BREXIT: The Peoples March – I Was There.

"Can you make up your mind what you want please?" That’s what a friend demanded via WhatsApp when he saw that I’d been on the People’s March.

I had voted to REMAIN but have accepted BREXIT but wanted it done - in Macbeth’s words on the killing of King Duncan ‘It were done ...t’were well it were done quickly’

What I didn’t, and don’t want is this onimshambles of a negotiation which has divided the country potentially splitting the Union.  I was for ‘Bring it on’,  ‘Just do it’ not this death by a thousand options, another day another summit, another proposal, yet another option: Chequers, Canada, Norway and so on and each with a light or plus sometime even plus, plus option…

The march had been in my diary for some time, when the date eventually came I around I went not with the enthusiasm and commitment I had signed up with, nevertheless I went. 

Reports of the costs, difficulties and resistance and a second referendum not to mention what would be the question or questions had impacted me, weakening my resolve. Yes, I still wanted a second vote  but did I believe it would actually happen? 

I went to the march to have my faith renewed, my belief reenergised.

The signs on the march were numerous and witty, the people many and polite , the police were orgainsied and ready. 

However I had the feeling we were going thought a process, I didn’t detect much anger. I sensed people were doing the right thing in a very English way, marching for decency and integrity with earnestness, with wit but there was none of the anger of the Poll Tax marches As another friend , this one with me on the march, and I reflected “were not throwing rocks – were just pointing fingers”. The speeches reflected that finger pointing - lacking any anger.

Sadly I was minded of Ian Duncan Smith’s ‘quiet man’ analogy – all words no action. This was all march – despite the numbers – no action. 

I went to be energised I came away resigned -  the march was pointless. We’re just too polite to throw rocks – physical or metaphysical - the paving stones are safe and slander lawyers not needed. The march was a token, the onimshambles continues

Yes I still want a second vote -  will it happen in this political climate? It might with the confusion of 'the options' and a vote in Parliament to come - anything is possible. My hope is that the internal rock throwing of the Tories by the DUP, Johnson and Rees-Moog et al coupled with the visceral weakness of May will result in a General Election, then all bets are off - we’ll have a real, meaningful, informed vote People's Vote on BREXIT.   

   

BREXIT ? Some Good News

Fishmongers in Folkestone Fish Market

Shopping for scallops - my very favourite sea food - on a recent trip to Folkestone Fish Market with Ebun who assured the me the fresh scallops on sale were local, I was not so sure.

Having completed the purchase of four lovely, large scallops, We fell into conversation with the fishmonger and two other chaps in fishmonger's shop. One of them was a fisherman who looked askance when I asked if the scallops were local: 'you can see their shells just there' he said, pointing to the harbour steps.

Ebun, a Folkestone local, was in total agreement with the fishermen but I reminded incredulous until we went down the harbour steps and low and behold there were several plastic boxes full of empty scallop shells, along with other detritus from preparing fresh fish for sale!

I was so amazed at food so fresh, so local I went back to the fishmongers. To register my amazement, in this day and age with food coming from all over the planet I was surprised and delighted to find something I enjoyed, so local.

EU Referendum Vote

As fishing was one of the items on BREXIT negotiations list, I had to ask - Shepway (Kent) was 62.2% to 37.8% to leave - how he voted: he was very happy to have voted leave. Belgium and Spanish ships have a greater quota than he had so they could catch more fish from what he considered British waters. He was glad to see the back of the EU. Once we are out of the EU, UK fish prices should drop he claimed, which means my very favourite scallops will be lower in price - the fisherman assured me that would be the case!

So, there's a piece of good news from BREXIT: scallops down in price!

To whet your appetite for those low cost BREXIT British scallops to come, here's my recipe for scallops today - my very favourite starter:

Scallops with Bacon and Rocket

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Scallops with Bacon  (double portion)

Ingredients (per person)

• Knob of Butter
• One large scallop
• One rasher of cooked smoked bacon
• Rocket
• Grated parmesan cheese.
• Black pepper to taste

Gently (everything should be done gently)
Melt the butter in a (skillet if you have one) frying pan
High heat to seal quickly
Put the scallop in the butter
Turn heat down cook slowly
Turning every 60 secs for 4 mins
Sprinkle with black pepper

Serve on a bed of rocket and bacon
Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese
Serve!

Community

Lodge Lane washhouse by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Community

Interred me Mum’s ashes in me Dad’s grave, yesterday.

