1245 Oliver Twist and the Human Factor

I awoke and could hear what I interpreted as a nearby house alarm but it seemed to continue on and on as I dozed and came too several times and there I wondered and then I realised what it was and that from 8.30 until 9.48 the buzzer had been my unpacked disconnected alarm clock, but with battery, in the one of the travel bags, somewhere in the house. Just as well the neighbours on the side of the house are away and there is the open patio space on the other.

It has been a leisurely day and commenced with opening and sending a Christmas card and the decision to write an overview of the year, something I used to do, but stopped two years ago. There was no attempt to be comprehensive, and it proved a longer than had time for experience, as I attempted to distil priorities and summarise.

I made do with soup and then there was another letter and card and decisions to sort out this and that, a visit to the Council's environmental centre to dispose of accumulated rubbish, but the pong from the decaying prawn heads and shells was such that I decided to do the supermarket first and acquire some air freshener, but before that I took my suit to the dry cleaners, also my main car wearing coat, but the label was machine washable so it came back via the post office and supermarket where a lot of time was used finding the air freshener, which proved essential once the rubbish was in the vehicle.

It was not until just before the new five day production of Oliver Twist that I felt the need for food, Chinese style chicken wings, a generous carton followed by a puff pastry mince pie. The Oliver Twist is yet to compete with the most recent film production strangely omitted from the Daily Mail Role Replay information which mentions the original 1948 film and the 1968 musical. Oliver Twist is the story of the Male Supremacist nature of early Victorian society ranging from the attitude of the mother of Oliver Twist and the abuse and exploitation of Nancy and the way the ready way in which the upper and middle classes relished sending street children who committed offences to the gallows, on prison ships to the colonies or to hard labour in prisons, or the workhouse. The pervading attitudes of those are still heard on daily chat shows such as five live.

I was then looking forward the last Spooks as there was no advance showing last week but fell soundly asleep. I woke again in time of a gem of a programme about three women who went in search of their parents, two fathers and one mother. The two fathers were found through the Salvation Army service both with positive outcomes but sadly the woman who has spent nearly two decades trying to find if her mother is alive and two years actively enquiring since the death of her father had by the end of the programme failed to make any progress. The national release of a photograph tonight will hopefully produce the breakthrough for her.

I have written before about the power of this drive to know and how society makes this difficult by allowing mother to register births without information about the name and known circumstances of the biological father

Of course there will continue to be deceptions with false information provided and circumstances where the information is not known or where the circumstances are tricky, but as with adoption there should be opportunity when a young person reaches adulthood to be given the option to obtain the available information, with advance counselling provision if requested. The secrecy is often from the best of intentions and there are sometimes other children or family members whose protection is just as significant at the time, but the power to know should carry a right. The kind of crude bestial justice which is part of the Muslim faith in many countries and supported by national laws in relation to the behaviour and position of women, and as used to be and still is the attitude towards the female in predominantly Catholic nations and which underlines the hypocrisy of the male attitude to the Mary's in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, is symptomatic of male supremacist societies. The way the House of Commons is organised with the gladiatorial combat of Prime Minister's Question Times is another and oh for a Prime Minister with the self confident guts to refuse to perform for their party and for the benefit of the medias, for opposition leaders with similar self confidence, guts and integrity.

And what is this nonsense of the latest sound bite politics of the Liberal Democrats, power to the people, regardless of consequence in terms of justice as fairness, Hullo just as it is fair, is it? for English families to pay for the Scots to enable their children to go to University without the mill stone of charges or for the elderly to retain the value of their savings when they require residential care or comprehensive care, we are now to support the reactionary Liberal notion that it is OK if those who are interested in power holding decide to introduce fascist approaches to the running of hospital or schools, or reintroduce poor law type institutions, of course liberals don't, so why spout the claptrap echoed by Paddy Ashdown and no doubt the assembly of other former party leaders rejected by heir own members or the country at one time or the other, and two men again after the party demonstrated as all the major parties do their ageism. The hypocrisy of attitudes towards, children, the old and the female has not changed although in society in general there is change with recent examples the Queen demonstrating what a better job she has done than any man or that splendid engineer project coordinator for the St Pancras enterprise. This is not an issue of physiological prejudice but of attitude and approach.
This work of tracing missing parents is one role for the Salvation Army who apparently is able to trace 80% of the 4000 requests for help each year and merits greater public recognition. The figures mean over 30000 quests have been solved in the past decade alone.

I then finished the evening with a poor Le Carre type spy traitor film based on a Graham Green, The Human Factor, the last film of the Man with the Golden Arm Otto Preminger and a screen play by Tom Stoppard. The film has nothing original in terms of story and characterization and is light years away from series such Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The double Spy, is Nicole Williamson an actor who has never been convincing or impressed me with a cast of many talents, Richard Attenborough, Robert Morley, Sir John Gielgud and Derek Jacobi and I could have been better employed with my time but once commenced I felt obliged to see it through.

Yesterday was the penultimate programme about the Queen featured the number of official visits, a Royal Garden Party and an aborted visit to open the new Arsenal Football club and broadened to other family members with Charles and Camilla travelling to organic farmers and them meeting farmers in a local pub. The Garden party was interesting because it is regarded as a treat for those who will not make it to an investiture. People dress expensively and queue for half an hour to get in but are given free entry into the Palace and a scrumptious tea of fine fare before being gathered in lines for a family walkabout in which individuals are pre selected to have a few words said to them by the Queen. On hot days as the summer of a year ago, so distant now St Johns was much in demand. Those who are considered VIP's have their own Marquee and a special walk walkabout session. The one important conclusion from the series which has its last episode at Christmas is the serious effort which the firm makes to fit in and understands contemporary society at all levels. It is difficult for anyone wanting to do the job and to attempt consistent professional perfection for decade upon decade. The nature of his task was wonderful portrayed by one stupid woman who drags her mother and son around the country to wave flags and get a close up of the Queen. At one level she was awful cringing embarrassing and one wondered how many of the flay wavers were of this ilk, but she also fulfils an important constitutional function that our brings in he tourist need for the public flag waver, and in fairness I would rather have her as Queen follower than yet another idiot giving credence that those waste of space personalities to contribute nothing to society except their lack of substance.

At last someone has said in the media what I have long suspected, that just as those behind the TV telephone competitions were able to fix outcomes with thousands continuing to phone with no chance of winning, the question has been asked of the X Factor and were thousands prevented from phoning in order to fix the outcome? How could a margin of 1% change to 10% so quickly? Did the earlier votes still count?

1236 Travelling to London and Churchill's Daughter

Arriving just after seven and demolishing the other roll, a puff pastry mince pie, some grapes and a pear and a cup of tea there was no inclination to go the pictures as intended and the attempt to find out about wireless without being on line was set aside to watch a programme about the wife of Randolph Churchill which included the surprisingly candid comments of their son Winston. The programme was called Churchill's daughter although she was of course his daughter in law.

The programme and the their son and statements by the daughter in law provided a picture of Randolph as a risk taking gambler who in the war lost three year's salary on his way to Egypt and who liked alcohol too much. However even he found the behaviour of his wife too rich as she established herself as confident to her father in law and embryonic courtesan to the rich and famous. It is said that with Churchill's blessing and while still married to his son she became mistress of the leading American in the land and therefore provided Churchill with a unique perspective of the American viewpoint throughout the war from pillow talk. After which there was nothing stopping her although period in Paris and France led to a premature departure.

Young Winston admitted that he never had a mother in the conventional sense and was thrust into the adult world from the age of nine year, expected to accompany her on functions with other adults when she did not have a personal male escort, this included taking her to dances. It was when she met and married the aging and exceptionally wealthy Averill Harriman that her fortunes changed in more ways than the obvious although she quickly controlled the ongoing links with his own family with hers, so that one relative wistfully commented that whereas he was accustomed to receiving expensive gifts, that Christmas he was given a tie and Winston junior was given an aeroplane, a real one.

However it was not her acquisitive and high spending lifestyle which brought her international recognition but her fund raising and social skills led her to become the dominating influence in the Democratic party, and to discover, nurture and financially back Bill Clinton into the White House. Bill then called upon her to ask what she wanted as a reward and he overlooked career diplomats and fellow politicians to make her the American Ambassador in Paris. As the second programme on the working life of Queen Elizabeth demonstrated she has a special relationship with the Governor Generals of former territories and Ambassadors of friends and foes.

I digress to remember the night spent on a vigil outside the Russian Embassy, the sitting down outside of South Africa House and the use made of the American Embassy lending library of books and records. There was also the day I was invited to lunch with Ambassador of a country in Africa, who at Ruskin I had lent my Correspondence course on the English Language and Literature and given my half baked views on the nature of the English Civil service as the strength of democracy, only to find out afterwards that he had been the secretary of the civil service union of his country. Alas I was required to present a report to a court on the day of the lunch and had to cancel and did not receive a further invitation as a consequence.

