Boadicea's Chariot

There are endless reasons why I like France like no other country in which I have lived and worked. My wife is certainly high on the list. But in truth it is a spirit a love an emotion. Let me simply recount an incident that I will never forget and which encapsulates a lot about the country.

I was in a meeting on economic development of the Loiret. Many top people were there. The prefet, the mayor, senior offices from the army base, senior business people etc. etc.

A woman stood up and completely off subject she ranted about the way her boss had treated her and how she had received no redress from the employment tribunal. She was quite upset. She was a simple person who used very simple French. She went on for quite a long while. I expected somebody to ask her to be quiet, nobody did. She completed what she had to say. She sat down. She received a polite round of applause. The Prefet who was presiding the meeting said he thanked the lady for her contribution and asked his assistant to contact the lady for her name and address so he could assist her. The meeting moved on.
Call it savoir vivre, tolerance, sympathy, human decency or what you will.

Frankie Laine – Water, Cool, Clear Water.

Here’s one that I wrote for a touring cricket team in 1981. I hope that Bearsie, Soutie and a couple of others might enjoy it. I also hope, of course, that the scales will fall from Ferret’s eyes and he might start to appreciate the joy that is cricket. Not holding my breath for that eventuality, in all honesty.

Most of you will be familiar with SASS (the Society for Asserting Scottish Superiority). You are bound to have come across its famous coat of arms – a rampant Scotsman surmounted by crossed whisky bottles and flanked by two inferior Englishmen couchant, the whole emblazoned with the motto ‘Sumus Populus’ . It is a familiar sight on blazers in many a pub and club throughout the civilized world and England. Continue reading “Scottish Cricket – the way forward”

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
Henry David Thoreau

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.

The two are inextricably linked. How, pray, could it be otherwise? (I’m talking mainly about Europe here, you have a special case in SA and, to a lesser extent, in the USA, those of you from those countries.) Human trafficking is a US$ 44 billion a year business

Human trafficking is a small industry by comparison, worth under $44bn but arguably the most pernicious. According to the UN, up to 27 million people are now held in slavery, far more than at the peak of the African slave trade. The majority of the victims this time are Asian women.

Each and every illegal immigrant has entered into a conspiracy to break the law.* The people they are dealing with make their money regardless of the doom of the illegal immigrant, whether it be a sweatshop in UK, a brothel in france or a Pizza parlour, fer Pete’s sake. All of these are part of the black economy, don’t forget. No return to the country of destination, no income tax, NICs or VAT and, unless you’re a cabinet minister, employing or dealing with illegal immigrants can put you in jail – or worse; ask the family of Karen Reed.

It can be a deadly crossing. Last September a Chechen woman tried to enter Europe with her four young children from hills on the Ukrainian side of the border, just a few miles from the smuggler’s village.

Walking alone she lost her bearings in heavy rain and falling temperatures. Panicked, she left behind her three daughters, aged between 6 and 13, to search for help. Polish border guards found her and her two-year-old son wandering aimlessly. But by the time they reached the girls, all had died from hypothermia.

Reference

Last night my wife and I went to see Emerald Germs of Ireland, a play by the well-known Irish writer Pat McCabe, in the Ramor Theatre in Virginia. We’re very lucky that our small local theatre gets to host a lot of exceptional drama (including McCabe’s earlier The Dead School) – a world premiere in this instance. Continue reading “Emerald Germs of Ireland”

The news today is that Greece will receive about 110 billion euros over the next three years from the IMF and the EU. Greece will introduce further austerity measures.

Is that the end to this long running saga? No doubt not, the German government has to get approvals and will probably be contested in both parliament and the constitutional court. Maybe other countries will have problems. Although there is no great enthusiasm here in France to support the spendthrift Greeks there will be no contestation either. Greece has to make their measures stick too, they have an awful lot of work to do in modernising their economy and getting some proper financial control.

Maybe with hindsight it was wrong to let Greece into the euro, they just were not ready and should have waited longer. Message for Eastern Europe there. But on the other hand there is no guarantee that waiting would have helped, it is not sure that without the IMF and EU pressure, Greece would have been able to stand up to its public sector unions. Again Greece is small enough for the EU to handle, maybe it was better that we perfect our bailout procedures on a smaller nation rather than Spain say.

Although these are tough times, and I must admit I have been a bit disappointed with the German intransigence. Yes be tough to get movement, but by being overly tough Germany just risked destroying the Greeks motivation, creating a worse problem and stirring up a lot of anti German resentment which is always close to the surface. They also discovered that they can’t walk away from their economic hinterland.

They have been exciting times too. Building the federal Europe was never going to be easy. For those that believe that all is sweetness and light on the Continent, this incident has proven that some fairly strong tensions remain. But, and that is the essential point, we are holding together, the desire to be a political union here in Europe is strong enough to overcome the severest of crises, and make further steps on the road of ever closer union. Our new President has also scored a few points making sure that he was in on the key decision making.

The AS always help, the Goldman Sachs suspect lending and the rating agencies lack of transparency and objectivity helps to keep us united.

Bali police round up the gigolos

By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent

Sunday, 2 May 2010

For years they have been a familiar sight: the bronzed young men who patrol Bali’s main beach, offering friendship – and often more – to female foreign tourists. But now the “Kuta cowboys”, as they are known, face an uncertain future, thanks to an uproar provoked by a warts-and-all documentary.

Cowboys in Paradise has infuriated tourism officials on the Indonesian holiday island. Twenty-eight suspected gigolos, described by police as “young, fit-looking and tanned”, were rounded up and questioned following a raid on Kuta Beach last week.

An all-female task force of officers of a certain age carried out the raid.

The men are still missing.

Kinks – State of Confusion