a fragment of a memory pounded out one August evening this year ...
I will never do justice to Leopoldo in an afternoon and today I only have 45 minutes or so left of my journey down from London during which to describe him.
He is an overweight man, terribly out of shape. His complexion is pale but his cheeks are rosy, he is almost cherubic in appearance. His hair is often too long, it has not receded and, despite his 56 years, it is a youthful light-brown colour. His eyes are blue. All in all, Leopoldo look more like a Dutchman than an Italian; he is, though, somewhat weirdly proud of his nose!
Leopoldo eats carefully and he never drinks. Before meals he takes a number of pills and he puts at least one or possibly two seltzer-like medicines in glasses of water. After getting to know him better, I learned that his liver was shot and he was awaiting a transplant. That was in the earliest days of our relationship; over time his condition apparently improved and he was removed from the list, his liver judged sufficiently recovered that a transplant was no longer necessary.
After decades of alcohol and bachelorhood, Leopoldo married a Columbian woman, many years his junior. When I first met him, Leopoldo had only wed relatively recently but they had a child, Lucia, who was then only three. He doted on his baby girl and our friendship was sealed when I brought the first of several small toys for him to give her.
Leopoldo is smart; he spent his life building petrochemical projects around the world. He has experienced nearly every possible commercial situation and the memory of them serves him well. He knows what to look for and what risks are most likely in nearly every circumstance.
But, and this is sad, that part of the brain that involves creativity and flexibility no longer works so well for Leopoldo. I suspect that he simply assassinated billions of his brain cells, asphyxiating them with alcohol. The result was a man who could swing from friendly and open to suspicious and close in a matter of moments. His conversation could wander worryingly and he often focused on issues long after they had been resolved. He often seemed befuddled.
Leopoldo’s automobile, the one he had when first we met, was a battered old Lancia only it wasn’t so old, the fact was that Leopoldo was one of the worst drivers in a land of bad or, at least, dangerous drivers and he had simply dinged up the car in a series of minor mishaps, the result being a vehicle that looked as if it had been through the worst of the latest major world conflicts.
I was fortunate to learn of Leopoldo’s appalling driving before actually experiencing it first hand. We agreed to meet in separate cars at a service plaza on the motorway from where he would lead me to a project site we were planning to develop jointly and which I hadn’t yet seen. Coffee was duly drunk and we mounted up. What happened next was simply mind-boggling; after first trying to enter the freeway the wrong way, we eventually found the right way out and proceeded along in a series of stomach churning lunges and pauses. Leopoldo would drive extremely fast, regardless of whatever speed the rest of the traffic was going, apparently intent on ramming whatever vehicle was in front of him. At the last moment he would jam on the brakes and we’d slow down so precipitously that the cars behind nearly had to stop to avoid ending up in our back seats. The first time this happened, I slewed my vehicle into the fast lane to avoid the chaos and ended up with Leopoldo following me for a number of miles until I phoned him to tell him that I thought he ought to lead given that I had no idea where we were going.
The effect of our lunging forward, slamming on the brakes and then accelerating forward again was not only frightening, it was, as I noted, slightly nauseating. Eventually we swung off the highway at some obscure town, the sign to which Leopoldo only noticed from the far lane, some two-hundred yards from the exit. Clearly Leopoldo’s new son is not intended to grow up as an orphan because the manoeuvre was successful. I actually think Leopoldo was surprised when he pulled over at a nearby café to find that I was still behind him. Of course, the surprise may simply have been the sudden recollection of why he was there and who I was.
After another coffee we caromed along a country road. I had a map spread on my passenger seat but only glanced at it occasionally since Leopoldo seemed to be lurching spasmodically but knowledgably forwards. At one bend in the road, Leopoldo chose the simpler alternative of going straight, into a wheat field. His vehicle ploughed along for a bit and then came to a shuddering stop, surrounded by the staff of life. I followed, much slower, and stopped some distance behind him. I rolled the window down and yelled out at him that this didn’t seem to be the way that was marked on my map ....
02 December 2004
Thirteen.
My daughter, Alex, is thirteen. Disconcerting. My little girl has suddenly developed breasts and other accoutrements of womanhood. Her speech has changed as well; she can be dismissive and sarcastic, emotional and unfair, angry and resentful, all within the space of a few minutes conversation. Advice, never very willingly listened to, is now completely unwelcome and, indeed, is something that I rarely offer these days. Hormones, something of which she was, I believe, completely free just months ago, now appear to control her completely. These creatures, hormones, are irreversible; I know, I asked a fellow-suffering doctor friend with two teen-aged girls of his own if there was anything that might stop this maturing process and restore to me my little girl and he shook his head sadly and simply offered me another glass of wine. Once in a while my daughter will permit me to listen to her. Mostly this is when she or, more correctly, her hormones have concocted some fairly ditzy theory about unpopularity (hers) or the long-planned tortures of the educational system which she is being forced to endure at the hands of evil teachers who took up the profession decades before in the sole hope that one day they would have the opportunity to inflict misery upon my daughter.
In those cases where I am permitted to listen, the sheer verbal volume of which my daughter is capable is awesome. She delivers soliloquies that can last thirty minutes and during which she must suck air in via her ears because I swear that she doesn’t stop to take breath.
Mostly I make sympathetic noises about the various injustices that appear to characterise every aspect of her life. This past summer these have ranged from a broken nail – I kid you not – to some rather insightful comments on ‘Animal Farm’. At times it is clear that certain of her teachers redeemed themselves when they saw fit to grant her grades that were unexpectedly good. When the grades were not as good, it was a result of the conspiracy of anti-Alex ‘sleeper’ agent-teachers who had been waiting these past decades for her to be conceived, raised and, almost providentially sent to the very school at which the individual tool-of-evil awaited her arrival.
This past year my daughter attended a uniform-school and was extremely happy when, after incessant lobbying on her part for at least two years, we agreed to move her to a new school whose only policy on dress seems to be that casual (shorts, tee-shirts and those space-aged sport shoe things) is good but sloppy (holey jeans, torn tee-shirts and those footwear things – I don’t mean the slingshots that they wear instead of panties – that we used to call thongs) is better (thankfully sexy seems to be forbidden). Her cousins all excitedly provided advice on her new wardrobe but sometime during the process her hormones intervened and announced, rather insightfully but unhelpfully, that she had merely changed one uniform for another. Her individuality was under severe threat from the need to conform to be cool.
The scope of Alex’s conversation is three-dimensional: she can speak long and she packs a lot of words into small, tight spaces; even more impressive, though, is the scope. She can discuss books, nail polish, John Kerry (‘he’s in what band?’), popular culture and her need for a larger budget at length and without the annoying need for any real feedback. Mostly I just listen, fascinated at the way her mind flits from place to place. The world for her is a great plain over which are scattered opportunities, experiences and things-to-be-discovered without end. I’m jealous and happy for her.
