Tuesday 11th March

One of my favourite films as a child, and I saw it several times on telly, so it must have been a staple of Sunday afternoon films which even though they were repeated so often never lost their magic, was the Incredible Shrinking Man.  Let me set the scene  – a mysterious cloud passes over his sailing boat and a few weeks later his wife noticed his trousers were getting slacker and he was losing both height and weight. He continued to shrink and had battles with cats and dogs.  Then he is sitting normal again in his home, everything is okay – until the camera pans out and he is in his very own dolls house.  Great props and trick photography made a really memorable, and of course black and white, film.  He eventually disappears into infinity and we presume meets his maker somewhere on the cutting room floor.

I was quite taken aback by the latest incarnation of Nick Clegg at his parties’ Spring Conference.  He looked older, worn-out and weary.  His grey shirt and dour suit didn’t help – neither did the slogan “#WhyIamIN” – which when deciphered still made little impression.  Gone was the young vibrant man of ideas who was going to do things differently, gone was the winner of TV debates, gone was the Nick everyone wanted to agree with.  Instead we had another failed politician reduced to uttering platitudes as to why he loved Britain, an even weaker image than John Major twenty odd years ago.   Just surviving seems to be his only goal, as both leader and as Deputy Prime Minister.  There are now rumours swirling around Westminster as to who will succeed him at the coming debacle.  Sorry, I mean General Election.

Monday 10th March

It is sometimes acceptable to use a percentage in excess of 100, for example when quoting a very high interest rate of the sort used by pay-day loan companies, where the repayment in a year actually exceeds the original loan. So if one borrowed £100 and the interest repayment was £200, then the percentage would be 200. However this is because the percentage rate is describing not the original loan but simply the interest payable.

It is not acceptable however to use more than 100 percent to describe a portion of something. If the whole of something is being used or counted it is 100%. So, when a sportsperson or a contestant on X factor is trying very hard to win they could theoretically be using 100 percent of their energy, though they would probably collapse on the floor in the process, but they cannot use 110% as is commonly claimed. Also to be strictly pedantic, when they do say they are giving it 100%, 100% of what exactly is it they are giving and what is the ‘it’ they are giving to? However we sort of know what they mean.

Which is more than can be said for an advert I just saw on TV. Those of you of a nervous disposition should turn away now as this was an advert for Always sanitary pads. The advert claimed that new Ultra Always was now up to 100% leak-proof. Firstly this implies that old Ultra Always were not, so they must have been inferior, presumably they leaked, which sort of misses the point. But to state that they are up to 100% leak-proof is a bit meaningless. As shown above they cannot be more than 100% anyway, and as to being leakproof something is either leakproof or it isn’t. Either they leak or they don’t; and no-one wants to buy them if they do leak surely. But the term up to 100% has no value – it could be 1% 0r 99% or anything in between. The manufacturer has absolved themselves from any responsibility and might as well have stated that we don’t know if they leak or not but if they do we don’t know by how much. Though with the product we are talking about any leaking, 1 or 100 percent can be a disaster. Just thought I would point this out to the unwary purchaser.

Sunday 9th March

The trouble with the Police is that for far too long they have seen themselves as ‘them’ and us as ‘us’.  And it is being a part of an organisation, an institution, almost a club – that sets them apart.  At least in their minds.  And it used to be mutual, at one time the working classes largely saw the Police as the enemy.  This was partly because of a small degree of petty criminality in a lot of communities and a feeling of being harassed by the Police, but also because the Police have always been about protecting Property as much as protecting People.   Most ordinary people had no property, only the rich had property, and therefore theft of (or damage to) property was almost exclusively committed by those without property.  And in a way it is the same today, only far more people have Property so see the Police as on their side, possibly against those elements of society who want to steal it.

You can see immediately that this is why racial minorities, largely property-less, maybe living on council estates still see the Police as the enemy.  And as most crime (that gets reported) is committed by a small proportion of people from these estates the Police see them as the enemy too.

