Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: 36 years later.

In case you missed it.... it's Douglas Adams's Birthday today. One of the greatest sons of Cambridge, second only to the founder of the circling poets of Kakrafoon, 5th in line in froodness from the Jamaican roti wagon man who is the holder of the perspex pillar of justice with wich he scrapes grease from the grease trap. A man who still owes a script to the BBC which graciously has granted him yet another extension, having missed the last 8, at least 3 out of  simple habit and one out of mischief. We may yet rescue a story from one of his hard drives but I suspect it will be more Silmarilion than Restaurant at the end. In the interim, we can read, watch or listen to any number of versions of his Magnum Opus till that day comes to pass.

I was moved to write today mostly out the need to tell as many people as I could about the hoopie little features the BBC has laid on for the HHGTTG cognoscenti around the world. I set the mood first by tuning into  this wonderful site holding the radio plays   or here as they went out that  first time in 1978. I could have also gone to the specially designed BBC page complete with reconstituted retro game even, but chose to not wait till next week, tho in fairness, I need little provocation to listen again and do so at the slightest excuse or if  I have a long train ride that would otherwise be punctuated by offers of bad biscuits and overpriced East Coast hot beverages. (scripts for the radio shows here, follow the logical links)

Play the game again or for the first time

Ah yes....  er, Games,  yes. If you're old enough, you'll remember the joy of early gaming where you typed instructions and dialogue into a programme that if you were lucky, had you trained in the appropriate machine language responses required to get past the bulldozer. If however you are alive now and were not a spotty youth in 1984, you will find bewildering the manner in which you interact.  Don't Panic, the kind boffins at the BBC have included several tabs that help you navigate the Neanderthal retro game with ease. It has lots of cool sound effects and once you get the hang of it, it even begins to make sense. I having been a past master when it first came out, took only 10 minutes to finally get out the house before I was crushed to death by the bulldozer. Not bad as it's been nearly 30 years since I played it last. Truth be told, even then it was a miracle that first time when I made onto the Vogon cruiser. I won't give any more away, but if you get  onto the Heart of Gold, do please pay a visit to the Nutrimatics drinks dispenser. You know what the sad thing is ? Even now I'm getting the details from memory. 

And that's the thing about Douglas Adams, he wrote other things.... Dirk Gently, Doctor Who eps and lots of other stuff, but what sticks like glue in our collective minds , occupying precious space that could be storing valuable information like where I left that Dalek cookie cutter or the alleged safe place  I last left my datastick in, is the entirety of HHGTTG, all of it, the radio plays, the telly plays and the books. Greater even than Shakespeare and his many plays, better than JRR Tolkein's LOTR, HHGTTG has managed to be ever present babelfish Sci Fi trope treasure trove and existentialist Woody Allen sketch edited by a Pythoner filtering the rest of life for you. If you're like most of my geek mates of a certain age, that's precisely the sort of thing that would appeal to you. Give it to a young person  who's just turned old enough to start considering the question of Life the Universe and Everything, and you'll soon find out if you have a deeply curious person who may turn into scientist, philosopher or both. A constant questioning vein of humour runs throughout the entire work and distracts the reader/listener from the fact that Douglas Adams turned inconsistency, lack of continuity and writing by the skin of your teeth into an art form. If you read it correctly, you can actually hear him thinking out loud, wondering which turn to take and more often than not, wondering how to get himself out of yet another trap of his own making. His most famous such trap was left unresolved in the upstairs landing of Dirk Gently's Apartment building. Like the Gordian Knot of old, a man from the removal firm finally sawed it in half. 

If you're new to the obsession, I warn you that you'll need all of it. Well maybe not the film, it was a mess and you'll only mutter darkly afterwards, but the rest, you'll need it all. Here's why.  Our boy could never leave anything well enough alone, consequently  when the radio plays were made into telly plays and books, details would change, some not so important others more so. If you have heard the radio plays, you'll know there is a giant statue with bird people living in the head, they are never heard from again but the statue reappears later in a cave. If you read the books published separately, the perspex pillar is also the award for the most gratuitous use of the word fuck in a screenplay, but in the omnibus, it's now Belgium. You're not even safe with the omnibus editions, I'm not sure but I think that from the the one without "Zaphod plays it safe" to the one with, there are more minuscule alterations.  My point is that if you pick up any of the books out there, from the radio scripts to the novelizations to the omnibus, you can have a differently spiced version every time.

Our book club is reading Hitch Hiker this month, I know some of them won't get it. The undisciplined mind that created the Electric Monk and the interconnectivity of all things is just too scattered and easily distracted for the type that prefers a traditional beginning , middle, end going somewhere with this story. HHGTTG is not one of those books, it's more of an exploration of reality, spirituality and the universe through humour and viewed via the filter of the British stiff upper lip  that dances on the border of madness and control. One of the tensest scenes in the entire story takes place in a railway dinner in which a single packet of biscuits is shared by two people who each think the other is stealing their biscuits. Propriety and fair play in the midst of bureaucratic intransigence arises time and again as if it were a game of cricket. In fact cricket as life and as philosophy of life is never far from the surface. 

Marvin the Paranoid Android is the fatalistic Russian Jewish side of the story that springs up at you

forever pointing out that life is hard and that G-d, if he exists, has it in for you. The planet Krikkit is inhabited by Daily Mail readers who hate outsiders and Arthur Dent is himself a shlemiel who finds out the long hard way that it's the little things in life and tea, that remain constant, not the same, but constant, that sometimes certain people are in fact the centre of the Universe and the rest of us will never be.  I could explain that in greater detail, but I would much rather you read the books.

The only way to enjoy these books is to let go of  structure and allow the narrative to take you on a ride through surrealism and  alternate streams of thought occasionally resting in a oasis long enough to have a go at yet another social blunder, security blanket or fad. I'm not saying he's Joseph Conrad, Tolstoy or Kafka, tho at times you would swear he'd been reading them just before he sat down to write. Then again, if  you like Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Kafka, it stands to reason you like Adams. You need a corkscrew  sort of mindset to get into the stories, they are all about everything and about nothing. 

I'm going to have a piece of Faery cake and a cup of tea now, even in the darkest depths of space in the most advance ship ever known, there is always time for tea and a bit of a bath.