Churchill's daughter died from a stroke after swimming a number of length the day after returning from a hectic visit to celebrate the birthday of a grandchild, having enjoyed a fox hunt jumping gates between fields. The president of France contacted her son Winston to say he had intended to award her France's highest award which he would now do so posthumously, whereupon President Clinton laid on airforce one and gave her a state funeral. Only within the last week did I discover that David Cameron is descended from the courtesan to a King which confirms the nature of wealth and political power and the opportunities available to young women with the right social education and understanding of men. It was said in the programme that when she hosted a political social event, such as a fund raiser she was skilled in taking the men to oneside, one by one, to explain her requirements of them, but to restrict the time with each individual not to arouse the concern of wives or to generate gossip which had commenced when the whole of social London knew of her special relationship with Churchill and with the American Ambassador.

Six months have passed since my last trip of any kind for the Concert marking ten years since the death of Princess Diana, I have yet to go through the DVD again and to see if during the six hours of performers and crowd interaction they came close to where I was sitting. There is still the sense of adventure before and on the day of a trip. There is great advantage in taking the car except for the travelling. Travelling by train is excellent but then there is the problem of the luggage. Little did I know how much the issue of travelling was to be a feature of this trip.

1217 A Brotherhood and a Requiem

I have been, and remain, privileged, enjoying the experience of exceptional new events and able to unlock the memories of so many that have been. It is rare that a day passes without something which makes me say “wow, am I not the lucky one,” and then feel guilt, sadness, with the knowledge that for so many others day follows day in deprivation and misery. This was brought home to me in a radio interview of a young new immigrant family living the most appalling of tenement condition in an area of Glasgow and which reminded of when I was training to become a professional child care social worker and nearly lost my place because of writing to a Member of Parliament friend about the rented housing condition in which they found themselves. The new immigrants will always been prey to the unscrupulous profiteer and it is understandable that established communities will give priority to supporting their own. There is also the aspect of personal accountability and lack of responsibility which cannot be overlooked. In the interview the mother confided that she was too ashamed for the children to go to school because they did not have proper clothes and footwear and yet she was pregnant again. I suspect most of the existing European Community countries were unprepared for the scale of the migration of the poor from the new countries but I blame the professional advisers and planners, not the politicians, a theme which I suspect I will be returning to time and time again over the next twelve months.

The role of immigrants in welcoming countries is subject which also arose as I watched the second part of the fictionalised account Joseph Bonanno story who led one of the five main Mafia families in the US between 1930 and 1960. The second part of the story covers the decision not to support Batista in his call for the US to invade and stop Castro because Bonanno recognised that Castro had the support of the majority of the people, except for those who were part of the corrupt Batista power. The film also argued with conviction that it was the link between the Mafia and the father of the Kennedy boys that got them into power, and that the assassination was arranged by Mafia families because Bobby's insistence of pursing organised crime. So much for the Warren Commission and other official investigations then.

The Wikipedia internet information on Mafia crime in the USA is amazing. It explains that the Castellammerse war between Masseria and Maranazno families was used by Charles Lucky Luciano to have both the leaders killed within six months in order to remove the boss of bosses and create a federation called a commission to regulate activities and one of the five major families created as a consequence, was from part of Maranazno facility, the Bonanno family headed by Joe Bonanno It is widely believed that Mario Puzo based Vito Corleone, the Godfather, on Joe Bonanno because both wanted their sons to succeed them and both were opposed to moving into narcotics trade. It is understandable why many remain fascinated by these men, the leaders, especially those who kept the moral codes which meant you did not attempt to kill law enforcers and non combatants, you remained silent and took your medicine even when that meant a decade in prison, you were devoutly Catholic and financial supported the church, you tried to go into legitimate business, especially for your families and you put your life up for the welfare of your family.

These men killed, or arranged, the killing of each other, they were terrorists who exploited the poorest sections of their own communities, and attempted to corrupt, often successfully, officials in the justice system and in government at local and national level. The life of Tony Soprano and his ilk is closer to the truth than with some of the glossy the self image portrayed in the Bonanno film. The Bonanno family which commenced in 1925 with Salvatore Maranazno the boss for only 1 year and Joe for 33 years was followed 18 others with the present boss Vincent Vinny Gorgeous Bassano convicted and imprisoned so Sal the iron worker Montagna is the acting boss, Michael Mickey Nose Mancuso the underboss in prison, Nicholas Nicky Dimes Santora has become the acting underboss, Anthony Fish Fat Tony Rabito is the consigliore. 28 influential members are listed including Andrew Bonanno, 22 associates are also listed 9 inducted members of the family have defected (provided evidence) hence our knowledge of the family, plus five associates and what appears to be the seven key members of the Bath Avenue Crew. It also emerged that the defence lawyers came to admit that they were also members of the family.

What supports my contention that while the crime and corruption can never be condoned and should be appropriately punished, it is important to see the whole individual, Joe Bonanno was brought to the USA his father in 1906 and operated a bar restaurant until being required to return to the family in Castellammare del Golfo in Scilly because of feuding family business interests,

Joe was orphaned at 15 and attempt to make his way enrolling in a nautical college at Palermo and shortly aft wards Mussolini rose to power cracking down on everyone in Sicily thought to be mafia or associated because of their potential threat to the regime, torturing and executing hundreds. Jo joined an anti fascist student group and were forced to flee Italy for their lives by freighter to Marseilles, then to Paris and Cuba and hen smuggled ashore in Florida by boat from where he got himself to the area where he had lived as a boy in Brooklyn, affiliating himself to the neighbourhood Mafioso who were mainly from his home town.

I have explained all this because England is having to get used to the arrival of the Mafioso from all parts of Europe these days just as it was many of the Hungarian Mafioso who came here after the failed revolution. Protection rackets, the sex industry in all its form and drugs and money laundering have become an international and world wide business which digital and internet communications and international transport systems has made easy, together with the corruption by those in the police and judicial systems, and in politics and the administration at national and local level. Britain was never immune but the scale and pace of the development is now our problem. The film alleges that Joe and fellow Sicilians actively supported the allied invasion to end the Fascist rule in Italy, which would explain some official blind eye in the immediate post war period.

It is also important to member that addition to the individual role in the Mafioso, the Cosa Nostra and brotherhoods or whatever romanticised name given organised criminal gangs the majority led normal family lives marrying and raising children. Joe married Fay Labruzzo in 1931and had three children, his eldest son Salvatore developed a mastoid ear infection and was sent to a private residential school in Tucson Arizona, and Joe, who had already moved out of Brooklyn to Long Island, subsequently bought property in Tucson and retired and died there subsequently.

It was only in the mid sixties that the USA authorities were able to begin to officially unravel the extent of the situation which had developed in the century before then, because Joseph Valachi of the Genovese family broke the code of omertia and accurately explained the working structures and many of the leadership, as well as something of the recent history.

The significance of Bonanno is not that he made a multi personal fortune from loan sharking, bookmaking, numbers racket running (we now call it the national and European lottery) and prostitution but he became an effective business man in the fields of the garment industry, cheese factories and funeral homes and had interests in Tucson and Canada as well as the original interests in New York. The concept of the global business is not a post second world war phenomena.

And I underline, as I have mentioned before, and will continue to repeat I found some of the most loyal monarchists, national flag wavers and religious people were criminals, encountered in prison and through my professional and managerial work.

While the likes of you and me will plan to make at least one visit and make one trip to or from what the head if the best railway system in the world, the SNCF, has said, is likely to be recognised as the best railway station in the world, it is the international business class, and celebrities and personalities that are like to make use of the new 5 star hotel and private apartment complex to be opened in 2009 from the neo gothic front of St Pancras station and it can be assumed that only proportion of the 150000 a week using the international part of the station will be able to afford to use the longest champagne bar and the other top nosh places to be opened and also that a proportion of these will be using cash that is dodgy, but this does not mean that the rest of us cannot celebrate the fact that the station has been created in the capitol than elsewhere and for me that it is next door to my usual arrival station is an added bonus. There is no doubt that the new station will become an even greater attraction than the New Wembley and the completion of two such buildings in one year does indicate an upturn in national fortunes despite all the other problems.

The programme tonight concentrated on the role of the architect as he battled to ensure the standards of the design and concept were maintained, (and at a personal level if he has developed throat cancer which he had not), and the young female project coordinator for the lower level commercial centre working seven days a week for six months. The more I find out I am in greater awe.

Afterwards I discovered an audio visual tour on the official site which is yet limited in the information provided. I cannot wait to see the 9 metre statue of contemporary lovers (a successor to the Rodin?) and there is to be, if not already, a statue of Sir John Betjeman who I remember fighting to save the station from demolition in the 1960's. Although Eurotrains commenced operation yesterday the complex is still in the process of completion. The main area is the famous William Henry Barlow shed which now has 18000 panes of self cleaning glass and repainting the iron work to match the original blue required 20000 litres of special paint I will leave some of the other stats until later in the series.

