Sorting Out the Government

I recently was tidying up and came across an Mensa Magazine from 1987, edited by Ken Webb. Ken was a both a personal friend, and at one time an "accredited journalist". Older Islanders may remember him presenting the sports news on Channel Television's local news programme.

We worked together for a number of years on "Thinks!", the name he gave to the Channel Island Mensa magazine, with himself as editor, and myself as assistant editor, both of us supplying most of the copy under a variety of names, both our own, and pseudonyms to preserve the illusion that there were more contributors than was actually the case. But - unlike some of the names posted as comments on blogs - both he and I presented each pseudonym's contributions as coming from a definite character, with their own style and personality. We inhabited our alter ego's personas. Taking his mother's maiden name, Ken invented "Charles Cabeldu", a hen-pecked husband and source of homely wisdom and humour, not unlike Helier Clement, but this was years before Mr Clement began writing for the JEP - this was in 1987!

When this piece was written, there were no members of Mensa in the States, and former Deputy Peter Troy had yet to go round the Hustings telling all and sundry that he belonged to Mensa. But the consideration of VAT being added to local goods was even then very much an issue, and it is one that is still with us to this day. Obviously there is freight to add to costs, but even so, I find it strange that so often the freight costs just happen to coincide with the VAT inclusive price that items are sold in the UK. Recently, I was looking for an office colour printer which came in at £199.95 inclusive of VAT for a UK price, and a local dealer could get it to me for £199.95. The statistical chances of this being exactly freight charges are, I think, highly improbable.

Ken (under his guise of Charles Cabeldu) was also having a go at produce being sold in Jersey restaurants - so-called Jersey plaice, for example, which manifestly was not local fresh fish. I think matters have improved in this respect since 1987 regarding fresh food being served, and it should be noted that new potatoes can - like other vegetables - even if not local, be imported all the year round; the seasonality of food was still there in 1987, although it was starting to disappear.

Sorting Out the Government
Contributed by Charles Cabeldu.

"You may remember we talked about this VAT business."

Dear reader, why, oh why, was I so stupid as to believe that that. particular subject would have slipped the mind of the Lady and Master in her own home? To be truthful - and accurate -- you will recall that the use of the word 'we' really is a total misrepresentation of the facts. As my memory serves me, I took but little part in the conversation and this unwillingly, However when the Senior Partner lays down the law we all have to acquiesce.

(There is great truth in the saying 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em,' - and Eve I have no wish to try and beat. Coward, did I hear you say? Indubitably).

"I see that Senator John Rothwell called a public meeting at the Town Hall to discuss this robbery by local shops charging English VAT. Thank heavens for one intelligent member in our States, We will be supporting him."

You notice, dear reader, the preponderance with which the Entrepreneurial Genius uses the collective pronoun 'we' - generally, I might add, with dire consequences for your humble scribe.

"And while we are talking about intelligence, how many members of Mensa are in the States?"

"Well, my dear, as far as I an aware there are no Mensans in the States."

"There, " came the triumphant reply, "that only goes to prove what I keep saying. Why are there no Mensa people in the States, We have too many of the other kind, we could do with a few more like Rothwell. "

" Well actually, my dear, Mr. Rothwell is not a member he has never taken the test."

"Never mind that, make him a member. Anyone who can see all the fiddles and is out to get cheaper prices for the housewife has to be super intelligent."

"That is not the test for membership of Mensa, my dear. However, I do believe that one of the States members was formerly in Mensa but is not at the moment."

"Who is that?"

"Deputy Derek Carter was a member but he hasn't paid a subscription for some years so his membership has lapsed."

"Never mind that, he's still got the brains - he was against the minesweeper nonsense and that's proof of his intelligence. Why don't your Mensa people stand for the States. If a dozen of them were 'to take' there wouldn't half be a shake-up."

"Well, my dear, perhaps its because they are so intelligent that they do not wish... ."

"Rubbish! Utter Rubbish!. They must all be against paying VAT, in Jersey and they have a duty to protect we housewives. "

"Well, there are more important things in Island government than some shops charging VAT prices."

"Such as?" Spoken with a tone that had me brought up short and sharp. How does one explain to someone like my Eve that government of a country involves more important things than mundane shopping matters?

The short answer is that one does not. At least, I don't.

"Well, really my dear, there is not much the States can do, after all there is no Trades Description Act neither is there a Consumer Protection Act and really the solution is in the hands of you shoppers. Do not spend any money in shops which charge VAT. added prices."

"Oh, Mr Clever Cloggs is at it again. Well let me tell you something, where some things are concerned, they're all changing VAT so we have to pay or do without. What's fair about that?"

"Nothing. my dear, but the present state of the law is such that shops can charge what they like. If they add an additional 15% on to the selling price as extra profit and sell at VAT included prices, there is nothing the government can do about it."

"Well there jolly well should be. Why can't they start making laws to protect we housewives?"

"My dear, Deputy Norman Le Brocq has been trying for years to get a Trades Description Act through the States, this without success. If he had been successful perhaps I would get a Fresh Jersey Plaice in one of our restaurants instead of the deep frozen, microwave de-frosted rubbish I get at the moment."

"Mr. Le Brocq is a very intelligent man and he also should be made a member of Mensa. It's obvious only people of Mensa intelligence. can look after we housewives so it's about time your Association did something about it." Said with a finality which brooked no argument.

By this time, being thoroughly exhausted, I was only too thankful to allow the subject to drop. After all, who can argue with someone who associates good government and looking after the housewife as a qualification for joining Mensa?

Peter Tatchell on the Pope

I watched Peter Tatchell's programme on the Pope and found the case he presented to be quite strong, but by no means as unfair as some of the critics have asserted. Unlike Richard Dawkins, there was no full scale rant against religion, and Catholicism in particular, which was a refreshing change. Instead, Tatchell engaged with ordinary Catholics, listened to what they were saying, and part of his case was the dislocation between the Pope and the Vatican hierarchy in failing to engage with the grass roots, and instead implementing their own version of a command and control, top down, organisational structure.

Of course that kind of dislocation, and the problems it causes, also occur very much in secular organisations, but Tatchell argued that Vatican II had opened up the Church to reforms which had begun to address some of those problems - although he didn't mention it, the principle of involvement of the college of Bishops with the Pope was part of that change (and sadly, a lost opportunity). He spoke to ordinary Catholics who clearly disagreed with the Pope on the use of condoms, or stem-cell research, or the lifting of the ex-communication on Bishop Williamson, and he showed others at work, declaring that he could see that the Catholic church could be (and was there) a profound force for good.

In a moving part of the film, he showed an extract where Bishop Williamson is denying that any Jews were gassed at all, and then Tatchell visits the concentration camp where they were. What message does this give, Tatchell asks, for a Pope to lift an excommunication on the Bishop, and effectively welcome him back into the fold? He speaks to the Catholics performing in the Oberammergau play, and it makes no sense to them either.

On child abuse, while acknowledging the problems that Pope Benedict faced, and whether more could be done, he allowed it to be made clear that as Cardinal Ratzinger, the Pope had taken on an enormous task of reviewing thousands of cases, and was attempting to address the problem in a way that his predecessor had clearly not done well for many years, and who had seemed more content to sweep under the carpet. In this respect, Tatchell gave a much more nuanced view of the Pope's position than the Panorama programme on BBC1, which came over as much more selective and determined in its stance of blaming the Pope.

There were also official spokesmen and women, some of whom seemed to be content with official teaching and unaware or unwilling to accept that there could be any dissent from within. Fiona O'Reilly from Catholic Voice was particular dogmatic here, rattling off the mantra that the position on birth control, or stem cell research was official teaching, and was what Catholics believed. Having seen a number of clearly devout Catholics who disagreed, this rather made her look ridiculous.

Catholic scholar Hans Kung also explained how Joseph Ratzinger had been much more of a reforming figure at Vatican II, and put the retreat into conservatism as a reaction to the student unrest of the 1960s which had deeply affected his thinking, and caused him to draw upon the more conservative Catholic roots of his family past.

Tatchell also made a brief case, but not an unfair one, with interviews with John Cornwell, for the Pope's attempt to rewrite Newman as a defender of his own brand of Catholicism. Tatchell cited Newman as placing conscience above all - "I shall drink to the Pope if you please," he wrote, "... still to conscience first and the Pope afterwards.", but one could equally look at Newman's attitude to Papal infallibility - which he said was pushed forward by an "insolent and aggressive faction". Shortly after that, Newman wrote that "'We have come to a climax of tyranny. It is not good for a pope to live twenty years. He becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts and does cruel things without meaning it." This was clearly not a man who was prepared to be totally subservient to Papal authority.

Tatchell wrote of his film that "contrary to what the critics say, this is not an anti-Catholic film. Indeed, some of the inspirations of my human rights campaigns have been Catholic humanitarians, including the editor of the Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day; US anti-war activists Fathers Daniel and Philip Berrigan; Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador; and the theorists of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutierrez and Leonardo Boff."

