Happy All Saints Day!

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It’s strange and quite sad at the same time how we British (along with the rest of the Western world) copy and imitate so much of what comes out of America. Now, that is not said out of any disrespect to the USA, a country that I much admire, like immensely and visit regularly.

It is a wonderful country and its achievements in the 237 years of its existence are nothing short of phenomenal.

What bothers me, however,  is why we British, who have a history, heritage and a set of traditions at least ten times as old feel the need to copy America so blindly. Why, for example, do we have to celebrate Halloween, that great example of American consumerism, in the manner of Americans when All Hallows Eve (the correct name for Halloween) is such an ancient festival in our country’s history?

Today (November 1st) is All Saints Day and tomorrow is All Souls Day, all part of the same festival. These are days of British tradition and history but I doubt many people know this and I doubt if they are taught by our schools.

I appreciate that I probably sound like a grumpy old curmudgeon who, Canute-like, is trying to hold back the tide and prevent the inevitable – and I realise, of course, that this particular tide can never be stopped. More’s the pity.

Only One Winner

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I overheard a conversation the other day, although diatribe would probably be a better description! A man was telling his friend, in a loud boastful voice (you know the type) that he was going to take so and so to the cleaners, he was going to sue him up and down the land and would make him regret that he ever crossed him in the first place.

I had no idea what the conversation was about and, of course, had no interest either. Why should I? I gave up listening to the problems of strangers when I ceased practicing the law a couple of years back. It did strike a chord however and I remember thinking that I hoped the guy had got plenty of money because he would certainly need it if he was going to carry out his threats successfully.

It reminded me of a print of a famous 17th century painting that used to hang on my office wall. It is a cartoon-type picture of a cow with a thin man at one end pulling on its nose with the word “Plaintiff” written next to him. At the tail end of the cow was another thin man pulling at the tail and the word “Defendant” was written next to him. Sat on a stool by the middle section of the cow was a very large man milking the beast for all he was worth. The word next to that man was “Lawyer”.

That sums it  up nicely and, as I used to say to my clients, don’t take anybody to law unless you have first exhausted all other options and, even then, only if you have a large bank balance. Going to litigation is like going to a casino. At the end of the day there is only one winner and it sure aint the punter!

Pornographic Music Videos

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Earlier this month veteran singer Annie Lennox called for pop music videos to be censored and rated just as films are by the British Board of Film Classification. Many parents of young children are naturally very concerned at the exposure of their offspring to unregulated televised pop music videos of which some, in the opinion of many right-thinking folk, are nothing short of pornographic.

Action is surely required but, whatever steps are now taken it may be too late for a whole generation of youngsters brought up on an unlimited diet of porn on the internet and social media sites. Don’t forget that this is an age where the first act of courtship to many adolescents is to email or text the object of their desire photographs of their genitals. How do you regulate and police that?

The internet has proved to be a revolution like no other and is an undoubted boon to many. There is however a dark and sinister downside and I fear we are yet to see the full extent of its effects on our society.

The Astronaut and the Monkey

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Last  week, England’s football manager, Roy Hodgson, did extremely well in ensuring that a slightly above average football team booked a place at next year’s  World Cup Finals. Unfortunately, the celebrations were tarnished because one of the players  leaked details of the manager’s half time team talk to the national press. Evidently, the talk (a private affair obviously meant only for the players present) featured a joke involving two astronauts and a monkey and the player took offence at what he perceived was a racist joke.

I am familiar with the joke, having first heard it about 20 years ago. It’s reasonably funny and the joke is not at the expense of the monkey but at the two astronauts whose only job is to feed the monkey, thus inferring that the monkey is more intelligent than they are. The astronauts, for the purposes of the joke, could be any nationality you wanted, whether English, Scots, Irish, French, American or whatever. It was just a playful laugh at the nation of your choice and, as I said, compliments the monkey at the expense of the chosen nation.

Clearly, the footballer who reported the joke to the press wasn’t bright enough to realise that and, as with everything else these days, the assumption by the Thought Police (see the novel, “1984”) was that the joke was an example of racial discrimination based on colour. What complete nonsense. With hindsight perhaps it would have been more politically correct and acceptable if the monkey had been described as albino!

