I don't read the Scotsman newspaper very much, not even online. In fact, I probably read the Daily Mail more than the Scotsman. That's a bit of a surprise to me. It's a joke of a paper, the Mail. I love the way it calls itself your Scottish Daily Mail although it has just about nothing in it about Scotland and in fact is pretty anti-Scottish. But at least I can explain to a visiting Martian that this is a foreign newspaper so you can't expect a lot. The Scotsman, however, is written and printed in Edinburgh. How do I explain to my Martian friend that the reason I'm reading bits of it recently is because friends keep sending me anti-Scottish - specifically anti-Scots and anti-Gaelic - articles that are now appearing all too often in the Scotsman.
Like this one:
http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/hugh-reilly-a-tilt-at-the-windmill-of-gaelic-1-3161984
I've no idea who Hugh Reilly is. I'm told he used to be a teacher. I'm glad that he has joined the Scotsman as a columnist since that has maybe stopped him poisoning a few children's minds against all things Gaelic and Scots.
Reilly claims that Gaelic owes its revival to the SNP. Nothing could be further from the truth: the Gaelic revival started 25 years ago, long before government was a gleam in Alex Salmond's eye. In fact, Gaelic was never really promoted by the SNP till fairly recently. And this is just the first of many examples of Reilly's ignorance of his own country. Queen street station has indeed got signage in Gaelic but that was put up ages ago by a Labour Council - nothing to do with the SNP. He claims 'Glasgow's institute for teuchter education' is in the west end. Not strictly true. It's in Woodside but its population is drawn from all over Glasgow and furth of Glasgow. He regards the increase in the number of Gaelic medium schools as a mystery, but that's to be expected since he knows nothing about the subject. He also repeats the lie that BBC Alba gets 25 nillion quid a year from the taxpayer.
But let's be fair. After all, Reilly is: he's as agin the Scots language as he is anti-Gaelic. He's offensive about a headteacher who has devoted her career in part to the survival of Scots. According to him, only old people speak Scots. That'll come as a surprise to my Ayrshire friends whose offspring are lucky enough to be bilingual in Scots and English. And there's even a few that are trilingual in Scots, English and Gaelic. He describes the Scots of Robert Burns as 'spookily sound(ing) like the final, gurgling words of Robert Maxwell.' He's certainly never heard of the Doric - or any of the other dialects of Scots.
How do you get to hate your own nation and its cultures that much? Is it because the Scotsman newspaper has paid you to do it? Because you're anti-independence and will use any weapon against the yes voters? Or is it, as I suspect, just sheer-bloodyminded ignorance.
What really gets my goat is that the Scotsman has a regular column in Gaelic and has had for years and years. I know a few people who buy it for that reason. There's obviously some kind of split personality at work in the Scotsman offices.
But what I'd most like to know is when articles like this stop being just 'provocative' and become outright racist. If you read Reilly's article and substitute Urdu or Chinese for Gaelic or Scots, does the Scotsman's xenophobia start to be a bit sinister? It does to me.
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
Saturday, 26 October 2013
This is Scoats - or is it?
Ah goat asked the night by somdy a don't know how I don't learn Scoats.
In fact, he asked me this in Russian (I said ah'd learned Russian). Ah'm no sure whit wing o the Scoats mafia he belangs tae. Thur's the folk that speak Doric or Ayrshire. Thur's the wans that ur 'learnin Scoats' witivir that might be. They fling words lik 'leid' and 'ailblins' intae the mix on paper - but ur they usin them in daily life, eh? Thur's the academics that cin quote the linguistic jargon bit ony in English. Thur's the wans that want linguistic purity an cin tell the rest o us whit's up wi oor langwidge but no whit right langwidge is, because thur's nae sich thing. Maybe there's an erse wing in Scoats. The guy ah'm talkin aboot definitely belangs there.
This happened oan the Scots Language page oan Facebook. Don't ask me how they canny huv the name o the page in Scoats - it's therr page, therr choice. Anyhow, here's the news: ah speak Scoats. This, folks, is ma Scoats. Ah grew up speakin lik this. Ah still speak it tae ma close faimly - jist ma generation - the weans huv maistly loast their Scoats - and tae ma pals. It's a miracle how ah still speak Scoats. It wizny written doon. Whit ah'm writin is in an orthography ah've made up masel. It was despised when ah wiz a wean. Teachers an the poasher bits o ma faimly made me understaun early oan that folk that wanted tae get oan in life didny talk like this.