Having seen it, I'd say that is absolutely right. It is not anti-Catholic, but a warning note, almost speaking for the more liberal voices within Catholicism that have not found a voice. In the end, Tatchell thinks the Pope should probably not come to Britain. Given Pope Benedict's known propensity for putting his foot in his mouth, and alienating Muslims and Jews, and the fact that this tour is a State visit, not a pastoral one, I'm not entirely convinced it is wise either.

Links
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/tvandradioblog/2010/sep/13/peter-tatchell-trouble-with-the-pope

Electoral Disenfranchisement

http://www.statesassembly.gov.je/documents/minutes/3829-4613-1092010.htm

The Committee recalled that it was minded to bring forward proposals inviting the States to introduce a system of deposits for election candidates, and to amend the nomination procedures for Senators to provide that each candidate would require 2 seconders from each parish in a senatorial election. The Committee had agreed that a threshold of 5% of the votes should be applied under which a candidate would lose their deposit... Having discussed the various options, the Committee agreed that deposits should be lost if a candidate did not receive a vote from at least 5% of the total number of voters in the election. This test would apply equally across every district irrespective of the number of candidates standing for election.

The Committee gave further consideration as to whether different levels of deposit should be introduced for different elections, but agreed that a standard £500 deposit should be applied in respect of elections for Senator, Deputy and Connétable. It was agreed that, if a candidate's deposit had been sponsored, then this should be stated upon receipt. Candidates would only be able to stand for election if the correct deposit had been received in advance of the nomination meeting.

In respect of the nomination procedure for Senators, and the Committee's proposal that candidates be required to obtain 2 signatures from each parish, it was noted that, while the number of persons registered to vote in each parish varied widely, it would be extremely complicated to introduce a system that reflected in a proportionate way the differing electorates of the 12 parishes. The Committee therefore confirmed that a simple system of 2 signatures from each of the 12 parishes should be pursued.

Election deposits in the UK were introduced to stop frivolous candidates from standing, and as far as that goes, they succeed very well. What does not seem to have been addressed, however, is how far they disenfranchise poorer people from standing for election. The moral argument seems to be wholly one of utilitarianism, of targeting frivolous candidates, and it is not clear whether Jersey should adopt this as a good ethical principal without at least considering the problem of the poorer voter.

It is not that long ago that in order to stand for election, a politician had to have sufficient private means, and that was seen as unjust, of privileging only those who could afford to stand. The situation was then for a means-tested salary to be paid to States members, which seemed eminently fair for enabling poorer candidates to stand without being barred by way of means. But because of apparent unfairness to candidates with sufficient means, it was decided to widen that to include all candidates, regardless of means. Yet when it comes to a deposit being necessary - and of £500 - a not insignificant sum - the whole move against people being disenfranchised because of lack of funds is reversed on purely pragmatic grounds, that it keeps out "chancers".

I cannot find the ethical dimension addressed anywhere in this debate: should we rely on utilitarianism as a standard for judgment? Yet that is basically what is being proposed here, not what is just, not what ensures fairness to everyone, without favour, regardless of means, but simply what works to exclude the frivolous candidate. What lesson this is teaching the politicians of the future? That pragmatism is the basis on which democratic reforms should be founded? That expediency should be the yardstick by which we measure changes in the ability of someone to stand for office? I know that election deposits occur in other countries, but I remain unconvinced that they have addressed the moral question either - if you look at the history of deposits, the pragmatic argument rules. Should we just follow suit, because it has been done elsewhere? I don't think much of that argument either.

Karl Popper warned planners to always be on the look out for unexpected consequences of actions. One of the unexpected consequences of electoral deposits is to take away the option of standing from the poorer people in the Island, and effectively disenfranchise them. But are there other means of doing this which will not cause the same problems?

One of those might be to drop the idea of an election deposits system in favour of requiring candidates to provide a higher number of signatures in order to stand in elections, so that it would exclude numbers just based on immediate family and close friends. But I think that should be done generally, not as PPC suggest, on a "per Parish basis". This is to prejudge the voting outcome. I think 30 - 40 votes on the nomination papers (on anywhere in the Island) would remove the "chancers" who have easily 10 family and friends.

When someone is standing as Senator, PPC's suggestions would mean that someone with widespread Island support from eleven Parishes could be prevented from standing because of a failure to secure votes in one Parish. Now if election boundaries were fair, and there were the same number of people in each Parish, this might seem like a good idea, but as we all know, there are far fewer people in the Island in St Mary's Parish than any other.

While St Mary's Parish is not quite a "rotten borough" (in the sense of the pre-1832 UK Reform Act), it still has a disproportionate voting power in the States compared to other Parishes - the ratio of voting population / candidates for St Mary is almost double that of many other Parishes. This means that candidates wanting to stand for election could be effectively held to ransom over their political objectives by St Mary's electors in order to secure the necessary votes - if it was to be proportionate, it would mean 2 votes from all other Parishes, and one vote from St Mary to ensure candidature.

But to require voting support for candidates in this way could be seen as prejudging the voting outcome of the election. For a Senator to gain enough votes, does it matter if they failed to get one nomination vote from one Parish? This would bias the election in favour of those who were already known on the public stage, and those who managed to find enough people in St Mary - a country district - to agree with their manifesto.

As there is a clear division on elections between town and country, as can be seen from voting patterns on election night, this would throw up a clear bias in favour of the country candidate as being suitable Senatorial material, and the larger urban districts might not even get a look in. Town voters would find it harder to find one of their number who would past muster, and a bias towards the often more conservative Country candidate would be introduced. Now I'm not saying either that a more left or right wing candidate would be a good thing - I personally think the States needs both - but simply that this proposal would introduce a bias which would not be fair to the urban population.

In conclusion, I remain unconvinced that the proposals by PPC are well founded on ethical considerations, on principles of fairness and justice. They seem to me to be largely influenced by pragmatism - if it works, it must be right - and I'm not sure that is either good for local politics, or good for setting an example to the youth of the Island either.

Accidental Statistics

JERSEY'S most dangerous roads have been identified. At least 1,320 motorists and 240 pedestrians were injured in accidents on the Island's roads between January 2006 and the end of December 2009. But according to figures compiled by the Jersey Road Safety Panel, many of the smashes happened at a small number of accident blackspots. The Island's most dangerous road is St Aubin's Road, which saw 206 accidents between 2006 and 2009. Victoria Avenue is the second-most hazardous, with 173 recorded accidents during the same period. (1)

There are lies, damm lies - and of course, road statistics. What the statistics really do not say is how "dangerous" the roads really are. The roads in question are very high capacity roads, trunk roads, that convey the bulk of the traffic in and out of St Helier. Exactly the same kind of pattern emerges in a report on dangerous roads in Scotland. A road to Argyll is identified as "Scotland's most dangerous road", but it is also clear from the report that it is a key route and therefore has a high volume of traffic. Here is the report in question:

From Argyll's point of view, the area is now the known host of Scotland;s most dangerous road. The 14-mile stretch of the A819 between Inveraray and Dalmally in Argyll has been ranked at this level, with 12 crashes causing deaths or serious injuries from 2006-2008. This score is nearly three-quarters more than the total over the previous three years. Commenting today, Jamie McGrigor says: 'The Road Safety Foundation's report is yet more evidence of the need to improve the safety on the A819, something I have called for many times in the past. 'This is a key route in Argyll, both for local residents, businesses and the many tourists and visitors to the area. Everything possible must be done to reduce the accident risk on this road.

The failing in the statistics is in not correlating traffic accidents against traffic volume. If a road has a high volume of traffic, and the number of accidents are fairly evenly distributed across all the islands roads, then those with the highest volume will emerge as the most dangerous roads. But it might in fact be the case that some smaller roads see a relatively high volume of accidents over the volume of traffic passing through them -- these then would be the true dangerous roads - because it would be clear that they had a significantly higher number of accidents than perhaps roads with numerically greater accidents but a greater volume of traffic.

This is not immediately apparent, and of course the newspaper article simply reports the statistics without trying to make that much sense of them. It reports that there are more accidents when wet weather occurs after a long dry spell and more accidents may occur on the so-called more dangerous roads at particular junctions or "blackspots". What they do not do is to make the case for his judging those roads to be the most dangerous roads in the island, despite their naming the roads as such.

How the statistics play out can be seen in a well-known fallacy which arises from presenting figures without any proper interpretation. It is well known that more accidents occur in clear weather with good visibility than when there is a thick mist obscuring the driver's vision. Based purely upon numbers therefore it would seem that it would be more dangerous to be driving when it is bright and sunny than when it is thick fog. This shows very clearly the mistakes that can be made from purely relying on numbers alone. The fallacy occurs in not spotting that fog is a relatively rare condition compared to good visibility. The key here is to divide the accident statistics by the number of hours of clear weather and the number of hours of foggy weather -- this will show that accidents in fog are disproportionately higher.

