Unhappy anniversary

My father died on this day 49 years ago, three days short of his 57th birthday.

He finished the day's work, closed the shop and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. He put the kettle on, and before it boiled he was dead. As simple as that.

Is it odd to remember something like this over so many lost years ?

He had had a hard time. His father, who always lived with us (actually I only discovered later that we were living with him), had died three months earlier, and my mum was already ill with the cancer that ended her life two years later. Yes, he was stressed, and still working an 80 hour week.

At the time, I was living in Beeston. There were no mobiles, and I had no landline. About 0200 a policeman came round to knock on the door and wake me up. He gave me the news, and left me this note:

This scrap of scribble has not lost any of its emotional impact, and I still feel myself beginning to cry as I scan it this morning.

My dad was a lovely bloke. Uncomplaining, placid, unflappable, stable. He had lost an arm to polio when he was 4 years old but had not let that stop him doing the things he wanted to do.

It is only relatively recently that I lost the ability to hear his voice in my head. It finally slipped away all unnoticed and I just can't hear it, the rhythm, the timbre, the chuckle.

This afternoon, sitting in the garden during the lock-down sunshine, I thought again that if he were to see me now, he would not recognise me. No longer 20, and much older than he was when he died, I would be a stranger.

But I would recognise him. Oh yes, I'd recognise him.

Does this make sense to you ?

An odd week.

The police have been interpreting the new lock-down restrictions, and have come up with a bunch of different, and often contradictory, answers.

So here, out in the country, the police have closed car parks at popular spots to stop people driving up to look at the views. They aren't checking people's shopping to make sure that it is essential items only. I am pretty sure we'd all have our own list of essential items, anyway.

Traffic is down, and police are stopping cars to wonder aloud why you are on the road.

Fines are being handed out across the country, and police are deciding whether you are allowed to stop during exercise, and for how long.

Meanwhile, it is reported today that 15000 people a day - that's right, fifteen thousand - are arriving at UK airports from places around the planet. Every day.

They are checked on arrival ? Wrong.

They are quarantined ? Wrong.

What ? They are sent away across the transport system to get wherever they are going to ? Right.

According to Matt Hancock, this is on the basis of medical advice. Really ?

It's clearly lunatic to let this happen, and you don't need a medic to figure that one out. The so-called lock-down is being breached daily while the government does nothing.

The huge joke is that the Big Brexit Boast was that we would once again control our borders. It didn't take too long to prove that one wrong. If the government can't guarantee that these arrivals are virus-free, they should close the borders. Since my post on Flight Risk, over 200,000 people have arrived, and none of them has been checked, tested, vetted, quarantined. They have all been waved through.

Bonkers or what ?

Rage, rage, against the lying of the right

Government by gaslighting is very much in vogue at the moment.

Perhaps alternative facts were always a tool of government. In 1604, Sir Henry Wotton defined a government official like this, with a wonderful intentional double entendre in the use of the word ‘lie’:

An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.

The difference in government now is that men and women, gentle or otherwise, are lying to their own people. That is, they are lying to us.

I am hypnotised by the sheer awfulness of Donald Trump. I read about him only-very-slightly obsessively, and watch aghast at his briefings, rallies, press conferences. He seems to have a remarkable ability to present alternative facts and to change them at will on a daily basis. He is all assertion without benefit of evidence, and he has the most remarkable ability to deny saying things which have been recorded on video.

His unhinged approach to the corona virus pandemic encapsulates his strategy: say whatever is politically and personally expedient, deny the actual facts, repeat alternative facts often, create confusion, refuse to answer questions (usually by attacking the questioner or the questions themselves, which he has taken to describing as ‘snarky’ or ‘nasty’.)

His habitual strategy is to create distractions, and attack dissenters. He makes no effort to win the argument except by cowing the opposition, or firing them if possible.

And of course, his unconcealed obsession with his numbers, his popularity, his electoral success is both disturbing and abnormally detached from reality.

Dr Stephanie Sarkis has helpfully identified key indicators of gaslighting. People who gaslight are described as emotionally manipulative and abusive and they characteristically

·         tell blatant lies
·         deny they ever said something, even though you have proof
·         use what is near and dear to you as ammunition
·         wear you down over time
·         do not match their actions to their words
·         throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you
·         know confusion weakens people
·        project
·         try to align people against you
·         tell you or others that you are crazy
·         tell you everyone else is a liar

It’s worth thinking about Trump in these terms. Read the list again. Does his behaviour match any of the above indicators ?

