Thinking aloud

This Friday I'll be missing the funeral of a friend of mine. Not because I can't make it, although it would be difficult to get there all things are possible if you put your mind to them, but because I don't think I could bear it. Possibly cowardice, but more likely because I feel like I'd explode with hypocrisy if I attended.

He was a kind and generous man, softly spoken and cautious with his emotions. A real pleasure to be around and, in the intimacy of a one on one conversation, thoughtful and gently funny. He was also ready to talk about wrestling with his mental health issues in a self deprecating and darkly humorous way that always blunted the sharp edges of the topic.

We enjoyed each others' company and, once we lived in separate cities, would occasionally keep in touch with the odd text here or email there. But no more than that. Frankly we drifted apart. He wasn't even on Facebook or Twitter for goodness sake!

One drawback of being an emotionally self-sufficient introvert, which I am, and not requiring much from my friends is that, of course, those friendships can so easily remain at arms length and detach into nothingness. The upside is that if I never saw another human being in my life I'm not sure I'd be that bothered (as long as the shops still opened obviously).

If it's emotional sustenance you need I'm really not your man. Although I'm happy to discuss personal and emotional subjects, like right now, even then it will be in a cool analytic way without the visceral rawness of the hormonal tide that might actually be sweeping through me.

When I heard that my friend had killed himself last week I found myself gasping for breath. It was a moment we'd explicitly talked over and how his (then potential) suicide would effect his friends and family. I know I was pretty hard on him about it at the time, that it was his decision and his responsibility, no-one else's. Now it's real I'm less sure.

My thoughts soon turned to the friendship we'd shared and, well, the inadequacy of what he received from me. I'll be honest, those feelings of indirect culpability have been troubling me over the last few days.

Although I'd told him he alone was responsible for this decision, that he had yet to make, the fact is we are our brothers' keepers. We can make a choice as a society of individuals how much we're going to look out for one another, how connected we're going to be, and that decision has a real consequence.

I didn't put a rope around his neck, but I might as well have watched and done nothing. At least those closer to him tried, at least they were there for him and let him be there for them. I know in his heart he felt he was unneeded in the world and, as one of those who did not need him, in any real sense, I let him drown and he didn't even know I wasn't there.

We can't be there for everyone, but we can let people be there for us. The greatest thing you can do for another person is to let them help you. Their self-worth depends upon it.

French cuisine (chapter one)

As you know I'm in France. I like the various similarities and uncertainties that go with being on unfamiliar terrain. Without wanting to get too Pulp Fiction about it, it really is the little differences that get you. One of the things I've been hankering after for a while was a chance to sample the French version of our English national dish - the kebab. I finally got my chance and was not disappointed.

The shop itself was bathed in frenetic disco lights and pop music even though it was still early afternoon. It was also packed with French/Turkish people, which would be unusual in England. The menus were in both French and pigeon English, confirming my opinion that the English abroad are creatures of habit, and I'm one of their kind - although I'm pretty certain they didn't really sell 'frozen bread' at 25 cents.

So, to select a kebab. Almost every alternative came with the option of additional cheese. That threw me a bit, but it turned out I needn't have worried as this was a huge slab of fried cheese that was to be slapped straight on top of whatever you'd ordered. A vital component of your daily salt and fat requirements no doubt.

I also saw with interest that a chips in pitta, or chip butty to you and me, was simply called a 'Belgian'. Combined with their delightful buns this must make Belgium a nation of admirably simple tastes.

The menu all seemed very familiar, despite a little light renaming going on, and I plumped for a 'kefte' - large spicy balls of lamb. After some haggling I managed to negotiate garlic sauce, which is apparently known as blanc.

The first thing of note was that the salad was tucked into the bottom of the bread with meat on-top. So while UK kebabs are designed so they can be mainly eaten out of the pitta their French counterparts are designed to be less messy eaten sandwich-style out of a fluffier, more delicate pitta.

My companion had the civilised version, ie vegetarian and with a plate, while I had paper, tray and very moist, tasty spiced meat. It was interesting to see that the salad came with a very French style dressing, even with its blob of blanc on the side.

