Do they care if it's Christmas?

And the stress on the headline should be "care".  Do they CARE?  Do they *care*?  Do they......-well you get the point, I hope.

I remember the first Band Aid hysteria way back in 1984 - I was a mere 13 and quite ignorant about where Ethiopia actually was and what the issues of food management were back then.  I mean let's be honest, the "dark continent" was a whole world away and bereft of any meaningful input to the world economy - wasn't it?!  I jest (in bad taste) of course - but nonetheless, sitting in my orange and brown living room of the mid 80s with Thatcher on her gilded throne and the miners' strike in full swing, there were perhaps a few hot topics vying for the social conscience of a pubescent teenager.

I didn't buy the single - despite George Michael singing his lungs out and Boy George giving it good face.

I didn't sense the need to donate my pocket money despite the image of flies hovering around the face of young child who hadn't eaten for days being projected every tea-time on our telly.

I didn't (in all honesty) think my 20p or 50p would actually get to where it was supposed to and didn't really think it would make any bloody difference either.

That was then and this is now.

The backlash our dear well-intentioned Bob Geldof (KBE) has unleashed recently with a re-recording of the famous hit in 2014 for West Africa Ebola sufferers is perplexing, understandable, symptomatic and disingenuous all at the same time.

Perplexing because I fail to understand the venom with which people have challenged the whole concept as condescending.

Understandable because the world has moved on and we're more aware; we're more critical; we expect people to do more for themselves and appreciate that actually the vast majority of folks don't want handouts.

Symptomatic of a liberal post-colonial unburdening of guilt that many Europeans feel necessary - often despite and in total neglect of the rather insidious occupation of the continent of Africa by Chinese clamours for natural resources.

And perhaps most disconcertingly, disingenuous because I challenge the critics to offer an alternative, to demonstrate what they have done, or to give credit (however misplaced) where it's due.

We live in an imperfect world with imperfect solutions delivered by imperfect institutions and individuals - but I applaud those who try; lament the fact more people don't try; and challenge those who may read this to try a bit harder.

Fancy a game of marbles, anyone?

The magnificent Parthenon atop the acropolis

Subtitled: how one can change one's mind.

I recall a rather heated exchange with a good Greek friend of mine - and you'll see why his nationality is important in a moment - about repatriation of artefacts and the like that are in museums around the world - as opposed to being "at home".  It ended acrimoniously, sadly, and we both vowed never to raise it again.

When two positions are so far apart it would seem there can be no common ground - the fact that I'd never really researched some of the points I had entrenched views on, didn't seem to matter to me too much.

We were of course, if you haven't worked it out yet, arguing about what the British call the Elgin marbles and what the Greeks tend to call the Parthenon marbles.  I took the position (as perhaps a majority of Brits do) that what happened under the Empire and sense of entitlement is not really our guilt problem and if the "booty" is on view for all the world to see in London, then please feel free to come and visit - but don't expect us to return any of it.

I think for most of what's been "ex-patriated", if I can use that phrase, I would still maintain there is very little benefit to either the original "home" or the new one to move everything back to where it was pilfered from.  I see one of the great benefits of the momentous museums around the world is allowing thousands and thousand of people access to great pieces of history in a safe and protected environment - think British Musuem, Le Louvre, The Hermitage.  

So, as I was in Athens just last week for a birthday celebration over the sea in idyllic Mykonos, I naturally clambered up the acropolis and took an obligatory selfie just on the front door step, as it were, of the Parthenon itself.

Me and the Parthenon - best of friends.

I must confess (perhaps with all major monuments one sees on the telly and in books) the actual temple site was a incy-wincy bit disappointing in terms of its impressiveness.   That said, just look at these pics:

The columns of the Parthenon - and a 21st century crane.

Columns restored after many an incident rendered the whole temple area a bit of a "bomb-site".

After the site tour, we skipped down (at a rather more speedy pace, unsurprisingly, than how we'd gone up) towards the (relatively) newly-built Acropolis Museum.  I was a tad anxious; what would I see; how would it affect my opinions; what is all the fuss about?

