the Middle Eastern Kasbah. I remember the same happening to the British pound about 30 years ago. It seemed an irredeemable situation for Britain. Like many Brits at the time I thought our country was ungovernable in the late 1970’s. Along came a woman called Margaret Thatcher, and the whole world, starting with the UK, changed for the good. Soon our pounds sterling became strong again, and our economy the envy of the World. The same can happen for America’s dollar.

Based on America’s can do attitude, innate ability and it’s tremendous but momentarily repressed sense of optimism, I believe America is not yet doomed. I also fervently hope that this is the case. The World needs a successful USA to survive and prosper. This, more than any other single factor will probably result in America and the world coming through its present difficulties.

However there might well be bigger, long-term problems to come for which will need an American / European alliance to lead the way forward, out of the mess. There is nothing inherently wrong with the rest of the world but for their inexperience in taking a broader, not totally nationalistic view of our world. Both Europe and America recognize that they must lead the way forward to solve truly global problems with the kind of thinking that leads to a broader, sweeping and strategic plan. In this instance, enlightened self-interest might well be the guiding light for the rest of the world. America must not lose confidence now that the sound of the economic gunfire is getting closer. America, join with Europe and lead.

Being a Consumer

Today this is an unashamed lifestyle blog. Sometimes I think we’re put on this earth to consume. As you look around it does seem that way. Everyone is seemingly consuming food all the time. However I don’t mean to discuss the consumption of food, but the consumption of brands. Before I continue I want to make the point that I know things are just an assembly of atoms in a particular form, but that doesn’t render them any less desirable if you hanker after their particular shape or style, whatever the substance.

I am just as bad as anyone else. I find the latest brand irresistible. I look at my daughter’s IPhone and feel an incredible, almost unbearable compulsion to possess one myself. I don’t know the reason, since I already own a great mobile phone, my trusty BlackBerry, and it e mails better than the IPhone. But does it tell me the traffic conditions on the nearest freeway? No, it does not. Do I need to know these traffic conditions? No, of course not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the facility.

It has a screen that flips from the horizontal to the vertical, how have I lived without this? I am mystified. It is truly touch screen, not a bit but totally. I think I am falling in love, and it’s the real thing.

Mind you I was equally besotted when I purchased, at enormous expense my Sony Viega 42” plasma flat screen television a few years back. Since that time I bought, for much lesser prices, various makes of LCD flat screen televisions. I know the technical arguments why the plasma screen set should be superior, but the truth is, that to our eyes, the opposite is the truth. In this instance cheaper has proven to be better.

Unashamedly I drive a car that others will consider a gas guzzling car of enormous and conspicuous consumption. It is a top of the line Cadillac CTS Sports Luxury model that makes a wonderfully satisfactory growling noise when you stamp on the accelerator, and takes off like a big scalded cat, faster than almost any other big car. When you are stuck in traffic it makes almost no noise at all, and it’s a bit like sitting in your favorite leather armchair. Of course the computer system contains a TV, DVD player and sat navigation system and does everything else you can imagine except give you a rub down with the latest edition of your chosen girlie magazine. This isn’t a good car, it’s a great driving experience. Now, don’t for a second get this beauty confused with its smaller sister, the crappy Cadillac based on its European sister company car, the Saab. This might look like a slightly smaller version of the Detroit super car, but it’s a fake with a capital F. I drove one as a loan out when my car was being serviced and it’s a travesty that the two models have the same brand name of Cadillac. If you want to drive a Cadillac in Europe insist on the import or don’t bother.

But back to my compulsion to buy the new, the flash, the must have gizmo. I did the same when Bose made their more fitted ear phones for noise reduction or listening to my magnificently designed Apple iPod. This is surely one of the great combinations for enhanced and comfortable listening designed. You can wear and listen through this combination of kit for an entire London to Los Angeles air trip and feel no discomfort. Sometimes buying the desirable is also the wisest course.

My Name is Andre

There is nothing much better than being spoiled, other than being spoiled rotten. Yesterday was one of those good days. Holiday turned into a positive pleasure when I was taken aboard a beautiful ship, the Golden Princess, by my lovely family, and dispatched to the Mexican Riviera.

Everything is very wonderful on this ship as it sails to points South except for a video show stuck on the words, “Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, my name’s Andre….” It is playing endlessly in one of the numerous bars despite my repeated requests to the ever smiling, ever friendly crew. I guess its one of those Stepford Wives kind of moments you sometimes experience on a place this well ordered and maintained. Every time I reported this problem to one of the crew they smile, tell me they will immediately deal with the problem, and then, when nothing happens immediately one soon becomes a bit agitated.

