Dan Kieran
Page 26
This is the Idler’s life, seeking happiness, not success, and wisdom rather than cleverness. As Idler subscriber and TV supremo John Lloyd put it, ‘People are obsessed with cleverness when it is wisdom that counts, and anyone can be wise.’ With wisdom comes the acceptance of truth, personal happiness and the creative, self-directed life so many of us crave.
Step Seven - Take the Test
Read this passage from Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. If you can read it without shuddering then you’ve made it. If you can’t, there’s still time. There’s always time.
Old bureaucrat, my companion here present, no man ever opened an escape route for you, and you are not to blame.
You built peace for yourself by blocking up every chink of light, as termites do. You rolled yourself into your ball of bourgeois security, your routines, the stifling rituals of your provincial existence; you built your humble rampart against winds, tides and stars. You have no wish to ponder great questions; you had enough trouble suppressing awareness of your human condition. You do not dwell on a wandering planet, you ask yourself no unanswerable questions...
No man ever grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay that formed you has dried and hardened, and no man could now awaken in you the dormant musician, the poet or the astronomer who perhaps once dwelt within you.
Acknowledgements
My journey into the heart of Albion wouldn’t have lasted very long without the time and guidance of many kind and generous people. First and foremost Mark Barrett, whose enthusiasm and passion for civil and community rights puts most of us to shame. If I hadn’t stumbled into such an eye-opening friendship with Mark you simply wouldn’t have this book in your hands.
Prasanth Visweswaran always brought a vast amount of fun and humour to every nerve-racking situation we found ourselves in, and it was his idea that our democracy was the gold standard to which other nations aspired that pushed me into the subject of reclaiming patriotism from the bigots who’ve done so much to tarnish our sense of national pride.
The Parliament Square picnics every Sunday gave me a base where all sorts of connections were made. I met a huge number of selfless and passionate people there, all of whose stories deserve to be told. It is perhaps unfair to mention some and not others, but these are the people I saw most regularly and who made most of an impression on me: Dave and Esther, Danny, Sian (aka Mary Poppins), Matthew, Rikki (the tireless contributor to Indymedia), Marianne the Texan (who was in Richard Linklater’s film Slacker - now how cool is that?), Mark Kemp, Sam and Alex (who came up with the idea of holding a slumber party on Parliament Square on the first anniversary of SOCPA and spent the night in sleeping bags and Wee Willie Winkie hats because ‘Democracy Is Sleeping’), Jeff the anarchist (whose encyclopaedic knowledge of all things authoritarian is something to behold), Mark, Ed, Jamie, John Mark, Katie and Alan (who came along for the cricket match) and Steve (also there that day, who was violently arrested a few days later for holding a banner outside Downing Street bearing the Orwell quote, ‘In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act’). I was also full of admiration for Barbara, whom I never met properly but who, at the time of writing, has the record for the most number of SOCPA arrests. And then of course there’s Brian Haw, who will no doubt take a few moments away from his vigil to come and punch me in the face if he ever decides to read this book.
John Nicholson will one day get the credit he deserves for a lifetime spent researching the largely ignored parts of our history. Why no-one pays him vast sums of money just to get him to talk about some of our unrecorded history and film him doing it so we can all listen in is a mystery to me.
I’d also like to thank Dorothy Skrytek, Paula Fentiman, Mick and Adam in Derby; Honor Gibbs, for putting me on to Ian Nairn; the readers of the Idler, who actually wrote the Crap Towns books; Sergeant Gary Brown in Spilsby; Stuart Craft; Neil Goodwin, aka Charlie Chaplin; Billy Childish; Jim the energy man; Gareth and Jen at Liberty; and all the other people whose names I have changed or omitted because they felt telling the truth about their jobs might put their livelihoods at risk.
Over the last year I’ve had lots of help and encouragement from my Idler pals, Tom Hodgkinson, Gavin Pretor-Pinney and Clare Pollard. And from friends and family: Colin Chardc, Henry Littlechild, Ben Hassett, Kevin Parr, Hugh Breton, Ian Vince, my parents, stepparents, Granny, and brothers Gareth, Ben, Nick, Richard and Kit. I’d like to say a special thank you to my mate and agent Simon Benham who actually gave me the idea for this book in the first place, and to John Lloyd and Chris Yates - my most philosophically astute friends - for so many uplifting and inspiring conversations.
At Bantam Press, my editor, Brenda Kimber, never ran out of patience with me even when she discovered that the book she had persuaded Transworld to pay for would not be forthcoming and I handed in this one instead. I also want to mention Jonny Mendelsson who did such a great job with the cover and Daniel Balado the copy editor, who corrected my numerous grammatical mistakes.
