Shaftesbury Park Estate in Battersea

Above: recently I visited the Shaftesbury Park Estate in Battersea. The estate was built by the Artisans, Labourers and General Dwelling Company housing co-operative in the 1870s to provide good quality housing for the working class. As you can see, the standard of housing is excellent.



Above: the houses were originally built for rent although some houses have been sold. The estate is mainly owned by the philanthropic Peabody Trust. The architect of the houses was Robert Austin.



Above: although intended for the poorest classes of society, great care was taken over the design, construction and layout of the estate. This care in design seems to be reciprocated by the inhabitants, as I did not see any litter or graffiti, and the tiny gardens were immaculately kept. The closed nature of the layout (no through roads) gave a sense of seclusion.



Above: it was a condition of the trustees that no pub should be located on the estate. There seemed to be no shops either, although there were a few buildings that were obviously once shops. All the roads were lined with trees and despite the modern myth that trees along roads cause subsidence, there was no evidence that these trees had caused any harm.



Above: the Shaftesbury Park School. Not sure if this was part of the original estate. Looks more Board School than Ragged School.



Above: it is the humanity of the houses that I liked. The wide window sills designed for pot plants. The realisation that every family deserves a garden, however tiny it might be.



Above: this is in the middle of Battersea! And still a working class area as I stopped to ask directions from someone standing in her (miniscule) front garden and her accent was pure cockney. I could have been talking to Wendy Richard.

Scottish

In all the media coverage of the release of the Libyan bomber, it is very clear that the Americans do not take the Scottish "government" seriously. All attempts to deflect attention to Edinburgh are met with irritation by American politicians and commentators, as if they are being given the runaround. Most of the Americans (interviewed on Newsnight, Today, The World at One etc) sound as if they are unsure where Scotland is, or whether it might be a marketing concept for whisky and biscuits, or a brigadoon fairy story starring Gene Kelly and Maureen O'Sullivan.

A measure of Scotland's unimportance came on election night when Emily Maitlis produced a digital map of the constituencies in the United Kingdom with each constituency given the same size blob. Scotland looked tiny. Completely insignificant.

To understand why Scotland attained political significance in recent years you have to look at the collapse of the Labour Party in the 1980s. Following the 1983 election Labour was greatly reduced in the House of Commons and over-reliant on Scottish contituences (where it did relatively well). Thus Scottish MPs filled a large number of Shadow government posts, and when the electoral tide turned these Scottish MPs became government ministers, giving the impression that we had a Scottish government with a few English and Welsh tokan appointments.

This is unlikely to happen a second time. The balkanisation of the United Kingdom, resulting from the policy of devolution, is leading to reduced Scottish representation in the House of Commons. The banking crisis and subsequent recession has reduced Scottish economic importance (there can be no government significance without economic significance).

The Scottish population is expected to decline to below five million by 2025. Thirty percent of the Scottish workforce is employed in the public sector. The much-vaunted "arc of prosperity" has completely evaporated.

Dogs

Hot July day, the heat persisting into the evening. The train was crowded and airless. From the station I drove home by the back roads, and going through the ford I saw these dogs playing in the water.

Chairman of Global Radio is Charles Allen

Above: Global Radio in Leicester Square.

Global Radio is the largest commercial radio company in the United Kingdom. Owns Classic FM, the Galaxy Network and the Heart network. Also LBC radio which is a speech-based station (the phone-ins are very popular with lazy PRs who use them as an easy way to get exposure for their clients).

Heart dj Erica North famously once received a mass of white lilies from Blue singer Duncan James, a romantic gesture that attracted envy and attention in the media world (Duncan James had been a guest presenter on the station).

Chairman of Global Radio is Charles Allen. Supposedly "hard but fair" as an employer. Lifelong supporter of the Labour Party and a director of Tescos.

http://www.thisisglobal.com/radio/

http://lbc.co.uk/

http://www.officialduncanjames.co.uk/

Castle in the north of the county

Above: the castle overlooks the great west river. It is on private property and strictly off-limits. To see it you have to wade through a field of stinging nettles and climb up a high bank, all the time hoping no-one is going to come after you.

Castle in the north of the county, built of red brick. 16th century in date. Except that castles were of no use in the 16th century, and bricks were no protection against cannons.

