MGM

30 years late the first prosecution for carrying out FGM in the UK is about to happen. It does make you wonder, not only about how much other legislation is inadequately policed or enforced, but also about why there has not been the moral outrage about FGM here that has been so evident in, for example, France.

FGM is so brutally damaging that it really leaves the mind reeling in search of a reasonable explanation for it becoming socially acceptable. And of course, there isn't one. FGM is founded upon ancient superstition, rampant patriarchalism, warped views on sexuality, and a vicious disregard for women's right and welfare.

While nowhere near as brutal, Male Genital Mutilation (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer may need a re-think) also thrives. MGM happily masquerades as harmless and socially acceptable throughout western societies who really ought to know better. 

If circumcision is not Male Genital Mutilation (the clue is in the name) then what is it, exactly ?

Are the reasons for MGM any more acceptable, any more justifiable, than those given for FGM ?

MGM is carried out largely for reasons that are non-medical. It snatches away choice. It is irreversible. It permanently mutilates and deforms the penis. It may have significant long-term effects on sensitivity and sexual happiness. It is  - except in rare cases - wholly unecessary. It is carried out on significant numbers of children, minors below the age of consent.

In spite of this, MGM is not illegal.

If we found that to perpetuate a bunch of social and/ or religious expectations minors were having their tongues pierced with hot irons, there would (rightly) be an outcry. It would be seen as abuse, however clinically performed, however sterile the conditions. But MGM is accepted in the same way we accept the neutering of pets: without a thought, without a question.

As a young child I was circumcised, for 'reasons' that were not medical, and certainly not religious. Probably through some misguided sense of hygiene, some vague idea of fashionable fads, or some deep sexual anxiety in my parents. I have hated the result all my life, and, though now over 60, have never managed to feel less than mutilated. I have been outraged by it all my life. No child, NO child, deserves this.

It is a great delight that at last, at last, FGM is receiving the attention it deserves, that far fewer women will have their lives blighted by such a terrible and wholly unnecessary act of well-intentioned barbarism.

It would be wonderful to think that one result of our shrinking tolerance for brutality against the powerless might be a new look at MGM, and maybe some legislation to protect all those too young to guard themselves and their long-term interests.

And to all those who will immediately worry about religious groups who wish to circumcise all their males, legislation would play no part in preventing elective circumcision at the age of consent. It could even be guaranteed on the NHS for all those choosing to have the operation. Those who chose to mutilate their own genitals would be assisted without question, even if an occasional discreet eyebrow rose somewhat quizzically.

Surely this would be a fair approach, avoiding as it does all damage to minors, wahtever the motives.

Taylor made, and quality service

Music is a mood-altering drug, and I have mainlined all my life. The Gibson Blue Ridge, with very unfashionable square shoulders, has seen me through since 1973. It was one of a collection up to 1996 when I put the rest in store and they were destroyed in a fire. The spaces between the frets are scalloped out through endless playing, and the neck has a sculptural feel to it. The Gibson's voice has muddied a little over the years. It doesn't have the clarity of a similarly aged Martin, and it has lost some brightness. But then again, so have my ears, so maybe this is me. The Blue Ridge was an entry level Gibson, and many had laminated backs and side. I was just lucky with this one, which is solid sitka spruce on top, and solid rosewood at the back. It has plenty of dings now, but is still a lovely instrument. For years it played better than I did, but as it got worse, I got better, and we are more or less even nowadays. The Taylor is guitar heaven. I was tempted by USA Fenders, a Music Man, and a range of seductive shapes and tones, but when I played this thing the competition was done. It is just a wonderful guitar with tones to die for, and it's a really innovative design. The truly amazing thing here is that after 14 months or so I had a problem with the switching. As you want to switch in the middle of playing something and have micro-seconds to do it, the switching has to be reliable and work every time. Mine wasn't reliable at all, and only with fiddling around could you switch pick-ups.It went back to shop. No good. It went to a specialist who was bewildered. They gave up. I was despairing, and sent a letter via snail-mail to Bob Taylor in California. It's his company, so why not go to the top ? Worth a try, right ? But would it ever reach him ? Then an email popped up. Hi Dave, sorry to hear about your switching problem. I just want to tell you that I got your letter and help is on the way. Expect to hear more very quickly. Bob The man himself ! In person. It was like coming home and finding that God had left a message on the answer machine. And dynamic or what ?  I loved the last sentence. It was the kind of positive I wanted in my switch. There was something here that inspired confidence. Wow. He was as good as his word. A guy called me the same day and within a week my guitar had been collected, couriered away, fixed, and safely delivered home again. All free of charge, all perfect on return. I mailed Bob to thank him and got this reply: You are welcome. Over the next few months and few years we are determined to bring the entire US Taylor experience to the UK and the whole of Europe. It's our goal and we take it seriously.  Now that's service. I loved the Taylor before, but now I am a devotee. Can you think of anywhere in the UK that would give this kind of service ? Closing thought from Bob Taylor It really shouldn't be that hard to get a guitar fixed. Simples !

