Advent #3

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas

For all of us, and for all our children, there comes that terrible day when we discover a dreadful truth about Christmas. As soon as we do it seems so obvious, and the intense pleasure we had enjoyed before can never, ever be recaptured. I refer of course to the moment when it dawns on us, despite never having considered it before, that, well, to be frank, crackers are a bit rubbish.

It’s true – even though I can remember as a child being thrilled by the small, painfully rough, hard black plastic moustaches; by the magnifying-glass in the shape of a pink key; and by the ‘moves in a mysterious way’ fortune-telling fish.

I still have a certain grudging admiration for the awfulness of the cracker jokes, especially the atrociously ‘pun-ny’ ones – but they lose some of their sparkle when the (shiny red plastic fish) scales fall from your eyes and you realise they aren’t exactly Galton & Simpson.

I’ll admit I was never that keen on the paper hat, and in fact I don’t think I can recall anybody other than my grandparents actually wearing them. Certainly nobody has ever pulled a cracker and scrabbled around in the debris to find out what colour hat they’ve got (not when there are green tiddlywinking frogs or impracticably tiny hair combs to be had).

I suppose in mixing the awful and tacky, with the (to a child) thrilling and exciting, the ‘umble cracker is Christmas in a nutshell. And realising that they’re just tat, it’s hardly the biggest ‘coming of age’ discovery we all have to go through is it? I mean, it’s a much bigger shock when you find out Father Christmas isn–

No, of course I’m not going to reveal that in public!

I’d have to be crackers! 

Advent #2

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas

Those of you with long memories may recall the smartly-liveried toy phones my brother & I were given one Christmas. Alas, although I would never downplay their entertainment value (01, if you’re outside London, 811 8055) their status as the very cutting-edge of technology was usurped the following year when, yes, we got Pong-ed.

Pong, for anybody too young to remember it and too lazy to Google it, was a distant ancestor to Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, a forerunner to Donkey Kong and Pac Man, possibly even pre-dating Space Invaders – because it was (as far as my memory (backed up by no actual research) tells me) the very first electronic home game-play entertainment system.

Pong came programmed with four different ball games, magically recreated (well, blockily approximated) in pixels on a TV screen. This was a time before even Lego people had faces, so the visual side of Pong was what you might charitably call basic. The rackets were simple rectangles; and eschewing the traditional roundness, the ball itself was square.

And the four games were very much variations on one theme, being Tennis, Doubles Tennis (Tennis with two rackets), Squash (Tennis, but you bounce the ball off a wall) – and Practice (like Squash, but now it’s just you against the wall).

By today’s standards it was probably closer to a YoYo than the Playstation 5, but back then, when we fully expected travel to the moon to be like catching a bus, when we were promised flying cars and food pills and robot butlers, it felt like a sign of things to come.

Which I guess it sort of was – having superseded the phones, Pong was soon knocked off its pedestal when my brother got a ZX Spectrum.

Rubber keys and cassette-tape – NOW the future had arrived! 

Advent #1

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas

Long before the advent calendars began to open, earlier even than the clocks going back, the firsttentative sign that Christmas was on the way when I was a kid was the Coming of the Catalogues.

Littlewoods, Marshall Ward, Kays: all household names (well, in our household anyway) the catalogues were a twice-yearly event. There was the Spring/Summer edition, and the Autumn/Winter one, and there were two ways to tell which was which. One was the writing on the front cover (boring!) and the other was that the Autumn/Winter catalogue had over a hundred pages of Toys!

The Spring/Summer ones usually included half a dozen pages labelled ‘Toys’ as a quite scandalous ploy to lure easily-excited children inside – but it was just paddling pools or slides or swingballs, large-scale items very much stretching the definition of toy (if not actually pushing the limits of the Trade Descriptions Act).

But Autumn/Winter – now THAT knew how to do toys. Action figures, dolls, playsets, board games, annuals (I love an annual), latterly even computer games. All brought together into one massive section (in an epic ‘Avengers Assemble’ sort of way) full of photographs and wild claims of hours of pleasure, and signalling that Christmas, in all its cynical materialistic majesty, was on the way.