When just dealing with numbers of accidents along particular roads it is easy to be seduced into thinking that the statistics are simple -- but just as with fog distorting the real import of the figures, so also traffic volume can hide which roads are really the most dangerous roads in the Island. In this way, the article by the JEP presents not just accident blackspots, but also illustrates - unintentionally - statistical blind spots.

Other factors which should be considered are (1) weather - for example, the variation in accident figures in total on the Islands roads are partly going to be effected by weather - how many times rain comes after long dry spells, how many times roads are icy, and (2) the number of cars on Islands roads. The latter, may indeed, be responsible in part from the overall increase in the figures since 2006, as more cars will certainly mean more accidents even if the chances of accidents remain the same.

What is just as dangerous as "the most dangerous roads" are the hidden factors which may make up the accident figures, and the impression of the JEP gives - that the increase is mostly due to drivers being more careless - is not as robust a suggestion as it first seems. That is not to say that care should not be taken in poor conditions, but it does mean that the ability of drivers cannot be inferred from the figures as they stand.

Links:
(1) http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/09/11/accident-blackspots/
(2) http://forargyll.com/2010/06/a819-inveraray-dalmally-rated-scotlands-most-dangerous-roads/

Meldilorn

This is based on C.S. Lewis - "Out of the Silent Planet":

 

Meldilorn

I dreamed last night of Meldilorn,
Such buried memories, so forlorn,
In which I crossed the naked skies,
The air so thin where no cloud lies,
The stars so bright, the earth so red;
Down great ridges, widely spread,
Below I saw the blue valley mist,
With the Sorn, my aid to assist,
My descent to Meldilorn, I make.
The beauty of the sapphire lake,
The purple forest, rising trees,
Cathedral tall, sway in the breeze.
And then in centre, there the grove,
To reach it now, I onward strove.
Pillars of stone, balance so fine,
Here was truly patterning divine,
And I moved, gentle and sedate,
Wondering at the enchanted gate,
Amidst the monoliths, the avenue.
Yet here was found no great guru,
But silence, warmth, noises cease,
And all was solitude, all at peace,
But for the presence of such light,
That flickered, silvery, so bright,
Almost unseen, then came voices,
Hardly heard, the eldila rejoices.
Between the gaps that make a place,
Oyarsa moves here, within a space,
A light and voice, here and not here,
Movements, patterns now appear,
Between points, here is the voice,
At Meldilorn, I made my choice.

The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber

For lighter Friday reading, another Sherlock Holmes spoof by John Dickson Carr. John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) was an American author of detective stories, who is largely forgotten today, most of his books being out of print. "The Hollow Man" (1935) is usually considered his masterpiece, but having read most of his stories, I'd go for "The Black Spectacles"(1939) where a murder is seen and filmed, and the witnesses cannot agree on their account of events, or with the film. As the reader may guess, I have around 30 of Carr's books! His essay on detective stories is probably the finest exposition of the classical story in print, and I think he is absolutely right about the key feature of a good story - not only is it a puzzle, and has good characters and an interesting plot, but the clues should not be tucked away in some remote sentence, and flashed passed quickly (a deficiency in the otherwise excellent Inspector Peach stories of J.M. Gregson), but should be taken out and virtually pushed in front of the reader's eyes - and done so well that they still cannot see the clues until later. Nowhere is this done more brilliantly than in Chesterton at his best, as, for instance, in the story "The Invisible Man":

As they threaded the steep side streets already powdered with silver, Angus finished his story; and by the time they reached the crescent with the towering flats, he had leisure to turn his attention to the four sentinels. The chestnut seller, both before and after receiving a sovereign, swore stubbornly that he had watched the door and seen no visitor enter. The policeman was even more emphatic. He said he had had experience of crooks of all kinds, in top hats and in rags; he wasn't so green as to expect suspicious characters to look suspicious; he looked out for anybody, and, so help him, there had been nobody. And when all three men gathered round the gilded commissionaire, who still stood smiling astride of the porch, the verdict was more final still. "I've got a right to ask any man, duke or dustman, what he wants in these flats," said the genial and gold-laced giant, "and I'll swear there's been nobody to ask since this gentleman went away." The unimportant Father Brown, who stood back, looking modestly at the pavement, here ventured to say meekly, "Has nobody been up and down stairs, then, since the snow began to fall? It began while we were all round at Flambeau's." "Nobody's been in here, sir, you can take it from me," said the official, with beaming authority. "Then I wonder what that is?" said the priest, and stared at the ground blankly like a fish. The others all looked down also; and Flambeau used a fierce exclamation and a French gesture. For it was unquestionably true that down the middle of the entrance guarded by the man in gold lace, actually between the arrogant, stretched legs of that colossus, ran a stringy pattern of grey footprints stamped upon the white snow.
"God!" cried Angus involuntarily, "the Invisible Man!"

In his time, John Dickson Carr wrote not only wonderfully clever locked room mysteries, but also a number of excellent radio plays for the series Suspense (USA) and Appointment with Fear (UK). He also wrote an extremely good biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and was a clear aficionado of what might be called the classical detective story, such as Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Chesterton's Father Brown. Despite being American, he was not one for the mean streets of Raymond Chandler, but for the streets of Old London Town, which comes across distinctly in "The Mad Hatter Mystery"(1933), in which various hats are being stolen and returned in unlikely locations across London.

He also wrote several historical novels, often based around real events. Long before "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher" appeared on the bestseller books of 2008, Carr had in fact already covered the same ground in "Scandal at High Chimneys".

So much for the preamble - here is "The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber":

---

The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber
By John Dickson Carr

NARRATOR (reading): "I find recorded in my notebook that it was after dark on a hot evening in August 1887. All day Sherlock Holmes had been moody and distraught. That evening he took up his violin. Leaning back in his armchair, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle, which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. (In pitch blackness, a few unearthly chords from violin) Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. (Chords hop.) I might have rebelled had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs."

(Violin plays a few bars of Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," then fades. Lights slowly come up. HOLMES and WATSON are sitting on opposite sides of stage, facing audience; table at HOLMES' side. HOLMES has violin across knee, bow in right hand; lighted pipe in mouth; eyes fixed glassily ahead. WATSON wears expression of ecstasy, hand in air as though it has been keeping time to music; copy of Daily Telegraph in his lap.)

