MsMarmitelover

Cabwise

2009-12-23T08:25:00.003Z

Only take a licensed black cab or mini cab...it's not worth the risk to get in the cab of some random bloke cruising outside a club or bar...really...

Down and out from Paris to London...

2009-12-20T21:54:00.005Z

Guest post by my sister who was trapped on the Eurostar train last night. These are her observations and experiences:

My journey from Paris to London this weekend:
I was supposed to get the ill fated 9.13pm train from Paris on Friday night but I missed it due to train delays from Lyon.
I stayed the night in Paris at a hotel which was provided for by a Eurostar voucher. We were told to return early Saturday morning.
At 5.30 am, I waited by the Eurostar desk at Gare du Nord for the 7.13 am train. The staff at that point knew that a train had been stuck all night and didn't know when a train would be running again. We were repeatedly told to 'go away' and come back the next day 'maybe there would be a train'. Passengers responded with 'Go where?'. Staff had no information.

As soon as Eurostar staff realised the scale of the problem with the trapped trains from Friday night returning to Paris, they said 'No we can't help you now there are too many people'. In short, they got stingy.

We were told to call Eurostar customer services in France, which I did (at 11.11am), but I was told that there was nothing they could do: 'sorry can't help you Madam'. I asked for a hotel voucher for the Saturday night or until a train was available but staff now denied that they could give out hotel vouchers. I knew this was untrue as I had been given one for the Friday night. I told him that I knew that the vouchers were in the office, he replied 'I'm sorry Madam, thank you for your call'. I quickly asked for his name, he reluctantly replied 'Dominic' but refused to give me his last name. The name 'Dominic' sounded made up as he sniggered.
The only time any action happened was about 11.30 am when the passengers from the original train stuck in the tunnel (on Friday night) were arriving back in Paris. Suddenly the French Eurostar CEO and variety of assistants turned up to speak to the French press. They stationed a box of croissants next to them as passengers came out, a last minute effort at appearing to look after the passengers. As soon as the press left, Eurostar management disappeared again.
I waited in Paris until I managed to get on the 3.30pm train. It stayed on the platform for an hour while we were waiting for a train driver to turn up.
A few brief details about the journey: at one point we were going through the tunnel, I could suddenly smell burning in the carriage, the air was 'mistier'. As I walked up and down to see where the smell was coming from, an announcement came 'the engine power had gone' and 'the driver was letting the train freewheel to get out of the tunnel'.
The British passengers had a gallows humour throughout this: joking that it was 'day two in the Eurotunnel house and that they wanted to go to the diary room' and laughing when the train manager spoke in 'allo, 'allo English over the public address system saying 've are going to turn ze lightning off' (meaning the lights).
I kept wondering when Shelley Winters(Poseidon Adventure) or Fred Astaire(Towering Inferno) were going to pop up and do a cameo role.
Once through the tunnel, we then remained stuck, travelling a few metres then stopping, not far from Folkstone for approximately seven hours. It was frustrating watching other trains go past.

The passengers were patient until it had just been going on too long. We had been without lights, food, water, heating and communication. The doors were locked. There seemed to be no manual override to open the doors once the electricity had failed.
Eventually the train managed to get towards Ebbsfleet (a major stop where some people had left their cars) but the train manager refused to stop there and wouldn't explain why other than 'health and safety'. That is when passengers started to get very angry. Some of these people had been stuck on the train the night before, so it was their second night in this situation.

The atmosphere turned nastier when a woman apparently saw the train staff in a carriage taking pictures of themselves and also of passengers. Her 12 year old daughter took pictures of the staff doing this and they grabbed the camera from her. This is when we heard fighting in the carriage next door.
One of the problems was that there were no native English speaking staff on the train. We were reliant on the translation skills of the rather youthful French staff, who did their best but had no experience or training to deal with the situation.
A couple of passengers came through and said that the train driver, a man, was weeping in a carriage.

I also noticed that as we got out of the train at St Pancras at around 12.30 am, no Eurostar staff were present. Cases of water and boxes of croissants and crisps had been dumped, not even handed out, for weary passengers to have in their hands ready for the waiting media.
Passengers were given slips to get a taxi and told to go outside. (Only 2 staff handing these out for 700 passengers). When passengers got outside and tried to hail black cabs, they refused to take the fare because the vouchers were only for radio taxis.
There was no information for passengers stranded in London that night: no hotel information, no hotel vouchers, no coaches laid on. When you phoned up the British Eurostar customer care number there was only an answerphone message about booking tickets over the Christmas period. The impression I had was that Eurostar were trying to deal with this at a minimum of expense.

The model Claudia Schiffer was apparently treated very differently. She was whisked away in a taxi.

In conclusion yes, nobody died, but I generally got the sense that Eurostar were not interested in spending the money to communicate and help the passengers going through this ordeal.

Safety issues.

When we were left in the dark several times for several hours due to the train having no power this actually meant that:

1. There wasn’t any backup emergency electricity to light anything.
2. The power failure meant that we were trapped in the train and the electric doors were sealed shut. No manual override.
3. Evacuation: no luminous signs to indicate any emergency exits/windows to help us to break out. (Every pub/club has to have this by law... why doesn’t a sealed high speed train?)
4. We wouldn’t have been able to find our way out in a fire/smoke situation or a derailment. In the event of a problem, there is no doubt in my mind that we would have not been able to evacuate quickly and would have died through asphyxiation in the panic and mayhem.
5. The Emergency Windows are marked as such ONLY on the outside of the train,(reading letters backwards in panic/chaos is hard) so the passengers on the inside could not tell which ones were the windows that could have been smashed with a hammer in case of evacuation. Many signs are masked by handles. They were also written in small letters.
6. The power failure meant that the Train Manager could not make any public address announcements. There are no battery loud-hailers on board.
7. None of the staff have any basic medical training or are designated as such. A pregnant woman fainted. Passengers were asked if they were medics. A paramedic who volunteered, went to her aid but noticed that although the staff surrounded her - not one of them had thought to bring the medical kit. THEY HAVE NO TRAINING TO COPE WITH INCIDENTS. I found the young staff as polite as they could be in this ordeal but they didn’t know what to do. At times the staff hid in another carriage as they couldn’t cope or make decisions for themselves and at times asked us passengers to pass on information hoping it might makes it way down 17 packed carriages.
8. Staff did not appear to have emergency torches.
9. As a society, we have had many disasters such the Moorgate tube crash, the Reading train crash… the sinking of the Marchioness boat, Hillsboro… the list goes on. Why doesn’t Eurostar/Eurotunnel have to conform to basic Health and Safety measures?

MsMarmitelover: one of the reasons I asked my sister to post her account here is because she put the above list on safety on the Eurostar Facebook page and it was removed. She has posted it again on Facebook and it remains for the time being.

Cussin

2009-11-30T11:12:00.005Z

In the bathroom. My daughter was putting on foundation in the mirror. Her skin is perfect.

"Why do you wear foundation?" I asked. "At your age?"

"Because I've got skin like an old woman" she said "everybody teases me about it at school. I've got those things...that old men get when they drink ..."

"Thread veins?"

"Yeah, that. I've got tons of blemishes and I have to cover them up"

I looked at my face in the mirror. I had crinkly bags under my eyes. I pushed at my skin, it doesn't spring back into place as it would have a few years ago. Even a year ago.

I seemed to have aged enormously since starting The Underground Restaurant. In fact I haven't properly looked at myself for a while, being so busy. I've neglected any 'beauty routine'.

Next to me was my teen...her perfect heart shaped face...

I sit on the toilet and sigh: "So apart from your weight, your height, the little bump on your eyelid and your old ladies' skin...what else do people at school criticize about you? It seems, according to them, you are absolutely hideous"

"Look that's how it is. Everybody cusses everybody else." my daughter says patiently as if speaking to a retard.

"Do you?"

"Yeah. 'Course. Probably."

"You slag off other people's looks?"

"Well my friends and especially S."

"Why S?"

S. is particularly beautiful, tall and slim with almond-shaped eyes and great hair. She's been spotted by model agencies.

"Everybody has a go at S" snorts my teen "because she's so perfect".

"Does she get upset?"

"Yes, sometimes she cries"

"So you are all making each other feel bad? I mean you come home and cry too" I state.

My teen shrugs.

Cussing, that is, the art of putting each other down, does seem to be worse than it was in my youth. I wonder if it comes from 'freestyle rap battles'. It must be hard, though, for teenagers to build up any self-esteem when every imperfection is ruthlessly targeted. Or does it toughen them up?

Butters

2009-11-17T01:41:00.012Z

"I'm butters" said my teen.

Now I know I'm biased but my teenager is the most beautiful girl in the world. Bar none. Actually I'm not biased, this is pure fact.

"You are gorgeous" I say soothingly.

"No I'm not. I'm fat. And I'm short".

There's no point lying. She is short. But she's not fat. Not yet anyway. She probably will be later on, just like me. To be honest, I don't think I'm fat, but other people do. I look at all the women we are told we are supposed to look like and think 'Where's the rest of you?'. They look like half people.

She talks about the teasing at school, because of her height.

"Basically the deal here is that you aren't average. You want to be average. There's such an emphasis on being average, but it's boring." I say

I try to think of someone short, not too great looking but with such personality you don't even notice. I hit upon...

"Look at Danny Devito! He's short but I don't think he's ever turned in a bad performance" I tell her.

"But has he got a girlfriend?"

"Yeah. He's married and everything" I say

The teen thinks for a bit.

"I expect that's cos he's famous. I'm not famous. No one is ever going to like me. I've been single for two years."

"You are 15! Someone is going to like you. Of course they are!"

"No never. No one's ever going to like me. I'll be a virgin when I die"

This conversation was provoked by the fact that she liked a boy. He seemed to like her. In fact she started liking him because she thought he liked her.

