BACK TO BUSINESS

MY UNUSUALLY LONG ABSENCE from writing has coincided with an equally unusual period of otioseness punctuated by yet another enforced trek across Europe by land which contained all of the upsetting details as outlined in Sunday Morning of June 2010 (We’ll Always Have Paris and The Smell of the Continent), except this time with the family in tow and with a ferry from Dover to Calais to boot.

FORTUNATELY, THE TRIP IS NOW little more than a memory; that is, it is a recurring nightmare, containing scenes reminiscent of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner series, but taking place in France at railway stations, quaysides and cafés and with dialogue by Harold Pinter. For those who are ignorant of the series – or indeed of France – a crash course in how to complicate life à la française follows: (this takes place in the impeccable French spoken by my good lady wife and I, although my youngest son’s serious interest in the language was halted after he learnt that “Oui oui” was French for “yes”).

EXT/INT – FERRY RECEPTION OFFICE, CALAIS. DAY

Three passengers (GENTLEMAN, BEAUTIFUL WOMAN and YOUNG BOY) dragging luggage enter the brightly-lit reception office having alighted from the P&O cross channel ferry boat we see in the background. The GENTLEMAN approaches an information office to speak to a UNIFORMED FRENCH OFFICIAL.

GENTLEMAN

Good morning. Where do we get the advertised free shuttle bus to Calais-Fréthun to get the High Speed Train to Paris, please?

OFFICIAL

The bus doesn’t run anymore.

GENTLEMAN

I see. So where can we get a taxi?

OFFICIAL

There are no taxis here. Everyone used to get the free bus, so the taxis stopped coming and the local council removed the taxi rank sign. Now they are not allowed to come here.

GENTLEMAN

I see. So how can I get a taxi, please?

OFFICIAL

I don’t know. Maybe you should phone.

GENTLEMAN

Indeed. Might you know a number?

OFFICIAL

Yes. (Long pause while OFFICIAL picks nose)

GENTLEMAN (Preparing mobile phone)

And could you perhaps give it to me?

OFFICIAL

You cannot use a mobile phone at a frontier station.

GENTLEMAN

Of course. Well could you perhaps phone for a taxi for me? I’ll give you the money.

OFFICIAL

We cannot accept money.

The GENTLEMAN is joined by the BEAUTIFUL WOMAN at the information desk. In the background the YOUNG BOY is enjoying himself skipping about in circles dragging his luggage, unaware of the drama taking place.

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (to GENTLEMAN)

What is the problem, honey?

GENTLEMAN

We are in France.

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (To OFFICIAL)

Can you phone a taxi, please?

OFFICIAL

Oui, oui, madame! Why did you not ask?

Similar content was repeated over the next couple of days. Back to Europe.

NOMENCLATURE CULTURE

BOTH THE PRINTED AND VISUAL MEDIA have had to reconsider their terminology in relation to the recent riots on more than one occasion over the last week. While it at one moment seemed sensible to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to use the term “British riots” or later the “UK riots” (perhaps to show that they had not yet spread to the Channel Isles or the Isle of Man), instructions have now been given to call them “English riots”, as there is, as yet, no widespread destruction in the Celtic sphere.

FURTHER HESITATION INVOLVES describing who these “rioters” are. Easy opinion falls heavily on “disaffected lower classes”, the “unemployed underclass”, “discriminated immigrant communities” and the like, but the arrest and conviction statistics are proving otherwise, driving newspaper headline-writers crazy.

WHAT DOES ONE CALL a group of rioters that includes a primary school teacher, a graphic designer, a female university student and the child of a millionaire? All of whom are in their early or mid-twenties? Are these more newsworthy than the numbers of unemployed and inarticulate white and black children from social housing estates? And if, like the BNP British National Party, we wish to use the term “immigrants”, should we point out that no Chinese are involved, even though almost every major city in the UK has a large Chinese community, and Liverpool has had one since the late XIX century.

