There was a woman on the Sky press preview going on about how we're all living that much longer and we're all so much healthier. Her view was that we can't complain about having to work till we're in our 80s when we're fit to do it. I'm delighted to say at least one person in the studio was unhappy with her view.
It got me thinking about work. I've decided it all depends on what kind of work you do. If you're a nurse working in a high-dependency unit or a doctor working in A&E or a paramedic keeping very sick people alive on the way to A&E...or a police officer being spat on when you nick someone and worrying about catching hepatitis...or a teacher facing 30 kids with different needs and different parents and a visit from the headteacher or the inspectors...or a farmer or crofter facing one financial catastrophe after another...or a poor sod working in a 'replenishment centre' for Amazon...or a carer trying to look after too many elderly people in too short a time every day, you're facing the S word: stress. Maybe journalists like the woman on Sky don't face that stress but sure as hell the rest of the workforce does. And it'll reduce your lifespan. Nothing surer.
Because I loved my job, I imagined for a long time that other people were happy at their work. It took me a while to realise that other people hate their work. Get no satisfaction from it. The job is just something they have to do to live. And they would happily cut corners or skive off if they could. I imagine there are also employers who think people should be grateful to have a job - and a few who encourage that attitude by holding the threat of redundancy over people's heads.
I nearly choked on my Americano recently when a friend of a friend asked on Facebook if it was ever okay to cross a picket line. The general view was: no. Just for a minute, it was like we were back in the 1970s with all that trade union posturing. Poor Bob Crow - trying to hold the line killed him just when working people needed him. Right now, we've got academics and entrepreneurs telling us that a lot of workers are going to be replaced by robots and drones in the next 20 years. People are expensive, so if there's a way for global capitalism - which is triumphant at the moment, with no other model acceptable - to do away with human labour and produce a bigger dividend for the shareholders, our 'entrepreneurs' - sorry, that was sarcastic - will go for it.
What ever happened to the deal workers had with capitalism? We do the work; you provide the jobs; you get a reasonable return on your (and your shareholders') investment; we get a living wage. The whole system ticks over nicely. These days, I'm shocked to see companies boasting of a 30% return for shareholders. Annually. You just know when you see that kind of profit margin, it can't go on. The bubble is bound to burst.
Maybe we just have to let the system run a while longer: so automation takes over, prices go up to pay for the robots and the drones, wages go down, working people who are also consumers can't afford to buy stuff, fewer people are working so they can't afford to buy either, profits start to crumble. Capitalism is a man-made system. Its direction can be changed. Maybe someone somewhere will eventually ask: what's this about? I won't be around to see that but good luck to those of you who will.
Tuesday 28 February 2017
Monday 27 February 2017
Child Abuse Enquiry
Where exactly is a major enquiry into the sexual abuse of children taking place? O yes, in the UK. It started today. It's about 150,000 children deported to Australia after the second world war and ruthlessly exploited sexually and for manual labour. The Catholic Church is mired in this scandal, as are the UK and Australian governments. Children who had families in the UK were sent away so that they could have 'a better life.' Orphan children with no families to care for them were sent away as a matter of course. All these children have one thing in common: they were the offspring of the poor. And nobody gave a rat's *rse what happened to them.
Not that you would notice the enquiry has started in most of the media. It's not on the BBC or ITN news websites at all. It's item 11 on the C4 news page. The only outlet featuring the enquiry in any depth is - hold your breath - Sky: http://news.sky.com/story/children-forced-to-leave-uk-under-migrant-scheme-suffered-widespread-sex-abuse-10783953
I have friends on Facebook who tell me that child sexual abuse has been rife among what they call 'the ruling classes' for generations. I have no idea if that's true. I did have a Facebook friend who was handed over in the late 1950s to the care of Nazareth House. Two of her brothers stayed with their father after their mother died. Two of her older sisters went to a different section of Nazareth House from her. One sister was adopted by a family member. This poor wee soul was left at the age of 6 in a dormitory full of strangers. Her sisters didn't bother with her - probably too busy trying to save themselves. And her wider family never came near her. Poor woman, she killed herself at the age of 54.
I don't know if this treatment was common. It was certainly still going on into the 1970s.
Some publicity would be welcome.
Not that you would notice the enquiry has started in most of the media. It's not on the BBC or ITN news websites at all. It's item 11 on the C4 news page. The only outlet featuring the enquiry in any depth is - hold your breath - Sky: http://news.sky.com/story/children-forced-to-leave-uk-under-migrant-scheme-suffered-widespread-sex-abuse-10783953
I have friends on Facebook who tell me that child sexual abuse has been rife among what they call 'the ruling classes' for generations. I have no idea if that's true. I did have a Facebook friend who was handed over in the late 1950s to the care of Nazareth House. Two of her brothers stayed with their father after their mother died. Two of her older sisters went to a different section of Nazareth House from her. One sister was adopted by a family member. This poor wee soul was left at the age of 6 in a dormitory full of strangers. Her sisters didn't bother with her - probably too busy trying to save themselves. And her wider family never came near her. Poor woman, she killed herself at the age of 54.
I don't know if this treatment was common. It was certainly still going on into the 1970s.
Some publicity would be welcome.
Saturday 25 February 2017
Dear neighbours...
I took my wee food bin down to the big brown bin to empty it and discovered it was full of - wait for it - cushions. Yes, I know. Very funny. Except that the binmen now refuse to empty that bin - and the additional brown bin the warden asked for a couple of weeks back, which is now full of all sorts of waste that should have been put down the chute or in the bins marked either paper and card, or glass and plastic.
I'm guessing that somebody in the complex - maybe more than one somebody - is taking the piss. Staging a 'dirty protest.' All they're doing is making things difficult for those of us who want to do our wee bit to recycle our household waste. If the issue is cost, I reckon each bio-degradable bin liner costs 10p. I use one a week. In a year, the cost comes to about a fiver. If you can't afford that, the council people say you can wrap your food waste in a couple of sheets of newspaper (which is bio-degradable) instead.
If you're still not happy, phone the council and complain and they'll tell you what I'm now going to tell you.
Get used to recycling. This is how it has to be. Councils are now fined by the government - the one in London - if they don't take action to reduce waste. We are, you see, turning our planet into a giant dump. Have you not seen Wall-E? Do you not notice the plastic crap lying on our beaches? The stuff dumped at the side of our roads? All we're asked to do in our complex is to separate our waste. If we don't, here's what will happen next - and, believe me, this is based on experience:
The two brown bins sitting outside our complex will start to smell. We will complain. The housing association and the council will tell us why they stink and suggest we need to get in an outside contractor - because the council won't touch them - to dispose of the contents of the two brown bins and then clean them. We will have to pay for this. The cost will be added to the monthly charge for services we all have to pay. If you're pissed off at the council now over rubbish collection, how much more annoyed will you be when you have to pay an extra charge because a few eejits have decide to abuse the system?