I stopped working comparatively early last night to check out the suitability for a young view of one the Daily Mail free DVD's which was fortunately in two episodes as it enabled me to see first the programme on St Pancras and then a magnificent recording of Verdi's Messa Da Requiem, which I first heard live at a Promenade at the Royal Albert Hall in 1956, over fifty years ago, after buying a half season Promenade Ticket. The Hall was a magnificent magical place then and I plan to return to see the latest refurbishments on my December visit to London although it looks as if there are no behind the scenes tours scheduled, or they are already fully booked. I will make further enquiries by phone. Alas I have not retained the programmes, tickets or other information of that first experience. As soon as I was able to do so I purchased the Deutsche Grammophon version with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Ferenc Fricsay (Hungary) conducting. and it is only within the past three years that I purchased a CD recording with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker, also on Deutsche Grammophon. Tonight's Performance channel recording also featured the Berliner Philharmoniker, conductor Claudio Abbado and the soloists the gorgeous Angela Georgiou, Daniella Barcellona, Roberto Alagna and Julian Konstantinov.

No one can hear this Requiem without being moved by its beauty, tenderness, celestial soaring, and powerhouse crescendo's and thundering choruses and I always listen in wonderment at the human being who created the work and those who perform it. I also have Requiems by Mozart, Rutter, Faure, and Durefle. No one can hear Verdi's work and doubt the immortality of the human spirit.

I should have gone to bed then but wanted to see the outcome of Merlin's Apprentice which I quickly decided was not suitable for anyone under 12 which if I looked closer is what it states on the cover. The first three Daily Mail giver always were marked PG so I forgive myself a little except for my motto Never assume anything, always check first and if possible do it yourself.

1218 St Pancras rebuilt, Bonanno and the Gasman did not cometh

Tuesday Tuesday the gas man cometh, not. I went to bed around 1am and was up soon after 7am having set the automated BT reminder call service. I had two risings and associated dreams during the night which I cannot remember, the dreams that is or the feelings associated with them. At present this does matter because I am not having to make any decisions which affect others, but I need to constantly monitor my emotional balance and have a connection with the forces within me, even if they are buried and I do not understand the specifics.

Although I believed I had everything organised for the visit of the gas servicing man it was nine before I was satisfied that everything was in order, and it occurred that it would be good self discipline to establish such a detailed check once a month. I sat down after two slices of toast and tea, feeling more tired that on rising and was bleary eyed for the next two hours.

The planned highlight of the day was significantly better than hoped for. This was only the first of two programmes about the recreation of St Pancras station at a cost of £800 million to become Europe's premier railway destination, transporting 20000 people a day. The first programme brilliantly conveyed the tensions and conflicts between the architect designer responsible for maintaining the standards of listed 1 building, satisfying Heritage standards which is something I have learned a little about over the past two decades are exacting, together with the missionary zeal of the architect to produce a building with a quality finish which will last another 125 years, and with the commercial interests to build on budget and on time and where significant bonus payments were to be obtained. It was evident that those involved were in the big league, likely to have interest in projects such the 2012 Olympics and the new London Thames flood drainage system. Reputations made or were therefore of crucial importance.

The surprise therefore was the unexpectedly honesty of the programme, revealing four interesting and genuine personalities. The lead architect, on his own now when in the beginning he had worked with a team of 40, was in despair as short cuts were made because of costs and time scheduling, and he was left to fight the 900 responsible for getting the engineering and building work completed according to time and budget. I know a little about the problems of project control and coordination, having attended a short management course and subsequently being accountable as lead client officer for the replacement of several old buildings by purposed designed projects. These were modest buildings in terms of cost and numbers involved but they affected the lives of vulnerable individuals, young, old and disabled.

The lead architect broke down at one point, threatening to resign until talked out of out by a colleague and told to stay in to fight his corner for all his might. He was up against a formidable budget controller who interestingly was a woman who combined likeability and good communication skills with a determination which could still build an empire but on budget and on time. She explained, with great charm, that she had one of many conversations such suggesting how £25000 be saved by doing x, but then asked if this was achieved could £15000 be used on y and where she had to point out that each was a separate issue, and one felt that not only would she question hard why the £15000 was needed but also if more could be saved by doing z instead of y. It was also evident that she was able to get everyone else on her side by setting their goals with the carrot of the bonus structure which also interestingly had not been revealed to her.

The other extraordinary young woman was in overall charge of completing the under train level which is now being publicised as the feature of the station with up market shops and the longest champagne bar in the world, and which makes it different from being one other international transport centre. She came a cross as a little powerhouse of directness and honesty which I suspect would have won the Great War in half the time. The fourth individual was the man responsible for finishing the lower ceiling on time when the prefabricated panels arrived very late and then in bulk. The lass thought the architect should have been firmer saying on camera what she thought of the individual in question. She was obviously right but so was the Architect who explained that if he had been tougher the individual might have broken under the pressure and then they be!

I am a great believer that any building reflects all those involved, the commissioners, architects, engineers and every construction worker. I have yet to see the second part or the building itself which is now on my agenda for the Monday of the return journey from London in December. (I have the beginnings of an idea in that if as I now expect from a recent e mail I will receive the free first class ticket from GNER I will use not for a trip to London in the new Year but to Paris, even if this only involves one night or two stay.) But if tonight's programme is any indication the visit to the station will also be important because the building involves the recreation of the past made relevant for to day and to morrow. This is what my work is all about.
While I was cool about the non appearance of the gas man as the morning progressed I could not concentrate on the work in hand and decided to progress further my effort to beat the computer 101 times at level two chess. I have altered my approach which previously was to reset the information table until it was able to 101 games without defeat or a draw. Now I included all games played at the level so as to have a record of the nature of task undertaken. That I did not think of this approach before is another example of my slowness. By the end of the day 153 are registered since taking the decision of which 143 have been won, 10 drawn, and no loses, also showing a run of two draws in succession. The current winning streak is 32 which has lowered the percentage of drawn games from 10% at the worst point to 7%. However this tells less than half the story as not included are winning runs of 56, one in the forties, in the thirties, two in twenties and several in the tens, somewhere between two hundred and two hundred and twenty five games I estimates more than are shown. But the third level will be inclusive, although I am not sufficiently confident to predict when this will commence as I still have moments when I press ahead when tired or otherwise not concentrating, and lose to a draw, in a situation which with a fraction of extra care a negative position can be reversed.

Once I have mastered a level of play I should be able to complete 101 games and anything less than that underlines the progress that has to be in having the kind of total self control that enables some to walk through fire, chop through thick wood ro endure multi facet deprivation. While by body has reached the point when it is too old to be put such a test in a practical way, I should still be able to discipline the mind which in turn should discipline my emotional being.

I believe that only then will all aspects of my work attain the standards I seek and I need. One physical manifestation should be long term weight reduction which will only come about by eating less quantities and for the time being cutting out all comfort eating, however tempting. The test will be to spread the eating of the Christmas goodies to a little at a time although the inclination will be to wolf the lot before Christmas Day, I have taken the decision not to plan too much in advance other than to get what food I will need to avoid the madness which comes over supermarkets in the week beforehand.

The gas man did not come between the allotted time of 8am and 1pm and it was 1.15pm before I decided to find out the position. I was put through to customer services after someone checked the record and could not understand why no one had arrived. I was told that the service operative had not indicated why she had not arrived and I would be contacted again. Thus the gas man became the gas woman.

I was then told that I should not expect a visit until 2.30- 3pm of if this was not satisfactory another individual could be allocated. I had no reason to doubt what was being said to me at that time. This fitted into my wish to go to Smiths, for to-day's DVD and in order not to be unduly long I took the car as a Asda and walked from there. It was very cold and the cold gets easily into my chest and in haste I had forgotten a hat and scarf. Beginning to think of Christmas was reinforced by the arrival of two undressed Christmas Trees either side of the central mast which appeared at the junction between the two shopping roads in town and the area of night clubs bars and restaurants, I speculated that this might be an unwise location as revellers revelled the closer to Christmas. Today workmen were in the process of enclosing the lower level of the tree so it was evident my misgivings were shared by the powers that be.

I returned home knowing I was likely to need another wee dram of single malt at bedtime if there was any sign of the cold wind on chest having lingered. I continued with some work, some chess and some in tray attending, all at a leisurely pace. Around 3.45 I decided to check again and this time it was revealed that the service operative had switched off their mobile phone, so I began to question if there had been any contact earlier. I was told that my job had been pinned which meant I was the next job to be allocated, but at the time I assumed this was in relation to the previously mentioned service agent. I rang again after 5.30 assuming that as no would be coming I needed to when they would. This time I was told that the attempt had been made to arrange for someone to come but emergency calls had intervened. This was reasonable because of the cold, priority had to be given to mothers, especially with young children and the old, and then I realised of course that this included me. A new appointment had been made for between 12 and 2 tomorrow. Somehow I suspect this will be an ongoing situation although this confirms the wisdom of having done a good house make ready.

Throughout the day I had the TV on the umbrella channel for the option of then uninterrupted radio channels as the selection was good and stayed good and I was not tempted to watch a film, until the evening meal, a ham omelette with oven chips. Ok it should have been salad instead of chips but once a fortnight should be alright and it was a few chips. I will do some smoked mackerel fillets and vegetables tomorrow with perhaps an early soup and roll or two tomorrow around 11.30. I must plant bulbs for spring flower although I do not want to disturb the window boxes yet as the pink/purple flowers planted in April have continued despite the cold nights.

