Britain, my Great Britain, wake up, you the father of modern democracy, are sleepwalking to a totalitarian state. Inch by stinking inch we are allowing our freedoms to be eroded, all, of course, in the name of freedom. We seem unaware of what the result will be of reducing our freedom by the millions of cameras watching our every move. Now they link these systems. They are putting microphones and speakers in combination with many of these cameras.
Our leaders are allowing, or sanctioning or ordering that our tax and other, related financial information, be combined. What’s the reason behind this? When you undertake almost every meaningful financial transaction in the UK today you now have to show either a passport, or your driving license. Why should this be necessary? Ask yourself how many terrorists have been caught in the security net because there are these compliance measures? The official answer is, none!
Add to this the new, combined government information database in which our health information is to be held. We can all understand the theoretical and practical reasons that this might benefit us, but the truth is that this is another system that is completely open to abuse. Imagine if your prospective employer knew you had a medical problem that you wanted to keep private. Does this mean you don’t get the job, but will never learn why you were turned down?
We just don’t know whether the people being entrusted with the confidential information about us are well intended, but we do know they are hopelessly inefficient. This country’s government has, as I have written before, admitted that it is early stage development of a system that enables it to listen to and record every phone call, every visit to every website and study every text message at its leisure. This is a gross breach of our human rights and should be fought by every person who values their future freedom.
Various council authorities in this country are, apparently, sending out information forms for every household in their area to complete. This is compulsory and there are severe penalties for value to complete the forms. The kinds of questions being asked are an attempt by the authorities to spy on every aspect of that household’s lifestyle, expenditure and income levels.
These council authorities are using the anti terrorism legislation, never intended for this purpose, to spy on the householders in their districts. Under law they are doing so quite legitimately but clearly for illegitimate reasons.
Let’s examine another frightening outcome that will surely follow the misuse of medical knowledge in this country, and probably elsewhere. If all the data-bases become linked, and DNA sampling is progressively standardized we will have a situation in which we will be able to forecast which children are going to be born with or will develop various degenerative diseases in later life. Will society allow such children to be born into the poorer world that decreasing resources is likely to engender? If insurance companies are warned in advance that someone is going to develop a long-term illness, or one that might lead to premature death, how likely is it that they will provide any form of insurance cover?
What is the moral and ethical position of our society in dealing with these issues? We must have this debate and arrive at our conclusions BEFORE we enable this truly frightening technology not AFTER.
Remember that our governmental sanctioned data-bases failure rate is 70%. Remember the bigger the data collection the more likely we are to suffer what the American military used to call a SNAFU, Situation Normal All F…d Up!
We also have our government demanding new legislation in which terrorist suspects can be arrested and held without trial, for 42 days. I am, as those of you who have previously read my articles know, extremely hard line with terrorists. Note the difference, I am tough on terrorists, not suspected terrorists. Unless you’ve forgotten, like our government apparently has, you are innocent until you’re proven guilty in this country. There must be a presumption of innocence or we have truly become a totalitarian regime. It was bad enough that our legislators meekly allowed the previously demanded 28 days of arrest without charge, why do we need 42 days? What does 42 days precisely give us, that 28 days did not, or is this simply a number without any meaning?
The real terrorist organizations want our society to over react and turn on itself. Our government is falling into this trap. Obviously this is a difficult balance to achieve, and whatever route our leaders take will be open to error, but there are fundamental truths at stake. These must include the presumption of innocence and that includes the right to trial by a jury of your peers. Our governments must not behave beyond the law to protect us from illegal actions. There is one exception to this, and that's the extraordinary powers a democracy allows its government at time of war.
The question is, are we at war? If we are at war with a global terrorist threat, then you have to make that clear and then these, extraordinary powers could be allowed, but only for the duration of the conflict. When we are already asking questions as to whether it is allowable for the authorities to torture a terrorist suspect for the greater good we are clearly entering a new type of war situation. I find the idea of torture repugnant until this scenario is put into context. For example the terrorist knows where in London or New York, that his friends have planted a dirty nuclear device, ready to explode in one hour. Do you ask him politely to let you know where the bomb, that might kill 500,000 people is, or do you do whatever is necessary to find out where it is, immediately?
For me the answer is obvious, you do whatever you can, and you don't wait one second. The counter argument relates to the size of the threat, and the possibility that you might have the wrong suspect under arrest. I respond that if one person is under threat of being murdered it is worth the risk, and yes, there would be mistakes, and that's too terrible to contemplate, but is a legitimate price in times of war.
Back to the UK, pure and simple; here I have already written to my medical center telling them I want to opt out of the National Health database currently being collected.
I have also checked to see whether my council is one of those placing concealed mini cameras in our wheelie bins to check for “proper” segmentation of paper, glass and other rubbish. Would you believe they are now confirming whether the weight of the bin is too much for our over protected refuse collectors. They’re calling this the “two finger rule”. If it takes more than two of the bin collectors fingers to roll the wheeled bin to his truck they will not remove it. This is, of course, political correctness gone mad, but it is real nevertheless. In England we have a two fingered salute, which means the same as the single finger salute in the States. I want to share this salute with the town hall little Hitlers who are coming up with these ridiculous rules.
Watch out America, because for your Barak Obama read our Tony Blair a decade ago. What we’re experiencing now you can anticipate for your future. Like Blair there is something of the nanny state provider about Obama. All the things we now have in the UK that I‘m outlining were well intentioned laws, regulations and ideas that were founded in the absolute certain belief that these were all being done for our own good. Every day our lives are peppered with news of a never-ending barrage of such ideas. All conceived by our leaders to tell us how to live. This week there were announcements about our health, the packaging and pricing of alcohol, advertising on TV, further congestion charging in another of our major cities, Manchester, and I could go on without end.
My advice to the reader is to fight this type of legislation wherever you find it, and never give in. If there’s an alternative take it. If you’re compelled, try to resist. Tell them no, don’t fill in their forms, don’t volunteer any information, and if you get an opportunity to be in contact with your elected representative tell them, loud and clear what you think about this continual erosion of your freedom. Then, when there are elections, vote the idiots out, or it might be too late.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Some Animals Are More Equal...
Yesterday was a perfect English Summer's day; I watched some people walking their dogs through the countryside. Let’s be honest, I am not nature boy, and the reason for my being in the green area, grass I think is the name, is because they were selling me an ice cream cone with a Cadbury’s Flake in it. In England we call this concoction a 99, and it was what God invented for sunny days. Forgive the interruption. I looked at these people with their dogs and I compared them to other families with their children. No question, the people with the animals were treating the beasts better than the other families were treating their kids.