Most of all I would like to remind you: this is not important. Definitely not important enough for sensible people to bother about. So can we just settle this matter and get on with life?
I'm guessing that somebody in the complex - maybe more than one somebody - is taking the piss. Staging a 'dirty protest.' All they're doing is making things difficult for those of us who want to do our wee bit to recycle our household waste. If the issue is cost, I reckon each bio-degradable bin liner costs 10p. I use one a week. In a year, the cost comes to about a fiver. If you can't afford that, the council people say you can wrap your food waste in a couple of sheets of newspaper (which is bio-degradable) instead.
If you're still not happy, phone the council and complain and they'll tell you what I'm now going to tell you.
Get used to recycling. This is how it has to be. Councils are now fined by the government - the one in London - if they don't take action to reduce waste. We are, you see, turning our planet into a giant dump. Have you not seen Wall-E? Do you not notice the plastic crap lying on our beaches? The stuff dumped at the side of our roads? All we're asked to do in our complex is to separate our waste. If we don't, here's what will happen next - and, believe me, this is based on experience:
The two brown bins sitting outside our complex will start to smell. We will complain. The housing association and the council will tell us why they stink and suggest we need to get in an outside contractor - because the council won't touch them - to dispose of the contents of the two brown bins and then clean them. We will have to pay for this. The cost will be added to the monthly charge for services we all have to pay. If you're pissed off at the council now over rubbish collection, how much more annoyed will you be when you have to pay an extra charge because a few eejits have decide to abuse the system?
Most of all I would like to remind you: this is not important. Definitely not important enough for sensible people to bother about. So can we just settle this matter and get on with life?
Thursday 23 February 2017
Lies, damned lies...
What has happened to the internet since Brexit and the election of Trump? The number of lies to be found is amazing. It's as if we all have permission now to write any old nonsense and people will believe it. The misinformation applies not just to US and UK politics but to news from Scotland.
The first big lie I noticed was about the Scottish test scores in Maths and English in the international PISA tests. It's claimed school attainment levels are dropping 'like a stone' and Scotland has been 'overtaken' by England. This isn't borne out by the actual figures. The PISA tests are notoriously unreliable. For one thing, the tests don't start from a level playing field: we have schools in different countries with high levels of academic selection up against neighbourhood comprehensive schools. Countries can - and do - fix their test scores by carefully selecting their candidates. Coaching for the tests is rife in some countries. It's got so bad that US schools totally ignore PISA (in which their schools always do badly) and point to their own internal assessment methods as a better guide to the progress of their young people. Scotland's scores have hardly moved in the last 20 years. England's candidates have moved up in the tables and I'd really like to know if they've used any of the methods I've described above to achieve that improvement.
Yesterday, a blog told me - honestly! - that it is Nicola Sturgeon's intention to make Scotland a Gaelic-speaking country. I'd love to know how that's to be done. I'd also like to see where the SNP has a mandate to do that or has even hinted at doing that in its literature. It all seems to point to indignation (fuelled by ignorance) about the Gaelic Language Act of 2005. You don't remember 2005? I do: Scotland was governed by a Labour-LibDem coalition at the time and that was the government which passed the Act. The SNP, I'm sorry to say, took no interest in Gaelic till it came to power in 2007 and it then had to be lobbied relentlessly before it espoused the Gaelic cause. If you don't like the idea of public bodies having to have a Gaelic Plan, blame the right group of politicians. As for a plan for Gaelic to take over the country, show me!
Today I came across my favourite lie so far. The Scotsman newspaper has published findings by an academic that teenagers in Scotland are failing to reach the correct 'reading age.' A Facebook friend has pointed out that the tests of literacy used in Scottish schools (as in many other countries) only measure reading and writing ability up to the age of 12. A reading age of 12 means that a young person is 'functionally literate.' That means, s/he can read and write well enough to be considered to be working at an adult level. In that respect, Scotland is doing pretty well - see the PISA tables. According to the Scotsman's correspondents, the SNP is deliberately 'dumbing down' the population so that we will vote for independence. I'm amazed that the 50,000 teachers employed in Scottish schools have been so quietly recruited to assist in this fiendish plan and parents, some of whom will be anti-independence, have allowed this to happen.
Of course, most of us would say we're not likely to be fooled by this stuff. Some of us don't read these daft ideas anyway. Some of us have learned not to believe anything that comes from a right-wing blog or newspaper. But at the back of my mind is the word disrespectful. I think that blogs and newspapers that put out these ideas are disrespectful of people in Scotland who want the best for themselves and their families, regardless of whether they are Unionists or independence voters. Whatever our differences, we all want to know the real issues, not the alternative facts put out by Internet trolls who couldn't tell the truth if their lives depended on it.
The first big lie I noticed was about the Scottish test scores in Maths and English in the international PISA tests. It's claimed school attainment levels are dropping 'like a stone' and Scotland has been 'overtaken' by England. This isn't borne out by the actual figures. The PISA tests are notoriously unreliable. For one thing, the tests don't start from a level playing field: we have schools in different countries with high levels of academic selection up against neighbourhood comprehensive schools. Countries can - and do - fix their test scores by carefully selecting their candidates. Coaching for the tests is rife in some countries. It's got so bad that US schools totally ignore PISA (in which their schools always do badly) and point to their own internal assessment methods as a better guide to the progress of their young people. Scotland's scores have hardly moved in the last 20 years. England's candidates have moved up in the tables and I'd really like to know if they've used any of the methods I've described above to achieve that improvement.
Yesterday, a blog told me - honestly! - that it is Nicola Sturgeon's intention to make Scotland a Gaelic-speaking country. I'd love to know how that's to be done. I'd also like to see where the SNP has a mandate to do that or has even hinted at doing that in its literature. It all seems to point to indignation (fuelled by ignorance) about the Gaelic Language Act of 2005. You don't remember 2005? I do: Scotland was governed by a Labour-LibDem coalition at the time and that was the government which passed the Act. The SNP, I'm sorry to say, took no interest in Gaelic till it came to power in 2007 and it then had to be lobbied relentlessly before it espoused the Gaelic cause. If you don't like the idea of public bodies having to have a Gaelic Plan, blame the right group of politicians. As for a plan for Gaelic to take over the country, show me!