To understand why this "castle" was built, you have to consider the projection into the Tudor and Stuart periods of chivalric culture. The usual line is that "the Renaissance" brought an end to the medieval period, and "the modern period" commenced. While there is a lot of evidence that society had in practice become modern, in mentalite many people, especially knights, thought of themselves in the chivalric terms of the later middle ages.

Thus knights still built themselves castles (of red brick), wore ornamental armour, took part in jousts and duels etc.



Above: illustration (facsimile) from Le Passages d'Outremer in the Bibliotheque National in Paris.

Far from being designs related to their time, castle builders in the 16th century looked back to the triumphs of the high middle ages, particularly the crusades. Huizinga, writing in Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen, said "warlike aristocracies need an ideal form of manly perfection... the aspiration to a pure and beautiful life gives birth to chivalry." This is an example of architecture being used to shape the thoughts of the people who inhabit it.

Obviously I need to add that chivalry was also used to mask exteme violence, self-interest and obsessive erotic fantasies.

I'm very interested in the Boucicaut manuscript that suggests knights often founded their own (very small) orders of knighthood that existed alongside the more famous orders such as the Garter and the Golden Fleece.

Also interesting is the fact that the "sword of Tristram" (an important secular chivalric relic) was being brought to the county when it was lost by King John with the rest of his treasure in the marsh at Walpole Cross Keys.

Yvette looked shocked - the past week at work

Monday

Yvette (agency head) brought a dog in to work, a black Labrador. It was not hers but belonged to a neighbour who was in hospital. It came into the account execs' room and I fed it on digestive biscuits.

A telephone call from an educational establishment asking if I could attend an interview tomorrow morning (this was for a marketing job). I immediately said yes, then wondered how I would get the time off work without raising any suspicions. I asked advice from Eleanor (trainee account exec) and she told me that she had got another job and intended to resign later this week.

Tuesday

Having rung the office with a "headache" I then caught my usual train to London, but instead of getting the tube to central London I caught the Piccadilly Line north, almost to the end. Getting off at a Holden station I then waited for a minibus which took me to the campus. Main building a Victorian pastiche.

The interview was odd, and not very professional. A panel of three interviewers, the interviewing style meandering and unstructured. There is always a risk with public sector interviews that they are just going through the motions and have already decided who they are going to appoint.

Afterwards I went home (and developed a headache!).

Wednesday

A call this morning telling me I hadn't got the job I went for yesterday.

At lunchtime I went up to the boardroom to watch television.

When I came down I heard Eleanor handing in her notice to Yvette, doing this in the account execs' room in front of everyone. Yvette looked shocked. The news caused a stir throughout the building.

After work we had the first of the "training" sessions with personnel consultant Jess Lewis (a friend of Yvette's). It was very basic, and covered things like communication and teamwork. The training went on until past nine, with wine halfway through and big plates of pasta followed by strawberries.

Thursday

Most of the day I spent planning a German campaign for our toy client. It was hard work ("We have all this media data, but nobody can read it!"). Finally I put together a credible schedule and wrote notes justifying every stage.

Andrea (account director) back after a few days off.

Friday

Yvette was out most of the morning, but rang up Andrea about eleven - I could tell from Andrea's reactions that it was a difficult call.

When Yvette came in at lunchtime she ordered a pizza from the Italian restaurant. She took a few mouthfuls of this then rang the restaurant and started complaining. The restaurant sent another one across.

After work Martin (Andrea's boyfriend) arrived and they went to the cinema. I asked what they were going to see, but they hadn't decided yet. "They're not interested in the film" Eleanor said.

In the evening I went to Battersea for a Council meeting of an educational charity I do voluntary work for. We had the meeting over dinner at the house of Simon S (Finance Officer). Typical Victorian terrace house, sparsely furnished. Simon S is about to get married, and talked sentimentally about his fiancee (showing us a bowl of pot pourri "These are the flowers from St Valentine's Day").

The dinner was a big Frenchified stew, followed by French cheeses, followed by coffee.

Katrina, Edward, and a couple from Manchester were also at the Council meeting, plus Peter B (who is employed by the charity). Peter B left early, and the rest of the time seemed to consist of endless complaints about how poorly Peter B was doing his job. While the others washed up Simon S showed Katrina and me his small back garden.

Sally Bercow "popping up"

I watched Question Time on BBC1 last night.

And I was appalled to see Sally Bercow "popping up" as one of the panel.