Tickets procured, auto-barriers passed, we entered a huge lobby full of pottery artefacts, exhibits and statues; the museum is a glass and steel monument to all things Parthenon.  I hadn't realised, I suppose, that even up atop the acropolis, that all the original statues and friezes had been transported down the hill and replaced with very good replicas.  

Indeed the marvellous female statues here, are not the originals, but they are in the museum below - which didn't, sadly, allow any photos - so don't have any of what was inside.

The statues holding up the Erechtheion - which is a bit ironic - but named after a King and nothing untoward.

There were six of these originally and in the museum (pictured below) you see 5 statues in various states of wear and tear.  The sixth plinth is empty and a tag advises you the missing lady is sojourning in the British Museum.  This was not to be the case for other missing items. 

So as I ventured onto the 3rd floor and a life-size representation of the Parthenon "roof" if I may call it that, is quite different.  The frieze and metopes are there in full splendour.  I turned right out of the lobby area to find the first 1/8 of the frieze and about 90% of this was original marble - in situ and intact.  The remainder was of cast material with notes showing which institution had current ownership.  The British Museum being abbreviated to BM.

I'm there, thinking the Elgin marbles fuss over 10%, really?

I turn the corner to see the west (I think) projection and my jaw drops when I see not 90% marble in place, but 90% plaster and the next corner the same and the next and the next.  The amount of "missing" marble replaced with accurate casts of the same was astonishing.  This wasn't taking into account the great statues missing from the "gables" - huge representations hewn from marble of Greek gods and heroes - absent.

The new (rather amazing) Acropolis Museum - Athens

I realised I'd come to a very slow pace; I was almost wanting to sit down and gape - but the museum-Nazis made sure you didn't sit, slouch, lean or touch anything you weren't supposed to.

So I slowly but surely completed the circuit and headed downstairs for a sobering glass of Greek wine.

I think of myself as being quite resolute in most things - most opinions.  But I must admit, my mind has been changed at seeing just how much was confiscated from one of the most famous hills in the world.  Whether Lord Elgin had permission to take, contractually, whether he should have taken what he did or not, whether the marbles left on that hillside would have eroded or been lost to theft and destruction is perhaps not important now - although I do believe they have been preserved better in the "BM" than they might have been up there amidst a country's strife - and we know Greece has had its fair share of 20th century (and 21st for that matter) strife.

That said, I think the time is right to open the dialogue on "sharing" the treasure.  Should we rotate the treasures and exchange what the Greek museums can offer?  Absolutely.  Should we perhaps think about long term loan - as the Vatican has done?  Certainly.  Could we set a precedent for more open sharing amongst the great museums of the world and allow even more people access to the greatest remnants of history?  Definitely.

I didn't think my mind would be changed before I went to Athens - but it was - and simply because of the scale of the "light-fingered-ness".

Book yourself a flight to Athens and challenge your own views...!

But perhaps the best thing about all this, is I can now revisit the taboo topic with my good friend and we will find that common ground that eluded us.

Az gaan bak yam

(This was written on the 22nd August and being posted now - since I had a backlog of blogs to post....but after the resounding acceptance on the Union - and all that it comes with - following the No vote on Scottish Independence - a wee post about the language of English, as opposed to the wonderfully peculiar peeps south of the border is perhaps rather fitting.)

What is English?  Does it matter to speak and write it properly?

I heard today on the radio – as one does in Kenya where the radio is very pervasive – and actually where it is in most places in the world – anyway, I heard that the 16-year-old-exam grades in England & Wales for English were down (incidentally while maths were up).

I was a member of Miss Fisher’s writing club (Netherhall, Maryport) while I was in secondary school and we mostly learning good writing practices, but I’m not sure I can actually recall anything useful except if you’re writing a business letter, never have the same letter starting and finishing it.

In other words, if one addresses the recipient as Sir, perhaps it would make sense to end “yours faithfully” and if one begins “Dear Darren”, then “yours sincerely” is quite permissible; a rule I’ve followed faithfully ever since.

