2015
SEPTEMBER
September 2
It’s only make believe
Not so much a grumpy old moan this week, more of a fairy tale story of make-believe.
Imagine you run a large company. You’re not the big boss but you are in charge of a major part. Unfortunately, under your stewardship, the company is found to have acted illegally, big-time. You claim you knew nothing about it (maybe a trifle stupid as if a boss doesn’t know what’s going on, is he/she really competent to run something more than a bath). However it all gets a bit messy, the police get involved, charges may be laid, so, eventually, you resign.
Your big boss says some nice things about you and, as you are leaving the office, offers you a, what shall we say (remember this is make believe). £15 million pay off. You are so surprised, you throw your hands in the air and accidently drop all the emails and correspondence you were carrying into the company shredder. In a way this was a bit lucky as you might have been caught red headed, sorry handed, otherwise.
The court case goes ahead and you get acquitted (now you know it’s make believe, don’t you) but who on earth would employ you after you’ve admitted that when you were the boss you had no idea what your staff were doing and you never thought to ask Well, guess what, your old boss rings you up a few years later (you’ve probably spent the £15 million by now on solicitor’s fees) and says he’d like you back because, quite honestly, he likes having people in charge who have no idea of what’s going on. Would you believe such a stupid story? Of course not.
But in this make believe world, other things happen too. The one thing you can be sure of, though, is that if you are ill or need advice about health matters, the NHS is the place to go. The staff there will know how to treat you. You’re just doing your morning exercise when you hear, on the make believe radio, that the NHS staff are actually not capable of keeping themselves fit, let alone tell you how to do so, because their bosses are spending about £5 million to provide some exercise for them. Yesterday you learnt that the NHS was sending some patients out on pedalos, presumably to cut the waiting lists, and also building summerhouses so people could do their exercises and others would see and want to join in. Could these stories really be true? Of course not.
But if you thought a £15 million pay-off and £5 million spent on telling people, who are supposed to provide us with health advice, how to be healthy, is stupid then in our make believe world, football clubs spend £870 million on buying new players. In a time of austerity for us normal people, they spend all that. Each club plays 38 games in a season and there are 20 clubs. If they didn’t spend that £870 million then, on an average gate of 30,000, each ticket price could be reduced by nearly £40 per game. That would be make believe, wouldn’t it? Of course.
And finally, in our make believe world, a TV company broadcast a show which, under the trade descriptions act alone, should be banned. The major part of their nightly schedule; involves broadcasting “live” (haha) footage from a house into which they have crammed a load of total non-entities who “perform” in order to attract audiences and get paid a bloody sight more money that you and I could earn. And who would believe, in this make believe world, that the owner of that channel also owns some soft porn channels and a national newspaper whose target audience is probably the older generation or anyone who thinks front page headlines about an expected drought, flood, freeze, plague of locusts, etc is news. And surely the final part of our fairy tale is when our newspaper/porn channel, gossip magazine, low brow TV channel owner gets his editor to write his autobiography and gives it a five start rating in his own paper.
Oh come on Humphrey what are you on?
All of the above is my own little story. Any resemblance to anything in the real world is pure coincidence. Isn’t it?
September 9
It’s progress, isn’t it?
This morning I spent 40 minutes in a queue at my local Barclay’s Bank. I wished to pay money in via the cashier. There were two cashiers working. This is in a small town. In the sixties, while working in the City of London, I never queued for longer than ten minutes at the Cheapside Branch during my lunch hour. There were often eight cashiers working. This, I understand, is called progress.
Last week I called a company I needed to speak with and went through a long rigmarole while they asked me to hit various keys before I was told I was number 7 in the queue and the wait would be about ten minutes. In the sixties I would dial a number and if no one could speak to me immediately I would get an engaged tone and I could hang up, get back to work and try again later. This, I understand, is called progress.