Are we expected to believe that she was on the panel entirely on her own merits and not because her husband is Speaker of the House of Commons? This argument is incredible, especially as Sally Bercow had nothing of any interest to say. I am fed up with public life being infiltrated by "husband and wife teams", "brother and sister teams", "brother and brother teams", "son and eighty-year-old mother teams", "devolved First Minister's wife and her toyboy lover teams", "debonair treasury secretary and his secret gay fuck-buddy teams" etc etc etc.

We have become stuck with a self-perpetuating political elite that is endlessly mutating, replicating and colonising so that you can never get rid of them. Like the lernaean hydra of ancient mythology, every time you manage to cut off a head two more grow in its place. And all the mouths have to be fed from the public finances.

Bret Easton Ellis talking about Imperial Bedrooms

Above: a British first edition of Less Than Zero. This book dates from 1985. It seems to have gone straight into paperback, without a hardback edition.

On Tuesday I went to see Bret Easton Ellis talking about Imperial Bedrooms, Less Than Zero and his other novels. The talk was held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and started at 7.30pm. About a thousand people attended the event.

The discussion was chaired by Suzi Feay.

Bret Easton Ellis was modest to the point of indifference, expressing bemusement that anyone should value his writing. I am unsure whether this was genuine modesty and bemusement, or whether it was pride and self-satisfaction masquerading as modesty and bemusement (implying what a great author he would be if only he would take his talent seriously). Or perhaps he was just shy and tired.

"I work slowly... I wish I had more ideas for novels... I'm half as bright as I once was..."

There was an ironic interlude when he praised the MTV series The Hills, comparing it to the work of Jane Austen.

He told us he wrote his first (unpublished) novel aged fourteen (where is this now I wonder?).

Occasionally he talked about the act of writing: "The act of writing transports me... The inspiration for writing a novel does not come from joy or happiness... The darkness of Hollywood is the stress..."

The most interesting (for me) sequence was when he talked about Less Than Zero: "There is a noirish aspect to this novel... I was reading a lot of Chandler... It is clearly set in its time... I am astounded to see people half my age reading the book... It went through many edits... It's about youth culture in LA" ("LA" pronounced elle-ay, in a slurred drawl).

He denied he was the narrator Clay. He talked about the narrator Clay in the third person. He described how asking himself questions about the narrator Clay led to him writing Imperial Bedrooms.

The questions were monopolised by people who wanted to ask about American Psycho, so that they became monotonous. They were also dominated by questioners who wanted to be witty (with varying degrees of success). Suzi Feay should have managed this section better.

Emerging from the auditorium the queue for the book-signing was so huge I would have missed my last train home had I joined it.



Above: Bret Easton Ellis signing books after the talk. He looks tired and apprehensive. Note the glamorous PR "minder" to his right.

Less Than Zero is a book that changed my life.

After graduating in medieval history I was unsure what to do with my life. I seemed destined for a career in museum work. At the time it seemed as if the past (in particular, the European past 200BC - 1400AD) was crushing me.

In my last term at university I started applying for internships at various museums, and on impulse sent an application to a world-famous museum on the coast of California. To my surprise (to everyone's surprise) they said yes, but the only vacancy they had was in their Public Affairs department. Everything they sent me was by overnight courier - they seemed awash with money.

Having arranged to "work" at the museum for three months, I then booked accommodation in Los Angeles (in Hollywood, although after a few weeks I moved to Fremont Place). I was excited at the idea of going to a place that had no medieval past - that seemed to have no past of any kind whatsoever. In my naive way I began to research Los Angeles, which is how I came to read Less Than Zero.

I took the book completely seriously. I dissected it as if it was a work of anthropology. I was dazzled by the exotic culture the book revealed.

And when I finally touched down at LAX I walked straight into a Less Than Zero lifestyle (except that I never took any drugs). How this happened I can't really explain. I was the least likely person to inhabit, even by proxy, a Bret Easton Ellis novel. I know many people, most of them a lot cooler than myself, who had completely pedestrian experiences of the BUNAC work-in-America programme. But having read the book, it was as if I knew what to look for. It was as if I knew where to go, who to talk to, what to say "yes" to...



Above: review of Imperial Bedrooms by Mark Lawson. He is a reliable guide. You might disagree with his reviews, but if he takes a book seriously you know it must be worth reading.

Prime Minister's Questions, 14th July 2010

I watched Prime Minister's Questions at lunchtime.