Despite being denied the pleasure of picking apart the kebab with my bare hands I have to say my kefte was absolutely delicious and extremely filling. I could have done without the disco lighting but the kebabistas were fun and the whole experience well worth while. If you're ever near Dijon station make sure you stop by for, at the very least, a Belgian.

Taking a break: tops and flops

I'm taking a break in France from today until Saturday. I'm going to do an hour's work a day anyway so I may do some recreational blogging while I' at it, but don't count on hearing much from me as I do need to recharge my batteries for some hardcore by-election winning when I get back.

France is so far, so good. On the positive side;

• The Metro newspaper may, theoretically, look like London's Metro but the Paris version is actually a newspaper not a string of celebrity gossip and gardening tips.
• I'm really liking the double decker trains - really smart way to do things. Although after a full six hours journey they had to wring their hands in apology. Six minutes late you see!
• Fonts. Perhaps this is just what you're used to, but I'm quite taken with the fonts they use for signs.
• The incredible heart warming and genuine smiles of people in Paris was wonderful, particularly as we passed through it in the morning rush hour. The London tube it ain't.

On the same old, same old side;

• For some reason I was expecting the coffee to be something special. So far it's basically just coffee.
• Probably to do with the time of day we went through Paris but basically people seemed to dress pretty much the same as they do in London.
• Pain au Chocolat. I'd been led to believe that the French were very protective of their language but here they are using exactly the same word as we use.

Me being me. Negatives;

• Puddles. There seems to be a lot of them.
• Power lines. The countryside seems dominated by them, although that could just be chance, obviously.
• I saw five fields of sheep. All of them had one black member. Tokenism gone mad.

I also saw the most hilarious bit of parking with a sports car in a busy car park parked across two bays. And yes, they were both disabled parking spots.

25 things meme

I don't do memes very often but I've been a tagged a number of times now and, with another one on left wing influences waiting in the wings, I thought I'd better crack on with it. The idea is pretty simple, simply twenty five little asides about me.

In no particular order;

1. When I was in Denmark I realised just how filthy English cities were, but somehow the order and sensibleness of it all repelled me on a fundamental level.
   
2. The only exams I took at school were 'O' levels, the year before they changed to GCSEs. My Dad did 'O' levels the year they came in.
   
3. I applied to be a gunner in the RAF when I was a teenager but bottled out at the last minute because I thought it looked like too hard work.
   
4. When I was at school I longed for a Soviet invasion. I forget why I thought the sight of Red Army tanks rolling down Bishop's Stortford high street would have been so glorious. My position is more nuanced now.
   
5. It is my secret shame that I would prefer people to think that I'm funny than right. Although both are obviously preferable.
   
6. My accent often changes according to my mood or situation. This goes well beyond having a telephone voice. It makes me wonder whether I have a real accent at all, although this is probably the product of having been brought up on a border and then moving around a lot.
   
7. I think traffic wardens do a socially necessary job and I find the lazy sneering at them to be the worst kind of sheep consciousness.
   
8. I took Latin at school, but managed to get a U in the exam (ungraded / less than 5%). It was well deserved.
   
9. The most popular petition I ever helped organise was to 'sink the royal yatch' when the Queen decided she needed a new royal yatch off the tax payer, but wasn't going to give up her old one. They were queuing down the street.
   
10. I've been to Glasgow once. I'd only been off the coach for two minutes when a man in bright red hair and a kilt abused me for being English. Very surreal.
    
11. I'm convinced that my love of cats is wholly reciprocated.
    
12. I admire misanthropy. However, once you start creating exceptions to the hate it becomes bigotry, and that is wrong.
    
13. My dream job would be editing a London only, leftfield community website.
    
14. My first memory is from my fourth birthday. I got a cowboy rifle which was the most fantastic thing I could imagine.
    
15. I keep meaning to become vegetarian again but my previous failed attempts (some of which lasted years) keep putting me off even trying.
    