A couple of weekends ago I watched as a two-year old was given a tablet, iPad not aspirin, so that they would be quiet. Apparently they were watching something on YouTube totally unsupervised by their parents. The adults amongst the group were trying to have a conversation although sometimes it was difficult to do so above the noise of the tablet. In the fifties, when I was a child, we were told to go out and play so the adults could talk. We communicated with our peers, used our imagination, made up games, competed against each and had a bloody good time. This, I understand, is progress.
A friend of mine was designing a web site to give young people some historical information and knowledge. Great use of technology, I thought. However she was told to make sure the page had lots of videos, animations and not much text so that kids would enjoy using it. This, I understand is utter crap, as were the above examples.
A bank should provide, efficiently, whatever service its customers want. They should not dictate that you can do this at a machine, on-line, in the bath, during sex on your mobile. Companies should employ sufficient staff to be able to answer phones personally, immediately as far as possible. If that is too expensive then reduce the bosses salary because his company are not providing the service their customers want.
Parents need to realise that the more you pander to your child and remove their ability to be creative, think, interact with other members of society, the more you are denying them a chance to succeed in the adult world when they get there. Being a parent and watching, controlling, overseeing, helping, guiding your child cannot be given to a machine. Furthermore, children should understand that while some things may have the bells and whistles that they apparently enjoy, in other cases they may just have to read words, And, what is more, it is only those who have been tasked with looking after these young people who have created the situation where they expect the bells and whistles.
In all of these instances we will be told that it is all down to progress. I would not dispute that but I would dispute, vehemently, to where we are progressing. And, quite frankly, it frightens the hell out of me and if it doesn’t do the same to you, you are missing the point of where society is heading. If I take the pea out of your whistle, rest assured that society will be gone like the clappers out of your bell. Please let children think, create, read and talk.
September 16
There is no story so let’s make one
I have been much amused, in a Victorian sort of way, by politics and the media again this week.
Firstly, we celebrated the fact that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, became the longest reigning monarch of our country. To honour this fact the BBC, that bastion of broadcasting, chose, I think, to interview a man who was a devoted anti-royalist. It was a bit like inviting a divorce lawyer to your wedding. This seems to be a major problem with the media these days in that if there isn’t a story to moan about, they need to create one. Celebrations, I foolishly thought, were supposed to be happy events. Why, on the day of this record-breaking achievement by our monarch, interview someone so blatantly opposed to her reign.
Which leads me neatly into my next moan, bound to get me into trouble, as it is concerning feminism. Let me begin by saying I believe we should all have equal opportunities, regardless of gender. Let me add that for certain biological reasons we cannot all be treated equally. I would never complain about a woman breast-feeding her child in a public place, assuming she did so without making a great show about it. I would, however, complain if I saw a man breast-feeding his child in a public place. We cannot, male and female, be treated totally in the same way but, as I said, we can all have equal opportunities.
The recent election for leader of the labour party had four candidates, two female, two male. The election for deputy leader had five candidates, three female and two male while the election for the candidate for mayor of London eventually had six candidates, two women, four men. Seems pretty equal to me. Fifteen candidates in total, seven woman, eight men.
So why once a democratic election has taken place do people, and journalists in particular, start bemoaning the fact that all three winners were male. It happened. That’s what the voters wanted. I am pretty sure that very few, if any, voters chose on gender. Why make something out of nothing? Having seemingly not created a big enough furore about this, some journalists then pointed out that the three great offices of state, Foreign Office, Home Secretary and Chancellor were all given to males in Jeremy Corbyn’s first shadow cabinet. Now I happen to believe that in our modern world education and health are just as important roles and, guess what, two women hold these. There are a majority of women in the shadow cabinet. What was the fuss about?
I have to say I am growing to like, and admire, Jeremy Corbyn. That doesn’t mean I will agree with all he wants to do but it does mean that I strongly believe that what he says he believes in, which hasn’t happened for a very long time in politics, in my opinion, added in case Ian Hislop’s lawyer isn’t available. Corbyn shouldn’t be so strongly in favour, for example, of comprehensive education so that he ignores the fee paying public school idea. He should, however, aim to make sure that all children who attend state, comprehensive, what ever you want to call them schools, have an education, and an educational opportunity, equal to that which can be found in most fee paying schools. I say most because I have to admit to a little cringe today when our Eton-educated Prime Minister announced that “no one would be more delighted than me” if PMQ changes. David, no one would be more delighted than I. Grammar is important.