One of the questions was from Keith Vaz's sister who has "popped up" as MP for Walsall.

I thought we had ended the corrupt practice of families regarding the House of Commons as a resource they can use to enrich their particular "family firm". Of idiot children, aged mothers and endless siblings being eased into public positions because of who they are related to. Or are we supposed to believe Valerie Vaz got herself selected and elected entirely on her own merit?

I would like to see a convention (or better still legislation) preventing more than one member of a family holding a House of Commons seat at any one time.

Just as nauseating was a question from one Tory backbencher whining about the amount of paperwork he had to complete to reclaim his expenses. The simple answer to this is to end all expenses full stop (and without "compensating" pay rises). There is no end to the arrogance and greed and corruption of these people.

Mark Roalfe executive creative director

Above: Greater London House on the edge of Camden. Egyptian-style art deco, it was put up in 1926. Converted to offices in 1961.

Greater London House (part of it) is the office of ad agency RKCR/Y&R. Mark Roalfe is their executive creative director. His work is widely admired throughout the ad industry.

http://www.rkcryr.com/rkcr.php

Thinking aloud

Above: on the front page of the Guardian last Thursday, and also filling pages 2 and 3, were in-depth reports about the archaeological discovery in Norfolk of artifacts left by the earliest "Britons" about 900,000 years ago. The excavation was part of the "Ancient Human Occupation of Britain" project. An article by (revisionist) archaeologist Mike Pitts suggested that these Early Pleistocene inhabitants were not nomads following herds, but settled inhabitants - a very controversial theory.


The reports were illustrated by images created by artist John Sibbick. They seemed curiously dated in style. The Stone Age inhabitants were depicted naked, using primitive tools, and with dark hair that seemed to incorporate blonde highlights.





Above: we have an old (dated 1963) guidebook to Grimes Graves in Norfolk, a Neolithic site dated to 2,600 BC. It includes illustrations by artist Alan Sorrell. As you can see, they are very similar to the Sibbick illustrations.





Above: a Thames & Hudson book about archaeological heresies. Every alternative idea you can think of is in this book. As you would expect from a Thames & Hudson book, the approach is scholarly and responsible.





Above: the book describes how official Ministry of Works publications portrayed an image of "ancient barbarism" - primitive, naked and uncivilised. This image was consistent with a darwinian view of continuous progress. It was also consistent with an imperial ideology of domination (the Romans were superior to the British tribes, the Normans were superior to the Saxons etc).


It's odd to see this type of illustration come back into fashion, and in the Guardian of all places.





Above: anyway, I began rereading the book, which I have not looked at for some years. And I reached the chapter on Wilhelm Teudt who was a mad German archaeologist whose work was largely discredited after the Second World War. One of his crazy theories was about the Externsteine rocks in central Germany, supposedly the centre of worship of the Irmensul, or sacred oak tree.

There is a carving on the rocks that is central to Teudt's theories of prehistoric nationalism, but has been dismissed as unimportant by post-war scholars.



Above: I kept looking at the illustration of the Externsteine carving. Something about it seemed familiar. Then the similarity "pinged" into my mind.



Above: at a remote village in the county there is a carving set in the wall of the church. Originally it was the shaft of a cross that stood in the churchyard. Pevsner describes it as early Norman on the evidence of the decoration on the sides, but admits it is Saxon in style.

Now I look at it again, I am struck by the resemblance to the Externsteine carving - the Christian imagery triumphing over the drooping Irmensuls.

Or am I imagining this?



Above: I also thought I was seeing things, when I saw this direction post put up by the National Cycle Network (a Sustrans initiative). Is this an Irmensul? And if it is, who decided to revive this pagan symbol?

Anyway, a rambling post. Not really sure what I am saying here. I am mainly just thinking aloud.

Am I being paranoid to suspect that there is a move to replace the narrative of post-Saxon Christian civilisation with pre-Saxon pagan prehistoric nationalism?

More on John Sibbick: http://www.johnsibbick.com/
More on Alan Sorrell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sorrell

The past week at work

Monday

There was a good atmosphere in the agency this morning.

"I'm in such a good mood that not even Yvette's rudeness can upset me" said Andrea (Andrea is Account Director, Yvette is agency head).

"She's in love" said Eleanor (trainee account executive).

Andrea did not deny the statement.

No work to do today. I had to make myself look busy. It is impossible to know how well we are doing towards our monthly targets.

