The ring-doughnut of unvisited places

In this country, my wife and I travel to two sorts of places. There are those we can get to and back easily in a day, and those sufficiently far away to require one or more overnight stays. The ones we can visit in a day form a sort of circle around our house in West Worcestershire. The limits of this circle to the North are Birmingham and Solihull, where we visit family. Any further North requires a trip up the grim M6 through the Black Country, and is therefore avoided. The limit to the East is Oxford, which we can reach by (a very slow) train. To the South, our limits for a day-trip are Gloucester and the pleasant market-town of Cirencester, while to the West we go over the Welsh border as far as Llandrindod Wells and Welshpool.

Places which require an overnight stay such as London or Devon are of course about a 100 or more miles away. But between the circle of day-trips and the wider area of overnight-stays is a ring-doughnut-shaped area that we never usually visit. These are places just too far to travel to and from with pleasure in a day, but too close to justify booking and paying for a hotel. In our case, this ring-doughnut of unvisited places includes many locations with much to offer - places like Wiltshire, the Thames Valley below Oxford, Derbyshire, and inland mid-Wales.

Anyway, my wife and I decided that the time has come to visit places within the ring-doughnut, and last weekend we headed for a two-night stay in Lacock, about 75 miles from our home. Lacock is a very picturesque village owned by the National Trust - so picturesque in fact that (together with Lacock Abbey) it has been used as a setting for about 50 films and television programmes. The day we arrived, there was shooting for Downton Abbey just along the street from our hotel. The square in front of the parish church was arranged to look like a country market-place in the 1920s, with cows, sheep and pigs, local extras in hats and long coats, and a vintage van. Most of the shooting seemed to involve standing around, with very brief intervals of action. I wonder how many minutes of television time resulted from the two days of filming.

Our inn in Lacock was the Sign of the Angel - a wooden-frame building said to date from the 1400s. There are low beams, huge fireplaces and creaky wooden stairs. The floors on the ground-floor had stone flags - those in the bedrooms on the first floor pitched in all directions. The inn too has been a filmset - for one of the Harry Potter stories. We ate excellent meals (and especially breakfasts) at the Sign of the Angel, and slept well in one of the inn’s five bedrooms. On the Saturday, we visited Lacock Abbey and the Fox-Talbot museum of photography (named after one of the main inventors of photography who lived in the Abbey). We also took a train to Bath.

We discovered that one of the joys of holidaying in the ring-doughnut of unvisited places is that we are in no hurry to drive there and back. So on the way, we stopped at Stow-in-the-Wold, saw Lechlade and visited Avebury - a village enclosed in a vast prehistoric stone circle and embankment. On the way back, we stopped at Newark Park. This is a much-expanded Elizabethan hunting lodge on the top of the Cotswold Edge, overlooking the wide Severn Valley. This is probably the only British stately home to be restored by a gay American ex-servicemen.

The horrors of planning No. 1: sustainable development

Before I became a parish councillor, I knew little about the world of town and country planning. In the last few years, I have struggled to make good this deficit - essential since the work of planners can protect what we value or, at worst, can result in ghastly edifices which assault the eye, the demolition of pleasant streets or the obliteration of precious countryside. I found that planning, like all professions, has its own language and assumptions. These are rarely questioned by practitioners and little understood by the rest of us. One such term is ‘sustainable development’. In the non-planning world, this has a reasonably clear meaning, inspired by the United Nations report of 1987 Our Common Future (often called the ‘Brundtland Report’). This defined ‘sustainable development’ to mean “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Sustainable development is the stated objective of the key planning document in England: the 2012 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This begins by quoting the definition in the Brundtland Report, while the forward by the then Minister of Planning states that “The purpose of planning is to help achieve sustainable development”. In addition, paragraph 14 states that:

“At the heart of the National Planning Policy Framework is a presumption in favour of sustainable development, which should be seen as a golden thread running through both plan-making and decision-taking.”