Finally, I would like to thank Rachel for her patience, support, kindness and good humour. It’s hard living in a tiny flat with someone trying to write a book on the kitchen table, especially with a toddler charging about. Wilf will be very glad that the ordeal is over too, having registered his disgust over the last twelve months by punching my computer and stuffing coins into it whenever my back was turned. But it could have been worse for them both, I suppose. I could have decided to do something really stupid, like write a book about driving across England in a milkfloat with my friend Ian. Now that really would be an adventure. If I could get Prasanth to come with us and film it we could call it Three Men in a Float...
Notes
1. ‘While allowing directors to give consideration to the interests of others, [the law] compel[s] them to find some reasonable relationship to the long-term interests of shareholders when so doing.’ American Bar Association, Committee on Corporate Laws, ‘Other Constituencies’ Statutes: Potential for Confusion’, The Business Lawyer 45 (1990): 2261, as cited in G. Smith, ‘The Shareholder Primacy Norm’, The Journal of Corporation Law, Volume 23, Number 2, Winter 1998.
2. ‘A corporation is the property of its stockholders ... Its interests are the interests of its stockholders. Now, beyond that, should it spend the stockholders’ money for purposes which it regards as socially responsible but which it cannot connect to its bottom line? The answer I would say is no.’ From Joel Bakan, The Corporation (Free Press, 2004), p. 34.
3. ‘If I walk from Waterloo station across the river to the palace with “Bollocks to Blair” on my lapel, I will be caught by this statutory instrument. The whole thing is utterly absurd, and until the Government tell us what they mean by “demonstration”, which is not defined in the Act or in the statutory instrument, they must face the ridicule that they richly deserve...’ www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm20050/cmstand/deleg2/st051012/51012s01.htm
4. Hansard, 3 November 2004, column 386. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo041103/debtext/41103-27.htm
5. Evening Standard, 24 November 2004.
6. 1 July 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4640007.stm
7. 17 June 2005, www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,1508594,00.html
8. 23 July 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4710019.stm
9. Hansard, 8 December 2005, column 995. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm051208/debtext/51208-06.htm
10. CNN, 8 January 2003. www.edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/08/uk.ricin0720/index.html
11. From Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares, BBC 2, 18 January 2004
12. Horizon, BBC 2,13 July 2006.
13. Office of National Statistics. Cancer, suicide, flu and asthma deaths from 2000, MRS A deaths from 2003.
14. 18 March 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1227441.stm
15. A survey carried out by the Guardian and Reward Technolo
gy Forum found that the salaries of directors of Britain’s FTSE 100 companies rose by an average of 28 per cent, or 25.5 per cent above inflation, in the 2005 financial year. Average earnings rose by 3.7 per cent, or 1.2 per cent above inflation, for the same period.
16. In July 2006, the Healthcare Commission found that at least forty-one patients died in Stoke Mandeville Hospital because the hospital’s chief executives were more concerned with waiting-list targets than with keeping the hospital clean. Inspectors found ‘dirty wards, dirty toilets and commodes, bedding and equipment lying on floors, faeces on bed rails, pubic hair in baths, mould and cobwebs in showers’. Anna Walker, the commission’s chief executive, said there had been ‘serious failings on the part of senior managers who did not follow advice on stopping the spread of [superbug] infection’, and that the hospital trust’s board ‘mistakenly prioritised other objectives such as the achievement of government targets, the control of finances and the reconfiguration of services’.
17. In November 2006 the homeless charity Shelter published the findings of a report in which they found that 1.6 million children in Britain are living in ‘Bad Housing’: homes that are unfit, overcrowded or temporary accommodation. They discovered that children living in ‘Bad Housing’ are almost twice as likely as other children to leave school with no GCSEs, twice as likely to have been excluded from school, suffer poor health and be persistently bullied. They are five times as likely to have nowhere quiet to do homework, and more likely than other children to run away from home at least once in their lifetime.
18. 1 May 2001, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/may/01/mayday.immigrationpolicy1
19. 2 May 2001, www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0„481636,00.html
20. Hansard, 19 May 2004, column 242WH. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040519/halltext/40519h01.htm
21. Hansard, 7 February 2005 (Sir Patrick Cormack column 1300, Glenda Jackson column 1301). http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/vo050207/debtext/50207-41.htm
22. Sixty serious injuries in 2004 (and 2006) as opposed to zero serious injuries in 2004, Office of National Statistics.