"It's getting so quiet my desk is beginning to look tidy" said Andrea.

The planning meeting was cancelled without any reason being given.

A little flurry of work in the afternoon when an ad came in, then it became quiet again.

Tuesday

Yvette was out of the office most of the morning.

"I get the feeling she is building up to some kind of explosion" said Andrea.

In the afternoon I went with Kennedy from the PR division upstairs to visit one of his clients. The client is a scientific institute of dubious morality, and I would have preferred not to have had any dealings with them. As well as a PR campaign, they wanted to place some recruitment advertising (which was the reason I was there, although we don't really do recruitment ads - Yvette says they look tacky on our client portfolio).

Wednesday

In the back office we hardly see any of the hot sunny weather. All the desk fans had disappeared this morning so that Yvette had to go upstairs and get them back again. The heat was almost unbearable.

The weekly planning meeting was held this morning. Jonathan (copywriter) came under attack from Yvette for the poor work he is producing. "That favourite has had a swift fall from grace" said Andrea later.

Most of the day I spent doing the recruitment ads for the scientific institute.

Also I wrote the creative brief for a campaign for our oil client. I took care over this brief as Jonathan and Neil (graphic designer) have complained to Yvette about the poor creative briefs they have been getting, especially from trainee account exec Julie. As I wrote the brief it occurred to me that it would be quicker to simply write the copy myself and tell Neil how I wanted it to look.

Thursday

Yvette was late in this morning, admitting that she had overslept. She gave everyone a bar of chocolate. I had to put mine in the fridge for an hour as it was almost melting.

Eleanor was ordered about to such an extent by Yvette that she became disgruntled. Eventually Yvette and Eleanor went off to visit the London office of our oil client. Everyone seemed to relax once they had gone.

At four o'clock an ad came in that had to go in a French national newspaper the deadline being tomorrow morning (which effectively meant it had to be written, designed and approved this evening). For the next two hours things were extremely hectic, especially as we had to find a (competent) French copywriter. For once things, went smoothly, and the working day closed with everything falling into place.

Friday

One by one we were called into Yvette's office and asked what we thought of the new profit-sharing scheme. I was non-committal, although privately I think it is a farce. Eleanor was more blunt - she told Yvette the scheme was irrelevant as she didn't intend to stay until the end of the year (that must have given Yvette a shock).

In the afternoon I did some copywriting for our breakfast cereal client, wading through lots of notes about what sort of people eat porridge products.

At the end of the working day Julie's brother Martin arrived to wait for Andrea. He was wearing jeans, a maroon t-shirt with a big army badge on the front, and what looked like desert boots. Sat in the account execs' office (Andrea was in with Yvette) he was half-embarrassed, half-anxious, not knowing what to say to us but feeling he needed to make an effort (I wanted to tell him there was no need to say anything as we were completely unimportant).

Prestat Choxi

Prestat Choxi - very smooth, with a complex taste sweet and slightly bitter at the same time (the bitter aftertaste is quite nice).

The company manufactures its chocolate products at Park Royal in London. A real factory, actually manufacturing within the London area. You can buy the products in Waitrose, John Lewis and at the Prestat store in Piccadilly.

They also do single-origin chocolate buttons which are very good.

Here is their home page: http://www.prestat.co.uk/

Gary Younge - Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?

On Tuesday I went to see Gary Younge (Guardian columnist) talk about his new book Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century? The event was held at 7.45pm in the Purcell Room of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. About three hundred (my guess) people attended the event.

Rachel Holmes, Head of Literature and the Spoken Word at the South Bank Centre, introduced the talk with a quote from Gary Younge: “The only certain thing about identity is that it will keep changing.” She then introduced as Chairperson of the evening “Bidisha” (who is presumably one of the small group of women so famous they are known by a single name - “Hillary” or “Diana”). Rachel Holmes praised Bidisha to such an excessive extent, and for such an extended period of time, that Gary Younge seemed eclipsed.

For the first half-hour Gary Younge stood at a podium:

“Sex, race, age, class, nationhood, belief… we rarely talk about identity intelligently… identity is an important place to start when it comes to politics, but it’s a deadly place to finish…”

He talked about the many contradictions of identity, making the audience laugh with absurd examples from around the world ( South Africa , China , Israel ). He quoted EH Carr: “A man is from his earliest years moulded by the society he is born into.” He talked with approval of the identity conferred by shared consumerism – food, branded clothing, lifestyles.

