Good gawd in Govan

I had to contact the Royal Bank today. Never a good idea. I wanted to pay for the bathroom and kitchen that B&Q are about to install in my soon-to-be new flat. If I don't pay for them this week, I'll be bounced out of the queue for fitting, meaning I'll have to be in the flat when the fitters install them. Anything but that. The pressure was on.

I offered my debit card, the manager phoned and we were, of course, referred to the RBS fraud squad to verify my identity. All in favour of that. I was asked 3 security questions and failed the first one: I can never remember if I spell my mother's maiden name with an Mc or a Mac. It didn't matter that I got the next two (much harder) questions right. I had to go on to extra security questions:

Could I describe a recent credit to my account? Yes, I recently transferred in a sum of money. Could I say how much? Yes. Could I give the exact date of the transfer? No.

On to the next question:

Could I remember a direct debit paid from my account? How about East Renfrewshire council tax? Fine. Could I tell the person at the other end of the phone exactly how much this was for and what date it was paid? Er, no. I have direct debits precisely so I don't have to remember these details.

I suggested we could maybe try something else. I seem to remember setting up 5 optional security questions such as the name of my first school, my sister's name, etc. No, that wouldn't do. I was rejected out of hand.

Dear gawd, prevented from spending my own money.

We phoned rbs banking. What to do? The nice young man asked me a whole lot of security questions which I managed fine and then suggested giving it 10 minutes and trying again. He even stayed on the line while we tried. Success. My order is on its way.

Tonight I decided to reset my debit card password, so as to avoid problems in the future. RBS online has a 'chat' section where you can try the  - utterly useless 'frequently asked questions' - or wait to chat with some poor sod in Bangalore. We 'chatted.' That is, we wrote notes. It took me a few tries to persuade Krishna I did not want to reset my pin. At that point, Krishna vanished to be replaced by Tryanbank. (Is that really a name?) because the system had gone down. Poor Krishna is probably in the sick room holding his head right now. And I never used CAPITAL LETTERS once. After only 15 minutes, I managed to change the password.

However, here are my new bathroom and kitchen. Lovely, eh?

Time to move

Last week, I had a visit from a representative of the agents who 'look after' this house for the owner. I didn't in fact know he was coming down from Aberdeen to inspect the premises, because despite getting a letter and an email from me the organisation has not noted my new email address.

Just as well I was here.

The representative and I talked a bit about the house: the rotten window frames that let in wind and dust; the electrics which were fine 30 years ago but really need to be replaced so you can use the washing machine and the dishwasher at the same time without blowing all the fuses; the worn-out carpets that I try to avoid using my Dyson on in case it sooks the carpets off the floor; the awful mint green bathroom that is well past its sell-by date. You get the picture.

Today I got a letter from the agents. Are they dealing with any of these issues, you may ask? Decide for yourself:

Never mind. Six weeks from now, I'll be away! 

Here Come De Judge...

A judge down south managed to shoe-horn poor Karen Buckley into a case he was trying this week. He was hearing the case of a woman who assaulted a total stranger. The victim happened also to be a woman. The attacker claimed she couldn't remember what had happened due to the amount of drink she'd taken. The judge then expressed concern that women make themselves 'vulnerable' if they get so drunk they can't remember what happened to them. A Glasgow sheriff would say something like: 'Can't remember battering this total stranger for absolutely no reason? Try 60 days in choky. That might help your memory.'

The fact is this case has nothing at all in common with Karen Buckley's case: Karen was not drunk and she wasn't the aggressor in an assault. She was the victim of a horrible murder, for which a man has been arrested and will go on trial later this year.

You'd think someone somewhere in the world of the law would have told judges by now: do not comment on social matters you know nothing about. The public already think you live in cloud cuckooland. Don't open your mouth and prove they're right.

But there are other issues.

First, this judge made the assumption that women should be treated differently from men. Not in my book. And incidentally, people like this judge need stop referring to women as 'girls'. At 21, you're an adult, not a girl. And if you've behaved violently, you should be treated as an adult.

And second, we need to reject the idea that only women are vulnerable when they're drunk. Is the judge saying that women - and only women - can expect to be assaulted physically or sexually if they drink too much? Anyone with male gay friends knows that's not the case. And is physical and sexual assault just something that happens? Do we just have to go on sending people out into the world telling them to deal with it?

Well, it will go on happening as long as we go on blaming the victims.