Dawkins Atheism, Right Wing fundamentalism and the death of indifference

 I hadn't meant to write this today, but a few things happened that made me question the state of  dialogue, academic pursuits and the general public's ability to perceive things beyond a few simple catch phrases.

Let me begin at the beginning.  A few days ago I wrote a piece about Lent. Those who read right away were predisposed to being of a particular spiritual bent, others were less quick to read it. Had it been about say Daleks or  the rise of the Ultra right wing in Central Europe, they would of gladly clicked the link. But no, each group in it's way seemed less inclined to explore the territory it felt less comfortable with. One of my mates, a devout defender of the down trodden seems to have developed a blind spot for Russia, another for Israel and yet others just avoid anything about religion on the basis it's all rotten and not worth wasting the time on, yet others hate politics all together. There are multiple dogmas.... atheist dogma, ultra left dogma, feminist dogma, you can't say that ...can you ? dogma, classist trade union dogma, working class dogma, anti Catholic dogma, anti Muslim dogma and lastly, anti sick and poor dogma ( I can go on). I apologize if I  in any way insinuated the existence of a functioning class system btw, there of course isn't one . Some of the avoidance is down to not wanting to stray from favoured topics and opinion trends, some of it is frankly fear of being challenged. This I regret and it grieves me that even among some of my smartest friends, they have allowed these little oases of  fear to flourish.

The particular thread in facebook that got some of us going was an article about Richard Dawkins in the Independent. It matters little what the  piece said, but if you must know, it stated that saying no it's not a lot won't stop a load of people from going to church or believing in G-d or spirits. There was one person in the conversation who took the early Dawkins approach and the rest of us aligned, rather surprisingly along the centre, and managed a nice well developed discourse without a single person going " No it's not", "Yes it is"  then going off in a strop. But it did bring forward the rather amusing notion that I had decided to go back to church mostly as a reaction to Dawkins telling me I was a silly person if I did and that I would burn in his Atheist hell if I did. Thanks Richard Dawkins , I think.... but the kind of discourse you represent is not how humanity ever reached for the stars, pasteurized milk or created Democracy.

Watch the Python version of this article

Just because some people can't spell, doesn't mean grammar and spelling don't exist. Dawkins and his kind are quite clear that the spirit world and all things associated with it do not exist. I cannot help what he can't feel and I can. His not feeling or knowing something will not eradicate my knowing or feeling. Scientifically and philosophically his position is untenable.

The argument goes like this. I say that I just had a cup of tea ( because as far as I can tell... I did) He says I didn't because apparently I washed the things and put them away after I finished and there is no evidence of my drinking tea. He says I'm delusional because he does not believe. At least with the cat in the box there is a 50 50 chance it's dead or alive. Here I am a liar or I drank some tea.

If all arguments are reduced to a need for absolutely empirical proof of a statement, then even the invisible pillars that hold up democracy, law and good order would be unprovable. And yet here we are with an imperfect system that manages to keep us all from eating each other with mint sauce.

Trust is a belief, love is a belief, forgiveness is a belief that the person or thing will not revert to previous form. Without it we would be savages. Yet you cannot touch or smell or quantify any of these things. As strong as water or wind, these beliefs are at least as responsible for the direction we walk in every day.

But if we surrender to the questionable dogmatism of unvarnished Dawkins theology, we find ourselves becoming very bitter unhappy un trusting greedy people who's only joy is to stick our fingers into other people's wounds to prove they aren't lying. Oh look there, I accidentally referred to the new testament.... Better edit that out before somebody says I'm preaching.

Dogmatic atheists like  Richard Dawkins and their crusades to rid the world of any religious influence whatsoever are no better than the loons on the right that take things written thousands of years ago, translated poorly, lost in a jar, found  and transcribed even more poorly sometimes, then translated yet again., poorly... as the basis of a divinity's literal unalterable message to man. In either case, if you disagree with them they will make sure you are branded as some sort of social deviant or worse.

Where these atheists and myself part company is at the fork in the road that asks us to accept that things change, things evolve and that not all things that were true or appropriate 2000 years ago, are now.  If a text attempting to teach a person, usually in the form of a letter, instructing us in a particular duty is important, it will do so using 2000 year old context and examples. The core message may remain the same ( principle )  but the details ( dogma) will change. Atheists and particularly those who have taken an extreme dislike of religion,  which can be separated from spiritualism  for the purposes of this discussion, have not allowed for the abandonment of what might have once been sacred holy law  but is now anathema to most people, neither have they allowed for the fact that some eras in history have created interpretations of the basic tenets of scripture based on who was regarded a "person" or worthy of inclusion in the club.

I don't see Democracy being rejected out of hand by humanists scholars because the principles were applied to male Atheneans only, and that those outside of the city were treated as no better than slaves at times. If anything, in the grand scheme of History, as political philosophies go, democracy has been a failure, having been the guiding principle of most of  Western society for less than 250 years.  It is the critical thinking required to recognize the goodness that any movement is capable of and that like all things the movement too changes and usually for the better, over time. The scientific method itself springs from the desire of  religious people to understand the beauty and mystery of nature and how it works. Frankly the more I see, the more terms like G-d particle and the fingerprint of G-d come up.  As for modern social reforms that even now are being dismantled by the greedy right and alleged G-d fearing conservative streams in the USA, Canada and the UK, these sprang from the desire of  church going people of means to spread the simple but important principles laid out in Torah and the Christian Bible of  sharing the wealth, being honest, not being greedy and trying to build a better world where we all share in the bounty of that which surrounds us,  all the while making sure it's preserved for future generations. Nothing happens in a vacuum . The catalyst for much of the good in the world started with a few religious  types saying what if we were a bit more like the people asking us to be good and  answering the question ; What makes the world work and how do I fit into it. By what miracle is it that we don't just collapse into a heap of spineless jello? ( Nick Clegg, boom boom )

Now let's  let's have a go at the equally dogmatic religious and fiscal right. Theirs is the only way of doing things and all attempts at reform and tinkering ,but  heresy writ large. Heresy of the kind that denies the luxury of some among us to close their  minds to the changes and new conditions that constantly erode the absolute certainty with which we hold the idea that that which was irrefutably correct 6000 years ago let alone half an hour ago must still be true now, however retrograde it appears. These people have used this orthodoxy to disallow rational reforms in dietary laws, as well as intellectual, social and scientific day to day activities. They have, on the basis that change is bad, isolated themselves into communities who over time had to detach from general society a bit more with every new reform. But where the Mennonites and other ultra orthodox sects of Christianity, Judaism and other faiths kept to themselves, others have attempted to impose their particular brand of conservatism on a community that is nothing like them. Out of the the same belief the Atheists share.... they are the anointed ones, the only carriers of the truth and no one else shall matter, because they know best and we should just go along with it.