CUDDLY ALEX SALMOND the leader of Scotland, has been particularly keen to insist on the term “English riots”, given that, as he stated yesterday: Scotland has a “different society”, adding it was unfair of broadcasters to describe the lawlessness as “UK riots” because it was an English phenomenon and Scotland has “no history of this sort of disorder”.

POLITICIANS NEVER STUDY HISTORY, so perhaps I should draw Salmond’s attention to the worst riots in British history, in Edinburgh, from 1811 to 1812. The account also serves to remind those who talk about old-fashioned values that the XVII and XVIII centuries were violent beyond anything we can imagine nowadays.

IN 1812 YOUNG THUGS, PICKPOCKETS AND THIEVES bearing knives and sticks stormed through Edinburgh looking for easy victims to attack. Dozens of children from organized gangs in the suburbs attacked, robbed and beat up passers-by “for no apparent reason”. They stole hundreds of pounds from individuals and shops, and magistrates and judges struggled to deal with the workload in court. Local newspapers and citizens groups offered huge rewards for the capture of the gang leaders, and sixty-eight arrests were made, including boys as young as 12.

THREE BOYS WERE HANGED and five were sent to Australia. Dozens were given minor punishments. The general view at the time was that there was a lack of moral values in these young people, that they had easy access to alcohol, that the upper classes, who were usually just as immoral and drunk, should provide a good example, and that more of the sheriff’s men on the streets would solve the problem. In an unconnected incident, British Prime Minister Spenser Perceval was assassinated in the House of Commons.

My picture shows Scots parliamentarians at the European summit meeting early this year.

THE SECRET POLICEMEN’S NO BALLS

THERE ARE THOSE WHO FIND A KIND of symmetry between the Toxteth, Brixton, Handsworth and Bristol riots of the early nineteen eighties and the riots raging throughout the UK at the moment. The initial similarity resides, as is obvious, in the fact that the supposed “trigger” was overbearing behaviour by the local police force, or police “service”, as we are requested to term bobbies nowadays.

COMPARISONS CONTINUE with the fact that both sets of civil disturbances have led gentlemen on the tip of the political dipstick to suggest that all of this shop-looting, school-, hospital-, and library-burning, as well as assaulting of innocent passers-by, who have been mugged even when bleeding and crying (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gex_ya4-Oo London Riots – Scum Steal from Injured Boy) is caused by the fact that these otherwise innocent youths have been unable to find work and are upset about the increase in VAT and the fact that their mothers’ benefits will be or have been cut, thus forcing them into a life of crime and to steal their Adidas or Nike trainers, replica basketball shirts, bottles of Vodka, Sony PlayStation 3 games and Blackberries.

BUT THE TRUE MIRROR IMAGE found here has to do with the timing of political attitudes towards our societies. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher was elected after promising to change the distress in the UK caused by years of an over-spending Labour government. Thatcher’s policies meant: (a) cuts in education; (b) cuts in local transport facilities; and (c) cuts in the National Health Service.

IF WE REMOVE “THATCHER” and replace it with “Cameron” (and 2010) in the above paragraph, nothing has changed. (Thatcher was later actually removed by her own party and I would not bet against the same happening to the useless boy Cameron sometime next year.) However, another similarity is more pertinent to what is happening. Both Conservative leaders promised to be “tough on crime”, and both of them immediately followed election with a ban on police overtime pay, a reduction in basic pay and perks and a threat to reduce the size of the police force (as I insist on calling it), in Cameron’s case intending to reduce the 6,000-strong London Metropolitan Police Service by 2,000 officers in September. No wonder the police just stood around and watched in July 1981 and August 2011. That’s what they don’t get paid to do. Thatcher, of course, went back on her threat after the riots.

ROLL ON COWBOY

FOLLOWING ON FROM MY PREVIOUS POST, the imagination shown by some killers in the USA has definitely reached new heights today in (where else?) the Lone Star State of Texas. Deep in the heart, indeed, of North Texas, in Grand Prairie, a gunman opened fire, killing six people and wounding at least three others, before turning the gun on himself.