And, although I will await and see how Mr Corbyn goes about his business, todays PMQ was far more intellectual than has been the case over many years and, yes, maybe it did seem a bit like a radio phone in but it never deteriorated to the Dave and Ed, Dave and Gordon, Dave and Tony, Punch and Judy show of yesteryear. It can be refined but it was about substance not point scoring, about real people’s fears not cheap jibes and insults. I hope in time that Jezza, as I believe some have nicknamed him, continues to put the questions ordinary people want asked but uses the opportunity to follow-up any response he may get with a more robust, though still civilised, question from his own viewpoint.
September 30
Help should be available not mandatory
I learn today, from that bastion of news, the BBC, that a record number of students are beginning university this term. This should not be a surprise as the population of the country is growing and so those of an eligible age to enter university will also be growing.
However the report goes on to say that “there are warnings of rising numbers of students struggling to cope with life on campus, with sharp rises in the demand for counselling.”
Apparently there is a Universities UK’s mental well-being group and its chair, one Ruth Caleb says that counselling services are facing an annual rise in demand of about 10%.
Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, says this is a “massive problem” and universities have been “negligent” in accepting their pastoral responsibilities.
Before I look more closely at this, and the danger of such words as “massive problem”, there are three points I would like to make. Firstly, I’m sorry to tell everyone, but stress, new situations, and coping with them, is a part of everyday life for everyone. University students are no different from anyone else. Indeed, some of the stress they suffer should be easier to cope with as it is a familiar one. They have spent roughly 75% of their lives in a learning situation where the powers that be have caused them enormous stress by imposing SAT tests, 11+, common entrance, GCSE etc. while school league tables and parental pressure have all contributed to even greater stress.
A non-university entrant has the stress of finding a job (never done before), holding that job down (never done before), using their earnings to survive but also have some of the pleasures of adult life (never done before) and possibly finding, on their own, somewhere to rent (never done before). We all suffer stress throughout our lives and we can’t all run to people for help. Stress is like crossing the road; it is a necessity for most people. And most people don’t have help to do it.
Which brings me to my second point and that is that there are, these days, a plethora of qualified people who are trained to help you; the counsellors. Unfortunately, in order to justify their existence, and earn an income, they need to make sure that people need their services so they will, quite obviously, encourage authorities to bring them in to provide a service that may not really be needed and the temptation to quote statistics, which we know can easily be misconstrued if not manipulated, is, I imagine, quite strong.
And that leads neatly to my final point which is that by broadcasting these “facts” the BBC and other media are merely stoking a fire that could, possibly, have been lying dormant, if fires can indeed be dormant. If someone tells me that there is a danger to me of contracting some illness and it begins with itching, I can assure you that I begin to scratch and worry.
The chances are that most students will not suffer any more stress-related problems than the rest of us did, do or will. I fully accept that some may find things difficult and some have genuine problems. It’s a big step from being controlled, against your will, to being free and having to cope with what you always thought you wanted.
I feel, very strongly, that our nanny state, where everyone has an opportunity for counselling should the slightest problem arise, is making us a nation of people unable to cope with the basics of life; the ability, and indeed desire, to sort things out when a problem occurs or you experience something traumatic.
Let students find out how to cope. Don’t pressure them into thinking they need help. Give them the freedom they so need to become an individual within our society; an individual who can cope with everything, or nearly everything, that life throws at them. For sure, be there for them and make sure they know that you are. I believe, though, that a friend is a far better person to turn to than some qualified individual, who may not even have experienced what you are going through and who actually needs to present you as having a problem so that they can justify their existence.
I do, however, wish all those starting their courses this month a safe and generally happy time before they come out into the big wide, world where coping with life is even harder. From my experience though, coping with a problem alone, knowing who to turn to when you need help and coming out the other side wiser, better equipped to live life and happy that you have achieved something, is a pretty good feeling.