On a more practical note (although by ‘practical’ I mean ‘misleadingly and dangerously seductive’ in a way that tends nowadays to be more the province of credit card companies and payday lenders) it allowed you to spread the cost over several months hence, at least in theory, easing the burden and lessening the shock. Even without a catalogue, of course, I think it’s pretty obvious by now that another Christmas is fast approaching. I hope we can make our way there together. (In twenty-four manageable instalments.) 

I Went to the Chip Shop Last Night…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in The C-Word

…and although it doesn’t bode well for spinning 700 words out of it, I have to report the trip was entirely uneventful.

Well, ‘the new uneventful’ at any rate. It was the first time I’ve been since they reopened, and they seem to have it down to a fine art – even details like a plastic tray for putting cash into/taking change out of, to avoid even the potential for hand to hand contact.

Naturally it’s ‘Takeaway Only’ at the moment. Having placed my order, I progressed from the ‘shop counter’ into what was previously the café, and is now a convenient space for people to wait. On the face of it six strangers standing around the periphery of a room wearing facemasks would have seemed at the very least odd, and probably downright sinister, just twelve months ago – now, though, it seems entirely natural.

The next customer in after me voiced the opinion that it was like a party – although, without wishing to in any way label myself an expert, it wasn’t like any party I’ve ever been to. It reminded me more of those films where a shadowy cabal, their faces hidden, gather to plot the downfall of civilisation or to sacrifice a goat or something. (There was, for some reason, an empty table in the middle of the room, but I can assure you that no goats were slain on it. At least not while I was there – although obviously once my order was ready I took it and ran and didn’t dare look back.)

As you’d expect, other than the party observation, we did the typically English thing of saying absolutely nothing. A couple of the younger customers were on their phones, and there was a gentleman who seemed to think that thirty inches was two metres (my wife said something similar to me just the other night, funnily enough) but all in all, we stood and waited and followed the rules – if not exactly to the letter, at least a lot closer than if we’d, say, taken a twenty mile drive to test our eyesight. (Ooh, feel that satirical burn.)

The mind wanders while doing nothing, doesn’t it. I coped with the initial sense of absurdity, and the moment of panic that I might have unwittingly gatecrashed the Star Chamber or the Antifa AGM, but I really struggled NOT to burst out laughing when I imagined one of us tapping a foot, another drumming their fingers, and then all of us spontaneously bursting into song in a way that (despite youthful hopes to the contrary) never ever happens in real life. I grinned like an idiot at the thought, but luckily it was all going on below the mask line, so just like when Bruce Forsyth tap-danced behind a desk on Have I Got News For You, nobody could see a thing.

And then the chips were ready, and I left.

The news on the vaccine front, somewhere between tentative and encouraging, is a welcome light at the end of the tunnel (which is just as well, otherwise at the moment it would be unrelentingly tunnel); but so too is seeing places open again. Granted it’s ‘the new open’ requiring lots more empty spaces for people to just stand around thinking stupid thoughts while they wait, and that comes at a cost, but I have to assume it’s better than nothing.

It’s still a very hard time for most businesses (although presumably the suppliers of yellow & black adhesive tape, and the owners of Perspex Screens R Us, will have had bumper years) but for those that manage to cling on, I think ‘on the other side’ they may reap the benefits – based on last night, people clearly want to be out (or at the very least, don’t want to cook on a Friday night). So in a bizarre way, despite the masks, and the lockdown, and the impending tiers, it gave me just a little bit of optimism.

And that’s all but 700 words, so time’s up – meaning, alas, I don’t have space left to mention this bloke down the chip shop.

Swears he’s Elvis…? * 

*             I can only apologise for what I know is a very weak ending.**

**           Although, on the other hand, it’s referencing a VERY good song.***

***        Alas, even those who subscribe to the ‘he didn’t really die in 1977’ theory as regards the King, would presumably concede that 43 years later, he’d be 85, so either way he most likely is by now. Sorry about that.

So Shines A Good Deed…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Brexit, Little Bit Of Politics, Trump

…In A Weary World.

(I’ll be honest, I thought I was quoting Gene Wilder at the end of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory there. Turns out it’s actually from The Merchant of Venice. Who knew?)

But anyway, and leaving aside my cultural ignorance, and if you don’t want to know the results of the US Presidential election, look away now…

I went to bed Tuesday evening in the expectation that I would wake on Wednesday to a result, and to headlines which were either Mr Trump’s self-congratulation on his victory, or a furious rejection of his defeat.