But in reality, what do we retain from our English classes in middle age – or even earlier in life?

And perhaps, in today’s polarised debate, does it matter?

Dare I posit, that actually, it doesn’t matter how you say it but what you say?  I can feel the blogo-sphere already a quiver with indignation.  Does it really matter that when I tell my good London friend I advise her I’m visiting b@th as opposed to baath?!  We both should (eventually) realise I’m heading off to the city of Bath.

However, I read with despair a few years ago that New Zealand was to accept text-based spelling in written exams; even I, here, will draw the line. 

Or do I?  I remember a rather heated exchange with my linguistics tutor at Oxford on orthographical reform – or how we should spell things, to you and me.

But perhaps it doesn’t really matter if we write, type or text “c u ltr” as long as the interlocutors know implicitly that they will see each other anon.?!  And as language evolves and we allow it to evolve, I’m not sure we can really lament the so-called demise of a language that for centuries has been flexible, inclusive, innovative?!?  That’s the wonder of English.

Let’s leave it to the academics to know the etymology of a word and how “see” comes from German “sehen” and now has been reduced to “c”.

We won’t be able to stop it anyway.  That’s the beauty of language….!

And for those perplexed by the title of this post, it’s in my vernacular dialect (West Cumbrian); it means I’m going back home – which is what I was doing as I wrote this post. 

Learning a good common tongue and learning it well, doesn’t mean one can’t have a dialect or accent.  Do both…!

What a bored game!

A couple of nights ago, I jumped into my 4-wheel-drive and swerved in and out of Nairobi traffic to pick up my very good friend and head off to a fairly remote part of town for a dinner party with a difference.

No, before you get ahead of yourselves, it wasn’t one of those parties.  It was a games night – and I want to be clear here, a board games night.  [tsk tsk]

I hadn’t dusted off and set up my Lord of the Rings version of Risk for about 10 years, and a good familiarising of the rules was in order.  I slipped on my readers and ploughed through the 19 pages of instructions.  Thankfully, I had two co-players equally keen to learn the rules and they both ravaged the booklet after me.

Both of them boys – this will become important later.

We shuffled, split and dealt the cards; we took laborious turns in placing our battalions; we then decided where we might attack. 

[For those who are perhaps not all that familiar with Tolkien, and his elven-world of conflict, if life doesn’t hold a troll, orc or axe-wielding dwarf in it, it’s not really life.]

The Shire, Mirkwood, Rohan, Mordor – and every imaginable piece of Middle Earth in-between was prepared for bloody combat.  And it was at this point, that our four armies were bereft of the females in our group; the baby in the crib whimpered and they were gone.

We boys didn’t give it a second thought, the dice were thrown, the armies sacrificed, the heads rolled and the territories conquered.  But I can’t help feeling our women-folk were bored of our board-pursuits.  Perhaps less killing and more thinking will be the order of the day for our next clash..!  Something like Scrabble or Monopoly perhaps.

And the moral of the tale?

Actually, it’s far more relevant to the world landscape than we might want to admit – think Gaza. 

If there were more women deciding which games we play on the world stage, there might be far less bloodshed, far less conflict and a lot more peace – even if that is while we’re feeding our offspring.!

Why so much independence?

The Cairngorms

This polemic is not about North Sea oil, it’s not about the economics of small countries, it isn’t even about the complex formula contested on all sides about how much Westminster does or doesn’t send north of the English border.  But it is about how I feel incredibly passionately that the United Kingdom is so so much stronger as just that – a Union.

It is in opposition to the alternative of splintered mediocre states of obvious global insignificance that we would inevitably become. 

Do some of my Scots brethren choose to forget how interwoven our two cultures actually are?  Do the almost hysterical arguments of the nationalists convince the level-headed man on the Gaelic street that (s)he is better off jettisoning the bonds that invisibly yet intrinsically give us a common history?

I wonder.  And I think: not.