Is this what we want ?

Difficult reading in the Grauniad this week. A report that 12 families in the UK own wealth equivalent to the collected wealth of the poorest 20% of the population.

Not much discussion of this around, though. Could it be that it is just too uncomfortable a fact to get to grips with ?

It takes some thinking about. That 20%, in very broad terms, based on a population of 60m people, is 12 000 000 people. It's worth seeing the noughts rather than just the 'm' in this case.

My maths says that makes 1 rich family equivalent to 1m non-rich people.

Some of these non-rich people are using food banks as never before. Some of these non-rich people are choosing between eating and heating. Some of these non-rich people have no financial resilience whatsoever: no savings, no prospect of savings.

All of these non-rich people are people.

The Grauniad story is stunning, shocking, just mind-blowing. Our political view of ourselves as a nation is very different. We self-identify as the cradle of modern democracy, we parade our tolerance, we brag about our freedom of speech, we exult in our political sophistication, we rejoice in our mother of parliaments.

Is this the kind of inequality that we wish to promote, or even tolerate ?

John Bright said that what was morally wrong could never be politically right.

Isn't it time to take this concept rather closer to heart and ask some slightly deeper questions about the kind of society we wish to live in ? Assuming, arguendo, that we don't feel entirely happy that the non-rich are expected to live their impoverished lives in support of the lavishly wealthy.

This isn't the politics of envy. It's the politics of equity. It's politics as if people mattered.

Tony Benn

I did not know Tony Benn. I much regret that, and admired not only his persuasive eloquence, his ready humour, his enormous patience, his common touch, but his huge passionate conviction.

I did meet him, though, and will not easily forget it.

Twenty years ago he came to open a new toilet block at an infant school, and I was there to represent the local authority. Tony Benn talked and laughed easily with everyone. I was struck by how short a man he was. My imagination had given him a physique as vast and powerful as his rhetoric.

When the official moment came, he gave a short speech to open the new block. This was not a moment, he said, for celebration or self-congratulation. The children here had at last been given toilet facilities which should have been their right for a century. Having indoor toilets was something that we should be able to take for granted, not something we should celebrate as if it was a major achievement. Today's grand opening should please us, but should remind us of how slow progress had been for some people.

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others" was a Groucho Marx one-liner which seems to fit so many politicians. Tony Benn seemed to be drawing his convictions from something rather deeper than the latest focus group, the latest trend on Twitter.

I liked him a lot.

Drifting

Exactly a year ago, this was my car, this was my drive, and these were not my snow-drifts, but they were certainly my problem.

Today I was wearing shorts, but will spare you the picture.

Global warming can't be all bad.

My life in six rabbits

Recovering at last from measles, aged 7, I went out into our back yard to see my rabbit. It had gone. The hutch was preternaturally clean and there was no sign of recent habitation. What could have happened ?