ACCORDING TO THE SPOKESMAN for the Grand Prairie Police Department, Mr John Brimmer, "This was a domestic situation that went south in a hurry." The shooting took place at Forum Roller World roller rink, which had been rented out for a private birthday party at which only family and friends were present.

I'M IN LOVE WITH A FAIRYTALE

UNLIKE IN THE USA, where occasionally someone packs a few firearms and “shoots up” a diner, restaurant, high school gymnasium, drive-in movie forecourt or, if they are really adventurous, a Ferris wheel or rollercoaster in an amusement park, we do not have a great tradition of such antics in Europe, and much less so in Norway, a country about which hardly anyone to whom I have spoken over the last few days has the slightest clue apart from a restaurant owner friend of mine who used to work on ferry boats going from Hull, in England, to “somewhere in Norway”, as he put it.

THUS THE RECENT EVENTS in Oslo and on Utoya island have come as a dual shock for all of us: A massacre? and Where?

IT WAS ONLY THIS SPRING that I read and then heard with some amazement a statement from a lady minister in the Norwegian parliament who, somewhat gloatingly, told the wider world (it was a slow news day) that Norwegian police stations had started closing at four o’clock in the afternoon as there was “nothing for the police to do” and so they could go “home to their families for early dinner”.

I SUSPECT THAT MANY POLICEMEN in Norway will be spending less time with their loved ones eating the famous Norwegian delicacy of boiled potatoes in salt water over the coming weeks and months. And perhaps they might have spent their time a little better in the past trawling through the websites that we are now discovering have existed in some numbers containing diatribes and tirades against the socialist government’s policy of altering the make-up of Norwegian society over the last five years through all-inclusive multiculturalism and multiracialism, an attitude guaranteed to anger the multitude of right wing nutters who inhabit Norway and secretly long for the SS, the Abwehr and the Gestapo Quislingism to return to their great white nation.

THE TERM “RIGHT WING NUTTER”, along with “lone wolf”, “wayward lunatic”, as well as others, are being bandied about so often by the written and visual media that it is clear there is a plan afoot to make us all – particularly the immigrant communities in traditionally closed countries – feel safe in our beds.

AT LEAST IN THE USA these events are perpetrated (perpetuated, according to Hillary Clinton just now) by maniacs in the traditional sense, who usually have the decorum to blow their own heads off after killing their teacher, the owner of the cinema which isn’t showing the latest Harry Potter movie or the ex-boyfriend who called them “spotty”, thus saving many tax dollars in expensive trials.

YET OUR NORWEGIAN ASSASSIN has made it clear that he wishes to go to court, admitting that he killed all these people but he has broken no laws and that he will make a statement to the public on Monday. The words “copycat” and “lone wolf” in the same sentence suggest flippancy on my part and on that of journalists abroad; yet Anders Behring Breivik hadn’t and hasn’t flipped: no lunatic leaves a 1500 page manifesto on the Internet, in English, Norwegian and Latin. The Norwegian – and more importantly the British – police should be busy trying to find out how many thousands of “nutters” are downloading his writings.

IN NORWAY IT IS NOT JUST boyish, insipid Eurovision hero Alexander Rybak who is in love with a fairytale beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed girlie from Norwegian mythology. At least he only bothered the wider world with his irritating voice and scratchy violin.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

THERE ARE OCCASIONS in the news of our world when we have to be careful in whom we confide. There is, of course, the local policeman, Mr Stephenson, or his best friend Detective Yates, whom everyone knows will be rocks of trustworthiness and good, old fashioned sense. Then there is the newsagent, Mr Murdoch, and his flame-haired, much younger “companion”, Mrs Brooks and her invalid, unsupportive henchman Mr Coulson.