What sets us apart from the animals, our ability to laugh, to see the funny side of things? Animal lovers will always insist that their pet dog, cat, mongoose, fish or lizard is laughing, smiling or expressing angst. But, and I am sorry to have to insist, this is not true.
Leibniz, the early 18th. Century German philosopher said, “It is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths which distinguishes us from mere animals, and gives us reason and the sciences, raising us to knowledge of ourselves.”
Animals are lovely, if you like that kind of thing, but they don’t have any sense of humour. They are, in fact, very limited intellectually. You could say the same about many of their owners, or if I am to be politically correct, keepers. Please be aware any animal nuts, that I do like animals myself, and that I have had many pet dogs, fish and even a tortoise or two when I was an ankle biter. I just don’t ascribe human abilities to the little beasts. I also don’t, and you should whisper this, hug any trees. They’re really nice to look at, but they don’t look cuddly to me.
Humans don’t learn to have a sense of fun and the ridiculous; we are born with this ability. There is something attractive about us when we smile, and that’s why almost every photograph you see has a smiling face in it. We look at our best when we’re happy. Animals can be happy or sad, but that is based purely on their basis needs being met or otherwise. They can’t express emotion facially or verbally; they don’t have the mental agility. Their brains simply don’t have the capacity or the synapses.
You could think differently had you watched the recent episodes of Britain’s Got Talent, or America’s Got Talent. Both these television shows featured dogs with immense ability. Dogs that could dance backwards, and in one case stand on a rope and seemingly, take a bow (wow)! Of course one does have a slight suspicion that these might be very small people in a dog suit, but that aside. These were very talented dogs. The one in England was probably able to quote Shakespeare. It was a great dog. But it isn’t a person. Please stop going berserk whenever you see a cute animal, you’ll only encourage the balls of fur.
Happily the animals did not win the contests and although they might consider litigation I for one was gratified that they were left to bark in the dark.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, as George Orwell stated in his book, Animal Farm. We should all look after fellow humans first and animals come somewhere down the list. Please remember, humans are the animals that are more equal.
What sets us apart from the animals, our ability to laugh, to see the funny side of things? Animal lovers will always insist that their pet dog, cat, mongoose, fish or lizard is laughing, smiling or expressing angst. But, and I am sorry to have to insist, this is not true.
Leibniz, the early 18th. Century German philosopher said, “It is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths which distinguishes us from mere animals, and gives us reason and the sciences, raising us to knowledge of ourselves.”
Animals are lovely, if you like that kind of thing, but they don’t have any sense of humour. They are, in fact, very limited intellectually. You could say the same about many of their owners, or if I am to be politically correct, keepers. Please be aware any animal nuts, that I do like animals myself, and that I have had many pet dogs, fish and even a tortoise or two when I was an ankle biter. I just don’t ascribe human abilities to the little beasts. I also don’t, and you should whisper this, hug any trees. They’re really nice to look at, but they don’t look cuddly to me.
Humans don’t learn to have a sense of fun and the ridiculous; we are born with this ability. There is something attractive about us when we smile, and that’s why almost every photograph you see has a smiling face in it. We look at our best when we’re happy. Animals can be happy or sad, but that is based purely on their basis needs being met or otherwise. They can’t express emotion facially or verbally; they don’t have the mental agility. Their brains simply don’t have the capacity or the synapses.
You could think differently had you watched the recent episodes of Britain’s Got Talent, or America’s Got Talent. Both these television shows featured dogs with immense ability. Dogs that could dance backwards, and in one case stand on a rope and seemingly, take a bow (wow)! Of course one does have a slight suspicion that these might be very small people in a dog suit, but that aside. These were very talented dogs. The one in England was probably able to quote Shakespeare. It was a great dog. But it isn’t a person. Please stop going berserk whenever you see a cute animal, you’ll only encourage the balls of fur.
Happily the animals did not win the contests and although they might consider litigation I for one was gratified that they were left to bark in the dark.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, as George Orwell stated in his book, Animal Farm. We should all look after fellow humans first and animals come somewhere down the list. Please remember, humans are the animals that are more equal.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
European Envy
Yesterday the European Football Championships started in the two host countries, Switzerland and Austria. The opening ceremony was as exciting and entertaining as watching wood warp or paint dry. Whoever thought that either of these countries could either play soccer or do an opening? They do clocks, cheese, prompt trains and some snow sports, they do top rate boring.
Of course, like every other Englishman, I am mourning the fact that England didn’t qualify to appear in this tournament. Surely, you will say, there must have been some mistake in the computation in the qualification games. Yes, there was, we didn’t win enough of them. We missed out by one point, but that one point might as well be as big as the Grand Canyon.
This would be bad enough in itself, but Michel Platini, the boss of the European Football Federation, decided to rub it in. He made a statement in which he said that no one would miss the English team or its supporters. This, from a Frenchman, is too much to bear. But he wasn’t happy yet. One of the journalists pointed out that English club teams currently dominate the European Champions League. In fact, as I have written previously, four of the quarter finalists and three of the semi finalists and the two finalists in that championship were English clubs. My own magnificent club, Manchester United, won the competition, beating Chelsea. Mister Platini’s response was to state that the English clubs were cheating, by both the finalists being in debt. They had, in his view, simply run up debts to achieve their dominance.
Of course this is just French jealousy because our teams are better than their teams. Can you name the last French club team to get anywhere in the European club championships? Well of course there is Arsenal, the club purportedly from London’s Highbury, who in reality could, more properly be re-named, Paris United. There are many more Frenchmen in that team, and only one Englishman.
Running up debt to achieve your commercial goals is called Capitalism. We might not like it, but last time I looked, it wasn’t illegal, or even improper. Do the European football bosses really believe that if say, Microsoft were to buy Google, they just reached into their back pocket and pay over the cash for the purchase. Grow up Mister Platini. You’re just green with envy of our well run, dynamic and ultra successful football clubs. Our league generates more money from television and from gate receipts because our football is exciting to watch and people everywhere want to see it.
We all agree that the English fans are both the best and worst to be found anywhere. We have bigger crowds watching our Premier league teams than anyone else in Europe, and they follow our clubs and national team wherever they go, all over the world. These fans do have a tendency to explore every pub and bar on route, but it would be simple to overcome the problem of their drunk and disorderly behavior. Close the local drinking establishments for a half-day before the matches. It’s not nuclear science.
There is another mainland European scheme to marginalize the dominance of English club teams. The method being employed is that the pesky Europeans, led by Sepp Blatter, have demanded a change to the laws governing the national make up of the competing teams. This is the infamous 6-5 rule, in which there would be a requirement for six natives from each club’s home country to appear in the team. There are two fundamental flaws in this argument. The first is that the European employment laws do not allow employers to differentiate between potential employees based on which European nation they originated from. The second problem with this plan is that Manchester United actually did have six English players in their championship winning team. The simplistic wish of a parochial xenophobe does not outweigh the employment laws of the European Union.