Thur's somy us huv a split personality whur Scoats is concerned. At school, ah remember we hud a teacher - lookin back, she must've been a student oan teachin practice. She tried tae teach us Scoats.
'Who knows the word lum?' she asked us. Well, we aw did. It wiz a word we used in the hoose. But we'd been tellt words fae the hoose wurny fur school - lik 'aye' an 'naw' an 'gonny'. So we said nuthin. 'Come along now,' (or sumthin lik that) she said, 'You must know some Scots.' Well, we did. As well as the Scoats we spoke in the hoose, thur wiz the annual Burns competition. Ah lived in Govan an we aw hud tae learn poems - different wans ivry year - and recite them in class and then in the school hall in front o the rest o the weans, and then the best wur picked tae recite again in the toon hall. Ask me aboot the wee cooerin timorous beastie - it's lik pressin a button - ah'm aff lik a train. Ah cid dae ye The Braw Wooer as well even noo. Same wi Holy Wullie's Prayer. Sure, naebdy tellt us this wiz Ayrshire Scoats an if they hud it widda meant nothin. This wiz jist a way o expressin yersel that wiz oors.
Ah remember huvin tae read Scoats ballads in secondary school but ah remember mair comin acroass Tam Leonard's poems when ah wiz at university. Whit an eye-opener. He wrote the way ah spoke, even though he seems tae be despised on the Scots Language page. Then thur wiz the Satire o the Three Estates that we staged in the Drama department at Glasgow University. Scoats hud a history - who knew? An thur wur plenty other writers: Edwin Muir, Edwin Morgan, Willie MacIlvanney. Glad tae see his books makin a comeback, by the way.
Thur's plenty tae celebrate here. An the last census shows thur's 1.7million Scoats speakers in the country. So whit dae we dae? Build on the good news? Nut at all. We argue aboot whit Scoats is and whether your Scoats is purer than mine, forgettin the auld adage: use it or lose it.
Scoats willny survive this century withoot help, so get it intae the education system by hook or by crook, promote it in everyday life, get it some respect - whitivir it looks and soons lik an wherivir it's spoken, Scoats is a treasure. If oor generation disny dae it, the langwidge is deid.
In fact, he asked me this in Russian (I said ah'd learned Russian). Ah'm no sure whit wing o the Scoats mafia he belangs tae. Thur's the folk that speak Doric or Ayrshire. Thur's the wans that ur 'learnin Scoats' witivir that might be. They fling words lik 'leid' and 'ailblins' intae the mix on paper - but ur they usin them in daily life, eh? Thur's the academics that cin quote the linguistic jargon bit ony in English. Thur's the wans that want linguistic purity an cin tell the rest o us whit's up wi oor langwidge but no whit right langwidge is, because thur's nae sich thing. Maybe there's an erse wing in Scoats. The guy ah'm talkin aboot definitely belangs there.
This happened oan the Scots Language page oan Facebook. Don't ask me how they canny huv the name o the page in Scoats - it's therr page, therr choice. Anyhow, here's the news: ah speak Scoats. This, folks, is ma Scoats. Ah grew up speakin lik this. Ah still speak it tae ma close faimly - jist ma generation - the weans huv maistly loast their Scoats - and tae ma pals. It's a miracle how ah still speak Scoats. It wizny written doon. Whit ah'm writin is in an orthography ah've made up masel. It was despised when ah wiz a wean. Teachers an the poasher bits o ma faimly made me understaun early oan that folk that wanted tae get oan in life didny talk like this.
Thur's somy us huv a split personality whur Scoats is concerned. At school, ah remember we hud a teacher - lookin back, she must've been a student oan teachin practice. She tried tae teach us Scoats.