16. I genuinely want England to lose at all sporting events they take part in. This is not a pose or a statement or a political line but a visceral, emotional and personal response to shouty, aggressive drunks celebrating something they have not contributed to.
    
17. My first job after leaving school was at Hayters lawnmower factory in Spellbrook (Essex).
    
18. I agree with the criticisms of the Pope but can't rid myself of the feeling we've just been very rude to a guest in this country.
    
19. It annoys me when people think it's working class to swear, and unworking class to read.
    
20. There was a time when I thought having an email account, using a mobile phone and drinking in coffee shops were all utterly reactionary. These things now form the bedrock of my life.
    
21. I think suicide is a legitimate choice that anyone should be able to make without shame, not just people with terrible illnesses or depression.
    
22. When I lived in Harlow my favourite food became the raw cabbage sandwich (with salad cream). I never ate one before moving there and I've not eaten one since moving away.
    
23. When people say that they "speak their mind" I automatically assume they mean they're malign, mean spirited, big mouths.
    
24. I know far more than I need to about dog poo. I also collect photos of council dog poo signs.
    
25. I used to sing in a choir, and have even performed solos in whacking great Cathedrals. It goes without saying that I still have the voice of an angel.

Computers are bastards

There's nothing like the rage you feel at an unresponsive computer. At least if a person is being unhelpful you can explain, in words, what you want to happen - with technology it just sits there smugly opening an application you didn't ask for or deleting your tax returns. There's nothing you can do but grab the monitor and throw it out the window and even that doesn't seem to solve the problem.

I've been using a friend's old machine that has a penchant for unwanted updates. I've tinkered around and turned off all the automatic updates I can find, which on a slow PC can make or break your mood, seriously slowing down the PC's performance. However, there are still some left which I either can't find the switch for or whose makers were so malevolent that they decided the user had no right to decide whether their computer was actually usable for this session.

Right now, every five minutes, I have a pop telling me that I need to restart my computer (which on this machine will take more than five minutes and necessitate the saving of all my work in progress). It gives me two buttons. I can either do it now or wait five minutes to be given the option again.

You can tell it's designed by geeks because there's no button to say "I don't want to restart, please wait until I shut down at my convenience". As it is I have to constantly guard the damn thing and woe betide me if I go to the loo for a leisurely, cough, read.

Why is so much IT designed with the most minor 'needs' of the object taking precedence over usability and the desire of the user?

If it were a person I could just say "Oh no thanks, I'll shut down when I'm done" but as it is I'm simply given two inconvenient choices - the hassle of saving everything I'm doing and a laborious restart, or risk the computer scrapping my session while I'm making coffee and toast. I could seriously tut right now, honestly, I could.

Happy Birthday Daily (Maybe)

Four years of blogging with an average of over four hundred posts a year it was on this very day that I started blogging. My aim was to blog for one month, but I wasn't so sure I'd be able to keep it up - hence the maybe in the title.

I've changed a fair bit as a blogger since I started out. I learned not to care about site stats and, although it probably doesn't look like it, I'm more relaxed if I haven't posted for a couple of days. I just let it come. I've also come to realise that this blog doesn't have to be 'for' anything - it's just something I do.

Now, I was going to book St Paul's Cathedral for the celebration party, but it turns out they don't allow pyrotechnics or foam machines so I had to scratch that idea. So Plan B is that over the next few days I'll lay on what passes for a treat, at this blog anyway.

That means I'll be hosting some guest posts from a hand picked elite of people I know, I'll also be going back into the archives and recovering some long forgotten gems and giving them a dust off. Add to this a couple of interviews and the regular mix of World Cup round up and huffing and puffing about the Tory Coalition and we're talking about a real blogging blitz.

Hope you don't find it too much to take. I've also started work on a mini-series of posts on the direction of the Green Party in very changed circumstances, I might leave that until the celebrations are over though, as they're reasonably serious.

Readers Requests: My Desert Island Discs

Neil asks what my Desert Island Disc choices would be. For those unfamiliar DID is a very long running radio programme where guests are asked to imagine they have been marooned on a desert island and can rescue eight music tracks of their choice, one book and a luxury from their ship before it sinks.