I did watch three TV programmes this evening. The first m over the evening meal there was another chunk of Bonanno, a two part Mafia story stretching, as they all tend to do, through illegal gambling and women, work contracts and protection, on to prohibition and into drugs and legitimate business involving friends in the police, judiciary and in politics, the codes of honour and the need for redemption as life draws to a natural close. One day I will make a point of watching the whole programme as it seems that for years I have watched half an here and hour an hour there. I was reviewing this writing with a programme about Johnny Cash in the background when I remembered to check and loo, the second of Bonanno is on in a few minutes. Time to get the evening meal underway. There are aspects of Ground Hog day today.

This reality of experience past present and future only served to underline the stretching of credulity of the current Spooks series which bravely but unsuccessfully in my judgement attempts to make each programme separate but part of an ongoing series. The writers appear to be doing everything they can to drive a wedge between Britain and America painting us as the goodies and the US as the baddies in the security services, although if this is an accurate portrayal of our present security high ups I would sack the lot for incompetence. There were two glaring examples in tonight's programme. It took sudden recognition that there must be a mole within the system to arrange a full security sweep for bugs of all kinds. Now any five year old these days, well a bit of an exaggeration, but most older children know that if you are in any kind of organisation where us may wish to know what you are going or thinking of doing, you pay to have the best sweep to establish security at regular but irregular intervals. If you are the top security organisation then you will do it continuously. The second is that you will have surveyed every reservoir system and water supply system to ensure that the controls are available to isolate if the supply becomes contaminated in any way and that trhere is an automatic detection warning system for anything which could potential harm the public. Anything less than this is criminal negligence. But then of course I go back to my own experience and starting praying that things have improved over the past two decades.

This morning was milder and the gas man cometh and all is well but after a winning streak of 45 games However I did get round to making two important communications. I need to relax a little this evening.

1215 Remembrance Day,Mitch Sydner Story, Charkes Chilton, My Boy Jack

The sun was shining when I left to walk down my hill and then up the long hill to the Town Hall for the assembly of the Remembrance Day Parade and then continue up the hill to where the Cenotaph is inappropriately located for a large gathering of service and ex service and other citizens to assembly. During the service there was a rainbow in the distance and some splattering of rain. Later there was a plethora of programmes, many overlapping centred on this Remembrance day which appeared to be having renewed significance as the numbers in Whitehall and locally have grown during the past two years as the number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased.

The programme schedules included choice of programme with two plays on at the same time and Life and Nothing But on BBC4. I can watch one and record the other, Earlier there are similar spoilt for choice problems.

5.50 6.50 BBC 1 Wilfred Owen

6.30-7.30 Not Forgotten Channel 4

6.50-7.50 BBC 2 Cenotaph Highlights

7.00-800Verdun Descent into Hell repeated midnight

7.05 The Girl and the General TCM World War film

8.00-9.00 What did you in the Great War Daddy BBC4

9-11.00 My Boy Jack on ITV

9-10.30 Life is nothing BBC1

9.00 Digging Up the Trenches

9.00-11.00 The Last Tommy Uk History

01.00 Ypres Gas Hell

12.10-12.40 Chelsea Pensioners

Before all this I discovered an interesting biographical film, The Samaritan The Mitch Synder Story, Mitch (1946-1990) appears to have been outwardly a conventional American who was married with two children and working in advertising in New York when sometime before 1970 he abandoned his work and family, and went in search of his true self, but in 1970 he was arrested and imprisoned when it was discovered that the vehicle in which he was travelling with a friend was stolen. In prison he became a born again Christian and a believer in non violence and joined the Community for Creative Non Violence in Washington DC. This organisation which was involved in non violent direct action in relation to the Vietnam War, also provided a medical clinic, a pre-trial house, soup kitchen, thrift store and half way house.

There was a growth in the number of homeless destitute people in the later 1970's and 1980's and Mitch Synder was a major figure in the campaign to obtain official help and support for the provision of accommodation and other services, involving demonstrations, public funerals for those freezing to death and fasting as well as, other direct action which involved illegal activity. The motion picture film is very sympathetic toward Mitch who had many critics, because of his background and methods which included a tendency to exaggerate figures. Nevertheless Jesse Jackson, Cher and one of his two sons walked in the march honouring his life after he committed suicide and the conveys that he was a man wracked with self doubt and self criticism with his campaigning years as a form of atonement

My plan was to record the programme on Wilfred Owen in another room while watching Ian Hislop's visual essay on the social impact of the war, but having decided to watch the opening of the Jeremy Paxman film on Owen, I abandoned the Hislop. I became affected by the poets of the Great War at the very time I was campaigning against the development of weapons of mass destruction, the inevitable progression from the mechanisation of war commenced by Germany in the years leading to 1914

As a young man I came across his poems together with those of Rupert Brooke where I have two volumes, and Siegfried Sassoon and in 1997 I saw the film Regeneration based on the book by Pat Barker which concentrates on the relationship between Owen, who had shell shock post traumatic stress, and Sassoon who had been banished to Craiglockhart hospital because of his criticism of the military leadership and approach to the continuation of the war. Owen recovered sufficiently to return to the front and the letters to his mother reveal the changes that he had undergone and which had led to the creation of poems which are now the most venerated in the English language after Shakespeare. The programme revealed the extent of the influence and involvement of Siegfried Sassoon on his writing, and which in the examples given showed that he helped to make the writing more direct and powerful. Having made the decision to watch the whole of the film I continued by watching the official recording of the morning's national service of Remembrance. The South Shields Member of Parliament represented the government together with the Prime Minister.

After this there was a moving programme about the children of some of the men who did not return with a major voice of influence from my childhood, Charles Chilton recounting that he never knew his father, and that his mother died when he was six, leading to being raised by his grandparents. Charles joined the BBC when he was 15, as a messenger, and after becoming an assistant in the record library commenced to produce a weekly jazz programme, the Radio Rhythm Club before the commencement of World War II.

During five years of War service in the RAF he ran the Forces Radio station in Sri Lanka with David Jacobs, and on return he was responsible for two programmes which dominated my adolescence and first period as a young man in work, the time when I discovered the world of big band jazz, and the traditional jazz revival in around Soho, modern jazz and classical music through the Promenade concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, buying a season ticket. The First radio programme which influenced me greatly and lasted five years was Riders of the Range based on the history of Western America and between 1953 and 1959 he wrote and produced Journey into Space. Having achieved professional success Charles commenced to investigate the reality of the World War in which his father had died and together with Joan Littlewood they created what was regarded as controversial at the time, the musical Oh What a Lovely War at the Theatre Royal Stratford in 1963 transferring Wyndhams Theatre. In 1969 Richard Attenborough directed and produced the film which has that extraordinary image of an endless field of crosses and which starred John Mills, Laurence Olivier, John Geilgud, Michael Redgrave, Maggie Smith and Susannah York.

I am convinced that I saw the production at the Theatre Royal and that I have a programme but can I find, it although I have collated all my programmes from for forty years in one box, Having yesterday written about visiting a show at Great Yarmouth the ticket confirms that I sat in row K12 of the stalls at 8.40 on Sunday August 30th for Grace Kennedy in Concert at the Britannia Theatre, but further research will be required to establish the year. Charles Chilton who is an active 90 was only one of bereaved children whose memories of their brief contact with their fathers remains as alive to day and it was when that had the experience.

These included the daughter whose 15 year campaign led to the pardon of her father executed for shell shock. Others visited the war graves including one who not finding a grave with his father's name was directed to a monument on which are listed the 35000 men missing presumed dead who remains were never found. This was but one of the 200 cemeteries
These programmes were the right build up for an excellent new film Drama My Boy Jack based on the fact that Rudyard Kipling fixed for his son to become a Commissioner Officer, in the Irish Guards at the age of 17, despite the inability to see without glasses, and he approved that his son could go to the front and into battle before his 18th birthday. He died that day in 1915 but it was four years before the parents accepted that he had died, .and Kipling is believed to have felt guilty by writing the lines "If any question why we died, because our fathers died."

Kipling who went out of fashion in the sixties was part of my Childhood. His poems were taught at school and I grew up with those made into films watching recently for the umpteenth time the film Gunga Din made in 1939 staring Douglas Fairbanks Junior and the earlier 1937 Captains Courageous with Spencer Tracey and Mickey Rooney, remade for television in 1977 and again 1996. There was also Kim Errol Flynn in 1950 with Peter O'Toole for TV 1984. His poem Mandalay was used for the Song On the Road to Mandalay, but perhaps the best known and loved have been the Jungle Book stories with films made 1937, in 1942, 1994, 1997 and 1998 with a new two year project commenced this year and perhaps the best known film being the 1967 animated version ,recently released as a special DVD edition, His just so stories have also been enjoyed by children for a century. He received the Nobel prize for Literature in 1907. His belief and commitment in the British Empire as positive development, his distrust of Germany intentions, like Churchill subsequently, led him to campaigning for rearmament, 150000 men against 1.5 million at the time and that he was a key part of the propaganda committee during the war.