The rest of the NPPF instructs local planning authorities (and planning inspectors in cases of appeals against refusal of planning permission) in how to implement ‘sustainable development’. However, in a remarkable verbal conjuring trick, it narrows the concept to the point of disappearance. So paragraph 14 continues by advising that:

“local planning authorities should positively seek opportunities to meet the development needs of their area; Local Plans should meet objectively assessed needs, with sufficient flexibility to adapt to rapid change, unless: any adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, when assessed against the policies in this Framework taken as a whole; or specific policies in this Framework indicate development should be restricted.”

So development (not even ‘sustainable development’ by this stage) will be approved unless there is significant and demonstrable reasons for not proceeding. By paragraph 47, any constraints on housing development are removed:

 “To boost significantly the supply of housing, local planning authorities should: use their evidence base to ensure that their Local Plan meets the full, objectively assessed needs for market and affordable housing in the housing market area, as far as is consistent with the policies set out in this Framework, including identifying key sites which are critical to the delivery of the housing strategy over the plan period; identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide five years worth of housing against their housing requirements with an additional buffer of 5%...”

A footnote defines the mysterious term ‘deliverable sites’ as ones that are:
    ”available now, offer a suitable location for development now, and be achievable with a realistic prospect that housing will be delivered on the site within five years and in particular that development of the site is viable”.

This commitment to what for practical purposes is unlimited development is bad news for rural villages that would prefer to remain villages. Paragraph 55 clarifies what ‘sustainable development’ means in this case:

 “To promote sustainable development in rural areas, housing should be located where it will enhance or maintain the vitality of rural communities. For example, where there are groups of smaller settlements, development in one village may support services in a village nearby. Local planning authorities should avoid new isolated homes in the countryside unless there are special circumstances such as: the essential need for a rural worker to live permanently at or near their place of work in the countryside; or where such development would represent the optimal viable use of a heritage asset or would be appropriate enabling development to secure the future of heritage assets; or where the development would re-use redundant or disused buildings and lead to an enhancement to the immediate setting; or the exceptional quality or innovative nature of the design of the dwelling.”

So a development is defined by the NPPF as ‘sustainable’ in a rural area if it is on the edge of a village, which will apparently ‘enhance the ‘vitality of rural communities’. I have heard councillors and planning officers using this very definition to propose that a large new housing estate is indeed ‘sustainable’ because it is on the edge of a reasonably-sized village.

I live in a rural parish with about 1400 residents. We are fortunate in having a primary school and high school, a shop and post office, a garage, some trading estates, a large sports centre and even a local radio station. So far, ‘sustainable development’ has meant building 51 houses on good farming land, with permission for another 14 on an old orchard. This process is being repeated in villages all over England, and the result will be to substantially reduce the farmland needed to feed current and future generations. The NPPF is therefore a thoroughly dishonest document, which adopts the fashionable terminology of ‘sustainability’ to justify what in reality is uncontrolled and destructive development.

Eating a steak in Glasgow in 1968.

In 1968, I became a student at the University of Strathclyde, studying for an MSc in Politics. I was attracted by the reputation of Professor Richard Rose, a young and enthusiastic head of department with a major public profile. I stayed for the first year in a ghastly postgraduate hall of residence in Rotten Row, very close to the University’s McCance Building - the location of the Department and also the University’s library. There was of course no Internet, which meant that students spent hours reading in the Library, often the back issues of the (then very few) academic journals. Towards the end of that academic year, I met an attractive library assistant who I later married (and eventually divorced).

My income came from a postgraduate studentship, which (just) covered my living costs and allowed me to eat out at a restaurant about once a month. But there was astonishingly little choice in Glasgow restaurants at that time: almost all were steakhouses owned by Reo Stakis, who had come to Scotland from Cyprus many years before. Stakis knew what sold and his restaurants were well-run and produced tasty and economical food, albeit from a restricted menu. There was a Stakis steakhouse just below the McCance Building on George Street, and this was my usual spot for dining out.