'Who knows the word lum?' she asked us. Well, we aw did. It wiz a word we used in the hoose. But we'd been tellt words fae the hoose wurny fur school - lik 'aye' an 'naw' an 'gonny'. So we said nuthin. 'Come along now,' (or sumthin lik that) she said, 'You must know some Scots.' Well, we did. As well as the Scoats we spoke in the hoose, thur wiz the annual Burns competition. Ah lived in Govan an we aw hud tae learn poems - different wans ivry year - and recite them in class and then in the school hall in front o the rest o the weans, and then the best wur picked tae recite again in the toon hall. Ask me aboot the wee cooerin timorous beastie - it's lik pressin a button - ah'm aff lik a train. Ah cid dae ye The Braw Wooer as well even noo. Same wi Holy Wullie's Prayer. Sure, naebdy tellt us this wiz Ayrshire Scoats an if they hud it widda meant nothin. This wiz jist a way o expressin yersel that wiz oors.
Ah remember huvin tae read Scoats ballads in secondary school but ah remember mair comin acroass Tam Leonard's poems when ah wiz at university. Whit an eye-opener. He wrote the way ah spoke, even though he seems tae be despised on the Scots Language page. Then thur wiz the Satire o the Three Estates that we staged in the Drama department at Glasgow University. Scoats hud a history - who knew? An thur wur plenty other writers: Edwin Muir, Edwin Morgan, Willie MacIlvanney. Glad tae see his books makin a comeback, by the way.
Thur's plenty tae celebrate here. An the last census shows thur's 1.7million Scoats speakers in the country. So whit dae we dae? Build on the good news? Nut at all. We argue aboot whit Scoats is and whether your Scoats is purer than mine, forgettin the auld adage: use it or lose it.
Scoats willny survive this century withoot help, so get it intae the education system by hook or by crook, promote it in everyday life, get it some respect - whitivir it looks and soons lik an wherivir it's spoken, Scoats is a treasure. If oor generation disny dae it, the langwidge is deid.
Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Dear Scott Rennie
I see you're a member of the Unite trades union. I was a member of a different union - the EIS - for 28 years before I changed to a UK wide union. I disliked our union leaders because they were never prepared to take on the politicians but I stuck with them because they were all we had. Now things have changed so much that you and I as trades unionists are pretty much relics of a bygone age. It's impossible for most people to join a trades union at all these days.
However, despite the fact they are mostly pretty powerless, the trades unions can and do get the blame for just about everything that goes wrong in UK industry (what's left of it) these days. In the case of the fiasco at Grangemouth, the anti-union talk in the press and on TV, radio and the internet has already started. I heard a BBC Scotland reporter tonight say the Unite union refused to 'lift its threat of industrial action' at Grangemouth. That's not exactly what happened. Unite members didn't provoke the confrontation with Ineos. They got an ultimatum from management and voted 2 to 1 to reject their employers' demands to change their working practices and give up their final salary pension. That's their right as employees. They didn't at any time threaten the company with industrial action in the future.
By the way, nothing I've read or heard suggests a change in work practices or an end to final salary pensions would help Ineos recoup the £50 million it claims it lost in the last financial year at Grangemouth.
Bottom line: Ineos is not interested in petroleum refining. The owner (note that's what Jim Ratcliffe is) has said he wants to import US economic and industrial processes into the UK. He means dumping old-fashioned industry like refining and taking up fracking instead. His business is based in Switzerland. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of businesses are based overseas, but it's interesting that Ineos bought a 'failing' business, arguably made it worse and moved its HQ overseas to avoid paying VAT in the UK. You can read about all it here:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/robin-mcalpine/whats-really-happening-at-grangemouth-and-what-it-tells-us#.Umf_BzHLUZ4.twitter
Ian Bell's column today in the Herald is also informative: http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/could-public-ownership-be-worse-than-refinery-farce.22488035
He suggests we take the refinery back into public ownership. This is the only refinery in Scotland and it supplies Scotland, northern England and northern Ireland. There's even a wee hint here that what Ineos was trying to do was blackmail Unite and the governments of Scotland and the UK to give them a subsidy. Fat chance, guys: bigger employers than Ineos have gone to the wall in Scotland and the government in Westminster - the one with control of the cash - hasn't turned a hair.
If I can give you a bit of advice, Scott - and I'm so old now I do that at every opportunity - maybe you should stick with Unite, encourage other people to join a union and be a bit more cynical about the triumph of capitalism. It's worth remembering capitalism has no moral dimension - just a love of money.