And so it comes as no surprise that even a few years ago many Police officers were corrupt, and maybe still are.  They regularly ‘stitch’ people up, or try to make the evidence fit their suspects rather than have an open mind.  And in my experience, at least as many crimes are committed by businessmen in the form of false accounting or by traders through collusion – but these are the very people the Police were created to protect, so it is no surprise that most of these ‘crimes’ are unreported and undetected.

None of the above of course detracts from the many honest Policemen who really are doing their best.  But one sad truth is that they will always close ranks and try to protect fellow Police officers rather than admit that they may have been wrong in the first place.

Saturday 8th March

One of my earliest memories is of riding crossbar on my Dad’s bike.  I must have been under five I suppose but this was such a common experience that I cannot isolate one single time from all the others.  In those days all bikes looked much the same; black or dark green, heavy beasts with chrome handlebars and looped-under brake handles.  And all men’s bikes had crossbars; women’s presumably because of skirts and modesty had a second swooping low-slung strut just above the main link from the front wheel forks to the chain mechanism.  There was also a metal chain case, a wide sprung saddle and in my dad’s case a heavy headlight on the front, and a dynamo wheel to generate the back light.

Everyone had a bike, very few had cars and consequently the roads were far safer.  Cycle helmets hadn’t been thought of for adults or kids.  I would be hoisted up and perched on the crossbar, balancing with your bum and gripping the handle bars to steady yourself.  I am sure you felt every single bump in the road.  A while later Dad fitted a little dickie saddle for me and this was easier to balance on, still in front of him and grasping the handlebars, no safety harness of course.  We would go on bike rides, the four of us; Mum with my sister on a back seat and I on Dad’s crossbar.  Sunday afternoons we would go for bike-rides.  Then when I was about eight Dad got a car, the first on the estate, and I hardly ever rode crossbar anymore.

For my own son in the early seventies I had a little seat on the back of my bike too, and would take him to Nursery early every morning, crossing through London, trying to avoid the busy roads.  It was the only practical way as I had to get him to Nursery by 8, and then into work by 9.  The return journey was the same as I had to pick him up by 6.

And even now, when I see a day-glow be-helmetted young child sitting on those little yellow back-seats on a Mum’s cycle.  It always brings back such happy memories.  I wonder if the majority of car-seat kiddies will also have such fond memories.

Friday 7th March

The real meaning of inflation used to be the increase in the total amount of money, not just the increase in prices.  In fact the amount of Pounds sterling in circulation has risen by a staggering 67 times since 1971.  However the average wage in 1971 was about £2000 and now is about £25000 or a 12 and a half times increase.  By and large prices have gone up by a similar amount, with wages increasing by slightly more most years until 2010 when prices kept on rising but wages didn’t.

Suffice it to say that though the amount of money has increased by 67 times your wages and standard of living haven’t risen by anything like that amount.  People are better off, substantially so, even if in the last few years we have fallen back to about 2003 levels.  So if the amount of money has increased so much but it hasn’t gone into peoples wages, where has it gone?

Mostly into Property, Shares and Overseas Investments; that is why the rich are significantly richer than they were in 1971.  In fact since the war until about the mid-seventies the gap between rich and poor was shrinking, wages and ordinary peoples standards of living were increasing.  Since then the gap has widened inexorably with more and more money going to those who already had Assets such as houses and shares.

So, even though the government trumpets that inflation is only two percent the amount of money, largely because of Quantative Easing (another way of rewarding the rich) has increased by about 10% a year since 2010.    House prices in London are surging ahead, forcing more and more people into private rented accommodation, the footsie keeps on rising.  And none of that helps the poor….

Thursday 6th March

There was a world-wide crash in late 2008, which deepened into a crisis in early 2009.  We have been living through that ever since.  Governments around the world have meted out varying levels of Austerity, hundreds of thousands of jobs in the public sector have gone – to be replaced by lower paid private ones.  For millions the minimum wage is also the maximum they will ever earn.  Benefit rules have been tightened and the hated bedroom tax introduced, where long-standing tenants are faced with a big cut in their benefit or having to move to a smaller property.  All of this suffering has been felt mostly at the lower ends of society – the famous squeezed middle may have to shop at Lidl now rather than Waitrose but this is nothing compared to the really poor.  Food banks and Payday loans are now the two fastest growing phenomenon in modern society.  Here in London we have been shielded from much of this, employment is pretty good and even if rents are rising fast for most the value of their homes is far higher than they could ever have got a mortgage for when they started out.