Eventually Andre stops greeting me, and it is a great relief, for both Andre and myself, and all the other people in this otherwise quieter area.

The other thing of interest, and I should be charging Apple for this, is the never ending number of people, particularly men, who stop, stare and then ask questions about my MacBook Air. It seems as if everyone wants one.

On the brighter side for those of you not here, is that the weather isn’t so great, but I’m hopeful that this will improve by tomorrow. For now its pina colada time.

Brit TV Rules America - OK?

There was a time when Britain produced some of the best television programs in the World. Everyone recognized this fact but the truth is that it didn’t sell too well in America. The BBC used to regularly pretend that it did. But the facts portrayed a different picture. Yes, “Masterpiece Theater” was on Public Service television, however it didn’t impinge on the wider consciousness of America. This audience might have been getting a diluted flavor of England’s culture from the derivatives of “Till Death Do Us Part” with the American, homogenized version, “All in the Family”, and a similar transfer occurred with “Sanford & Son” which had its genesis with Britain’s comedy classic “Steptoe and Son”. However the truth was that our cultural and programming clout in the States was minimal. We simply didn’t get their culture in its broadest sense. Even though this tradition continues to prosper with the stateside version of “The Office” it still is not accepted across America as mass market.

This changed completely within the last few years when not only did the Brits begin to hold their own on television, but actually started to dominate the TV jungle. Oddly, it was when Britain started producing real mainstream, low brow mass market entertainment television shows such as “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”, and “The Weakest Link”. British telly became a totally dominant force with the advent of “American Pop Idol” and all the Simon Fuller, Simon Cowell originated shows that flowed from this inspiration. They took vertical and horizontal integration of an old Variety entertainment format to a new level and it worked all over the world, but particularly in the States.

Much cheaper than drama to stage per minute, but engaging the audience with the real life “journey” of the variety of different contestants who interact with each other, the stylized jury and the voting TV audience. The jury has its villain, its fair guy and its kind Aunty and the proceedings are always watched over by an amusing and witty master of ceremonies who represents fair play for the audience.

Strange and more than a little sad isn’t it, that after all those years of elitist but wonderful Britain trying to force feed the world its high end culture it was England’s end of the pier fun, mass market entertainment that finally conquered the world.

Service With A Smile

Have you ever spent a day shopping and relaxing in Los Angeles? The rest of the world could still learn some lessons. My day started by our parking in The Grove. This is a purpose built, almost Disney type shopping experience for adults. It is so clean, efficient and excellent that you would think it would be hateful and undesirable. Instead of which we parked in the pristine parking lot, which was spotlessly clean and had a choice of descending the immaculately clean stairway, the pristine escalators or the bank of efficient elevators. I chose the escalators and passed lobby areas in which chaps were lounging on settees using the free wifi connections to their laptops.

Arriving at the bottom of the escalator I journeyed less than ten yards and there was a small group of fantastically lithe and well endowed young mothers, complete with new born babies in front of them, doing jumps on the spot. The results were so fantastically pneumatic that I found myself walking into the nearest wall before I was rescued. I quietly uttered the words, “Thank God for California!”

I ate a fantastic breakfast in the sunshine in the same kind of environment. I then went to a bookstore and was looking around when a staff member enquired if `I needed any assistance. I hadn’t bothered them about my wistful search for a book I had no right to find, having forgotten its title, author or year of publication. The ultra efficient, friendly and helpful staff would not be deterred by any of this and found and ordered me this book in a couple of minutes. This is not the service you would get in the UK, or anywhere else in Europe. We still have a lot to learn.

During the day I found unfailing courtesy in restaurants, parking lots, schools and a kids swimming lesson I attended. It wasn’t phony and it was extremely pleasant.

I visited an exceptionally good faith school and the standards were tremendously high. Every school in the UK would do well to imitate it if the children I saw were examples of what can be achieved with well-motivated parents, teachers and kids.

The swimming class was part of a business run by a five time Olympic gold medalist, attended by two of my grand children. I know a bit about swimming but I thought this swimming school was on a whole different level to anything I’ve ever seen before. I am sure there will be many future champions who will come out of this training method. The school was staffed by an excellent team of trainers who really knew what they were doing, and could communicate this to the children of different levels of ability and age that they were training.

All day I heard no one swear, I didn’t see anyone litter, and everyone I met was courteous. This resulted in making the experience of the day much more pleasant. I don’t see anything wrong with any of this and would love to see some of these aspects of life spread to Europe.