WATSON. My dear Holmes, your virtuosity is unrivalled. Pray continue!
HOLMES (grim; on edge): I am in no mood for it, Watson. (He puts down violin and bow on table; gets up.) My mind is tortured, obsessed!
WATSON (amused): Surely not-again!-by Professor Moriarty?
HOLMES: He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson! You will find his spider trace, I dare wager, in that very newspaper. What is the first item on which your eye falls?
WATSON (scanning paper): By Jove, Holmes, this is curious!
HOLMES: Quick, Watson, the item!
WATSON (reading): "Lord Matchlock, the Foreign Minister, collapsed in a faint as he was walking up Constitution Hill after leaving Buckingham Palace."
HOLMES.- Ah!
WATSON: "We are happy to report, however, that Lord Matchlock's condition is not serious."
HOLMES: I wonder!
WATSON: "Messrs. Lestrade, Gregson and Athelney Jones, all of Scotland Yard, pronounce it a heat stroke. Lord Matchlock, on a hot day, was wearing a heavy frock coat, bombazine waistcoat, wing collar and Ascot tie, long flannel underwear, woollen socks, and Hessian boots. He therefore-" (Violent reaction from HOLMES: WATSON starts.) My dear Holmes! What can be wrong with you?
HOLMES: There's villainy here/
WATSON (taken aback): You jest, my dear fellow!
HOLMES: He was wearing no trousers, Watson! Lord Matchlock was wearing no trousers!
WATSON (pause; stunned): Holmes, this is marvellous!
HOLMES (waving it away): Elementary! But not uninstructive. Scotland Yard, of course, observed nothing.
WATSON: But why should Lord Matchlock, the Foreign Minister, have been walking up Constitution Hill without his britches? HOLMES (sombre): There lies our problem. If only ...
(Sharp knocking is heard off.)
WATSON: A client, Holmes!
HOLMES: Perhaps even the answer to our problem. Come in!
(Enter LADY IMOGENE FERRERS, in a state of restrained terror. She carries a paper parcel. In violent agitation, she looks from HOLMES to WATSON: finally chooses HOLMES.)
IMOGENE: You are Mr. Sherlock Holmes! Every fibre of my woman's instinct tells me so! (She rushes to seize HOLMES by the shoulders.) Help me, Mr. Holmes!
HOLMES (austerely): Pray compose yourself, madam. I shall do my best. A chair, Watson! (He leads her to WATSON'S chair, and goes to his own.) A cup of hot coffee, too, might be not unwelcome. I perceive that you are shivering.
IMOGENE: Alas, sir, it is not the cold which makes me shiver!
HOLMES: Not the cold? What then?
IMOGENE: It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror! I am Lady Imogene Ferrers. My father is Lord Matchlock, the Foreign Minister.
WATSON (bursting out): They have stolen your papa's britches! IMOGENE: I think you must be wizards, both of you! For I came here, Mr. Holmes, to show you ... there! (Rising dramatically, she opens the paper parcel and holds up in majesty a pair of trousers.)
WATSON (amazed): Merciful heaven! Britches!
HOLMES (exalted): It is for these dramatic moments that my soul lives! Tell me, Lady Imogene: are they your father's trousers?
IMOGENE: No, Mr. Holmes! No! I had not thought, until this moment, that dear Papa was trouserless.
HOLMES: Ha! Then how came the trousers into your possession?
IMOGENE: This morning, Mr. Holmes, they were thrown from an upper window at Buckingham Palace. I saw them fall.
WATSON: Holmes, some fiend is snatching the britches from half London!
HOLMES: Good, Watson! But not, I think, quite good enough. May I see the evidence? (She hands over the trousers. HOL.MES scrutinizes them through a magnifying glass. Then to LADY IMOGENE) Buckingham Palace, I think you said?
IMOGENE: Yes. Mr. Holmes. My father had gone there for a conference with the new French Ambassador, M. de Paradol, and Her Majesty the Queen. (Faltering) It-it concerned, I think, a secret treaty between France and Great Britain. Can you picture my dread -nay, my terror!-when I saw the trousers take wing from Her Majesty's window?
HOL.MES: These are deep waters, my lady. Were you followed here?
IMOGENE: I hope not, Mr. Holmes! All day I have been riding in four-wheelers! And yet ... (Oft, heavy and elaborate knocking)
HOLMES: Quick, Watson! Make haste and hide the evidence!
(HOLMES hands the trousers to WATSON, who thrusts them inside his frock coat. WATSON turns and moves towards door.)
WATSON: Holmes, this is no ordinary client! This is ..
HOLMES: Speak out, man!
WATSON (stepping back to one side like a court chamberlain): His Excellency the French Ambassador!
(Enter M. DE MARQUIS DE PARADOL: top hat, frock coat, imperial beard. He swoops forward, centre, removing hat, and adopts posture of immense dignity.)
PARADOL (drawn up): Messieurs! (To IMOGENE, different tone) Mademoiselle!
IMOGENE (crying out): You have come here, sir, about the hideous enigma at Buckingham Palace?
PARADOL (fierce dignity): Pave come'ere, mademoiselle, to get my pants/
HOLMES: Are we to understand that Your Excellency's trousers have disappeared too?
PARADOL: No, no, no! Not deesappear. At Buckingham Palace, in de presence of Her Majesty de Queen, I 'ave remove my pants and throw dem out of de window!
WATSON: No!
PARADOL: But yes! All of a sudden I see-in a mirror!-six men in de masks and de false whiskers, which are creeping up on me to attack me. I cry: Vive la France/ and do my duty. No pants.
IMOGENE: You performed this in the presence of Her Majesty?
PARADOL: I regret! She pushes a great cry and faints-boum!-on a gold sofa. And to you, mademoiselle, I weesh also to apologize.
IMOGENE: You owe me no apology.
PARADOL: I regret! It is I who have pinch the pants of your papa! I conk him on de onion wit a blackjack-voila/-because I must'ave pants to follow you.
WATSON: The diplomatic service is sadly changed. But why should these wretches wish to purloin your britches?
PARADOL: You'ave'eard, perhaps, of the Paradol-Matchlock Treaty between England and France?
IMOGENE: The secret treaty! Yes!
HOLMES (to Paradol): And the secret treaty, I think, is in Your Excellency's trousers?
PARADOL (staggered): Quel homme! Quel homme magnifique!
(As he speaks, HOLMES takes the trousers from under Watson's coat.)
HOLMES: A secret chamber-two thin plates of copper-hides the secret treaty. May I return these valuables to Your Excellency?
(Bowing)
PARADOL (receiving trousers): Monsieur! In de name of my government, in de name of all France, I ... (He breaks of, staring; and begins to examine the trousers feverishly.)
IMOGENE: You are agitated, M. de Paradol. Is the copper chamber not there?
PARADOL: The copper chamber, yes! But de treaty ... is gone!
IMOGENE: Gone!
WATSON: Gone!
HOLMES: Have no fear, my dear sir. The secret treaty is still in this room. It has merely been abstracted by a thief and a traitor!
WATSON: Not Professor Moriarty?
HOLMES: Not Professor Moriarty, no. But his chief lieutenant-and the second most dangerous man in London-stands-here! (He whips the false moustache of WATSON, who stands snarling.)
IMOGENE: But that's Dr. Watson!
HOLMES: No, Lady Imogene. The real Watson lies bound and gagged in some den of infamy. May I introduce you to Colonel Sebastian Moran.
WATSON (shouting): Curse you, Holmes! May you die of a bullet from my air gun!
PARADOL: But how-why did you suspect de wretch?
HOLMES: A very simply matter, I assure you. When he recognized a new French Ambassador, whose appointment has not yet been announced, I knew him for the villain he is. I gave him an opportunity to steal the treaty (reaches into WATSON'S inside pocket and produces impressive-looking document) and he has done so.
PARADOL (exultantly): The Adventure of de Paradol Chamber!
WATSON (snarling): No, curse you! The Adventure of the Copper Britches!

The Unicorn Mystery Book Club News, 1949

Driving into Troublesome Statistics

Guernsey and Jersey's roads are seeing more and more cars. Last year the number of vehicles registered in Guernsey rose by more than 2000 to nearly 87,000. The island's population is just 62,000. In Jersey it's a similar picture. There are roughly 92,000 people living in the island, but 113,600 registered vehicles, a year on year rise of 1700. Both islands have seen the trend rising for years. In Guernsey, transport is second biggest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions environmental groups are calling for new measures to cut the amount of car use. Do you think there are too many cars in the islands? If so what do you think can be done to solve the problem? We'd love to hear your comments, post them below.(1)

I read this on the Channel Television website and couldn't believe what I was reading! If I had "any comment" to make, it would be that this is a fatuous, completely uninformative piece of reporting. It tells you absolutely nothing about car use in Guernsey or Jersey. The reporter has simply bundled together a set of figures, not all of which are coherently related to each other, and strung them together to give the impression of almost exponential increases in road use in Guernsey and Jersey, and use this wholly fabricated scenario to ask a question about greenhouse gas emissions - which is an important question, to be sure, but one which should not hang on the mish-mash of reporting that we are given.

For instance:

a) the numbers given are of "registered vehicles" - which presumably includes vans, hire cars, company cars, and may even include tractors, lorries, coaches, motor bikes, minibuses and buses. If it just referred to cars, we'd have something approaching a useful figure, and if hire cars and taxies and motor bikes could be excluded, it would be even more valuable.

b) it is clear that not all the vehicles can possibly be on the road at the same time. Of the population of 92,000, it is pretty obvious that some of those don't drive, some are too young to drive (infants and children), and even if we assume that 40,000 can drive, they obviously cannot drive all the 113,600 vehicles at once. A taxi driver may have a home runaround, and his taxi - he can't drive both at once.

c) it is true that some people who can drive and have valid driving licences may not have cars - a family may share one car between two or more drivers, for example. And some people may have the licence, but as yet no car. But if the car numbers are rising, it may be that less people are sharing cars within families, so a much better figure to use would be the number of people who hold current driving licences. At least it would give us a maximum figure of the number of road users who could be out at any one time. Have those numbers been increasing at the same rate? That would be a figure worth knowing.

d) the great days of tourism boom in the 1970s and 1980s saw the number of cars on the roads almost double when the summer season began. I wouldn't think hire cars make a huge impact on road numbers nowadays, but I imagine the figures are fairly easy to obtain. More people, of course, can now bring cars by ferry, so although not as booming as the tourism years gone by, there will be a seasonal variation, and temporary labour pools (such as workers coming in to work on the incinerator) may also increase numbers of foreign registered cars. Of course, these don't come into the figures from Channel Report at all, which is another deficiency.

In a study of "Auto-Centered Transport Systems" or ACTS, Peter Freund and George Martin note that cars provide distinct advantages over public transport.

Of course, the car is here to stay. It offers significant intrinsic advantages. The car is conveniently at one's disposal, it takes less time for linked trips, and it is capable of carrying cargo and passengers. (2)

With regard to what they note on "linked trip", Jersey - unlike Guernsey - has a radial hub through which bus users must pass, so that there is no circular trip, except when the "explorer" routes run in the summer months. Buses also have very limited room for shopping, or prams or buggies (and can refuse passengers with those if they don't have room). There's only limited room for a supermarket shop.