I remember this experience well. Like most British restaurants then and for many years after, the steakhouse was dimly-lit. There was an open kitchen and grill, which was used for cooking the steaks. There was a choice of sirloin, rump and rib-eye, in different weights. The restaurant also served gammon steaks and (I think) a fish dish. I would usually start with either a prawn cocktail or egg mayonnaise. The latter comprised two halves of a boiled egg, covered in mayonnaise with some paprika. Both the latter ingredients were at that time quite exotic. For the main course, I usually ate the cheapest rump steak, which would be accompanied by a single large cepe, a grilled tomato and some hand-cut chips. When this was finished, I would be offered a selection of puddings from a ‘sweet trolley’ which was wheeled round to the table. I usually chose either black forest gateau or trifle. After the meal, there was then a fashion for Irish Coffee (coffee with whiskey, with cream floating on top), but I preferred my coffee unadulterated.

I had thus eaten the characteristic 1960s British restaurant meal, now utterly out-of-fashion and even mocked by comedians. But the food tasted wonderful, and the restaurant gave me a warm feeling that I had enjoyed a special treat. Suppose I were to be transported back to 1968 to eat the same meal at the same restaurant - would I still find the food as tasty? In the years since then, my tastebuds have experienced many different types of food in several countries, but I think that a Reo Stakis steak and chips would still be satisfying. This is because steak and chips, egg mayonnaise and trifle can be some of the tastiest food on the planet. This of course involves the radical idea of judging food primarily by its taste rather than by fashion (ingredients which you have never heard of and which are unobtainable outside central London), by arty-farty arrangements of food on the plate (towers, drizzles, foam etc), or by the expensive ambience of the restaurant in which it is served.

Why has taste declined as the main criteria for judging food? The main reason is probably the importance of television and its many celebrity chefs. Television is a visual medium utterly unable to transmit taste or smell to its viewers. To keep the viewers’ attention, its celebrity chefs must generate a succession of innovative recipes, often filmed in exotic locations and using strange ingredients. People thus come to judge food by what it looks like and whether it succeeds in being strange and different.

See also:Dining in yuppieland

Another reason to be nice to your turkey this Christmas

There are lots of reasons for eating turkey meat at Christmas: pound-for-pound, turkeys are a cheap way of feeding a lot of people; turkeys are traditional at Christmas (well since the 1960s anyway); and there are lots and lots of recipes, online and in books, for how you can improve the tasteless dry meat of the turkey. The last reason gives the game away: no-one enjoys the taste of a turkey. I have asked numerous people and have yet to find a single one who believes that roast turkey tastes better than roast chicken, goose or duck, or roast beef or lamb. People eat turkey for non-food reasons - to stuff themselves with tasteless food and to conform to some idiot tradition. So follow the words of the great Brummie poet Benjamin Zephaniah and be nice to your turkey this Christmas.

See also: Have yourself a merry/melancholy/some other emotion Christmas

Human rights and human wrongs

Britain is the only country in the World in which there is a sustained political campaign against the idea that its citizens should have human rights. There are of course many countries which abuse, torture, murder or neglect their inhabitants. But almost all have some written guarantees of citizens’ rights in their constitutions and/or are signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) and (in the case of all European countries except Belarus) its European equivalent, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

This campaign against human rights is puzzling for two reasons. In the first place, the United Kingdom played an important part in drafting both the UNDHR and the ECHR. The lead role in both was played by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, who, as Lord Kilmuir, ultimately became Lord Chancellor in the Conservative government led by Sir Anthony Eden. The UK acceded to the ECHR in 1951, and also supported the establishment of the European Court of Human Rights, which was set up in 1959. The second reason is that England produced some of the earliest declarations of human rights in World history, with the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Bill of Rights of 1689. Some of the clauses in these documents, particularly the right that punishment should only follow the due process of law, appear in both the UNDHR and the ECHR.