She thought they were close. He would text 'I love you'. Even today, when 'I love you' and relentless hugging is common currency between friends (not the seldom uttered tight-lipped words that slipped out by mistake, of my youth), texting that phrase to the opposite sex means something.

My teen talked to me about this as we drove...

"I didn't know what was going on, so I took the plunge and texted him: 'Are you into me?'" Tears trickled down her downy cheeks. "He said 'No. We are just friends'."

I recognised this feeling so well...

"I really hate that. When blokes you fancy just want to be your friend. When they flirt and confuse you." I commiserated. "They are power tripping"

"I know" she sniffed.

"I mean my attitude, in the words of Jayne County, is: 'If you don't wanna fuck me, fuck off'" I joked.

"Me too."

We drove in silence, bonded in mutual misery.

Bad libel

2009-10-20T23:18:00.019+01:00

Singh, Goldacre and Cohen enjoying a pint at the Westminster Skeptics meeting.

Readers will know that I have been following the case of missing Madeleine McCann. I've been perturbed by the actions of their lawyers, Carter Ruck, who menace with libel anybody who questions the parent's story. They have managed to ban Goncalo Amaral's book 'The Truth of the Lie' and sent threatening legal letters to various websites and discussion forums. I recently spoke to a Sky News journalist who told me "Any news comes in, we are told to write it from the point of view of the McCanns. But you will notice, we never say 'abducted' Madeleine McCann, we always say 'missing' or 'disappeared'".

Whatever you think about this case, most people would agree that free speech is important. Particularly in Portugal which only recently became a democracy.

On the 12th of October, around 8.30pm, I saw a tweet from @guardianmedia. They were being gagged from reporting on Parliamentary proceedings in apparent contravention of the Bill of Rights. Checking the story it was clear that Carter Ruck were up to their tricks again. But this time they went too far. Myself and many other twitterers RTed and spread the word wide and far. One blogger found out the story was regarding toxic dumping by Trafigura. Soon the words #carterruck #trafigura and #guardiangagging were trending all over the world.

The night after I attended a talk at a new branch of Skeptics in Westminster, started by lawyer David Allen Green. Tonight's star speaker was Simon Singh, fighting a libel action brought by the British Association of Chiropractors; and guest speakers, journalist Nick Cohen, and science writer Ben Goldacre.

Newsnight were there too. In fact I could be seen on the news clip that night, taking pictures and jotting down notes.

David has an interesting history...when I met him over a year ago he was a Conservative. But it was clear when talking to him that he was no ordinary Conservative, in fact many of his opinions were as far left as mine. In contrast to Winston Churchill's (1) dictum that...

"If you're not a liberal when you're 20, you have no heart. If
you're not a conservative when you're 40, you have no head."

   ...many people I know, myself included, seem to venturing further left as they grow older. Perhaps this is the Thatcher generation growing up? Green wrote a brave blog post earlier this year, in which he describes how he is no longer a Tory. 
  The mood in the meeting room that night was triumphant. Twitter had overturned the injunction by Carter Ruck on the Guardian, perhaps things were not as bleak for Simon Singh as previously thought?
  David Allen Green thought that the court hearing could have been "the most important constitutional case of our generation". But Carter Ruck blinked first.  
  Simon Singh was going to face a similar ordeal the day after. He's a science writer who wrote in the Guardian that chiropractors made false claims as to the efficacy of their treatments, specifically in relation to curing asthma in children. He used the word 'bogus'. Whereas the rest of his article may have been fair comment, the use of this word provoked the British Chiropractic Association to sue for libel. Unusually they did not sue The Guardian, the paper that published the article, but Simon Singh personally. 
  Nick Cohen spoke to the meeting about how London has become the centre for libel tourism, where the international rich can seek redress in our courts, even if the supposed libel has not taken place in this country. He cited the example of Roman Polanski who sued the magazine Vanity Fair for libel, for they had suggested that he had made sexual advances to  a Norwegian woman on the way to the funeral of his murdered wife Sharon Tate. Cohen is scathing: 
"Polanski was a fugitive on the run from justice but he won against Vanity Fair. Polanski does not have a reputation to uphold, he's a self-confessed paedophile rapist." British justice bent over backwards for Polanski, enabling him to testify via video link form Paris, for if he came to Britain, he risked being extradited to the United States for his rape of a 13 year old girl thirty years ago.
  The judge found for Polanski saying we must not judge him on morals.
  Cohen finished by joking that since the Simon Singh case, he was staggered by the sight of geeks in arms. "The thing about scientists" he said to laughter from the room full of beards and specs "don't make an enemy of them. May the force be with you."
  Ben Goldacre spoke next. He fought a libel battle not so long ago and knows exactly what Singh is going through. He said that health was a particularly important area for freedom of speech. Peer review, criticism from others in the profession, is an essential part of medicine. The most popular and referenced medical papers were generally critical of certain drugs.
  Speaking frankly, Goldacre owned up that what Singh said may have been unfair. But that was not his intention, it was a "slip of the pen". But for this he is being persecuted through the courts. 
"It is ridiculous and dangerous for a discussion about the  pros and cons of a treatment to be held in an atmosphere of fear.
 
  
Simon is lucky, he isn't alone and  has fought the action. But with the libel laws at present, people are basically being told to 'shut up'. 'Shut up' is the argument of people with no arguments"
  Simon Singh stood up to speak to a huge cheer. He talked of the expense of libel in Britain; it is a hundred times more expensive here than anywhere else in Europe, meaning only the rich can afford to sue for libel. Another worrying aspect of our libel laws is that the United States are having to change their laws to cope with our  libel laws.  The Americans reformed their libel laws in 1964, during the Civil Rights movement. 
  One of the issues is that along with the fact that Singh is being sued personally, he is not being sued by an individual but an association with all the structure and support that bestows. It 's David versus Goliath. We saw this in the Mclibel trial, the longest ever in British courts, lasting two and a half years, which was a PR disaster for McDonalds,  backfiring badly.
  As a lawyer from the city, David Allen Green explains, clients come with complaints. They don't know the technicalities, they just want someone to shut up. Some times it's copyright, sometimes it's contempt of court. It's ridiculously easy to sue for libel.
  The Lords say that companies which have shareholders can sue. 
  There are four degrees of libel, Green explains:
  
Being Sued
Articles being spiked
Articles heavily lawyered
and perhaps the most worrying, articles which are not written at all, the result of self-censorship.
           'Just as politics cannot be separated from life, life cannot be separated from politics. People who consider themselves to be non-political are no different; they've already been assimilated by the dominant political culture--they just don't feel it any more.' Pramoedya Ananta Toer

The situation now, with bloggers, Facebook and Twitter, with everybody writing and reporting, harks back to the 17th century fashion for pamphleteering. As Cohen says "The net makes hacks of all of us. The law sees all of us as publishers."

The campaign for libel reform is not just about science. We are not getting good journalism as a result of libel law. It is a maxim that you can say what you like about politicians, mostly they are fair game. But The City, which has collapsed this economy, has been untouchable. In 2008, a Danish newspaper investigating Icelandic banks, received a writ, preventing them from reporting what they found. We all know what happened to the Icelandic banks.

Singh gets up and answers questions: "Is the Guardian supporting you?"

Singh: "The Guardian were helpful for the first six or seven weeks. They offered the right of reply or clarification to the BCA. But they wanted a full out apology. The Guardian agreed. However I can't apologize for something that I believe is true. I can't have my wiki page saying that I caved."

Ben Goldacre: "Three months my life was dominated by my libel case, sitting in the dock. It cost £535,000 for my defence. We won but still after costs we were £175, 000 out. It took a year and a half of my life altogether."

Singh:"I've kept in touch with The Guardian. The problem for them was they were not actually being sued, I was. I understood their position: If they backed me, even if we won, they would lose at least £175k. They thought 'If we lose, we lose a million. This is during a time when we are laying off journalists.' How could they justify that? At that time they were being sued by Tesco, Elton John, Ben's case, too much going on at that time. If the Guardian helped with the defence, they could be implicated."

Local newspapers don't even bother writing about anything controversial anymore. They can't afford it.

More news on the Simon Singh case and Superlibel can be read at the JackofKent blog.

Personally I don't find it a particularly outrageous claim that chiropractors can help childhood asthma with manipulations of the body and massage. In France kinesitherapists do this all the time, paid for by the French National Health. I'd certainly rather that than an inhaler which is what British GPs hand out at the drop of a hat. But then I'm not a scientist, I'm just a mother, who relies on her own instincts, knowledge, observation and connection with her child to determine what is best for her health. In the past, I've found I am generally right and the doctor is generally wrong.

(1) Although looking further into this quote it appears it might be a mistake to attribute it to Churchill.

Battle of Hastings

2009-10-18T15:10:00.003+01:00

The teen went to Hastings yesterday to do geography coursework on tourism. She got up early on her day off to get the train there.

"Did you have a nice time on the journey with your friends? "I ask

"Oh stop sounding so homosexual about it. Soooo gay. 'Did you have a nice time with your friends?' "she mimics in a smarmy mummy voice.

I continue: "Well how was it?"

"It was jokes. We had the two most liberal teachers come with us, they slept the whole journey but made sure they were in another carriage. In our carriage you could see how annoyed all the adults were. I swear every time my friend laughed I could see this guy sighing. She's got a really loud laugh.

"and Hastings? What did you think of it?" I asked.

"It's a shit hole. Nothing there, just some shops and the sea. We spent our whole time in Macdonalds then bought some beers for the journey back"

"Did you manage to ask the questions for your coursework?"

She'd spent days preparing a questionnaire. They were supposed to ask tourists what brought them there, where they stayed, what they did. I said she should ask whether tourists would appreciate a home restaurant in Hastings.

"No way!" she said, staring at me with incredulity

"NO way"
she repeated just in case I hadn't understood the first time.

"There were only residents, no tourists. And the couple of tourists we found when we asked 'could you spare 5 minutes to answer this questionnaire?' refused to talk to us"

I think about this. Of course, what tourist will visit Hastings in October? Really the teachers should have thought this through.