It would be surprising if tonight's film did not attract a major audience because the part of his son was played by the young man who the present generation has witnessed grow up on screen from the ages of 12 to 18 years as Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe. It is worth underlining that the Harry Potter books are now the greatest international best sellers of all time and that the films have so far earned over four thousand million dollars at the box office, greater than James Bond films of which there have been 21 and the six Star wars together. The contrast between the two roles could not be greater and such was the level of performance that it was only after watching the film that I worked out who the young actor was, although I accept I was probably the only viewer that did not know. The performance is likely to be awarding winning and already Imperial War Museum and Sussex University have mounted exhibition about the story of the Kipling's son, and the parental search for what happened to him which lasted four years after he disappeared at the battle of Loos. I can understand this need to establish the precise circumstances and if established the fear and the pain which their child experienced. It is a personal need, although at times it is coupled with a compulsion to ensure that others also understand what happened and why. Most learn or know that it will not help to prevent similar situations arises such is the true nature of human behaviour, although if the individual stories touch and influence others in a small way then that is a bonus. I hope I begin to go someway in explaining that memory in all its forms is the meaningful art experience of today.

1211 Understanding Big Brother House

Because of certain experiences in the early 1980's I came to the conclusion that human being would watch other human beings doing their every day things and that some human beings would be prepared to exhibit themselves in this way.

It touched upon the essential nature of us as children to be curious, to look at and to observe, Voyeurism has become a wholly negative word and yet it describes an aspect of the fundamental nature of human beings to enquire into themselves, others and all aspects of their immediate environment, the world, and the universe.

Similarly all children with a 'normal' upbringing like to make a show of themselves and the drive to display, and to look at, is natural, spontaneous and uninhibited. It becomes controlled, and sometimes sanctioned against, by parents, through religious and general education, and society, for good reason in terms of the rights and interests of others and the self protection of individuals.

This is necessary for a good social order, but it can also stifle and sometimes harm the development of individuals into creative, outward going and giving individuals.

It is the role of pre-school and primary education to enable the child to be free within bounds, and it is also a major part of creative education and when needed, through therapies to help individuals to become uninhibited and to learn to release their feelings, sometimes passionate feelings in socially acceptable ways.

In the mid 1980's I attended one of the great short international residential course for senior managers at Henley in which four weeks is devoted to self and observed assessment of roles and skills in the context of contemporary financial and commercial management and where one aspect was to consider future trends, opportunities and threats. Because of my experience, an interest in the internet and its development, and in film and television, I argued that this was an area to be exploited commercially and that people would pay to watch others go about their daily lives.
In part because I worked in local government which was regarded as bureaucratic, politicised and anti commercial, all substantially accurate, and because I did not communicate well in ways that my colleagues on the course were used to, my ideas were dismissed and ridiculed.

And then we had Big Brother House.

I was curious when it was first produced and while delighted that everything I had forecast had come to pass, was not impressed by the level of the participants or the direction in which the programme appeared to be taking. I sometimes watched live segments, often late at night, where what was shown on satellite channels fascinated from the days before Sky went Digital.

I cannot now remember what prompted me to begin to watch the 2007 series from the beginning and then to watch and study in a systematic way.

My interest was with the contestants and their interactions and how the programme was put together, especially the different levels, and the fact as with the talent competitions that vast amounts of revenue were achieved through public participation.

Each night there is a review programme on a terrestrial aerial as well as satellite main channels which summarised the previous 24 hours.

The highlight of the week was the eviction programme where over a period of several days the public decided which [participant would leave, thus reducing the number who would remain over the three months of the programmes and win £100000, plus personality appearances, endorsement, photo shoots and the like with a few achieving longevity as personalities or embarking of life changing new careers.

It had never to be forgotten that this was a competitive game show and that participants were selected and groomed for their celebrity potential and attracting, developing and maintaining the audience for the programme and in support of individual participants. Therefore there was an understandable tendency to go for young men and women able to exploit their situation through wild behaviour, using bad language, showing aggression and through physical exposure and interaction.

The weekly eviction programme was in two parts, the events leading to the eviction and the announcement of the eviction, sometimes with a twist such a fake eviction which the public knew in advance, so they were voting for someone who would return into the house.

After half a live break of 30 mins in which the individual says goodbye, the individual leaves to cheers and jeers from an assembled audience which includes a VIP area, such is the national interest in this part of the show, and something which participants fear in terms of will they be loved or hated, and which is also indicative if they are to have a financially successful future. They are then interviewed by a worldly female interviewer Davina McCall who reveals how the individual came to be nominated as well as playing back something of their highs and lows. They also get eh opportunity to have a go back at their former colleagues in the house and set their stall out for the future. In this instance of fake week the selected individual was consistently obnoxious, picking verbal quarrels of an aggressive and unpleasant nature often hurtful, using vile language and having been extremely manipulative and without any redeeming qualities. Her delight and being able to return into the house was only matched by the horror of those who had spoken honestly and open about her. She was evicted soon after and was given prominence in the media for a week or so but which added nothing to her standing or to the programme.

Each evening, or on the majority of evenings five or six times a week there were two other review, chat programmes each with a participating studio audience. The first Big Brother Little Brother was hosted by an intelligent bright and presentable young man who has progressed to becoming the front link man for the X Factor. Studio guests included personalities such as the actor who played Pauline Fowler in East Enders, and they were given a close up peek through one of the one way look-ins for cameras. Evicted participants reported on their week since leaving, who they wanted to win and who they did not. There were viewer phone INS and mobile clips and the audience were each able to have their say for a few seconds as well as get themselves on national TV. A second nightly programme had a guest presenter for the week in which they could indulge their interests with friends and other guests and these varied according the presenter.

The most interesting weekly programme on the house was the psychological in which a panel of psychologists with guest psychologists talking about the participants and how they interacted with each other and responded to the challenges thought up by the programme designers, sometime by viewers and sometimes by the contestants themselves.

The programme has developed from a Dutch TV experiment and one spin off lasted a whole year.

How do people behave when they are in competition to please the public and win £100000 and go on to further fame and perhaps fortune?

The starting off position is that the contestants are asked to nominate two others for eviction and to give their reasons aspects, of which are subsequently relayed to the evicted, given to the public and therefore available to the families and friends of the evicted and the nominees. The contestant will have undergone psychological profiling beforehand to ensure that they could take what they will be expected to take within the limits of the programme and voluntary participation with payment.

(See section on contestant contracts rules commitments etc)

Sometimes the programmers amend procedure so that individual may be deprived from making nominations, or nominations restricted to some contestants and this year twins were given the choice of being treated as one and therefore not split but with the price of being put up of eviction without nomination. T

The Threat of eviction and that fellow contestants decided who the public will vote for creates tension, the formation of alliances, the blatant canvassing for votes and the rounding on some individuals and the protection of others although not always for the disclosed reason. Sometimes individuals were supported against others because they would pose less of a threat in the long. This year four participants were brought into a half way house towards the end of the series and the remaining core many of whom has been presented from the first two weeks were rounded on although one managed to remain to the last rounds.

A major event week was the shopping list. The contestants ordered food priced from a manual and summarised on blackboard. There was a fixed time allotted and a budget. There was opportunity in most weeks to win a luxury budget by successfully completing tasks, although failure could mean a basic budget. One task which posed the greatest challenge was to dress up in a fish costume and then lay in a large sardine tin filled with smelly fish heads and goo for the required period. Some challenges were great fun to participate in and some required a mixture of skill and commitment. Participants who refused to participate in a particular challenged tended to lose the support of others while those who made a special effort were rewarded with congratulation and support although position would rapidly change.

Food and shopping brought out the worst of contestants and how the budget would be divided. Individuals undertaking cooking had considerable influence but could lose support if they did not take account of individual needs and inclinations. Two issues dominated the weekly purchases. Cigarettes and vanity requirements. However when one contestant who was generally supported was able to acquire one special item this was given up by the others when faced with options.

The programmers devised several twists this season. The first was to start with an all female household, then introduce one male who quickly started a relationship with one of the female and this dominated much of the first part of series in part because of the strength of their alliance and the problem of lining in close proximity with a relationship when without one. However, the relationship became a major issue for those within the house and the public because of its developing volatility and on off nature. In truth both had dislikeable qualities and used each other badly although the female who walked out of the programme has since appeared as a glamour truth revealing young woman on various covers and appears the most successful.

A second feature this year is that soon after the number of men in he House was increased it was decided that three participants should nominate one the others to receive £100000. The choice was generally proclaimed, and delighted the North East as it was nice lad from a good home in Country Durham.


The viewers knew but not the participants that the original £1000000 was retained.

This was won by Brian an inexperienced young black lad whose naivety and vulnerability endeared him to other contestants and obviously the general public. He was normal except for a piece of personal equipment which appealed strongly to several guests on the special programmes. He had watched the early series a youngster and had boxes of videos under his bed. When for one task he was invited to meet two previous series housemates he not only knew them, the house setting but also more about the series that they remembered. One wonders what the fame and money will have done to him or for him

Another feature this year was the introduction of two older participants from socially different backgrounds. One a head hunter tended to be a lifestyle and culture snob and I could not understand why she entered and it was understandable that she left prematurely.