As it happened, of course, I woke on Wednesday NOT to a result, but unexpectedly to Trump both congratulating himself on his victory AND also furiously rejecting his defeat; and that’s pretty much set the tone for the rest of the week. I mean, I get jittery when I don’t know who the new Doctor Who is, but this…

I feel, to be honest, a little bit sorry for Joe Biden. He first became a senator back in 1972. He was Vice-President for 8 years. He stood as a potential Democratic candidate twice before. No doubt over the decades he’s often thought about being President – sometimes simple daydreaming, but at other times in an actively seeking it, ‘I can almost touch it’, sort of way. Now he’s done it – yet somehow, now that his moment has come, the limelight is still firmly on Mr Trump.

At any other time Biden would have had the dignified concession speech from his opponent, and where he could normally expect a productive, civilised transfer of power, he’s surely in for a rough ride over the next couple of months. Even his inauguration is likely to be overshadowed either by a petulant Trump turning up, or by an even more petulant one deciding to host a different event elsewhere at the same time. Frankly I expect Biden won’t really feel ‘there’ until he’s actually sat in the Oval Office – and to be honest, if Trump hasn’t taken all the headed notepaper with him it’ll be a surprise.

In my opinion (though CNN didn’t ask) it was never going to be a landslide, and to be honest if anyone had pressed me on the issue (although Fox didn’t) this time last week I’d have guessed Mr Trump would just have squeezed back in. It looks like by the time it’s finished Biden will have a definite win, though not a huge one.

Even so, it shows that it is possible to step back from the brink, that the majority has turned away from the bitterly divisive stylings of a President who has been driven by ego and a need for praise, with a largely-misplaced certainty of his own genius, and who considers it acceptable to tell blatant lies, and to make wild and unsubstantiated claims.

In our own way, the UK has also been troubled by something bitterly divisive since 2016. Not an individual in our case, although various individuals have certainly been part of it, similarly driven by ego, and a certainty of their own genius, and the acceptability of telling huge lies. And likewise, at least in its current impending form, Brexit will be over in January. For us it isn’t something we can turn away from or change our minds on – but hopefully when the actual event has passed we can start to ‘get over it’.

In fact, for a brief shining moment earlier this year, in the midst of the growing pandemic, there was a sense that we genuinely were all in it together, and that we would come together, united in the face of this awful crisis. Alas, that good faith has been squandered. By individuals and ego and huge lies…

So, unquestionably, and as I’m sure President-Elect Biden is keenly aware now that he was won the vote, there is a lot of work to be done. But, with a swing away from division, discrimination and vanity, we’ve been shown it is possible.

For today at least, God bless America.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Childhood, The C-Word, TV

(Spoiler warning, in case you haven’t made it to the end of Sandy Denny’s haunting late-sixties ballad, but she doesn’t know.)

Today, of course, it’s more a question of ‘where does the time come from?’ given that we’ve ‘gained’ an hour overnight. I used to work with somebody, and have encountered several people since, who always dreaded the changing of the clocks because it took him weeks to adjust. I know that it’s ‘a thing’ but I have to admit it’s one I still don’t understand. (I always limit myself to 700 words, so there’s no room to list here all the things I don’t understand – but gears, electric sewing machines, and the plot to Harry Sullivan’s War by Ian Marter all figure on the list.)

Maybe it’s that I’m not sufficiently in tune with the natural world, the rhythms of the sun and moon, the pattern of day and night, and I’m stupid enough to just accept whatever time the clock tells me it is. Actually that’s very possible, given that as a child of the 70s & 80s I’m of the generation that, as Douglas Adams put it, “still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

Regardless of how easy or not it is to slip from BST to GMT, I like turning the clocks back. Certainly as a child, I always associated it with the start of the big push towards Christmas. Dark almost as soon as I got home from school, and cold too, the perfect excuse to snuggle down by the fire and watch more TV than I should.

Not, in the interests of full disclosure, that I ever need much of an excuse to watch TV. Recently I’ve been rewatching Michael Palin’s Around The World in 80 Days, and have just done episode six in which, never mind repeating an hour, he crosses the international date line and repeats a whole day!