But they also point out that not all car trips require all these advantages, and the problem of congestion is not just to do with car use, or car ownership, but car occupancy per trip:

A large number of trips are made by solitary drivers engaged in single journeys, a substantial proportion of which are less than a mile in length.

They conclude by suggesting that while the car will remain with us for the future, what needs to be targetted is not use but overuse:

The central feature of the auto's overuse is the individuality of its use combined with built environments that encourage, even mandate, individual use. The corollary of our argument is that the best practice for a socially (and materially) sustainable form of daily transport is to concentrate on the reduction of car use by sole individuals through the construction of built environments that provide multiple and interconnected modes of transport. In such transport systems, cars remain an appropriate option, along with public transit, walking, and cycling.

Of course, this is making the best of the situation as it exists, and I am not unaware of the prophetic voices (especially locally from Nick Palmer and Daniel Wimberley) on Peak Oil, and the problems that will certainly face road traffic in the long term. So I'll end with a quote from the book "After the Car", in which Dennis and Urry warn that:

While the car system has many flaws, the key crises that will kill the car are likely to be energy availability (the end of cheap oil) and climate change (the car's undeniable role in destroying our planet's eco-system).(3)

References
(1) http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_jerseynews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=490728
(2) "The Social and Material Culture of Hyperautomobility" by Peter Freund and George Martin, Bulletin of Science Technology & Society 2009
(3) After the Car, Kingsley Dennis, John Urry, 2009, see also the review at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/27/after-car-dennis-urry

Entertaining Matters

During the last sitting of the States, Senator Le Marquand had to ratify the "Draft Unlawful Public Entertainments (Jersey) Regulations", which has to be done every three years - under the 1884 Order in Council, the States can pass what is effectively a short term law for a period of up to three years without needing Privy Council Approval.

Up to 1992, the Bailiff had the customary power to control public entertainment by himself, but in 1992, the States decided that there should be clearer statutory provisions, so since that date, regulations were passed every three years, and a Bailiff's Panel was set up to decide matters instead of it falling on the shoulders of one individual.

However, Senator Le Marquand was very slow in bringing this forward, so much so that, as he said "The current Regulations will end tomorrow and if new Regulations are not passed then what will in fact happen is we will fall back on to the pre-1992 common law situation, which is obviously very unsatisfactory." He also went on to say that the regulations were very imperfect - "There has never been a precise definition of public entertainment, although this has not created a practical problem."

Senator Ben Shenton asked what appeals process existed for appeals and noted that "I do not include the Royal Court in the appeals process, because the Royal Court is out the pocket of the man on the omnibus. So there has to be a proper appeals process that is affordable to the man in the street. If the Minister could outline what affordable appeals process is in place, I would be grateful."

Deputy Daniel Wimberley asked how the system coped with the modern trend towards events that just happened spontaneously - "There is a real problem there, because in our modern days some people organise ... well, they do not organise artistic events. They have flash events. They happen. The idea of going to get permission for something that just happens is quite a problem. So that is the first issue, the definition of event and the idea that the Bailiff must agree every event in advance. There are problems with that as a concept already."

But what is entertainment? In the U.K., public entertainment has no specific definition either, but is defined by subsidiary categories - is it paid entertainment, is there a raffle, or music, and are there adequate measures for health and safety? In this respect, places need a licence if there is to be:

public dancing or music or other public entertainment of a like kind; and any entertainment which consists of, or includes, any public contest, exhibition or display of boxing, wrestling, judo, karate or any similar sport

What does not seem to be the case in the UK is that anywhere this covers speech at protest rallies, or at the end of political marches. But apparently this is the case in Jersey. As Deputy Tadier observed:

Just very quickly, something that may be has not been considered at this point is what the licenses cover, because it is not simply entertainment. Having staged a couple of demonstrations and I know other Members in the Assembly, one has to apply for an entertainments licence. Rather I should say one has to apply for permission, first of all from the Bailiff and then from the Constable of that Parish, normally the Constable of St. Helier if it is the Royal Square which is being used. I think there are a couple of issues surrounding this. First of all, if it is a demonstration it seems a nonsense that an entertainments licence be given to that, because it is not strictly entertainment, although some people might find it slightly amusing [Laughter] and it does necessitate microphones, et cetera.

The second problem is that the whole permission thing is something of a nonsense anyway, because people have the right to congregation in a democracy. They have the right to congregate, to demonstrate peacefully and that is something which should be secured and fought for at all costs, even if we do not always agree with the particular issue in question. Similarly, I have found that I have never had any problem with the Bailiff in that regard, because it is pretty much a formality, a rubber stamping, and similarly with the Constable. So this begs the question then why in this day and age should a President of an Assembly and somebody who is also a judge be put in a position where he has to make these decisions, which he cannot rightly refuse anyway.

Clearly, Deputy Rondel of St. John was taken with Deputy Wimberley's remark about "spontaneous events", and decided to reminisce about his youth, while also making the point that today's society seemed over-legislated:

I wonder if we all forget our youth. We have all been to parties, they were not called raves in those days. [Laughter] They were in bunkers, they were in tunnels, they were on the beach, you would come out of the Pav or wherever you were and you would decide to go skinny dipping or whatever it was [Members: Oh!] and there would be 50 or 60 of you on the beach and then have a party. [Laughter] Nowadays everything has to be controlled. Honestly, you need a bit of paper to do everything. The Centenier would come along and he would just ask you to move along.

Senator Sarah Ferguson also concurred, and noted that as far as she understood, smaller scale ad hoc events were largely monitored by the honorary police, and this was effective:

Yes, I totally agree with the Deputy of St. John. I do not know about the skinny dipping. [Laughter] The mind boggles. [Laughter] Have we finished with the ribald comments? I think we are also failing to distinguish between ad hoc beach parties and large events. When I was a Centenier there was a regular beach party down at St. Ouen and all that required was the permission of the Connétable. They cleared up afterwards. Any broken glass, they raked through the glass and took it away. Has that particular aspect changed? I do wonder. As I say, I understand that the Bailiff's Panel is for large events. I have not ever known them to turn an event down.

But this prompted an interjection by Senator Terry Le Main, who could clearly remember when the Bailiff had turned down an even:

I would like now to just remind Senator Ferguson that some years ago when I was the President at Fort Regent Leisure Centre, the Bailiff did turn down the Chippendales. There was a hue and cry by the women of Jersey at that time. [Laughter] In fact, I remember going to see them in the U.K. (United Kingdom), because I was rather keen [Members: Oh!] ... I was slimmer in those days and I was rather keen to make sure that the ladies of Jersey were well satisfied [Laughter] and I happened to be the only man in the audience of about 2,000 people. Eventually I managed to convince the Bailiff that we had to please the ladies of Jersey and he finally agreed on appeal.

The Attorney-General. Timothy John Le Cocq, suggested that the Royal Square demonstrations noted by Deputy Tadier didn't really come under the entertainments with those legal requirements:

I am I think slightly confused by the question, Sir, on the basis that whereas I think the Bailiff and the Connétable are consulted about demonstrations that involve the Royal Square, that is not a matter of public entertainment that is a matter of the usage of the Royal Square, which is I believe under the control of both the Bailiff and the Connétable of St. Helier. I do not think public demonstrations fall within the definition of public entertainment, but I do stand to be corrected about that. I am not aware that that is how it works in practice, however.

But, having not done his homework, he was briskly corrected by Deputy Tadier:

In the past when we have had demonstrations we get a certificate and at the bottom it says it is an entertainment licence and we have to have it with us, whether that be in the Royal Square or elsewhere. That is the reason why I am ... I would be minded to ask for a reference back. I do not know if I am allowed at this point. Because I am very uncomfortable about how this would impact on Article 11 of people's right to congregate. One should not be criminalised for something of a matter of congregation. I suspect it is simply because that should not be under the entertainments licence, but it is I believe in my experience at the moment.

Deputy De Sousa also pulled Senator Le Marquand up on bringing the matter to the States at the Eleventh Hour:

I just want to speak very briefly and say that really the Minister is at fault here. This legislation is triennial. He should have brought it forward much quicker and then we would not be in this situation now.

Deputy Tadier was going to ask for a reference back, but having noted Senator Le Marquand's point that the law would then revert to pre-1992 custom law, which no one really knew how to apply, and with events like the Battle and Flowers and Jersey Live coming up, he asked for the Senator to investigate why demonstrations were treated as "entertainment", and whether this was contrary to the right to free peaceful assembly.