Today I came across my favourite lie so far. The Scotsman newspaper has published findings by an academic that teenagers in Scotland are failing to reach the correct 'reading age.' A Facebook friend has pointed out that the tests of literacy used in Scottish schools (as in many other countries) only measure reading and writing ability up to the age of 12. A reading age of 12 means that a young person is 'functionally literate.' That means, s/he can read and write well enough to be considered to be working at an adult level. In that respect, Scotland is doing pretty well - see the PISA tables. According to the Scotsman's correspondents, the SNP is deliberately 'dumbing down' the population so that we will vote for independence. I'm amazed that the 50,000 teachers employed in Scottish schools have been so quietly recruited to assist in this fiendish plan and parents, some of whom will be anti-independence, have allowed this to happen.
Of course, most of us would say we're not likely to be fooled by this stuff. Some of us don't read these daft ideas anyway. Some of us have learned not to believe anything that comes from a right-wing blog or newspaper. But at the back of my mind is the word disrespectful. I think that blogs and newspapers that put out these ideas are disrespectful of people in Scotland who want the best for themselves and their families, regardless of whether they are Unionists or independence voters. Whatever our differences, we all want to know the real issues, not the alternative facts put out by Internet trolls who couldn't tell the truth if their lives depended on it.
Tuesday 21 February 2017
Bye bye to the Herald
I'm cancelling the Herald this week and switching to the National, taking the Herald only on Sundays. I like getting a paper delivered. Apart from anything, it supports a local business. And since we've gone from 4 newsagents to 1 here in recent years, that's important. It's not that the National is a great newspaper, although it may become one if enough of us start reading it and writing letters to influence what appears in its pages. But I can't take the way the Herald twists every issue to suit the owners' right-wing, Unionist stance. The paper comes over as pretty anti-Scottish. I particularly can't stand the way the Herald (like the Scotsman) keeps raising the Gaelic issue as a stick to beat the Scots with.
Last week, the Herald changed the appearance of its centre pages, with more space given over to readers' opinions and 'outside views.' As far as I can see, that doesn't mean there will be more space for a variety of opinions. Today most of the two pages are given over to the usual stuff, mostly anti-Scottish and pro-Unionist. I recognise most of the letter-writers as people who have been writing to the Herald for years. They have nothing new to say and quite a lot of nasty things to say too. Someone needs to tell these folk that Alex Salmond is no longer leader of the SNP. Also, that Nicola Sturgeon is not spending her time swanning around Europe but is in fact getting on with day job at Holyrood. As is my party, the Greens.
The Herald is fine if what the newspaper owners want is a Unionist front, but I'm not paying for it any more. I'm part of the 45% of people who voted in Scotland to leave the UK in 2014 and I will vote the same way in the next referendum. And it does alarm me to keep being told the SNP are flagging up a referendum when (1) the SNP is not the only political party in favour of independence; and (2) as far as I can see from the pages of the Herald and the rest of the UK press, the people most excited about a referendum are those in favour of the Union. I judge that from the fact that they've been going on about it non-stop since 2014. Maybe people like Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale and Willie Rennie are the ones who should try getting on with their day job: representing the electorate in their constituencies.
I'm told the circulation of the Scotsman and the Herald are in decline and have been for quite some time. There was an era when newspapers published their circulation figures. Now I imagine they don't dare.
I'm not hypocritical enough to wish the Herald good luck. I think they're probably past that now. But I will miss the word games.
Last week, the Herald changed the appearance of its centre pages, with more space given over to readers' opinions and 'outside views.' As far as I can see, that doesn't mean there will be more space for a variety of opinions. Today most of the two pages are given over to the usual stuff, mostly anti-Scottish and pro-Unionist. I recognise most of the letter-writers as people who have been writing to the Herald for years. They have nothing new to say and quite a lot of nasty things to say too. Someone needs to tell these folk that Alex Salmond is no longer leader of the SNP. Also, that Nicola Sturgeon is not spending her time swanning around Europe but is in fact getting on with day job at Holyrood. As is my party, the Greens.
The Herald is fine if what the newspaper owners want is a Unionist front, but I'm not paying for it any more. I'm part of the 45% of people who voted in Scotland to leave the UK in 2014 and I will vote the same way in the next referendum. And it does alarm me to keep being told the SNP are flagging up a referendum when (1) the SNP is not the only political party in favour of independence; and (2) as far as I can see from the pages of the Herald and the rest of the UK press, the people most excited about a referendum are those in favour of the Union. I judge that from the fact that they've been going on about it non-stop since 2014. Maybe people like Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale and Willie Rennie are the ones who should try getting on with their day job: representing the electorate in their constituencies.
I'm told the circulation of the Scotsman and the Herald are in decline and have been for quite some time. There was an era when newspapers published their circulation figures. Now I imagine they don't dare.
I'm not hypocritical enough to wish the Herald good luck. I think they're probably past that now. But I will miss the word games.
Sunday 19 February 2017
it's and its
I like the midwife programme on BBC1 on a Sunday. It's the kind of programme the BBC is really good at: nostalgic, people in costumes, simple morality, topical issues of the time explained in a fairly straightforward way. Tonight the doctor's wife - a fine woman, Scottish, wears Edna Everage specs - found a place the young man with Down's Syndrome could go and live, one of very few places in the UK in 1962 for people with learning disabilities. Reggie was such a fine young man I suspect many a mother watching would have been glad to take him in. So the doctor's wife cut an article out of a newspaper and - heaven help me - there it was in the title of of the article: it's when it should have been its.
I know this rant is illogical. Most people would have moved on pretty fast if they even noticed the mistake. Not me. Sorry.
I spent a lot of my working life writing and proof-reading: committee papers, bids for funding, policy documents, course catalogues, teaching manuals, letters. I can still remember my rage when I discovered my admin person had ended the letter I wanted sent out to head teachers with the deathless phrase: 'If you need further information please contact myself.'
I suspect no one in the UK in the 1960s would have mixed up it's and its. Yes, shockingly, we were trained - drilled - in an understanding that it's meant two words had been run together: it is or it has. (And you'll notice I don't put a hyphen between no and one - same training).
Let me ask: why is this so difficult to understand? The UK is a pretty advanced society in education terms and in Scotland, we have the best educated population in the greater Europe, so why can't we get this right?
Is there no one left in our schools who knows grammar, spelling and punctuation - except maybe modern languages teachers? In today's Sunday Herald, a headline began: Tory's spin doctor claims... But, of course, the article referred to not one Tory but a sad Conservative spin doctor who services many Tories.
This level of illiteracy is becoming scary. I will forgive English people for their insistence on talking about 'being stood' and 'laying down.' These are just local variations. I can even forgive I seen and I done, because these are acceptable verb forms in Scots. But what the hell is going on with your and you're? Not to mention they're and their? And why are apostrophes being sprinkled around every time a plural is needed? Quote: our house's. That has me shouting at the computer screen: Our house is what? What?