However, despite the fact they are mostly pretty powerless, the trades unions can and do get the blame for just about everything that goes wrong in UK industry (what's left of it) these days. In the case of the fiasco at Grangemouth, the anti-union talk in the press and on TV, radio and the internet has already started. I heard a BBC Scotland reporter tonight say the Unite union refused to 'lift its threat of industrial action' at Grangemouth. That's not exactly what happened. Unite members didn't provoke the confrontation with Ineos. They got an ultimatum from management and voted 2 to 1 to reject their employers' demands to change their working practices and give up their final salary pension. That's their right as employees. They didn't at any time threaten the company with industrial action in the future.
By the way, nothing I've read or heard suggests a change in work practices or an end to final salary pensions would help Ineos recoup the £50 million it claims it lost in the last financial year at Grangemouth.
Bottom line: Ineos is not interested in petroleum refining. The owner (note that's what Jim Ratcliffe is) has said he wants to import US economic and industrial processes into the UK. He means dumping old-fashioned industry like refining and taking up fracking instead. His business is based in Switzerland. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of businesses are based overseas, but it's interesting that Ineos bought a 'failing' business, arguably made it worse and moved its HQ overseas to avoid paying VAT in the UK. You can read about all it here:
Ian Bell's column today in the Herald is also informative: http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/could-public-ownership-be-worse-than-refinery-farce.22488035
He suggests we take the refinery back into public ownership. This is the only refinery in Scotland and it supplies Scotland, northern England and northern Ireland. There's even a wee hint here that what Ineos was trying to do was blackmail Unite and the governments of Scotland and the UK to give them a subsidy. Fat chance, guys: bigger employers than Ineos have gone to the wall in Scotland and the government in Westminster - the one with control of the cash - hasn't turned a hair.
If I can give you a bit of advice, Scott - and I'm so old now I do that at every opportunity - maybe you should stick with Unite, encourage other people to join a union and be a bit more cynical about the triumph of capitalism. It's worth remembering capitalism has no moral dimension - just a love of money.
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
Who is Maria?
When a friend of mine was pregnant, she told her husband she had a notion to call the baby Kiri. He was very calm about this: Okay , he said, if this wee Glesga wean is born with Maori DNA, we'll call her Kiri. Otherwise...
The chances of that happening were remote, but I suspect the case of Maria, the wee blond girl adopted/abducted by Roma in Greece is much more complicated. Maria doesn't share DNA with the family she lived with. We're all so agitated in western Europe about the reopening of the investigation into Madeline McCann's disappearance, it's as if we want to believe that Maria is a 'trafficked' child. But the fact is she could easily be Roma in origin, since there are plenty of fair-haired and fair-skinned Roma in eastern Europe. You only had to watch Rageh Omar's series on the Ottoman Empire on BBC4 to see how the populations from central Asia to the Balkans and the shores of north Africa were mixed together for 600 years.
But what makes Maria's case really complicated is our reaction - those of us in the west and east of Europe who are not Roma - to how the Roma live. We don't like them - and I include myself in that description, having been attacked by a gang of teenage Roma girls in the street in Rome in broad daylight. I imagine the former colleague who got her bag snatched in a street in Barcelona by a Roma couple felt the same. And the other colleague pick-pocketed on the Paris Metro who pointed out who had done it to a cop but couldn't get him to take her seriously: Ça arrive, Madame, he said and went on to advise her to take better care of her belongings.
It's easy to work out where all this started. Much harder to work out what to do about it. The Roma were nomads whose lifestyle was totally different from that of the farmers around them. Centuries of social exclusion left the Roma outside our society and feeling they were battling to survive. They've had to suffer being shunted around Europe and central Asia and are still discriminated against in housing and jobs in eastern Europe. In World War 2, they were shoved into Nazi concentration camps and murdered as brutally as Jews, gays and the disabled. It's hard to believe that a whole race of people could be criminals born and bred but it is quite possible to look around and see other groups we used to look on in that way. It's not that long ago that landlords put signs outside their lodgings that read: No dogs, no Irish, no Coloureds.
The Roma respond to discrimination on our part by claiming always to be put upon, treated unjustly, made scapegoats of. and they'll go on doing that so long as we go on treating them as some kind of underclass.
So here's a thought: what if Maria was abandoned by her mother and this family took her in, fed and clothed her and used her as a street beggar in return. Is that not better than her being dumped in some hell-hole of an 'orphanage' - which is where she is now, I have to point out. Can any of us in the west do anything to help children like Maria? It's hard to know what we could do but if we don't try the racism - because that's what this kind of discrimination amounts to - will go on. If we need an incentive, maybe we should remember: people denied admission to our community have no reason to protect it and plenty of reason to undermine it.