Lest we forget, in this article praising the success of our clubs, we should remember that our national team is not in the European national championships. Of course, as a patriot, and a football fan, this does perturb my equanimity. I can only struggle on with the knowledge that my club has the best team in the world and remembering that England will soon be trying to qualify for the World Cup, and we’ll all have something new to moan about. I’m convinced that if we won that competition the people who run it would try and disqualify us anyhow. Just because we're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't against us.
Of course, like every other Englishman, I am mourning the fact that England didn’t qualify to appear in this tournament. Surely, you will say, there must have been some mistake in the computation in the qualification games. Yes, there was, we didn’t win enough of them. We missed out by one point, but that one point might as well be as big as the Grand Canyon.
This would be bad enough in itself, but Michel Platini, the boss of the European Football Federation, decided to rub it in. He made a statement in which he said that no one would miss the English team or its supporters. This, from a Frenchman, is too much to bear. But he wasn’t happy yet. One of the journalists pointed out that English club teams currently dominate the European Champions League. In fact, as I have written previously, four of the quarter finalists and three of the semi finalists and the two finalists in that championship were English clubs. My own magnificent club, Manchester United, won the competition, beating Chelsea. Mister Platini’s response was to state that the English clubs were cheating, by both the finalists being in debt. They had, in his view, simply run up debts to achieve their dominance.
Of course this is just French jealousy because our teams are better than their teams. Can you name the last French club team to get anywhere in the European club championships? Well of course there is Arsenal, the club purportedly from London’s Highbury, who in reality could, more properly be re-named, Paris United. There are many more Frenchmen in that team, and only one Englishman.
Running up debt to achieve your commercial goals is called Capitalism. We might not like it, but last time I looked, it wasn’t illegal, or even improper. Do the European football bosses really believe that if say, Microsoft were to buy Google, they just reached into their back pocket and pay over the cash for the purchase. Grow up Mister Platini. You’re just green with envy of our well run, dynamic and ultra successful football clubs. Our league generates more money from television and from gate receipts because our football is exciting to watch and people everywhere want to see it.
We all agree that the English fans are both the best and worst to be found anywhere. We have bigger crowds watching our Premier league teams than anyone else in Europe, and they follow our clubs and national team wherever they go, all over the world. These fans do have a tendency to explore every pub and bar on route, but it would be simple to overcome the problem of their drunk and disorderly behavior. Close the local drinking establishments for a half-day before the matches. It’s not nuclear science.
There is another mainland European scheme to marginalize the dominance of English club teams. The method being employed is that the pesky Europeans, led by Sepp Blatter, have demanded a change to the laws governing the national make up of the competing teams. This is the infamous 6-5 rule, in which there would be a requirement for six natives from each club’s home country to appear in the team. There are two fundamental flaws in this argument. The first is that the European employment laws do not allow employers to differentiate between potential employees based on which European nation they originated from. The second problem with this plan is that Manchester United actually did have six English players in their championship winning team. The simplistic wish of a parochial xenophobe does not outweigh the employment laws of the European Union.
Lest we forget, in this article praising the success of our clubs, we should remember that our national team is not in the European national championships. Of course, as a patriot, and a football fan, this does perturb my equanimity. I can only struggle on with the knowledge that my club has the best team in the world and remembering that England will soon be trying to qualify for the World Cup, and we’ll all have something new to moan about. I’m convinced that if we won that competition the people who run it would try and disqualify us anyhow. Just because we're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't against us.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Will Barak Blink?
Today Hillary Clinton officially concedes defeat to Barak Obama. This might be the first clear sign of his sweeping to power in the election against John McCain later this year. I have to express grave concern about this. My concern is that he doesn’t have a grasp of the realities of the Middle East, and that is the biggest single problem facing an incoming American President. The one thing that must not be allowed to go wrong is the Middle East, or we will all pay a terrible price.
Let me take the positives first. It would be a wonderful step forward if America were to prove itself rid of its abhorrent racist past by electing its first black President. Obama is also clearly capable of being a spellbinding and amazing public orator, able to sum up emotion, common sense and a clarion call with disarming charm and power. Obama is a fresh face, unbound and unsullied by the strictures or deals done in the back rooms in the past.
Obama looks good, and that’s a big plus. Unlike Bush, who looked like a putz, Obama looks like a President. You cannot exaggerate the importance of visual perceptions. If I were wrong you would have seen some bald Presidents and Prime Ministers since Churchill and Eisenhower, but you haven’t.
And yet, with all these pluses I have a sneaking suspicion that just as McCain seems to have no grasp of economics, (well that is what he said) I have the same feeling about Obama and his lack of a real grasp of the Middle East.
I am concerned because, for years, questionable people surrounded Barak Obama and he did nothing about it. This group could be called Neo-Anti Cons and was led by his radical preacher friend, the Reverent Jeremiah Wright, who has a long history of race hate and anti-American sermons. Also this week a fundraiser for the Democrat nominee, a Syrian born property developer, Antoin Retzko, was convicted for corruption in a Chicago court. This is another questionable friend for the nominee; Obama seems to have way too many such associates for comfort.
I am not questioning Obama’s right to be friends with whomever he likes, but we do have to seriously question the man’s judgement of people. Obama did, immediately cut all ties, and did return the money donated by Retzko to charity, but again he has opened himself up to attack. Perhaps he has disassociated from these lunatics, villains and thieves that appear to have populated his world, a little too late.
In the example of Reverent Wright, his church appear to have had some very questionable friends from the far extremes of Islamic intolerance, like Louis Farrakhan. This man has soul mates in the leadership of Iran and has openly expressed his extreme and Nazi like anti-Jewish and anti Israel attitudes. Obama had years in which he could have pulled away from these people, but didn’t do so until political exigencies forced him to do so.
I recall my rabbi (she has since moved to another congregation) making a sermon from her pulpit, which I disagreed with. I articulated this difference of opinion to her. We wrote to each other and talked about our views. If I could do this so should Barak Obama have done so, there is no excuse for a man of principles to remain silent in the face of evil. But this leads us to ask, were his views different from those of his crazy Reverent.
At best Barak has proven himself to be a politician like any other, disingenuous. At worst he has been lying to us all, and the reason he didn’t protest at his preacher’s outrageous statements was because he agreed with them.
I do not share the liberal myth that George W. Bush and Tony Blair got it wrong with their “wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think we needed to do more, earlier and better.
Let’s also get our history right. Whether you like it or not the United Nations Security Council and NATO were fully in accord with the action they led in both places. It is a fact, these were not illegal wars, and they were sanctioned.