It was our Anthony’s suggestion 

Before the interment 

Let’s drive Mum around Liverpool 8 one last time 

Together we drove Mum through the Liverpool 8 Mum grew up in , worked in and lived in

Back then L8 was a Community

We drove past the WashHouse on Lodge Lane

Abandoned, demolished, grassed over, long gone 

Our Martha and me Mum went every week

In their wellies and aprons pushing a pram pilled high with our dirty washing

They’d spend the day scrubbing and washing amongst friends & neighbours

Chattering Gossiping Nattering 

The Wash House on Lodge Lane has gone 

The Community's gone

They’ve all got their washing machines now

They can’t chat to their washing machines 

They can’t gossip with a washing machines

They can’t natter to a washing machines

The Community’s gone 

.........but they’ve all got their washing machines

February 2nd 2017

Site of Lodge Lane Wash House Feb 2nd 2017


112 year History

Wash House Plaque now in Liverpool Museum

1878 August Lodge Lane Baths and Wash House opened.

1928 August Lodge Lane Wash House reconstructed and modernised.

1969 Lodge Lane Wash House modernised

1982 April Lodge Lane Wash House converted to minor sports hall.

1990 April 3rd Lodge Lane closed.

John Duvall March 2, 2016 at 12:30 pm (Facebook)
My granddad used to sell soap powder and keep an eye on the prams women brought their washing on at Lodge Lane. My dad was the stoker in the boiler house

Bath and Washhouse Historical Archive

Apple has the Courage to be Diverse

It was not Apple’s self aggrandisement  at its recent keynote session launch claiming ‘courage’ for doing away with the head phone socket on the iPhone7 but for me it was its diversity on stage and on screen.

No more mono cultural white male presenters and images but woman and minorities shared the stage as well as being seen on screen throughout the two hours – a first for Apple.  Particularly appropriate  at a time when we are celebrating Startrek’s 50 years of Diversity.

Knife Edge Promenade

The reminder email the afternoon before I was to see  Knife Edge from The Big Houseproduction company at the Pond advised that I should prepare myself for a ‘promenade performance’ and  to ‘travel light’ added to my expectation

Through the making of theatre The Big House provides a platform for young people who’ve been through the care system and being challenged by life, an opportunity to have their voices heard, in KnifeEdge we certainly hear their voices!

I was shocked by the directness and frankness of those voices the plays language pulled no punches in making manifest the anger the youth felt about the way they’d been treated  by society - it was full-on, frank and foul. I was left in no doubt at the young people’s resentment, mistrust and suspicion, rejection being their experience and expectation. They in turn rejected many of those sent by society to care for them; a line from the play that reflected that  despair and mistrust  for me was one directed to a carer  ‘You only care ‘cos you’re being paid!’

The acting was without exception powerful and emotional, I had the sense these guys were not acting but living their lives before us. - the words came from their own lives.

The settings were brilliantly innovative as we – the audience moved around the restaurant from sets depicting a Nando’s restaurant to a kitchen to a living rooms and the street. The lighting was particularly inventive much use being made of  plastic water bottles and  LED light strips – you have see it to believe how magical it made the various sets as we were led from one scene to another around the entire restaurant space.

As the play moves form one scene to another, the young people are on an emotional journey  from one life changing event to another  we the audience followed their story  through a physical journey as we moved  from set to set .

Knife Edge’s ending is as powerful as moving as its beginning as we the audience complete our promenade as we are invited to share a meal with the actors - cannot speak highly enough of the Hawaiian style fish – sharing food , Knife Edge and their lives.

I very much enjoyed the meal both the food and  meeting and sharing with the actors and The Big House production team ,  the meal was also a chance to network with other like minded folk concerned about the life outcomes of our young people leaving the care service.  I was minded of Cameron’s statement that children in care have been 'let down for too long' something had to be done by Government,

To conclude my Knife Edge promenade showed me that there is hope as young people from care despite set backs can ‘make it’ but we can certainly do more to help them on their promenade.

Knife Edge - a great evening's entertainment with good food and good company and a strong message - recommended !

A right not to be offended. An Enlightened View?

Salman Rushdie defending his novel The Satanic Verses said  Nobody  has the right not to be offended , it has been repeatedly quoted in the media these past few days as a defence for CHARLIE HEBDO’s cartoons in general, and in particular those castigating or mocking  Islam.