Senator Le Marquand accepted Deputy Tadier's note, and said that he would check up and report back:

Yes, I am very happy to do that. My own personal view is I would be very surprised indeed if matters of demonstrations were being treated as being a public entertainment. It does not seem to me to be that that is a public entertainment at all. Indeed, I thought that normally for something to be a public entertainment there was a financial element involved, and people do not normally pay to demonstrate. I am very happy to check further into that issue and to liaise with my Scrutiny Panel on that matter.

Hitting the lighter note, and also accepting fault for letting the issue slip so late, he concluded:

The issue of demonstration I have already dealt with, it is a well made point, I cannot see that a public demonstration would be an entertainment. The point was very well made by a number of speakers including the Deputy of St. John in relation to petty regulations and I totally endorse that, I am not a lover of petty regulations, I think we have far too much regulation, far too many laws, bits of law which frankly are not enforced or cannot be enforced because we do not have the people to do that. But I would point out that this is not a modern thing, this goes back to a decision of the States in the 1700s and so this is fairly well established. In relation to the issue of skinny dipping, I am certainly not going to express a view as to whether or not skinny dipping by Members or certain individual Members would be entertaining or not.

In relation to the issue of the Minister being at fault, I think that I have to accept some fault in a corporate sort of way because I was indeed caught by surprise by this and this almost slipped through under the wire and I suddenly found myself in the situation of having to lodge something in great haste in order to prevent it lapsing and that is the truth and I freely admit it.

http://upyourego.com/downloads/nick_briggs.mp3

The Manchester Writers

"I have tried to show what life means to a young man living under the shadow of the dole, the tragedy of a lost generation who are denied consummation, in decency, of the natural hopes and desires of youth." (Walter Greenwood)

Dully, insistently, crushing came the realization that there was no escape, save in dreams. All was a tangle; reality was too hideous to look upon; it could not be shrouded or titivated for long by the reading of cheap novelettes or the spectacle of films of spacious lives. They were only opiates and left a keener edge on hunger, made more loathsome reality's sores (Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole)

The Manchester Writers

John Harris explores the work of a group of authors who captured a northern social realism in the 1930s with writing that went on to shape the views of northern living for generations. Walter Greenwood, Howard Spring and Louis Golding wrote about Greater Manchester at a time of severe economic depression and great poverty and their novel's describe conditions that have resonances with our life today - cuts in welfare, increased unemployment and a coalition government. Greenwood's 'Love on the Dole', Golding's 'Magnolia Street' and Spring's 'Fame is the Spur' depict a tough, working class life and although the three authors wrote from slightly different perspectives, they describe people enduring a grim, hard existence in an industrial landscape. As the final parts of industrial Manchester and Salford are finally transformed by investment and modernisation, 'The Manchester Writers' visits the streets that inspired these authors and hears how their work has endured and influenced ideas of northern England. (BBC Radio 4)

I had not come across Walter Greenwood or the other writers who form part of this exploration into a northern England that is both been lost to the developer and yet in many ways is startlingly modern in its themes. The Radio 4 programme inspired me to look into the work of Greenwood, and the jottings that follow came from that.

Greenwood paints a vivid portrait of Salford in the 1930s:

The district takes its name from a sloping street, Hankinson Street, whose pavements, much worn and very narrow, have been polished by the traffic of boots and clogs of many generations. On either side of this are other streets, mazes, jungles of tiny houses cramped and huddled together, two rooms above and two below, in some cases only one room alow and aloft; public houses by the score where forgetfulness lurks in a mug; pawn shops by the dozen where you can raise the wind to buy forgetfulness; churches, chapels and unpretentious mission halls where God is praised; nude, black patches of land, 'crofts', as they are called, waterlogged, sterile, bleak and chill .... the blue-grey smoke swirls down like companies of ghosts from a million squat chimneys, jungles of tiny houses cramped and huddled together, the cradles of generations of the future.

He was born in 1903 in Ellor Street in that area of Salford which he called "Hankey Park". He came from working class roots and, his father having died when he was nine, he had to leave school at the age of 13 to work (which he did as a pawnbroker's clerk). Taking a succession of low paid jobs, he continued to educate himself in Salford Public Library - as he himself said of his education - "Langworthy Road Council School, Salford; by self." - and the influence of his reading of (and love for) the work of Charles Dickens in exposing injustice and poverty is everywhere to be seen in his work.

The slum terraces which he describes have long since been pulled down but there are still slums around even today, even in Jersey, where some landlords charge high rents for cramped and damp dwellings with cracked paintwork and rotten woodwork. He sees behind the poverty of the dwellings to the landlords reaping profit at the expense of those who needed somewhere, anywhere, to live:

The identical houses of yesterday remain, still valuable in the estate market even though the cost of their building has been paid for over and over again by successive tenants.. Places where men and women are born, live, love and die and pay preposterous rents for the privilege of calling the grimy houses 'home' .

"Love on the Dole" tells of the travails of the Hardcastle family, and was perhaps the most celebrated of the unemployment novels. It was written in the height of the depression in 1933 and dramatised in 1934 but it was not until just after the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1941, that the censor would permit it to be filmed, perhaps because by then fears of uprising, revolution and strikes had diminished in the face of a common enemy unifying the British people.

When one looks at the passages such as those describing the women, the reader can see not only the Dickensian background against which Greenwood wrote, but also elements of kitchen sink dramas, armchair Theatre, or "Cathy Come Home", of Coronation Street:

A smothered grumbling. Sally withdrew her head from the thin coverings and yawned. Eighteen, a gorgeous creature whose native beauty her shabbiness could not hide. Eyes dark, lustrous, haunting; abundant black hair tumbling in waves; a full, ripe, pouting mouth and a low, round bosom. A face and form such as any society dame would have given three-quarters of her fortune to possess. Sally wore it carelessly as though youth's brief hour was eternal; as though there was no such thing as old age. She failed in her temper; but when roused, colour tinted her pallid cheeks such as the wind whipped up when it blew from the north or east.

In the staring gas light, the women, throwing back their shawls from their dishevelled hair revealed faces which, though dissimilar in features, had a similarity of expression common, typical, of all the married women around and about; their badge of marriage, as it were. The vivacity of their virgin days was with their virgin days, gone; a married woman could be distinguished from a single by a glance at her facial expression. Marriage scored on their faces a kind of preoccupied, faded, lack-lustre air as though they were constantly being plagued by some problem. As they were. How to get a shilling, and, when obtained, how to make it do the work of two.

Though it was not so much a problem as a whole-time occupation to which no salary was attached, not to mention the side-line of risking life to give children birth and being responsible for their upbringing afterwards. Simple natures all, prey to romantic notions whose potent toxin was become part of the fabric of their brains.

Greenwood also deals very strongly and forcibly with the loss of dignity that is entailed by being unemployed. How, through no fault of their own, and wanting to work, people feel degraded and humiliated by having to go cap in hand to the State for help. Walter Hardcastle, one of the characters, describes how it feels:

What had he been able to do other than what had been done? The responsibility wasn't his. He'd worked all his life: had given all he had to give. Oh, why the devil couldn't they give him work? The cancer of impotence gnawed his vitals

He also illustrates very clearly how demoralising the experience is:

You fell into the habit of slouching, of putting your hands into your pockets and keeping them there; of glancing at people, furtively, ashamed of your secret, until you fancied that everybody eyed you with suspicion. You knew that your shabbiness betrayed you; it was apparent for all to see. You prayed for the winter evenings and the kindly darkness. Darkness, poverty's cloak. Breeches backside patched and re-patched; patches on knees, on elbows. Jesus! All bloody patches.

And yet in the 1930s, with the recession, there was a tightening of the economic belt, and the government was focused strongly on their own austerity measures. Somehow, as Greenwood points out, these always seem to affect those whose need was greatest, and who would bear the greatest brunt of all the government cutbacks. In some ways it seems shockingly relevant, as if the past is returned to haunt us with the spectre of those out of work, desperately looking for employment:

From one and a half to two millions, and now there were almost three; an army in the shadows, delivered from destitution only by the payment of a meagre unemployment benefit; a shabby dispirited host, pawns in a game whose machinery had seized up. Of what all this meant in terms of human degradation and misery the newspaper chroniclers were silent. Their cry was 'Crisis'. To arrest this, the prescription was 'drastic economy' which, in the event, meant that those who had least were to get less.

George Orwell's "Road to Wigan Pier" came out in 1937, and in many ways described similar poverty. Orwell also explained (like Greenwood) part of the psychology of those who are unemployed and on the dole, which was why they sometimes went for luxury rather than necessity because something was needed to raise the spirits out of despair, even if only for a short while:

You can't get much meat for threepence, but you can get a lot of fish-and-chips. Milk costs threepence a pint, and even 'mild' beer costs fourpence, but aspirins are seven a penny and you can wring forty cups of tea out of a quarter-pound packet. And above all there is gambling, the cheapest of all luxuries. Even people on the verge of starvation can buy a few days' hope ('Something to live for,' as they call it) by having a penny on a sweepstake. . . . When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored and miserable, you don't want to eat dull, wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let's have three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we'll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. level.