But, for the liberal left, it appears that historical facts don’t matter, they are more selective. They will howl in anguish that the reasons given for the wars have since been disproved. I question that rationale also. There had been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The question is what happened to them. Between the two Gulf Wars enormous stocks of these weapons were dismantled. The man supervising the location and destruction of the nuclear program was from the Atomic Energy Commission, and was himself of Arabic origin. This man and that group clearly stated that there were stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and much of the stockpile was destroyed. We do not know where the rest of it is, either buried in the desert, or transferred to a friendly, neighbouring country, such as Syria or Iran.
Before any sceptical reader claims this to be a fabrication do remember that Iraq parked its entire air force in Iran when the first Gulf War began, and never managed to fly it home. It should also be remembered that Israel recently destroyed a secret Syrian nuclear facility that no one else had ever said existed. Take this in addition to the admitted facts surrounding Iran’s reaching out to become a nuclear power and you have the environment that Obama enters.
The next canard thrown at Israel, to level the playing field, is that Israel has never admitted or denied that it has a nuclear deterrent. The argument goes, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. There is no equivalence. Israel has never threatened any of its neighbours with destruction, but its neighbours constantly threaten Israel. As Benjamin Netanyahu said, " If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel. "
The liberal left constantly claims that Israel is not a legitimate state. It’s as if they think that if they constantly repeat this lie that the country will be de-legitimised and then will cease to exist. Wait a second that is exactly what they are seeking to achieve. It is not only becoming an accepted, politically correct chant of the chattering classes that Israel is always wrong, and shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Sadly for these people Israel is not just going to be vaporized, or conveniently commit national suicide. It is a legitimate state that does have a Jewish majority and was voted into existence by the United Nations. It was the first state to receive this honour. Since that time Israel has much more to be proud of than to be ashamed about. That’s about all you can demand of any country.
If Barak Obama were to win the election you can be certain that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the other leaders of Iran will quickly test him. In case your memory is incredibly short you should read the Iranian leader’s statement of last Monday in which he repeated his prediction that the “criminal and terrorist Zionist regime” would soon disappear off the map.
We saw the result of a response to this explicit threat when Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transportation and Road Safety Shaul Mofasz, responded to a question about Iran. Mofasz was born in Iran, and has a thorough knowledge of military reality having served the Israeli Defence Forces as a Lieutenant General and Chief of Staff. He speaks with some authority, as he knows both the mindset of the adversary and the military rationale behind any such need to attack. He stated, “If Iran continues its programme to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it.” His comments struck fear into the oil traders. Their reaction to this plus the news of America’s unexpectedly high jump in unemployment pushed up the price of crude oil by $11 in one day. Ironically the headlines demonstrated the perversity of the global perception, “Oil hits record price as Israel threatens Iran” was the heading in today’s Daily Mail.
We live in a world turned upside down. Where black is white and insanity rules. Imagine a situation in which your neighbour constantly threaten to kill you, burn down your house and destroy your family, and then scatter the ashes. You go to the authorities and they tell you, that despite this same neighbour killing many people like you in the past, not to worry he doesn’t really mean it. You then tell the authorities that if this man shows you his loaded gun you will have no alternative but to stop him using it. You then get tried and convicted for threatening him! That’s what the world is currently doing if they blame Israel for any of this madness.
My central theme here is that the Middle East will decide the future for us all. The Middle East is the place we must pray our leaders get it right. It isn’t the economy stupid, as Bill Clinton once said, when describing what single element would decide his last election; it’s the Mid East, which decides whether we all live, or die.
The test of Obama is liable to take place against a background of escalating tensions between the West with Russia, which is beginning to flex its newfound economic muscle. This scenario is eerily reminiscent of the situation President Kennedy found himself in when Khrushchev tested his resolve with the placing of the nuclear missiles in Cuba. Before we all get to see who blinks first Obama needs to make it perfectly clear that he is not going to let his country, or his allies be pushed around. If he doesn’t show iron resolve at that point we will all face a very uncertain future.
Do we trust our very existence to Barak? This is a man of uncertain judgement of character. What does Obama really believe? When push comes to shove, will Barak blink?
Let me take the positives first. It would be a wonderful step forward if America were to prove itself rid of its abhorrent racist past by electing its first black President. Obama is also clearly capable of being a spellbinding and amazing public orator, able to sum up emotion, common sense and a clarion call with disarming charm and power. Obama is a fresh face, unbound and unsullied by the strictures or deals done in the back rooms in the past.
Obama looks good, and that’s a big plus. Unlike Bush, who looked like a putz, Obama looks like a President. You cannot exaggerate the importance of visual perceptions. If I were wrong you would have seen some bald Presidents and Prime Ministers since Churchill and Eisenhower, but you haven’t.
And yet, with all these pluses I have a sneaking suspicion that just as McCain seems to have no grasp of economics, (well that is what he said) I have the same feeling about Obama and his lack of a real grasp of the Middle East.
I am concerned because, for years, questionable people surrounded Barak Obama and he did nothing about it. This group could be called Neo-Anti Cons and was led by his radical preacher friend, the Reverent Jeremiah Wright, who has a long history of race hate and anti-American sermons. Also this week a fundraiser for the Democrat nominee, a Syrian born property developer, Antoin Retzko, was convicted for corruption in a Chicago court. This is another questionable friend for the nominee; Obama seems to have way too many such associates for comfort.
I am not questioning Obama’s right to be friends with whomever he likes, but we do have to seriously question the man’s judgement of people. Obama did, immediately cut all ties, and did return the money donated by Retzko to charity, but again he has opened himself up to attack. Perhaps he has disassociated from these lunatics, villains and thieves that appear to have populated his world, a little too late.
In the example of Reverent Wright, his church appear to have had some very questionable friends from the far extremes of Islamic intolerance, like Louis Farrakhan. This man has soul mates in the leadership of Iran and has openly expressed his extreme and Nazi like anti-Jewish and anti Israel attitudes. Obama had years in which he could have pulled away from these people, but didn’t do so until political exigencies forced him to do so.
I recall my rabbi (she has since moved to another congregation) making a sermon from her pulpit, which I disagreed with. I articulated this difference of opinion to her. We wrote to each other and talked about our views. If I could do this so should Barak Obama have done so, there is no excuse for a man of principles to remain silent in the face of evil. But this leads us to ask, were his views different from those of his crazy Reverent.
At best Barak has proven himself to be a politician like any other, disingenuous. At worst he has been lying to us all, and the reason he didn’t protest at his preacher’s outrageous statements was because he agreed with them.
I do not share the liberal myth that George W. Bush and Tony Blair got it wrong with their “wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think we needed to do more, earlier and better.