The Enlightenment’s freedoms certainly allow us , in Great Britain and France at least, not to be bound by the fear or the manacles and chains of  lèse-majesté  so today we are free to offend or mock the Monarchy, equally the Church. I am minded of the words of the Enlightenment philosopher Diderot : Man shall not be free until the last king is hung on the entrails of the last priest such was the hold the Monarchy and the Church had over the common man at the time, before the Enlightenment.

But with the freedoms of the Enlightenment come responsibility, not to replace one intellectual tyranny with another, rather to understand how a free and open society works.  We must take time to understand each other's points of view, it is a case of tolerating,  respecting the other’s point of view, that tenet is fundamental to the liberal democratic society we live in.

My thoughts are  rooted in the cliché I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death to your right to say  it*.  Rushdie can, at face value,  seen to be right but he makes no reference to how a liberal democratic society functions, effectively.  Such societies are founded on mutual respect and tolerance, without either they are doomed to endlessly fighting ideas and beliefs with knives and bombs rather than Enlightened reasoned rational thought.

So, for me, CHARLIE HEBDO was as wrong to create such ugly images not just of Islam but of Christianity and Judaism as their images are unremittingly offensive to and disrespectful of those beliefs.

I'll conclude, for now, not with a cartoonist's drawings but with the words of the French cartoonist - Tomi Ungerer : Mutual respect is after all the key to peace and understanding.

* Voltaire is often quoted as the source but (sadly) he never said it!

FootNote

Having written this post I am now moving on from posting #JeSuisCharlie in Facebook and Twitter but I'll continue to post in Pinterest from time to time.

What are British Values or Why to be British is be a Goth ?

A friend posted on Facebook that picture of the front page of The Times reporting the Minister for Education Michael Gove's demands for British values to be taught in schools following attempts by Muslim fundamentalists to dictate the way some schools in Birmingham should be run and the sad, untimely death of the comic actor Rik Mayall. They pointed out The Times juxtapositions headlines and pictures so well.

For me, the headline and picture raised the question: what does it mean to be British and how on earth could we extend that definition to include the Minister as well as such an odd character as the idiosyncratic Rick from The Young Ones who Mayall was portraying?

Neo-Classical St George's Hall

Gothic  Anglican Cathedral

I propose that an answer is to be found in the architecture of my home town Liverpool, in its Gothic  Anglican Cathedral (above) and its Neo-Classical St George's Hall (above).

One of the fundamental design tenants of the Anglican Cathedral was that no two of its 11 million plus carved stone blocks were to be identical, each and every stone was to be different. It was standing in the vast nave looking and comparing the blocks of the North and South walls (below) that I saw that design idea in action - the regular pattern one might expect is in fact a dystopian fusion of blocks of all sizes combined to create the nave's tessellated wall.

Nowhere is that design idea better seen than in the vault of its Lady Chapel (below ). Each stone of its vast vaulted ceiling is different, even when there seems to be no need, in those places were the bosses and ribs of the vaulted ceiling could be simply replicated , each boss, each rib and their stones respect the design tenet and is individual.

Lady Chapel Vault

Corinthian Columns

I would argue the individuality of the bricks in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral is a metaphor for Britain  and British values. In Britain we are all, like the stones, individuals in our right - unique - nevertheless we fit in to a greater thing than ourselves as individuals. This intrinsic individual uniqueness allows the manic, wild eyed  Young One's Rick and the calm, irascible Michael Gove both to lay claim to being British. 

The Cathedral's designed diversity is in contrast to the relentless uniformity of St George's Hall. The Hall can be seen as combination of repeated construction elements for example the Corinthian Columns of its entrance portico (above right). Each column is uncompromisingly identical - base, shaft and even its capital. The latter is  where the Hall's neo-classical craftsman could have been given some leeway to apply his own individuality without comprising  structural integrity, just as the Cathedral's Gothic craftsman were allowed. 

Neo-Classical architecture is not British as it has no place for the individuality of a Mayall or a Cove,  one must be one or the other to fit in, the two cannot coexist. It is no mistake the uncompromising, uniforming political governing systems - Communist and Fascist -  both favour neo-classical or pastiches of neo-classicism in their architecture.

Being British is to be Gothic like Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral stones, to be an individual yet fitting into a greater whole, keeping your intrinsic values yet able to fit in with others to create a greater something; out of many we are one United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland aka Britain.