Here's a headline that struck me in the Guardian online this morning:
"Most asylum seekers put in poorer parts of Britain, data shows".
My first reaction: what a stupid thing to do, send people in need to areas in need. That will really help sort things out. Although it quite often works out that people who are themselves struggling understand better e problems of others. On the other hand, it's a recipe for building up resentment, fuelling those who say that immigrants get everything for free!
My second reaction: well, I bet it's because there is cheaper housing in those areas.
And so I read on and got some details.
More than five times as many asylum seekers live in the poorest third of the country as in the richest third, according to this Guardian analysis. Labour's Yvette Cooper says the way asylum seekers are distributed around Britain a shambles. “You’ve got the asylum hostels concentrated in the lowest income areas and also in a very small number of areas. It’s just not fair to do it that way. It’s not good for community cohesion, it’s not good for local authorities … it also creates a sense of resentment.”
She went on to say Cooper that the problems stemmed from a change of policy in 2012 by the Conservatives, which saw the contracts for housing asylum seekers privatised and given to G4S, Serco and Clearsprings. She said these contracts, and the reduced money they were given to execute them, inevitably meant that companies sought to procure cheap housing in poor parts of the country. There you go! Just as I thought!
Rochdale, a couple of stops up the M62 from us is one of those poor areas referred to. Some years ago McDonald's pulled out of Rochdale; that's how rundown the place is. Or so the story goes!
It has an impressive town hall and a lot of closed shops. And one asylum seeker for every 200 inhabitants.
In asylum Britain, there is apparently a rule: no town should have more than one asylum seeker for every 200 people. In Rochdale, the ratio is 0.99 per 200 - the most in England. For the local MP it is “far, far far too many".
It's somehow symptomatic of the topsy-turvy nature of the world at the moment.
Here's another example. The Trump administration is considering a new "extreme vetting" policy which would mean that tourists from places like the Uk, Germany, France and probably others would be asked to hand over personal information such as social media passwords and mobile phone contacts or run the risk of being denied entry to the land of the free. They might also be asked to disclose financial information and be subjected to ideological questioning. The Customs and Border Protection people maintain that “keeping America safe and enforcing our nation’s laws in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully examine all materials entering the US."
It's just as well I wasn't thinking of going there.
Monday, 10 April 2017
Sunday, 9 April 2017
Weeds and warnings!
As spring, indeed quite possibly summer, appears to be here, I have spent part of today digging up dandelions from the patch of grass at the side of the house. Calling it a lawn would be an exaggeration. I would hesitate to say that the dandelions have been eradicated but there are now considerably fewer of them. As a matter of fact, when a mass of dandelions are in flower I think they can look quite fantastic. The trouble is that they go to seed and spread all over the place. So they had to go. Now the not-a-lawn looks as though it has been visited by hoards of mini-moles. All in a good cause!Yesterday, returning from my walk, I also did a little to help reduce the crop of Japanese (or Chinese or Indonesian) balsam that grows so prolifically around here. I recognise the seed leaves on the tiny balsam plants and pull up a few as I go along my way. Not very effective, I suspect, but every little helps. This is another weed that looks very attractive but it is even more pernicious than the dandelions because it takes over so much ground that nothing else has a chance to grow. Apparently we have Queen Victoria to blame for this immigrant plant which can reduce the value of your house if it grows in your garden. Thanks, Your Majesty!
Today I have also produced a late-birthday/early-Easter cake for the granddaughter whose birthday we missed while we were away. She has also been pestering for one of the "babies" thrown out by my spider plant so today I repotted all the runners and will pass one on to her.Yesterday I mentioned plain packaging for ready meals (no regulations yet) and cigarettes (regulations coming into force). Well, today I read that tobacco companies are getting around the regulations by putting competitive price stickers on their plain packets. The objective is to "attract cost-conscious poorer smokers". But then I suppose nobody expects tobacco companies to be truly bothered about health matters. They are in the business of making a profit after all.
Also in today's paper is yet another report on how over-use of the internet is making our young people lonely. It's not just the cyberbullying but the pressure they feel to conform to certain norms of social media behaviour. And so they can have loads of virtual friends but few real ones and a great sense of isolation. Today's report began with a statement that Facebook should come with a health warning. However, in the report I read yesterday one of the young people they interviewed said that the young do not use Facebook. Facebook, it seems, is for the older generation. The young have moved on to other stuff. What they really want is parents who actually speak to them properly. As ever, they need guidance along the way.
Nothing changes apparently!
Saturday, 8 April 2017
Some things change - others stay the same.
As promised, the sun came out and shone for us today. It was still fresh and cool when I went out running frost thing: not all that first thing really as it was rapid,y heading towards 9.00. And this despite my good intentions to get up earlier! I ran into old Jack and his little dog Rosy. He told me there had been frost on his car when he got up: not really surprising considering what a clear night it was!