Glancing ever so briefly back in history, as Elizabeth I was in the final agonising throes of death, the courtly gentry of England & Wales construed to have the “next” male in line plonked on the throne of a combined pre-emptory Union.  It was thus (and not via any bloody conquest) that the seminal Great Britain was born.  (Granted, it took a couple of hundred years more to formalise the whole thing, but the seed was sewn.) 

The Flag of England, Wales, Scotland - Great Britain

And then James VI of Scotland strode southwards simultaneously as James I of England (and presumably Wales – although we don’t hear that said often).

We have for the ensuing 400+ years inter-married, exchanged customs, grown to love and hate almost everything that binds us and separates us.  Our shared and joint monarch seems happier in tartan on the highlands hunting hinds than in a designer frock on a Thames-barge to celebrate her 60 years on the throne.

There is a palpable obsession with our good James VI’s mother – Mary Queen of Scots and the murderous decapitation authorised by Elizabeth I (but oft ignored, supported and possibly carried out by her son).  She was Roman Catholic to her dying head-placing on the block and today Scotland is a paragon of Protestant frugality.  This impressive lady I suspect would have obliged Scotland and the Scots to follow the faith of Rome and imposed it on England also.  The irony is that a free-thinking religion is now a factor (albeit in a secular context) one of the propellants of the independence debates – and had Mary demurred, we may be more oppressed, more unified, more obliging.

But I digress.

A good friend recently pointed out, the contrapuntal nature of this whole debate seems illogical.  And when one thinks about the centrifugal forces that are bringing nations, states, entities together, it is hard not to ponder the point of resisting and insisting on repulsion.

Design for the Union flag without the Scottish saltire.

The EU, ASEAN, the AU, SADAC, ECOWAS, EAC, NAFTA, NATO, EFTA, APEC and the list goes on.  The world is getting more interwoven, more combined, more unified and here, now, we have a debate renting our wondrous isles apart.

Some compare this to the separation of Czechoslovakia or the crumbling of Yugoslavia – but this is not the same.  They were artificial constructs post WWI – more akin to Iraq, Libya and Turkey (with due respect) than Scotland.

Small is beautiful it is said – and indeed it is, and if anyone dares to think that the UK is big is kidding themselves – we’re already a tiny piece of historical snot confined to the Elgar-playing drum-beating nay-sayers of history.  Our influence is fading, our voice is diminished and our veto will not last much longer.  If Scotland were to secede it would not only create a new state with virtually no say in the world, but impoverish what the Union has left in it.

And don’t misunderstand my apparent hankerings for colonial glory – this is not what I desire or seek.  But the UK does have a duty and responsibility to help re-shape the global landscape that it has in the last hundred or so years been instrumental in designing – rightly or wrongly.  

It’s the small things that perhaps, now mere days from the referendum, seem so important; tea-drinking, scones – dropped or not; battling against the rain – even when it’s August; driving on the left; the pound – whether it’s printed by the Bank of England or Clydesdale Bank; a good post-binge sphincter-crunching curry; and a delight in actually not being contiguously joined to the mainland of Europe.

Is it because two great-grandfathers were Scottish, is it because I love a ceilidh (despite not being able to spell it without spell-check), is it because deep down I love an eye-watering yellow and pink tartan?

Perhaps it’s all of that and perhaps none of it.

What I do know is that I want the Union to continue; I want to be proud of the Union Flag; I want my country to over-shoot in its world importance and influence – and we can do that only with Scotland.

We are indeed stronger together.

Postcards on the edge. (Or is my dad just being lazy?)

I love getting postcards, although I rarely do these days.  There is something eerily-Victorian about a piece of cardboard plopping on your doormat or being flung into your in-tray (as opposed to inbox) with a photo (or perhaps several) on the front showing where someone else has been recently.

I must confess I only really send them to one person - so how can I expect to receive many, I hear you cry - and that's a fair rebuke.  But my former secretary in Singapore gets one from each new place I venture to - where there is a half-decent postal service.  I assumed that Rwanda fell into this category, but was a bit surprised when the card from my amazing trek with the mountain gorillas took 3 months to arrive.

