Longrider

And have we learned nothing? Simon Jenkins takes Charles Clarke to task over at the Times today. He voices the thoughts and fears that have been going through my mind recently. For example:

Those who questioned the extravagant Anglo-American reaction to 9/11 are regularly accused of being “the sort of people who tolerated Hitler”. On the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I am inclined to return the odious compliment. It is they who are the sort of people who tolerated Hitler. They would have stood by complacently as Germany’s interwar rulers let go one freedom after another to avert some “foreigner threat”, until suddenly there were none left. They ran in fear of fear. Hitler’s Enabling Bill of 1933 became his in-camera People’s Court of 1934 with “sole right to try cases of treason”. But even that included two professional judges, which is more than will Mr Clarke’s “court of me alone”.

That is exactly what has been worrying me. Sixty years ago my grandparents’ generation went to war to defend our freedoms (and the freedoms of our allies in Europe) against the kind of oppressive measures our government now imposes upon us in the name of freedom. Today, sixty years on our glorious leaders say “never again” and “we must remind ourselves of the lessons of history” - the same people that is, who are repeating those very mistakes. Detention without trial? In Britain? My grandfather survived being torpedoed on the Murmansk run and died young from health failure as a result. Maybe that is as well - what would he think about his sacrifice being thrown away in this cavalier manner?

It’s not just here of course. Yesterday while idling a few hours away in my hotel room, I finally caught up with Farenheight 9/11 and was reminded not only of the corruption and sleaze that exists in high levels of government but also the arrant stupidity of the general populace who willingly (and are prepared to say so to camera) sacrifice a little freedom for the perception of increased security - because something has to be done to stop the terrorists.

Er, what terrorists? Oh, sure, there are some cells who wish to do us harm - but the global threat that Bush and Blair have been trumpeting for their own nefarious ends? An illusion. Politicians have to justify their existence. There was a time when they promised to improve our lives. That was until we all stopped believing them. Now they have discovered a new raison d’être; they’ll protect us from the bad guys. And in so doing will corrode away those freedoms that we all took for granted (until they’re gone). And, in so doing, just coincidentally, you understand, they will happen to increase their own power. Well, I never, didn’t see that one coming, did you?

Over at the NO2ID site is a leader about councils that are resisting the ID card scheme. interestingly they are claiming that

ID cards would not be required for access to council services, and that the cities would refuse to cooperate with the scheme as far as possible within the law.

It goes on….

"Finger printing ordinary people and making them feel like criminals, then charging them for the pleasure, has no place in a supposedly free and liberal society. New Labour is becoming alarmingly authoritarian, to the point where even their own Council Groups cannot support them.

"ID cards are an expensive white elephant designed to pander to the Daily Mail. Once people realise what the scheme actually entails and the charge they will have to pay personally, opposition will grow."

And who said this? Why, Cllr Andrew Aalders-Dunthorne of Norwich City Council. No less than the constituency of Charles Clarke our esteemed Home Secretary who is championing the vile scheme. Oh, irony, irony.
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George Bush is now inaugurated for his second term as President of the USA. Following the debacle of the 2000 elections it seemed then improbable that he would survive a second election, but survive he did. Now, it seems, the world is about to become a darker more dangerous place.

The Middle East has been a hotbed of discontent for thousands of years. I wonder at the optimism of “road maps for peace” between the Palestinians and Israel when bearing in mind the bitter feud that has existed since biblical times. A good grudge harboured over generations is not easily laid to rest. For some years there has been an undercurrent of fear in the western world that a major conflict on the scale of the two world wars would erupt in this peculiarly unstable region.

The US/UK coalition’s war in Iraq was bad enough, but for the moment seems to be contained within Iraq’s borders. That the war was based upon either bad or misleading intelligence is neither here nor there - the enterprise was both illegal and flawed. To the casual observer, it had “Vietnam” written all over it. You do not just walk into someone else’s country, kick out the ruling elite and replace it with your own vision of how things ought to be. It just doesn’t work like that. If the Middle East was really ready for democracy, there would be more of it in evidence. The plain fact of the matter is that for the most part, the culture demands some form of dictatorship. And as time goes on the face of that dictatorship is increasingly Islamic theocracy. I don’t like it much either, but it’s not my country so it’s none of my business.

Back to George Bush though. It seems that already he is flexing his muscles. Not content with the quagmire that is Iraq, he is setting his sights on Iran. Iran’s crime? Ah, yes, their nuclear programme. Now, it worries me, too, that the Mullahs might get their hands on a nuclear bomb. But - and here’s the rub - it is not up to those who have it to decide who else should join the club.

It would seem that the “special relationship” that exists between the British government and Washington is under some strain over this issue:

“British officials are increasingly concerned that months of patient European-led diplomacy aimed at curbing the ayatollahs’ nuclear ambitions may suddenly explode in a torrent of bunker-busting bombs dropped by B-2 stealth bombers.”