Another candidate was revealed as a self made millionaire who also left prematurely when a grandparent died and decided he need to support his mother. He absented himself from the final.

Some had interesting aspects. One a gay Greek both aspects which he emphasised had three degrees and argued that he was an authority in a field of antiquity and worked in the commercial side if the trade, I think. His brand included a stuffed cuddly with clothes which he changed. A late arrival appeared to be able to fart whenever he wanted and did so. He also had stuffed creature with which he held conversations, constantly giggled and used grating voices and generally made himself disliked until he revealed a kind and thoughtful personality. Gay in outlook and behaviour he was said to be a virgin but who liked being spanked and spanking.

One young woman disgraced herself by using the wrong word to refer to those of black skin which was then seized on an exploited by the most obnoxious of the housemates.

She paid the price of being thrown off the series which much self righteous breast beating, because last season racial prejudice had been aired at length and appeared to have been accepted by the programme until there was a national clamour, and raised in Parliament.

A constant theme was whether the participants had a game plan to win public support. This was considered bad form. One could be an unscrupulous and unpleasant, devious and objectionable but to have thought it out before hand was unacceptable. Some were found out quickly but one latecomer who appeared to have a good background and just did what she thought would help her fit in as well as successfully setting her cap at the Durham lad was instantly disliked, when her biggest crime appeared to have been honesty.

This was also the problem with another giggly late comer who was nice enough but added little to the group dynamics. This contrasted with a pushy Scottish lad who appeared to know something the real rules of the game and insiders knowledge and was appeared genuinely flawed when he was nominated and departed

There was a similar fate for a single parent stripper from Wales who bared her top and apparently more, not shown unlike the male late arrival that did a full exposure with a female participant present. One suspects that this attempt to please was the basis of why she did her work. She was one of several entrants who appeared to have am advance sponsor/agent, wearing a crotch revealing dress for example which had been provided for the occasion of her entry to the house. This was regarded by the others as a step to far.

One woman in her thirties who liked cleaning and did so a private school for boys, living at the local village pub wore a pig ring on her face and had pink hair and a limited choice of inane catch phrases which other contestants took up, including programme presenter sand public participants.
Something of a loaner in the house but part a cultural group on the outside she was amazed to hear public support for her when she failed to be evicted more times than anyone else, and gaining confidence she started to appear a player for the prize which then lost her the support in relation to others.

There was one young man who liked to look at himself in the mirror a lot, subversive in a sly way that got his comeuppance. Another who arrived with day Greek and who also declared himself gay when all but one of the females were hoping for a full on encounter of some nature had a sense of humour but was equally shocked to the get the order of the public boot.

This leaves an interesting and attractive young woman who I thought would do well but perhaps became too friendly with the infamous one who it transpired had a good singing voice and recorded after leaving the show. There was also another young women who wined and wined that she had men and a lass from Wales who I also thought would hold her own but appeared to like doing nothing too much to gain support from the others.

And this bring me to the twins, frothy pink lasses who it was said were going to university but this transpired to be a child care course of some kind and certainly if their basic knowledge was anything by it would confirm worst fears and public sentiments about the quality of those enrolling for degrees these days and certainly one would hope mothers would be cautious about entrusting their infants with them. There were classical air heads who wanted to pool party, ooh pool party lots splashing and being thrown around by the men, drinking as much as was provided. They were harmless fun loving creatures but not a good advert for future community leaders, social contributors of the morrow.

This brings me to my favourite of all although she blotted her copy book from time to time, a grandmother who joined into whatever good cause need support. Who reminded the younger one how their parents would be reacting to their on screen behaviour. She organised and cajoled so that everyone was fed and the place was kept clean and that the community did not descend into anarchy. She joined in the most stupid and self ridiculing of tasks. She gave mini lectures on the reality of life and could spot a fake a mile away, having immediate suspicions about the arrival an alleged member of the Australian cast who was an actor with a separate room of her own and under constant programme direction. She through a wobbly from time to time and revealed bias and prejudices just like every other human being I've known. She was tempted to throw in the towel but was there nearly to the end. Hope you made it lass, you and your family should be proud of you.

Given my reservations about the nature of the he programme and the contestant it is legitimate to ask why I persisted in watching the full series often 24 24 except when I went to bed, usually in the background and included the internet connect which covered aspects which were held over to make the special programmes.

From the outset when I worked out what I wanted to do and how to do it I knew that to be consistent I should make my work available on line : That is the process of working as well as the output. The first obstacles was the lack of technical know how to create my internet, but mainly from how to do this without destroying the privacy to live and work which was core to be able to do the work and how I wanted to live. By nature I am a watcher observer than an exhibitionist and I admire those able to put them on the stage especially if they know they do not have special abilities or skills or something that others will appreciate.

It is also in my nature, to a fault, to want to complete tasks as planned although I am adaptable and flexible according to wider needs and changing circumstances. So having invested time in the programme I was determined to see it through to its conclusion.

However, as with much with I do I can then walk away onto the next thing which interests or is part of the master work programme. I do not need to watch the programme again which is just as well as it had been dropped for next year and there is a question mark about it return.
There was another level to my involvement. Going through group situations in my life. My early child hood household, the two school experiences, prison, college and university, work situations of which there right separate ones, and of course the management course when I understood myself more clearly since commencing work and going into senior management and then took decisions which have governed the rest of my life.
But this is another story for another time.

1203 The Trial of Lady Chatterly and past times

Yesterday was a day of two distinct parts. In the evening my intention was to continue working on 101 but then I decided the project should be renamed 100.75 to mark the life of my mother but I can not remember the sequence of thoughts and feeling which led me to this conclusion, except that I liked the concept and will stick with it.

It is interesting that twenty four hours ago I suggested that the film Sirens had been influenced by the writing of D H Lawrence view and in the evening BBC 4 presented what I believe is the first showing of a play about the Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover, in which the excepts from the trial script are authentic but the composition of the jury, and their interaction with each other are fictitious, especially the passionate extramarital affair of two, who enact the sexual content of the book. The play concluded a BBC orgy of sexual liberalism with the concluding episode of Fanny Hill, I missed the first, and a history of the 18trh century Libertine in which it was suggested that the general licentiousness in literature and the media of the day was followed with the puritanical approach of the Victorians, in public that is, much as the swinging sixties has led to a reaction in the last part of the twentieth century..
I thought the play to be very good bringing out that in !960 the Trial was regarded a test of the new order against the old Establishment. In some respects the inquest into the death of Princess Diana, and her lover, is now a test between the present day Establishment of traditional England and the new Europeans.

In 1960 the Establishment was personified by the chief prosecuting barrister asking the jury if this was a book which they would want their wives or servants to read, and the judge appeared to have attempted to persuade the jury that they should disregard the evidence of 35 eminent writers, critics, academics and clergy of the day, many whose reputations have become enhanced, and ignore the fact, that the prosecution could not produce one witness in court to argue that the book was obscene within the meaning of the recent legislation, and therefore be banned. Several million copies of the paper back edition of the book were immediately sold, bought by an older generation who welcomed and supported the freeing of the next generation. I suspect there were thousands of middle class individuals within existing marriages who yearned for a different experience of adult relationship as a consequence of reading this book.

Having said this, the argument of Griffith Jones that approval of the book would open the floodgates and that little or no good would come of it, has been proven prophetically true although this is an opinion where the 'evidence' is debatable.

The trial and the publication occurred shortly after my release from prison when I retreated into myself affected by the contrast between life inside where I consider that I had adjusted surprising well and what seemed to me the superficiality of everyday life in London. I then wrote a play where the writing was considered to be of interest, and applied for the position of paid organiser of the London Region CND after resigning from the temporary post with the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War and then changed direction going to Ruskin College and into Child Care. I had been horrified by the switch from applying the principles of Ghandian non violence to an attempted secretive mass disobedience movement where any means became justified to achieve the end, and my the admission of the Moscow supporting Communists who declared support for the CND and Direct Action movement but had no intention of working for the abolition of the worker's bomb, as I heard one Gerry Healey say this denouncing Pat Arrowsmith after she had spoken at their annual conference and went on to preach the doctrine of enterism with the main target the machine tool industry. The Cuban Missile crisis underlined for me the short term effectiveness of facing might with might, and the longer term problem of how do you deal with a belligerent state if you are in charge of a potential victim state and have the mans of defence. The motivation and principles behind action may be good and honourable but one cannot ignore consequences however unintended.

The main part of yesterday involved the arrival of the new gas cooker. It took some time to fit because of the previous location of the gas pipe connection and electrical link, but afterwards I quickly realised that I could transform the use of the kitchen and day room with a few changes. This is because of the decision to discontinue the electric oven and grill because the new cooker has a convenient sized grill oven as well as the main oven where because of an eye level grill which did not work, the old cooker only had a large single oven with a utensil compartment below. The electric oven together with the spare microwave previous kept beneath the day room table was consigned to the large under stairs cupboard.