" It would have been better to do it in London, at least there are tourists here. But my teachers said it would be good for us to see another town. Hastings has got the highest suicide rate in Britain or something. The funniest bit was when someone's dog shit in the middle of the tourist office floor. When we went back a couple of hours later, they were still trying to clear it up"

Parent's evening

2009-09-23T07:55:00.003+01:00

Tonight I have to go to the parent's evening at the school. My teen has given me strict instructions.

"What are you wearing?" She demands anxiously.

"Um, that black knitted dress I bought in Italy..." I reply

"Ok." Then "What shoes?"

I look down. I'm wearing comfortable black leather open toed sandals from M & S.

"NOT those" she says "something nice"

"Hair?" I continue, slightly sarcastically "Makeup?"

"Makeup. Wear some. But NOT lipstick" I am instructed.

"Then if you arrive early, do not speak to me"my teen commands "if you do see me, just do this..."

She juts her chin up in the air, a brief acknowledgement.

I splutter "So I'm supposed to act like I hardly know you?"

She continues "and DON'T talk to my friends. Don't ask them their names. Don't ask how they are. Don't tell them off for smoking or bunning"

"Bunning?"

Her eyes roll.

"You are sooo old. Bunning is smoking a joint. It comes from the word 'burning' said with a Jamaican accent" she explains patiently. "At the rond point(a small square outside the school), everybody is bunning. Even adults bun. You see them coming after work, sitting down on the wall and bunning up."

"That rond point seems to be the most popular meeting place in London" I remark archly.

"Yeah well our school is popular innit. Kids from other schools come to hang out, cos they finish earlier than us. Boys from local schools come to chat up girls"

It's the age old thing of boys trying to pull posh totty from the private schools.

"One boy, he's slept with like 50 girls from our school. But he is gorgeous, really buff"

('Buff' means good looking, readers. 'Butters' means ugly as in 'butt ugly')

She's not finished...
"When you are in the meeting with other parents, do not ask questions. I know you, you are always asking questions."

I look doubtful.

"Try to blend in mum" she says, softening a little.

Party

2009-09-21T08:38:00.008+01:00

The teen had a bit of a party while I was away this weekend. It's the first time I've ever left her alone for any amount of time. I gave extra keys to the neighbours and asked them to keep an eye.

I knew she'd have a couple of mates over...but when I arrived home, she sighed and said "I'm so tired"

"How come?"

"From all the tidying up..." She looks at me regretfully but continues bravely "they were really messy"

"Didn't your friends help you?"

"No. I had to clear up all the sick." She brightens "It was cool, we got three bottles of vodka for £15 down the road. They knew we were underage."

"Then my friend made out with one of the boys in the shed."

Internally I gulp.

"What exactly does 'making out' consist of?"I ask gingerly, imagining phone calls from the parents...my daughter lost her virginity in your shed...

She groans "Well first you have snogging, then making out, then fingering, then blowjob, then full sex, then licking out."

We've always been quite open about sex but even I was a bit taken aback by this hierarchy of sex territory gained. I'm also interested that fellatio is higher up the scale than cunnilingus.

"So making out is restricted to kissing and tits?" I pry, drawing an imaginary triangle between my mouth and breast area.

My teen rolls her eyes.

"Is this over the bra or under the bra?"

Now she's looking annoyed "Oh for god's sake mum... "

She won't tell me how 'far' she has gone but I don't think it's beyond the 'making out' stage.

But I feel uncomfortable at the idea of some spotty lank haired youth getting a grope of my baby daughter's intimate parts. It doesn't seem right somehow. Them getting that for free. I briefly wish I lived in a culture when I could lock her up in a tower, cover her in a veil and charge a king's ransom for the privilege of marrying her. I also start to feel unaccountably angry, I'm not even sure why. When I lost my virginity, quite late actually, I was almost 18, my mum and dad were horrible to me, calling me a 'slut' for weeks. I now understand that impulse. Your children having sex, even if it's just kissing or petting, feels like a betrayal, almost infidelity. It's like they are no longer your children. There is a raw feeling that they have been besmirched.

I guess you get used to it.

This was a warm up for the real party she is going to have in a couple of weeks.

Tropezien tarts

2009-08-18T19:36:00.004+01:00

The famous 'tarte tropezienne'.

Some call them 16/61's , a friend of mine dubbed them 'Don't Look Now's' after the Nick Roeg movie in which a child's figure in red suddenly turned round and was in fact a wizened dwarf. I call them Tropezien tarts, in part a nod to the famous cake created in St. Tropez but also a tribute to the world centre for women who, from the back look young and from the front look, well, their age.
Femmes d'une certain age in France don't just settle, British style, into elasticated waist bands and comfy shoes. They write books like 'French women don't get fat', live on a mix of caffeine, slimming suppositories and steak tartare. They obsessively 'maintien leur ligne'.
The women of St Tropez all look like Brigitte Bardot. Now.
When you get pregnant in France, the doctor spends his whole time exhorting you not to put on weight, you must 'fait attention'. You are allowed to put on a kilo a month only. Most British women put on three stone, more than double.
French women may not get fat, but they aren't much of a laugh. There ain't no sistahood in French culture, despite boasting such luminary feminists and forward thinking women as Simone de Beauvoir, Colette and Chanel.
If your man is unfaithful to you in France, everyone will shrug 'et alors'. You will get scant sympathy.
I do admire the fierce determination not to age gracefully however. My favourites are the one's that dye their hair bright red, in the style of Edith Piaf or 70s nightclub owner Regine, as if to say "I'm not grey!"

Below: not before and after, but back and front.... Click on the photos to see close-ups

My 15 year old daughter has a dress like this...

Shoes from the lady above. Hmmm.

After 30 you have to be careful with frou frou skirts and lace.

Pushing that 'yummy mummy' look a little too far...

The top half Parisian chic, the bottom half, St Tropez bohemia!

She looks chic, this one.

You feel naked without a little doggy in St. Tropez.

Lovely sun hats only 15 euros

The world's poshest car park is in St Tropez

Piped music and a floor so clean you could eat off it...

Even the homeless in St. Tropez are tanned and happy! Oh yeah.

Sailors from the yachts that line the bay

The conversational

2009-08-04T17:02:00.005+01:00

Neil Boorman on the right.

The conversational 'menu'

Michelle on the left

Thought provoking cards on the subject of luxury

I love talking but would I like an evening of 'guided' conversation? This is the aim of Michelle Newell, a young Australian woman who has started The Conversational, a monthly event in Soho.

The theme of the night that I attended was 'Luxury', particularly pertinent in today's recession. We were asked to write on a little card something we desire that we would consider a luxury. Answers were varied from 'an endless supply of cashmere', 'a private library with a view of the Welsh coastline' to 'a husband' (er, that was me).

The author Neil Boorman who wrote 'Bonfire of the Brands' attended, giving a little talk on why he burned all of his luxury branded goods in Trafalgar Square.

He described his addiction to brands, how a purchase made him feel good "little confidence pills", but this was a 'high' that didn't last.

We asked him "How do you shop now?"

"No Prada, that's for sure, just simple generic goods. Vintage, although of course that has it's own chic, it's own 'brand'"

"But what about quality? Don't good brands give you goods that last?"

"That's a myth, luxury brands are often made in the same Asian factory as Primark for instance. 'British' brands like Burberry aren't made in Britain. I once spent a fortune on some fashionable flip flops. After two weeks they broke. I took them back, they were replaced. After two more weeks, the new pair broke, again they were replaced. This happened again. In the end the shop staff said to me 'well they aren't really for wearing'. Brands form identity. If I wanted to feel confident for a business meeting I'd wear Christian Dior. I had different brands for different situations."

I think of Cath Kidston. Her designs are a nod towards the nostalgia of the 1950s housewife. In an era of 'juggling' and 'having it all' working women love the fantasy of a simple life in which all you had to do is keep yourself nice with a cocktail ready for hubby when he gets in from work. Cath Kidston plays on all of that 'surrendered wife' stuff, which is why it is so successful. Again sites like Etsy, which sells home-made goods by individuals, is an example of this backlash against branding. (In Neil's book, he points out that 'branding' has an older meaning, something that you did to slaves and animals).

Neil again: "My mother made her own clothes. You didn't need to rely on brands, people had the confidence to throw a look together. We need to return to craftmanship"

I ask Neil: "To what extent is it a class thing? The working class tend to ape upper class behaviour, as if by buying the same brand you will become acceptable in that class. That's why chavs buy Burberry"

Neil: "Absolutely. In London smokers tend to buy American brands of cigarettes like Marlborough. If someone in London buys Benson & Hedges you think, do you live on a council estate? Are you from up North? I come from working class background in the Thatcherite era. All the pikey kids had the best stuff: the Star Wars lunchbox, the Pringle sweaters..."

"It's a vicious circle: you spend more time at work to earn more to buy brands. Time is not a luxury, it's a neccessity because it's finite. Brands are the consolation prize for working."

Somebody says "there is no replacement for glamour though.."

Neil interrupts "Glamour is a cold, lonely place to be...look at Victoria Beckham, she never smiles, her skin is too tight."

I ask: "So warmth is the opposite of glamour?"

This is a subject worth thinking about. And that's the aim of The Conversational, to inspire, forge new pathways of thinking...

Next to me a man sums up class in a nutshell:

"My mum's butcher said if a woman bought streaky bacon, he called her 'love'. If she bought 'back' bacon, he called her Madam"

I wonder about class, branding and food.

Neil adds:

"The whole Fairtrade Organic trend is a middle class guilt trip. Being green is a status symbol. We don't have the luxury to grown our own food."

Epicurus, a philosopher who lived in 341 BC, who has become synonymous with excess, luxury, indulgence, actually recommended escaping the idea of status with a frugal 'self-sufficiency' life style.