All that aside, the story doesn’t reflect well upon the team’s spirit and morale ahead of what will be an extremely difficult tournament involving at least a dozen teams better equipped to win the trophy than England. If I were Hodgson (an undoubtedly decent man) I would leave no stone unturned in my efforts to find the Judas who betrayed his manager and thus his team-mates in such a scurrilous and cowardly manner. I would then make it clear to him that he will never again be selected to play for England whilst I remained manager. Go on Mr Hodgson, seek him out. The huge chip on his shoulder should make him readily identifiable.

 

A Fine Advertisement for Democracy

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It is somewhat strange and more than a touch ironic that the country, who more than any other in the modern age, has trumpeted the values of freedom, liberty and democracy has allowed its politicians to shut down government to the clear detriment of the electorate.

Still, as one of America’s greatest presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said –

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education”.

The former president was, of course, talking about an educated electorate choosing wisely but a little wisdom among the clearly uneducated politicians in Congress wouldn’t go amiss either!

One of my personal favourite quotes on democracy is from Oscar Wilde who, distorting the words of America’s founding fathers, said–

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people”.

Whatever view you take on the shenanigans of American politics, the events of the last few weeks have hardly been the best advertisement for the virtues of democracy.

More Politically Correct Nonsense

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The ITV sports presenter, Adrian Chiles, was in trouble this weekend after making a throwaway comment about Polish builders ahead of the England football team’s crucial World Cup qualifier with Poland tomorrow night. He outraged the PC brigade by inferring that if England were to win the game it would have a detrimental effect on the work currently being undertaken at his house by Polish builders.

Those humourless modern day puritans who, along with their equally dictatorial and boring colleagues from Health and Safety, dictate modern life didn’t get the joke but I wonder how many Polish folk took exception to Chiles’  comment?

Looked at from a different angle it could, in fact, be construed as a compliment. The fact that people refer to the hardworking Poles as their default builders is actually more a dig (no pun intended!) at the indolent English.

Perhaps he should have expanded his comment a little more; that many English are nowadays so lazy, so spoilt, so decadent and so reliant on state handouts that they cannot be bothered working and instead sit back, welfare-state purchased fag and beer in their hands watching Sky TV whilst Johnny Foreigner does it all for them. Just try finding a reliable English tradesman when you need one in a hurry. These days they are as rare as hens’ teeth in many parts of the country.

Perhaps the dullards who took offense at what was clearly a harmless joke (at least to anybody with half a brain) might like to consider that before they start criticising people like Chiles who, after all was only hinting at the unpalatable truth.

Crossing the Border

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Last week I crossed the border from Canada to the USA via the Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge, so-called because, when the sun shines, you can see rainbows in the spray from the Falls. We were about fifth in a line of coaches, the passengers of which were naturally subjected to the usual routine border/passport control inspections. No problem there, we all want to travel safely in these high risk terrorist-threatened days and a little inconvenience is a small price to pay for that safety.

Every now and again, a coach is singled out for the full treatment whereby the driver’s papers and log are minutely examined and his coach subjected to various inspections by fully fledged mechanics. Occasionally, if the mood takes them, the border guards can insist upon all the luggage being taken out – actually they can insist on whatever the hell they want, nobody in their right mind is going to argue with 16 stone of armed muscle! – and in some cases the bags opened for further inspection.

Of course, the nature of such random checks means that we mere mortals have no idea what is required of us nor whether we will be the unlucky ones selected for the full works. Well, the coach in front of ours was one such coach and I, along with my increasingly nervous tour group, watched as the border guard and mechanic went about their business whilst fifty odd Japanese passengers sat for over an hour in their hot, stuffy and by now non-air-conditioned bus. I don’t know why they were selected, maybe the border guard’s grandfather had been bombed at Pearl Harbour! Who knows?