For the first time ever, I'm editing one of my rants. I want to explain further why I think grammar, spelling and punctuation matter so much. Whatever computers can do, they can't edit. They can suggest alternative spellings and usages but if the writer doesn't know the difference between what s/he means and what the machine thinks s/he means, we're scuppered. If you think the form of words we use doesn't matter, just watch in days to come as Donald Trump's executive orders are taken apart by lawyers and judges.
For the sake of the sanity of old people like me, folks, please try to sort this out. The future of the language is in your hands.
I know this rant is illogical. Most people would have moved on pretty fast if they even noticed the mistake. Not me. Sorry.
I spent a lot of my working life writing and proof-reading: committee papers, bids for funding, policy documents, course catalogues, teaching manuals, letters. I can still remember my rage when I discovered my admin person had ended the letter I wanted sent out to head teachers with the deathless phrase: 'If you need further information please contact myself.'
I suspect no one in the UK in the 1960s would have mixed up it's and its. Yes, shockingly, we were trained - drilled - in an understanding that it's meant two words had been run together: it is or it has. (And you'll notice I don't put a hyphen between no and one - same training).
Let me ask: why is this so difficult to understand? The UK is a pretty advanced society in education terms and in Scotland, we have the best educated population in the greater Europe, so why can't we get this right?
Is there no one left in our schools who knows grammar, spelling and punctuation - except maybe modern languages teachers? In today's Sunday Herald, a headline began: Tory's spin doctor claims... But, of course, the article referred to not one Tory but a sad Conservative spin doctor who services many Tories.
This level of illiteracy is becoming scary. I will forgive English people for their insistence on talking about 'being stood' and 'laying down.' These are just local variations. I can even forgive I seen and I done, because these are acceptable verb forms in Scots. But what the hell is going on with your and you're? Not to mention they're and their? And why are apostrophes being sprinkled around every time a plural is needed? Quote: our house's. That has me shouting at the computer screen: Our house is what? What?
For the first time ever, I'm editing one of my rants. I want to explain further why I think grammar, spelling and punctuation matter so much. Whatever computers can do, they can't edit. They can suggest alternative spellings and usages but if the writer doesn't know the difference between what s/he means and what the machine thinks s/he means, we're scuppered. If you think the form of words we use doesn't matter, just watch in days to come as Donald Trump's executive orders are taken apart by lawyers and judges.
For the sake of the sanity of old people like me, folks, please try to sort this out. The future of the language is in your hands.
Monday 13 February 2017
Ch-ch-changes
Two conversations from last week.
The first was with a 50-something professional who changed her workplace about 6 months ago. Her colleagues stayed the same and the job stayed the same. Just the location moved, about a mile down the road. She said the experience was 'traumatic.' But, I reminded her, it was worth it: this is a great place to work, isn't it? 'Oh yes,' she said. 'I just don't like change.' She said it as if she was the only person on earth for whom that was the case. Possibly because nothing much had changed in her professional life for a long time.
The second conversation was with a 30 year old. Self-employed. Since October, she has started a new relationship and has now moved in with her new man. She has also changed her job and gone into partnership with a friend. So three changes: new man, new job, new home. She didn't think this was unusual and that reminded me that change really doesn't bother young people too much, especially this generation of young people who are used to having no security in their jobs or in their (usually rented) homes. Permanence has no meaning for a lot of these young people.
We used to have a way of dealing with the fear of change: it was called death. People got older, maybe retired for a wee while and then snuffed it. The burden of dealing with change passed to the younger generation, who were often just waiting for the chance to change things, having had the feeling they were being held back for a long time.
Now people live longer and work for longer (no choice if your pension won't be paid till you're 66 or 67) and I wonder what effect that is going to have on the workplace of the future. Do you want your catheter changed by a 66 year old nurse getting to the end of a 12-hour shift on a busy ward? Do you want your 4 year old taught by a nursery worker who can't get down there with the kids in the reading corner because she's got arthritis? If you're 66 and have been working on the factory floor since the age of 16, are you still able to do the job the way you did twenty years ago - or are you just knackered?
Part of our difficulty is that decisions about pensions and working age and contracts are made by people in parliament and the civil servants who work for them and they all seem to come from the professional classes: they'll have a good pension, they have little or no experience of doing a job that demands constant physical activity and they have probably never known what it's like to be on a short-term contract with no financial back-up.
I've lost count of the number of times newspaper and TV journalists have referred to going to 'the office', apparently unaware that most people don't work in an office: of the 12 adults in my immediate family, 3 of us are retired, 1 works in an office, 2 are teachers, 1 is a nurse, 1 is a hairdresser, 3 work in the building trade and 1 is a musician. I defy anyone to teach, nurse, do hair or build schools from a seat behind a desk.
A bit of work experience might do the parliamentarians, civil servants and journalists a power of good.
The first was with a 50-something professional who changed her workplace about 6 months ago. Her colleagues stayed the same and the job stayed the same. Just the location moved, about a mile down the road. She said the experience was 'traumatic.' But, I reminded her, it was worth it: this is a great place to work, isn't it? 'Oh yes,' she said. 'I just don't like change.' She said it as if she was the only person on earth for whom that was the case. Possibly because nothing much had changed in her professional life for a long time.
The second conversation was with a 30 year old. Self-employed. Since October, she has started a new relationship and has now moved in with her new man. She has also changed her job and gone into partnership with a friend. So three changes: new man, new job, new home. She didn't think this was unusual and that reminded me that change really doesn't bother young people too much, especially this generation of young people who are used to having no security in their jobs or in their (usually rented) homes. Permanence has no meaning for a lot of these young people.
We used to have a way of dealing with the fear of change: it was called death. People got older, maybe retired for a wee while and then snuffed it. The burden of dealing with change passed to the younger generation, who were often just waiting for the chance to change things, having had the feeling they were being held back for a long time.
Now people live longer and work for longer (no choice if your pension won't be paid till you're 66 or 67) and I wonder what effect that is going to have on the workplace of the future. Do you want your catheter changed by a 66 year old nurse getting to the end of a 12-hour shift on a busy ward? Do you want your 4 year old taught by a nursery worker who can't get down there with the kids in the reading corner because she's got arthritis? If you're 66 and have been working on the factory floor since the age of 16, are you still able to do the job the way you did twenty years ago - or are you just knackered?
Part of our difficulty is that decisions about pensions and working age and contracts are made by people in parliament and the civil servants who work for them and they all seem to come from the professional classes: they'll have a good pension, they have little or no experience of doing a job that demands constant physical activity and they have probably never known what it's like to be on a short-term contract with no financial back-up.
I've lost count of the number of times newspaper and TV journalists have referred to going to 'the office', apparently unaware that most people don't work in an office: of the 12 adults in my immediate family, 3 of us are retired, 1 works in an office, 2 are teachers, 1 is a nurse, 1 is a hairdresser, 3 work in the building trade and 1 is a musician. I defy anyone to teach, nurse, do hair or build schools from a seat behind a desk.