Aboard ship Michael and a handful of newbie crewmembers are involved in a ritual to mark their first time crossing the line. (The official term may be ‘Date Line Virgins’ but I’m reluctant to Google that.) His voiceover observes, as he is being liberally plastered with some red substance, that the ceremony normally uses red paint but as a concession to him they’ve substituted ketchup. Personally I’d have preferred the paint.

Around The World… was first shown in 1989, having been recorded in late 1988 – and as well as remembering much of the programme from first time around, I also by and large remember 1988. So when the captions come up saying, for example, Day 18 October 12th, and Michael is setting off from Dubai part of me is thinking, he’s missing part 2 of Remembrance of the Daleks. I’ve just passed day 48 and discovered that Michael was exploring Shanghai at the same time as my brother turned 20.

If we’re talking about the weird tricks time plays I’m sure I’m not the only person to have observed that March this year seemed to last for about 30 weeks. My Mum pointed out yesterday, that when Boris made his speech (his, to paraphrase, “go home and stay there” speech) it was the Monday after we’d put the clocks forward. At the time, we probably weren’t that bothered about having one less hour to put up with.

Nevertheless since then, as usual, the months seem to have raced by and now we’re almost out the other end of October. Absurdly, in July and August it felt like we were having a summer break from the Coronavirus, but now that Autumn has taken hold, we’re back in the thick of it. People comparing it to ‘the war’ have become very tiresome… but clearly it WON’T all be over by Christmas.

Anybody who’s already rearranged events for 2021 may be starting to wonder if they’ve been a bit premature in doing so. Sadly it’s all dragged on, probably longer than expected, certainly longer than hoped. No doubt we will get ‘there’ eventually, albeit some things may never be quite the same again. But also, no doubt it’s going to take…

…time.

And On The Third Day…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Little Bit Of Politics, The C-Word, Trump

(Or seventy-two hours later, if that’s a different thing.)

Either way, I refer of course to none other than our good friend Mr Trump who returned to the White House on Monday, marching onto the balcony to remove his mask and declare himself restored. Looking at the footage I found it hard not to think he was trying to channel the resurrection and suggest he had risen again.

I made the same ‘gag’ on Facebook on Tuesday but a week is a long time in politics, so by the time I came to put a few thoughts together on Thursday the man himself had already overtaken me. (I would say I’ve been ‘out-Trumped’ but that sounds unfortunately like some kind of farting competition.) He’s now declared that his catching the virus was “a gift from God” in that it enabled him to discover this great cure, and be restored to better health than ever. (On first hearing that I must admit I felt a bit sorry for God, getting dragged into it all.)

Over the weekend, while Trump was still in hospital (or still sealed in the tomb waiting for the stone to move if you prefer (or to be moved, if you want to start getting all theological)) there was one school of opinion on Twitter, that having the virus might make him a more humble figure. Frankly, that’s the sort of optimism that gives optimists a bad name.

Sure enough, not only is he back to downplaying the virus, he also seems to be presenting himself as the expert on it, now that he’s had it. To be fair to Mr Trump, he’s not the first person I’ve come across who, having done something once, considered themselves the leading authority on it. I once heard the phrase “he’s seen one brick, now he thinks he can build a wall” used to describe this sort of personality, although I daren’t mention walls in case the risen Trump starts on that tomorrow, figuring it won’t take him more than a week to finish now that he’s the sort of person who rests on the seventh day.

With any other leader (except maybe the Pope) declaring something as a gift from God would probably affect their standing, but with Trump I can’t see it making any difference at all to the imminent election. It seems pretty clear that the people who don’t like him, still won’t like him; and the people who do like him, will be happy to think they’ve backed what is bound to be the winning side now that God has given his endorsement.

From this side of the Atlantic at least, the US election still seems very much up for grabs. Despite what we probably all expected when he won four years ago, Trump hasn’t done anything to turn his popular support against him. Oh, he’s done plenty to reinforce the views of the people who didn’t vote for him, but there’s no suggestion of a huge swing against him among those who did.