This is damn hard you know! I'd find it much easier to choose eight books - but not much. I'll just bite the bullet and ignore all those great tunes I'm just going to have to miss out, although Natalie Portman rapping or the funky gibbon didn't make the short list..

As it Morrissey's birthday I think we should start with one of his later works which contains the immortal and brilliant line; "You have never been in love before you've seen the dawn rise behind the home for the blind". It contains that Bragg/Pogues romanticism of the urban environment mixed with the miserablism of the Cure. Splendid.



There was always something about Germ Free Adolescent that captured my attention. Constrained and restrained I think the way the sentiment of the music works with the lyrics is slightly hypnotic.



When I first heard Bill Haley singing Rocket 88 on John Peel sometime in the eighties it absolutely blew me away. It hadn't even occurred to me that it might be 'Rock and Roll' which would have instantly consigned it to the dustbin. Once again my stupidity gave me the edge and allowed me to enjoy this glorious song about his lovely car.



Well, we can't have all this jollity so let's switch to Pulp's 97 Lovers, from before they sold out by selling actual records and being able to pay the rent and that. This song is the eighties for me.



Joan Baez was someone I only came to in later life and it was her Diamonds and Rust that first sent shivers up my spine. It still does.



And if we're speaking of spines shivering then we have to include Lennon's working class hero. There are few greater songs that have been made in the last one hundred years than this.



Where would any selection of music be without Kate Bush. I've selected Breathing out of a number of possible tracks simply because it seems to epitomise the ferociously tangental approach that Bush always brought to music.



Lastly I'll go with Tracy Chapman's I'm Ready partly because it's the tune I'd like played at my funeral and partly because it's such an entrancing song.



Feel free to play along at home.

Oh, but before I forget I get to take a book and a luxury too. Well, the luxury has got to be a freezer full of bacon. I could be out there a long time you know!

The book? I think I'll go for the Three Musketeers simply because it's so full of life and fire. It would be a good way to remind myself of the pleasure that other people can bring as I sit in the delicious peace of the lapping waves and bright stars of my little island.

How you can help me get elected

I try to maintain a bit of a distance between my day to day political activity and this blog for all kinds of reasons. Partly because if I told you every time I went out campaigning or reported on every meeting or event I attend then they'd be no time for anything else. This is not my diary, and I intend to keep it that way because that would be pretty boring.

I guess I tend to see this place as a space to discuss political, philosophical, or personal ideas and I've always tried to blog for enjoyment, not for rankings or for stats. Not that I have a policy of never talking about the stuff going on in my life, it's just that's not what The Daily (Maybe) is for.

However, I have probably gone a bit too far when it comes to the fact I've not really mentioned that I'm standing in the upcoming council elections in a very winnable seat.

Some of you may know I'm standing in Crofton Park, Lewisham, for the Green Party but for many of you this will be the first time you've heard of it - even though I was selected way back last year.

The campaign is going well and, apart from the stinking cold I've managed to catch last night, things are cracking on nicely. However, some of you might be so enthusiastic about the idea of Cllr Daily (Maybe) that you may be moved to give me a bit of support, feel free not to, obviously. Here's a few ideas on how you can help in the next seven weeks;

This Saturday:

We have our action weekend this Saturday, which is a fun way of getting the word out accompanied by dozens of other activists as we blitz our target seats. To take part come to our campaign shop from 10 am onwards at 252 Brockley Road, which is mid-way between Brockley station and Crofton Park station.

There's also a fund raising party afterwards to celebrate delivering our millionth leaflet (think of all the trees we've saved by sourcing the paper and inks ethically). It'll be fun!

Any other time:

Any time you want to rock up and deliver leaflets our campaign shop is open from 10am to 7pm every day. There's plenty to do and we've made it as easy as possible to get involved. You might even want to phone canvass for us from the luxury of your own boudoir, in which case let me know and I'll brief you on the drill.