Even if I don't get postcards through the post, I do still buy them for myself and blu-tack them to my office wall - they're such obvious and immediate reminders of wondrous places I've seen.  

This isn't going to turn into a lament of another analogue-world remnant dying out - without the digital world, I wouldn't be blogging to you all today - but I can't help feeling the memories captured by a view of the promenade, a hazy mountain, a cityscape by night (not the all-black joke postcards you sometimes see) with skyscrapers all lit up beaming back at you, or a tableau of nature in some form or another (mating scenes perhaps excepted) can't be conveyed the same way with an iPhone click and a paste on Facebook.

This all said, the thing that has propelled me to write on this occasion, is the fact that while I haven't received postcards from my parents for a number of years now, something rather momentous happened during their recent trip to France.

Each town or hostelry where my dad could get his hands on a computer and internet access, he duly reported back to me with a snippet of their jaunt around the Gallic countryside.  Thought I'd relay the exchange [with annotations, comments, explanations in square brackets]:

11th July

Title: No title
Dad:  Enjoying France - people nice.  Got your mother eating calamari - told her it was onion rings.

13th July

Title: France
Dad:  Arrived in  Lyon nothing but the best **** Hotel La Roosavelt
After a 5 *Wigan performance 16 / 37

-- 
regards Stan

[They'd been to Perpignan prior to Lyon - that's where my mother had been tricked into culinary tricky waters.  Wigan in this context is the rugby league team - no idea whom they were playing against in this five star match; Dad obviously didn't think the opposition were worth mentioning.]

14th July

Title: France
Dad: Lyon Arrived Sunday every thing closed Monday National Day same but we enjoyed the rest
Love Dad 
Me: Ah yes.  Bastille day.  Revolutionaries !  Still we killed a king way before thy did !!  Love to mam.  She enjoying it?
Dad: No National Day Bastille Day 6 May, no?
Me: Nope.  24 July is Bastille day.  8 may is victory in Europe day - end of WWII .
Dad: What ever. We enjoyed Albert 1WW lot of horrible history but we had a nice time.  We are now in Mons for 2 nights,sale home Sunday stay in Ashford the night up NORTH Monday.  We have had a lovely time great food Good Hotels, I will collapse when the C/C comes.
Love Mam  Dad .

[You notice, my mother gets added to Dad's signature at this point - although he didn't actually answer my enquiry about where my mother was enjoying herself.  The "NORTH" is a reference to the north of England and "C/C" is credit card - just rather glad he wasn't using mine on this occasion.]

[I then send a mail back saying how email is better than postcards - which I didn't really mean - and ask him if he minded if I use his mail trail for my blog.  "NO" came the rather curt reply.  I'm assuming he meant "No, I don't mind." since I'm using it anyway...]

[And then came the most illuminating of all the exchanges.]

19th July

Title: France [Methinks he couldn't quite muster up different titles, and why bother, they were in France I suppose...]
Dad: On our last day in Mons,sitting in the main square watching wedding party's going into the Reg office.  There are some sights!  One was in all white long wedding dress quite nice lifted her dress to walk and she had dirty ... plimsolls on.  Tickled your Mam.  It is rather hot going for a drink, 33c.  Love You
Mam  Dad

[Almost Hemmingway this last one, isn't it.  And not short on embellishment either, for when I spoke with my mother after they reached back home, she claimed not to have even noticed the bride's shabby footwear.  LOL.  Perhaps dad was making his own judgements and perhaps he'd already had one too many cooling beers.]

It was refreshing and comforting to be in contact with my parents as they zipped through a foreign land and while not a substitute for a postcard, it made me smile.  I could hope for a sprinkling of super snaps of their jaunt across the "hexagon" to compensate for the lack of picture on my postcard, too.  

But alas my father tends to be random to say the least in his photography subjects and all I can realistically look forward to is an abandoned crane on the banks of the Rhône, a graffiti-ridden bridge over an autoroute between Dijon & Mons or an out-of-focus shot of my mam (we don't say mum "up north") sipping a frothy cappuccino grimacing back dad for taking the pic in the first place.  That said, if I get any I'll share them and may stick one or two  on my office wall. 