But the sunshine saw me hanging washing out in the garden for the first time this year! That's a standard reaction around here to really good weather. Later I went out walking. The other standard reaction to good wether around here is to go out and walk along the bridle paths and tow paths. There were loads of people out and about.
My progress along the Donkey Lone was impeded by a whole family of cyclists who seemed to be just learning to use their gears, judging by the number of times they had to stop and sort themselves out wrong change of gear had bounced the chain off. And they had their little dog Betty running along as well which caused problems when they had horses to contend with as well: all stop and grab Betty before she gets over-excited and spooks the horses.
Changes have been noted here and there. Time clearly does not stand still in our absence.What looked as if it was going to be an extension on a house up the road has turned out to be a HUGE conservatory, with a floor area almost as big as an extra house. It has been very nicely done, I must say, and I hope they get years of pleasure from it.
The bobby on the beat was back in the village again this morning. Is this a move to prevent weekend excesses? Or is he really just a glorified traffic cop, checking that the double yellow lines outside the shops are respected? As a rule they are not!
The work on the canal banks appears to have been completed. The canals are full of water again and the barges are chugging up and down once more. As I set off on my walk today I was stopped by someone looking for the barges, the canals and the viaduct - one of our local landmarks. I gave him directions. When he discovered that he would have to walk his dog a couple of miles, which seemed to me quite reasonable, he baulked and asked if I could give directions to go by car. Which I duly did!
The park in Uppermill was full of people, most strolling around or watching their children on the playground. Some had clearly settled in for the duration. No simple picnic blankets for these. Folding chairs abounded. One family group had brought with them two of those folding picnic-table-with-benches-attached affairs. These were neatly set out with picnic plates and glasses and cutlery. A fine déjeuner sur l'herbe if ever you saw one. They were as organised as any Spanish family out for a day at the beach! Impressive!
I wonder what they were eating. Masses of people were busily tucking in to fish and chips from the three chip shops on the high street. Others had huge sandwiches or pies or pasties from the local bakers. No doubt they would be frowned on by the healthy eating brigade.
Later I was reading yet another report in the paper about obesity. This one said that the problem is that the British rely too much on pre-packed food and ready meals. Not enough people eat freshly cooked food, which is, of course, much better for you. We are too gullible, it seems. Last month, I read, a professor of neuroscience advocated that high calorie food should be sold in plain packaging to make it less attractive. It's the same argument as for putting cigarettes in plain packets with no more than a health warning.
"Colourful wrapping of high energy foods of course makes you buy more of the stuff, and once you have it in your fridge, it's in front of you every time you open the fridge and ultimately you're going to eat it and eat too much."
So there you are: we are all too weak-willed. Upon which, I shall go and chop up some fresh vegetables ready for this evening's meal!
But the sunshine saw me hanging washing out in the garden for the first time this year! That's a standard reaction around here to really good weather. Later I went out walking. The other standard reaction to good wether around here is to go out and walk along the bridle paths and tow paths. There were loads of people out and about.
My progress along the Donkey Lone was impeded by a whole family of cyclists who seemed to be just learning to use their gears, judging by the number of times they had to stop and sort themselves out wrong change of gear had bounced the chain off. And they had their little dog Betty running along as well which caused problems when they had horses to contend with as well: all stop and grab Betty before she gets over-excited and spooks the horses.
Changes have been noted here and there. Time clearly does not stand still in our absence.What looked as if it was going to be an extension on a house up the road has turned out to be a HUGE conservatory, with a floor area almost as big as an extra house. It has been very nicely done, I must say, and I hope they get years of pleasure from it.
The bobby on the beat was back in the village again this morning. Is this a move to prevent weekend excesses? Or is he really just a glorified traffic cop, checking that the double yellow lines outside the shops are respected? As a rule they are not!
The work on the canal banks appears to have been completed. The canals are full of water again and the barges are chugging up and down once more. As I set off on my walk today I was stopped by someone looking for the barges, the canals and the viaduct - one of our local landmarks. I gave him directions. When he discovered that he would have to walk his dog a couple of miles, which seemed to me quite reasonable, he baulked and asked if I could give directions to go by car. Which I duly did!
The park in Uppermill was full of people, most strolling around or watching their children on the playground. Some had clearly settled in for the duration. No simple picnic blankets for these. Folding chairs abounded. One family group had brought with them two of those folding picnic-table-with-benches-attached affairs. These were neatly set out with picnic plates and glasses and cutlery. A fine déjeuner sur l'herbe if ever you saw one. They were as organised as any Spanish family out for a day at the beach! Impressive!