A bit of work experience might do the parliamentarians, civil servants and journalists a power of good.
Saturday 11 February 2017
Surveys
I fill in surveys. For money, let me say.
There was a time when surveys were carried out by nicely-dressed, well-spoken, middle-aged women who came to nice middle-class doors and asked householders for their reactions to their questions. I remember being caught once by one such woman when I'd just come in from work. Could I answer a few questions? I was knackered. A few questions might get rid of her. Her survey was about insurance. Did I have insurance? Yes. Car and house contents. House building? No. Look around. This is a flat. In Scotland if you live in a flat the factor deals with building insurance. How about life insurance? Critical illness insurance? But I wasn't going to answer questions like that for a total stranger. She wasn't happy. She flashed a set of cards in front of me. Could I say which companies these pictures represented? In a word, no. I failed to identify the logo of LV and many others, and she got annoyed when I said I didn't like this trend of doing away with names anyone could identify and going for initials that meant nothing. After her visit, I stopped allowing anyone else in.
And then about ten years ago these visits died away, to be replaced by online questionnaires.
Today's online survey was about the last Holyrood election, the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 UK general election, the 2016 EU referendum and my voting intentions in future Scottish and UK general elections and any future Scottish independence referendum - including what year I thought the referendum should take place in. Hell's teeth. Was anyone in the UK asked questions like this before they voted to sweep the Tories into power or take us all out of the EU on pretty dubious grounds? Or is this kind of questioning reserved for rebellious Scots?
I answered all the questions faithfully, sometimes taking ages to go over them and even then not being sure I'd answered the way I wanted to. So if Theresa May decided to 'grant' Scotland a second independence referendum, would I agree this was a good idea (0 or 1) or a bad idea (2 to 10)? Well, of course, I don't even accept the premise that Mrs May has the right to grant or refuse Scotland a referendum. In fact, my own view is that Mrs May can go and take a flying #$%^ to herself. Some of us don't think we are beholden to Westminster for permission to hold a referendum because UDI is a possibility. But there wasn't a space on the survey form for that opinion.
The irritation factor in these surveys (I do them for several companies) is unbelievable. One asks which region I live in and lets me choose from north-east, south-west, etc. I keep telling them I live in a country - it's called Scotland - not in a region, but nothing makes them change the survey. All of these companies assume that Great Britain/the UK is the same as England, so surveys about education, health, the law, social work, all refer to England and they clearly see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as part of England. By the way, Great Britain is the name of the largest island in the British Isles and is also a political entity consisting of three countries: England, Scotland, and Wales. It's not a political statement of how great Britain is or used to be. Honestly.
Not once in ten years have I seen an indicator in any of these surveys that Scotland has a different legal and educational system. And that frankly makes me suspect the survey results are to be questioned. Today, a Scottish newspaper announced that a poll it had carried out suggested that a third of people in Scotland thought the BBC was biased against Scottish independence. I had two reactions to that. First, you mean only a third of people thought that? Where have they been living? But then I thought: isn't there something ironic in an anti-independence newspaper (all but one of 35 newspapers in Scotland is anti-independence) having the brass neck to tell us this?
Until this week, I was convinced we should put off an independence referendum till we're sure - or as sure as we can be - that independence is within our grasp. But now I wonder if the disarray (that's a polite word) caused by Brexit might not be the best moment to just go for it. If you're a unionist, you may want to ask yourself: what kind of country will the UK/Great Britain be in 2030? Myself, I have an idea it's not going to be great within the UK or outside it, within the EU or outside it, and old Socialist ideals of solidarity are not going to help, but I'm still prepared to take my chances on us.
You know, US. The people propped up by the British state, unable to support ourselves. US, the lazy and uneducated people of north Britain who somehow managed to colonise vasts areas of the new world for our masters, discover their riches and pass on their culture to the next generation. That'll do for me.
There was a time when surveys were carried out by nicely-dressed, well-spoken, middle-aged women who came to nice middle-class doors and asked householders for their reactions to their questions. I remember being caught once by one such woman when I'd just come in from work. Could I answer a few questions? I was knackered. A few questions might get rid of her. Her survey was about insurance. Did I have insurance? Yes. Car and house contents. House building? No. Look around. This is a flat. In Scotland if you live in a flat the factor deals with building insurance. How about life insurance? Critical illness insurance? But I wasn't going to answer questions like that for a total stranger. She wasn't happy. She flashed a set of cards in front of me. Could I say which companies these pictures represented? In a word, no. I failed to identify the logo of LV and many others, and she got annoyed when I said I didn't like this trend of doing away with names anyone could identify and going for initials that meant nothing. After her visit, I stopped allowing anyone else in.
And then about ten years ago these visits died away, to be replaced by online questionnaires.
Today's online survey was about the last Holyrood election, the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 UK general election, the 2016 EU referendum and my voting intentions in future Scottish and UK general elections and any future Scottish independence referendum - including what year I thought the referendum should take place in. Hell's teeth. Was anyone in the UK asked questions like this before they voted to sweep the Tories into power or take us all out of the EU on pretty dubious grounds? Or is this kind of questioning reserved for rebellious Scots?
I answered all the questions faithfully, sometimes taking ages to go over them and even then not being sure I'd answered the way I wanted to. So if Theresa May decided to 'grant' Scotland a second independence referendum, would I agree this was a good idea (0 or 1) or a bad idea (2 to 10)? Well, of course, I don't even accept the premise that Mrs May has the right to grant or refuse Scotland a referendum. In fact, my own view is that Mrs May can go and take a flying #$%^ to herself. Some of us don't think we are beholden to Westminster for permission to hold a referendum because UDI is a possibility. But there wasn't a space on the survey form for that opinion.
The irritation factor in these surveys (I do them for several companies) is unbelievable. One asks which region I live in and lets me choose from north-east, south-west, etc. I keep telling them I live in a country - it's called Scotland - not in a region, but nothing makes them change the survey. All of these companies assume that Great Britain/the UK is the same as England, so surveys about education, health, the law, social work, all refer to England and they clearly see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as part of England. By the way, Great Britain is the name of the largest island in the British Isles and is also a political entity consisting of three countries: England, Scotland, and Wales. It's not a political statement of how great Britain is or used to be. Honestly.
Not once in ten years have I seen an indicator in any of these surveys that Scotland has a different legal and educational system. And that frankly makes me suspect the survey results are to be questioned. Today, a Scottish newspaper announced that a poll it had carried out suggested that a third of people in Scotland thought the BBC was biased against Scottish independence. I had two reactions to that. First, you mean only a third of people thought that? Where have they been living? But then I thought: isn't there something ironic in an anti-independence newspaper (all but one of 35 newspapers in Scotland is anti-independence) having the brass neck to tell us this?