I'm going to take this to what I admit is a silly extreme. Let's imagine the preparations men and women need to make for a night out:

- Guys: shower, hair product, deodorant (please), decent clothes, loads of cash from the ATM for taxis to and from pub and club and for drink.

- Women: same as for the guys but maybe factoring in extra cash for the taxi to the nearest A&E after you've been assaulted, loss of wages during the time you have to take off work for ID parades, giving statements, making court appearances as a witness, not to mention loss of dignity when being examined by medics and police officers and trying to explain this to your family.

I want everyone to operate to the same rules: when you're out go with your mates stick together. That's it. You're not in charge of your friends' drinking habits. Nor are you in a position to patrol their sex lives.

The people we need to change are the small number of men who feel entitled to demand sex and who turn violent when it's refused. We can educate them out of these attitudes but not while the judges go on suggesting the problem is the victims.

It's either that or women and gay men go to work, do a wee bit of shopping (but only in daylight) and stay home the rest of the time. And strictly no drink. Why should you or I or anyone of whatever sex have to adopt that lifestyle?

The food bank continued

We had a quiet day at the food bank a couple of weeks back. It was the Easter weekend and the Pearce Institute, the CAS office and Money Matters were all closed. Our only clients seemed to be people who couldn't get in to these local agencies for red slips to get them 3 days supply of food so had to come to us for a 1 day emergency supply. We used the session to reload the shelves and fill the boxes but also for some team bonding with lots of good craic, some mickey-taking and great stories that allowed us all to get to know each other better.

That stood us in good stead today because everything seemed to happen at once. The kids went back to school today, having eaten their parents out of house and home, and we had people arriving well before the doors opened.

In addition, the local supermarkets had a big stock-take and needed to offload stuff that was close to its sell-by date. Celtic Park had filled its car park with food donations in memory of Brother Walfrid - bless you all, Celtic fans - and we got our share delivered, boxes and boxes of stuff. An Asian supermarket decided to donate rice - two hundred 25lb bags - plus many packets and jars of sauces. A friend of the food bank sent in two trays of biscuits and two of crisps, luxuries the food bank can't often afford. The food bank staff had also been to the supermarket and we had trays of sugar and tins of meat and veg to put away.

It was pretty hectic for a while. We had families of five, couples, singles and a lot of emergency applicants. No sooner had we served one client than the people upstairs were calling down another order. At one point, we had to tell them the boxes were empty (we keep 11 boxes filled and ready to hand out, 6 for singles and the others for families) and they would need to get clients to have a seat and a cuppa tea till we were ready. The advantage of that is that the upstairs people get a chance to talk to the clients and gauge how they are doing.

We're a good team the six of us. We sometimes argue: 'We are NOT putting tins of condensed milk in instead of UHT. Have you tasted condensed milk? Imagine that on your cornflakes! Go to the shop and get milk!' We sometimes forget each other's names in the heat of the moment: Henry got two apologies today for that. But by and large, we get the orders done and delivered to the right people, partly because Lorna acts as our gatekeeper: 'You'll have to wait' is her war cry. When it was all over, I found one bag of food that we had forgotten to pass on. It was part of an emergency order. We felt bad about that but emergency cases get two other bags of food to tide them over so, all being well, they should manage till they can get a red slip. That, we think, was the only problem.

Now we've run out of toilet paper. Where does the best deal on cheap toilet paper, folks?

People, please!

                

This is my lovely Italian suite. It's about 20 years old, and in excellent condition because it was hardly used. I tried selling it on Gum Tree. No takers. McTear's offered me 30 quid for it. They would probably sell it on at auction for £300. I offered it for nowt on Facebook. Zilch. So then I decided to offer it for free on Gum Tree (Glasgow area).

I got 119 replies in 36 hours. 

About a third of those were from dealers. One cheeky chappie wanted me to deliver it to a place in Essex. Dream on, pal. Another third roughly wanted to come and see it, despite the fact it was going for nothing and I'd made it clear in the ad it was in storage and would have to be accepted sight unseen. Another third wanted to come and pick it up the next day. Same problem. A few folk offered me money but didn't say how much. 

I narrowed the 119 down to 4, and sent polite wee 'sorry' messages to the rest. I put the 4 in rank order. Anyone in need? A young woman graduate setting up home for the first time was my first choice. Been there. Second choice: a 70 year old woman. My age group. Well, why not? Then a guy who clearly knew about furniture and had a big house. Then a woman who wrote a nice message and was trying to furnish a flat on jobseekers' allowance.