I wonder what they were eating. Masses of people were busily tucking in to fish and chips from the three chip shops on the high street. Others had huge sandwiches or pies or pasties from the local bakers. No doubt they would be frowned on by the healthy eating brigade.
Later I was reading yet another report in the paper about obesity. This one said that the problem is that the British rely too much on pre-packed food and ready meals. Not enough people eat freshly cooked food, which is, of course, much better for you. We are too gullible, it seems. Last month, I read, a professor of neuroscience advocated that high calorie food should be sold in plain packaging to make it less attractive. It's the same argument as for putting cigarettes in plain packets with no more than a health warning.
"Colourful wrapping of high energy foods of course makes you buy more of the stuff, and once you have it in your fridge, it's in front of you every time you open the fridge and ultimately you're going to eat it and eat too much."
So there you are: we are all too weak-willed. Upon which, I shall go and chop up some fresh vegetables ready for this evening's meal!
Friday, 7 April 2017
Coincidence and likely stories
Yesterday we left the Iberian peninsula in sunshine. Beautiful views of northwest Spain from the plane windows. The north coast clear as a good picture postcard, a whole geography lesson laid out below us. The pilot told us we were flying out over the Atlantic towards Ireland, to avoid problems with France's airspace apparently. Are their air traffic controllers creating problems still/again? On reaching Ireland we would take a right turn and head for Manchester. Ok. It sounded like a reasonable route plan.
As I said, over the north coast of Spain the air was clear as clear could be. Moving out over the Atlantic, little dots of cloud started to appear, rather like a poor imitation of a Magritte painting. The further north we got, the closer together the clouds became, at first a thin, pancake-like layer but gradually growing thicker. By the time we started our descent, it was a good thick roll of cotton wool cloud, looking almost solid. Back in the UK!
And so I found myself, on Friday morning, bright and early, sitting in the cafe at Rochdale infirmary waiting while Phil has his second cataracts operation. After this he should be a new man with almost 20-20 vision. The wonders of modern surgery! It's a good job I have my trusty kindle with me.
I am coming to the end of a re-read of "The Lacuna", by Barbara Kingsolver. When our son was in his early teens he developed the habit of reading a book very quickly, to sort out the events, find out the ending and so on, and then going back for a second read to savour the good bits. Occasionally I do the same now. It's just as well I did so this time, for on my second reading I discovered a whole chunk of book which I had somehow missed first time around. This is one of the failings of the kindle; there is a button which takes you to the start of the next chapter rather than to the next page. Somehow I must have pressed this button by accident! Ridiculous! My brain had filled in background gaps for me as the book moved towards its end on my first reading, but it was so much better to actually have the extra detail! Give me a paper book any time!
It is odd that I have read this book immediately after completing Julian Barnes' "The Noise of Time". This latter book is a novelisation of, or perhaps a meditation upon, the life of Shostokovic, his trials and tribulations in Stalin's USSR and his efforts to remain true to his own ideals. The Barbara Kingsolver novel tells the story of a young man of dual nationality - Mexican mother and American father - who through one of those twists of fate ends up working in the household of Diego Riveira and Frida Kahlo when Trotsky took refuge in Mexico. And so we see the death of Trotsky through his eyes. More importantly we see his own struggle as a grown up writer against the machinations of the FBI and McCarthyism.
In both books we witness the fear generated by a regime that says "If you are not totally, obviously, evidently with us, then you must be against us", a regime that demands total conformity to an establishment way of thinking, and where questioning or criticising the regime in any way leads to persecution in one form or another.
In this age of media control of opinion, "fake news", and the threat of restriction of freedom of speech, these two texts should be set in tandem for political/literary study in colleges around the world!
As I said, over the north coast of Spain the air was clear as clear could be. Moving out over the Atlantic, little dots of cloud started to appear, rather like a poor imitation of a Magritte painting. The further north we got, the closer together the clouds became, at first a thin, pancake-like layer but gradually growing thicker. By the time we started our descent, it was a good thick roll of cotton wool cloud, looking almost solid. Back in the UK!
And so I found myself, on Friday morning, bright and early, sitting in the cafe at Rochdale infirmary waiting while Phil has his second cataracts operation. After this he should be a new man with almost 20-20 vision. The wonders of modern surgery! It's a good job I have my trusty kindle with me.
I am coming to the end of a re-read of "The Lacuna", by Barbara Kingsolver. When our son was in his early teens he developed the habit of reading a book very quickly, to sort out the events, find out the ending and so on, and then going back for a second read to savour the good bits. Occasionally I do the same now. It's just as well I did so this time, for on my second reading I discovered a whole chunk of book which I had somehow missed first time around. This is one of the failings of the kindle; there is a button which takes you to the start of the next chapter rather than to the next page. Somehow I must have pressed this button by accident! Ridiculous! My brain had filled in background gaps for me as the book moved towards its end on my first reading, but it was so much better to actually have the extra detail! Give me a paper book any time!