The roots of the word luxury are discussed here. From the 13th to the 17th century luxury was a perjorative term. It changed when monarchical courts became public and everybody aspired to flat plates and salt.

"We all live in a civilisation of kings now. We don't eat in season, we are all fat" said Neil.

Another question:"Who would break the law to achieve their luxury?" A few hands up.

Andy Warhol once said "Nobody can buy a better coca cola" Modern brands can mean either democracy or homogenisation depending on your point of view. I once met a Coca cola executive who explained that the company aims to provide coke at affordable prices in every country of the world.

Then ensues a discussion on how Mexican coke is better for it uses real sugar cane.

Afterwards I ask Michelle why she set this up:

"I missed the sort of conversations you have when you are a student where you exchange ideas not just talk about mundane everyday things.
It's a salon des idées, but also an opportunity to come together and talk about meaningful things"

I say that it's very un-British. One of the things I liked about living in France is their lack of embarrassment in talking about philosophy and politics. British people are funnier, but any sort of intellectualism is frowned upon here.

"It's very un-Australian too" says Michelle "But I believe the time is right for this kind of thing, anything that promotes community spirit, like your underground restaurant"

Free: the talks will take place monthly at 23 Romilly Street in Soho. To attend contact Michelle for these stimulating evenings at www.theconversational.co.uk

Game

2009-06-19T23:17:00.003+01:00

Another day, another TV researcher asking
"Do you think we could pick your brains? Come film? Find out everything you know?"

"Sure. What's the fee?"

"Oh I'm afraid we don't have a budget."

Why the fuck not? They are getting paid aren't they? To send people like me, people who actually know what they are talking about, begging emails.

Or maybe not. One I spoke to today said, when I suggested that he book for the restaurant if he really wanted to know what it's like, said
"Oh I can't afford it"
You work in TV and you haven't got 25 quid to book a place? What's that about?

At least four TV companies are doing a show...all of them variations on the theme 'Home dining'."We get couples to open a restaurant in their living room" the researchers announce gleefully, reinventing the wheel.

'Come dine with me' is a huge success. They want a different but similar concept. Really similar. Nothing too different. It's like a scene from The Player.

Nobody has actually done a show on (newly) established home restaurants. You know why? Because authenticity is not the name of the game here.

"haha I'm not a documentary maker" said the impoverished young 'producer' "I make entertainment. In fact you probably wouldn't be very good for our show. You are too professional. It's all about the journey you see. We want viewers to engage with the journey. You are further along the journey. We want tears, frustration, panic. 24 hours to turn your home into a restaurant. That kind of thing".

The journey? I inwardly groan. Do none of these people have an original thought in their heads?

You want a journey? I'll give you journey. I'm a single mum. A real one. No hidden bloke. No training. No money. This recession? Don't make me laugh. I've spent years without money. I've also spent years making my flat nice by picking up furniture off the street, crockery from flea markets. I learnt to cook because I couldn't afford to go to restaurants. A year ago I took out an extra mortgage to fulfill a long held dream...an Aga. I thought, how old do I have to be before I can have what I want? Just do it.Find the money somehow.

In 2000, the year I moved into this flat, fleeing my Camden studio flat for a larger space in which to bring up my child, I turned on the TV one night. I'd been clearing the jungle-like garden all day. My hands were like claws, dirt ingrained in them.

Exhausted, I numbly flipped channels. On Channel 4 there was this weird programme. A bunch of young people, some in bikinis, sitting about in a house.

One of them was coming out with this story about his wife dying in a car crash or something. He was sweating.

Cut to another scene. The young people go to a little room, in turns, sit on a big chair, talk to the camera. They are unselfconscious, natural. And even when they are unnatural, they are natural. They talk about their problems with the others, about boredom. It's sunny outside.

At first I was tempted to turn over. The pace was slow. It was all a bit dull. But it grew on you. Watching it was a Zen experience. You were watching nothing, minutiae. It was rather soothing. One of the guys had a guitar. One of the girls flirted. One woman, who turned out to be a lesbian nun, came across as thoughtful and intelligent, a rare thing on TV. Another of the boys was Northern, with an impenetrable Newcastle accent.

I found myself watching it every night. I started to feel sorry for the Northern boy. He was 'nominated' to leave every week by the housemates but always kept in when it came to the viewer's vote. He seemed nice but was obviously irritating to live with.

The sweaty guy continued to lie. He got caught. There was a confrontation. He said to the camera in the diary room, memorably "if you live by the sword you die by the sword". It was a bravura display of 'Je ne regrette rien'.

Along with me, the rest of the country had also gradually become interested. In fact, bit by bit, we were all watching these young people. And what was so delicious about it is, they clearly had no idea. At one point helicopters, paid for, I believe, by The Sun newspaper, flew over the house, trying to get a glimpse into what was happening inside. The 'housemates' inside, remarked upon the circulating helicopters, oblivious to the fact that they were the story.

This was great TV. It was never as good afterwards. These contestants were virgins. Every following series included inmates that had had their TV cherry popped, with all the knowing and degrading complicity that goes with that.

I stopped watching.

Last week another series started. We are now post-Jade, the ignorant girl who made a million, ruined her reputation in public and resussitated it by dying.

But they cranked it up again. My daughter turned it on for the opening episode in which the chosen housemates enter the house. Once assembled, Big Brother called a male contestant into the diary room.
"If you want to become a housemate you must find someone who is willing to have their eyebrows shaved off and have glasses and a moustache drawn on them with an indelible pen. You have three minutes."

He ran out of the diary room, breathless, explained. One girl, an attractive black girl, volunteered. He shaved her eyebrows, drew on the funny glasses and moustache. Except it wasn't funny. It was Abu Ghraib. Degradation. Exploitation. Removal of identity. In this era of economic difficulty, when young people are most likely nervous about their future, the dreadful prospect of working very very hard for very very little money in boring jobs, Big Brother was laughing at them for aspiring to be something more. And encouraging us to do the same.

Hahaha. Aren't you ridiculous? We are supposed to think. How desperate are you?

I don't feel that way. I feel cringing embarrassment, shame. These young people, some of them little older than my daughter, exposed and ridiculed. Forever known as 'that Big Brother contestant'.

It's 'They shoot horses don't they?' the book by Horace McCoy in which depression era couples, starving, must dance for days on end, the rules preventing them from proper sleep.

And now every TV programme is like that. Competance, grace, talent is not enough. TV wants "the journey". Ask Susan Boyle.

First day at 'Work Experience'

2009-06-08T22:30:00.013+01:00

My teen was a nervous wreck this weekend. She wanted to 'practice' the journey to the record shop where she will work this week. I'm quite proud of her actually. She got this work experience all by herself. Just went into the shop and asked. Her best mate is doing her work experience with Sir Paul McCartney but then the best mate's mum works for Stella.

Before going, my daughter was worried...

"They are going to expect me to know everything about music. Mum. Tell me everything you know about music."

"Of course they aren't going to expect that. They know you are only 15".

This morning though I gave her a lift.

"You are NOT coming in" she commanded.

"Of course not".

I know the score. She's got to look grown up in front of them.

At the end of the day...

"How was it?"

She looks tired.

"It took me until 3pm to get up the courage to ask if I could go for lunch. I was told I could have an hour. Of course I was back in five minutes. I got a sandwich but my hands were so dirty I couldn't eat it. So I'm starving."

"Why were your hands so dirty?"

"The job they gave me, in the back room, was to sort out a huge pile of Cd's, match the case to the Cd. They'd been laying around for a year. And I really wanted to go to the toilet but I was too nervous to ask if they had one. When I found it, the sink had no soap".

"How were the people?"

"Well I was expecting 'Hi-fidelity'. I got 'Hi-fidelity'.(1) They are all men and they are quite fat. One of them asked me who Ernest Hemingway was. I thought he was joking but said 'he's a writer isn't he?". Turned out he really didn't know. They only know about music."

"Today a customer came in and asked for a record by the Rolling Stones before they were the Rolling Stones. The assistant didn't know what they were called. The manager said he should be sacked. But I think it was a joke." She pauses "He was surprised I like Morrissey."

"What did they expect you to like? S Club 7?" I ask.

Then she sighed "I'm sick of listening to music. Had to listen to it for ten hours".

She continued:"Groups send in their Cd's hoping to get stocked. The manager spends every day listening to these Cd's. He is always screaming. All day. Saying stuff like 'These groups are shit. Why don't they give up?'. He chucks their Cd's in the bin after half a song. Then I hear him phone the group and say "I'm afraid your work isn't right for us'."

More..."but one group I liked, so he gave me the Cd and said he would stock them. That was the best bit of the day."

She thinks again "I bet my friend doesn't have to do this for Sir Paul McCartney".

(1) The book by Nick Hornby revolving around men working in a record shop.

tongue piercing

2009-05-27T08:21:00.004+01:00

I haven't been spending much time with my daughter recently. I've been busy. One night, when I was going out, I'd been out several nights that week already, she said to me:

"I feel like I live alone".

Last night, I catered a gig. It was work. Badly paid. But work. I got home at midnight and, as usual, went into my daughter's bedroom. I saw her sleeping form, the soft pale skin, her little head of tumbled blonde hair, the slender hands ...I kissed her, breathing in her still child-like smell. I love her I thought. This is all that counts. I must spend more time with her. And more importantly, be present when I'm with her. Because even when I'm home, I'm not. My mind is elsewhere or I'm on the computer. Or I'm worrying. Or thinking. Or planning.

She asks me questions nowadays, interesting questions...

"Explain proportional representation."

We go through it. At first sight it looks like a good idea.

"Der" she announces, in her teenage way "of course it's better. Der. Why don't we just do it?"

And then I explain further. That with PR you also get the BNP...and the Greens and lots of little parties. They then have to form coalitions to be able to wield any power. So you end up with a big messy compromising party anyway.

Then, switching subjects rapidly she asks:

"Can I have my tongue pierced?"