Alas, on the other side Joe Biden doesn’t seem to be doing anything to turn people towards him. I appreciate that as an ‘elder statesman’ it’s expecting too much to hope he’d have an electric air about him, bringing excitement and freshness to the table, oozing a vigour and passion that will light the torch for a new generation. But the entire campaign seems to be just, I’m not Trump – which was surely the exact same campaign the Democrats expected to bring them victory in 2016?

Frankly I don’t envy America either way. In the eleven weeks between election and inauguration, I anticipate riots and protests from the extreme arms of the losing party. And there’ll be either fierce and ugly accusations, even legal wranglings, from an ousted President determined to do anything other than ensure the usual smooth, dignified transition of power; or there’ll be the chilling, gloomy prospect of another four years of Trump.

The election is just over three weeks away, so they’ll soon know which it is.

God help them.

Feeling Kind Of Temporary…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Little Bit Of Politics, Moaning

I’ve been tidying out the shed.

To be honest I’m not really a shed person. Certainly not in the ‘Dad’s pottering about in the shed’ sense, nor particularly in the ‘nipping out to the shed for a glass of sherry’ way from inexplicably long-forgotten one-time hit sitcom No Place Like Home. Nevertheless, and despite it not being my natural environment, I’ve been in there, tidying.

I hesitate to say there’s two decades of stuff in there (and by stuff I’m just avoiding the word rubbish) because for long periods of time it was inhabited by rabbits and guinea pigs. Based on yesterday, it’s now inhabited by an awful lot of spiders.

We have four categories of spider here. Small; Large; The sort of thing that did for Jon Pertwee; and We have to move house. The ones I’ve encountered so far have been in the region of a 2/2.5 so not too worrying. My daughter, mainly to be contrary, only has one category which is ‘Kill it with fire’ – and although that’s certainly a point of view, it has absolutely no practical application in terms of distinguishing one from another.

But I digress.

So anyway, I have been tidying out the shed. I found I had wood (stop sniggering at the back there) of all shapes and sizes, including the last remaining arm of an otherwise long-gone settee which I had previously disposed of in instalments via the fortnightly (though back then, weekly) bin collections. There’s also the traditional array of old paint cans, rusty tools, and all the other paraphernalia (and by paraphernalia I’m just avoiding the word stuff) which one might expect.

It’s one of those chores that ticks away at the back of the mind on the basis that sooner or later somebody will have to tidy it up. I’m not getting intimations of mortality or anything like that, I don’t yet seriously worry that my rubbish might outlive me, but because the house isn’t ours, I know that the time will come when it’s somebody else’s, and my successor may not unreasonably expect to have a shed they can use for storing their own worldy goods (and by worldly goods I’m just avoiding the word paraphernalia).

I must admit that even 21 years in, I sometimes feel very aware that it’s not our house. I might moan about cutting the grass (in fact scratch that, I DO moan about cutting the grass) but I wouldn’t ever contemplate taking drastic preventative action and concreting it over – because that would be removing something which at some point should be passed to somebody else.

It was Mrs Thatcher, wasn’t it, who really pushed the concept of converting council house tenants into homeowners? In rather lukewarm defence, I don’t think she originated the scheme, it was already in place – but certainly she was heavily associated with it from the early 80s onwards.  

I suppose I can see the appeal (and based on the fact that in our estate of ten, three are privately-owned, I have to assume that at least 30% of tenants were pleased about it) but I’m afraid I feel a stern sense of disapproval wash over me whenever I consider it. As no doubt some opposition political figure will have pointed out at the time, unless you use the sale proceeds to replenish your housing stock, sooner or later you’re going to find you have less houses than you do people who need them.

But I don’t want to come over all political and I’m certainly not bothered about not being a homeowner. Except… if I owned it then the person who inherited the house would probably also inherit whatever was left in the shed and therefore I wouldn’t need to be quite so worried about it. Knowing it’ll be a complete stranger means that I ought to keep it within manageable tolerances.

I can’t, frankly, see much point owning the house because you can’t take it with you – but equally, in the case of the accumulated curios in the shed, you probably should try not to leave it behind you either.

(And by accumulated curios, of course, I’m just avoiding the word c**p).  

In case the title is in any way perplexing, it’s just me being pretentious and referencing Arthur Miller’s Death of A Salesman, which I studied at A-Level. It’s a highly-regarded play, a bit like Reggie Perrin but with fewer jokes, and at one point the title character opines that he still feels kind of temporary about himself. I won’t elaborate on where that leads him because that might ruin the ending of it for you – although frankly the title is a bit of a giveaway.