It is odd that I have read this book immediately after completing Julian Barnes' "The Noise of Time". This latter book is a novelisation of, or perhaps a meditation upon, the life of Shostokovic, his trials and tribulations in Stalin's USSR and his efforts to remain true to his own ideals. The Barbara Kingsolver novel tells the story of a young man of dual nationality - Mexican mother and American father - who through one of those twists of fate ends up working in the household of Diego Riveira and Frida Kahlo when Trotsky took refuge in Mexico. And so we see the death of Trotsky through his eyes. More importantly we see his own struggle as a grown up writer against the machinations of the FBI and McCarthyism.
In both books we witness the fear generated by a regime that says "If you are not totally, obviously, evidently with us, then you must be against us", a regime that demands total conformity to an establishment way of thinking, and where questioning or criticising the regime in any way leads to persecution in one form or another.
In this age of media control of opinion, "fake news", and the threat of restriction of freedom of speech, these two texts should be set in tandem for political/literary study in colleges around the world!
Wednesday, 5 April 2017
Tourist interest!
And suddenly summer is here. All right, I exaggerate somewhat but walking into town yesterday it almost felt uncomfortable walking across the long stretch at our end of Rosalía de Castro. That was not the only reason we stopped for a little refresco en route. We were heading for the barber's shop down near the port, where Phil reckons they do a much better haircut than the local barber back in the UK, and he wanted some small change for the barber's tip.
So we stopped off for a mineral water and were given huge raciones of very tasty-looking tortilla to go with it. Unfortunately we had had lunch not long before setting out and really could not do justice to it. It seemed a shame to leave it to be thrown away, which is what I suppose happens to stuff that is left on the tables. So I explained the situation to our waitress, telling her how much we normally appreciate the free tapas they provide. After all, we don't want to to go there on another occasion and find that they serve us nothing, believing us to be ungrateful foreigners.
While Phil had his hair cut I was harangued by an old bloke with only one tooth. He was telling me a long and rambling story about someone who had died after drinking large amounts of brandy. I have no idea who it was who had died, nor why he felt the need to talk to me about it. Finally he asked me if we were still in March. When I told him that, no, in fact we are already in April and yesterday was the fourth, he went into a minor panic, picked up a tray of plants of some kind that were on the window ledge and hurried off! Strange!
Meanwhile Phil was manfully setting the worlds to rights with the barber. He claims not to understand more than a third of what the elderly chap tells him but they managed to cover a range of topics: the weather, terrorism, Brexit, Donald Trump, and the tourists the barber had seen that morning, walking past his shop on their way from the cruiseboat to the town centre. He was amused to see them all in shorts and summer shirts, the women with bare arms, all shivering at 9.00 in the morning. The sun was shining and the sky was blue but it was still early(ish) morning and this is the northwest of Spain not the Costa del Sol.
Just as many Spaniards still believe that England is permanently foggy, so many English believe that everywhere in Spain in baking hot and sunny all year round. By mid afternoon, of course, their garb would have been perfect. I spotted 27 degrees on one chemist's sign: perhaps a little over the top but not far off. The locals, naturally, are mostly not out and about in shorts and summer frocks. Far too early for that. They must have heard, and adhere to, the old north of England saying about not casting a clout until May is out!
According to something I read last week, there will be fewer cruise ships calling in at Vigo than in previous years. I wonder why it has fallen out of favour. In its heyday there were often several ships a week in the summer months and sometimes three ships in one day. I would imagine Vigo is one of the few places that could accommodate three such huge tourist boats at one go.
Maybe the city needs to work a bit harder on smartening up the old quarter and tidying up the main shopping street, Principe. Walking along it yesterday, we noticed rather more boarded up shops than ever there used to be, making the place look rather scruffy and run down. And there has been scaffolding around the rather posh Club Social for almost a year now. It looks as though they have gutted the inside: total renovation with only the old grand facade remaining as it was. But, once again, it doesn't look good!
All is not doom and gloom on the tourist front however. The Faro de Vigo newspaper that I looked at in the barber's shop reported the great success of the Reconquista celebration events, held in the old quarter last weekend. Apparently the city has put in a bid for the event to be officially declared a "fiesta de Interés Turístico"! Watch this space!
Back in the UK, tourists will soon be able to see a display of gifts the queen has received during her visits to foreign parts. "Some of the more unusual gifts presented to the Queen, including a beaded throne, a totem pole and a novelty Buckingham Palace London Underground sign, are to go on show in a special exhibition. Previous exhibitions of gifts at Buckingham Palace have included a yellowing cloth rectangle, spun as a royal wedding present by Mahatma Gandhi, and once erroneously believed by Queen Mary to be a loincloth. Other gifts have found good homes, including a pair of sloths from Brazil, and an elephant called Jumbo from Cameroon." So said part of a report in the newspaper.