I look at her. I feel stupidly anxious. I don't want her to have her tongue pierced. I want her to have brown long hair again, untouched by hair dye. I want to see her in her ballet outfit again. I want her to curl up in my arms at night. I want her to think I am the bestest most important fantastic loveable human being in the world again. Like she used to. I want to be called 'mummy' rather than 'muuuuum' or when she's annoyed, 'mother'.

I say lightly, a little cruelly: "If you let your hair go back to it's natural colour, you can have your tongue pierced."

It was a joke. I then attempt a weak excuse like:

"Isn't it dangerous? Can't you get an infection?"

And even more weakly, grasping at straws...

"What if you get in a fight? They could, like, rip your tongue out".

She laughs:

"You said that about my pierced ears mum. And I've never been in a fight".

This morning she was leaving for school.

"Right Saturday afternoon my mate and I are dying my hair brown."

I'm still only half awake.

"Is it a good idea to keep dying it?" I ask gently "it will end up frizzy".

"Well I'm doing what you said."

I look non-plussed.

"I'm dying my hair brown so I can have my tongue pierced".

I gasp. "What? That was a joke".

Her expression changes. She mutters something. It sounds like 'bitch'.

"What did you say?"

I'm thinking I've got to put a stop to this. The disrespectful way she talks to me.

She explodes:

"You are TOTALLY evil. Oh my god you are a LIAR. You said I could have my tongue pierced. LIAR"

"It was a joke. You knew it was a joke!"

She slams out of the front door, cursing, upset. She's got GSCE tests today. I'm worried. I don't want her to be upset. I'm also thinking, why do I want to control her appearance? You are only young once. Let her experiment.

Brown bottom

2009-05-07T09:30:00.004+01:00

In 1999, just as the solar eclipse was about to hit Britain, the first eclipse visible in this country for years, Gordon Brown, two years into being Chancellor of the Exchequer of the New Labour administration, decided to flog Britain's gold reserves. The announcement was made on 7/5/99.

Nobody in the treasury could understand it. World leaders advised him not to do it. Still he pressed on.

This Times article, written in 2007, describes the efforts the journalist has made to have the details of this decision made public, with no result.

Brown sold the gold at public auctions, driving down the price of gold. Perhaps he wanted to buy euros. Some rumours say that he was bailing out friends at Goldman Sachs.

Astrologer Maggie Hyde, talking at The Company of Astrologers, puts up Gordon Brown's chart on the overhead projector. We also look at the chart of the Bank of England.

Gordon Brown, I think it is now evident, is not leadership material. His chart backs this up. Nor, it emerges more and more plainly, was he Chancellor of the Exchequer material. His chart has no Earth in it. Earth is the element that rules material, earthly goods, such as money. Brown has most of his planets, a stellium, in the 12th house, the house of confinement, hospitals, prisons, spirituality and self-undoing. Brown's view of himself as a leader comes from his Moon in Leo. I am the king! His many years in waiting must have been very hurtful. His failure to cope with the leadership position must be even more so. Be careful of what you wish for...

Tony Blair actually would have made a better chancellor being a Taurus, the sign most associated with money. Coincidentally most of the major stock markets in the world were set up while the Sun was in Taurus.

The Bank of England chart is interesting. There are contacts between it, Gordon Brown's chart and the 1066 UK chart.

In one sense it's an ideal chart. Fit for purpose. On the other hand this institution is based on fiction and fantasy. It's worth remembering that usury is a sin in the bible and remains so in Islam.

Transits coming up to hit sensitive points in the Bank of England chart will bust this illusion wide open. Times they are a changin'

Our Madeleine

2009-05-03T22:00:00.014+01:00

“We want a big event to raise awareness that she is still missing (...) It wouldn’t be a one-year anniversary, it will be sooner than that” (Gerry McCann on June 3, 2007, one month after Madeleine's disappearance.)

It is two years since Madeleine McCann went missing. From the very first interview with her parents, something struck me as peculiar about the official story. Generally I avoid news stories of missing and abused children. It's too painful. I don't want to know.

This time however, my antennae went up. Kate McCann did not act...sincerely... Some of her early comments regarding her 'missing' daughter were inappropriate "Whoever's got her, Madeleine will be giving them a piece of her mind". Asked to talk to Madeleine, after all, if abducted, she and the kidnapper could be watching TV, Kate looked down and said "she knows we love her". Not the behaviour of a mother seeking her child, more like the behaviour of a grieving frightened mother.

I have lots of theories about why the press have not properly reported on this 'abduction', why the McCanns have been treated with kid gloves. Several female TV presenters supported the McCanns. I believe this is down to working mother guilt; they saw themselves in Kate McCann, a professional woman who found it hard to cope with the loss of status entailed with becoming a stay-at-home mother. They wouldn't want to criticize another middle-class mother who relies heavily on nannies and paid help to bring up children. These exhausted mothers may also have had occasion to play fast and loose with the rules of wise parenting in the interests of having a break. It is little known but the McCanns left their children alone not just that fateful night, but every single night of their holiday. This is unheard of.

Two years ago I travelled around Mexico and Guatemala with my then 13 year old daughter. One night she had fallen asleep in the hotel room. I was hungry, I wanted to go out to find something to eat. But I didn't. There is no way that I would leave my 13 year old daughter alone in a hotel room in a foreign country. Some may call that over-protective.

I made mistakes when I was bringing up my daughter. I was alone. Unlike Kate McCann, I did not have a husband, several friends, the money to pay for creches when I went on holiday with my child. Once I fell asleep on a beach while my child, only three, played on the edge of the sea. She was wearing one of those swimming costumes stuffed with polystyrene, so she wouldn't have drowned. But I still feel guilty about that lapse to this day.

Bringing up children is a series of near-misses. Most of us get lucky.

I don't hate the McCanns. I feel sorry for them. I believe there was some kind of accident which they couldn't admit to, especially being abroad. I do wish they would put everybody out of their misery, themselves even, and especially the Portuguese, by telling the truth.

There are rumours of political pressure applied by Gordon Brown on the Portuguese government to drop the investigation into what happened to Madeleine McCann. Another black mark for Gordon.

Goncalo Amaral was the detective in charge of the case. He believes that Madeleine McCann died in the flat on the 3rd of May and her body was hidden. He was pulled off the case after he made the McCanns into 'arguidos', a Portuguese legal term which implies that they are not exactly suspects but hold sensitive information regarding the case. Here is the film he has made: he may be wrong, but it is certainly of interest:

A clearer case of child neglect, this time from the 'underclass', and this time gloves off from the press...The killer of baby P, it turns out, has also raped a two year old girl, most likely baby P's sister. Appalling though this is, I yearn to read a more nuanced report on the truth of this situation. Why did the mother, from some accounts a perfectly loving mother before she met her boyfriend, the killer, put up with his abuse of her children? What's the background of the killer? Was he abused as a child? Or is he just evil?

I came across a website in the last few days which talked about Baby P's mother in the most abusive terms. I've seen Facebook groups that want to form a lynch mob to kill Baby P's mother and the social workers. Do they think this is helpful?

I know social workers who will not work with children because of the pressure and the flak they will receive if they make a mistake. Social workers do not get enough funding. They are handling too many cases. Some of them are ham-strung by political correctness it seems. But whatever they do, they get criticized. In the Cleveland scandal of a few years back, social workers and hospital doctors were hounded for putting children into care, as suspected victims of sexual abuse. The young inexperienced social worker, Lisa Arthurworrey, from the Anna/Victoria Climbie case has been suicidal and house-bound for years since her mistake was exposed.

Now social workers are scorned for not removing children from families soon enough.

We feel frustrated and upset when we hear that young children are tortured and abused. We want to take it out on someone.

Bad things will always happen. Ultimately, if someone is determined to commit a crime, there's not much anybody can do about it.

Sohemians:Old Gay Soho

2009-04-17T01:55:00.003+01:00

The Sohemian Society in its own words "exists to promote greater awareness of the characters and events associated with the history of Soho covering areas such as the arts, crime, sex, and politics.
A space free of kill-joy and culture-death pre-occupations such as anti-smoking campaigns, obsessive risk avoidance, concerns about diet, pubs with sofas and fear of 'offensive' statements."
The Sohemians regularly hold talks in the top room of the Wheatsheaf pub in Fitzrovia, or North Soho. Dylan Thomas and George Orwell used to hang out here in the 30s. In fact the Fitzrovia area was stuffed with bohemian types such as Aleister Crowley and Quentin Crisp.