My daughter, Alex, is thirteen. Disconcerting. My little girl has suddenly developed breasts and other accoutrements of womanhood. Her speech has changed as well; she can be dismissive and sarcastic, emotional and unfair, angry and resentful, all within the space of a few minutes conversation. Advice, never very willingly listened to, is now completely unwelcome and, indeed, is something that I rarely offer these days. Hormones, something of which she was, I believe, completely free just months ago, now appear to control her completely. These creatures, hormones, are irreversible; I know, I asked a fellow-suffering doctor friend with two teen-aged girls of his own if there was anything that might stop this maturing process and restore to me my little girl and he shook his head sadly and simply offered me another glass of wine. Once in a while my daughter will permit me to listen to her. Mostly this is when she or, more correctly, her hormones have concocted some fairly ditzy theory about unpopularity (hers) or the long-planned tortures of the educational system which she is being forced to endure at the hands of evil teachers who took up the profession decades before in the sole hope that one day they would have the opportunity to inflict misery upon my daughter.
In those cases where I am permitted to listen, the sheer verbal volume of which my daughter is capable is awesome. She delivers soliloquies that can last thirty minutes and during which she must suck air in via her ears because I swear that she doesn’t stop to take breath.
Mostly I make sympathetic noises about the various injustices that appear to characterise every aspect of her life. This past summer these have ranged from a broken nail – I kid you not – to some rather insightful comments on ‘Animal Farm’. At times it is clear that certain of her teachers redeemed themselves when they saw fit to grant her grades that were unexpectedly good. When the grades were not as good, it was a result of the conspiracy of anti-Alex ‘sleeper’ agent-teachers who had been waiting these past decades for her to be conceived, raised and, almost providentially sent to the very school at which the individual tool-of-evil awaited her arrival.
This past year my daughter attended a uniform-school and was extremely happy when, after incessant lobbying on her part for at least two years, we agreed to move her to a new school whose only policy on dress seems to be that casual (shorts, tee-shirts and those space-aged sport shoe things) is good but sloppy (holey jeans, torn tee-shirts and those footwear things – I don’t mean the slingshots that they wear instead of panties – that we used to call thongs) is better (thankfully sexy seems to be forbidden). Her cousins all excitedly provided advice on her new wardrobe but sometime during the process her hormones intervened and announced, rather insightfully but unhelpfully, that she had merely changed one uniform for another. Her individuality was under severe threat from the need to conform to be cool.
The scope of Alex’s conversation is three-dimensional: she can speak long and she packs a lot of words into small, tight spaces; even more impressive, though, is the scope. She can discuss books, nail polish, John Kerry (‘he’s in what band?’), popular culture and her need for a larger budget at length and without the annoying need for any real feedback. Mostly I just listen, fascinated at the way her mind flits from place to place. The world for her is a great plain over which are scattered opportunities, experiences and things-to-be-discovered without end. I’m jealous and happy for her.
28 February 2004
Natural Courtesy
The world is sadly lacking in this vital commodity. It is, paradoxically, considering the name I’ve given it, not naturally occurring at all. Natural courtesy is that unfailing and unasked mannerliness that characterises gentlefolk of both sexes. It is not the exclusive property of any particular class though it is easier for the mantle of natural courtesy to be acquired by someone in good circumstances, materially affluent and well-educated, and, hence, it probably ought to more expected and less valued in those from that group. When it is found, as it quite often is, in those of less affluent background, it is remarkable because I think that natural courtesy, which is the right human way to be, is something that is unnatural to us as animals. That person who exhibits, or more, practices natural courtesy in their dealings with the world, is that much more developed as a human being. This is the person who better understands and protects the present and future of the human race. She manages inclinations that are inherent, selfish and short-sighted. Her natural courtesy, on the other hand, enhances civilisation and will help preserve the human race, giving us a future worth striving for.
It seems, though, that every day we move farther and farther away from the ideals of natural courtesy towards a materialistic ethic characterised by behaviour directed to satisfying selfish and immature ‘needs’; in other words, we keep sliding back down the evolutionary ladder. Americans particularly seem to be inclined this way but they are by no means the only members of the club. Newly wealthy Asian societies are producing some of the more outrageous examples of this ethic and representatives of it are found in every single country; interestingly, it seems to occur more in places where the rule of law is weaker and where wealth in newer. The connection between the place that rule-of-law occupies in a society and the presence or absence of natural courtesy is pretty direct in my view. And, of course, rule-of-law requires fierce defence not just against its possible subversion by bribery or the like, but against a different type of abuse, the use of it as a form of lottery, as a get-rich quick scheme which is a practice that is increasingly common in the U.S.A. The law is a place where we ought to seek redress and a forum where behaviour can be called into question. It exists as a backdrop against which our daily activity takes place and it provides context. Whatever you do, if you violate the precepts we as a society have agreed ought to govern our behaviour towards each other in our daily transactions, you are subject to redress under law. We must, in other words, have the right to seek redress – the possibility of an action against someone for a faulty product or a misrepresented service has to be there but this must be a right that is exercised and applied in a balanced and mature manner. I’m not sure how we can define it yet but, like the duck, I think I can recognise it’s abuse when I see it.
What is odd about all this is how the materialist ethic actually militates against happiness. I subscribe to the Aristotelian notion of what happiness is. Very briefly, I believe that happiness is a personal freedom from fears, which creates the freedom for us to focus on personal growth and realisation. The fears from which we seek to be free are the fear of want and fears for our safety and the safety of our loved ones. The best way to secure that freedom from these fears is fairly straightforward, it is achieved socially. That society which works to eliminate the fear of want amongst its members creates a society in which the fears for personal safety are less. The reason is that if your neighbour is free from the fear of want, he is less likely to want to take from you. He is more likely to focus on making sure that he and his family are safe once he is free from want. To ensure that he stays free from fear, he ought, as a matter of course, to work to ensure that his neighbours are as free from the fear of want as he is, otherwise they will threaten his and his families security. To be most happy and most free to pursue my own selfish objectives (which, of course, cannot threaten or take away from my neighbours), those around me must be as free of these fears as I am (or as near as possible).
That society in which I can be happiest – ie, free of my fears and most able to pursue personal growth and realisation – is one in which the rule-of-law prevails. The best possibility of happiness for me is if I can depend on an impersonal and just rule-of-law to guarantee my freedoms. Deep down, I’m pretty close to convinced that fundamentally this is all we need: everything else is simply frosting, the cake is baked. If I get the condo on the beach or the Mercedes, that’s fine as long as acquisition of those things is done within the rule-of-law and (get ready to think about this one!) doesn’t threaten my family or me; in other words, there must be a balance between my material well-being and my freedom. Seems illogical at first glance but I think the reason behind it is both compelling and ineluctable.