First the Toilet Rolls, Now the Soaps

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Childhood, Family, The C-Word, TV

More shortages. In the words of Neil the Hippy, No More Telly.

Well OK, not quite. But I never thought I’d see the day when the likes of Corrie and EastEnders, those huge unstoppable machines, would be grinding to a halt. It was pretty shocking in 1988 to discover it wasn’t illegal to cancel Crossroads, but that’s nothing compared to 2020, where the unprecedented nature of the pandemic emergency (rather than some bean-counter comparing audience figures and advertising dividends) has almost put paid to the others.

I say ‘almost’ because Coronation Street, through a combination of strict rationing and getting back to work early, claims it will avoid any undignified pause in proceedings. They probably, to be honest, have one eye on the imminent 60th Anniversary in December and want to ensure an unbroken run, thus avoiding embarrassment and a future of annoying, fiddly footnotes. (I felt a bit of a charlatan celebrating Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary in 2013 for that very reason.*)

But EastEnders (and briefly, The Archers!) has not escaped that fate, and last week its stock of episodes ran out meaning that, after just over 35 years, it has come to an end, at least temporarily. Apparently it concluded with a suitably cliffhanger-y moment, when (spoiler warning) Phil Mitchell lost the ownership of the pub to ex-wife Sharon.

To be honest it was a bit of a surprise to discover that Phil owned the Queen Vic, or that he and Sharon had divorced (or for that matter, that they had been married in the first place) because other than the occasional random channel-flick I’ve not watched it in years. Ironic really, as I was properly obsessed with EastEnders when it first started – and indeed for the ten or eleven years that followed. But they should never have killed off Arthur Fowler (sorry, spoilers) and with him barely cold in the Walford ground, I lapsed.

Nevertheless back in the day, certainly when I was a kid and the two main channels could easily command twelve million of a weekday evening, soaps were a big thing. They were in our house anyway – which during school holidays would sometimes translate to Gran and Grandpa’s house (or, one particularly memorably Summer when the BBC decided to repeat the first season of Dallas on a daily basis, my Aunt’s garage).

Among the soap highlights we watched in this way was Meg’s special guest re-appearance in Venice during half-term 1983; and the tragic exit of Pat Sugden during the Summer holidays three years later. That would have been ten of us altogether, which sounds scandalous at the moment given that not even Auntie Mar’s garage was twenty metres long, but I have to assume was not uncommon back then – there must have been a lot of other households making up the remaining 11,999,990 viewers.

Considering, then, their deeply-imbedded appeal, it’s surprising how quick and easy it was to ‘switch off’. Back in the day I also used to follow Emmerdale (although that was never as good after they dropped the Farm (or indeed, the jumbo jet)) and the aforementioned not-quite-stoppable Coronation Street. I gave up on those too, and never missed them.

But if it’s easy to kick the habit, I discovered recently it’s also dangerously easy to develop it again. My brother stumbled upon repeats of an ancient 1980/81 daytime soap called Together, and feeling the need to share either his enthusiasm or his pain, he tweeted that after only three episodes he had become addicted.*****

The show is low-key, trivial, “Have you paid your Pools money? Will Pete help out in the potting shed?” type nonsense, set entirely within the walls of a community housing block and yet in a plot twist I really should have seen coming, I tuned in to see what all the fuss was about – and became hooked too!

And in an odd way, it’s reminded me of happy times. Bruv and I have been considerably more than 2m apart for the past 3 months (other than a brief visit yesterday – spoilers!) and while we’ve been communicating electronically during that time, there’s been something comforting about knowing we’ve both, in our separate homes, been watching… together.

*             Because it overlooked the fact that it was off air for 16 years**

**           Well, 7 years, from 1989 to 1996, then there was the McGann TV Movie***

***        But immediately followed by another 9, until 2005****

****     You see how annoying and fiddly these footnotes can get?!

*****     For more information (now that it’s finished airing and you’re quite safe from getting addicted) you could do a lot worse than check out none other than brother Martin’s blog on the subject: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/50508429/posts/476

Human Race

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Confused, Little Bit Of Politics

I do hope I do it all right.