Mugshot of the deceased

My rabbit had fallen victim to my mum's drive for order and tidiness, and I had not been assiduous enough in cleaning the thing out to meet her exacting standards. Always a ruthless disposer of the unwanted (furniture moved down to the cellar kitchen for 'storage' but was never seen again), it was true. She had offed my rabbit. Or at least taken it for a ride.

Nobody had mentioned this, and it was a surprising setback to recuperation.

As was the tactless rabbit pie a few days later. It was a first foray into vegetarianism.

Later, aged 30-something, I looked after a friend's rabbit when she was away. He came to stay at our place. He was a rabbit to be reckoned with and came with a chain attached to his own breeze block. 

Visual aid - breeze block without rabbit

He dragged the breeze block round the garden after the fashion of nutters training for Arctic adventures by dragging tractor tyres to Sainsbury's and back. This rabbit was huge, and had a malevolent glare. He could see off visiting dogs and the children were terrified of him. So was I. Try and pick him up and you were in for a fight. The best you could do was grab his breeze block and see who could pull hardest.

Then there was Milky. Milky was my school rabbit, and not at all butch. The clue is in the name. During holidays he went home by rota. When there were no volunteers, I took him home. Milky was a large and much cuddled white rabbit. The kind of rabbit which is dragged with a look of startled surmise from magicians' hats. Milky was rather portly, and not given to breeze blocks. 

Milky look-alike - re-enactment

He was a bit conspicuous in our garden, being easily spotted from down the road. 

Especially by Dobie.

Dobie ("He wouldn't hurt a fly") did not have a surname, but "Thug" would have worked a treat. He was the Doberman from the local pub, and he wandered freely. Dobie took a liking to Milky, and when we came down to find Milky gone and his hutch upside down in a flowerbed, it was wasn't a huge leap to think of Dobie. Later it turned out that Dobie had been spotted exiting at speed with something in his jaws.

Dobie lookalike practises smiling. Could try harder.

For the kids at school this was not too great an end for Milky, so they only knew that he, sadly, had died.

And then, only last year, we thought we had a mouse. This was not the mouse I caught 17 times in the same humane trap, releasing it in the next field each morning before twigging that it was merely sauntering back each afternoon from where I let it go. No, this was the creature from hell. Traps were overturned, the bait taken. Humane traps were licked across the kitchen on several nights. 

Maybe a rat ? In the kitchen ? 

One evening I heard a rustle, closed the kitchen door to stop any escape (even mine) and peered behind the dresser. I came face to face with large eyes staring out at me. A rabbit. It took one look at me, headed for the washing machine and was gone. After dismantling the kitchen piece by piece, it turned out that the rabbit was camped under the fridge, as my patient wife had suggested all along. On seeing me, it dodged into a pipe duct and much more dismantling was required before the renegade rabbit was released from the tame back into the wild.

Captured kitchen rabbit

And then there are my bloganonymous neighbours' Lion's Mane Rabbits. Thoroughbreds. Kings of the rabbit realm. Fudge and Chocolate by name. And it is my job to look after them when said neighbours go away. They try to burrow out, and to prevent this, I move the run each half day. This trims the lawn as well as ensuring that holes do not get right under the wire. I have talked to BN about the possibility of the rabbits dying on my watch, and the difficulty the children might experience. Inexplicable memories of measles swirl in my head.

One morning, the hutch door was open. Inside Chocolate was looking, er, sheepish. But Fudge was gone. He had clearly busted the door down and gone on the lam.

I gave chase, riding a bike and armed with binoculars. We are surrounded by fields. Another neighbour told me he had seen the rabbit the evening before. It had headed down the road, and the trail was now 14 hours cold. He could have hopped to Rotherham in half the time. The neighbour, being a dope, had not thought to shut the hutch, or to mention the missing rabbit.

Hmm.

That afternoon, after combing the area, much to the astonishment of local cows, I returned, dejected. There, right before my eyes, were two rabbits. Two rabbits, and the hutch was shut. What hallucination was this ? Was there a secret tunnel in and out that I had not spotted ? Fudge was looking fly. Lion's mane neat, he was as cool as frozen yogurt. He was an insouciant rabbit. He was an UNBELIEVABLE rabbit.