The world is sadly lacking in this vital commodity. It is, paradoxically, considering the name I’ve given it, not naturally occurring at all. Natural courtesy is that unfailing and unasked mannerliness that characterises gentlefolk of both sexes. It is not the exclusive property of any particular class though it is easier for the mantle of natural courtesy to be acquired by someone in good circumstances, materially affluent and well-educated, and, hence, it probably ought to more expected and less valued in those from that group. When it is found, as it quite often is, in those of less affluent background, it is remarkable because I think that natural courtesy, which is the right human way to be, is something that is unnatural to us as animals. That person who exhibits, or more, practices natural courtesy in their dealings with the world, is that much more developed as a human being. This is the person who better understands and protects the present and future of the human race. She manages inclinations that are inherent, selfish and short-sighted. Her natural courtesy, on the other hand, enhances civilisation and will help preserve the human race, giving us a future worth striving for.
It seems, though, that every day we move farther and farther away from the ideals of natural courtesy towards a materialistic ethic characterised by behaviour directed to satisfying selfish and immature ‘needs’; in other words, we keep sliding back down the evolutionary ladder. Americans particularly seem to be inclined this way but they are by no means the only members of the club. Newly wealthy Asian societies are producing some of the more outrageous examples of this ethic and representatives of it are found in every single country; interestingly, it seems to occur more in places where the rule of law is weaker and where wealth in newer. The connection between the place that rule-of-law occupies in a society and the presence or absence of natural courtesy is pretty direct in my view. And, of course, rule-of-law requires fierce defence not just against its possible subversion by bribery or the like, but against a different type of abuse, the use of it as a form of lottery, as a get-rich quick scheme which is a practice that is increasingly common in the U.S.A. The law is a place where we ought to seek redress and a forum where behaviour can be called into question. It exists as a backdrop against which our daily activity takes place and it provides context. Whatever you do, if you violate the precepts we as a society have agreed ought to govern our behaviour towards each other in our daily transactions, you are subject to redress under law. We must, in other words, have the right to seek redress – the possibility of an action against someone for a faulty product or a misrepresented service has to be there but this must be a right that is exercised and applied in a balanced and mature manner. I’m not sure how we can define it yet but, like the duck, I think I can recognise it’s abuse when I see it.
What is odd about all this is how the materialist ethic actually militates against happiness. I subscribe to the Aristotelian notion of what happiness is. Very briefly, I believe that happiness is a personal freedom from fears, which creates the freedom for us to focus on personal growth and realisation. The fears from which we seek to be free are the fear of want and fears for our safety and the safety of our loved ones. The best way to secure that freedom from these fears is fairly straightforward, it is achieved socially. That society which works to eliminate the fear of want amongst its members creates a society in which the fears for personal safety are less. The reason is that if your neighbour is free from the fear of want, he is less likely to want to take from you. He is more likely to focus on making sure that he and his family are safe once he is free from want. To ensure that he stays free from fear, he ought, as a matter of course, to work to ensure that his neighbours are as free from the fear of want as he is, otherwise they will threaten his and his families security. To be most happy and most free to pursue my own selfish objectives (which, of course, cannot threaten or take away from my neighbours), those around me must be as free of these fears as I am (or as near as possible).
That society in which I can be happiest – ie, free of my fears and most able to pursue personal growth and realisation – is one in which the rule-of-law prevails. The best possibility of happiness for me is if I can depend on an impersonal and just rule-of-law to guarantee my freedoms. Deep down, I’m pretty close to convinced that fundamentally this is all we need: everything else is simply frosting, the cake is baked. If I get the condo on the beach or the Mercedes, that’s fine as long as acquisition of those things is done within the rule-of-law and (get ready to think about this one!) doesn’t threaten my family or me; in other words, there must be a balance between my material well-being and my freedom. Seems illogical at first glance but I think the reason behind it is both compelling and ineluctable.
21 February 2004
Mickey
I’ve written a number of stories that have been lost. Many were brief but based on truth, compounds of things I’ve lived or seen. I remember bits of one that was set in the Philippines; it was about Mickey, a professional diver. Mickey had come to the Philippines courtesy of the U.S. Navy who had also trained him to be a diver. He was in and out of Subic over several re-enlistments where he spent long, beer-fed evenings, leaning on the greasy counter of an Olongopo girlie bar, a world away from his North Carolina white-trash roots: a fatherless family made up of numerous, quarrelling siblings and an indifferent mother.
It was inevitable that Mickey would fall for one of the girls that drank and loved the sailors in that string of bars facing the main entrance to the base; whether the cause was lust, love or loneliness or a combination of all three didn’t much matter in the grand scheme of things, one of girls was going to provide what Mickey needed.
Rose was the name of the one that Mickey ultimately learned to love. She came from the south side of Manila Bay, Batangas province. Like most poor Filipino families, Rose’s was large. She was the sixth child. Her father was a contract worker at Shell’s Tabangao Refinery. The work was good but only occasional. When he didn’t work he would drink and gamble with his friends. When he didn’t gamble, he would come home and make more babies with Rose’s amiable, fat mother.
Rose grew up in a concrete-block house on a dirt road that ended amongst some palms and a bit of sand and rock along the sea. The air was clean and there was just enough food. She learned to read a bit and to add and subtract. Her uncle ran a small store selling soda and cigarettes. At 16 Rose worked for him but when he began to touch her and pester her for sex, she left by bus for Olongopo where her cousin made good money working in a contract laundry for the U.S. Navy.
Only Rose’s cousin didn’t work for a contract laundry. She was a bar girl at the Power House.
Before long Rose’s scruples gave way before her greed and the 16 year-old was pounding beers with the sailors, fending off their groping hands and, occasionally, sleeping with one.
Rose wasn’t the prettiest girl at the Power House, she bordered on plain and she was skinny but Rose had a quality that drew Mickey to her, she was what the Indian matrimonials advertise as ‘homely’ and it was her domesticity that ultimately captivated Mickey. Rose filled a hole in Mickey’s life, an unarticulated need for family.
The two of them moved in together off base where they rented a two room flat above a shop during Mickey’s last tour. When his enlistment was up, they married and moved to another small but much quieter place overlooking clear seas at the end of a track near a Batangas beach. Mickey opened a dive shop with his savings and gave Scuba lessons to a few backpacking tourists and some wealthy locals. He was popular and laid back. Far from the most ambitious man in the world, Mickey seemed content to earn enough to pay the rent on the cement shack that served as shop and home to Rose and him. Children soon came, one after the other. The children lit up the faces of both parents, Mickey would spend long afternoon playing in the surf with them and evenings they would curl up around him and Rose as they watched their snowy, black and white TV, a wedding gift from Rose’s groping uncle. No longer objectionable, the uncle now behaved most respectfully towards his niece, partly, I’m sure, out of fear of Mickey’s brawny arms.
It was a good life for Mickey. I met him one day when, on a trip to the Shell offices at Tabangao, I stopped for lunch at a beach-side restaurant where Mickey was sharing a soda with several locals. We had little in common besides being American and each having once lived for a time in North Carolina. Still, it was enough for a conversation.