As for us, we are still waiting for work to start on the "humanizaciön" pf our bit of the street! Life goes on!
So we stopped off for a mineral water and were given huge raciones of very tasty-looking tortilla to go with it. Unfortunately we had had lunch not long before setting out and really could not do justice to it. It seemed a shame to leave it to be thrown away, which is what I suppose happens to stuff that is left on the tables. So I explained the situation to our waitress, telling her how much we normally appreciate the free tapas they provide. After all, we don't want to to go there on another occasion and find that they serve us nothing, believing us to be ungrateful foreigners.
While Phil had his hair cut I was harangued by an old bloke with only one tooth. He was telling me a long and rambling story about someone who had died after drinking large amounts of brandy. I have no idea who it was who had died, nor why he felt the need to talk to me about it. Finally he asked me if we were still in March. When I told him that, no, in fact we are already in April and yesterday was the fourth, he went into a minor panic, picked up a tray of plants of some kind that were on the window ledge and hurried off! Strange!
Meanwhile Phil was manfully setting the worlds to rights with the barber. He claims not to understand more than a third of what the elderly chap tells him but they managed to cover a range of topics: the weather, terrorism, Brexit, Donald Trump, and the tourists the barber had seen that morning, walking past his shop on their way from the cruiseboat to the town centre. He was amused to see them all in shorts and summer shirts, the women with bare arms, all shivering at 9.00 in the morning. The sun was shining and the sky was blue but it was still early(ish) morning and this is the northwest of Spain not the Costa del Sol.
Just as many Spaniards still believe that England is permanently foggy, so many English believe that everywhere in Spain in baking hot and sunny all year round. By mid afternoon, of course, their garb would have been perfect. I spotted 27 degrees on one chemist's sign: perhaps a little over the top but not far off. The locals, naturally, are mostly not out and about in shorts and summer frocks. Far too early for that. They must have heard, and adhere to, the old north of England saying about not casting a clout until May is out!
According to something I read last week, there will be fewer cruise ships calling in at Vigo than in previous years. I wonder why it has fallen out of favour. In its heyday there were often several ships a week in the summer months and sometimes three ships in one day. I would imagine Vigo is one of the few places that could accommodate three such huge tourist boats at one go.
Maybe the city needs to work a bit harder on smartening up the old quarter and tidying up the main shopping street, Principe. Walking along it yesterday, we noticed rather more boarded up shops than ever there used to be, making the place look rather scruffy and run down. And there has been scaffolding around the rather posh Club Social for almost a year now. It looks as though they have gutted the inside: total renovation with only the old grand facade remaining as it was. But, once again, it doesn't look good!
All is not doom and gloom on the tourist front however. The Faro de Vigo newspaper that I looked at in the barber's shop reported the great success of the Reconquista celebration events, held in the old quarter last weekend. Apparently the city has put in a bid for the event to be officially declared a "fiesta de Interés Turístico"! Watch this space!
Back in the UK, tourists will soon be able to see a display of gifts the queen has received during her visits to foreign parts. "Some of the more unusual gifts presented to the Queen, including a beaded throne, a totem pole and a novelty Buckingham Palace London Underground sign, are to go on show in a special exhibition. Previous exhibitions of gifts at Buckingham Palace have included a yellowing cloth rectangle, spun as a royal wedding present by Mahatma Gandhi, and once erroneously believed by Queen Mary to be a loincloth. Other gifts have found good homes, including a pair of sloths from Brazil, and an elephant called Jumbo from Cameroon." So said part of a report in the newspaper.
As for us, we are still waiting for work to start on the "humanizaciön" pf our bit of the street! Life goes on!
Tuesday, 4 April 2017
Beggars and passports!
Today I went running again, even though I was taking the risk that the threatened temporary water cut-off might have come into force, making showering difficult. Yesterday I did not run as the water was supposedly being cut off at 8.30, meaning I would have had to go out to run at 7.30 or even earlier in order to have time to shower afterwards. There are limits to my devotion to fitness!
Today, however, I chose to refuse to be ruled by arbitrary workmen's decisions and followed my normal routine. No problems at all. No water restrictions. Perhaps they underestimated the length of time it would take them to reach our stretch of the street.
As I turned left by the lighthouse roundabout and started to pound my way up the San Joan do Monte hill I realised that someone was waving to me. It looked like a couple of children. Then I realised that it was Soy-Muy-Pobre, who used to be our regular supermarket beggar, and her son. She looks about 16 but I know for a fact that her child is at least 7. So she must be in her twenties, even assuming she was very young when the child was born. Being small, of course, makes her look younger. Her son is almost as tall as she is.