But surprise, surprise; the real winners are the super rich.  Just in the last year alone their wealth has gone up by 1 trillion dollars.  That is almost a 20% increase on an already ridiculously high figure.  When I was young it was thought that to be rich you would have to have a million pounds; now they don’t even bother to count the millionaires, especially when house values are rising so spectacularly.  To be rich these days you need several millions, and the number of the super rich is expanding year on year.  That sadly doesn’t mean we will all be rich one day of course.  But with all of this wealth our Government still thinks it would be dangerous to tax them an extra 5p in the pound and have reacted with howls of horror when Labour has said that they would.  Actually even this will not go anywhere near to altering the situation.  We are locked into a system that is designed specifically to reward the super-rich, and unless it is torn down and we start again it will just get worse.

Wednesday 5th March

So, Russia has taken over the Crimea completely.  This was expected after the partial attacks last week on the two airports.  But the great fear now is what next.  Amidst all the diplomacy the strongest message despite all the bluster from Kerry and Hague is to the new government in Kiev, and this is calling for restraint.  The fear is that if the Ukrainians retaliate then this will give the Russians the excuse they need to go further.  The mood is almost one, of – Okay, so the Crimea has gone, it was always a bit of an anomaly for it to be part of the Ukriane anyway, let the Russians take it back but please, please leave the rest of the Ukraine intact.

And the game isn’t over yet at all.  Putin has gambled that the West needs Russian trade and Russian Oil and Gas more than it wants a war.  Crimea was 58% Russian speaking anyway, it was an autonomous region that had always favoured Russia, Russia had its Black Sea fleet harboured there.  So the feeling is really that the Russians can have Crimea but no further.  But that belies the fact that about a third of Ukraine is Russian speaking, probably voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovitch, the ousted President, and there are now counter riots in those Eastern cities of Donetsk and Harkiv.  Also we mustn’t forget that is in the East of the Ukraine where the heavy industry, the gas fields and much of the wealth of the Ukraine lies.

I suspect that Putin will stop for now with the Crimea.  But there will be a standoff, maybe talks with the West, eventually a referendum in Crimea asking for full integration into Russia which of course they will win.  But events may well overtake even this.  If the new (il) legal government in Kiev decides to repress the counter-revolutionary riots in the East this might give Russia the excuse to take these over too.

Hitler in 1936 invaded part of Czechoslovakia on the pretext of defending German speaking people.  We let him and look what happened next.  I am in no way advocating war.  We must find a diplomatic and democratic way of allowing all the people of the Ukraine to decide their own future.  But the West must be very wary of helping ‘protestors’ to overthrow foreign governments.  Egypt, Syria and Libya should be warnings enough.  And the argument that you cannot invade another country in the twentieth century seems a bit strange coming from the country that invaded Iraq only eleven years ago.

Clifford Thomas (thank goodness he dropped the Thomas) Ward was a most unusual singer songwriter.  In a rock band that never made it in the sixties by 1968 he gave up the music business and became a teacher.  But in his spare time he continued writing songs and had his first solo record in 1972.  The album flopped as the record company went bust.  He re-signed to Charisma and had a massive hit with “Gaye”.  It was only then that he gave up teaching to concentrate on music.   As far as I know he never performed live, preferring the obscurity of the recording studio.  This inevitably affected what was never really a career at all.   He hated being in the public eye, giving interviews and any aspects of being successful.

In 1984 he was diagnosed with MS which he struggled with for almost two decades.  The records became more ragged, and with longer gaps between releases.  He also lost a lot of his originality, the songs becoming simpler, less sophisticated, and poorer as a result.  In a rare interview in 1994 he said

“ I have not and will not come to terms with this illness. There are times — usually quite late at night — when I’m almost normal again. But unless they find a cure for this dreadful MS, then I don’t see a future “.