Over the years I lived in the Philippines I would see Mickey from time to time when I travelled into the provinces. Although he lived no more than a hundred miles from the capital, in all the time I knew him, I never heard of him coming to Manila. He changed very little, his face became more leathery and creased from the sun and the salt water. He had a smile that was individualised by cracked and worn teeth, some broken in fights at Olongopo and elsewhere during his Navy career, and he developed a beer gut that, strangely, seemed to suit him and secretly please Rose who was one of those cooks who fry everything. I can still close my eyes and smell her kitchen and the fresh fish that she prepared the few times that I ate with her and Mickey. Each time I would bring some toys for the kids – I think there were about 7 at the last count – some fabric for Rose to make up into clothes for the kids and a few beers for Mickey. We wouldn’t talk much, we’d sit outside on a couple of ratty old folding chairs and stare at the water, sucking a couple of beers. When the food was ready, we’d eat in the darkness of their unlit living room. Afterwards we’d drink coffee brewed from strong, Filipino beans.
As the heat of the afternoon crept even into the shade where we would sit, I’d make my excuses and drive back to Manila, the air-conditioning on full, insulating me from the land through which I drove and in which Mickey had chosen to live and, one day, die. You see, although the tale is one of languid happiness, ultimately it was a tragedy because one day Mickey disappeared into a South China Sea squall that had blown up quickly during the course of an afternoon. Some outrigger fishermen were caught by the storm a few miles offshore; they were visible between sheeting bands of heavy, almost horizontal rain. Their distress was obvious and their peril real. Mickey and two neighbours, all three combining fearlessness and foolishness in equal measure, went out in a small motorboat to bring them in. When the storm had blown itself out, the scattered outriggers were all found swept ashore on scattered beaches down the Batangas coast but the boat in which Mickey and two others had gone out to save the fishermen had disappeared.
It’s been 15 years since last I lived in those green islands. There was no way to keep direct contact with Mickey’s family and I lost touch even with those who might have known what happened to them. In a way that’s okay because I’ve kept Mickey alive in my world; I have put him back on that dusty patch under the palms, sitting in an old webbed lawn chair, sipping a beer and playing with his kids, laughing through his broken teeth.
I’ve written a number of stories that have been lost. Many were brief but based on truth, compounds of things I’ve lived or seen. I remember bits of one that was set in the Philippines; it was about Mickey, a professional diver. Mickey had come to the Philippines courtesy of the U.S. Navy who had also trained him to be a diver. He was in and out of Subic over several re-enlistments where he spent long, beer-fed evenings, leaning on the greasy counter of an Olongopo girlie bar, a world away from his North Carolina white-trash roots: a fatherless family made up of numerous, quarrelling siblings and an indifferent mother.
It was inevitable that Mickey would fall for one of the girls that drank and loved the sailors in that string of bars facing the main entrance to the base; whether the cause was lust, love or loneliness or a combination of all three didn’t much matter in the grand scheme of things, one of girls was going to provide what Mickey needed.
Rose was the name of the one that Mickey ultimately learned to love. She came from the south side of Manila Bay, Batangas province. Like most poor Filipino families, Rose’s was large. She was the sixth child. Her father was a contract worker at Shell’s Tabangao Refinery. The work was good but only occasional. When he didn’t work he would drink and gamble with his friends. When he didn’t gamble, he would come home and make more babies with Rose’s amiable, fat mother.
Rose grew up in a concrete-block house on a dirt road that ended amongst some palms and a bit of sand and rock along the sea. The air was clean and there was just enough food. She learned to read a bit and to add and subtract. Her uncle ran a small store selling soda and cigarettes. At 16 Rose worked for him but when he began to touch her and pester her for sex, she left by bus for Olongopo where her cousin made good money working in a contract laundry for the U.S. Navy.
Only Rose’s cousin didn’t work for a contract laundry. She was a bar girl at the Power House.
Before long Rose’s scruples gave way before her greed and the 16 year-old was pounding beers with the sailors, fending off their groping hands and, occasionally, sleeping with one.
Rose wasn’t the prettiest girl at the Power House, she bordered on plain and she was skinny but Rose had a quality that drew Mickey to her, she was what the Indian matrimonials advertise as ‘homely’ and it was her domesticity that ultimately captivated Mickey. Rose filled a hole in Mickey’s life, an unarticulated need for family.
The two of them moved in together off base where they rented a two room flat above a shop during Mickey’s last tour. When his enlistment was up, they married and moved to another small but much quieter place overlooking clear seas at the end of a track near a Batangas beach. Mickey opened a dive shop with his savings and gave Scuba lessons to a few backpacking tourists and some wealthy locals. He was popular and laid back. Far from the most ambitious man in the world, Mickey seemed content to earn enough to pay the rent on the cement shack that served as shop and home to Rose and him. Children soon came, one after the other. The children lit up the faces of both parents, Mickey would spend long afternoon playing in the surf with them and evenings they would curl up around him and Rose as they watched their snowy, black and white TV, a wedding gift from Rose’s groping uncle. No longer objectionable, the uncle now behaved most respectfully towards his niece, partly, I’m sure, out of fear of Mickey’s brawny arms.
It was a good life for Mickey. I met him one day when, on a trip to the Shell offices at Tabangao, I stopped for lunch at a beach-side restaurant where Mickey was sharing a soda with several locals. We had little in common besides being American and each having once lived for a time in North Carolina. Still, it was enough for a conversation.
Over the years I lived in the Philippines I would see Mickey from time to time when I travelled into the provinces. Although he lived no more than a hundred miles from the capital, in all the time I knew him, I never heard of him coming to Manila. He changed very little, his face became more leathery and creased from the sun and the salt water. He had a smile that was individualised by cracked and worn teeth, some broken in fights at Olongopo and elsewhere during his Navy career, and he developed a beer gut that, strangely, seemed to suit him and secretly please Rose who was one of those cooks who fry everything. I can still close my eyes and smell her kitchen and the fresh fish that she prepared the few times that I ate with her and Mickey. Each time I would bring some toys for the kids – I think there were about 7 at the last count – some fabric for Rose to make up into clothes for the kids and a few beers for Mickey. We wouldn’t talk much, we’d sit outside on a couple of ratty old folding chairs and stare at the water, sucking a couple of beers. When the food was ready, we’d eat in the darkness of their unlit living room. Afterwards we’d drink coffee brewed from strong, Filipino beans.
As the heat of the afternoon crept even into the shade where we would sit, I’d make my excuses and drive back to Manila, the air-conditioning on full, insulating me from the land through which I drove and in which Mickey had chosen to live and, one day, die. You see, although the tale is one of languid happiness, ultimately it was a tragedy because one day Mickey disappeared into a South China Sea squall that had blown up quickly during the course of an afternoon. Some outrigger fishermen were caught by the storm a few miles offshore; they were visible between sheeting bands of heavy, almost horizontal rain. Their distress was obvious and their peril real. Mickey and two neighbours, all three combining fearlessness and foolishness in equal measure, went out in a small motorboat to bring them in. When the storm had blown itself out, the scattered outriggers were all found swept ashore on scattered beaches down the Batangas coast but the boat in which Mickey and two others had gone out to save the fishermen had disappeared.