I’m not aware there are any statues of Joyce Grenfell* so hopefully I’m not putting her in danger by using the above quotation.** She was speaking over forty years ago, but that anxiety about saying the wrong thing, of worrying that you might offend, is still with us.

It’s understandable – but it makes it difficult to talk about things like race, where language can be so inflammatory. If, as we seem to be saying, nearly forty years on from the Brixton Riots and more than twenty years after the MacPherson report, there’s still an institutional issue with policing; if progress in equality, in representation and diversity has been more lip service than actual legwork; then no doubt it’s a conversation that’s well overdue. But still, one that won’t be easy.

Luckily of course we’ve been saved from having it! We’ve moved away from talking about flawed institutions and unconscious discrimination, to discussing instead which monuments and street names and classic TV shows we should be ditching. This shift in the national debate is largely the fault of the late Edward Colston, although it’s fair to say that’s not the worst thing that can be said about him.

The reports and the video footage of the removal of Colston’s statue from Bristol City Centre suggests there was no disagreement, no conflict between the people present; and to that extent, even though they must have known they risked criticism for it, the police’s decision not to get involved was probably the right one. A rare example, if you like, that demonstrates the fine distinction between ‘mob rule’ and ‘the will of the people’. To be honest, I don’t think one less statue of a slave trader is likely to trouble anybody – indeed, in the 21st Century I would assume the Colston statue to be equally offensive whether you’re ‘white’ or ‘POC’***.

But… that was last Sunday, by mid-week people were gunning for Baden-Powell. Known primarily as the founder of the Scout Movement, I’m hardly courting controversy by saying he’s not in the same league as yer man Colston (who I’d never even heard of seven days ago, but who I’ve now mentioned four times in as many paragraphs) and the seemingly endless ‘Jeremy Vine Show’ debates over whose statues should be toppling next marked a definite shift from specific, understandable ‘targets’ to a much more scattergun approach.

Suddenly organisations like the BBC are doing that awful thing of saying, “We must do something/Here is something/Therefore we must do that” without taking a breath and thinking it through. No, of course in the scheme of things one episode more or less of Fawlty Towers on the iPlayer doesn’t matter a bit; but by the same token, removing it is unlikely to make much of a difference.

I mean I’m no expert, but I suspect that systemic, institutionalised, subconscious, discrimination is NOT going to be ferreted out and put a stop to, simply by changing the name of a college or cutting off David Walliams’ royalties. And it’s a sorry state of affairs, frankly, when what should have been the start of a proper grown-up conversation has instead moved into the arena of headlines, hyperbole and hysteria.

In a sense, you’d have thought that by now, my generation and certainly my daughter’s generation, would have sorted out this racism business; and yet it turns out that this isn’t the case. Maybe it runs much deeper than simple, blatant maltreatment. I mean, I don’t think I’m racist but in my day-to-day life it’s not something that’s ever tested. Besides which, if we’re talking unconscious bias, how would I even know…?

At least if nothing else, we’re all more aware of it now; and with that awareness comes (hopefully) some degree of thought to our words and actions. Even if we run the risk of causing offence by trying not to. In which vein, if I’ve accidentally offended anybody in the preceding 650+ words, apologies.

Like most of us, I’m just trying to do it all right.

*             Although just down the road from us in Plymouth, there is a statue of her maternal Aunt, Nancy Astor, pioneering female MP but also anti-semite and Nazi sympathiser. So whether you’re a left-wing feminist or a far-right mysogynist you’re going to have conflicted views on whether that should be torn down or not.

**           Joyce Grenfell’s First Flight is not even seven minutes long, and well worth checking out. Obviously it comes with the inevitable “attitudes and language in use at the time” caveat, but if you’re not even slightly moved by the end of it there’s probably something wrong with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-RZ8xHAKwI

***        People are forever determined to judge the past by the standards of today. Yet I strongly suspect that the currently-approved ‘POC’ is a label that will quickly date, and itself be considered offensive. Because unless I’m missing something it is literally a catch-all phrase for anybody who isn’t white, and I would suggest that splitting down the population into just two groups of ‘white’ and ‘not white’ isn’t inclusive, it’s divisive and insulting.