He died in 2001.

But those early songs, in fact the first four or five albums are so full of love and warmth and gentle wisdom, singing about relationships, the death of a miner, a whimsy of falling in love with an air-hostess, and even children’s songs like “Mr. Bilbo Baggins”, he displayed a quietness amid all the bluster of big rock music around.  A small voice for sanity in an increasingly chaotic world.   He was and remains one of my very favourite artists, almost because he refused to be a part of it all.  He simply wanted to write and sing his gentle songs.  And in that way he was so successful too.  He is loved and cherished by his many fans to this day.

Monday 2rd March

It always amazes me when one day it is still Winter, cold and wet and forbidding, and just as suddenly it is Spring.  And today (yesterday) was just like that.  It was mild, the wind had dropped, the sun was struggling to warm us up – and there were daffodils everywhere.  All along the verges of the roads, in peoples gardens, sometimes planted in neat blocks and sometimes self-seeded and growing wild.

And it feels so different, the mornings are becoming lighter; sunshine streaming through the curtains before seven in the morning.  There is a feeling of hope in the air, and expectation that Summer is just around the corner.

The weather forecast doesn’t look much different, low pressures still swooping in from the Atlantic and rain on the way, but somehow these first indications of Spring lift the spirit.

And the hawthorn bushes are all in flower though hardly any other trees have green leaves, but buds are forming already.   And it all adds up to Spring just around the corner, if not here already.

Last year it felt as if Spring would never arrive, the Winter just dragged on and on, but this year although we have had rain, rain and more rain and awful storms it hasn’t really been that cold.  And so there is an expectation that Spring will come early.  And let’s hope it is correct.

Sunday 2nd March

I used to love History at school, and even began to study it for “A” level, before my obsession with Art took over and I practically stopped even attending classes.  And I can remember well the Crimean War of 1851 (was it?) or thereabouts.  When the threat of the Russian Bear gobbling up the poor Turkish Ostrich meant that the English Bulldog closely followed by the French Poodle came to the rescue.  The war was a disaster and is most famous for the Charge of the Light Brigade, when the Cavalry got mown down by the Russkies.  Funnily enough I can’t actually remember the result, but in those days Wars were more set-piece affairs, with a few battles to show off one’s prowess and then the inevitable peace talks.  It was probably a score-draw in the end.  Russia wanted a major Black Sea port and I think they just took the Crimea and left the rest of the Ukraine in Turkish or Austrian hands.  I do remember that it was here that the famous Balaclava came into it’s own.  I had one as a child and a very useful piece of protective clothing it was in the winter of ’63.

And so History has a nasty habit of repeating itself.  After the ructions in Kiev when the then Russian leaning President was ousted and fled, and a new more radical Government took over it went quiet for a few days but now Russia has started to fight back.  Unmarked troops have taken over the airports and a few key buildings and there are reports that plane-loads of Russian troops are landing in the Crimea.  Even though Russia officially recognizes the Ukraine as a sovereign state they do have a large naval base in Sevastopol.  (Much like the Americans have military bases here in Sovereign UK)  And now Putin has asked the Russian Parliament to allow him to deploy Russian Troops in the Ukraine.  This is solely in order to protect Russian speaking citizens who are being threatened by the European leaning mob in Kiev, you must understand.  No-one could possibly imagine that Russia has any territorial ambitions in the Ukraine.  And America blusters on the sidelines, and we bluster even more ineffectually too.  No-one wants to send our troops to the Ukraine, even though we have promised to defend the country if it were ever attacked.  So, there will be an escalating crisis and the Crimea and one or two other Provinces next to the Russian border will see Russian troops on the ground.  The West will call for calm and the Ukrainians in Kiev will cry but will not fight.  A sort of stasis will emerge and sooner or later referenda will be held in these provinces and they will call for a new Eastern Ukraine to be established.

Russia 2, The West 0.  And everyone will be happy, and by the way all the Russian troops are wearing Balaclavas too.