Polling Day, Thursday May 6th:

I've been sorting out my polling day team this week and if you think coming to Lewisham and helping me get elected is the most useful thing you could do that day then all help will be much appreciated. The tasks aren't particularly difficult but we need to be in lots of places at once - so if you can get the whole day off that would be even better.

If you can only do one thing, this would be the one I'd really like from you because we're mounting the biggest polling day operation we've ever attempted and we're going to be stretched.

Donating:

If you want to fund the campaign, then you know what? You can!

Use this button if you're fully armed with hyper-modernist techno-knowledge.

Alternatively you can send cheques (before they ban them) to the Lewisham Green Party Treasurer, 202 Malpas Road, London SE4 1DH. Please include your name, address and phone number, in case of any queries. Make them out to 'Lewisham Green Party' to ensure I don't siphon off the money to fund my outrageous gambling habit.

Anyway, I wont mention it again. Well, I wont bang on about it anyway. Thanks for your support.

Disorganised Rage!

I was reading the news that Lewisham is one of the angriest places in London whilst at the same time listening to a debate on the radio about MPs expenses where half the callers didn't even seem to know what they were angry about. They knew *who* they were angry at but when they tried to articulate that anger it all fell apart.

So thinking about anger I do think there is a strong dose of peer pressure involved sometimes. If you take traffic wardens, who are basically a group of people who do a socially useful job and have to deal with often angry members of the public, you'd have thought that society would give them a little bit of status - but no - they are universally vilified as if anti-social parking that can inconvenience large numbers of people was some sort of human right.

However, it's somehow acceptable to see traffic wardens as less than human and that actually makes their job more dangerous because some people take that as the green light to become abusive or worse when they're caught blocking everyone else's way and being a pain.

It got me thinking about the things that make me angry that *aren't* common currency. It didn't take me long to remember that there is one big one.

BAGS.

I have to say that those bloody bags that people trail along behind themselves are becoming more and more annoying as they become more and more common. On the tube sometimes it is nothing less than an obstacle course of these blooming trailers.

They're an obstacle at best and sometimes a positive hazard. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen someone go up the escalator with one of these things and then stop at the top causing the next person to trip over them. Particularly when you get a few people together with these things it becomes a real problem, especially in crowds.

Obviously they are useful if you want to transport lots of things across the capital/world and it's difficult to raise the rage you feel about these objects in polite society because more and more of us are becoming offenders.

So what's your unacceptable hate object/behaviour? I'm sure there are lots of things that make us angry that we all share (racism, injustice, etc) but it's those things that fall between the cracks, that it's hard to come clean about that I'm really interested in.

An aside

Last night I was listening to someone talking about healthy eating and how important it was. They mentioned pies three times as an example of things that are bad for you.

Ever since I've not been able to concentrate for thinking about those naughty pies. Just a few minutes ago I finished a deliciously greasy steak and kidney pie, something I've not eaten for months.

Let this be a warning to others who wish to make me eat a balanced diet - you may do more harm than good!

Blogging Resolutions for 2010

Sometimes I post a set of blogging resolutions which I'm usually pretty good at keeping to, although last year I posted up some predictions for this year just gone by instead, which seem to be about 90% right. Back to the resolutions this year I think as I dread to think what the coming year may hold.

Twitter: I'll try to figure out how to use the thing a bit more intelligently. I do like twitter and, despite the fact some people seem to despise the very name with a passion, I think it's rather fun.

What I don't do is pay any attention to gathering new followers or being consistently useful/funny/lovely in my 'tweets'. I'll try and improve this year.

Follow my progress here.

Non-partisan blogging: I don't make a secret of being a Green Party member but I do hope that this blog doesn't read like it's issued by central office. I'm an independent minded chap when all is said and done and I've made no secret of disagreeing with the party sometimes or admiring others in rival organisations when the mood suits me.

Being a general election year there's going to be a certain amount of self applied pressure to be a more down the line party loyalist, which I don't think would be good for the blog or good for me more generally. There will be the added complication that more of my time will be spent doing very specifically electoral work so it's likely that's what will be on my mind.