The chances of that happening were remote, but I suspect the case of Maria, the wee blond girl adopted/abducted by Roma in Greece is much more complicated. Maria doesn't share DNA with the family she lived with. We're all so agitated in western Europe about the reopening of the investigation into Madeline McCann's disappearance, it's as if we want to believe that Maria is a 'trafficked' child. But the fact is she could easily be Roma in origin, since there are plenty of fair-haired and fair-skinned Roma in eastern Europe. You only had to watch Rageh Omar's series on the Ottoman Empire on BBC4 to see how the populations from central Asia to the Balkans and the shores of north Africa were mixed together for 600 years.
But what makes Maria's case really complicated is our reaction - those of us in the west and east of Europe who are not Roma - to how the Roma live. We don't like them - and I include myself in that description, having been attacked by a gang of teenage Roma girls in the street in Rome in broad daylight. I imagine the former colleague who got her bag snatched in a street in Barcelona by a Roma couple felt the same. And the other colleague pick-pocketed on the Paris Metro who pointed out who had done it to a cop but couldn't get him to take her seriously: Ça arrive, Madame, he said and went on to advise her to take better care of her belongings.
It's easy to work out where all this started. Much harder to work out what to do about it. The Roma were nomads whose lifestyle was totally different from that of the farmers around them. Centuries of social exclusion left the Roma outside our society and feeling they were battling to survive. They've had to suffer being shunted around Europe and central Asia and are still discriminated against in housing and jobs in eastern Europe. In World War 2, they were shoved into Nazi concentration camps and murdered as brutally as Jews, gays and the disabled. It's hard to believe that a whole race of people could be criminals born and bred but it is quite possible to look around and see other groups we used to look on in that way. It's not that long ago that landlords put signs outside their lodgings that read: No dogs, no Irish, no Coloureds.
The Roma respond to discrimination on our part by claiming always to be put upon, treated unjustly, made scapegoats of. and they'll go on doing that so long as we go on treating them as some kind of underclass.
So here's a thought: what if Maria was abandoned by her mother and this family took her in, fed and clothed her and used her as a street beggar in return. Is that not better than her being dumped in some hell-hole of an 'orphanage' - which is where she is now, I have to point out. Can any of us in the west do anything to help children like Maria? It's hard to know what we could do but if we don't try the racism - because that's what this kind of discrimination amounts to - will go on. If we need an incentive, maybe we should remember: people denied admission to our community have no reason to protect it and plenty of reason to undermine it.
Monday, 21 October 2013
Putting the customer first?
First it was Ryanair discovering that people hate their company after the public voted them 100th out of, yes, 100 rubbish companies. Michael O'Leary worked out - all by himself - that Ryanair's petty money-making puts people off travelling with them: 'O look, this bag is 5cms too wide to be hand luggage - that'll be 20 Euros, thank you!'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24177834
Then the gas and electricity companies started hiking their prices up. British Gas went onto Twitter to 'explain' the rise and their PR people were a wee bit surprised to find customers replying with:
No one can solve this problem of waste except the supermarkets themselves. And it's a bit rich Tesco blaming their suppliers. If Tesco decide they want food supplied in smaller quantities, they'll get it. Mind you, the way things go with businesses these days, the chances are there will be a charge and you and I will be paying it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24177834
Then the gas and electricity companies started hiking their prices up. British Gas went onto Twitter to 'explain' the rise and their PR people were a wee bit surprised to find customers replying with:
<<Hi Bert, which items of furniture do you, in your humble opinion, think people should burn first this winter?>> and
<<Can I go back to paper bills, please, or can you send me something else that will burn?>> and
Now it's Tesco finding out - again to their surprise - that their sales methods are wasteful. For some reason, they've latched on to the waste involved in the sale of salad. I promise them, that's the least of it. Let me quote from a blog entry I posted in February this year:
<<...supermarkets are not geared up for dealing with single person households, despite the fact that millions of us now live alone. And I don't just mean the elderly. How about the newly divorced and separated and those between relationships or those just pissed off with relationships who decide to maintain their independence?