It’s been 15 years since last I lived in those green islands. There was no way to keep direct contact with Mickey’s family and I lost touch even with those who might have known what happened to them. In a way that’s okay because I’ve kept Mickey alive in my world; I have put him back on that dusty patch under the palms, sitting in an old webbed lawn chair, sipping a beer and playing with his kids, laughing through his broken teeth.
20 February 2004
Train Spotted
Sitting uncomfortably in a narrow seat that refuses to recline even the slightest bit, my unknown travelling companion, in the next chair, is equally or more physically distressed, the latter possibility more likely than not because of his bulk (indeed, he makes me, a rather pudgy 50-ish type, feel almost svelte). Whatever the relative merits of our individual suffering, there is no doubt that we are both pretty miserable. This is not your sleek modern train, it’s a three car special across the Styx, passenger comfort is not a criteria nor, it seems, is punctuality for this morning we are embarrassingly late; I will be one of those last arrivals to my office today, wandering in after everyone else has settled down to the new week, trying to look harried, as if I’ve just swam, climbed and fought my way through the wilderness to arrive here, dedicated to my work, anxious to be at the side of my brethren as we do the company’s bidding.
My eyes feel red; I got up before the dairy farmers. I’ve tried to work some but there is no room to spread out and I’m not in the mood to read so I just stare blankly ahead where there is a row of three folding seats that are, if possible, even more uncomfortable than the one I’m occupying. Those three must be miserable because they are the absolute last to be filled and, indeed, we pass a number of stations without even one being occupied (the option of clambering over someone on the aisle to take a window being preferable). Ultimately, though, they fill up and, as we near London, amazingly, one is occupied by a Vision.
Withdrawn, unapproachable the way a beautiful woman must learn to be (or so most of them have always seemed to me), a woman from the 1960’s occupies the seat in front of me. She is the pinnacle of the ‘60’s ideal – Julie Christie, Twiggy. Her black hair is straight and hangs around her shoulders, nothing out of place. She has bangs that complete the frame around a face that comes straight out of a dream about the women of that decade. Her eyes are large and blue with long, black lashes. Her skin is pale and unblemished.
I suppose I’m so tired that I can’t help staring but the Vision seems oblivious, she doesn’t even move her head in irritated acknowledgement of my stares. After a couple of minutes respite from the real world, restfully letting my gaze linger on the Madonna face, I realise what I’m doing and re-focus, moving my eyes about but, they keep coming back, glancing at the Vision. She’s real but so very far away.
Then, as we near London, she moves for the first time (Pygmalion lives), reaches down and opens her purse from where she takes out, astoundingly, cigarette papers and a pouch of Bugler cigarette tobacco. Delicate fingers then begin to roll precisely judged pinches of the tobacco into cigarettes. She continues this, each new fire-stick very nearly identical to the previous one, until we begin to slow down to dock at Paddington. The tannoy bleats the announcement of our arrival, she folds up her papers and the pouch of tobacco and places the bespoke cigarettes into a silverish holder, rises, ethereal – and, now, very real and earthy – her bag stuffed with cheap, hand-rolled smokes and then, the door open, delicately picks her way into the crowd and out of my life.
Sitting uncomfortably in a narrow seat that refuses to recline even the slightest bit, my unknown travelling companion, in the next chair, is equally or more physically distressed, the latter possibility more likely than not because of his bulk (indeed, he makes me, a rather pudgy 50-ish type, feel almost svelte). Whatever the relative merits of our individual suffering, there is no doubt that we are both pretty miserable. This is not your sleek modern train, it’s a three car special across the Styx, passenger comfort is not a criteria nor, it seems, is punctuality for this morning we are embarrassingly late; I will be one of those last arrivals to my office today, wandering in after everyone else has settled down to the new week, trying to look harried, as if I’ve just swam, climbed and fought my way through the wilderness to arrive here, dedicated to my work, anxious to be at the side of my brethren as we do the company’s bidding.
My eyes feel red; I got up before the dairy farmers. I’ve tried to work some but there is no room to spread out and I’m not in the mood to read so I just stare blankly ahead where there is a row of three folding seats that are, if possible, even more uncomfortable than the one I’m occupying. Those three must be miserable because they are the absolute last to be filled and, indeed, we pass a number of stations without even one being occupied (the option of clambering over someone on the aisle to take a window being preferable). Ultimately, though, they fill up and, as we near London, amazingly, one is occupied by a Vision.
Withdrawn, unapproachable the way a beautiful woman must learn to be (or so most of them have always seemed to me), a woman from the 1960’s occupies the seat in front of me. She is the pinnacle of the ‘60’s ideal – Julie Christie, Twiggy. Her black hair is straight and hangs around her shoulders, nothing out of place. She has bangs that complete the frame around a face that comes straight out of a dream about the women of that decade. Her eyes are large and blue with long, black lashes. Her skin is pale and unblemished.
I suppose I’m so tired that I can’t help staring but the Vision seems oblivious, she doesn’t even move her head in irritated acknowledgement of my stares. After a couple of minutes respite from the real world, restfully letting my gaze linger on the Madonna face, I realise what I’m doing and re-focus, moving my eyes about but, they keep coming back, glancing at the Vision. She’s real but so very far away.
Then, as we near London, she moves for the first time (Pygmalion lives), reaches down and opens her purse from where she takes out, astoundingly, cigarette papers and a pouch of Bugler cigarette tobacco. Delicate fingers then begin to roll precisely judged pinches of the tobacco into cigarettes. She continues this, each new fire-stick very nearly identical to the previous one, until we begin to slow down to dock at Paddington. The tannoy bleats the announcement of our arrival, she folds up her papers and the pouch of tobacco and places the bespoke cigarettes into a silverish holder, rises, ethereal – and, now, very real and earthy – her bag stuffed with cheap, hand-rolled smokes and then, the door open, delicately picks her way into the crowd and out of my life.
07 February 2004
Dawn Spill … Tuesday notes meant for a Monday (3 February 2004)
I must somehow make this day amusing; actually passing through it was not but the raw materials were, I’m thinking now (at the beginning of this piece), sufficient to father a smile.