Eventually, the by-now sweaty passengers were  led off their coach and into the customs area and, after another thirty minutes or so of having their individual papers examined they were allowed to go. We were next to face the stern-faced inspection although in our case it was of the more routine variety. As tour group leader, I collected the $6 per person entry fees (I wonder if the Japanese paid more!) and handed them over to the supervising guard who actually cracked a smile at my limp attempts at witty conversation. Perhaps he was just humouring me.

Anyway, other than sharing this fascinating aspect of touring life, I wanted to point out what a good idea I think it is to extort (sorry, require!) payment of a fee from foreigners for the privilege of visiting your country. This is on top of the usual visa fee and only applies, for some reason, where you enter the USA by land.

We must get millions and millions of visitors to the UK each year by air, sea and tunnel. Why don’t we charge them all, say £5 each? What a great boost to the economy. Perhaps the extra revenue might even encourage our Government to go easier on its own citizens. Now I’m being silly!

Life Goes On

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Whilst travelling through Vermont, USA  on Friday I stopped to visit the grave of the great Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Robert Frost.  As I read his epitaph,  “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world”,  I recalled another one of his many profound quotations –

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on”.

Says it all really.

Recruiting for the Extreme Right

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It was reported last week that a school in Blackburn has ordered its pupils to wear a hijab (a head dress covering the girls’ faces) both in and OUT of school. What makes this calculating and overt act of religious control even worse is the fact that the school, the Tauheedul Islam Girls’High School, is state-funded, funded by taxes collected from ordinary UK citizens like you and me.

When I saw the headline (in last week’s Sunday Times) I did a double take. Surely that couldn’t be true? Then I read the article and, yes, it is. What on Earth are we coming to. What is happening to a country that has, since the Middle Ages at least, prided itself on practising the essential freedoms and religious tolerance? Why would we allow this to happen?

The misguided liberals, of all major parties, who have governed us for the last twenty years or so would say that my reaction (a reaction shared by the majority, I’m sure) is that of a reactionary bigot. Well is it? Here’s what a well-respected Muslim has to say.

Haras Rafiq, the former expert adviser to the Government on the prevention of Islamic extremism, prepared a dossier in 2011 raising concerns about the Tauheedul  Charitable Trust which aims to set up more schools like the one in Blackburn. The Government ignored his concerns  and granted permission for the setting up of three such schools. No doubt, more will follow. Rafiq was quoted as saying “I think it threatens to create young British Muslims who are not able to integrate in the wider society, who are living in isolation and outside the wider community”. He’s right and, as one concerned parent of a pupil at the Blackburn school said “Religion belongs in the place of worship or the home and not the classroom”.

What do the Government say to that? Surely, even the most blinkered liberal can see that their policies will do nothing but foster more resentment among right-thinking folk (both Muslims and otherwise) and ultimately will lead to more racial tension. If the Government wanted to act as a recruiting sergeant for the extreme right they couldn’t be doing a better job. Such fools.

Credit where Credit is Due

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Most of us are quick to criticise politicians, civil servants and other officials whenever they blunder and I am as guilty as anybody, so it’s nice to be able to give praise when it is due.

I recently took a tour party to the USA and on the last evening, prior to an early departure the following morning, I was told by one of my group that he had lost his passport. Both he and his wife had exhausted every possibility in trying to locate the document and I had checked with the previous hotel to see if it had been handed in but all to no avail.

We had a journey of five hours to travel from deepest Alabama to Atlanta and then a window of just two hours to visit the British Consulate and obtain an emergency passport before the group were transferred to the airport for their flight home. I researched the procedure on the Consulate’s website and telephoned them immediately the office was open. I was at once impressed by the clear instructions given by the helpful agent there and his confidence that if we got there quickly enough we should be alright.

So it was that we arrived at the Consulate in downtown Atlanta early afternoon armed with freshly taken passport photos and current id in the form of a driving licence. After completing forms to first cancel the missing passport and second to apply for an emergency one, which would be surrendered on arrival in the UK, and payment of a fee of $157 (£95) we were, as the Americans say, “Good to Go”.

It all took under an hour and during that time we were treated with unfailing courtesy and efficiency. So well done the British Consulate. Clearly, there is still some “Great” left in the old country yet!