I always end up buying too much in the supermarket because portions only come 'family-sized' and I have to rely on my family to come and take stuff away. This month I passed on to my nephew and his wife a tray of chicken joints, a packet of crackers, tortilla chips, crisps and a jar of pour over sauce. These are called bogofs in the supermarket - buy one get one free - often stuff near its sell-by date. None of these are any use to me unless I can freeze them and most I can't.>>
I always end up buying too much in the supermarket because portions only come 'family-sized' and I have to rely on my family to come and take stuff away. This month I passed on to my nephew and his wife a tray of chicken joints, a packet of crackers, tortilla chips, crisps and a jar of pour over sauce. These are called bogofs in the supermarket - buy one get one free - often stuff near its sell-by date. None of these are any use to me unless I can freeze them and most I can't.>>
No one can solve this problem of waste except the supermarkets themselves. And it's a bit rich Tesco blaming their suppliers. If Tesco decide they want food supplied in smaller quantities, they'll get it. Mind you, the way things go with businesses these days, the chances are there will be a charge and you and I will be paying it.
Thursday, 17 October 2013
Let's hear it for the US of A
Back in the days when the Soviet Union and the USA were rival world powers, a friend of mine used to tell me the difference between the two powers was this:
In the Soviet Union, nobody knew till 40 years later that Stalin had decided in the 1940s the Red Army was riddled with traitors. This was despite the magnificent - you could say insane - sacrifice the army had made in World War 2 to save Родина - Rodina - the Motherland. He is said to have demanded purge after purge, sending out orders to various army battalions that he wanted the following officers treated as traitors: 1 colonel, 2 majors, 3 captains, 6 lieutenants. Nobody dared disobey, so heroes of World War 2 were lined up and shot.
The USA, on the other hand, believed in having everything out there in public where the country could see it: Nixon was guilty of a gross misuse of his powers as president and only escaped being impeached because he made a deal - the kind now made routinely by thieves and murderers - and his sacking was all done in public. President Kennedy's assassination was investigated over and over in public. Bill Clinton's sexual adventures nearly turned into a congressional enquiry. And so on.
Back then, I suppose it was a point of pride that the USA had no cover-ups (although we now know that was hogwash - you only have to look up the history of the FBI on Wikipedia to see that).
Can I be the only person not shocked but kind of embarrassed at the latest goings on in US politics? In the full glare of publicity, the Republican Tea Party tried to force Obama to give up his healthcare plans. Elderly men with bad dye jobs came forward day after day to harangue the public on the evils of Obamacare and Obama's refusal to back down, while the public - and not just federal employees - watched amazed. The final straw tonight came as a compromise was reached (I'm glad by the way that common sense and the need for health care for the 49 million people uninsured at the moment in the US prevailed) and a stenographer - let me repeat that: a member of the admin staff of the Congress - got to her feet and harangued the members over a microphone about the evils of Freemasonry. Truly the crazies have taken over.
I hope this is the end of the Tea Party and their nutty ideas, but I have an awful feeling the USA has bitten off more than it can chew this time with its public display of incompetence. I can just hear the Chinese: Hello, Mr Obama. We own most of your debt. We've come to help you to settle this problem...
Can I be the only person
In the Soviet Union, nobody knew till 40 years later that Stalin had decided in the 1940s the Red Army was riddled with traitors. This was despite the magnificent - you could say insane - sacrifice the army had made in World War 2 to save Родина - Rodina - the Motherland. He is said to have demanded purge after purge, sending out orders to various army battalions that he wanted the following officers treated as traitors: 1 colonel, 2 majors, 3 captains, 6 lieutenants. Nobody dared disobey, so heroes of World War 2 were lined up and shot.
The USA, on the other hand, believed in having everything out there in public where the country could see it: Nixon was guilty of a gross misuse of his powers as president and only escaped being impeached because he made a deal - the kind now made routinely by thieves and murderers - and his sacking was all done in public. President Kennedy's assassination was investigated over and over in public. Bill Clinton's sexual adventures nearly turned into a congressional enquiry. And so on.
Back then, I suppose it was a point of pride that the USA had no cover-ups (although we now know that was hogwash - you only have to look up the history of the FBI on Wikipedia to see that).