Last night David Thompson gave a talk entitled 'Old gay Soho', one of the best delivered and most interesting talks I have ever attended.
The area in the 17th century: Oxford St. then known as Oxford Road was open land, full of highwaymen. Covent Garden, its arcaded piazza influenced by Roman architecture, perfect for cruising, was a well known red light district, full of brothels and mollyhouses.
Soho as a name was first used in the 17th century. It became a centre for Huguenots, French protestants. But it was never as rich as the surrounding areas. Soho was a destination for poor working class men from the East End going up for 'trade' and transvestitism. Straight prostitutes lived next to gay men, a strange coalition. Some of the famous streets are named after grand families: the Wardour family, the Frith family, the Comptons, all of whom were landowners of the area.
Michel Foucault in his 'History of Sexuality' noted that up until the 19th century people weren't defined by their sexuality. They weren't called homosexual, a term invented in the 19th century. Rather, you'd say he's a man who likes sex with other men. In semiotics and semantics words become things, concepts become a labels: common terms of the era included 'buggeranti', 'catamites', pederasts (still used today in the French 'pedé' for homosexual).
Thompson talked about how homosexuality was often blamed on foreign influences...in the 18th century gay men, dandified men, were called 'macaronis' part of The Macaroni Club (in Italian 'macaron' is slang for 'buffoon', in Spanish 'maricon' means 'queer'). Sodomy was seen as a crime imported from Italy.
In France, interestingly, homosexuality is known as 'the English disease'. Prime Minister Edith Cresson controversially suggested that English men were all homosexual for they barely looked at her when she visited.
Horace Walpole, the writer and art historian, wrote about the goings on of young men on the grand tour 'which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses'
There was a general fear of sensitivity, a quality regarded as feminine and Italian. The 'Penny dreadfuls', the tabloids of the day, said all homosexuality was all down to immigrants,
In 1772 Captain Jones was convicted of sodomy, penalty death, but he received a royal pardon. It's unproven but David Garrick, the theatre impressario, was having an affair with the dramatist Isaac Bickerstaff a 'powdered fop'.
Mrs Connelly from Vienna was a courtesan who rented Carlisle house, the scene of much cruising and bawdy behaviour. Entrance was a shilling and it was classless in that duchesses would be squashed next to paupers.
D'Eon de Beaumont, the chevalier d'Eon was a transsexual who at the same time achieved political importance; he/she was a spy for Louis XV, sent to Russia as an envoy to the Empress Elisabeth. When he/she arrived in London, there was a French edict that he must be addressed as 'Madame'. De Beaumont concocted a fanciful story that he was born as a girl but disguised as a boy by his parents in order to inherit some money, but on his death in 1810 doctors confirmed that his genital organs were masculine, at least on the outside.
Today the transsexual society of Britain is named the Beaumont Society.
Another man that managed to evade some of the predujice against homosexuals was William Beckford, one of the richest men in England. Stridently gay, he was extremely learned and cultured. He wrote a gothic novel 'Vathek' a thinly disguised autobiography.
It cannot be underestimated the danger of being homosexual. In 1533 Henry VIII introduced a sodomy law punishable by death. But proof was not easy: evidence was needed that the man had ejaculated into another man.
Beckford built Fonthill Abbey where it was rumoured that orgies took place. Few people got in, but Nelson and Lady Hamilton spent three days there (the 'Posh and Becks' of the day quipped David Thompson).
Richard Payne Knight who started the Society of Dilettantes, and wrote a book about ancient phallic cults 'The Worship of Priapus', had a house in Soho square. Ironically, his house is now the British Board of Censors.
In the Victorian period there were two characters: Frederick 'Fanny' Park and Ernest 'Stella' Boulton who used to cruise the Burlington Arcade and the Alhambra music hall dressed as women. 'Stella' even married Lord Arthur Pelham-Clinton MP (son of Lord Newcastle) and was known as Lady Clinton. These 'ladies' were arrested at the theatre. Full and amusing details of their trial are here. Their defence was that they were dressing as women for a laugh, but the report dryly notes: "if they were merely acting in this way for "a lark", it must be said that the lark was one of a very long duration".
Simeon Solomon was one of the greatest pre-raphaelite painters. One of his private works is entitled 'The bridegroom and sad love' which tells you everything you might need to know about a homosexual man being forced to marry. In 1873 he was arrested with a stable hand in a urinal off Oxford St. Simeon left, like Wilde, for Paris. He was arrested again in a Paris urinal. Returning to Britain, he spent 20 years in the St. Giles workhouse and died a penniless drug addict and alcoholic in 1903.
Probably the most famous homosexual of the era was Oscar Wilde. When he met Bosey, the young man that led to his downfall, who was in his 20s, Wilde was in his 40s. The Portrait of Dorian Grey had been published, and the gay sub-plot was the subject of debate. In 1895 Wilde dined with Bosey at Kettners in Soho, a private dining room. He was convicted after two trials, but sodomy was commuted to gross indecency.
Wilde was not an aristocrat and therefore did not have the protection of some of the other well known homosexuals. For instance in 1889, the police busted a male brothel in Cleveland St. and arrested the Prince of Wales. Charges were dropped.
The Criterion bar in Piccadilly by the evening was exclusively male. One can guess what went on...
The Victorian era also saw female to male drag artists such as Vesta Tilley whose most famous song was 'Burlington Bertie from Bow', a song which talks about the East End boy coming to cruise the West End.
Radclyffe Hall lived an open lesbian life, dressed in male attire. She called herself a 'congenital invert', a term coined by sexologist Havelock Ellis. Hall wrote the lesbian classic novel 'The Well of Loneliness'. Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West who were in a lesbian relationship disliked her. It has been suggested that this was because they lived behind the facade of marriage and objected to her upfront lesbianism. The Well of Loneliness was banned in England but sold very well at Calais. By the time of her death in 1957 Radclyffe Hall had sold nine million copies.
Hannah Gluckstein, the Lyons Corner House heiress, was a successful painter, living at Studio House in Hampstead. Lyons Corner House, now Planet Hollywood in Leicester square, was a gay cruising joint on Sunday afternoons, where 'nippies' the black and white attired waitresses would put gay men in adjacent tables.
Quentin Crisp was, in the 1930s, a Soho rent boy hanging out at the Black Cat café.
David Thompson actually got the opportunity to draw Quentin Crisp, who often worked as a life model, while he was at art college in 1973. It was still unusual in those days to have a male nude model. Thompson was taken aback by the sight of this nude man in his 70s with a violet bouffant hairdo wearing a monocle and carrying a copy of The Times.
The Caravan club in the 1930s attracted a huge gay clientele. Within six weeks it had 445 members, over 2000 visitors. It was raided by the police. Other clubs included the 'Careless Stalk' 'The Sphinx' 'The A&B', run by Jeffrey, who acted as a matchmaker and wore a bizarre selection of hats.
'Fag Hags' and lesbians: Talullah Bankhead was a member of the Gargoyle Club. Muriel Belcher ran the The Colony rooms. Elsa Lanchester was Charles Laughton's 'beard', that is a wife married to a gay man. Francis Bacon was kept on a retainer by Belcher at the Colony Rooms to attract drinkers. He was surrounded by young boys.
The word 'bohemian' was a euphemism for gay.
In the 1950s Kenneth Williams of Carry On fame used 'polari' the gay slang in mainstream comedy...it was very risqué.
In 1976 the Astoria opened the first gay disco 'Bang'.
Today Soho is still a refuge for gay men. It's a place where they can walk down the street hand-in-hand with no fear of reprisals.
The pub 'Admiral Duncan' is about to have the 10th anniversary of the bombing which killed three people, ironically none of whom were gay. There will be two minutes silence at 18.37 on the 30th of April at St. Anne's churchyard.
Thompson finished on a sad note. The serial killer Dennis Nilsen picked up young homeless homosexual men at The Golden Lion, Dean St., Soho. These vulnerable men, often runaways, must have felt they were coming to a place of safety, an area which accepted them, but met a horrible fate at Nilsen's hand.
Talks and walks around Soho are given by David Thompson every Sunday at 2pm meeting outside the Admiral Duncan pub on Old Compton st. Highly recommended.

Less than zero

2009-04-05T14:03:00.004+01:00

My teen delights in provoking her teachers with her unconventional views. On Thursday one of her teachers asked if she had been at the G20 protests. My teen couldn't come, partly because we had the French exchange student staying. Not sure what this student thought when I texted:

"Probably won't be home in time to make dinner, held in kettle by police, might be arrested".

Shockingly some of her classmates, many of whom are incredibly straight and have views straight out of the Daily Telegraph... straight out of their parents mouths...were against any protest. We call them 'Abercrombies' because they all wear the same Abercrombie & Fitch clothes. One said that

"protesting should be banned!"

How very democratic. My teen went mad.

My daughter tells me that she manages to slip anti-capitalism into almost every subject, even biology.

"Biology?" I exclaim "how did you do that?"

"There was this test question on the necessary elements for plants to grow. I answered it correctly, sunlight, water, etc but then I put 'This is not scientifically proven but another component helping plants to grow is love'. The teacher gave me zero even though I had everything right."

"Zero!"

"I told him I thought it was unfair. He said that it irritated him so he gave me zero".

April Fools

2009-04-02T07:53:00.014+01:00

No comment neccessary.

Vics telling 'em how it is.

The street kitchen.

Trying to reason with the riot cops. Things kicking off.

A sea of tents.

The entrance to the Climate Camp

Tentage decorated with slogans. Bicycle powered sound systems.

Workers above, looking down. 'Why do we have to pay' sign in front of line of riot cops.

Climbing on buildings.

Trying to reason with the riot police.

This kid was hit by truncheons, has bloody face.

Good vibes at the Climate Camp early on.

Grime artist 'Riddum'.

Wheelchair protestors were everywhere.

Yesterday I went down late to the G20 protests, missing the action at the Royal Bank of Scotland, to the Climate Camp pitched on Bishopsgate street near Liverpool Street Station. I've done one of these before a few years ago, when we all pitched tents in Trafalgar Square, to protest against the Iraq invasion. I remember it being very cold and noisy with local drunks constantly harassing us.

Coming out of Liverpool St. station I noticed several very clean-cut looking men with suspiciously casual clothes. Bankers were advised to dress down for the day in case they got set upon by protestors. At the same time protestors were told to 'dress like a banker for a day'. All very Saturnalia, the Roman festival where the masters dressed as slaves and served them for a day.

Climate Camp had taken over a whole block, with maybe a hundred pop-up tents, each spray-painted with slogans. There was a kitchen, baked potatoes with baked beans for a suggested donation of £1.50p, and a compost toilet.

My friend Chris Knight, University of East London professor and Radical Anthropologists guru (see link in sidebar) had already left, hoping to galvanise people to descend upon the university campus to protest his suspension. He'd made a few inflammatory remarks on radio "hanging bankers from lamposts". I'm amazed that they suspended him. He's been fermenting revolution in his classes for years. It's not exactly news. An alternative summit was supposed to happen at UEL but the university was shut down for two days. I'm also surprised that Barking Bateria, the UEL samba band has not protested more strongly at this.

Chris' colleague Steve, just back from studying chimps in the Congo, was at Climate Camp.

"What's going to happen about Chris?" I asked.