Number one fessed up she didn't actually have a flat so couldn't agree to accept the suite on the date I specified. The second has had a stroke and is in hospital. I'm on to number three now. Keith. We'll see what happens. I could be trawling through my waste basket for a few weeks yet. 

Why don't I just give it to charity? They only take furniture with fire labels on it. My suite is in storage (I think I've said that before) and I have no idea if it has fire labels or not.  

John Lorne Campbell

I lived and worked in Argyll for about 15 years off and on and I remember hearing the name John Lorne Campbell from time to time in various contexts. Now finally I've got round to reading his biography by Ray Perman (2010) and it's an inspiration.

Campbell (1906-1996) came from the Argyll landed gentry but he wasn't one of them. He didn't do the huntin/fishin/shootin stuff. He didn't serve as an officer in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He didn't marry 'one of his own.' At Oxford, he studied, not classics as his family wanted him to but agriculture. He bought the island of Canna, encouraged people to come and live and farm there, in an attempt to reverse the Clearances, and in his old age he gave it to the National Trust for Scotland.

The list of Campbell's publications in Wikipedia is long and their range amazing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lorne_Campbell

He was very interested in politics. And the issues he raised in the 1930s are the very matters now preoccupying us in Scotland: Who owns the land? How do we protect our environment? What should our democracy be like if it's to support the people?

He and his wife Margaret Fay Shaw - she was an American of Scottish ancestry - learned Gaelic and collected and recorded Gaelic folklore and songs. They were very clear that the Gaelic language was dying in their time, not of neglect but of the open hostility of the British state, and did everything they could to preserve and promote the language and culture.

On page 20 of the biography, Ray Perman writes:

"(Gaelic) had once been spoken by all social classes in the Highlands and Islands, but after the failed Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745 it became associated with political dissent and the Catholic religion...There was an official campaign to discourage and even suppress the language, backed by repressive legislation which...discriminated against Gaelic...There was also a campaign to supplant Gaelic in education...although...among themselves and at home (children) continued to speak Gaelic. Catholic priests still preached in the old language and, despite the prevailing orthodoxy, many ministers in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland continued to preach in both languages."

In 1765, 100% of the population of Argyll spoke Gaelic. By 1879 less than one in ten was a monoglot Gaelic speaker. By 1921 there were just 20,000 Gaelic speakers in Argyll - less than a third of the number forty years before - and only 500 of them spoke Gaelic alone.

So the next time somebody tells me 'But Gaelic is dying, isn't it?' I plan to ask if they know who killed it. But I want to point out the debt we owe to John Lorne and Margaret Fay Campbell. Without them, we would have little record of Argyll Gaelic and the community would be a poorer place.

I'm insulted

First of all, I am pro-independence but I am a Green. I've never voted SNP and will always be suspicious of their intentions until they tell me how they see their role after independence. But...

Let's set this out properly: on Thursday evening, Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, appeared on TV in a 'debate' with six other party leaders. She put on a good show - either because she's clever and a very good manipulator of the media or because she's a wonderful politician. How you see her depends very much on how you view the SNP and where in the UK you are watching. The 'debate' ended at 22.00. Immediately, people furth of Scotland sent in tweets wishing they could have her as a UK politician/asking how they can join the SNP/commenting on how well she and the other two women on the panel spoke.

The next day - THE NEXT DAY - the Telegraph, a London-based, Tory-supporting newspaper, published a memo claiming Nicola Sturgeon secretly supports the Tories (cue the old Scottish fear that the SNP are really Tartan Tories) and thinks Ed Milliband (to whom she has previously extended the hand of friendship) is not capable of being prime minister. Nicola Sturgeon and the French ambassador deny she ever said this.

Frankly, I'm insulted. The UK press is a living example of the old quote from the works of Humbert Wolfe:

You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist. But, seeing what the 
    man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to.


Really, do the members of the UK press think the voters are so stupid we'll fall for this? And then I think back to the aftermath of Thursday's 'debate' when members of the public were so pleased with the performance of Nigel Farage, were so disparaging of the efforts of Leanne Woods and Natalie Bennett and declared the evening had no overall 'winner' (what is this - a third year debating group?) but was a tie between Cameron and Milliband. I noticed Clegg got no mention at all, his reward for keeping the Tories in power for 5 years.

Maybe it's true: we get the government we deserve. I only hope that Thursday evening showed there could be more to politics than middle-aged white men shouting at each other.