23. 7 April 2002, http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1712.asp
24. Reprinted in Idler 25, Winter 1999.
25. A medieval peasant worked fewer hours than the average American does today (www.timeday.org/).
26. Idler 35, War on Work, May 2005.
27. www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page4644.asp
28. From ASBO watch at www.statewatch.org
29. 11 September 1996.
30. Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, ‘Parenting and children’s resilience in disadvantaged communities’, by Peter Seaman, Katrina Turner, Malcolm Hill, Anne Stafford and Moira Walker. http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/parenting-and-childrens-resilience-disadvantaged-communities
31. Dr Phoenix, ‘Youth justice: tough on punishment, soft on the causes of crime’, Bath University, research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/youthjustice300306.html
32. Oxford Student, February 2004. http://www.oxfordstudent.com/ht2004wk6/Features/the_other_oxford
33. Idler 25, Man’s Ruin, Winter 1999.
34. Arthur Pendragon and Christopher James Stone, The Trials of Arthur - The Life and Times of a Modern-Day King (Element, 2003).
35. B. Bryant and M. Denton-Thompson, Twyford Down: Roads, Campaigning and Environmental Law (E&FN Spon, 1996).
36. TLS, 21 February 1997. http://www.monbiot.com/1997/02/21/multi-issue-politics/
37. ‘Those aged over 50 now have accumulated assets estimated at £500bn. They own four-fifths of the nation’s wealth.’ Guardian Unlimited, 21 May 2006.
38. ‘In the shadow of Winston Churchill’s statue opposite the House of Commons, a rather odd ritual has developed on Sunday afternoons. A small group of people - mostly young and dressed outlandishly -hold a tea party on the grass of Parliament Square. A woman looking very much like Mary Poppins passes plates of frosted cakes and cookies, while other members of the party flourish blank placards or, as they did on the afternoon I was there, attempt a game of cricket.’ Henry Porter, Vanity Fair, July 2006.
39. In order to understand what a subjective recklessness test is, you first need to know what objective recklessness is. Here are Gareth’s definitions of both: ‘Objective recklessness’ is when a person does not give his mind to what is likely to happen, although a reasonable person would realize that some harm would follow from his act. If a person does something which is harmful without giving his mind to the consequences, and a reasonable person would have realized it would cause harm, that is ‘objective recklessness’. ‘Subjective recklessness’ is where a person realizes the consequences of his act yet goes on to carry out that act, although he may not intend that those consequences follow.
40. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liberty-human-rights.org.uk%2Fpolicy%2Freports%2Fcasualty-of-war-counter-terror-legislation-in-rural-england-2003.pdf&ei=PRo4U-vzBtSshQeVxoGICw&usg=AFQjCNE3WCp4mgwExwzvXMMAIWVp_0YkwA&sig2=uxzIaTiyLsF1P0Jfwsh4HA&bvm=bv.63808443,d.ZG4&cad=rja
41. Observer, 6 August 2006. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/aug/06/idcards.immigrationpolicy
42. www.strategy.gov.uk/downloads/su/privacy/papers/perri6.pdf
43. Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions (Penguin, 2005), p. 103.
44. From Robert Pape, Dying to Win: Why Suicide Terrorists Do It. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/aug/06/israel.syria
45. ‘By the end of the next Parliament every parent with children in primary school will be offered the guarantee of affordable school-based childcare from 8 to 6, from breakfast clubs in the morning to afterschool clubs in the evening - and not just during term time but all the year round.’ Tony Blair, 10 November 2004. www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page6561.asp
46. www.appc.org.uk
47. In November 2006 it emerged that the I-abour Party were £35.5 million in the red.
48. 25 June 2004, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jun/25/labour.politicalcolumnists
49. ‘Without fanfare, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) rolled out the National Space Policy on October 6 [2006] ... the Bush policy supports use of space nuclear power systems to “enable or significandy enhance space exploration or operational capabilities”. The document adds that utilization of nuclear power systems “shall be consistent with U.S. National and homeland security, and foreign policy interests, and take into account the potential risks” ... the Bush space policy is designed to “ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives.” Moreover, a fundamental goal of the policy is to “enable unhindered U.S. operations in and through space to defend our interests there.”’ www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-10-09-bush-space-policy_x.htm
50. www.wbcsd.ch/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MjExMTM.
51. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume 1: The Gathering Storm (Cassell, 1950).
52. From ‘Apathy in the UK’, first printed in The Face in 1995. The full version is available in Bliss To Be Alive: The Collected Writings of Gavin Hills, ed. Sheryl Garratt (Penguin, 2000).