My fear is that Trump simply makes explicit and overt what is happening here also. Sure, we might live in a post-truth society, but it is disturbing when governments are elected on the basis of cynical untruths, and then go on to govern by gaslighting.

Boris Johnson was elected on the basis of a campaign fabricated from alternative facts and soundbites. He studiously avoided scrutiny, and still does. It is understandable that he would want to avoid close and intelligent questioning. Quite good enough that he was elected and gained five years of power.

Right now, this week, the government, through Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock and others, is insisting that:

There is sufficient protective equipment for NHS staff if only they use it correctly. This is clearly not the case, as is evidenced by continuing protests from NHS staff themselves. Some NHS protesters have died, and a lack of protective equipment may have been a contributory factor 

The NHS has the ventilators it needs. This is also clearly not the case, with reports that hospital TV shows have contributed working ventilators from their sets 

There is a plan, albeit undisclosed, to end the lock-down 

Medical advice suggests that passengers arriving by plane from overseas are in no need of testing or quarantine when they enter. They are able to bring in new infection without any obstacle. 

The government is on target to test 100 000 people a day at the end of April. This is considerably more than have been tested so far, and, even if reached, this number would mean that that it would take 600 days to test the whole population. The government is adamant that testing is under control.

As I write, we are all locked down, advised to stay home, save lives, and save the NHS. Keeping us at home appears to be the sole strategy the government has, and there is no hint of an admission that the NHS might have been better able to cope had successive governments paid more attention to equipping the NHS instead of systematically starving it of resources over very many years.

This feels like gaslighting to me. Read the list of indicators and map the government’s position and statements on corona-virus. As I wrote this last sentence, the BBC reported that there is overwhelming public support for the government. The government says so.

Well, I am so relieved.

The corona virus is a lens through which we can see what governments – including our government – do routinely. Think about Jack Straw’s notorious affected ignorance about extraordinary rendition. Think about Blair’s WMD in Iraq, all primed and ready to go. Think about the whole Brexit saga.

Gaslighting is manipulative and abusive behaviour. And you and I are the abused.

Sunday afternoons

This could be a breakthrough test to sort out optimists and pessimists.

This week - during the Great Lock-down - I spoke to two friends separately. There was no collusion, and I didn't mention Sundays at all, even though Sunday afternoon does feel the deadliest part of the week.

The first comment was

Well, one thing about the virus: at least Sunday afterrnoons don't feel so bad any more now that Sunday feels like every other day.

The other said

 I hate it that every day feels like Sunday now.

Same idea, but very different viewpoint.

What is it about Sundays that creates that feeling that something has gone so badly wrong with the universe ?

These remarks made me think about the bit in The Two Popes (wonderful film) where Bergoglio tells the story of two priests. One asks his spiritual director whether it is OK to smoke while praying. Of course not, is the response. A fellow priest - a Jesuit - told him he was simply asking the wrong question. Is it OK, he asked the spiritual director, to pray while smoking ?

John Crace

Do you know John Crace ?

He writes politcial commentary in the Grauniad. If there is a god, may she love that man.

John Crace walks confidently on the tightrope with a wonderful mixture of sharp wit, and serious comment. Is he funny or serious ? Both. He does both with panache, and often both at once.

Beaumarchais remarked

Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d’être obligé d’en pleurer
(I make myself laugh at everything, for fear of having to weep)

I think this sentiment informs what John Crace is about. He seems angered, saddened, sometimes even desperate, but rather than yield to those emotions his alchemy transmutes them into humour, losing none of their power in the process.

He is unsparing of the politicians, who must wake every morning and be grateful that John did not become a reporter. It would take some skill to avoid being eviscerated by his incredulity. Perhaps he should consider a second career.

He has a lovely turn of phrase, and coins tags that stick. I think the term 'Maybot' is his, together with the conceit that Theresa May (remember her ?) was a malfunctioning automaton. It was hilarious because that was exactly what she seemed like: descrioption rather than barb.