Until this week, I was convinced we should put off an independence referendum till we're sure - or as sure as we can be - that independence is within our grasp. But now I wonder if the disarray (that's a polite word) caused by Brexit might not be the best moment to just go for it. If you're a unionist, you may want to ask yourself: what kind of country will the UK/Great Britain be in 2030? Myself, I have an idea it's not going to be great within the UK or outside it, within the EU or outside it, and old Socialist ideals of solidarity are not going to help, but I'm still prepared to take my chances on us.
You know, US. The people propped up by the British state, unable to support ourselves. US, the lazy and uneducated people of north Britain who somehow managed to colonise vasts areas of the new world for our masters, discover their riches and pass on their culture to the next generation. That'll do for me.
Wednesday 8 February 2017
Ode To Joy
Did you watch the SNP singing and whistling Beethoven's Ode To Joy today? Did you think: That's terrible. These people are bringing the House of Commons into disrepute. How disrespectful. Or did you laugh, as I did? Not so much at the SNP but at the over-reaction of the Depute Speaker, a man used to the Speaker's authority being respected and unable to handle it when MPs do what their constituents elected them to do: give the bars of the cage a wee rattle and wait for a reaction.
This wasn't a rebellion. As far as I could see, there was a lull in the proceedings of the House and the SNP filled it. But clearly the Depute Speaker has had a bellyful of these people who don't play the game in the time-honoured respectful fashion.
I'm delighted to say the singing caught my attention so I watched the Brexit vote and every MP in Scotland managed to vote against Brexit - except, of course, for the solitary Tory.
The gap between what is actually happening and what the Tory government wants us to believe is happening is immense. It's not a coincidence that today a rumour started that Jeremy Corbyn was about to resign. That has the mark of Tory spin doctoring on it. Nor that the Labour Party is so lacking in political savvy that one of their big front bench fish chose today to resign. Nor that the big news according to the media in Scotland was not the possibility of a second referendum on Scottish independence but the menace of the marauding seagulls. All good distractions from the real issue.
Watching how disdainfully Theresa May treats any kind of opposition, still playing by the 1980s rules of the two-party state, I'm more and more convinced she and her cabinet colleagues are clueless. Every picture of Boris Johnson tells me this: Boris must go to bed every night thanking god that he's not the prime minister having to sort out the mess he - Boris - and his chums created during the EU referendum campaign.
The only part of today that cheered me up was that friends of mine, who voted to remain in the UK three years ago, have decided they'll take their chances on independence next time around. And they refuse to be drawn on the EU. That'll be a different issue.
This wasn't a rebellion. As far as I could see, there was a lull in the proceedings of the House and the SNP filled it. But clearly the Depute Speaker has had a bellyful of these people who don't play the game in the time-honoured respectful fashion.
I'm delighted to say the singing caught my attention so I watched the Brexit vote and every MP in Scotland managed to vote against Brexit - except, of course, for the solitary Tory.
The gap between what is actually happening and what the Tory government wants us to believe is happening is immense. It's not a coincidence that today a rumour started that Jeremy Corbyn was about to resign. That has the mark of Tory spin doctoring on it. Nor that the Labour Party is so lacking in political savvy that one of their big front bench fish chose today to resign. Nor that the big news according to the media in Scotland was not the possibility of a second referendum on Scottish independence but the menace of the marauding seagulls. All good distractions from the real issue.
Watching how disdainfully Theresa May treats any kind of opposition, still playing by the 1980s rules of the two-party state, I'm more and more convinced she and her cabinet colleagues are clueless. Every picture of Boris Johnson tells me this: Boris must go to bed every night thanking god that he's not the prime minister having to sort out the mess he - Boris - and his chums created during the EU referendum campaign.
The only part of today that cheered me up was that friends of mine, who voted to remain in the UK three years ago, have decided they'll take their chances on independence next time around. And they refuse to be drawn on the EU. That'll be a different issue.
Monday 6 February 2017
2020
I started posting this a fortnight ago.
Let's play a game: fast forward to 2020 and try to guess what kind of state the world will be in.
Unless there's a man with a rifle on a grassy knoll, Donald Trump will still be president. He'll be coming to the end of his first term and no doubt the world will be wondering if he'll get a second term. Most presidents get a second term: you can be demented (Reagan), sick unto death (Roosevelt) or totally unsuited to the job (guess who) but if the party and the public are behind you - and the public are behind Trump right now and probably still will be in 2020 - you'll get the nomination for your party. Will the Republicans in Congress forgive Trump for giving the best jobs, not to politicians like them but to his buddies from the world of big business? Will they overlook the fact that he has sacked anyone with the slightest idea what they're doing, appointed family members as White House aides, and produced 'Executive Orders' so riddled with loopholes that the Supreme Court will be tied up for years trying to sort it all out? More money for the lawyers and they all get to blame the courts - yay! You know the Executive Orders I mean: you have a green card, so you can get (back) into the USA. Oh no, wait: Border Patrol has sent you back to Iraq, even though you haven't lived there for 7 years and only went for a week (the wrong week, it turns out) to see your dying grandfather. You've been refused permission to fly through New York, despite the fact you don't want to stay there but to go back to Europe where you have a good job and a happy family waiting for you. Tough.
Maybe the invasion of Iran will be underway. Iran is being lined up right now as the big problem as far as middle east security goes. Pakistan, riddled with terrorists, is a friend of the USA. So are Turkey, Egypt and Israel. The USA and UK sell them billions worth of arms. Nobody seems to know if Iran has nuclear weapons (remember Iraq's weapons 'of massive destruction' that we never found?) but the Iranians hate the USA (and for good reason since the CIA fomented the downfall of the Shah but then tried to undermine the Ayatollah) and show every sign of being possible leaders in the Persian Gulf, so that kinda guarantees the tanks will be rolling in quite soon.
By 2020, the EU will still exist but it'll be shaky. Trump and his business buddies don't like the EU. They call it a 'a cartel' as if it was some Colombian drugs gang. Trump and co want unfettered free trade, with no protection for the small states of Europe - except, of course, they are not going to allow just anyone and everyone to trade with the USA. Angela Merkel has not been forgiven for reminding Trump of his duty of care for refugees on day 2 of his presidency, and he says ominously she's on her way out. The EU has played right into the hands of Trump with its inability to curb the waste in the Commission. Tusk and co look nervous and there is no natural successor to Merkel among the EU leaders. And the Marine woman in France is very scary this time around, especially faced with Fillon and Macron (joke names if ever we heard them). Only favoured friends can trade with the USA, but the UK should be all right in the short term as long as the un-elected Theresa May stays in power. All opposition voices (Ken Clark, David Davies, Boris Johnson - not opposition really but some are possible rivals for the job of PM) - will be silenced and replaced by Tory boys with suspicious backgrounds. Will there be one whose dad ran away to join a circus?