After she had got over the delight of seeing me again - she is always pleased to see me - she told me how she had been outside our Mercadona on Saturday and had wondered if she would see "la señora" (me) again. She went on to have a little moan about her son's school being closed this morning, for no apparent reason and without prior notice. (Maybe there water has been cut off instead of ours!) She had walked her son up the hill to the school despite his having a bad cold and being unable to breathe well. The child obligingly sniffed impressively to prove that his mother was telling the truth. All of this she told me in a perfectly normal voice, speaking perfectly comprehensible Spanish. Then, as if remembering that I was a possible source of income, she slipped into her I'm-only-a-poor-little-beggar-girl whine to tell me that she can't afford to take him to the doctor or to buy medicine for him. Did I not have a little something to give her? To which I had to say no. I was out for a run and had no money with me. Maybe next time. I have to say though that and the child looked better dressed than the last time I saw them. Maybe things are looking up for them!
In the cafe yesterday evening, a table near ours was full once again of women talking, not so loudly this time, about everything under the sun. At one point Phil leaned across to me and commented: "I am amazed that the world champion fpr speed chess is not a Spanish woman because these women speak faster than I can think". And he is not wrong; there are some Spanish women who speak at a hundred miles an hour. Maybe they feel the need to say everything before they are interrupted by another member of their group. Which is something that quite often happens. If you pause for breath in such a conversational situation it is generally assumed that you have had your say and someone else can take over. What I want to know is how they speak so fast without tripping over their tongues!!
Nobody here has mentioned Gibraltar to me so far but I see that the nonsense is continuing. Here is a link to an article about it.
One theory is that it is all about national identity. Which is a matter which has some people yearning for the old blue passports that we British folk used to have before our maroon ones stamped with EU at the top of the front cover. According to the Independent newspaper some pro-Brexit MPs have been calling for a return to the dark blue passports and now the Home Office has confirmed that some £500 million will be spent redesigning the passport. They say that this is not because of our leaving the EU but because the current contract for passport design is coming to an end in 2019. What is wrong with just renewing the old contract and simply changing the colour? And why does it have to cost so much? Don't we have schools and hospitals and social services in need of money?
Personally, I couldn't care less what colour my passport is but some people think it is important. Here is a bit of information about our very British passports:
"The blue booklet passport was not introduced until 1920, and it was only issued for 68 years. We’ve had the burgundy version for 29 years – about a third of the time the UK has been issuing passports in book form. Around 24 million people iin the UK under the age of 29 have never held a blue British passport."
The journalist Emma Brockes is quite attached to her burgundy Uk passport. Maybe she is one of those who never had a blue one! Here is her opinion:
"I’ve been lucky enough to have freely lived and worked in both Greece and Austria in the last decade, thanks to that little burgundy document and what it represented. In their quest to restore this visual symbol of British identity, leave voters have diminished what you can achieve with it.
Nothing says home quite like a red passport."
She has two children who were born in the USA and would like them to benefit from dual nationality and have a UK as well as a USA passport. But it's not quite so straightforward as she expected it to be: "What, HM Passport Office wants to know, is the depth of the child’s claim to be British? Were the maternal grandparents married? When were they married? Where were they born? Before now, I have taken my nationality entirely for granted and in the face of these questions find myself fighting the urge to ask: what’s it to you?"
Somehow I find that quite disturbing. It smacks of ensuring the "purity of the nation", which is a dangerous concept!
Today, however, I chose to refuse to be ruled by arbitrary workmen's decisions and followed my normal routine. No problems at all. No water restrictions. Perhaps they underestimated the length of time it would take them to reach our stretch of the street.
As I turned left by the lighthouse roundabout and started to pound my way up the San Joan do Monte hill I realised that someone was waving to me. It looked like a couple of children. Then I realised that it was Soy-Muy-Pobre, who used to be our regular supermarket beggar, and her son. She looks about 16 but I know for a fact that her child is at least 7. So she must be in her twenties, even assuming she was very young when the child was born. Being small, of course, makes her look younger. Her son is almost as tall as she is.
After she had got over the delight of seeing me again - she is always pleased to see me - she told me how she had been outside our Mercadona on Saturday and had wondered if she would see "la señora" (me) again. She went on to have a little moan about her son's school being closed this morning, for no apparent reason and without prior notice. (Maybe there water has been cut off instead of ours!) She had walked her son up the hill to the school despite his having a bad cold and being unable to breathe well. The child obligingly sniffed impressively to prove that his mother was telling the truth. All of this she told me in a perfectly normal voice, speaking perfectly comprehensible Spanish. Then, as if remembering that I was a possible source of income, she slipped into her I'm-only-a-poor-little-beggar-girl whine to tell me that she can't afford to take him to the doctor or to buy medicine for him. Did I not have a little something to give her? To which I had to say no. I was out for a run and had no money with me. Maybe next time. I have to say though that and the child looked better dressed than the last time I saw them. Maybe things are looking up for them!