I screwed new locks on the doors. The hutch is now like Fort Knox with attitude. No rabbit will bust out again on my watch. It is the rabbit Alcatraz of The Peak District.

Neighbour 3 had found Fudge heading along the main road in the village, and recognising him as a fugitive, had scooped him up and brought him back, without thinking that I might like to know. Of course, thinking that she was doing me a favour, and that I would not even know that he had gone.

Rabbits.

Grrr.

Bluebirds

This glass is a family favourite. 

No idea why. It beats me as the stylised approach and the repetitive elements do not work for me. But it was fun to make, and the buzz really comes from having other people enjoy it.

I saw this piece on a holiday in the Lakes, and, along with a bunch of others, knew I had to have a go at making them, albeit on a slightly reduced scale.

Bob Crow

De mortuis nil nisi bonum. 

That never made any sense to me, and always seems like an attempt to stifle open, honest discussion. An unchallenged triumph of received wisdom. An uncontested loss. It always seemed to be redolent of emotional blackmail: an insistence on one view rather than many, along with a refusal to discuss what that view should be. It feels analogous to the concept that we never criticise the army when it is in action, which actually is exactly the time that critical faculties ought to be on high alert. 

Well, Max Hastings does not believe in de mortuis nil nisi bonum either. In today's Daily Mail he has written a piece on Bob Crow under the headline: A tragic death, yes. But in the name of sanity why are so many sanctifying Bob Crow? 

Max Hastings is entitled to his view, which is that Bob Crow was at heart the spawn of the devil, a political agitator of the worst kind, being inexplicably successful. 

The headline is not Max Hasting's own, of course, and he is not responsible for it. But his piece does wonder aloud why so many, including political foes, have spoken so well of Bob Crow. 

Is the answer, in part at least, that here was an honest man, a palpably honest man, a man who not only survived but succeeded in a field where honest men (or women) are not exactly over-supplied ? 

Is it in part that people knew where they stood with Bob Crow because he believed in what he was doing and saying ? 

In politics, "honest politician" feels like a contradiction in terms, like "military intelligence". Vonnegut suggested that when we listen to a politician, we do not listen to the content. Instead, we are checking the words and gestures against a simple construct and asking ourselves: is this an honest person ? 

Honest people are not always comfortable. They do not conform their truths to sit the audience, the circumstances. They can seem difficult, belligerent, unreasonable, contradictory, obtuse. 

Mrs Thatcher and Bob Crow amongst their polar political differences managed to share this trait: they were honest, and believed in their cause. 

Such conviction, such uncompromising directness is now so rare, so unicorn-like, that it inspires almost involuntary affection. 

With Bob Crow you might not always have liked where you stood, but at least you knew where you stood. 

And so did he. 

We are all poorer by his death.

One life: live it

Si tecum mihi, care Martialis,
securis liceat frui diebus,
si disponere tempus otiosum
et verae pariter vacare vitae:
nec nos atria, nec domos potentum,
nec litis tetricas forumque triste
nossemus, nec imagines superbas;
sed gestatio, fabulae, libelli,
campus, porticus, umbra, Virgo, thermae,
haec essent loca semper, hi labores.
nunc vivit necuter sibi, bonosque
soles effugere atque abire sentit,
qui nobis pereunt et inputantur.
quisquam vivere cum sciat, moratur? 

If you and I had the chance to enjoy our time without worries,

if we could use our days for leisure and live life to the full,

we would not waste it in the hallways and houses of the rich and powerful.

We’d be strangers to the courts and the dull forum. We’d waste no time paying respects to even illustrious forebears.

No. We’d dawdle, tell stories, read books. We’d enjoy the open air, stroll in the shade, exercise, relax at the baths.

Yes, these would be our workplaces.

Right now, neither of us lives as if we matter. We feel our sunny days slip away and disappear. They are lost to us forever, but still go down on our tab.

Does anyone who knows how to live waste any time in getting started ?