Let’s also get our history right. Whether you like it or not the United Nations Security Council and NATO were fully in accord with the action they led in both places. It is a fact, these were not illegal wars, and they were sanctioned.
But, for the liberal left, it appears that historical facts don’t matter, they are more selective. They will howl in anguish that the reasons given for the wars have since been disproved. I question that rationale also. There had been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The question is what happened to them. Between the two Gulf Wars enormous stocks of these weapons were dismantled. The man supervising the location and destruction of the nuclear program was from the Atomic Energy Commission, and was himself of Arabic origin. This man and that group clearly stated that there were stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and much of the stockpile was destroyed. We do not know where the rest of it is, either buried in the desert, or transferred to a friendly, neighbouring country, such as Syria or Iran.
Before any sceptical reader claims this to be a fabrication do remember that Iraq parked its entire air force in Iran when the first Gulf War began, and never managed to fly it home. It should also be remembered that Israel recently destroyed a secret Syrian nuclear facility that no one else had ever said existed. Take this in addition to the admitted facts surrounding Iran’s reaching out to become a nuclear power and you have the environment that Obama enters.
The next canard thrown at Israel, to level the playing field, is that Israel has never admitted or denied that it has a nuclear deterrent. The argument goes, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. There is no equivalence. Israel has never threatened any of its neighbours with destruction, but its neighbours constantly threaten Israel. As Benjamin Netanyahu said, " If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel. "
The liberal left constantly claims that Israel is not a legitimate state. It’s as if they think that if they constantly repeat this lie that the country will be de-legitimised and then will cease to exist. Wait a second that is exactly what they are seeking to achieve. It is not only becoming an accepted, politically correct chant of the chattering classes that Israel is always wrong, and shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Sadly for these people Israel is not just going to be vaporized, or conveniently commit national suicide. It is a legitimate state that does have a Jewish majority and was voted into existence by the United Nations. It was the first state to receive this honour. Since that time Israel has much more to be proud of than to be ashamed about. That’s about all you can demand of any country.
If Barak Obama were to win the election you can be certain that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the other leaders of Iran will quickly test him. In case your memory is incredibly short you should read the Iranian leader’s statement of last Monday in which he repeated his prediction that the “criminal and terrorist Zionist regime” would soon disappear off the map.
We saw the result of a response to this explicit threat when Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transportation and Road Safety Shaul Mofasz, responded to a question about Iran. Mofasz was born in Iran, and has a thorough knowledge of military reality having served the Israeli Defence Forces as a Lieutenant General and Chief of Staff. He speaks with some authority, as he knows both the mindset of the adversary and the military rationale behind any such need to attack. He stated, “If Iran continues its programme to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it.” His comments struck fear into the oil traders. Their reaction to this plus the news of America’s unexpectedly high jump in unemployment pushed up the price of crude oil by $11 in one day. Ironically the headlines demonstrated the perversity of the global perception, “Oil hits record price as Israel threatens Iran” was the heading in today’s Daily Mail.
We live in a world turned upside down. Where black is white and insanity rules. Imagine a situation in which your neighbour constantly threaten to kill you, burn down your house and destroy your family, and then scatter the ashes. You go to the authorities and they tell you, that despite this same neighbour killing many people like you in the past, not to worry he doesn’t really mean it. You then tell the authorities that if this man shows you his loaded gun you will have no alternative but to stop him using it. You then get tried and convicted for threatening him! That’s what the world is currently doing if they blame Israel for any of this madness.
My central theme here is that the Middle East will decide the future for us all. The Middle East is the place we must pray our leaders get it right. It isn’t the economy stupid, as Bill Clinton once said, when describing what single element would decide his last election; it’s the Mid East, which decides whether we all live, or die.
The test of Obama is liable to take place against a background of escalating tensions between the West with Russia, which is beginning to flex its newfound economic muscle. This scenario is eerily reminiscent of the situation President Kennedy found himself in when Khrushchev tested his resolve with the placing of the nuclear missiles in Cuba. Before we all get to see who blinks first Obama needs to make it perfectly clear that he is not going to let his country, or his allies be pushed around. If he doesn’t show iron resolve at that point we will all face a very uncertain future.
Do we trust our very existence to Barak? This is a man of uncertain judgement of character. What does Obama really believe? When push comes to shove, will Barak blink?
Friday, June 6, 2008
Liz Rymer - Higher Education Lecturer Responds
Sometimes I get an overwhelming response on something I’ve written but one note stands out from the crowd. This is one of those occasions. Yesterday’s article about how Higher Education is working in the UK generated a large number of comments from all different types of people. Those of you who wrote unanimously agreed with my article.
However, there was one response, which articulated the general response of almost everyone who works within the academic field and that came from my friend and previous colleague, Liz Rymer. I reprint her comments, with her kind permission, below.
Liz is a teacher who really cares about her students, as do all of the good lecturers I know.
“I largely concur with your (TK’s) musings - however, I want to add to it.... we have been experiencing a marked decline in the standard of education in our 'recruits'. My (educated) impression is that these young people are being short-changed by the schools. I was told by our Dean that 'we don't have a selection process; we recruit'. Meaning that our institution, and I'm sure many
others outside the Russell Group do not interview - we look at credits - if a potential student has enough, they get on; if not, they don't. This assumes that the student, having passed A levels, has the necessary aptitude to study for a
Degree - by and large, they don't.
In a great many of our students, we are finding a poor standard of literacy, a complete lack of self-awareness and absolutely no idea what independent study at HE level actually entails.
It is not their fault.
It is the fault of a system that pushes ill-equipped students into HE, compounded by the fact that league tables and pass rates dominate every teacher's [and lecturer's] life. Retention rates at HE level have hit the headlines this week - the 43% who do not complete are testament to the fact that they are not ready to take on the responsibility, nor do they have the academic ability (even a BA in Media requires this!) to deal with what is required of them.
I am deeply saddened by all this - these young people are being forced through a sausage machine, modules are dumbed down, students that should by rights fail, are given slim passes to assuage the Governors and HEFCE and keep the money rolling in. Education is not a business, it should never be predicated on money.
Students are not looked upon as people (with aspirations and hopes), but as beans... and whilst the bean counters are running the show, it will only get worse.
I hate Tony Blair and I blame him and his acolytes for this, bastards all.
Lecture over!!
Liz Rymer,
H.E. Lecturer”
Thank you Liz, all I can add is that I agree with almost every word you write. Except I don’t hate Blair, I hate the fact that we have a government that just doesn’t listen to anything except the echo of it’s own voice.
However, there was one response, which articulated the general response of almost everyone who works within the academic field and that came from my friend and previous colleague, Liz Rymer. I reprint her comments, with her kind permission, below.