And what of Scotland? Tbh - to be honest - as some of my Facebook friends would put it - that's really all I care about. I can't understand that there are people in my homeland who still think it's better to stick with the morons in the union that calls itself the UK. People who think leaving the EU is a good idea, when those of us who have worked with the EU know the value of EU solidarity, not to mention EU funding. I'm talking about people who adhere to an ideal of socialist solidarity despite the fact that the Labour Party doesn't have so much as an idea, never mind an ideal, to bless itself with. People who go on and on about their connections with relatives south of the border, as if the border had never existed or would be a problem in the future.
That will be the real test in 2020. If we can win these people over.
Let's play a game: fast forward to 2020 and try to guess what kind of state the world will be in.
Unless there's a man with a rifle on a grassy knoll, Donald Trump will still be president. He'll be coming to the end of his first term and no doubt the world will be wondering if he'll get a second term. Most presidents get a second term: you can be demented (Reagan), sick unto death (Roosevelt) or totally unsuited to the job (guess who) but if the party and the public are behind you - and the public are behind Trump right now and probably still will be in 2020 - you'll get the nomination for your party. Will the Republicans in Congress forgive Trump for giving the best jobs, not to politicians like them but to his buddies from the world of big business? Will they overlook the fact that he has sacked anyone with the slightest idea what they're doing, appointed family members as White House aides, and produced 'Executive Orders' so riddled with loopholes that the Supreme Court will be tied up for years trying to sort it all out? More money for the lawyers and they all get to blame the courts - yay! You know the Executive Orders I mean: you have a green card, so you can get (back) into the USA. Oh no, wait: Border Patrol has sent you back to Iraq, even though you haven't lived there for 7 years and only went for a week (the wrong week, it turns out) to see your dying grandfather. You've been refused permission to fly through New York, despite the fact you don't want to stay there but to go back to Europe where you have a good job and a happy family waiting for you. Tough.
Maybe the invasion of Iran will be underway. Iran is being lined up right now as the big problem as far as middle east security goes. Pakistan, riddled with terrorists, is a friend of the USA. So are Turkey, Egypt and Israel. The USA and UK sell them billions worth of arms. Nobody seems to know if Iran has nuclear weapons (remember Iraq's weapons 'of massive destruction' that we never found?) but the Iranians hate the USA (and for good reason since the CIA fomented the downfall of the Shah but then tried to undermine the Ayatollah) and show every sign of being possible leaders in the Persian Gulf, so that kinda guarantees the tanks will be rolling in quite soon.
By 2020, the EU will still exist but it'll be shaky. Trump and his business buddies don't like the EU. They call it a 'a cartel' as if it was some Colombian drugs gang. Trump and co want unfettered free trade, with no protection for the small states of Europe - except, of course, they are not going to allow just anyone and everyone to trade with the USA. Angela Merkel has not been forgiven for reminding Trump of his duty of care for refugees on day 2 of his presidency, and he says ominously she's on her way out. The EU has played right into the hands of Trump with its inability to curb the waste in the Commission. Tusk and co look nervous and there is no natural successor to Merkel among the EU leaders. And the Marine woman in France is very scary this time around, especially faced with Fillon and Macron (joke names if ever we heard them). Only favoured friends can trade with the USA, but the UK should be all right in the short term as long as the un-elected Theresa May stays in power. All opposition voices (Ken Clark, David Davies, Boris Johnson - not opposition really but some are possible rivals for the job of PM) - will be silenced and replaced by Tory boys with suspicious backgrounds. Will there be one whose dad ran away to join a circus?
And what of Scotland? Tbh - to be honest - as some of my Facebook friends would put it - that's really all I care about. I can't understand that there are people in my homeland who still think it's better to stick with the morons in the union that calls itself the UK. People who think leaving the EU is a good idea, when those of us who have worked with the EU know the value of EU solidarity, not to mention EU funding. I'm talking about people who adhere to an ideal of socialist solidarity despite the fact that the Labour Party doesn't have so much as an idea, never mind an ideal, to bless itself with. People who go on and on about their connections with relatives south of the border, as if the border had never existed or would be a problem in the future.
That will be the real test in 2020. If we can win these people over.
Ye whit?
I was out of it over the weekend. The Chronic Fatigue kicked in big-time, along with the cold virus everybody has or has had - deafness, helluva cough, constant cold symptoms - and when I feel like that I snuggle up with a book in the comfort of my bed.
So when I surfaced this morning, I discovered that the world had moved on without me: Labour had voted for Brexit along with the Tories without so much as a shiver (except Diane Abbott, who got a migraine); the Speaker of the House of Commons had said he didn't want Donald Trump to speak there; a UKIP politician had described the NHS as the biggest waste of money in the UK; Trump had told a federal judge via twitter if there was an atrocity on US soil - and gawd knows, there will be, since there is at least one mass shooting in the USA every day - the judge would be responsible; and Theresa May had gone for a 'hard Brexit,' whatever the hell that is.
And to top it all off, I caught sight of a French politician who was apologising - not to French tax payers whom he has diddled out of millions of Euros - but to his family (who benefited from said diddling) for embarrassing them and I realised:
We're screwed. The loonies have taken over.
Those of us who worked all those years to persuade young people to be honest, decent, fair and moral; to vote, take responsibility for their actions, aim for a better society for future generations - well, we were wasting our time, weren't we? Capitalism has won hands down. If by capitalism you mean greed, 'man-mind-thyself' greed, where everything has a price and very little has any value. John Maynard Keynes is reported to have defined capitalism as “the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.” He wasn't wrong.
On another page on my Facebook feed, a group is debating whether Thatcher or Churchill was the greatest (Grammar Nerd: they mean greater) UK leader. So the choice is between an aristocratic counter-jumper and a free-market maniac? No chance anyone else could be considered, like Clem Atlee who led the UK out of WW2 and endowed the NHS among many other reforms on behalf of the people of the UK?
There used to be an element in my character that responded to this: Well, b*gger it, bring it on - we'll fight it shoulder to shoulder. Now I think: whatever we do in the 30 years after we get independence in Scotland can't be any worse than this lot.
So when I surfaced this morning, I discovered that the world had moved on without me: Labour had voted for Brexit along with the Tories without so much as a shiver (except Diane Abbott, who got a migraine); the Speaker of the House of Commons had said he didn't want Donald Trump to speak there; a UKIP politician had described the NHS as the biggest waste of money in the UK; Trump had told a federal judge via twitter if there was an atrocity on US soil - and gawd knows, there will be, since there is at least one mass shooting in the USA every day - the judge would be responsible; and Theresa May had gone for a 'hard Brexit,' whatever the hell that is.