“The more powerful you are the less conscious you are of identity… Nationhood and race is a nonsense… Cultural gatekeepers deny changes to identity… White men do not have an identity, they have an orthodoxy… Identities make no sense unless they are seen in the context of power… In an era of globalization people are more likely to retreat into identity…”

He gave a warning: “All over Europe fascism is now a mainstream ideology.”

He finished by opposing the concept of “identity” with the broader abstract idea of “humanity”.



Resuming his seat, questions followed, mediated by Bidisha.

They were cynical about the idea of diversity (Bidisha: “Diversity happens at a level of marketing and image.” Gary Younge: “Diversity has become presentation”).

They made mild jokes at the expense of Diane Abbott’s candidature for Leader of the Labour Party.

Other comments made by Gary Younge during the questions: “Political correctness means whatever you want it to mean so long as you don’t like it… It is impossible to understand class without identity… To some extent all identities become a performance…”

Towards the end Gary Younge was asked how he defined his own identity: “Humankind… In America I’m very British all the time… Black British.”

I had been looking forward to the talk for some time. Marketing is obsessed with issues of identity, and I spend most of my time at work identifying audiences, segmenting populations, classifying people by their beliefs, behaviours, aspirations etc. I was hoping for some new insights on the subject.

On the whole I thought the talk was a little lightweight. Perhaps the book will be more in-depth. During the questions I thought he skated over the way parents impart identity to their children, whereas this is the main mechanism of cultural transmission.

Where Gary Younge is absolutely right is to say that the more powerful you are the less conscious you become of identity. The obverse of this must also be true – the less powerful you are the more conscious you become of identity. This is because sections of society who have little wealth or power are more reliant on communal ownership of property and resources.

I also think that Gary Younge is mistaken to expect the majority of the population to transcend issues of identity and become part of a universal “humanity”. Some may be able to make this step, but most will not. Being fully human seems to include an impulse to “belong”.

Aldous Huxley wrote: “Nationalistic theory… justifies those periodical orgies of emotion which are, for the great majority of men and women, a psychological necessity… health cannot be maintained without occasional orgasms of hatred, self-love and group-frenzy.”

Aldous Huxley also wrote: “It is the business of men of science to devise a technique for making prosperity and peace as satisfying, psychologically, as nationalistic hatreds and hysterias.”



Above: article Gary Younge was asked about (if you click on the image it should enlarge so that you can read it).

During the questions Gary Younge was asked about an article he wrote on the 28th June that questioned whether “English” identity existed outside of the English football team. Later I reread the article (I had not taken it seriously the first time I read it). In the article Gary Younge says:

“When England ’s national team ceases to exist as a viable entity the nation and, to some extent, its national identity, goes with it… ( England ) lacks the basic tropes of nationhood.”

This statement is hard to justify. When you consider the basic “tropes” of nationhood (linguistic, judicial, religious etc) England has more than most nations can claim. For instance the legal system is unique to England and all the time Gary Younge is in England he is subject to English Common Law. The Church of England is uniquely recognized, in law, as the state religion of England . English local government, based on county and borough councils, has existed since Anglo-Saxon times. When Gary Younge speaks or writes he does so in the English language etc etc.

Gary Younge is an intelligent man. He must know all this. So why did he write such a silly article?



Above: The Struggle for the World by Lindholm and Zuquete.

Gary Younge is wrong to conflate identity politics with fascism. In The Struggle for the World by Lindholm and Zuquete, the Zapatistas evince a nostalgia for communal ownership of ancestral lands and goods and many examples are quoted of Zapatista ideology. Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos says: “Globalisation destroys nation states and destroys the human beings in them.”

President Morales of Bolivia is quoted as saying: “We the indigenous peoples, the humble and honest peoples of this planet, believe the time has come to stop and to rediscover our roots and a respect for Mother Earth” (as opposed to “a universalist project to convert the world to a single society directed by the economy”).



Above: when I saw this (hate crime) comment by Ashley Cole I was reminded again of Aldous Huxley: “As well as hate, the other passion behind the theory and practice of nationalism is vanity. Delusions of greatness are always accompanied by persecution mania. The paeans of self-praise with which the nationalists are perpetually gratifying themselves are always on the point of modulating into denunciations of other people.”

Prime Minister's Question's, Wednesday 7th July 2010

Lunchtime today I managed to watch Prime Minister's Questions.