Liz is a teacher who really cares about her students, as do all of the good lecturers I know.
“I largely concur with your (TK’s) musings - however, I want to add to it.... we have been experiencing a marked decline in the standard of education in our 'recruits'. My (educated) impression is that these young people are being short-changed by the schools. I was told by our Dean that 'we don't have a selection process; we recruit'. Meaning that our institution, and I'm sure many
others outside the Russell Group do not interview - we look at credits - if a potential student has enough, they get on; if not, they don't. This assumes that the student, having passed A levels, has the necessary aptitude to study for a
Degree - by and large, they don't.
In a great many of our students, we are finding a poor standard of literacy, a complete lack of self-awareness and absolutely no idea what independent study at HE level actually entails.
It is not their fault.
It is the fault of a system that pushes ill-equipped students into HE, compounded by the fact that league tables and pass rates dominate every teacher's [and lecturer's] life. Retention rates at HE level have hit the headlines this week - the 43% who do not complete are testament to the fact that they are not ready to take on the responsibility, nor do they have the academic ability (even a BA in Media requires this!) to deal with what is required of them.
I am deeply saddened by all this - these young people are being forced through a sausage machine, modules are dumbed down, students that should by rights fail, are given slim passes to assuage the Governors and HEFCE and keep the money rolling in. Education is not a business, it should never be predicated on money.
Students are not looked upon as people (with aspirations and hopes), but as beans... and whilst the bean counters are running the show, it will only get worse.
I hate Tony Blair and I blame him and his acolytes for this, bastards all.
Lecture over!!
Liz Rymer,
H.E. Lecturer”
Thank you Liz, all I can add is that I agree with almost every word you write. Except I don’t hate Blair, I hate the fact that we have a government that just doesn’t listen to anything except the echo of it’s own voice.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Too Knolwedgeable?
Education is something about which one should be objective, but I guess I’ve become too knowledgeable to remain objective.
University entrance in the UK is a thorny subject. Most people who pontificate on it are equipped only with ignorance and bias, as they are about modern degree programs. Having worked extensively in the British university system and to some extent overseas I do have some expertise in this area.
Some myths; not all degree courses are easy and were much tougher in the past. Different, in some cases yes, but easier, no.
Media, sport, leisure etc. are all soft subjects that are not worthy of being on any university curriculum. Not true. Media falls within the creative industries sector that now accounts for about 10.4% of this country’s Gross Domestic Product. It seems pretty important to me, even, dare I say it, vital that we educate and train our young people to service and grow this super successful sector of our economy. The same case can be made for sports and leisure, ever growing parts of our society. How are we going to excel if we don’t educate?
When I was a kid something under 4% of our school leavers had places available for them within the British university system. That number has increased by more than tenfold. Therefore there are more opportunities, for a more varied series of courses, in a disparate plethora of guises and places. Currently it is more like America than our own past.
We have very strict rules of how to keep some kind of parity between the different courses at different universities. This is not achieved on a trust basis, as might have been the case in the past. Now there are major internal and external inspections conducted of a very thorough basis. No detail escapes the attention of these bodies. I have been through this process on several occasions and as they say in the proverbs, no one expected the Spanish Inquisition!
Each course also has its own Exam Boards and External Examiners to keep the course team honest. These inspections are, at least, annual, and can be more often if necessary. You cannot serve beyond 3-4 years in the capacity of External Examiner as familiarity might tend toward chumminess and collaboration.
In addition to all of this there are course documents for every aspect of every course, and these are distributed to academic institutions, the teaching staff, and above all others, the students. If anything doesn’t meet these written requirements there are several methods of putting matters right. This system is rigorous and has worked well.
The result of this is that there is some measure of equivalence between, let’s say, a Criminology course in two different universities, wherever they are in the country. As a consequence if a student graduates with a 2:1 honours degree at any of our universities we know they had roughly the same education. It is true that the standards vary from one place to another, but not so that they are unrecognisable, one from the other. This variation is at its most exaggerated between the 15 top universities and their newest counterparts.
But the truth is that the British system tends towards feudal towers of power, silos of knowledge, jealously guarded by the different heads of school. These schools sometimes appear to be led by gentlemen who combine the wisdom of youth with the energy of old age.
In the newer universities these schools were not purely agglomerations of subjects or programs of study, but more likely, were the local Polytechnic educating in the more technical knowledge sets, mostly vocationally. These were converted to Higher Education, university status in the last 15 – 20 years. Each of these brought with them their own ethos and history, and usually their own campuses, which have since been rationalized and generally rebuilt as part of British education’s huge capital growth.
One of the problems most of the new universities have experienced, to varying degrees, has been the retention of their newly recruited students. Some institutions have reported up to 50% drop out rates by the end of year one. 20% is a more common figure. I believe this is a by-product of totally inappropriate recruitment procedures. If there were a more rigorous interview procedure and a better understanding by students of what their courses would entail this would lead to more square pegs in square holes. Putting the right procedures in place might be counter-productive when you are being put under pressure to recruit larger cohorts. Large swathes of our educational establishments have had to recruit ever more students, into bigger campuses, satisfying an ever moving set of targets from government, consumers and commerce. All this is to be achieved with less money per student than previously.
There is another, inescapable conclusion that has been largely ignored. This is that too many young people who are simply not suited to academic pursuits are being pressured into pursuing higher education when they don’t want to do so, or are incapable.
During my work as a part of the degree validation team from Britain’s excellent Open University Validation Service I was sent to examine a university program in a German city near Lake Constance. It pointed the way to a different type of university experience that we might do well to imitate. There the Professoriate didn’t select their intake. Employers, who sponsored the program and the students, made their own choices from amongst their young staff. They generally selected people who they considered would benefit from higher education. The selected staff had the option of going back to school. If they agreed to do so they faced a very rigorous education that was broken down into six month sections over a couple of years, with no holiday breaks. After the first six months of study the students were sent back to their commercial companies to put into practice what they had been learning. They then had to write reflectively about this when they returned to academia. This then escalated in difficulty and complexity until they were of much more worth to themselves, their commercial enterprises and most of all, society.
I had the opportunity to explore the university, this course, the sponsors and the academic leaders. They were a might impressive bunch. The sponsors overcame my reticence about their method of recruitment that had resulted in a zero drop out rate. In comparison with Britain there was total involvement by commercial partners at the most senior of levels. I sat with the bosses of major corporations for several hours whereas in the UK you would be lucky to meet the junior Human Resources officer for an hour. During lunch we were introduced, in private, to a cross section of these German students. They were erudite, bright, appreciative and very aware of the benefits of their university course. I asked them their ambition. I expected to hear that these super bright and committed students would be seeking senior appointments within the businesses, which had invested so much time, energy and money in them. Imagine my surprise when they almost unanimously expressed the desire to come to London to work in our creative industries. Where did we go right after doing so much wrong?