Firstly, I was up very early. Another Monday (to note that it is Tuesday is a mere quibble); another dawn flight to another city that, over the years, has become everycity. The coffee maker chose today not to work, augury of what was to come. The benighted machine failed to perform not in any conventional way, it chose to make coffee but not convey said beverage into the coffee pot. This is considered impossible, the machine is supposed to be fool proof but, I have decided, it is only idiot proof; against a pure, 100% fool, like myself, it is completely helpless. There are engineered defences against the possibility that the newly brewed coffee might fail to reach its objective, the thermos carafe; for the coffee to arrive at the latter, one must jam said receptacle into a designed space under the filter basket where, by which jamming action, is popped open a valve-like contraption that permits the hot water, freshly boiled, to percolate through the ground beans and the fine mesh paper filter and, traversing a tiny aperture, exit into the stainless carafe below. Today, however, the coffee failed to attain its objective and was, instead, pooled either on the granite counter top or dripping into the open drawer where we keep our supplies of ground coffee, filters, tea, herbal infusions and chocolates. By the time I made my way back to the scene of neglect (after initiating the process by pressing the ‘on’ button, I futzed about, packing and so on whilst all the coffee-brewing excitement occurred), all of these things were semi-floating in about a quarter of an inch of cold coffee (amazing how rapidly the stuff chills on frosty mornings when it fails to land in the insulated container!).
It took me a full ten minutes to sop up all of the coffee and another ten to brew a new pot. At last I had a cup of fragrant, rich, hot coffee! I perched myself in front of the TV and watched the early morning news although, scandalous admission, I did flip over ITV 2 to check the conditions in the Australian rain forest and see whether Jordan’s boobs might have fallen out of her top overnight. The former is sweaty and overgrown, the latter is, honestly, not worth waiting for unless you hold shares in Dupont and think the knocker-on effect will buoy the price. In the event I grew quickly bored and turned back to Sky’s 0530 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Mr. Rather, famous for his hugely overworked country similes during the last election, is, fortunately, still fascinated by the U.S. presidential election process, a fascination I share. Somehow, Rather is beyond cynical and simply observes the whole process with a weary wonder.
At this stage, with everything still pretty much to play for, there is a perverse pleasure, akin to the Australians’ delight in ‘topping’ whatever tall poppies their society might throw up, in witnessing the decline and fall of, mostly, egotistical Deomocratic dreams about power and popularity in the bright snows and harsh election reality of New Hampshire or, later, South Carolina or New Mexico. What I fail to understand, the fun and games of primary season apart, is how, in all seriousness, at this time and in this world, any reasonably educated, right-thinking, compassionate American could remain Republican. We owe it to our posterity to rid the country of this man Bush and his cronies. They must be retired! Not only Bush, but Cheney must go! The United State of Halliburton must no longer be the voice of our people!
Americans must grow up. If we are to create the society that we want, one that is just, which provides real opportunity, we must accept that our will can only be expressed collectively via Government and, therefore, Government must be truly representative, just and pro-active, reflecting our hopes, dreams and will. Taxes are the inevitable cost of creating this world. Pay up and be content with the smaller house, happy in the knowledge that, because you have chosen to create as close to a fair society as you can, everyone else has a house as well, that only the hardest core sleep in refrigerator cartons. Be happy that there is a park within easy distance of every kid’s door and that the schools they go to provide an education and are not places to park unwanted or unexpected offspring. Expect that when you go to the emergency room of the nearby hospital, your child’s arm bent strangely after her street-dance recital, you don’t have to wait for credit processing before the doctor will see and treat you. Expect also that the doctor and the staff at the hospital will treat you as fellow citizens, acknowledging your existence in a manner that dignifies, does not demean you, whatever your capacity to afford the treatment that will be meted all equally.
But, I digress or, maybe, this time I don’t …
One thing for sure, my reflections on the American political scene have made me less than amused. Dave Barry has it right; you must laugh at it. We are obligated to cry out for change but it is right to do it through a smile! Lives of quiet desperation are so because those who live them choose to define them that way.
I'll save the story of the two airports, one missed flight, the train, the bus, the taxi, two missed meals and the bad wine for another time when I elect to write my own Gormenghast -- a day in a book.
I must somehow make this day amusing; actually passing through it was not but the raw materials were, I’m thinking now (at the beginning of this piece), sufficient to father a smile.
Firstly, I was up very early. Another Monday (to note that it is Tuesday is a mere quibble); another dawn flight to another city that, over the years, has become everycity. The coffee maker chose today not to work, augury of what was to come. The benighted machine failed to perform not in any conventional way, it chose to make coffee but not convey said beverage into the coffee pot. This is considered impossible, the machine is supposed to be fool proof but, I have decided, it is only idiot proof; against a pure, 100% fool, like myself, it is completely helpless. There are engineered defences against the possibility that the newly brewed coffee might fail to reach its objective, the thermos carafe; for the coffee to arrive at the latter, one must jam said receptacle into a designed space under the filter basket where, by which jamming action, is popped open a valve-like contraption that permits the hot water, freshly boiled, to percolate through the ground beans and the fine mesh paper filter and, traversing a tiny aperture, exit into the stainless carafe below. Today, however, the coffee failed to attain its objective and was, instead, pooled either on the granite counter top or dripping into the open drawer where we keep our supplies of ground coffee, filters, tea, herbal infusions and chocolates. By the time I made my way back to the scene of neglect (after initiating the process by pressing the ‘on’ button, I futzed about, packing and so on whilst all the coffee-brewing excitement occurred), all of these things were semi-floating in about a quarter of an inch of cold coffee (amazing how rapidly the stuff chills on frosty mornings when it fails to land in the insulated container!).
It took me a full ten minutes to sop up all of the coffee and another ten to brew a new pot. At last I had a cup of fragrant, rich, hot coffee! I perched myself in front of the TV and watched the early morning news although, scandalous admission, I did flip over ITV 2 to check the conditions in the Australian rain forest and see whether Jordan’s boobs might have fallen out of her top overnight. The former is sweaty and overgrown, the latter is, honestly, not worth waiting for unless you hold shares in Dupont and think the knocker-on effect will buoy the price. In the event I grew quickly bored and turned back to Sky’s 0530 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Mr. Rather, famous for his hugely overworked country similes during the last election, is, fortunately, still fascinated by the U.S. presidential election process, a fascination I share. Somehow, Rather is beyond cynical and simply observes the whole process with a weary wonder.
At this stage, with everything still pretty much to play for, there is a perverse pleasure, akin to the Australians’ delight in ‘topping’ whatever tall poppies their society might throw up, in witnessing the decline and fall of, mostly, egotistical Deomocratic dreams about power and popularity in the bright snows and harsh election reality of New Hampshire or, later, South Carolina or New Mexico. What I fail to understand, the fun and games of primary season apart, is how, in all seriousness, at this time and in this world, any reasonably educated, right-thinking, compassionate American could remain Republican. We owe it to our posterity to rid the country of this man Bush and his cronies. They must be retired! Not only Bush, but Cheney must go! The United State of Halliburton must no longer be the voice of our people!
Americans must grow up. If we are to create the society that we want, one that is just, which provides real opportunity, we must accept that our will can only be expressed collectively via Government and, therefore, Government must be truly representative, just and pro-active, reflecting our hopes, dreams and will. Taxes are the inevitable cost of creating this world. Pay up and be content with the smaller house, happy in the knowledge that, because you have chosen to create as close to a fair society as you can, everyone else has a house as well, that only the hardest core sleep in refrigerator cartons. Be happy that there is a park within easy distance of every kid’s door and that the schools they go to provide an education and are not places to park unwanted or unexpected offspring. Expect that when you go to the emergency room of the nearby hospital, your child’s arm bent strangely after her street-dance recital, you don’t have to wait for credit processing before the doctor will see and treat you. Expect also that the doctor and the staff at the hospital will treat you as fellow citizens, acknowledging your existence in a manner that dignifies, does not demean you, whatever your capacity to afford the treatment that will be meted all equally.