The freed unit top space above the washing machine can now be used for the kettle, the steamer, the toaster and the electric grill. This in turn has cleared the unit top space next to the cooker for spare pans, and for emptying the contents of the pans to plates or serving dishes. The kitchen store door has been used to hang up the large frying pan used for omelettes and the stir fry pan, now that I have a stir fry, and one, or two, omelettes a week. I have not tended to buy whole chickens recently as I went off having a stew for the second and third days in succession. I will reconsider this if I can find something which appeals more with the chicken left overs from the fortnightly Sunday Roast. While there is little difference between the chunk of oven ready chicken breast and a whole chicken in terms of price, I prefer the picking of chicken bones as long as I do not dwell on the pullet chicks which my mother used to buy and rear in my post war childhood.

Because the cooker was not scheduled for delivery until after midday I was able to go out first thing for the DVD, and free newspaper and treated myself to toast and coffee at a different venue from previous. For an extra five pence, the two pieces of toast are larger in area and thicker and the coffee although costing more was better tasting. The reason for the change was the lack of available tables at the shop/coffee shop a few yards away which I had used the last week. However this will not become a daily indulgence. I went to the bank for the third time in a week to pay in the balance in relation to the occupational pension of my mother.
After the sort out which also frees the day room table for better use I had two salad rolls for lunch, having taken to ones which have cheese baked into the top. They are inexpensive at 12 for a £1, and two make a filling midday meal and which as today cut out the need for a tea time snack, especially as it was not eaten until about 2.30. I then went out to B and Q for the pan hooks to fit to the kitchen store door. The opportunity was taken to look at the bulbs and a replacement light fitting for the day room. After sorting this out I and doing some 100.75 project work I was ready to use the cooker for the evening meal, only to remember that I needed to use the rest of chicken breast from yesterday with some gravy and individual packets of frozen vegetables.

The rest of the week has been worked out. Tomorrow although it already that day, I will got the midday showing of the Lost Legion which stars Colin Firth, (when did you last see your father) and Ben Kingsley. On Wednesday I will work on the day room light fitting and go to a performance of Pig Tales at the Playhouse in the evening about a girl brought up as a boy in a catholic household. I and not realised what this play was about until receiving the fortnightly e mail newsletter. I will go without expectations but hope there will be strong echoes about my being brought up essentially as a girl in a catholic household. Thursday I will arrange the annual check of the Gas central heating system and one gas fire, saving over £100 a year, and ion Friday evening there is the celebration of the opening of the Tube programme 25 years ago.

I rarely remember the content of dreams, just its feeling but that on waking for the third time has lingered and I found myself with a vivid image as I began to feel sleepy for the first time this day. To bed, to bed with a hey nonnee ney.

1200 Lost and Spooks

Lost is also about the problems of individualists needing to band together to achieve collective survival where it is almost impossible to know who to trust and who not. I also know all about such a state of mind and feeling and that it will leads to paranoia and inactivity, and the loss of self confidence.

There is no right or wrong solution, other than to accept this is the way of the world in general and do and say what you want, knowing what the consequences are likely to be. My evening finished with two programmes about Hell which also focussed on who to trust and who not. The first was a double ration of Spooks, whose return I may have missed before. In the first there was a killer bug within the community which the state pretends is a super bug. I suspect this is what has happened with the recent outbreaks of foot and mouth and the other break out of a disease which threatened to explode across animal specie, our food chain and economy. In this episode it is becomes necessary for our spooks to turn on other friendly spooks using on them techniques which they sue on spooks who are known enemies. One cannot shed ant tears about this, as what is happening in the Soprano's as I watched the penultimate episode and one lot of murderous criminals any redeeming qualities sets out to destroy another "Am I bovvered?"

In the second episode of Spooks, the focus is also on friends behaving just as badly as your enemies, but you forgive them friendly fire casualties because they are your friends, with the sub plot the states within states and the impact of globalization of commerce, finance and brotherhoods on individual states. The only difference between the two series is that in Spooks everyone is trying to do the right and best thing for the rest of the population, their country and its political leaders, but behave like criminal gangs, whereas in the other, the individuals know they are criminals with other criminals out to get them and their and most likely to than the good guys of the state, but they also believe in childhood, and Father Christmas and buying your way out of Hell into Heaven. The Spooks do not, they know they are in Hell and will remain so yet they try and work on according to the standards and beliefs of their childhood beliefs and faiths.

1198 Palin in Poland

This has to be notebook day such has been the diverse nature of activity. Foremost when considering some order of significance must be Mr Palin's visit to Auschwitz as part of his travels around Poland which included a meeting Lech Walesa, whose protest strike at the Gdansk shipyard and election as the head of Solidarity, within couple of years of Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow, becoming Pope John Paul II, led to the fall of Communism from power in Poland and to him becoming President.

Walesa, four years my junior, was not an opportunist having been convicted of anti social behaviour in 1970 for his part in strike action which led to 80 fellow workers being killed by riot police. Blacklisted in 1976 he survived with the help of friends, helped organise an illegal underground free trades union, arrested several times, but managed to return to the shipyard in 1980, the right man in the right place at the right time and his activities led to internment for a year before returning as a simple electrician under virtual house arrest in 1987, having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. It was not until 1987 that his role become more political with Solidarity forming a political party and Walesa managing to create an anti community alliance which in 1989 became the first non communist government within the Soviet sphere of influence. In 1990 he became the elected President and continued until 1995 when he lost political support among the parties and the public in general.

He continued in the background helping to form a new party and in 2000 standing for the Presidency he only attracted 1% of the vote. He reminds of Churchill and other great leaders who have their time and then cannot adjust to changing needs and ambitions, or accept the role which the new generations tends to assign, that of the respected, even venerated, elder statesman/woman but without direct power.

Walesa has a grace and favour office where Palin was given an audience; the Gdansk airport bears his name. he has received honorary knighthoods and other honours and doctorate degree from all over the world, but from the brief meeting one gained the impression of a man who longed to be leading some cause, in control, uncomfortable with being history and waiting for death and sainthood. He made Churchill's comment that all the things you liked were either immoral or not good for you. A hymn to old age.

While I have no connections with Poland the country has had my attention since I visited Unstitch in my imagination as I read the War Crimes Trials report at the instigation of my Jesuit History teacher when I was fourteen or fifteen years of age. I had written of this event earlier in the day without prior knowledge that a visit would be included in the Palin programme, which I would have anticipated had I given the programme further thought after disclosing this was the next part of his travels. He and the camera communicated the horror and despair of Auschwitz and the chilling observation that does the retention of such places make the present generation of the mind to recreate such places in modern form think again? I believe not. It puzzles me why we have to create devils as giant monsters breathing fire and smelling obnoxious when we have them now, as we have always had, in human form, and locked away within everyone, fortunately.

Also fortunately, there are those of great faith. Michael visited the most important Catholic shrine in Poland, a black Madonna, where such is the extent of the belief that the icon becomes a presence that different interest groups are allocated pilgrimage days during which the Madonna is shown periodically during a cycle of all day masses. The camera was able to convey the emotional significance of the experience on the faces of the older women present and I thought of how my mother and her sister would have been moved by the programme as they were by the kindness of a Polish priest who visited the parish from time to time, who came to their home and kept in touch during the decade before she was admitted to residential care.

There was an interesting Englishman who rather like Dick Whittington had gone to Poland in search of his fortune , had learnt the language, one of the most difficult in the world, became a fireman and is now a section head, and also a TV personality comic. He had some important words of wisdom which alas I suspect will fall on deaf ears, wishing that the British would show the same welcome to those now making their way for a new life here, as he was shown.

Whether it is from films about the Polish contribution to World War 2, the destruction of their capital and the building by the communists which included the authentic rebuilding of an old quarter, to the Warsaw concerto, I have felt the Polish people to be a serious nation with a horrendous history of enslavement who managed to retain their culture, their standards and their faith. This was eloquently expressed by one young woman about her hopes for the country's recognition and position in the new Europe. I have felt no such connection with other central European nations, from the programme, which is not to say that their tortured history and collective identity does not merit similar attention.

Being palin there were also the little boy Monty Pythonesque moments in the programme such as joining into a comedy theatre group, driving a traditional steam engine with passengers, visiting a salt mine where miners have created an amazing chapel with the finest sculptured statue scenes. Some 60 metres underground.

The programme was compensation for the catalogue of sporting disasters with Louis Hamilton making a mistake, his vehicle then developing a fault and finishing just outside the points placing to gain the championship. However there is a late news item of a query regarding the vehicles of two drivers who finished ahead which could result in the position being changed, but if this happened there would be no sense of victory. After yet another atrocious start, Sunderland fought back to a drawing position only to miss opportunities to go ahead and then lose by 3.1. Mr Keane remains resolute and if anyone can break the recent mould of the club fighting brilliantly to gain promotion and then only managing to win a handful of games as they drop back again. The Newcastle Rugby team also lost at home so everything now hangs on Newcastle entertaining Spurs on Satanta tomorrow night.