As Marty Feldman, the gifted comedian who I had the honor of playing soccer with many times during the early 80’s said, the pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with.
University entrance in the UK is a thorny subject. Most people who pontificate on it are equipped only with ignorance and bias, as they are about modern degree programs. Having worked extensively in the British university system and to some extent overseas I do have some expertise in this area.
Some myths; not all degree courses are easy and were much tougher in the past. Different, in some cases yes, but easier, no.
Media, sport, leisure etc. are all soft subjects that are not worthy of being on any university curriculum. Not true. Media falls within the creative industries sector that now accounts for about 10.4% of this country’s Gross Domestic Product. It seems pretty important to me, even, dare I say it, vital that we educate and train our young people to service and grow this super successful sector of our economy. The same case can be made for sports and leisure, ever growing parts of our society. How are we going to excel if we don’t educate?
When I was a kid something under 4% of our school leavers had places available for them within the British university system. That number has increased by more than tenfold. Therefore there are more opportunities, for a more varied series of courses, in a disparate plethora of guises and places. Currently it is more like America than our own past.
We have very strict rules of how to keep some kind of parity between the different courses at different universities. This is not achieved on a trust basis, as might have been the case in the past. Now there are major internal and external inspections conducted of a very thorough basis. No detail escapes the attention of these bodies. I have been through this process on several occasions and as they say in the proverbs, no one expected the Spanish Inquisition!
Each course also has its own Exam Boards and External Examiners to keep the course team honest. These inspections are, at least, annual, and can be more often if necessary. You cannot serve beyond 3-4 years in the capacity of External Examiner as familiarity might tend toward chumminess and collaboration.
In addition to all of this there are course documents for every aspect of every course, and these are distributed to academic institutions, the teaching staff, and above all others, the students. If anything doesn’t meet these written requirements there are several methods of putting matters right. This system is rigorous and has worked well.
The result of this is that there is some measure of equivalence between, let’s say, a Criminology course in two different universities, wherever they are in the country. As a consequence if a student graduates with a 2:1 honours degree at any of our universities we know they had roughly the same education. It is true that the standards vary from one place to another, but not so that they are unrecognisable, one from the other. This variation is at its most exaggerated between the 15 top universities and their newest counterparts.
But the truth is that the British system tends towards feudal towers of power, silos of knowledge, jealously guarded by the different heads of school. These schools sometimes appear to be led by gentlemen who combine the wisdom of youth with the energy of old age.
In the newer universities these schools were not purely agglomerations of subjects or programs of study, but more likely, were the local Polytechnic educating in the more technical knowledge sets, mostly vocationally. These were converted to Higher Education, university status in the last 15 – 20 years. Each of these brought with them their own ethos and history, and usually their own campuses, which have since been rationalized and generally rebuilt as part of British education’s huge capital growth.
One of the problems most of the new universities have experienced, to varying degrees, has been the retention of their newly recruited students. Some institutions have reported up to 50% drop out rates by the end of year one. 20% is a more common figure. I believe this is a by-product of totally inappropriate recruitment procedures. If there were a more rigorous interview procedure and a better understanding by students of what their courses would entail this would lead to more square pegs in square holes. Putting the right procedures in place might be counter-productive when you are being put under pressure to recruit larger cohorts. Large swathes of our educational establishments have had to recruit ever more students, into bigger campuses, satisfying an ever moving set of targets from government, consumers and commerce. All this is to be achieved with less money per student than previously.
There is another, inescapable conclusion that has been largely ignored. This is that too many young people who are simply not suited to academic pursuits are being pressured into pursuing higher education when they don’t want to do so, or are incapable.
During my work as a part of the degree validation team from Britain’s excellent Open University Validation Service I was sent to examine a university program in a German city near Lake Constance. It pointed the way to a different type of university experience that we might do well to imitate. There the Professoriate didn’t select their intake. Employers, who sponsored the program and the students, made their own choices from amongst their young staff. They generally selected people who they considered would benefit from higher education. The selected staff had the option of going back to school. If they agreed to do so they faced a very rigorous education that was broken down into six month sections over a couple of years, with no holiday breaks. After the first six months of study the students were sent back to their commercial companies to put into practice what they had been learning. They then had to write reflectively about this when they returned to academia. This then escalated in difficulty and complexity until they were of much more worth to themselves, their commercial enterprises and most of all, society.
I had the opportunity to explore the university, this course, the sponsors and the academic leaders. They were a might impressive bunch. The sponsors overcame my reticence about their method of recruitment that had resulted in a zero drop out rate. In comparison with Britain there was total involvement by commercial partners at the most senior of levels. I sat with the bosses of major corporations for several hours whereas in the UK you would be lucky to meet the junior Human Resources officer for an hour. During lunch we were introduced, in private, to a cross section of these German students. They were erudite, bright, appreciative and very aware of the benefits of their university course. I asked them their ambition. I expected to hear that these super bright and committed students would be seeking senior appointments within the businesses, which had invested so much time, energy and money in them. Imagine my surprise when they almost unanimously expressed the desire to come to London to work in our creative industries. Where did we go right after doing so much wrong?
As Marty Feldman, the gifted comedian who I had the honor of playing soccer with many times during the early 80’s said, the pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Sepia Memories of Friendship
Beginning about fifteen years ago I started to meet friends from my childhood. It started when I was editing a small video series I had produced in London. Someone saw my name, and remembering me from our mutual childhood he contacted me. His name is Roger Miller. I recalled a tall, blond, thin guy, but then that was when he was young. Time passes, and now Roger, although still tall, is no longer the proud owner of a head full of lustrous blond hair, and you couldn’t call him thin, but underneath the years he’s still the same Roger I lived one street away from. I suppose we all carry some carbuncles on us now, and perhaps a few pounds of excess baggage. But when I look at Roger I still see the hopeful teenager, and I guess he feels the same way about me.
Then I was looking for a house a few years later in Stanmore, the same district I had spent some of my formative years. The real estate agent told me that the house I was looking at was also being reviewed by another couple, and that they would be at the agency later the same day. I heard them mention the name Nigel, and that being a pretty unusual name, I asked whether it was a man called Nigel Schneider, and the woman clearly thought I was toying with her. It was indeed, the same Nigel I had last seen a bit more than forty years before at our secondary school, Harrow High School for Boys. Years after which he had been the blind date I had set up with my girlfriend's best friend, Avril. I remember that particularly well as I later married that Avril.