His is the phrase 'classic Dom', a continuing series of swipes at Dominic Cummings, the unelected Svengali of Number 10, and probably the guy pulling the strings that have Johnson ineptly dancing.
I suspect that JC suffers from a strong element of self-doubt about what he does. If so, he is in excellent company. Brecht, despairing of the rise of political brutality in Europe, questioned the value of his work, and wrote:

Aber die Herrschenden sassen ohne mich sicherer, das hoffte ich
But I hoped that without me, those in power would sit that bit more comfortably

John Crace can take comfort in the company he keeps, and in the certainty that those in power would definitely have an easier life if could not write.

When we have done banging pans and clapping NHS staff, maybe we should raise a grateful noise for John, and those like him, whose wit vents the feelings we all have, and who so lightly hold our politicians feet to the fire. Our mental health depends so much on them.

So what are your solutions ?

Being in lock-down gives you lots of time to think. Time to read.

I love Michael Ventura. He is one of those not-so-well known writers who seem to speak for a generation, who just manage to tune in to the Zeitgeist and channel it. Paul Simon always had the knack of writing songs like this, songs that just spoke for the times.

I was thinking about people who had insoired me, who shaped the way I think, and remembered Michael Ventura. A long time ago I read and re-read and re-re-read his Letters at 3 a.m.: Reports on Endarkenment (1994) .

In that book, he offers his 'Solutions to all our problems'. He listed 30, and intrdiced them like this:

It’s happened once too often. Somebody says or writes to me, ‘You talk about what’s wrong, but you don’t offer solutions.’ And maybe they’re right. Maybe to merely detail one’s vision and let readers take it from there isn’t enough. Maybe there are solutions, and maybe I should know them. So I sat down and thought about things real hard, and here, numbered for your convenience, are my solutions to everything.

His last 'solution' was this:

Stop looking for other people to supply the solution. You’re the solution. If you’re not, there is no solution.

And it struck me then, and again yesterday, that he was right. We have to find solutions for ourselves, solutions that work for us. Not just pragmatic solutions that help you get the lid off the paint without getting it all over your trousers (yes, I have been painting). Solutions to stuff that matters. So I was inspired to have a go at my own list - shorter than Michael's - and reading it again yesterday I only needed small tweaks to bring it up to date.

If these are no good, well, make your own. Of course. Here goes:

Solutions (after Michael Ventura)

 Try not to trade sunny days for money. Work doesn’t have to define your life, and the idea of regular attendance at a place of work is relatively recent. Work can shape and dominate your life, and you have to be determined not to let it.

Education should be more than just the process by which the state grooms future taxpayers for later exploitation. Children crawl, walk, talk and learn at their own pace and time. All the hurdles education puts in their way are artificial. Just try to stop children learning – it can’t be done. But schools almost manage it by squeezing out the spontaneity and joy in learning. And education schools children to squander sunny days.

Beware conformity. Conformity to values, habits, customs, other people’s expectations always round down. Conformity is about forcing round, triangular, hexagonal, spherical, 4 dimensional pegs into someone else’s square holes. No surprise that the fit isn’t comfortable. Ask yourself in any situation whether anything is gained by conforming, and whether anything is lost.

This is your life. You have just one. There is nothing after it. If you can’t make things better now, they never will get better. And nobody will make things better for you. You have to do it yourself.

Avoid organised religion and all its works. Building irrationality into your life is never a great idea. Building in someone else’s irrationality is just crazy. Think about the balance sheet for religion and what it has contributed; guilt, self-loathing, wars, repression, hierarchies, intolerance, narrow-minded legislation, social control. The good things religion has managed to do could be achieved without the trappings.

 Believe things. Believe in people. Believe in yourself.

 Be still. Make space and time to smell blossom, count grass, watch clouds, listen to the music of the world.

 Don’t trust politicians to make a positive difference or look after your world. They won’t see further than hanging onto power and won’t act in your interests. You have to make the differences yourself. Think global, act local was always the way to go.

Live simply. Thoreau said that a man was rich in proportion to what he could live without. Having is only an illusory substitute for being. Make things, and make them beautiful. Do things for yourself. Be as self-sufficent as possible.

Travel less and journey more. And never be a tourist. There is an unknown world right on your doorstep, and your adventures won’t be any more exotic because you had to fly or drive to them. Like sex, the best journeying is in your head.