In the cafe yesterday evening, a table near ours was full once again of women talking, not so loudly this time, about everything under the sun. At one point Phil leaned across to me and commented: "I am amazed that the world champion fpr speed chess is not a Spanish woman because these women speak faster than I can think". And he is not wrong; there are some Spanish women who speak at a hundred miles an hour. Maybe they feel the need to say everything before they are interrupted by another member of their group. Which is something that quite often happens. If you pause for breath in such a conversational situation it is generally assumed that you have had your say and someone else can take over. What I want to know is how they speak so fast without tripping over their tongues!!
Nobody here has mentioned Gibraltar to me so far but I see that the nonsense is continuing. Here is a link to an article about it.
One theory is that it is all about national identity. Which is a matter which has some people yearning for the old blue passports that we British folk used to have before our maroon ones stamped with EU at the top of the front cover. According to the Independent newspaper some pro-Brexit MPs have been calling for a return to the dark blue passports and now the Home Office has confirmed that some £500 million will be spent redesigning the passport. They say that this is not because of our leaving the EU but because the current contract for passport design is coming to an end in 2019. What is wrong with just renewing the old contract and simply changing the colour? And why does it have to cost so much? Don't we have schools and hospitals and social services in need of money?
Personally, I couldn't care less what colour my passport is but some people think it is important. Here is a bit of information about our very British passports:
"The blue booklet passport was not introduced until 1920, and it was only issued for 68 years. We’ve had the burgundy version for 29 years – about a third of the time the UK has been issuing passports in book form. Around 24 million people iin the UK under the age of 29 have never held a blue British passport."
The journalist Emma Brockes is quite attached to her burgundy Uk passport. Maybe she is one of those who never had a blue one! Here is her opinion:
"I’ve been lucky enough to have freely lived and worked in both Greece and Austria in the last decade, thanks to that little burgundy document and what it represented. In their quest to restore this visual symbol of British identity, leave voters have diminished what you can achieve with it.
Nothing says home quite like a red passport."
She has two children who were born in the USA and would like them to benefit from dual nationality and have a UK as well as a USA passport. But it's not quite so straightforward as she expected it to be: "What, HM Passport Office wants to know, is the depth of the child’s claim to be British? Were the maternal grandparents married? When were they married? Where were they born? Before now, I have taken my nationality entirely for granted and in the face of these questions find myself fighting the urge to ask: what’s it to you?"
Somehow I find that quite disturbing. It smacks of ensuring the "purity of the nation", which is a dangerous concept!
Monday, 3 April 2017
About pensions and such!
Well, as midday approached today we still had water. So the promised "suspensión de suministro" obviously did not happen to schedule. They must be planning to lull us into a false sense of security. Then, just when we feel that it is safe to take a shower, set the washing machine going or clean the windows, the water supply will disappear. So it goes!
Fortunately we are not held to any strict schedule, being fortunate pensioners.
I have been reading quite a lot lately about how long people are going to have to work before they will be able to collect their pension - if such a thing exists by then. Nostalgia politics, with its longing for grammar schools, good, old-fashioned values, bobbies on the beat (I'm not sure that's really on the list), and (pretty soon) doctors who send you a bill for treatment, will have people back to working until they are 80 and then going off to a public workhouse. Laurie Lee country, here we come.
Some things in the reporting surprise me a was a young man in his early thirties, a young man with a young family, bemoaning the fact was just managing to make ends meet. He had no chance of saving money for the future. Now, I can remember when we were in our early thirties, with a young family, just scraping by, juggling money to get to the end of the month. It wasn't until later, when I was able to get back into full-time employment, that we could start saving again and put money into pension schemes. Mainly, we just didn't expect to go on expensive holidays or to run a fancy car and certainly not two cars.
But, yes, we were in a more secure situation than some young families find themselves in nowadays. We had managed to save for a mortgage before we had children and we knew that we could both count on a professional pension (once I got back into full-time work) as well as the state pension. And that was one of the things that struck me in my reading: as always, those with a professional qualification are still more likely to have a pension scheme set up. Although how long that will continue to be the case is perhaps debatable. As well as that, if you have to work until you are eighty, it will be much easier to do so if you have a fulfilling job that interests you.