Can I be the only person not shocked but kind of embarrassed at the latest goings on in US politics? In the full glare of publicity, the Republican Tea Party tried to force Obama to give up his healthcare plans. Elderly men with bad dye jobs came forward day after day to harangue the public on the evils of Obamacare and Obama's refusal to back down, while the public - and not just federal employees - watched amazed. The final straw tonight came as a compromise was reached (I'm glad by the way that common sense and the need for health care for the 49 million people uninsured at the moment in the US prevailed) and a stenographer - let me repeat that: a member of the admin staff of the Congress - got to her feet and harangued the members over a microphone about the evils of Freemasonry. Truly the crazies have taken over.
I hope this is the end of the Tea Party and their nutty ideas, but I have an awful feeling the USA has bitten off more than it can chew this time with its public display of incompetence. I can just hear the Chinese: Hello, Mr Obama. We own most of your debt. We've come to help you to settle this problem...
Can I be the only person
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
The fickle finger of fate
With the Madeleine McCann case back in the headlines, I'm coming across very unsympathetic comments about her parents on Facebook and Twitter. You know the style: they neglected their kids. Left them sleeping on their own. This was bound to happen. They should have been prosecuted for doing this. Worse than that: the parents are somehow involved in the abduction and probable murder of this wee girl.
So let's have a reality check: going on holiday with small children is no holiday. Even if you go to a place that offers a kids' club and a baby-monitoring set-up, it's still hard for parents to find time to relax in grown-up company - and when you've been working all year, that's really what you want on holiday. It's clear to me from reading Kate McCann's book and press reports of the crime that all the parents staying in their complex did as they did: put the kids to bed and took a turn in checking on everybody's kids. In other words, it was common practice - maybe it still is - and, rather than these parents being somehow the kind of psychopaths that would murder their own child - not something either parent had shown any signs of - it's quite likely the McCanns and Madeleine were unlucky enough to catch the eye of a predator or a gang of people traffickers.
Most of what I've said here so far is pure speculation, as is most of what is appearing in Facebook and Twitter right now, except (1) it's easy to be wise after the event and (2) looking after children is not easy, although there's a third idea I'd like to pass on to you: sh*t happens - and it can happen to anyone.
For 15 years, I took teenagers all over France on study visits. We had our adventures. One kid only ate baked beans and jaffa cakes at home and eventually collapsed in Paris, having eaten nothing, and had to be taken to the local hospital where a doctor diagnosed malnutrition and said wisely: He didn't get that in 10 days in France. Another boy was caught out of his room in the middle of the night - he'd already been warned - and rather than suffer the wrath of the teachers, decided to play dead at the bottom of a flight of 4 steps. Fell down and lay there like a slab of meat, eyes shut but breathing okay. Another visit to a hospital where the pediatrician decided to keep him in and take blood at 2 hourly intervals. Miraculously, after two jags, the young man came round and announced he wanted to go back to the hotel with the rest of the party. On another occasion, a group of 3 senior girls insisted on being allowed out late at night. They had good French and wanted to do their own thing. After the usual warnings: stay together, watch the drinking and be back by 1am, they set off, only to be brought back in a police car by a very concerned policier who was not persuaded they could take care of themselves. O, the shame of it!
Nothing serious and nothing the staff couldn't handle.
Then came the trip when the bus stopped in a picturesque village for us to have our packed lunches. We found a picnic area near the river and settled down at tables and on the grass in the sunshine to enjoy our break. Suddenly, we realised two kids were in the water. They'd been sitting on the grassy riverbank. One stood up and slid into the water. The second tried to grab her and he slid in as well. The bus driver took off his jacket and held it out like a rope to each kid in turn and pulled them out. They coughed and spluttered a lot, so I left the party looking round the town and took the two kids involved back to the hotel on the bus to have a shower, change their clothes and get a hot drink. While we were there, I let them phone their parents and tell them what had happened and that they were fine. I phoned the school and described the incident to the headteacher. We carried on with our trip with no further adventures.
When we got back to the school, it was 7am on a fine June morning and the headteacher and his depute were waiting for us. The parents picked up their kids and the playground emptied. And that was the moment I was told there was to be 'an investigation' into the river incident. I drove home numb, went to the loo and was physically sick. I knew what was coming. I'd been warned that this was a school where the phrase 'who's responsible for this?' was regularly heard. The blame culture swung into action. The staff who'd been on the trip were interviewed, as were some of the kids. The bus driver was phoned at home to get his view. The questioning was not friendly. A report was written. I was asked to sign it and refused. It wasn't my report and I disagreed with the conclusion that 'Staff should take care to assess the safety of areas chosen for pupils' free time.'