 Jesus and his followers said to the Rabbis at the temple "We would like to continue with the principles of what makes us Jewish, but we'd like to modernise it a bit, if you don't mind, pretty please" they went on to say , "it's been a few thousand years since the laws and teachings were written and things have changed a lot, can we at least try to reflect some of  that?". And now depending on what part of Christianity you look at , some are clinging on dogmatically to out of date practices set up about 200 years after that particular conversation, and others are making room for change on the basis of simple questions.... What and who are people? What does history, science and medicine bring to the application of  principles that have survived in the case of Judaism 6 to 8 thousand years and Christianity and the Muslim faith, a little under 2000 years. I would argue the case that most of those principles are the very same ones viewed from a slightly different angle. Jews in fact have had conversations like this several times resulting in the creation of Hasidism which rejected  growing bourgeois tendencies and reforms of the top layers of Jewry in the 14th century that themselves are later viewed as conservative and worth preserving in the Voltaire era debate that questioned the need for isolationism and  supported the desire to integrate more into general society without destroying their own inherent Jewishness. Catholicism of late, starting with Benedict and now going full steam with Pope Francis is conducting a root and branch review of the Dogma. It will shock people who cannot tell the difference between the "literal word of G-d" and a good story or the equally important codes of conduct that are not per se in the Bible, but allegedly based on interpretation. As we've seen from the above, interpretation, like the conditions, changes, but the basic ideals do not, that is what makes an institution or belief system solid. I take this moment to ask those who have till now have gone out of their way to avoid information, to take note. Things are changing  due to pressure from below, pressure from regular Catholics and maybe you need a new whipping boy.

The fact that there is so much ossification in both the left and the right with each pointing to an idealised world that never existed or if it did, not for long, is the manifestation of a human desire to grasp something and hold onto it like a blanket that was there when you were a child. The reality is that my youngest son's blanket was reduced to a thread, as far as I know, he still had it on him to remind himself of the security and simplicity of  when he too was a baby till he was about 14, then he grew up. If we accept that to get the same result every time we need to do things  differently sometimes, we then are ready for reform. Great ideas are exposed as flawed, flawed ideas are recognized as not entirely awful. From this we get growth and reform and the preservation of those things most precious to us.

I discovered from my own reaction to the extremes on both sides  but particularly the Atheist who wanted to exclude even my most basic manifestations of my faith from popular culture and politics, that it was worth fighting for. It was worth going back to Church for those regular masses and it was worth defending the principles and the history that was being white washed as I stood there waking up. I grew up as those who've read me before will know, in a multi ethnic, multi religious and multi cultural community. We shared holy days, we helped each other and learned from each other. If I let the isolationists and atheists win I would be denying myself, my own experiences and the possibility of future generations to also experience that eye opening education you only get if you dive in feet first.

There is an other important aspect as I said in the beginning,... nobody is going to determine for me what I have seen, felt, smelt and tasted. No one is going to force me to retreat from my own experiences on the grounds they think they never happened. No one will ever be able to convince me or anybody else that the essence of being as we feel it and know it, is a figment of our imagination. This is why indifference is the last complacency to fall. When my way of life, however benign and harmless and even to be frank, dull, is being actively denied me by an Ivory Tower brigade from both the religious right and the Atheist left, I feel the need to make a stand and protect my boring, benign, simple principled life that these people seem to think is so flawed that in practising it I will corrupt others with it.  I never stopped people from not doing things or doing things, I never demanded of my closest or even farthest acquaintances to recant football, dancing, chic flics, animé or anything else that fell well within the norm of generally accepted political, social and moral codes we all claimed to be familiar with.

Yet now I am accosted from both sides with demands that I set aside decades of tolerance, openness, and curiosity in the name of the safety of the great white Christian nation, the great non de-script humanist nation  that dare not define itself  lest it offend anybody and the great me me me nation that is frankly interested in itself only and cares little for the rest of the world  and the future.  I am often confused by the commandment that I must accept evolution as a scientific principle but  not also go along with the logic that some functions and abilities are weaker or stronger depending on where you are and what your role in society is. That's code for race, gender, social standing and other environmental variables. I'm asked to believe that we are all equally abled and there are no differences. I am asked to say mouthfulls  like baby woman or pregnant person, as  pregnant woman is sexist. If I point out that Kenyans are on the whole incredible runners, I am racist. If  I, using a large representative sample of people within a general area come to the conclusion that Poles don't trust Russians, I'm told I'm making assumptions and how could I know that?


I have a real problem with the informationally challenged,  or using the more sensitive term "morons". There is almost a pride in ignorance, knowing too much leads to opinions and as we all know, opinions are dangerous and could lead to facts and differences of opinion which again we are told , are bad. This should at all cost be avoided.  So then how are we supposed to evolve or grow if we cannot know or say such things? How can we begin to question when some fundamental questions are taboo themselves? How can I predict the reaction of Ukranians to the acts of Russians in the Crimea If I don't allow myself the ability to see that the people I'm looking at are in fact nothing like London bankers or farmers from Corwall. Why must I pretend to be nice and nod agreeably when some barely there person tells me there is no such thing as a New York school or London style of photography or poetry? Of course there are diffirences, and they matter. The fact some can spot a person to within 50 miles of where the family is from by the way they speak, react and phrase things, surely is testament to the need to stop sublimating things to the point that we are nothing. I had to fill out a survey and it asked me if I was Asian, black or white. I'm a slav, that will tell you more than me telling you I'm white any day of the week. I'm a Catholic, it shapes my thinking, I'm an upper class twit socialist who loves G-d. But no they just want t know if I'm white and male. When knowledge dies,questioning dies, so does curiosity and the ability to reason and absorb new ideas

This is a great time to be a demagogue with simple answers to complex questions. In this last week the Tories were revealed as having held back economic studies that backed up multiple other such studies that showed immigrants were not a danger or a drain, if anything they were good for the economy. Not without coincidence , within days the government used the chief vet to launch an attack on Halal and Kosher. Nice one, I call that fancy skating if ever I saw any. Shift the focus back onto something the Tories can play with.  As and when it becomes patently obvious to even the thickest, that the large corporations and multi nationals are the reason there is such a huge deficit through non payment of tax  and abuse of  government latitude on regulations, I have to wonder how long it will take to  shift it back on the the shoulders of the poor and the sick? Ignorance is bliss say some, I'm sure the dogmatists agree.