This is the first time I have done so since the new government was formed (I suppose I could watch the recorded version, but it is never the same - you need to see it live).

I was impressed at how competent David Cameron looked. He is very quick-witted. At one stage he seriously discomfited Alan Johnson (later in the studio Andrew Neil produced a killer clip of Alan Johnson from the election campaign).

The Speaker's behaviour was irritating. John Bercow is probably the most undignified Speaker of modern times. Perhaps the post should be directly elected (and removed) by the people.

Chuka Umunna asked about knife crime. Roger Williams asked a question that appeared to be interesting, but was so obscurely worded it was unintelligible. Rushanara Ali asked about housing in the East End.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t164p/Prime_Ministers_Questions_07_07_2010/

The Cobb at Lyme Regis

When I was in Dorset recently I was at a loose end one evening and drove down to Lyme Regis, about twenty miles away.



Above: the Cobb at Lyme Regis features in Persuasion by Jane Austen's and The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. I've always wanted to see it. I arrived in the town about 8pm - the evening was warm, and all the tourists had left for the day.



Above: after parking my car I had a fish and chip supper on a bench on the promenade. From where I sat I could see the curve of the Cobb in the distance. Two pigeons came along to watch me.



Above: view from the top of the Cobb looking back at the town - the cliffs you can see are known as the Jurassic Coast from the large numbers of fossils that can be found there. Once up on the Cobb I felt very unsafe. The drops are sheer on both sides, and the surface is slanted so that if you fell over you could easily roll into the sea.



Above: steps leading up to the top of the Cobb. The exact location of the accident in Persuasion is disputed, but I this flight of steps most closely matched my imagination. For some reason all the time I was up on the top of the Cobb I felt giddy - perhaps the movement of the sea made me disoriented.



Above: the end of the Cobb where Meryl Streep (as Sarah Woodruff) stood in the film version of The French Lieutenant's Woman. I wouldn't want to stand there in a storm. Even on a mild summer day, with a calm sea, I felt unsafe.



Above: when I returned home I reread Fowles, getting the book out of the library rather than buying it. There was no need to reread Persuasion as I know it so well. I know these things are hard to judge, but probably Jane Austen is the greatest novelist of all time.

A Grade 1 listed building

Above: after lunch a drive to the north east of the county. One of the churches I called at was this Grade 1 example, remote from the village. Externally Perpendicular, but internally much older.



Above: inside it was a shell (I repeat, this is a Grade 1 listed building). All the glass had been smashed in all the windows. The doors were all off, and the building is open to the elements.



Above: scorch marks from fires can be seen on the medieval south arcade.



Above: medieval carving of a monk at prayer - just lying on the floor for anyone to take. This is in a Grade 1 listed building. Someone should be shot for what has happened here.



Above: Ian Jack in yesterday's Guardian drew attention to the risk parish churches are facing. The government should give a yearly grant to the Church of England to cover the cost of maintenance of all medieval buildings. It would be a fraction of the billions being wasted on the Olympic Games.



Above: there is some help from various bodies, but the strategy of "find alternative uses" is flawed - once the buildings have been turned into shops, or tennis courts, or community centres they are just as ruined as the burned-out smashed-up examples. The sensible answer is for the Church of England to increase its membership. It can't be all that hard to get a hundred or so regular communicants attending each church each week. It's only twenty or so families. And now everyone has a car even the most remote church becomes accessible. Unfortunately you can't talk to incumbants about marketing communications - they just don't think it is relevant to them.

"Hey guys, I failed" - the past week at work

Wednesday

Back to the office after five days ill. I felt as if weeks had passed. As soon as I got to my desk I wanted to go home again.

Julie (trainee account executive) had had her car stolen two weeks ago, but yesterday it had been found. She sat at her desk in the account execs room ringing all her friends on her mobile to tell them the news. In one of these conversations (which I couldn't help hearing) she revealed that her mother was friends with Yvette (agency head).

On the whole I found the day difficult. Most of my time was spent coping with problems. It seemed that no sooner was one problem resolved another presented itself.

It was formally confirmed that we have lost our catering client. As this was squarely the responsibility of Yvette and Julie the rest of us could sympathise in an accusatory sort of way. At a meeting held to discuss the loss, Yvette said: "I'm the first to hold up my hands and say Hey guys, I failed".