"I think the university will quietly drop the whole thing once this protest is over. Chris is a chapel leader. They won't want the hassle. But it must be said that anthropology (Chris' dept) has only nine students this year. There used to be a hundred. It's become too expensive to study any 'non-essential' subjects now. All the students want to study business."(1)

I found the samba band, RoR, decked in their usual colours of pink and silver. Ms Canal Explorer had been outside the Royal Bank of Scotland when it was smashed and admitted that the samba band was in some way a catalyst for the protestors at that point. Ms CE and myself are both Space Hijackers (myself less frequently). They'd all been arrested outside News International with their tank 'disguised' as a riot squad van. (Facebook group: Free the SPA)

They are now bailed away from the Westminster/City/Newham area for a week as they refused to take a caution.

The camp was peaceful with a party atmosphere. Student types were sitting around drinking beer. Some workers were looking down from the tall buildings surrounding us. (There were reports of bankers waving tenners at protestors). A bicycle powered sound system was cranked up. Rythms of Resistance were backing a 'grime' vocalist called riddum when the call went out to strengthen the southern perimeter of the camp. Riot police vans were parked all down the side of the camp and they had been picking off protestors (probably ones they recognised from the earlier fracas at RBS) and arresting them. We stopped playing and moved down the other end. I could see hundreds of protestors with their hands up chanting

'shame on you, shame on you'.

A young man had blood down his face.

"What happened?"

"I was just standing there when a policeman started hitting me with his baton".

Film by Rikki Blue, friend of mine. Don't believe the mainstream press.

Suddenly a row of riot police were closing in all around the camp. Somebody texted that fires were being started around the City, that sporadic rioting was occurring elsewhere. Protestors were standing eye to eye with the riot police, hands up in a peaceful gesture, asking for explanations of their behaviour. The samba band started to play again. This strengthened the mood. I've said it before but I'll repeat it. The drumming is a powerful weapon. The samba band is key to controlling the crowd. We can push it forward, rile it up, calm it down. (I'm not always sure that the samba band are aware of their own power, that at times the fact that they keep playing can prolong a situation such as outside the Israeli embassy (link to story) which would have fizzled out naturally.)

Excellent video reportage by SuperSan, a member of Barking and RoR.

I twittered everything best as I could. There was another twitterer@climatecamp, but whose tweets seemed to be all about how happy/organised the camp was.

One guy started fitting on the ground. Later a man was reported to have died, stopped breathing in a police van. I wondered if it was the same guy. In a Guardian report police claimed that protestors prevented medics from helping him. There is no way this could be true. Who do people think protestors are? One twitterer whose husband works in the city was worried that he might get beaten up. Protestors are generally incredibly idealistic and peace-loving. Who else would spend hours of free time trying to make a statement, most likely with no result?

Around 9pm I went to the North perimeter to try to get out. A line of riot police were resolute. Nobody was leaving. Which is odd because the police were happy to let people walk into the Climate Camp in the first place. I talked to a Scottish policeman who explained that it was kicking off elsewhere. So we were 'kettled' in a Section 41 because the police were afraid the protestors here would link up with other protests. Eventually I sweet talked him into letting me out. Ms CE tried to get out a little later by saying she had her period. It didn't work. As I walked towards the tube I saw tattered news stand posters moving in the breeze "Obama's big day ruined by violence". I spoke to the news stand guy.

"It's pointless all this. The MP's can claim 40 grand expenses for second homes. The government can do what they want. We can't. Nothing is going to change".

And there we have it. Frustration and impotence. Anger and disgust. One set of rules for them, another for us.

(1) I have since heard that Chris Knight did go to UEL, with Tony Benn MP and continue the alternative summit.

NB: As we all know, the MP's expenses story blew up in their faces in May '09. This is a seismic change. I get the feeling that the British, for once, feel revolutionary. It won't take much more to spark them off.

Also Chris Knight is now fighting to keep his job at the University of East London.

Exchange student

2009-04-01T08:19:00.006+01:00

It's not going too well. She thinks we are weird. My teen saw on an entry on facebook that she wondered why there were so many tables and chairs in the living room.

The girl doesn't say anything, skulks in her bedroom. I have to force her out.

My teen took her shopping to Topshop on Saturday. She sat looking miserable.

"It's too expensive" she eventually pouted

"So let's go to Primark" says my teen helpfully. But she didn't want to go.

There was a party in Harlesden Saturday night. I was worried. Harlesden is murder mile. Another mum dropped them off and picked them up. I was doing the Underground Restaurant so this was really helpful. Although my teen was annoyed that they were picked up at a quarter to midnight.

"The party went on till two am" she complained "only losers leave before midnight".

Personally I think that midnight is fine for just 15. At the party the French exchange student sat in a corner the whole time.

My friend 'Kurt Cubain' came over Sunday. Blonde, dreadlocked, he's just back from six months in India. He was lighting up joints and strumming the guitar. God knows what the French exchange student thought. When he left I tried to bring her out of herself.

"He's just back from India!" I announced cheerily

She nods.

"Would you like to travel?"

More nodding.

"Are you going to stay in Epinal?"

She shakes her head vigorously. A bit of animation there.

"Where would you like to go? "

A word, muffled "London?"

"Would you like to go to India?"

Enthusiastic nodding. That's the longest conversation I have managed with her.

(I think her mind is a little blown by us, London, the UK. It certainly has not been comfortable. But possibly she'll go home with her horizons broadened. This is real education, which is not always comfortable.)

Our lot are exchanging with the year above from Epinal. Have to. The Epinal kids are so unsophisticated.

We must speak English to her. But it's hard to estimate how much she understands. Because she won't ask.

The school seem to have a policy of mismatching the kids. Therefore the 'year slut' from the French school was paired with the 'year geek' from the Lycée. This was such a disaster in France that the 'year slut' refused to stay with him on the London leg, and went to stay with our 'year slut'.

The French 'year slut' brought over £350 and spent every penny. At least she has a lust for life.

I guess my teen is the year outcast and they've matched her with the French year 'straight'.

The Frontline Club

2009-03-31T10:28:00.004+01:00

Last night my friend Marcus Berkmann, the Spectator columnist and quiz master from the Prince of Wales Highgate pub quiz (the toughest one in London), held a quiz at The Frontline Club in Paddington. I've been wanting to go to this journalist's private club for a while, for they have interesting events, talks and film showings.

Opposite St. Mary's hospital, the club is upstairs from the restaurant. Entering a room with tall windows and red leather sofas, Marcus found a place for me on a team led by Jonathan Foreman, a literary PR. Jonathan immediately demanded £20. Taken aback, I asked why.

"for a bottle of wine" he replied jauntily

"but I will only drink a glass. I'm driving." I managed to respond, feeling wrong-footed. I'm old fashioned enough to expect to be bought a drink by a gentleman.

That was the right response.

He back-tracked "oh I suppose you can buy a glass then."

A glass of Chardonnay was £4 and very nice too.

I sat down with the team. Foreman demanded £5 for the quiz. Suspicious of him now I said "but I am Marcus' guest".

"Doesn't matter" he insisted and pocketed the fiver.

The rest of the team 'The foremen' ( I quipped that we should be called 'The foreskin' but they didn't go for it. Maybe I'm a little rough for this club) consisted of a woman and 3 men. The woman, Helen Castor, was pretty and smart. She is writing a book on medieval queen's tentatively entitled 'She-wolves' which will include Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lady Jane Grey and Mary Tudor. Elizabeth 1st is technically an 'early Modern' era Queen and will not be in the book. I hope she finishes soon, this is exactly the sort of book that I love. I mentioned the historic British tolerance of female leadership and the 'salic law' in France, which did not allow a female to become Queen in her own right.

"Oh they just made that up, the French. They had a choice between a 4 year old girl, direct line to the throne, and an older man who was already running the country and they just made up this law, pretending it had been around forever" said Helen.

The men in the team were Jonathan and two of his stable of writers whose names I have unfortunately forgotten. They were older and one of them, very charming, looked just like Australian cultural attaché Sir Les Patterson.

Writing a quiz is an art.

"A good quiz" says Marcus "is when anybody feels they have a shot at answering the questions. At the Prince of Wales I aim for the lowest score to be about 40% and the highest 80%"

"Do you change the quiz depending on the audience?"

"Yes. I knew the teams here would be well-travelled and well read. The range of scores here is between 50% and 85%"

Our team won by one point. It was hard for me to be taken seriously at first by the rest of the team. They didn't know me, plus I look younger than my age, which can sometimes be a disadvantage. Older men assume I'm a young flippertygibbet! Helen was shit hot, particularly at the 'books of films and their authors' round. Sir Les Patterson also managed to pull a few great answers out of the bag. I excelled at the French 'text speak' round, a lucky one for me, as I have spent so many years in France. The perfect quiz team, one that can answer general knowledge, is gender balanced with a wide age range. You could say it's a practical exercise in democracy.

Our prize was a book on the Middle East and a drink each. I ordered a Baileys. When I went to collect it from our table it had been drunk. The team told me that Jonathan had handed it around to others. I asked him and he denied it.

Marcus bought me a replacement.

Bellaphon

2009-03-26T16:04:00.005Z

The food blogger Bellaphon has a secret life. Despite going to Oxford university he, like Nick Hornby's protagonist in 'Hi Fidelity', has always wanted to be a shopkeeper, specifically of a hi-fi shop. Walrus is round the back of Marble Arch.

Upstairs you see cluttered and dusty 'record players'. (I got told off for calling them that. It's 'turntable' or 'hi-fi' stupid!). One of them looked just like the red leatherette mono record player I got from Woolworths on my 16th birthday. I think it cost about £7, all the money I'd saved up from my National Savings certificates. I was so proud. Drove my mum mad playing the same record over and over again. I'd get in from school, light a joss stick and play 'heroin' by Lou Reed on repeat. I'd close the curtains and feel vaguely dangerous.

Downstairs at Walrus is an adult version of that atmosphere. A sofa at one side, for lounging. Stacks of vinyl.