Between the PC left and the equally dogmatic right, the centre has been squeezed and along with it the ability to debate, tolerate and get along. People who might otherwise be prepared to try something new, won't. People who were prepared to accept that sometimes some things are not possible due to basic immutable facts and that one must find ways around them are now often faced with intransigent fanatics on both sides that will not allow for reality,  however weird and wonderful it is, to unfold and do it's magic.  Yet others who retain the basic curiosity we are all born with, feel the need to suppress the questions and the explorations lest they themselves be seen in a bad light by one or the other side.

I like to think that I represent a growing part of society that is militantly reclaiming the middle ground of life, the universe and everything. That wonderful mix of science, curiosity, G-d, spirituality, imagination, innovation, humour, exploration, comfort with the known , the unknown and the bits that work, that for better or worse has gotten humanity this far. Join me on the shady side where nothing is ever as black or white as it seems on first inspection. If anything, it's very colourful.

Lent and the modern Catholic

What is Sin?

Growing up as a Catholic boy I was told a lot of things about the period leading up to Easter and why it was the holiest time of the Christian calendar. I'm sure most of it at the time even stuck, but just to be sure I checked the apparent arbiter of simple unvarnished truth that is wikipedia 

"The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, penance, repentance of sins, almsgiving, atonement and self-denial. Its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the tradition and events of the New Testament beginning on Friday of Sorrows, further climaxing on Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday, which ultimately culminates in the joyful celebration on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ."

 Yeah, that's about right. What has of course percolated through to the less knowledgeable or devout layer of people is that we have to give something up for 40 days, something we like, we need to suffer. That's all fine and good on the surface, but doesn't actually tell us why. Why do we need to give up a luxury? What's the point? How does my giving up chocolate or expensive entertainments help me get ready for Easter?

Self denial in conjunction with fasting, and self examination allows us the intellectual space to review ourselves and our life and habits. It allows us to see what it is we can do to be better persons in the long run. Jews and Muslims have not unsimilar traditions with precisely the same goals. Lets examine the principal actions asked of every Christian during this period.

Penance: Or the confession of sin, is the act of  realization that maybe some of our actions have been bad, harmful or selfish. Jesus and pretty much every other prophet who ever came along has told us not to be shmucks, putzes and self centred egomaniacs to the detriment of everybody else and everything around us. We are individual parts of a whole and our harmonious participation is predicated on the notion that we accept that we are not always the centre of the universe. To do this, we need  a time to consider the year that was, the actions we did, good bad or indifferent. If the giving up of ostentatious displays and a few luxuries brings us back to the level of the humblest among us, then we are all the more open to the exercise of self examination. Here is a short  and hardly axhaustive list of  simple questions to ask yourself.

1- Have I been a help or a hindrance to those around me?
2- Have I made the most of my opportunities, especially those that came out of the blue and those that came after much struggle? 
3- How aware am I of the impact of my actions on those closest to me and to my general surroundings?
4- Have I maximized my talents, education and time, life has thus far offered me?
5- Have I made myself, my talents and resources available to those who needed them.

Repentance: Having had a good long look at one's self, we have established a number of things we may have been guilty of. And by guilty I don't necessarily mean things like lying and cheating, tho that does count, I mean the subtler sins of waste, egocentrism, self indulgent pity and other assorted reasons why you can't do what you know is good for you and for others. This step is particularly important as you're going to do that thing you failed utterly to do at New Year's.... resolve to avoid said bad behaviour and find a different and better path to follow. AND MEAN IT.  By the way, did you make a list of people you wronged? Yup, that's the next step,

Atonement: In plain English it means saying you're sorry, you won't do it again and you need to find a way to the best of your ability to tell people this. If this sounds like something out of AA, you're not wrong. And saying you're sorry sometimes isn't enough, you need to do an act of contrition or reparation. A recent example of this is Csanad Szegedi a former right wing nationalist Hungarian politician  who upon discovering he was Jewish, went into a deep period of  reflection and is now still sitting  but as an independent  that stands for human rights and social equality. He will spend the rest of his life atoning for his previous life, but for him that is the price he has to pay for having been such a terrible person before.

Szegedi

Now here is the tricky bit for some. Forgiveness:  Forgiveness for sins against ourselves and dealing with those who are too bitter and angry at us for the sins we committed against them. You cannot allow those who won't forgive you to be the reason you don't follow through, sometimes what you did to them was just too damaging, you will make new friends and  a new life, even if you have to bear the consequences of some of your actions for the rest of your life. And if somebody has wronged you and made the effort to apologize and really mean it; you have a responsibility to try, to dig down in yourself and forgive them, never forget, but forgive and wipe the slate clean. As I said, it's not easy, if it were, everybody would be doing it.

Alms giving and good deeds: Mitzvah the Jews call it. The art of sharing yourself, your talent and your wealth with those who need it most for nothing but the knowledge that you made their life better. A true mitzvah does not ask for a receipt or testimonial dinner. All good deeds  be they large or small, eventually as the saying goes, get repaid ten fold. Some of us will get a box of chocolates or the occasional tray of biscuits, others will get a medal or knighthood in the fullness of time, but most of us will be rewarded at most by a smile and a polite thank you, sometimes not even that. And yet, that is not a reason to not do it. Each example of such a good deed that makes you a  mensch ( really good person) without leading you necessarily to sainthood either, makes you a living embodiment of what every prophet and holy man and woman ever asked of humanity.....Don't be A SHMUCK. At the very least, if somebody has to choose how to be and they have you and some putz as an example, they will have the wisdom to be you, because you were nice to them, because somebody was nice to you.