But, I digress or, maybe, this time I don’t …
One thing for sure, my reflections on the American political scene have made me less than amused. Dave Barry has it right; you must laugh at it. We are obligated to cry out for change but it is right to do it through a smile! Lives of quiet desperation are so because those who live them choose to define them that way.
I'll save the story of the two airports, one missed flight, the train, the bus, the taxi, two missed meals and the bad wine for another time when I elect to write my own Gormenghast -- a day in a book.
30 January 2004
On the London to Hereford HST the day after the big snow (??!!) of winter 2003/4 …As usual, England reacted to a couple of inches of snow by completely falling to pieces. Trains ran late, planes were cancelled, the underground – unaffected by the snow but unwilling to be left out – managed a small and otherwise unthreatening fire between stations that shut things down on the Circle and District lines for several hours beginning around 8 PM last night. Along a street that separates one London borough from another, the snow and ice on one side was completely cleaned away but the services department from the adjacent borough couldn’t be bothered to do the same on the other side of the street. Funniest story I heard, though, was about gritting trucks that got out in advance of the arrival of the storm and sanded down streets and ‘pavements’ (sidewalks) in one neighbourhood just to have the grit cleaned off by sweepers that came through not half an hour later!
But, this week in England was otherwise interesting as well. Tony Blair has survived another self-inflicted wound and continues as Prime Minister. Gordon Brown helped round up sufficient votes to pass the ‘top up’ fees bill and avoid a vote of confidence on Blair only because he’s pretty sure, rightly, that he’d not succeed Tony but go down in defeat to that awful man, Michael Howard (he of the acerbic delivery and nasty demeanour).
The top-up fees issue seems to have excited the open toed sandal brigade. What Government wants to do is charge a small amount to students to help pay for their own educations. Britain has recently begun to fall even further behind the U.S. in the higher-education stakes and Government here in Britain has, rightly, figured that students who are privileged enough to be able to attend university ought to be willing to pay for some of it themselves (or persuade their families to). U.S. universities in an open market continue to raise tuition fees regularly and students continue to find the ways and means to pay them. In fact, I’m one of the survivors. I went to an elite university that my father would never have agreed to pay for, even if he could have. The best he could manage, or would agree to, was support equivalent to the amount it would have cost me to go to a good state university (which, even then, about 30 years ago, was more than the amount of the top-up fee charge just approved here in the U.K.). I supplemented my father’s largesse with earnings from a job, student loans and a grant from the university. I only managed to pay off my loans sometime in my 30’s but I honestly can’t see any long-term harm that it might have done me. Graduates, who didn’t earn enough, didn’t have to pay, just as would be the case under the new legislation. I counted myself lucky that I made enough that I could pay my debt.
To my mind, the whole issue can be reduced to the following: the Government’s goal of having half the population attend ‘university’ simply demeans the value of technical education – and way too many good poly-technical and vocational training institutions have been renamed ‘university’. Meantime, in its quest to provide new ‘opportunities’ to the masses, old-style universities have been denied support, their quality has deteriorated, good students and outstanding professors have been lured away by better funded American institutions that will provide them the facilities, remuneration and recognition they crave.
But, there is a more fundamental issue here, which, put simply, is – why should a bus driver pay for my child to go to university? This is so fundamentally unjust that I cannot think of the opponents of the proposed fees as anything but selfish, spoiled and unthinking. The system of top-up fees that was voted by the Commons this week provides so many ways for a student to be excused the charges that I rate it one of the most egalitarian, democratic measures I have seen in some time.
But, as always, I digress although in this case I am not sure from what. I would note in closing, however, that the Hutton report is somehow pleasing. I like Blair. He’s bound to be a bit arrogant after so long as Prime Minister and probably has lost touch but he’s still the best choice to lead the country. A contest between Gordon Brown and Michael Howard might result in Charles Kennedy becoming Prime Minister simply because he’s slightly less objectionable that the others who are patently cut out to play character roles as gangland thugs. The Hutton report has given Alastair Campbell a chance to reinforce his image as a hard-man who, in this case, was right (and my goodness how’s he’s cackled over things). Greg Dyke, appearing pompous and unattractive to the world outside the BBC, has resigned and Andrew Gilligan, the reporter who has inadvertently exposed the inherent anti-Americanism and instinctive knee-jerk left-wingism of the BBC, is exposed as unethical and self-obsessed. I think he should stay in his London flat for the next year or two, having curries and Chinese delivered, pondering what a complete twit he is.
The only thing that could improve my day would be if that terrible man with the loud socks and ties who delivers the news on Channel 4 and who hates everything American and the British Government equally without the need for any justification of his position (at least that I’ve been able to glean listening to him) were to become permanently voiceless or be caught in a compromising position with his pet iguana.
And, the train tonight is not even running that late!
But, this week in England was otherwise interesting as well. Tony Blair has survived another self-inflicted wound and continues as Prime Minister. Gordon Brown helped round up sufficient votes to pass the ‘top up’ fees bill and avoid a vote of confidence on Blair only because he’s pretty sure, rightly, that he’d not succeed Tony but go down in defeat to that awful man, Michael Howard (he of the acerbic delivery and nasty demeanour).
The top-up fees issue seems to have excited the open toed sandal brigade. What Government wants to do is charge a small amount to students to help pay for their own educations. Britain has recently begun to fall even further behind the U.S. in the higher-education stakes and Government here in Britain has, rightly, figured that students who are privileged enough to be able to attend university ought to be willing to pay for some of it themselves (or persuade their families to). U.S. universities in an open market continue to raise tuition fees regularly and students continue to find the ways and means to pay them. In fact, I’m one of the survivors. I went to an elite university that my father would never have agreed to pay for, even if he could have. The best he could manage, or would agree to, was support equivalent to the amount it would have cost me to go to a good state university (which, even then, about 30 years ago, was more than the amount of the top-up fee charge just approved here in the U.K.). I supplemented my father’s largesse with earnings from a job, student loans and a grant from the university. I only managed to pay off my loans sometime in my 30’s but I honestly can’t see any long-term harm that it might have done me. Graduates, who didn’t earn enough, didn’t have to pay, just as would be the case under the new legislation. I counted myself lucky that I made enough that I could pay my debt.
To my mind, the whole issue can be reduced to the following: the Government’s goal of having half the population attend ‘university’ simply demeans the value of technical education – and way too many good poly-technical and vocational training institutions have been renamed ‘university’. Meantime, in its quest to provide new ‘opportunities’ to the masses, old-style universities have been denied support, their quality has deteriorated, good students and outstanding professors have been lured away by better funded American institutions that will provide them the facilities, remuneration and recognition they crave.