I followed up and Nigel and I met. It was reassuring to discover that his memories of school and adolescence were the same as mine. Up to that point I had begun to think I must have imagined some of the strange and deviant teachers it was our misfortune to encounter. Along with the good memories we had endured paedophilia from some of the senior staff that no one believed. I remember writing about this for our unofficial school magazine, Fanfare, which I produced with another great friend of the time, Michael Elton. Our publication was soon brought to an end despite it being a big success. We told our parents about the constant groping of some of the male staff, and in those less enlightened times, we were ignored. It was only when our headmaster was arrested for importuning outside a Gentlemen’s public lavatory in Harrow and was, as a consequence, banned from teaching at any boys’ school were we believed.
Some things have changed for the better, and the control of inappropriate adult supervision is certainly one of them.
More recently I received a communication from two friends who I went to primary school with. Jeff Gitter and Neville Spiers. The school was Holland House in Edgware, on the outskirts of North West London. These two venerable gentlemen hadn’t seen each other in nearly fifty years. At their reunion my name came up, in the spirit of whatever happened to Tony Klinger. They knew I had gone into the entertainment business but nothing much more. Whilst they raised my name the partner of Neville, soon to be wife, (mazeltov for later this month!) Roz Bluestone, overheard. Earlier that same day she had been in contact about the charity showing of my film, Full Circle, for the charity she works at, World Jewish Relief. By ridiculous fluke she was able to tell the guys where I was that day!
Some people call that kismet, but in our vernacular we would call it bashert, our way of saying an event is fated or predestined.
We have since followed through and become friends once more. But I have to admit that when I look at Neville particularly, I see the eager ten or eleven year old and not the middle aged man. I wonder if that’s why it’s so particularly comforting to rekindle these old relationships. It’s like throwing on a comfortable old sweater, you know it isn’t the most fashionable shape or colour, but it feels good, smells better and keeps you warm. I wonder if he sees the grey haired me, or the small boy in the pictures he had kept of us? We were both in the boxing and soccer teams, and we were small and nervous about getting hit on the nose. My mother used to let me go to school on boxing match days with the admonition, “don’t let them hit you on the face!” I did try mum, no one ducked lower or more often than me, but still they tried to hit me, the bastards. Happily they didn’t connect too often on the Klinger proboscis, as I only lost once.
I remember my grandfather’s friends telling me, “hit them on the nose and in the kishkeh, they’ll sprout some claret and be sick and it’ll be all over! Roughly translated it meant I should hit them on the nose to make it bleed and in the belly. Schoolboy amateur boxers and their families never did understand that it’s best not to eat for many hours before a fight. I have to admit that in my mind I was boxing like Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) but I was floating like a bumblebee and stinging like a butterfly.
But in the small world of Holland House we were holding our own and building happy memories. Looking back its hard not to see everything through a rosy glow of happy memories. Of course the world was not in sepia, and the sun didn’t always shine, but it was a simpler world, and there seemed to be a clearer distinction between right and wrong. There was less grey, more black and white. The world was better for this clarity and it certainly felt better. Wouldn’t it be great if our present society were to rediscover some of those forgotten core values of civility, courtesy and honesty?
Then I was looking for a house a few years later in Stanmore, the same district I had spent some of my formative years. The real estate agent told me that the house I was looking at was also being reviewed by another couple, and that they would be at the agency later the same day. I heard them mention the name Nigel, and that being a pretty unusual name, I asked whether it was a man called Nigel Schneider, and the woman clearly thought I was toying with her. It was indeed, the same Nigel I had last seen a bit more than forty years before at our secondary school, Harrow High School for Boys. Years after which he had been the blind date I had set up with my girlfriend's best friend, Avril. I remember that particularly well as I later married that Avril.
I followed up and Nigel and I met. It was reassuring to discover that his memories of school and adolescence were the same as mine. Up to that point I had begun to think I must have imagined some of the strange and deviant teachers it was our misfortune to encounter. Along with the good memories we had endured paedophilia from some of the senior staff that no one believed. I remember writing about this for our unofficial school magazine, Fanfare, which I produced with another great friend of the time, Michael Elton. Our publication was soon brought to an end despite it being a big success. We told our parents about the constant groping of some of the male staff, and in those less enlightened times, we were ignored. It was only when our headmaster was arrested for importuning outside a Gentlemen’s public lavatory in Harrow and was, as a consequence, banned from teaching at any boys’ school were we believed.
Some things have changed for the better, and the control of inappropriate adult supervision is certainly one of them.
More recently I received a communication from two friends who I went to primary school with. Jeff Gitter and Neville Spiers. The school was Holland House in Edgware, on the outskirts of North West London. These two venerable gentlemen hadn’t seen each other in nearly fifty years. At their reunion my name came up, in the spirit of whatever happened to Tony Klinger. They knew I had gone into the entertainment business but nothing much more. Whilst they raised my name the partner of Neville, soon to be wife, (mazeltov for later this month!) Roz Bluestone, overheard. Earlier that same day she had been in contact about the charity showing of my film, Full Circle, for the charity she works at, World Jewish Relief. By ridiculous fluke she was able to tell the guys where I was that day!
Some people call that kismet, but in our vernacular we would call it bashert, our way of saying an event is fated or predestined.
We have since followed through and become friends once more. But I have to admit that when I look at Neville particularly, I see the eager ten or eleven year old and not the middle aged man. I wonder if that’s why it’s so particularly comforting to rekindle these old relationships. It’s like throwing on a comfortable old sweater, you know it isn’t the most fashionable shape or colour, but it feels good, smells better and keeps you warm. I wonder if he sees the grey haired me, or the small boy in the pictures he had kept of us? We were both in the boxing and soccer teams, and we were small and nervous about getting hit on the nose. My mother used to let me go to school on boxing match days with the admonition, “don’t let them hit you on the face!” I did try mum, no one ducked lower or more often than me, but still they tried to hit me, the bastards. Happily they didn’t connect too often on the Klinger proboscis, as I only lost once.
I remember my grandfather’s friends telling me, “hit them on the nose and in the kishkeh, they’ll sprout some claret and be sick and it’ll be all over! Roughly translated it meant I should hit them on the nose to make it bleed and in the belly. Schoolboy amateur boxers and their families never did understand that it’s best not to eat for many hours before a fight. I have to admit that in my mind I was boxing like Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) but I was floating like a bumblebee and stinging like a butterfly.
But in the small world of Holland House we were holding our own and building happy memories. Looking back its hard not to see everything through a rosy glow of happy memories. Of course the world was not in sepia, and the sun didn’t always shine, but it was a simpler world, and there seemed to be a clearer distinction between right and wrong. There was less grey, more black and white. The world was better for this clarity and it certainly felt better. Wouldn’t it be great if our present society were to rediscover some of those forgotten core values of civility, courtesy and honesty?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