What exactly is defined as a good deed then you ask? It could be the simple act of charity, the act of taking your time and spending it with somebody who is lonely, perhaps seeing a friend who is themselves encumbered with problems not of their own making and just not dealing with them  due to lack of resources or strength and saying , " Today I'll be here to help you, and if can, I'll do it next week too." Charity can sometimes be a balm on the conscience of the comfortable and the well off  that excuses them from thinking about the connections of actions and results. Perhaps if you give to a charity, ask yourself why the people or things are in such dire need. What can you do to reverse the situation permanently. In so doing you may find that the simple act of giving money or spare food becomes just the opening gambit. Here is a site that provides a wonderful way to Do Lent Generously.

Volunteering  is part of charity, it is the self sacrifice of your leisure time away from x factor and other such things designed to numb you from the reality around you. The volunteer sector is more and more pressurized to provide services that governments have abdicated, add this on top of the usual sports, scouts, guides, gardening, OAP activities etc... that depend on an ever shrinking pool of people, and you can see how even a few hours you previously spent playing World of Warcraft or voting in bread and circuses talent shows on telly can alleviate a bit of the pressure. I would like to mention and praise here  a group of particularly devoted Star Trek fans of the NE of England who take any opportunity to make a noise in Klingon or even Dalek if it means a good local charity gets a bit of help. Quark's Tyne bar, always ready to serve the Klingon Empire, The Federation and any cause that doesn't mind people eating Rokeg Blood Pie or accusing them of being a P'Tok.

While Lent is all of the things you've just read, it is first and foremost a time of reflection about yourself and your place in the world. How you can best contribute to and share it's bounty with others. Being a better person is the reason why you give up chocolate for 40 days. It's about giving your soul and your body a chance to heal and maybe change for the better. There is no perfect way of doing this, but if you follow even a part of the observance, even if it's just talking to your G-d, reading from the texts that you claim to inspire your more altruistic self, or just reaching out to those around you and trying to understand them and the person you could be if you just tried, you have made a road map for yourself to follow until next year, when it starts all over again.

Muslims and Jews reading this will find much familiar to them and I would hope it goes a long way in letting them know that where it matters most, we are all praying to the same G-d. For my humanist and atheist friends,  I hope you take from this an understanding of what it truly means to us to be what we are and to respect us for that. This period of reflection we travel is something every person can do regardless of faith, regardless if they even believe in a higher power. Make the effort in your own way and you'll be the better for it, in fact we all will.

We love Brits but do they love us?

Recently Youguv asked Poles  how they felt about Britain and Brits. It seems that overall, Poles love Britain and the Brits who live there. This is particularly true of younger Poles, they even feel at a rate of 50% that Brits have a positive view of Poles.

I bring this up as there are a number of questions that this poll raises and at least one issue that gnaws at the very political debate that rages in Britain now and will likely continue to do so well after the next general election in 2015. Oh and Nigel ( never met an immigrant I didn't not like) Farage says he's uncomfortable not hearing his native tongue on trains. More on this in a bit.

First the questions....

1- What's so great about Britain to other Europeans?

If you work hard and keep out of trouble, locals will respect you and look up to you. Or at least that's what some of us think and even been told. And to a great extent it's true. I have yet to met a single person who will to my face tell me I'm stealing his job or somehow not deserving of the same care or dignity as any native born Brit. I'm sure a handful would have loved to tell me, but being British, preferred to keep it to themselves and have a go at me later when I was gone. But  the vast majority have offered help, friendship and encouragement. If anything, when the nasty, ignorant, uneducated EDL came to Newcastle last year, the political, broadcasting and cultural establishment covering the full spectrum of what passes for "normal" here, came out and told the EDL to piss off home and get an education.

2- What, besides the obvious attracts immigrants to the UK?

It is a society where the rule of law prevails, you are innocent until proven guilty ( by law) and if you are here to make money and want to set up a business or to offer your talent to willing buyers, there are laws that apply as much to you as they do to every other person and without having to pay bribes or wait months or even years for answers from the impartial even handed civil service. This much cannot be said of a lot of countries in the World and especially not of  specific European nations still struggling with a culture of bribery, laziness and institutional entitlement within the bureaucracy.

3- How do we see the UK as a society?

Well from the outside looking in and even if you grow up in it  as the child of  immigrants.... The UK has been sold to us an open multi cultural society that is accepting of the contributions of other peoples over the decades since WW2 and even going as far back as Hadrian. With the BBC World service we are led to believe that if there was ever a World power or former power that cared about the fate of the less fortunate in other places, it was the UK. The fact that both sides of a conflict would accuse the BBC of being biased means they have for the longest time, gotten it right. Without sweeping under the rug the many times  mobs have gone mad in the past  and attacked innocent people based on colour of skin, spoken tongue or religion, the fact remains that the only other Western European nation more historically open to minorities has been Holland.

As an appendage to the last paragraph I have to point out that the BBC through both it's programming on television provides at least 90% of the English language documentaries and costume dramas the world gets to watch and it's World Service on radio and the cable/internet news stations world wide,  is the de facto news face of Britain to the rest of the planet. In the rest of the world the BBC news division portrays GB as the knight in shinning armour that decries the depravities and tragedies of the world, that shines a light on other continents in a way that other national news divisions simply cannot or will not. Britain acquires a sort of James Bond mystique of righteousness.

We like what Britain has and want to contribute to it as well. For if you think about it, a lot of those strictly brit things that even the most extreme of the groups want to defend, have by and large come from another place and many many many ( bis) cultures too numerous to name here. Much of the progress that came to pass here was done by and on the backs of immigrants. To pretend otherwise is to deny simple facts that start with trading links spreading as far as India and pre-dating the arrival of the Romans in Colchester to the contributions of Irish, Jews , Asians and Continental Europeans to the growth of the industrial machine that powered mills as of the 18th century, the Empire it built and the modern economy we are all a part of by extension.

Do I need to tell people where the leaders of this nation are from? Maybe I do.  The PM is the descendant of  rampaging northern town burning Normans, nothing changed there. Clegg is more recent , of  a family of Russian emigrees  fleeing the Bolshevik revolution and lastly dear old Ed Miliband who is destined to be I think, the next PM,  the child of Polish Jews who fled Hitler. That btw, would make him the 2nd Jew in the job after Benjamin Disraeli. What ever you may think of these men and people like them, they are now in positions of power and privilege because their families settled here. In fact the House of Commons and Lords is full of immigrants and their children. And what of the commercial elites and the so called back bone of the high street and neighbourhoods? The shop keepers and small merchant or specialists who keep Britain in milk, fags, beer and clothes  and  every other thing that is taken for granted? For every old line mythical pure breed brit, 7 or 8 immigrants or descendants of immigrants run those shops. They are the risk takers, the ones who sacrifice normal lives to make miserly takings and small profits while others wait for  soft well paying jobs they feel best suited for.