But, there is a more fundamental issue here, which, put simply, is – why should a bus driver pay for my child to go to university? This is so fundamentally unjust that I cannot think of the opponents of the proposed fees as anything but selfish, spoiled and unthinking. The system of top-up fees that was voted by the Commons this week provides so many ways for a student to be excused the charges that I rate it one of the most egalitarian, democratic measures I have seen in some time.
But, as always, I digress although in this case I am not sure from what. I would note in closing, however, that the Hutton report is somehow pleasing. I like Blair. He’s bound to be a bit arrogant after so long as Prime Minister and probably has lost touch but he’s still the best choice to lead the country. A contest between Gordon Brown and Michael Howard might result in Charles Kennedy becoming Prime Minister simply because he’s slightly less objectionable that the others who are patently cut out to play character roles as gangland thugs. The Hutton report has given Alastair Campbell a chance to reinforce his image as a hard-man who, in this case, was right (and my goodness how’s he’s cackled over things). Greg Dyke, appearing pompous and unattractive to the world outside the BBC, has resigned and Andrew Gilligan, the reporter who has inadvertently exposed the inherent anti-Americanism and instinctive knee-jerk left-wingism of the BBC, is exposed as unethical and self-obsessed. I think he should stay in his London flat for the next year or two, having curries and Chinese delivered, pondering what a complete twit he is.
The only thing that could improve my day would be if that terrible man with the loud socks and ties who delivers the news on Channel 4 and who hates everything American and the British Government equally without the need for any justification of his position (at least that I’ve been able to glean listening to him) were to become permanently voiceless or be caught in a compromising position with his pet iguana.
And, the train tonight is not even running that late!
24 January 2004
Iraq, Dean's Electability, Toilets in the Czech Republic
There seems to be a change of mood in Iraq. Yes, there are still terrorist attacks and Baghdad looks like a miserable place to live. But, it’s getting better. I am genuinely convinced that is one of the reasons that Howard Dean lost Iowa and, compounded by the now famous yell, will lose New Hampshire. Just as well, we have to find someone who will win to challenge Bush. Special interests are simply too powerful today in America. Dean is a luxury we cannot afford, better Kerry or Edwards who just might succeed in unseating Bush and the heartless, arrogant automaton who is Vice President. Wesley Clark must not get the nomination because with him we might well combine the arrogance of a Bush with the naiveté of a political novice, giving us a completely unproductive presidency, something we can ill afford in the 21st century.
And now I’ve seen Prague and, over the past several days, a great deal of Moravia and Bohemia. I’m impressed. I travelled with a group of Czechs and foreigners round small villages searching for places to build new, environmentally friendly projects. We ate at restaurants tucked in the basements of large, Soviet-era public halls near the centres of small towns. We stopped at remote petrol stations at the edges of villages where everyone but a rather sad cashier was at home, throwing lignite into their boilers to fight the cold, the thermometer was at minus 14 Celsius yesterday afternoon.
The country is clean; there remains much impressive architecture from both the Austro-Hungarian period and before, when these lands at the very heart of Europe were a power in their own right, and, pleasant surprise, there is not an overwhelming amount of ‘sock in the eye’ stuff from the Communist period although there is still too much.
For me though, having now travelled nearly constantly for much of my 52 years (today is my birthday), one great measure of the relative progress and ‘civilisation’ of a country is the state of its toilets. Those in the Czech Republic are, generally, very clean. This is not because they are serviced more often than in other countries; indeed, in some of the places I visited, I’m quite convinced that the cleaners don’t come too often. As much as anything else, the users of these toilets seem to be aware that someone else, another human being, will be using the toilet after them and they try to leave it as clean or cleaner than they found it.
This toilet cleanliness thing is something important. I have sampled them around the world: in China, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Venezuela, Spain, Mexico, Australia and many more countries. It has proven to be one of the most accurate measures of how strongly the rule of law prevails in a particular place. For instance, cleaners in many pubs in Britain have, I believe, disappeared years ago but the toilets remains useable – just, mind you – because of the basic decency of the patrons. This latter, of course, is only true of rural pubs, not those cosmopolitan, rude places that are more ‘bars’ than places for congenial congregation, the true definition of what a pub ought to be.
But, as usual, I digress, this was to be about the Czech Republic I think. Nice place, visit it if you can.
There seems to be a change of mood in Iraq. Yes, there are still terrorist attacks and Baghdad looks like a miserable place to live. But, it’s getting better. I am genuinely convinced that is one of the reasons that Howard Dean lost Iowa and, compounded by the now famous yell, will lose New Hampshire. Just as well, we have to find someone who will win to challenge Bush. Special interests are simply too powerful today in America. Dean is a luxury we cannot afford, better Kerry or Edwards who just might succeed in unseating Bush and the heartless, arrogant automaton who is Vice President. Wesley Clark must not get the nomination because with him we might well combine the arrogance of a Bush with the naiveté of a political novice, giving us a completely unproductive presidency, something we can ill afford in the 21st century.
And now I’ve seen Prague and, over the past several days, a great deal of Moravia and Bohemia. I’m impressed. I travelled with a group of Czechs and foreigners round small villages searching for places to build new, environmentally friendly projects. We ate at restaurants tucked in the basements of large, Soviet-era public halls near the centres of small towns. We stopped at remote petrol stations at the edges of villages where everyone but a rather sad cashier was at home, throwing lignite into their boilers to fight the cold, the thermometer was at minus 14 Celsius yesterday afternoon.
The country is clean; there remains much impressive architecture from both the Austro-Hungarian period and before, when these lands at the very heart of Europe were a power in their own right, and, pleasant surprise, there is not an overwhelming amount of ‘sock in the eye’ stuff from the Communist period although there is still too much.
For me though, having now travelled nearly constantly for much of my 52 years (today is my birthday), one great measure of the relative progress and ‘civilisation’ of a country is the state of its toilets. Those in the Czech Republic are, generally, very clean. This is not because they are serviced more often than in other countries; indeed, in some of the places I visited, I’m quite convinced that the cleaners don’t come too often. As much as anything else, the users of these toilets seem to be aware that someone else, another human being, will be using the toilet after them and they try to leave it as clean or cleaner than they found it.
This toilet cleanliness thing is something important. I have sampled them around the world: in China, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Venezuela, Spain, Mexico, Australia and many more countries. It has proven to be one of the most accurate measures of how strongly the rule of law prevails in a particular place. For instance, cleaners in many pubs in Britain have, I believe, disappeared years ago but the toilets remains useable – just, mind you – because of the basic decency of the patrons. This latter, of course, is only true of rural pubs, not those cosmopolitan, rude places that are more ‘bars’ than places for congenial congregation, the true definition of what a pub ought to be.
But, as usual, I digress, this was to be about the Czech Republic I think. Nice place, visit it if you can.
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