And to top it all off, I caught sight of a French politician who was apologising - not to French tax payers whom he has diddled out of millions of Euros - but to his family (who benefited from said diddling) for embarrassing them and I realised:
We're screwed. The loonies have taken over.
Those of us who worked all those years to persuade young people to be honest, decent, fair and moral; to vote, take responsibility for their actions, aim for a better society for future generations - well, we were wasting our time, weren't we? Capitalism has won hands down. If by capitalism you mean greed, 'man-mind-thyself' greed, where everything has a price and very little has any value. John Maynard Keynes is reported to have defined capitalism as “the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.” He wasn't wrong.
On another page on my Facebook feed, a group is debating whether Thatcher or Churchill was the greatest (Grammar Nerd: they mean greater) UK leader. So the choice is between an aristocratic counter-jumper and a free-market maniac? No chance anyone else could be considered, like Clem Atlee who led the UK out of WW2 and endowed the NHS among many other reforms on behalf of the people of the UK?
There used to be an element in my character that responded to this: Well, b*gger it, bring it on - we'll fight it shoulder to shoulder. Now I think: whatever we do in the 30 years after we get independence in Scotland can't be any worse than this lot.
Saturday 4 February 2017
The USA - and why I'm not going back
I've been lucky enough to travel a lot in my lifetime. Mostly, I've been made welcome. Just a few places have made me feel unwelcome as a tourist.
Places I've been closely questioned about 'the reasons for my journey': the old USSR and the USA.
In both cases, I had visas issued by the embassy of the country. Doesn't matter. I was still questioned about why I was there, what I planned to do, where I was going to stay, who had invited me and who I knew there. The first questions were answered on the visa application. The last question was pure nosiness. At least, the USSR had a reason: all visitors were potential enemies out to destroy the USSR. But I thought the UK and the USA were buddies.
Places I've been made to wait for a long time to get through 'security' and immigration: the old USSR, the USA and the UK.
I'm thinking of hours of my life shuffling forward in security queues at Heathrow. On one occasion behind two Polish women who had been told they couldn't take their bottle of Bailey's on the plane and were drinking it as they waited. Well, they had time. Then there was the man who put his very expensive watch in a tray at security and didn't get it back. That stooshie entertained us all for a while. Not to mention waiting in motionless immigration queues in San Francisco, Chicago and New York while the counter staff argued with their bosses over whether they would get paid extra for overtime. On one occasion in the USA, I was behind a young guy who confessed to us all he had marijuana in his hand luggage and didn't know what to do. We didn't either and we all had plenty of time to think about it. At least in the USSR, I had no expectation that I'd be dealt with efficiently and I wasn't disappointed.
Places I've felt scared in the airport: the USA.
I got caught up in a 'lock-down' at JFK. Lots of security people shouting and running around, while large numbers of passengers stood still, as ordered, on the concourse for nearly an hour. No explanation was ever given. If there was a loony wielding an AK47, I got the impression the security people didn't have my safety as a passenger as their number one priority.
Places where I felt I was not welcome and have decided never to go back to: the USA.
It's a shame. The USA is a lovely country but the officials - police, security officers, immigration people - are totally out of control. They carry guns and seem ready to use them and that doesn't inspire confidence among us pathetic, peaceful Europeans. They also seem to have no idea that tourism is a major employer in the USA. They want jobs brought back to the USA, but in tourism they already have the jobs - I've been to lovely places in Kentucky and Georgia - and could have more if they could only treat tourists better. Like not telling people on bus tours repeatedly they have to put in a 30% tip. Or stopping a phone conversation in a shop when you're serving a customer. Or telling people on tours to Alcatraz where to line up instead of letting them mill around like fools. Or shouting at tourists who don't put the shopping carts back in the right place. Like they would know.
I have been to places where I've been wonderfully looked after as a tourist: India, Singapore, Hong Kong, anywhere in Japan!, Nepal, Swaziland, Chile, Germany, Belgium. Even the French, dammit, have a better idea of how to look after visitors.
Places I've been closely questioned about 'the reasons for my journey': the old USSR and the USA.
In both cases, I had visas issued by the embassy of the country. Doesn't matter. I was still questioned about why I was there, what I planned to do, where I was going to stay, who had invited me and who I knew there. The first questions were answered on the visa application. The last question was pure nosiness. At least, the USSR had a reason: all visitors were potential enemies out to destroy the USSR. But I thought the UK and the USA were buddies.
Places I've been made to wait for a long time to get through 'security' and immigration: the old USSR, the USA and the UK.
I'm thinking of hours of my life shuffling forward in security queues at Heathrow. On one occasion behind two Polish women who had been told they couldn't take their bottle of Bailey's on the plane and were drinking it as they waited. Well, they had time. Then there was the man who put his very expensive watch in a tray at security and didn't get it back. That stooshie entertained us all for a while. Not to mention waiting in motionless immigration queues in San Francisco, Chicago and New York while the counter staff argued with their bosses over whether they would get paid extra for overtime. On one occasion in the USA, I was behind a young guy who confessed to us all he had marijuana in his hand luggage and didn't know what to do. We didn't either and we all had plenty of time to think about it. At least in the USSR, I had no expectation that I'd be dealt with efficiently and I wasn't disappointed.
Places I've felt scared in the airport: the USA.
I got caught up in a 'lock-down' at JFK. Lots of security people shouting and running around, while large numbers of passengers stood still, as ordered, on the concourse for nearly an hour. No explanation was ever given. If there was a loony wielding an AK47, I got the impression the security people didn't have my safety as a passenger as their number one priority.
Places where I felt I was not welcome and have decided never to go back to: the USA.
It's a shame. The USA is a lovely country but the officials - police, security officers, immigration people - are totally out of control. They carry guns and seem ready to use them and that doesn't inspire confidence among us pathetic, peaceful Europeans. They also seem to have no idea that tourism is a major employer in the USA. They want jobs brought back to the USA, but in tourism they already have the jobs - I've been to lovely places in Kentucky and Georgia - and could have more if they could only treat tourists better. Like not telling people on bus tours repeatedly they have to put in a 30% tip. Or stopping a phone conversation in a shop when you're serving a customer. Or telling people on tours to Alcatraz where to line up instead of letting them mill around like fools. Or shouting at tourists who don't put the shopping carts back in the right place. Like they would know.
I have been to places where I've been wonderfully looked after as a tourist: India, Singapore, Hong Kong, anywhere in Japan!, Nepal, Swaziland, Chile, Germany, Belgium. Even the French, dammit, have a better idea of how to look after visitors.
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