And, tellingly:

“There is also concern in London that the Pentagon may be ordered to act on the basis of flawed intelligence. “

Well, there’s a surprise.

There is also the little matter of undermining resistance to the Ayatollahs inside Iran. A strike - whether from the USA or Israel might just have an undesired side effect:

” far from encouraging Iranian reformers to rise up against their theocratic government, any form of US intervention might unite the country behind Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader.”

This time, should the USA decide to stretch its resourses to breaking point, draft all its able bodied men and women and declare war on Iran, the UK must say a resounding NO!

I meant to comment on this when I first saw it a week ago, but I’ve been busy with other things and it slipped my mind. Browsing James Hammerton’s blog just reminded me. During the summer there was a piece about the Barcelona beach club using Verichips to identify customers. The idea being - and it sounds just so reasonable - is that it makes entry to the club and buying drinks that much more convenient; no more bulges in one’s swim suit caused by that all too inconvenient wallet or purse, because all that is needed is a small chip embedded in one’s arm. So chic, darling. This years must have.

Makes me want to scream. 60 years after the liberation of Auschwitz where the Nazis tattooed their victims, people are queueing up to have the modern equivalent. I’m not being too dramatic here, am I? I mean, I know we use this technology on our pets - but people?

James Hammerton asks an important question:

"What’s to stop someone using this chip to track your whereabouts at other times for more sinister purposes?"

The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing.

“If you stumbled out of bed in the dark this morning, fell over the cat, found no milk in the fridge for your porridge, had a row with your partner, received a rude letter from the bank, got covered in snow at the bus stop and finally arrived at work in time to be made redundant, you will already know that today is the most depressing day of the year.”

According to Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University in this article in the Guardian today. It seems that this day is sufficiently far from the Christmas festivities and long enough for the bills to catch up with us, that combined with the realisation that spring and with it, Easter is a long way off makes it the most depressing of the year.

Certainly it felt that way this morning when the 6 O’Clock alarm went off. It was dark outside and a mixture of frost and snow lay on the roofs of cars parked in the street. Not the sort of morning I wanted to be going out on the bike, but I had no choice, so teeth gritting was in order. The traffic was the usual grind - complicated by earlier traffic light failures and the road conditions. I made my train by the skin of my teeth (again) having wasted precious minutes looking for my gloves.

The train home from Paddington was late arriving and delayed further after picking up passengers from a failed train - so it took over two hours to get home.

But, that apart, I’m not feeling particularly down. The decline in my finances caused by lack of work in October and November has reversed with work booking ahead until March, so I’m busy, which is good. All in all, I see spring just around the corner - our crocuses have started pushing through and we have hyacinths out too. Before we know it the buds will be turning the bare branches green, the daffodils will be turning the country a bright shade of yellow and winter will be a dim memory. Optimist? I hope so.

How was your January 24^th?

I found this via Queenie’s Blog.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

I generally take these things with a pinch of salt; they’re a bit of fun, but that’s about it. This one is uncannily accurate. I do teach and I enjoy every minute of it.

Ah, well, that’s this year’s pilgrimage to Olympia. Much the same as last year really. What strikes me is the plethora of aromas that assaults the senses as you wander through the market section of the exhibition. And the cheeses….oh, the cheeses. We came away with a special offer (just for the show, you understand) of five cheeses for a fiver. Couldn’t resist. We also collected umpteen brochures from the tourist office of the Languedoc Roussillon to put in our house for visitors to use.
Oh, and we bought a clock for the kitchen that will look just the piece.
My only gripe is catering. There are several bars in the Olympia complex but none really have enough seating and the café set up for the show was hugely over subscribed. Otherwise, an enjoyable day.
We’ll be back next year for more of the same.

I’m training in Croydon this week. I also had an assessment to do in Swindon this morning, so we had a cunning plan. My wife would drive me to the station on her way to work and I would catch the 09:01 train or, at the latest, the 09:29. Bearing in mind that traffic is fairly heavy at that time in the morning, we set out at 08:00. Allowing plenty of time (one hour) should have been plenty.

Ah, well, you can plan your day but you can’t plan the result, it seems. At first things seemed to be okay. Until, that was, we hit the ring road. Gridlock personified. A trip that would normally take between 10 and 20 minutes took close to an hour and a half. After dropping me off to catch the 09:29 by the skin of my teeth, it took my wife another hour and a quarter to get to work - a journey of close to three hours to cover a journey that normally takes 20 minutes or so.

The cause? A traffic accident on the ring road causing the whole road to be blocked in the middle of the rush hour. Given the density of traffic at that time in the morning meant that gridlock backed up miles in each direction. I admit to being somewhat stressed. I had a meeting to keep and even despite phoning ahead to both my candidate and my wife’s manager (thank goodness for mobile phones) I could see my appointment slipping away. That I made it was as a result of getting out of the car and walking the last few metres into the station.

The Roman philosopher Seneca had an approach to this sort of situation. His philosophy was that we should expect problems and not be surprised when they happen. Or, to put it in modern parlance; shit happens.