I did it. I managed to complete 101 games of level one chess against the computer without defeat or allowing the game to end in a draw after reaching, over 10, 20, 39, 40 and 50 games over the past week or so, and nearly abandoning the quest in frustration at my inability to concentrate or exercise self discipline and not play when I was tired or was divided in what to give my attention. I can now adopt a more relaxed approach to level two. However there is no sense of triumph because of the level one inclination the computer to commit suicide rather like the defences of the North East football clubs. Chess is usually a hopeless game for those like me who cannot remember sequences of moves or whose dyslexic myopia often prevents seeing what there is to see. Fortunately the computer allows one to reverse play to prevent simple errors, although this also enables cheating, except when one loses attention at the end game and there is a draw. All it takes is a moment's distraction and several hours and several days of activity come to naught from the point of the objective although the journey has its own interest.

I have also been working hard over the past week, but only in shorts bursts, sorting out the 101 work, making up new sets, and registering them in the index system. I have nearly completed the basic work and move on to creating artman signature cards and then photographing the completed sets and albums which will take the rest of this new week, which includes theatre on Wednesday and live football on Saturday, a visit to the bank re Mabel matters ion Monday and perhaps a trip to the cinema Tuesday or Thursday. If I concentrate hard during this week and get around to some jobs in the house and the cooker arrives as is sorted next Monday by next midweek I should be in a position to recommence work on the two river's project.

1188 China, suffer some children and their parents

This was not the intention to write as I am doing, to write anything that is, because he plan was to experience a participation show at the Playhouse and then stay for the after show talk of Our Friends in the North, but there is no regret for the loss of the investment of £5 in the ticket because I have been moved, reminded of my former self, angered tempered by understanding of the nature of Government and in particular the task now facing the people of China

I do not think the programme I came upon by chance was setting out to be unfair or could have scripted the moving plight of one couple whose child had been stolen from them to be sold to couples only willing to buy, some 70000 children estimated to have this fate.

This is the problem the population of China was growing exponentially as peasants produced more children than could be supported under the prevailing economic system. The government enacted a policy of restricted marriage to twenty years olds, 20 for girls and 22 for young men and then provided a permit to produce one child. Harsh but understandable as an expedient to cope with the problem of too many children dying during infancy because malnutrition and disease. The added complication is the traditional Chinese approach, which no doubt will be applauded by the many who oppose the role of the state in providing social care, that children should care for their parents when they get old and cannot work. The complication from the old child policy is that boys carrying on the line and look after their parents while girls become part of the family they marry into and look after their parents in law. This means a vast number of families who do not have sons to care for them

The consequence male babies and young male children are stolen and sold to desperate couples without a son. Because of the one child policy, couple commenced to have scans to determine the sex of their child and abort females even in the fifth month. The consequence of this is a national shortage of wives and there are estimated to be 40 million men with no hope of finding a wife. This leads to young women being stolen to become sex slaves, or slave bearers of children.

If a girl baby is not aborted she used to be given away but now can command a black market price. Another related problem is the number of children of both sexes born secretly because the couple are not old enough to marry or already have one child. It is possible to have more than one child or keep the child if is born with out a conception permit, but you have to pay fines and the programme mentioned one town although its size was not given, or if it was. I was not paying attention where the total of fines provided major income, although the programme implied this went into individual pockets rather than for community benefit.

The film concentrated on a number of moving individual situations whose predicaments caused me anger and tears as well as fearing for the individual futures because citizens are forbidden to talk about the problems outside of the country and have left themselves open to further fines, fines which were said to take five years to pay.

The main focus of the film was one couple where the child was born in secret in a farm building (here I have heard that story before) and who had then to abandon the child with its grandmother (Moses?) but who could not bear the loss, owned up, and over five years paid the fine. Father and grandfather had become two of the 150 million mainly men who had moved to the cities and towns for work, living bachelor lives in cramped environments, although fair's fair, nothing like the squalor and degradation which the peasants experienced when they moved to the cities during the industrial revolution in Great Britain, although one suspects they were and are still better off in terms of earnings which are then sent home (now what is all this fuss we make about economic migrants?) I mean both those willing to pay their taxes for a few comparatively small amounts of surplus income and not the non doms ) (those who are not legally domiciled in the UK by choice because this means they can avoid taxation) now estimated to be 115000 but where only a number in the tens of thousands earn enough to make a special annual tax sum worthwhile.

This carefully selected couple and chosen to be the TV guinea pigs for an ex police detective to try and find their son. The task of the detective is enormous although he claimed to have rescued 100 children. There is a suspect a neighbour who is reported to have admitted the that he stole the child for selling on after offering to take the child back to its mother then living with the grandmother who was looking after the boy while she sold goods from her small holding at the market. This neighbour then claimed to have left the boy outside his home and that another neighbour had seen the child playing happily eating an ice cream, letting the neighbour off the hook. At the end of the programme it is revealed that both the male neighbour and the female witness had disappeared from the local community. The grief of the parents and grand mother was unbearable because everything that was emerging in this programme suggested their child would not be recovered. It was no consolation that parents and children were being reunited 20 years and this throw away comment revealed how long the problem had existed. They had not recovered their child as the programme ended and the private detective admitted he had no leads.

One development revealed in the film had a small personal significance. The couple were investing money they could not afford in having their child's picture and details published as one child in a pack 52 playing cards. In 2003 the circulation by the US administration of the Most Wanted pack of playing cards in relation to Iraq lead me to developed the concept of my work cards, in A 4 size and in packs or sets of 24, although with artman and signature cards there are 52 cards in every 2 sets! Trivial given the nature of the human tragedy and suffering revealed in the programme.

Another story of similar plight was that of a young couple too old to marry and attempting to have their child in secret but where the both had to take place in hospital because of complications. They were forced to sell the child to pay the consequent fine. The mother came over as courageous and pleading for a solution where she was able to keep the child. I do not understand how those making the programme were not prepared to fund this individual case. The failure to do so undermined any moral authority which the programme set out to achieve. I have to day that while I would not have known about this situation without the programme I have major questions about the implications for the victims shown in the programme.

There was little sympathy for one trafficker who admitted he had sold his own child in the past and now traded in order to keep his one son. He was shown buying a one year boy for a childless couple. He paid the mother 9000 in currency while collection 12000 from the couple. He put the blame on the system. The woman who sold the boy admitted this was her third child.

The film was shot in secret, pretending to be tourists moving hotels every few days and constantly changing mobile phone cards. One throw away comment by the detective suggested it was not just the authorities who could get easy access to phone records.

At one level the film struck me as a cross between the worst aspects of Brave New World, 1984 and Nazi social engineering and human biological experimentation to produce a race of perfect Aryan children.

The programme, no doubt in an effort to appease the authorities from taking retaliatory action, issued a statement from the Chinese government complaining that there was no scientific basis for the assertion that the one child policy was the cause of the problem covered in the film, paying out that nations without the policy also had the same problem, something which I thought the programme was misguided in emphasising. A story about the trade and plight of families would have made the point without going into the sensitive political arena. Think how sensitive we and the Americans become when foreigners criticise things where internally there is even greater controversy. Interestingly though the statement indicated that the one child per couple policy was to be reviewed but not before 2010 and after the Olympic games.

I spent to today, or yesterday as it now attending to paperwork and therefore missed Prime Minister Question time where it sound the opposition gave the PM a justified roasting, After a great start he messed up grand style and I bet Tony and Cheri would be laughing were it not that he has thrown away a great position for the Labour Party. In one major respect this is worse than the Iraq war because there was a higher purpose where as this was a pure unadulterated piece of political party gamesmanship that went wrong and which anyone with the slightest knowledge of the public could have predicted. He could either have said OK I am a new PM which a new approach which I will put immediately before the electorate and we be the judge. He might not have won but it was a position which matched the gravitas and moral authority he had successfully portrayed when confronted with a series of crisis this summer. His statement on Iraq to Parliament also fell short of admitting that he had made the initial statement after his visit because he planned to call an election and anted to make the visit before going to the polls where Iraq and our continuing involvement would be an issue.

The Autumn financial statement again brought forward fared little better. His is a tax raising mini budget aimed to finance what are popular measures some traditional goodies for Labour supporters, i.e. more for education and health than previously planned and some which appealed to the public when proposed by the opposition, and with the taxes coming from the rich and from business, which also appeals to traditional Labour supporters and the trade unions. All that has happened over the past three days is that the hole which he dug by first contemplating an election and then backing out has got deeper and deeper. This has been party political behaviour at its worst, cynical and morally bankrupt and such behaviour tends to reap its own reward by entering the halls of political infamy such as Appeasement and the Poll tax. That you did not understand that being Prime Minister means you put the country before political party worries me greatly. You have doomed yourself to one term Gordon and you will need a series of miracles to recover.

Suddenly the media has left events in Burma and quickly as it focussed attention. There are reports of Monks disappearing in the night and the burning of bodies, now how often has that happened before during my lifetime? The media is quick to devote attention to was appears to be a worthwhile cause, fuel it, give hope and encouragement. There may be good reasons for now moving on to other things.

I need to be convinced that this is so.

The media machine is still working hard for the parents of Madeleine but oh I wish that a fraction of what is being spent by their advisers and supporters was going on all the other children who have disappeared at the hands of men, and some women for reasons which are not in their best interests.