No one was guilty of anything in our wee incident. We were in a designated picnic area. The kids were not horsing around. It just happened. Luckily, in our case, with no harm to anyone. The McCanns weren't so lucky. I have three wishes for the McCann family: that they find out what happened to Madeleine; that they get her back; and that if she was taken by paedophiles, she is dead.
So let's have a reality check: going on holiday with small children is no holiday. Even if you go to a place that offers a kids' club and a baby-monitoring set-up, it's still hard for parents to find time to relax in grown-up company - and when you've been working all year, that's really what you want on holiday. It's clear to me from reading Kate McCann's book and press reports of the crime that all the parents staying in their complex did as they did: put the kids to bed and took a turn in checking on everybody's kids. In other words, it was common practice - maybe it still is - and, rather than these parents being somehow the kind of psychopaths that would murder their own child - not something either parent had shown any signs of - it's quite likely the McCanns and Madeleine were unlucky enough to catch the eye of a predator or a gang of people traffickers.
Most of what I've said here so far is pure speculation, as is most of what is appearing in Facebook and Twitter right now, except (1) it's easy to be wise after the event and (2) looking after children is not easy, although there's a third idea I'd like to pass on to you: sh*t happens - and it can happen to anyone.
For 15 years, I took teenagers all over France on study visits. We had our adventures. One kid only ate baked beans and jaffa cakes at home and eventually collapsed in Paris, having eaten nothing, and had to be taken to the local hospital where a doctor diagnosed malnutrition and said wisely: He didn't get that in 10 days in France. Another boy was caught out of his room in the middle of the night - he'd already been warned - and rather than suffer the wrath of the teachers, decided to play dead at the bottom of a flight of 4 steps. Fell down and lay there like a slab of meat, eyes shut but breathing okay. Another visit to a hospital where the pediatrician decided to keep him in and take blood at 2 hourly intervals. Miraculously, after two jags, the young man came round and announced he wanted to go back to the hotel with the rest of the party. On another occasion, a group of 3 senior girls insisted on being allowed out late at night. They had good French and wanted to do their own thing. After the usual warnings: stay together, watch the drinking and be back by 1am, they set off, only to be brought back in a police car by a very concerned policier who was not persuaded they could take care of themselves. O, the shame of it!
Nothing serious and nothing the staff couldn't handle.
Then came the trip when the bus stopped in a picturesque village for us to have our packed lunches. We found a picnic area near the river and settled down at tables and on the grass in the sunshine to enjoy our break. Suddenly, we realised two kids were in the water. They'd been sitting on the grassy riverbank. One stood up and slid into the water. The second tried to grab her and he slid in as well. The bus driver took off his jacket and held it out like a rope to each kid in turn and pulled them out. They coughed and spluttered a lot, so I left the party looking round the town and took the two kids involved back to the hotel on the bus to have a shower, change their clothes and get a hot drink. While we were there, I let them phone their parents and tell them what had happened and that they were fine. I phoned the school and described the incident to the headteacher. We carried on with our trip with no further adventures.
When we got back to the school, it was 7am on a fine June morning and the headteacher and his depute were waiting for us. The parents picked up their kids and the playground emptied. And that was the moment I was told there was to be 'an investigation' into the river incident. I drove home numb, went to the loo and was physically sick. I knew what was coming. I'd been warned that this was a school where the phrase 'who's responsible for this?' was regularly heard. The blame culture swung into action. The staff who'd been on the trip were interviewed, as were some of the kids. The bus driver was phoned at home to get his view. The questioning was not friendly. A report was written. I was asked to sign it and refused. It wasn't my report and I disagreed with the conclusion that 'Staff should take care to assess the safety of areas chosen for pupils' free time.'
No one was guilty of anything in our wee incident. We were in a designated picnic area. The kids were not horsing around. It just happened. Luckily, in our case, with no harm to anyone. The McCanns weren't so lucky. I have three wishes for the McCann family: that they find out what happened to Madeleine; that they get her back; and that if she was taken by paedophiles, she is dead.
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