Didn't meet Dracula, but had a few brushes with vampiric forces - Bucharest, a diary.

The imposing Casa Poporului - or Parliament Building

Sitting in the Lavazza coffee lounge at Bucharest airport and thinking back over the last couple of days, I would say on balance I enjoyed by whistle-stop viewing of Romania's capital city.  Sated on carbonara and sipping the remnants of a deliciously strong double espresso, I can't help thinking about the changes this most eastern of European states has gone through since the rather bloody revolution of 1989.

And if the point of revolutions is change and a new order, then Romania is as good an example as any, where it has perhaps surpassed its radicals' and militants' wildest dreams.  Tossed from side to side for two millennia, this crossing point between east and west has been conquered by almost all around it: the Romans came, the Turks occupied and finally the Soviets had the country succumb.  They all left their mark - and none more so than the Romans who graced the rolling plains from Transylvania to Moldavia and then onto the Black Sea with their Latin-based language.  Not that I could really understand anything spoken, but written down there are at least many things you can guess at.  These folk are not Slavic - and they're quick to let you know that.

In terms of leaving a mark, I was expecting the Soviet grayness to be a bit more prevalent and was pleasantly surprised to find that this isn't quite the case - with central Bucharest at least.

The old town is full of narrow winding streets, over-spilling with bars and clubs and some of the majestic monuments to 19th century independence and national pride are still standing.

The one edifice that towers above all the rest, however is the Parliament - also known as Casa Poporului.  Started in 1983 by the infamous and heinous dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, it wasn't quite finished in time to receive this bloody tyrant on its purpose-built balcony, when he was strung up along with his not-so-charming wife, Elena, on a neighbouring scaffold.

A 2 tonne chandelier - actually the 2nd largest in the place

The place is a string of superlatives - and a must visit for the tourist in Bucharest:  2nd largest building in the world, 300 000 tonnes of marble used in its great halls, the world's largest chandelier (at 5 tonnes) complete with 500 bulbs and the greatest fact of all, is that no-one actually knows how much it cost to build.  The communist state back then simply commissioned curtains in the north, carpets in the west, pillaged marble from wherever and conscripted the army to build it (20 000 of them worked in 3 shifts 24 hours a day for 6 years).  One investigative journalist, however, attempted to calculate what it could have cost back in 1989 - and he put the bill at a staggering jaw-dropping US$4Bn - all this at a time when the country could hardly feed itself and basked in the ignominious delight of accepting wood from then-called Zaire to carve doors from.  Mobuto Sese Seko rivalled our good friend Ceausescu in his equal prowess for state-kleptomania.

All this said, it was rather eerie to meander through the corridors of this enormous cavern - slogged together from virtual slave labour.  It's now used to house the 2 chamber parliament of Romania, as well as conferences, concerts and even weddings - room rentals apparently start from a modest €3 000 per day (excluding electricity !).  A site on which formerly stood 25 000 houses, 19 churches and 3 hospitals - all razed flat to make room for the Bucharest Project - by which this carnage of construction was known.

View from the balcony.

It seemed a million miles away from the previous evening's laughter and merriment in the old town - where I had the good fortune to stumble on a place serving Transylvanian goulash.  Walking down  Calea Victoriei with Gucci on one side and Max Mara on the other, I felt Romania was now in a completely different world - a free-market, EU- and Nato-belonging, self-confident rightful world.

My goulash.

I only spent time in the city and didn't get chance to visit Bram's Castle or dip my toe in the Black Sea - but I leave Romania (for now) with a very positive view of the place, wishing it well with its continued journey to ever great prosperity.

But remember, please, don't make the mistake Michael Jackson did when standing on that infamous balcony - that old Nicolae didn't quite live long enough to.  It was whence he shouted "Hello Budapest".

It's Bucharest - and I'm glad to have glimpsed it.

The obligatory selfie.

 

The largest hall in all its splendour.

The hideous divine representation of Ceausescu and his wife.