Lunchtime Andrea (account director) produced a plate of small sausages wrapped in bacon, but I didn't feel I could eat any - my stomach was still quite queasy.

In the afternoon a massive blunder came to light. During my illness I had forgotten about an ad that was due at a national publication this morning. The rep rang me up asking where the artwork was, and I managed to extend the deadline until 4pm. Then I hastily cobbled some copy together and got Neil (graphic designer) to do the design. I got client approval with minutes to spare, and sent the ad off exactly on four o'clock. This sequence was very stressful, and because we are all in one office it was impossible to keep any of it secret.

I was longing to go home on time this evening, but at 5pm I got called into an appraisal Yvette was holding with Jonathan our copywriter. She was full of praise for my writing, and wanted me to guide Jonathan. I said I would be happy to help, but actually I wanted to ask why we had appointed a copywriter who couldn't write.

Going back into the general office I found Martin, Julie's brother who is in the army. I told him Julie had already gone home, but actually he was waiting for Andrea. It seems they are now going out together (after they had left I watched them from the front office walking down the street holding hands).

Thursday

I felt incredibly tired this morning, so that I had to force myself to make the journey in to work.

All of the morning Yvette's car alarm kept going off. She parks it in the back mews, and the alarm can be heard in the offices (the toilet lobby window was open). When the alarm starts hooting Yvette comes into our office and throws her car keys at someone (usually Jonathan, or trainee account exec Eleanor) to go down and turn the thing off.

Most of the day I spent doing media research for a potential Accountancy client.

Yvette went to see our charity client (one of my clients, but she wanted to go alone for some reason). She came back gasping at how difficult they were. "I have been subjected to two-and-a-half hours of niggles" she said.

A call from a friend at a west end ad agency. She said her career had plateaued, with nothing new happening. The hours she works are so long she has no time or energy to develop a social life.

Friday

A call this morning from a Netherlands publication saying that artwork for an ad we had sent them was the wrong size. This was Neil's fault, although I ought to have double-checked. We managed to put it right without anyone else having to know.

Most of the morning was concerned with putting together a presentation document for a firm of City Accountants. The presentation itself, held in the upstairs Boardroom, was so tedious that I felt bored out of my mind. It must have been what they wanted however, as we got the account including some PR work (which we are supposed to pass on to the upstairs division, but Yvette wants to handle it all ourselves).

Later Eleanor was embarrassed to see an out of date logo on an ad she had placed for a City client("the client approved it" she wailed).

Clapham

Above: an omnibus in Clapham. "The man on the Clapham Omnibus" was an expression meant to identify the median demographic of the British population. The phrase is seldom used now (perhaps because politicians do not value the opinions of people who travel by 'bus?).



Above: the Notre Dame Estate in Clapham. The estate is notorious for low-level crime, drug dealing, and shootings. In 2009 the residents accused the Labour administration of Lambeth of having abandoned them.



Above: Clapham is most famous for Clapham Common, a large expanse of parkland about 220 acres in extent. As the name implies the park was originally common land, and had been so since Saxon times. In 1998 Ron Davies, New Labour Secretary of State for Wales, was involved in a lurid night-time incident on Clapham Common (he has always denied sex was involved).



Above: Holy Trinity on the edge of Clapham Common. The church was the centre of the influential Clapham Sect that included William Wilberforce. The group campaigned against slavery.



Above: despite the reputation Clapham had as a working-class suburb, the area includes many large commodius houses. This one was the former home of the distinguished architect Sir Charles Barry. Today Clapham residents include Natasha Bedingfield, Vanessa Redgrave and Polly Toynbee.



Above: Lavender Hill. The area got its name from the commercial cultivation of lavender until urban development took place in the mid-nineteenth century. The 1951 film The Lavender Hill Mob was set in the area and starred Alec Guiness.



Above: the Falcon pub. The curved facade you can see here is an 1880 rebuilding on the site of an ancient inn. Time Out once described the pub as "Britpop cool" (which is enough to put you off ever going in the place).



Above: Clapham department store Arding & Hobbs, now owned by John Lewis. Originally built in 1885, a fire destroyed the building in 1909. The famous clocktower was added when the store was rebuilt.

Note: this area is technically Battersea, but everyone regards it as Clapham.



Above: commuters at Clapham Junction station. Whenever I see a group of people like this I want to go over and survey them. It's as if I have a compulsive impulse to ask people their opinions (on products, places, things etc).