Here's an idea that cropped up in my reading: a "slow retirement". It's not a new idea but something called the New Economics Foundation is arguing for a scheme where employees give up an hour of work per week every year from the age of 35. The idea is that older workers will release more of their work time to younger ones, which will allow a steady handover of retained wisdom. A universal basic income, whereby everyone receives a set sum from the state each year, regardless of how much they do or don’t work, might have a similar effect, enabling people to move to part-time work as they age. It seems like a good idea to me but maybe I am just a bit idealistic. Because, of course, there would need to be an agreement about that universal basic income. And there will always be those who do not want to relinquish the perceived "power" of their professional position by even a little move towards retirement. Perhaps we also need another look at those programmes which advise people on how to enjoy retirement, something I have not had problem with!
Another fortunate member of our generation I was reading about the other day is Prince Charles. The article was all about his hugging a young boy in Romania. It turns out that this child is the son of a close friend of the heir to the British throne. He is quite used to being hugged by the prince when the latter visits Romania, which apparently he does quite regularly.
Young Valentin Blacker is the child of an old Etonian and a Romanian gypsy. (Make of that what you will!) he lives mostly n a remote village in Transylvania but once a year he spends a month in a Church of England school in the UK. His father commented, “Valentin is well travelled but when he’s in Romania he is the same as all the other boys at school. He doesn’t get any special treatment. He just mucks in. I have taught him all the important things, which are speaking English, playing tennis and swimming."
It's reassuring to see that his old Etonian father knows what the important things in life are!
Two questions spring to mind:
Does Prince Charles receive a state pension? (Indeed, has he paid National Insurance contributions in order to qualify for one?)
And, given that we are leaving the EU, will young Valentin Blacker be able to continue attending school in the UK once a year?
Food for thought!
Fortunately we are not held to any strict schedule, being fortunate pensioners.
I have been reading quite a lot lately about how long people are going to have to work before they will be able to collect their pension - if such a thing exists by then. Nostalgia politics, with its longing for grammar schools, good, old-fashioned values, bobbies on the beat (I'm not sure that's really on the list), and (pretty soon) doctors who send you a bill for treatment, will have people back to working until they are 80 and then going off to a public workhouse. Laurie Lee country, here we come.
Some things in the reporting surprise me a was a young man in his early thirties, a young man with a young family, bemoaning the fact was just managing to make ends meet. He had no chance of saving money for the future. Now, I can remember when we were in our early thirties, with a young family, just scraping by, juggling money to get to the end of the month. It wasn't until later, when I was able to get back into full-time employment, that we could start saving again and put money into pension schemes. Mainly, we just didn't expect to go on expensive holidays or to run a fancy car and certainly not two cars.
But, yes, we were in a more secure situation than some young families find themselves in nowadays. We had managed to save for a mortgage before we had children and we knew that we could both count on a professional pension (once I got back into full-time work) as well as the state pension. And that was one of the things that struck me in my reading: as always, those with a professional qualification are still more likely to have a pension scheme set up. Although how long that will continue to be the case is perhaps debatable. As well as that, if you have to work until you are eighty, it will be much easier to do so if you have a fulfilling job that interests you.
Here's an idea that cropped up in my reading: a "slow retirement". It's not a new idea but something called the New Economics Foundation is arguing for a scheme where employees give up an hour of work per week every year from the age of 35. The idea is that older workers will release more of their work time to younger ones, which will allow a steady handover of retained wisdom. A universal basic income, whereby everyone receives a set sum from the state each year, regardless of how much they do or don’t work, might have a similar effect, enabling people to move to part-time work as they age. It seems like a good idea to me but maybe I am just a bit idealistic. Because, of course, there would need to be an agreement about that universal basic income. And there will always be those who do not want to relinquish the perceived "power" of their professional position by even a little move towards retirement. Perhaps we also need another look at those programmes which advise people on how to enjoy retirement, something I have not had problem with!
Another fortunate member of our generation I was reading about the other day is Prince Charles. The article was all about his hugging a young boy in Romania. It turns out that this child is the son of a close friend of the heir to the British throne. He is quite used to being hugged by the prince when the latter visits Romania, which apparently he does quite regularly.
Young Valentin Blacker is the child of an old Etonian and a Romanian gypsy. (Make of that what you will!) he lives mostly n a remote village in Transylvania but once a year he spends a month in a Church of England school in the UK. His father commented, “Valentin is well travelled but when he’s in Romania he is the same as all the other boys at school. He doesn’t get any special treatment. He just mucks in. I have taught him all the important things, which are speaking English, playing tennis and swimming."
It's reassuring to see that his old Etonian father knows what the important things in life are!
Two questions spring to mind:
Does Prince Charles receive a state pension? (Indeed, has he paid National Insurance contributions in order to qualify for one?)
And, given that we are leaving the EU, will young Valentin Blacker be able to continue attending school in the UK once a year?
Food for thought!
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