Studded around the room, spotlit, monolithic, are 'turntables'. Each one is about 6 inches thick. You can't pick them up. They weigh 40 kilos. Bellaphon put on a classical record. I could have sworn the orchestra was actually in the room with me. Each turntable is driven by a belt, not a motor.

"Why?" I asked.

"So that there is no wobble, no tremor"

A typical turntable costs £15,000. Yeah, just that bit. Annie Lennox and Jimmy Page are customers. Although musicians are not good customers says Bellaphon, they have strange tastes, funny ears. Best are gay men and Australians.

Soul food

2009-03-26T09:48:00.010Z

The Moot with No Name, Devereux pub, Strand. Subject: Sin-eaters by Shani Oates.

Intrigued by this subject I took a friend, saying the people at the Moot with No Name are some of the most interesting and knowledgeable people I have met in London.

Unfortunately Shani read her 'talk' from a large wad of papers using complex and academic language. It was hard to follow. You could see the packed room's attention wandering.

I only started to make head or tail of it when we were allowed to ask questions. Steve Wilson, the MC of these talks, announced that Shani was the first person from the Robert Cochrane tradition to speak at the moots. Steve Wilson ominously requested that people not ask about 'lineage'. The room, full of the usual assortment of tricoteuses, witches, Shakespearean speaking frog-like creatures, long haired tailors, beady-eyed astrologers and other marginals, grumbled in response.

Robert Cochrane, originally from a strict Methodist background, claimed to come from a line of hereditary witches. He practised from his council home in London and elsewhere. There seems to have been some inter-coven rivalry with Gerald Gardner another hereditary witch (who spent much of his life studying local traditions in Malaysia) before returning to England to work eventually with Aleister Crowley. He started an affair with one of his coven, in front of his wife Jean, and grew fond of 'witches potions' (psychedelic drugs to you and me). He eventually committed ritual suicide, drinking belladonna, at the summer solstice of 1966.

The celebrated witch Doreen Valiente(1) one of his followers, became disenchanted saying

"cease to have silly bickering between covens, because they happen to do things differently from the way we do them. This incidentally is the reason why I eventually parted from Robert Cochrane, because he wanted to declare a sort of Holy War against the followers of Gerald Gardner, in the name of traditional witchcraft."

One of the main problems for Gardner, and is no doubt still an issue, is that the OTO was gender imbalanced, 80% to 20% women. The women were frequently reluctant to participate in the 'Great Rite' (sexual intercourse) on the altar. Spoilsports!

So with a little post-lecture research I have managed to make some sense of the talk.

Shani talked about the relevance of Sin-eaters to 'the craft', how sin is ritually dealt with via confession, expiation and purification.

"Sin" states Shani "has long been recognised as undesirable. No one can be responsible for the sins of somebody else but this is exactly what Sin-eaters do".

Traditionally each village would have a Sin-eater, often beggars, who, by eating food and drink placed on or over the body of a corpse, would consume/remove the sins of the corpse. They, along with other professions such as tanners, were pariahs, untouchables kept on the outskirts of society.

Adam Dilwyn Vaughan was the last known Sin-eater, living in Hereford in the 1960s. Richard Munsloe, a Sin-eater in Shropshire, enjoyed as his payment warm cake and spiced ale.

Soul-caking(2), funeral biscuits in Shropshire, corpse-cakes in the Balkans, the Dutch dead-cakes, burial cakes (still made in Lincolnshire and Cumberland) all derive from Sin-eating. Similarly in Cornish custom, children were encouraged to kiss the corpse. In the Andes, we see Tlazolteotl, a purification goddess,"eat the filth" of a corpse.

Salt and smoke would be used in the ritual, denoting healing and absolution. Fire and candles feature heavily in funerals, and the word derives from the Latin 'funeralis' meaning torch. It is taboo to light anything from a corpse candle. All attendees must carry salt in their pockets.

Salt represents many things:

a symbol of Man's labour
incorruptibility (it is extracted intact from nature)
sterility (makes all living nature barren)
friendship and wisdom. To eat another man's salt is to make a bond. To eat the salt of your King is to owe him fidelity.

Salt is used in all the higher magical orders. But it is rumoured that some witches reject salt.

Other techniques used include 'dry retching' into a cleared ground, to suck out energetic debris from places of congestion in the body, to get it out of the system. 'Corpse silver' is given over the body, silver being a powerful conductor. The face of the Sin-eater is covered in black ash.

At the end of the talk Shani rejected the idea that eating sins had any deleterious effect on the Sin-eaters health.

"What is sin for you?" asked someone

"Sin is not following your purpose" replied Shani "Crowley said sin equals restriction".

(1)Doreen Valiente also believed that the future of paganism and the craft in "the age of Aquarius, lies in feminism and Green issues associated with the environment" (quote from http://www.controverscial.com/). It seems to me that Stawhawk et al, with their activities at the anti-G8 camp, are pursuing Valiente's legacy.

(2)"Soul-cakers would go to each house, singing either a begging song or a plea for prayers for the dead. They would put on a mummers play for the residents of the house, which would consist of a challenge, a battle, a death, and a magical revival. Specially-made cakes were given to the Soul-cakers at the conclusion of their performance. Soul-caking is still the custom at Antrobus, in Cheshire, but there has been a change or two. Instead of going house-to-house, the Soul-cakers go pub-to-pub, by car! Leaving cakes and wine out for visiting ancestors is also an old custom that has carried over into many British households, even today." From Cyberwitch.com

15

2009-03-24T20:46:00.009Z

Some girls at my daughter's school are having sex before they have even started their periods.

Another girl, just 15, has been sleeping with a 28 year old illegal immigrant. When she was 13 years old, she had an abortion. Her mother, middle-class, well-off, is fine with it.

One girl never uses contraception, relying purely on the 'morning after' pill.

"These girls are trying to be adult. But they don't act like adults" I say to my teen.

She tells me that many pupils go through the school day high on coke or 'e'.

I'm restrictive. Over-protective. I ask to speak to the parents if she is going to a party. I want to know where she is, where she is going. Some of her friends can go out whenever they want.

"This girl C. can just go out at midnight. Her parents say yeah, no problem, do you want cab fare? Everybody lies to their parents" my teen says.

But she came home tonight complaining that she was being hassled by men on the street.

"Twice this evening, on the way home from school. I told one to fuck off"

I look at her. "I know I know" says my daughter.

When I was her age, I got pestered all the time by men in the street. Once I told one who wouldn't leave me alone "hey baby baby baby" to fuck off and he punched me in the face. Hard.

"Careful" I say "these men are not nice. One minute they want you they next they are hitting you. Nice men don't pester young girls in the street."

Manifesto for a New Great Britain

2009-03-23T07:24:00.008Z

1. Stop all production of new cars unless they use alternative energy.Then we will look like Cuba in 20 years time, with lovely old cars everywhere.
2. Pull out of Iraq, Aghanistan and every other theatre of war. Keep our army for peace keeping duties only.
3. Retain the Queen as head of state. But she will be leader of the new Anarchist Britain. (I like to mix the old and the new. Vintage and modern). Once a week the Queen will have a meeting with the people via a lottery system.
4. Make all public transport free immediately. Start collective taxis 'collectivos'.
5. Ban all private and religious schools. Make university free again.
6. If people want to home educate, give them a subsidy, the amount it would cost the state to send them to school (about 4k a child). However they will not be allowed to indoctrinate their kids with extreme religion. Make sure they do a certain amount of sport/art/music.
7. Encourage the repair of old things. Give tax breaks to manufacturers who make products that can be fixed and maintained at a reasonable price. At the moment it is often cheaper to throw away a product and buy a new one.
8. Invest in alternative energy for every home/government/office building. Give subsidies and training for people to build wells in their gardens, keep chickens, grow their own vegetables.
9. Pay one parent in every family to stay home and look after their children. Do not fetishize the world of work. Encourage integration between family life and work life.Do everything possible to boost the status of home workers ( in which I include people who bring up children).
10. Legalise drugs.
11. Leave the European Union. We are not European. But stay mates with them.
12. Dismantle the freehold/leasehold system. It is medieval.
13. Ask each and every newcomer to Britain, whether they be individuals or businesses, what can they do for the community? What can they contribute to the New Great Britain? Concrete proposals.

14. Ban all farming methods that are cruel to animals. Encourage vegetarianism.

In fact I will be adding to this list as I go along. Then I'm going to start a political party and run for government. But I will be rubbish at diplomacy, will always tell the truth. I'm also quite shouty.

Good Hair Day

2009-03-18T18:28:00.004Z

My teen had her hair done on Saturday. She now has a short blonde Pixie Geldof type coiffure. It looks great. £75.

Why am I telling you this? Because she has cheered the fuck up.

The National Health Service could dispense with anti-depressants and therapy sessions if they just prescribed free hairdressing. Hair makes a tremendous difference to how you feel, especially if you are female.

It makes sense doesn't it? Hair is the stuff that covers your head. Your head, your brain, your mind. If the 'covering' doesn't look good, then what's inside won't feel good.

Old ladies used to go to the hairdressers every week. They knew a thing or two.

In my punk days in the 70s my hair progressed through every colour of the rainbow. The first time it was blue with a pink fringe. People screamed as I walked past. As buses went by, I would see all of the passengers heads whip round in shock.

Another time I had my hair dyed green and blue to match my WH Smith uniform where I worked on Saturdays.

The first day at school after having my hair done blue, I arrived in break. Ever had 2000 kids simultaneously laugh, gasp and point at you? That, along with the day I wore a Union Jack plastic carrier bag as a mini-skirt to the Queen's Jubilee street party, was a highlight of my youth. An old lady went up to my mum who was hanging red, white and blue bunting and said:

"Have you seen that? Disgusting isn't it?"

My mum replied:"Yes."

Old lady: "I wonder if she even lives in this street. Any idea who she is?"

My mum: "She's my daughter."

I left early to go to see The Damned and The Ramones at the Roundhouse.