Human rights laws are not abstract statements of philosophy: both the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights were a practical response to the experience of tyrannical government. They were an assertion of the minimum standards that citizens (or, in the case of the Magna Carta, ‘free men’) should expect in their dealings with those in power. The UNHDR and the ECHR were likewise a response to tyranny, albeit one far more evil than those of Kings John and James II. Nor are statements of rights some strange innovation: all public laws define rights and obligations for classes of people. For instance, landlord and tenant acts define the rights of each group, and the actions they are obliged to carry out (paying rent, maintaining the property etc). Likewise, human rights laws define rights (in this case of the people living within a territory) and the obligations of the governments of that territory.

Why then the opposition to human rights laws? One reason is that the UNDHR and the ECHR are international, with the ECHR enforced by a European court comprised of judges from different countries. Citizens in countries which have signed the Convention (ie every European country except Belarus) can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if they believe their rights under the ECHR have been breached by the actions of their national government. Even though the European Court of Human Rights has no connection with the European Union, it still includes the dread word ‘European’ in its title, which is enough to enrage the xenophobes on the extreme right-wing of British politics. This opposition extends to the 1998 Human Rights Act, even though this had the aim of repatriating cases from the European Court of Human Rights. Before the Human Rights Act, the UK did not have an legally-binding declaration of human rights, with the result that there were many appeals to the Court from the UK. One of the aims of the Human Rights Act was to reduce the number of these appeals by writing the ECHR into British law, so that our Supreme Court could adjudicate in place of the European Court of Human Rights. This has been successful, and the number of applications from the UK to the Court has halved in the last two years.

A second possible reason for the campaign against human rights is the fear of judicial activism, in which policy decisions are made by judges rather than elected legislators. This is a reasonable fear, based on the ghastly example of the US Supreme Court, which has become de facto the most important legislative body in the USA. Issues which in European countries have been decided by parliaments (like abortion law reform, the funding of political parties and public health insurance) have all been decided in the USA by a highly-politicised group of judges. However, the European Court of Human Rights has so far avoided this kind of judicial activism, and has tried to take account of the variations in the moral values of different European states. In any case, campaigners against human rights have grossly exaggerated the degree to which the Court has made rulings that contradict UK government policy. Cases of this kind are extremely rare, as shown in this expert blog post by Merris Amos:
http://ukconstitutionallaw.org/tag/european-court-of-human-rights/.

Reporting of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights has often involved not just exaggeration, but also outright lies. Merris Amos cites the case of three convicted murderers serving whole-life prison sentences who appealed to the Court on the grounds that such sentences constitute ‘inhuman or degrading punishment’ under Article 3 of the ECHR. The Court ruled that whole-life sentences were compatible with Article 3 provided that there was a possibility of reviewing the sentence after (it suggested) 25 years in prison. A review, of course, is not the same as a release. This did not stop the Telegraph reporting that the Court had concluded that whole life tariffs were inhuman and degrading treatment. The Times reported that the Court had ruled ‘that whole-life sentences for the most notorious murderers are unlawful.” The Sun described the judgement as “a bombshell ruling banning British courts from giving our worst killers whole-life sentences.”

This dishonesty is a clue to the third and possibly the main reason for the campaign against human rights laws: a commitment to corporate-compliant government. Human rights laws aim to prevent governments from committing arbitrary and unjust actions against their citizens. They thereby challenge the power not just of governments, but also of the vast corporations that increasingly dominate policy-making. Oligarchs like Rupert Murdoch (who owns the Times and Sun) will therefore tend to favour governments which give them a free run. This is hardly a popular policy, and deception is therefore required to help the public surrender their rights.

See also:
Xenophobia against who?