Surprisingly, the Radio 4 programme explained that Orwell was very critical of books like "Love on the Dole", and virtually airbrushed them out of his descriptions of writers who had looked at the working class. It didn't explain precisely why, but part of the reason seems to have been the kitchen sink romantic soap opera aspects of Greenwood's writing -- and it is not perhaps helped by the comic names, clearly derived from the type of nomenclature found in Charles Dickens, which comes with some other subsidiary characters in Greenwood such as Ned Narkey, and three elderly women named Mrs Nattle, Mrs Bull and Mrs Jike.

But I think there are two other aspects of Greenwood that Orwell did not like.

Like Dickens, Greenwood portrays life and criticises it for the poverty but he does not suggest any kind of socialist solution. Orwell saw this as a failing with Dickens, so it is most unlikely that he would have been sympathetic to the same kind of writing with Greenwood. His own Road to Wigan Pier is in many ways two books - one is the description of northern poverty and what it is like to scrub steps, make do on the dole, or work underground in harsh conditions with mine owners concerned more with profit than with the health of their workforce. But the other part of the book suggests socialist solutions, steps that governments could take to address the issue.

Greenwood, like Dickens, suggests no solutions but hopes that by exposing the poverty and despair that he will shame people into doing something about it. Unlike Orwell, he has no plan of action but he knows that the situations which he describes need a remedy and he trusts that if governments are shamed into doing something, they will devise suitable remedies. I have a good deal of sympathy with that position. Pointing out the problems and getting those in power to empathise and address them, is, I think, more important than opposing governments with ideological solutions; confrontational politics often does not work, and the real problems are lost in the political posturing.

The other thing which is not so complimentary to Orwell in his criticism of Greenwood is that I think he did not want to acknowledge the legacy of northern writers, the Manchester writers, who are writing not as outsiders like himself, but as people who had lived and been born and grown up on the same streets and in the same conditions they describe. As the Manchester Guardian of the time put it: "We passionately desire this novel to be read; it is the real thing. Mr Greenwood is a Salford man. he has been on the dole. He knows and he can tell."

Orwell himself never faced quite the poverty that Greenwood had, and it is notable that Greenwood's "Love on the Dole" is later singled out as an accurate description of the phases that people undergo when they become unemployed:

Eisenberg and Lazarsfeld managed to forge some sort of consensus among the various writers who had written on the phases of unemployment: "First there is shock, which is followed by an active hunt for a job, during which the individual is still optimistic and unresigned. . Second, when all efforts fail, the individual becomes pessimistic, anxious, and suffers active distress; this is the most crucial state of all. And third, the individual becomes fatalistic and adapts himself to his new state but with a narrower scope. He now has a broken attitude." (1)

This British Medical Journal article on health and unemployment was written in 1985, but it has a grim conclusion, and seems to describe today's fragmented society just as well as that of 1985:

After his travels among the unemployed, during which he particularly sought out those who knew unemployment in the 1930s, Jeremy Seabrook reached the melancholy conclusion that unemployment now is probably more damaging than in the 1930s. He does not dispute that material conditions have improved, but the destruction of working class communities and traditions together with the redundancy of many of their skills mean that working class unemployed are much more lost and alone than in the 1930s. This is particularly conspicuous among the young unemployed: "They have been nurtured in a closed world of material things brought to perfection, goods that cry their competitive desirability at them from the moment they are born. Their only business, it seems, is to yearn and strive for possession of them.... Nothing is demanded of the young but their continued passivity and quiescence. Nothing is asked of them. They seem to have no place in the world, except as obedient and abject competitors for all that is tantalisingly held out to them.

Greenwood ended his book rather fatalistically. By the time of the film version, unemployment was on the way down, reduced by the war economy of the 1940s. The ending of the film, therefore, is much more optimistic, and looks forward to the promise of hope after the war. I'd like to hope that is true of our society, as well, as we too face austerity and rising unemployment:

"One day we'll all be wanted. The men who've forgotten how to work, and the young 'uns who've never had a job. There must be no Hanky Park, no more."

References:
(1) "Please never let it happen again": lessons on unemployment from the 1930s http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1417817/pdf/bmjcred00471-0055.pdf
(2) Seabrook J. Unemployment. St Albans, Herts: Granada, 1983.
(3) http://libcom.org/history/battle-bexley-square-salford-unemployed-workers-demonstration-1st-october-1931
(4) http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/waltergr.htm

Flight Path

This week, my poem is a commemoration of the Battle of Britain. The "beat" of the poem bears a deliberate resemblance to a well-known hymn, but unlike that hymn, this is not an exultation of warfare as a model for religious belief, but a commemoration of bravery and courage, and thanksgiving to those who fought so bravely in the air for the freedoms we enjoy today.

Flight Path

Upward, bravest pilots, flying into war
Into the summer sky, clearest just before
Now filled with bombers, and a deadly foe
Flying into battle, against the fighters go

Victory roll in triumph, as the bombers flee
But that is yet to come, now the darkness see
Bullets flying everywhere, no one yet to praise
Soaring so high above, let your courage raise

Bombs fall in nightly blitz, people pray to God
Wrecked houses all in flames, as if the demons trod
But no surrender, all one body we,
One in hope and courage, one in bravery

Upward, bravest pilots, truest of the true
Against so many, here in conflict few
Long may we remember, men so fine and bold
Names never be forgotten, in legacy unfold

The survivors may yet perish, in old age feeble wane
But what they did for us, will ever still remain
Against such mighty odds, yet did they prevail
So much we owe them, because they did not fail

Upward, bravest pilots, long may you belong
In our hearts and souls, we sing their triumph song.
Days of glory past, of God save our gracious king
This through countless ages may we ever sing..

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In the absence of my writing anything News from Nowhere, while the States are on holiday, another minor masterpiece by James Thurber to enjoy. James Grover Thurber (1894 - 1961) was an American author, best known for "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". Here it finally is, in all its comic glory, a rich pastiche of different styles, and often imitated, but never equalled. There is even a medical condition called "Walter Mitty syndrome"!

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

"We're going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold grey eye. "We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,5001 We're going through!" The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pockets pockets pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary" he shouted. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Barg. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. "The Old Man'll get us through," they said to one another. `The Old Man ain't afraid of Hell!" .. .

"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?" "Hmmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. "You were up to fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on through Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. "You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. "It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over."

Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. "Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done," she said. "I don't need overshoes," said Mitty. She put her mirror back in her bag. "We've been through all that," she said, getting out of the car. "You're not a young man any longer." He raced the engine a little. "Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?" Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. "Pick it up, brother!" snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.

"It's the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan," said the pretty nurse. "Yes?" said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. "Who has the case?" "Dr. Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Mr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over." A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. "Hello, Mitty," he said. "We're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him." "Glad to," said Mitty.

In the operating room there were whispered introductions: "Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty. Mr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty." "I've read your book on streptothricosis," said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking bands. "A brilliant performance, sir." "Thank you," said Walter Mitty. "Didn't know you were in the States, Mitty," grumbled Remington. "Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary." "You are very kind," said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. "The new anaesthetizer is giving way!" shouted an interne. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!" "Quiet, man I" said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. "Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. "That will hold for ten minutes," he said. "Get on with the operation."

A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. "Coreopsis has set in," said Renshaw nervously. "If you would take over, Mitty?" Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. "If you wish," be said. They slipped a white gown on him; he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining.

"Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!" Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. "Wrong lane, Mae," said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. "Gee. Yeh," muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked "Exit Only". "Leave her sit there," said the attendant. "I'll put her away." Mitty got out of the car. "Hey, better leave the key." "Oh," said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.

They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs. Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling; they won't grin at me then. I'll have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. "Overshoes," he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.

When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him twice, before they set out from their house in Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town-he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex; he thought, Squibb's razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. "Where's the what's-its-name?" she would ask. "Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name." A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.

"Perhaps this will refresh your memory." The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. "Have you ever seen this before?" Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly." This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80," he said calmly. An excited buzz ran round the courtroom. The judge rapped for order. "You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?" said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. "Objection!" shouted Mitty's attorney. "We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July." Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. "With any known make of gun," he said evenly, "I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand." Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin, "You miserable cur!" .. .

"Puppy biscuit," said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. "He said 'Puppy biscuit'," she said to her companion. "That man said 'Puppy biscuit' to himself." Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A and P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. "I want some biscuit for small, young dogs," he said to the clerk. "Any special-brand, sir?" The greatest pistol shot in the world thought for a moment. "It says 'Puppies bark for It' on the box," said Walter Mitty.