ALL OF THESE PEOPLE MAKE UP the rather curious assemblage of souls who inhabit the close circle of 10 Downing Street with our goody-goody two-shoes PM, a chap who enjoys “a challenge” and a “good game”; the knockout whist being played at the moment is leading to discards beyond anyone’s idea of the maximum. Cameron is having his friends “knocked out” of the game before the slime gets to him. One cannot help thinking that, if the summer does not provide the much-needed silence, he will be looking for someone high up to take a fall, and, given that the police are resigning of their own accord, moving fingers are slowing down and starting to point at the pleasant visage of Home Secretary Theresa May, who is already hated by almost everyone who comes into contact with her.

THUS IF CAMERON SURVIVES THIS it is because he is not as floppy-dopey as he looks and/or he has “proper” intelligent chaps who are loyal to him. The last week, and the next week in particular, have and will show that this current government is as corrupt as we have had since the glory days of the sixties. Those who may have thought that Cameron was any different to the useless, money- and land-hugging Tories of the past before Margaret Thatcher must have shit in their eyes. Which may not be a disadvantage to them as they survey the political landscape.

LIKE IN THE VOICEOVER OF SOME MELODRAMATIC TV SERIES. just when we think that all is fine and that we are getting on with our neighbours, our children are in bed, snug and safe, there is that restless feeling that makes us turn over once, then twice, or even thrice, on our soft, cool pillows, trying to settle down before we go to sleep. What, we may think, does tomorrow bring?

TIED UP IN DEBT

AMUSING AS IT IS TO WATCH PORTUGAL’S politicians attempting to deal with a crisis, it is nevertheless difficult to forget that the solutions the government has found to do so are downright daylight robbery from the average people, particularly those who earn the least. The latest measure, announced in a press conference yesterday, is that the lowest-rate pensioners, who receive around 218 Euros (£190) per month if they are lucky, and those who earn less than 550 Euros (£500) – a considerable number of the young people who actually have a job – will still have to pay the special “Christmas tax” this year “as a loan” to the government, which will be “repaid in full”, it was gleefully announced, “in most cases”, in 2012, at a date to be established.

MOST PEOPLE HERE KNOW THAT Portuguese politicians, in keeping with the characteristics of the Portuguese race, would rather eat their own babies than give anyone any money back, so the prevailing glumness is because the next two Christmases will not be as merry as they once were.

YET SOME SOLUTIONS FOUND for the crisis abound in good sense and far-sightedness, if not decorum. This is perhaps the case of the measures announced yesterday by the new Minister for Agriculture, the Sea, the Environment and Territorial Administration (I kid you not), the good lady Professor Assunção Cristas. Under her “Cool Air” initiative, there will be untold savings for the country by turning off the air conditioning in the ministerial offices between the 1st of June and the 30th of September.

THOSE OF US WHO HAVE WORKED in the stinking, polluted hole that is downtown Lisbon in the summer will know that the average temperature in July or August is a sweat-dripping 34º Centigrade, made even less tolerable by the cramped, insect- and rat-infected, non-Feng Shui premises of most public buildings.

YET HELP IS AT HAND. The canny minister has unusually foreseen the problem and anticipated a solution. Male civil servants will be allowed to work without wearing a tie during these months, which will, according to law teacher Cristas, make it possible to allow an increase of temperature of about “three to four” degrees.

GIRLIE CRISTAS, WHO WAS BORN IN AFRICA and represents the CDS-PP, the only party representative of the extreme right in the Portuguese parliament, obviously knows how to deal with temperature. Yet when asked yesterday by one of those rare journalists who question their leaders in Portugal as to whether the heating would be turned off in the winter, and the clerks would come to work in coats, she declined to answer.

MY SUGGESTION FOR BOOSTING TEMPERATURE over the winter months would be as simple as the minister’s for the summer. Men could go without ties in the summer, and female clerks could take their skirts and blouses off in the winter. This would have the dual advantage of keeping the temperature up, and steaming over the windows in ministerial offices, so no one would be able to see what was going on inside this humungous ministry.

(My picture shows the recommended dress code for male ministerial civil servants in Portugal the last time anyone actually did any work.)