And then there are the migrant workers who are paid terrible wages in factories and warehouses  or on farms or in Hotels and restaurants. It's not like they want to take lower wages, the fact is that more often than not, no one born in the UK is willing to take those jobs for any amount of money. If just for one day there was a strike of migrant workers in the UK, the economy of  this country would come shuddering to a halt. There would be no food on the shelves for at least three days maybe longer. It would take at least a week to recover the lost revenues and  far too many businesses, many of them small would die.  As for the hotels and restaurants, I would suggest that a lot people learn to cook real fast,  because guess who's making all those curries and pizzas and take away food.

While I want to see better working conditions for all, a proper living wage for everybody and a level playing field for tradesmen, it is important to note first that the educational system of Britain is not able to provide the skilled or even unskilled workers required to just keep the current operation going from day to day without outside help. That those doing the work come from the EU and other places further proves that despite everything, Britain needs the EU and the rest of Europe needs Britain. We may as well learn to like each other officially, you know like when the politicians and the newspapers start saying nice things and stop looking for scapegoats and begin to answer the really hard questions. How do we save European industry, how do we  prop up the value of our currencies and lastly , how do we make Europe a relatively self sufficient and competitive part of the greater world economy.

To a greater or lesser extent the United States and Canada have asked those questions and with the contribution of  vast armies of immigrants have over the last few decades produced more goods, new services and circulated more money than in the entire history of the early industrial age. Were it not for poorly thought out free market ideas about the "sin" of regulating banks and big corporations, they would still be telling the rest of the world what to do right now.

Which brings me nicely to what I had to listen to today on Radio 4. A panel was asked to comment on Nigel Farage's discomfort at apparently hearing no or little English during certain parts of his commute to and from work. German born Labour MP Gisela Stuart and Peter Hitchens of the Daily Mail speak. It is worth listening to the conversation and knowing that later the vast majority of those who chose to text the show agreed with the  pro immigrant and frankly non racist tone of the MP v the fear mongering Mr Farage. ( Listen here, follow the links). Gisela Stuart put it best when we she pointed out the obvious that

1- People need to live somewhere
2- People will talk to each other in the tongue most comfortable to each other
3- And if that happens to be two Poles or two Hungarians etc.... they will speak to each other most likely in that common language. 

If pressed, the fact is that most of those people would be able to speak some level of English, often even a very fine English, but like the married couple  that consisted of a Chinese born woman and her Brit Chinese husband, it was best to resort to what they spoke at home.... Chinese. When asked how many other languages they spoke, the wife proudly said at least 5 apart from English.

I grew up in a Polish household. My Father was an immigrant, my mother the daughter of immigrants. You bet I learned Polish at home. I also learned English, French, Yiddish and Italian amongst others. I am the better for it and any company I work for benefits from that. If you're uncomfortable hearing a language on mass transit that you don't understand, then you clearly must think people have nothing better to discuss than you. I take it as a point of pride that I live in a place  where so many cultures feel sufficiently free and secure they can talk among themselves and not worry somebody will abuse them or force them to do something against their will. The Catholic Parish I belong to has no fewer than 14 different languages spoken in the congregation. NOBODY CARES. We're all there for one reason and we all get along. We have some of the best social events  precisely because it's not all just one culture, one language or one tradition. So if a load people want to talk Polish, Cantonese or Slovak on the way to work to each other,  let them.

I've got a secret, the only people who are gossiping about you, YES YOU, are Philipino women in nail salons, the rest of us, we're just wondering what's for supper, if the children got in ok from school, the list goes on. It's like being gay, we do all the same things unilingual English  speakers do but in another language and sometimes in a gay way, which of course is pretty much the same way straight people do. I know, shocking but true. We're not plotting the overthrow of the Government, nor are we thinking of new and novel ways to enslave the native population of Britain. People are just people. We worry about the same things and at the end of the day have the same political tendencies from right to left on basic issues that well established British families do.

I am aware that some people like Nigel Farage worry about immigrants not speaking English at work. Fair point. Well the truth is that where English is required, they do and with very few exceptions are learning or already know English. While some could make more of an effort to mingle outside of any particular community, the fact is that those who have come here in hopes of staying long term are fully aware that in order to stay they need to integrate. Some will marry outside of their cultures others won't, but the moment they become part of greater society they will learn the language and culture faster than any English person I know. They will have children who won't stop being what they are but will also be British. And the cycle will go one.

One last thing while I'm at it. Aimed squarely at the people reading this who have a far too skewed and low view of migrant workers and immigrants. Most of the people you see around you running tills, packing fruit, cleaning toilets, wiping the bottoms of old people and the sick....  they aren't stupid, or unskilled. If you stopped to ask them, they would tell you they are farmers,merchants,university graduates,scholars, engineers, doctors, historians and accountants and yes some of them came to take those awful jobs  nobody else wants and for better pay than at home. They, unlike some of  the ultra privileged classes of natives here, aren't too picky about the work they can get till a better offer comes along and they are most definitively not stupid or simple. The fact is that the more immigrants you have in any one area of the country, the better the economy is there. The correlation is hard to miss and I'm sure the nice people at Her Majesty's Revenue would be more than happy to point out for the umpteenth time this simple fact.

I suppose the real question is when will the chattering classes and the politicians of this country  publicly and officially recognize the valuable contribution immigrants make to society and the economy and like the  more courageous among them, call out the Daily Mail, The Sun and so many others for the racists and fear mongers they are. Only then can we look at educating the ones who fear and those who learned to believe that those who fear must somehow be right. Like women, Jews and gays before them, immigrants need to make it clear to politicians and the media that the sort of baiting and bigotry they think they can do is not only wrong but dangerous and needs to stop.

In a recent Youguv poll apx 70% of Britons admitted to feeling uncomfortable about hearing a language they couldn't understand. Most of those people would relax if the noise coming from Fleet Street and the Commons was less strident and intent on finding a scapegoat for problems manufactured elsewhere or by their own hand. And as for the NE of England, I hear almost as much of other tongues as I did In New York or Toronto, and that makes me happy. As far as I can tell from the frankly oblivious  or relaxed faces of Geordies, they aren't much bothered either.