His wife would be through at the hairdresser's in fifteen minutes, Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first; she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. "Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?" Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

"The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, air," said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair. "Get him to bed," he said wearily. "With the others. I'll fly alone." "But you can't, sir," said the sergeant anxiously. "It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman's circus is between here and Saulier." "Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump," said Mitty. "I'm going over. Spot of brandy?" He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. "A bit of a near thing," said Captain Mitty carelessly. "The box barrage is closing in," said the sergeant. "We only live once, Sergeant," said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. "Or do we?" He poured another brandy and tossed it off. "I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir," said the sergeant. "Begging your pardon, air." Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "It's forty kilometres through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine-guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming "Aupres de ma Blonde". He turned and waved to the sergeant. "Cheerio!" he said...

Something struck his shoulder. "I've been looking all over this hotel for you," said Mrs. Mitty. "Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?" "Things close in," said Walter Mitty vaguely. "What?" Mrs. Mitty said. "Did you get the what's-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What's in that box?" "Overshoes," said Mitty. "Couldn't you have put them on in the store?" "I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you that sometimes I am thinking?" She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she said. They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, "Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking...

He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

The Senatorial Election of 1948 – Part 3

In 1948, when 12 senators were elected in one election -- the first Senatorial election -- the rounds of parish meetings which preceded the voting differed from modern elections in not having all the candidates present or speaking at each parish. Of the 18 candidates, it appears that only 11 or 12 spoke at the meetings. It is not clear why this was the case. As the Senatorial elections were a novelty, it is possible that some of the candidates were feeling their way towards how they might best connect with the public and get their message across, and perhaps some decided that a parish meeting was not a good place to do so. I will comment on two of these meetings to give a flavour of the times.

At the St Clement's meeting, it appeared that only the Deputies were present. This suggests they were familiar with the forms of election such as hustings whereas the Jurats, never having stood for election before, were unfamiliar with placing themselves in the public arena in this way.

The focus of the meeting concentrated on agriculture, education, relations with the British government, health, and pensions. On agriculture, Deputy Le Feuvre announced that in 1948 Jersey had set up an all time record for its potato and tomato crop, and he stated that the gross value of the crop to the island was over £4 million. This was a tremendous increase over £3 million for the year before. This was also reflected in a small article in the JEP which stated that prices of tomatoes at Covent Garden had double from 1 shilling and three pence to 2 shillings and sixpence. The Deputy placed support for agriculture at the heart of his campaign. (On today's values, from retail price increases, this would be a rise from £1.69 to £3.38)

Deputy Philip Le Quesne spoke on education. It is here that we see the considerable degree in which education has improved in the island and some of the prejudices against the education of women. He suggested that, at the States' expense, girls should be taught how to cook and the way to run a home; boys, on the other hand, were to receive a more academic education. The audience did not agree with the Deputy and there were cries of " rubbish".

Deputy Rumfitt talked of prospects of even more frequent conferences between representatives of the island and representatives of the British government and told the audience that for this they needed men able to speak and with full wisdom and knowledge of the subject under discussion. This seems uncannily similar to the election campaign of former Senator Frank Walker, and shows how the same issue of the relations between the island and the UK have remained very much on the political map since the second world war.

Deputy Ed Le Quesne opened by remarking that " there was an old saying that a man who does nothing cannot be criticised." To general laughter, he went on to say that " as the most criticised man in the States, he must have done something." He also noted that apart from the Constable of St Clement, he was the only States member who had been there 23 years ago. He talked of the work, which he had been involved with, of the public health committee, the introduction of occupational therapy at the mental hospital, and the building of a home for mentally deficient children " of which there are 200 in Jersey."

Deputy Edwin Gibaut said that while the public could not live without the farmer, the farmers must remember that they had a lot done for them, and owed a lot to the public too. He also commented on old age pensions and said that he could not see why people of 70 and over should have to face a means test. He did not approve of this. We may think ourselves lucky that retirement is earlier, and pensions are provided on a more equitable basis. But although Deputy Philip Le Feuvre's first report, brought in 1946, had proposed a single universal compulsory scheme, the States had put this in abeyance while States reform went through. On the 1948 election, Deputy Le Feuvre was determined to do something, and stood on a firm platform of implementing Social Security.

At the meeting at St John's Parish Hall, 60 electors turned up to listen to 10 of the candidates. Once more, the Jurats were noticeably absent. The JEP only reported on the speeches of two of the candidates, Colonel Riley and Mr Frank Le Quesne. Colonel Riley made a forthright inaugural election speech in which he said that, as a loyal member of the Church of England, he could not vote for divorce. He also mentioned that in cooperation with the British government some check should be put on the presence and restricted flow of new residents to the island -- one of the main causes of the acute housing problem. While the matter of divorce has now been resolved, and made legal in Jersey, it is interesting to note the link between immigration and housing being made back in 1948 which is still being made to this day.

Poor Mr Frank Le Quesne simply had it reported that his first public election speech was as well received as that of the Colonel, but unfortunately none of the contents made its way into the JEP, which is curious as he had been one of the JEP's preferred candidates suggested to its readers. Unlike today, we must remember that the JEP was the sole organ of news reporting for elections. From what I can see, it appears that they tried to balance reports from the different Parish meetings so that coverage extended to all candidates, but only on selected issues.

There was another election at the same time in the parish of St Saviour where Deputy T.P. Mourant was nominated for the post of Constable on the retirement of the preceding holder of the office, Mr L.T. Anthoine. It is interesting that even that far back there seems to have been a desire to appoint Constables from politicians who had established their credentials for serving the parish rather than from rank outsiders. The "proven track record" has become a cliché of our modern times, yet for all that it is not without merit.

How did the potential candidates consider the JEP endorsements? And what did the letter writers to the newspaper make of the election? In my next section, I shall consider these and other matters events of interest in the island.

In the meantime, if you suffer from backache you might be interested to know that your backache may be due to a sluggish kidney action. According to an advertisement in the JEP on 1948, " life is not so good when you are troubled with backache, rheumatic pains, stiff, aching muscles and joints, lumbago or common urinary disorders due to sluggish kidney action." The solution -- ask your chemist for "Doan's Backache Kidney Pill". The advertisement states that " they stimulate and cleanse sluggish kidneys and so help them to rid the blood of excess uric acid and other impurities which might otherwise collect in the system and cause distress. Doan's pills have helped thousands; let them help you."

Curiously enough, while we don't see a whole four square inches of advertisement in the JEP for medical products like this, under the name "Doan's Pills", this medication is still around, available for prescription by doctors, and is not a quack medical product, which, at first sight, the glowing advertisement suggests. The pills contain contain magnesium salicylate. This is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to reduce pain, swelling, and joint stiffness caused by arthritis, so they do actually work, although the modern medical advise suggests that long term use can cause harmful side-effects. Reading the advertisement, I am struck by how little medical advertising on television today (the modern equivalent) has changed - there is a preponderance of glossy visuals, but often very little actual information.

Laundrettes Revisited and Other Oddities

My short piece on the history of launderettes sparked by the Radio Four programme "Sud U Like" prompted a few memories from friends of mine. An old friend who now lives in Australia tells me the launderettes are still very much in evidence " down under"; she also has an unpleasant memories of the way things were in England in the 1980s:

They are still around here. Our local one is very clean. Not places you want to spend time in though. I remember them from many years of rented accommadation. Some launderettes were dingy and horrible others better but I am so very glad to have left them behind.

But by far the most interesting anecdote concerning launderettes comes from my friend Heather. She and her husband were holidaying not that long ago in Thailand. They were staying in Bangkok, but some way off the tourist trail. Outside the accommodation, at various places along all the streets could be seen large top loading rotary washing machines on the pavements. People would come along, put washing in the machine and coins in the slot, and come back in about half an hour knowing the time it would take to do the clothes. There was no need for a dryer. With the hot weather, inside or out, on a line, the clothes would dry quickly.

These machines on the pavement must have been an extraordinary sight and it was largely frequented by locals because this was away from most tourists destinations. Can you imagine going down the precinct in King Street and seeing large washing machines with people bringing and taking clothes?

Back in 1995, when Heather was visiting Haad Rin around the time of the celebrated Full Moon Moon party, there was another Bangkok oddity which sticks even more strongly in her mind. There was no mobile coverage in those days in that part of Thailand and no phone boxes for use of the general public.

Instead, if you wanted to make a phone call back home, you would go into an office and give the number to an operator who would know the destination for costs. She would dial the number for you. And she would also be there, hovering on the sidelines, while you were making a telephone call - holding a stopwatch. As each minute passed by, exactly on the minute, she would prod in the stomach the unfortunate person making the call so that they were aware of how long the call was taking. At the end of the call, the minutes counted would be used to calculate the cost.

Looking back on the telephone systems in our own island, it is a shame that unlike Guernsey we do not have a small but extremely interesting telephone museum opened to the public - or for that matter any display at the museum.

If you want to see the previous posting on laundrettes, it is at:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2010/08/sud-u-like.html