Living the dream

Dreams are supposed to give you messages about your secret desires and fears. If this is the case, then what I most desire/fear is boredom. My dreams in recent years have become staggeringly dull. The dullest of all was experienced two nights ago. In the dream, I was working in an office. The other people there were friendly but unstimulating. The office-building was a drab three-storey building from the 1950s with long corridors. There must have been a factory behind the office-block because I saw large groups of workingmen arrive and leave through some ornate gates in front of the building. In the dream, I was still living with my parents in Shirley, and I would catch a number 18 bus from a stop on the Stratford Road to get to the office, which seemed to be somewhere in Birmingham. The dream was devoid of any mystery or sense of strangeness, except that the number 18 bus never seemed to arrive, and I was forced to take other buses with unfamiliar routes and destinations.

It is possible, of course, that dreams do not reveal desires or fears, but just re-assemble new and old memories into narrative strings. I did once work in a 1950s office-block in front of a factory during a university vacation in 1967. This was repetitive work using a primitive adding machine called a ‘comptometer’, recording the orders for ice-cream collected by the team of saleswomen in the office who were on the phone all day to various shops. I caught the number 18 bus to work not at that time, but later in my life when I lived and worked in Birmingham. What evoked these memories and connected them to present experience? Perhaps it was the realisation that although my life includes satisfaction and stimulation, it also has its share of tedium.

The ratio of tedium to stimulation has shifted in the last week with the end of my teaching this year for the University of the Third Age (U3A). This involves leading a two-hour session once a fortnight to a group of very bright retired people. Each session deals with a different topic in social sciences, such as religion, learning and skills, crime, and  ageing. I have previously studied only a few of these topics, and so most sessions require a frantic search through the relevant social science writing and recent research to assemble my presentation. This is certainly stimulating mentally, and so are the following discussions. Teaching starts again in January, with a session on happiness. So my dreams should become less mundane next month.

A bar in La Herradura

There came a point in the life of our family when we could afford to go on holiday to a villa with a swimming pool. So in April 1994, we flew to Malaga, picked up a hire-car, and drove to a villa on a hillside overlooking the sea near the village of La Herradura. After a week there, we moved for the second week to a villa in a quiet street near the centre of Nerja. This was a happy time. My children were nine and five years old, and were full of curiosity and excitement. The villas were excellent, and the surrounding area has many fascinating places to visit. My wife and I could lie on our bed in the villa at La Herradura at night, and look out across the sea at the distant flickering lights of fishing boats. We travelled to Frigiliana (a beautiful white village full of flowers), visited  the Alhambra, threw snowballs at each other on the Sierra Nevada, wandered round the old city of Almuñécar, and travelled through the white mountainside villages of Las Alpujarras. We visited the caves of Nerja and strolled along the Balcón de Europa. We ate fresh fish cooked in a small café on the beach.

One day I walked down to the village centre of La Herradura, and went into a local bar for some beer. Sitting against the bar, smoking, was a gloomy-looking Englishman. He told me he was not on holiday, but was a local resident. “I left England because the country’s going to the dogs”, he said. “It’s full of bloody immigrants. They don’t learn our language and don’t learn our ways”. “Do you speak Spanish”, I asked a little later. “No, never bothered”, he replied.

The next week in Nerja, I saw a more impressive example of the English abroad. It was clear that the town had a substantial population from North-West Europe. The British had contributed to the culture of the place in a positive way. There were some pleasant cafes selling salads, tea and cakes, and an English-language bookshop. An English-language  newsletter reported meetings of ramblers (walking in Winter rather than Summer), a local history group and an animal welfare society. The British residents were essentially re-creating the middle-class life of their home country in a foreign land. But their very success in this task may have impeded their participation in the general life of Spanish society. Did the English immigrants to Spain ‘bother’ to learn Spanish? The magazine advertised Spanish classes, but it is hard to become fluent in a second language, particularly when you start learning late in life.

I too was struggling to learn Spanish. On the last week we stayed in Nerja, I saw a big headline in one of the Spanish papers. I translated it to read that Ayrton Senna was dead. ‘That can’t be true’, I thought. 'I must have made a mistake'.