This so called problem must be somewhere else. According to one effort at locating these quivering folk, a great deal of them were found in the serene country side away from the big cities, some appear to live in the suburbs just outside London. I wonder if they would be so afraid if they knew just how important those people who speak funny were to their ability to eat, be clothed and get decent health care services and that they in fact look up to them and admire them.

I know that regardless of what any of us do or say, some will never be convinced, I can live with that. I do however hope that with Euro elections in 2014 and National elections in 2015, the political classes find a way to finally tell the truth rather than continue to cling to lies they feel they need to uphold just to get elected. It's no longer OK to be homophobic, and all the parties and the electorate behave accordingly, I don't see why we can't do the same for immigrants.

Next time you see me on the street talking Polish to a mate, feel free to ask me the time or for directions, I'll be more than happy to do so in English .... or French or some other tongue. You know what else I learned by not being afraid to speak? That I could and would make new friends from all over the place and expand my horizons, both culinary and cultural. I urge you to do the same, be you immigrant or native born.... it'll blow your mind.

Never forget the words of that great part English part Dutch descendant of immigrants, Franklin Delano Roosevelt  "The only thing to fear, is fear itself" 

If that's too deep for you, try reading the books of  the son of German Immigrants, Dr Seuss.  I attach the image of one particularly appropriate tome with it's modified less child friendly title. I'm sure you'll know it right away.

The EU, Central European Slavs, Russia and the upheaval in Ukraine

Rompuy

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy "I salute the will of the Ukrainian people to live in a free, independent and united country with strong ties to the EU. We stand ready to sign the Association Agreement and support Ukraine in these difficult times," Rompuy said in a statement issued in Brussels on Monday after the EU-Brazil summit, during which the sides discussed the situation in Ukraine.





RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER DMITRY MEDVEDEV:

"Strictly speaking, there is no one to talk to there. The government doesn't exist. There are big doubts about the legitimacy of a whole series of organs of power that are now functioning there." He and other Russian officials go on to say that the place is now run by armed rebels who have overthrown a legitimate government and that the west should not interfere in the internal matters of a sovereign nation. Russia of course can do what ever it feels like as it considers Ukraine a province and integral part of greater Russia despite the small matter of it being in fact a sovereign independent nation. The fact Putin's pet seat warmer Medvedev or Foreign Minister Lavrov were allowed to say these things as opposed to the assorted wingnuts on the edges of  Russian broadcasting who are normally afforded the role of saying things the Government wishes known but cannot say, is a sign that they mean it.

Which brings me to the bit nobody outside of Central Europe seems to be aware of.

There should be a third quote, it can have come from any of the Central and Eastern European

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski

politicians or citizens who live in the shadow of Russia . It would go something like this. "Russia will not easily let Ukraine go. They will do what ever they feel they can get away with to keep the people living in the current boundaries of the Ukrainian Republic from having free will or joining the European camp." Furthermore, the person would go on to say that Russia would not be shy about insuring this by invading countries other than Ukraine or again punishing the former satellites who have left the sphere of influence, with a cut off of gas. This mindset is not without merit as Russia has in fact invaded it's neighbours repeatedly, going as far back as Ivan the Terrible and most recently Georgia, Osetia and Abkhazia among too many other nations they have overtly attacked and others they have destabilised in a ham fisted less than subtle apparently unofficial manner. ( As I edit this, Russia has already launched a media barrage asking "On what side were you in WW 2?) As I said, subtle as a sledge hammer and probably the most innocuous thing they will do.

Central Europe

Before I go on, a little history lesson. What is Central Europe? It is what used to be part of the Great Powers.  A collection of nations that were in the you guessed it one....Central Europe. Among these nations were Hungary, the various incarnations of the Czech republics, Poland, Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia.  When the Russians finally took what they wanted in 1945, it fell into the sphere along with the aptly named Eastern European nations that were in point of fact incredibly eastern. The new politi of Europe still uses the terms of the Cold War despite the unfreezing of European history, the restart of the flowering of the legitimate evolution of the Europe that from the  Polish frontier to  London itself, represented the great civilized block that had connections to the rest of the world  by rail to Turkey and by sea to Africa.  Russia has always been on the outside looking in and like it or not that has not changed.  They are the last part of the European puzzle that needs to be integrated into the phsyche and very real thing that is Greater Europe. Those of us who consider the countries in the Centre home, by birth or by affiliation, will always be Central Europeans. The sooner you in the West recognize this and apply this to your thinking, the sooner we will cease to be such a mystery to you.

As for the Ukrainians, and for that matter the Bulgars and the Romanians and assorted Baltic states

President Woodrow Wilson

including Finland.  They are and want to be European, have always, according to even the 1918 Wilson 14 points, had a right to self determination and freedom of political and economic association. The only people who collectively and apart seem to think otherwise, are the Russians. It will take a long time for them to let go of their children, their precious babies. But when it comes to Ukraine, it is all the more difficult. Ukraine belongs to the Tsars, to Mother Russia, Ukraine is the body as much as Moscow is the brain and the soul of Russia. At least that is what Russians will tell you.  I myself coming from the toes or the kidney of Russia will tell you that Poland is and always has been an independent sovereign state that stood for and defended at various times a multi cultural collection of peoples that have been citizens of what we could call the anybody but Russia federation. Today while not nearly as large, we are still not happy being offered back to the tender mercies of Mother Russia as the kidney or the intestine  any more than the Ukrainians want to be the body of Russia.

In the most significant recent past ..... 1918 to the present, Ukraine has seen a few changes, most not of their own will or making and most designed to absorb more territory into the Russian Empire. Between the anti Ukrainian famine of the 1930's that was at least as bad  as the German Holocaust and the annexation into the Ukrainian Oblast of bit's of  Romania, Poland and the addition of the till then nominally autonomous,  Krim, Russia has by design built in a fracture factor that will produce even in an independent Ukraine, the sort of tensions that will destabilise any regime that takes hold even for a short time. Even today the vast majority of Russian speakers in the East of Ukraine and Krim as well as the bit near it, get their news direct from Moscow in Russian with all the spin and the consequences therein.

Little wonder that Russia feels it has not only a vested interest, but a right to interfere. The best thing that can now happen is in fact the fracturing of the current Ukraine. Perhaps not at first into smaller separate nations  but genuinely autonomous provinces with special powers regarding culture. This would at least preserve the economic and political union that is the current Ukraine. However if we are realistic, this cannot last long. In the Krim the long established Russian colonists  sent there to thin out the native Tartars will want out or rather in with Russia. In the East much the same will occur. As long as there is a voting block so entrenched and incapable of escaping tribalist voting instincts that work against the stability of the historic cultural core that is Ukraine, we will continue to see this sort of see saw game of  block v block  much like Thailand is currently suffering. It will require either the creation of a politi that is ideological in base and spans the complete spectrum  from left to right or the creation of constitutional guarantees that will build in a valve that bleeds the  pressure of the tribalism before it explodes yet again. I'm no constitutional expert on the complexity of  the constituents parts of the current Ukraine, but I can tell you it will be a hard sell to the country and the Russians who think none of  the current Ukrainians have a right to have a say in their future.

The Rada or Parliament is now operating under the 2004 constitution that declares that cabinets must

Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov

be made of and be supported by deputies of the body. Furthermore the post of President is not the sort of all powerful American model but closer to that of Ireland. As it stands, that is a good thing. For as long as the Rada is elected in free an fair elections and the seat spread regarding regions is fair, we can hope for a responsible Government that will not fall into bad habits. The real danger occurs as I said earlier, is when the regional blocks come back like a bad cabbage roll and start the trouble boiling over again.

Poland and other other nations that have adopted democratic and western models want this revolution to succeed, they want it so badly they will do what they have to to keep Ukraine such as it is in the sphere of  Europe. Central Europe, the historical Central Europe, wants to recreate the buffer zone of  safe, non belligerent nations to their East that used to exist. We will never be rid of the threat of Russian expansionism I suspect, but to ratchet down by several degrees to a point of mild constant irritation is something we can all live with.  Russia's direct neighbours, Poland included , (cos who's kidding who, until Belarus rids itself of the last Stalinist dictator in Europe, it is the de facto Russian border with the rest of Europe) will always feel nervous when it comes to Russia. Unlike Germany, Austria , France ,Turkey or Rome, the Imperial appetite in Moscow hasn't at all gotten smaller or measurably subtler in any way.

On the one hand the Russian finance minister tells the IMF and the EU to take up the challenge and

Lavrov

Lavrov the foreign minister says they should not interfere  just as Russia will not interfere. Allow me a moment to laugh  nervously and make incredibly rude gestures at the thought of a lie detector at that very moment trying not to dissolve from the deep suspension of disbelief required to stay intact. .  The interim Ukrainian government, including protesters, elements of the left , the right and even sadly some anti Semitic, Anti Polish ultra nationalists, have their ofjary....martyrs. They are doing what they can to cobble together a stable civil society that can withstand the pressures of the massive Russian self defence knee jerk reaction that is even now moving to crush them.

Why is it important that we help the Maidan and Rada survive? It's simple, this is the way it should have been in Syria, but people held back, people allowed a dictator and his outside support enough air to breathe and stay standing. Fewer than 300 died that we know of, a few thousand are injured some, terribly, but nothing like the numbers in Syria  precisely because the neighbours gave a damn. Poland Germany and France headed the EU response and made sure Russia and Yanukovich blinked first ( see link below). Massive bloodshed and destruction of infrastructure has been avoided by direct and early interference by outside powers in what is technically an internal conflict. Because of this, the previously mentioned fascist, anti Jewish, anti Polish, anti Russian militias will have no air, no place to expand or to grip onto. Already the acceptable face of Ukraine is making sure these elements have to give back to proper civilian government controlled forces and offices, the power to keep the peace, prosecute, and carry out the orders of the new legitimate government. It will take time, but unlike Syria, there is no massive schism that has led to more bloodshed, there are no outside agencies infiltrating the struggle.

The larger point of course is that for all the right reasons and for some of the wrong ones, finally, Europe and more to the point the European Union stepped in and said to a people who crave to take their rightful place in the greater European family .... Yes , we'll have you. There are stories in the news today that Iceland has angered it's own people by withdrawing from it's electorate the right to vote on joining or not the EU. While currently the polls are not so strong in favour of the EU in Iceland, it is clear that in the long run, the EU is the structure that is keeping Europe from stumbling into WW 1(redux), furthermore, the greater the success of EU diplomats in such conflicts as the current Ukraine crisis, the better the EU looks to most people, especially those wondering how long before Russia once again casts a hungry eye westwards. In addition the EU with a dynamic Ukraine included, has to find a way to heat and power the great beast that is European industry and general infrastructures. Only a strong EU will achieve this. Being a part of the solution affords us ( those in the UK included)  and others, a voice in how this will be resolved.

Lastly I ask you to listen to the voices of the people on Maidan online, these are not the voices of

Vitali Klitschko speaking to the Maidan live as I wrote this

extremists, or of armed revolutionaries bent on destroying all around them. They are the people who live there, who are asking us to allow them the same thing we take so much for granted, that some of my own educated acquaintances speak with derision of democracy, not knowing just how much they would miss even the unethical, cold hearted tories and their banker friends if they had to swap out living in Putin or Yanukovich land. We have an election in 2015, and it can't come soon enough,  we will vote the bums out, these people have not had that kind of luxury. Nobody is telling us we belong to America, Russia , England ,France or China, and yet in 2014 we allow precisely this sort of dialogue to inform our decisions about faceless, powerless people who think what we have is something worth cherishing.

View the interactive map



Breaking news from the various Polish and Ukrainian feeds we've been following: The general feeling among those interviewed was that there was a pressing need to sort which army units were loyal to the revolution; ordinary people need to be trained and armed for the defence against the Russian tanks that are inevitably headed towards Kiyov. If you paid attention when I explained how Slavs think and particularly Slavs under threat of loss of life limb and liberty, you'll see how perfectly sensible this thinking is. And be assured they will be ready. I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it's right, we'll know soon enough, and that my friends is how we think.

Edit 18:00 26/02  Russia calls war games claims it's nothing to do with unrest in Ukraine

Support the EuroMaidan online 

Why Yanukovic fled

How Poland came of age in the Crisis

The job that has been left to the West in rescuing the Ukrainian economy

The sort of act I expect from a less uptight Ukraine at Eurovision

Next.... How Poland has reacted to the crisis from the ordinary person right through to the media and Government.