So for my next resolution, I'll try to get the balance right.

Blog local: I've been doing a touch of blogging at Green Crofton Park, where I've been selected to stand in this year's local elections. I've got a lot to learn about good local blogging that connects to the community so this is going to be a steep learning curve for me.

One of the things I want to do this year is really crack the art of the useful, informative and fun local blog. Lewisham is the place to do it too as there is a veritable hive of strong local blogs in the area to learn from.

New group blogging projects: There's some potential group blogging projects that may emerge in the next few weeks for me. Group blogging is certainly one of the strongest form of blogging and although I'd never give up my own space I am feeling it's time to take group work more seriously.

Now the new year is about to beginning revitalising the Carnival of Socialism with new admins should help to get it back on track but there will be at least two more magazine style projects (one ongoing that I'll be joining and one new that I'll be helping to launch) that will be a refreshing departure for me and I'm really looking forward to.

More interviews: I do enjoy the interviews and guest posts that I host here but they can be hard work for the subject and so they don't appear as often as I'd like. I think I'm going to have a renewed push to getting more guest posts, more interviews and ensuring they come from a good spectrum of people.

I'm going to be running a series of interviews with Green PPCs up to the election so I really do need to ensure that this is balanced out (see above) with other good sorts who hail from other traditions or perspectives. All suggestions more than welcome.

My family at war

My Mum's been showing me a whole number of family photos stretching way back when. Just because I'm interested in this stuff I thought I'd share a few of the family pictures from my lot at war.

First up we have Arthur by the sea. I don't know what sea. I do know that he's in full uniform, with his shoes and socks off, trousers rolled up for paddling, whilst smoking a pipe. This confirms that my family have been fashion trend setters for decades.


Next we have what we think is my Grandad on my Mum's side in the uniform he started the war out in. He soon exchanged this for the togs of a Desert Rat.


Next up we have Daisy who was a lance corporal in the Women's Land Army. Looking very cheerful.

The next one is my Dad's Dad with my Aunty Hazel. He's in his RAF uniform and she's looking very pleased at being photographed.

Lastly with have the 'Dead Man's Penny' for John Player Genower who was killed in a German prisoner of war camp in pretty grisly circumstances.

Cold enough for ya?

A week is a long time out of politics

I'm about to have two weeks enforced leave from being a political activist. I've been told it's not the done thing to canvas someone on Christmas Day so I will be at a loose end. It's been so long I've forgotten what normal people do in order to 'have a life'.

Is the cinema still going? I used to quite like going to the pictures... anything good on at the moment?

I'm pretty much sorted for the day itself but what about the other thirteen days? There's only so many times I can watch We Need Answers on i-player.

I was considering having at least a week off the internet, but unless I can fill my life with other meaningless froth I'm not sure it's feasible.

Grammar: affect and effect

My spelling is, to say the least, below par. My grammar is too, probably, although I'm less worried about that, after all language is about communication and if the textbook rules contradict the fluidity of my speech so much the worse for the rules I say.

What you can get away with grammatically you sadly cannot in the field of spelling. If you can't spell (like me) people will not just think worse of you, they'll feel they have the right to tell you too!

I do actually quite like people correcting my spelling as it helps me raise my game - although politeness is always appreciated, naturally.

Of course, spellcheck is a blessing and a danger. A blessing because it picks up my most obvious mistakes (and regular typos, for the life of me I can't type the word 'particular' without getting the L in the wrong place - and I do know where it goes!), but a danger because it has no sense of the appropriate word, only misspellings.

Take effect and affect. Someone (very kindly) has just pointed out that I'd used the wrong version in a sentence but it's a rule that for the life of me I just cannot remember. So I've gone and looked it up;

To affect something is to change or influence it, To effect something is a rather formal way of saying `to make it happen'.

Confusingly, either may produce an 'effect' or result. ('An affect' is a technical term in psychology.)

So if it's a noun you use 'e' unless you're using it in a technical sense. If something affects someone it's an 'a' and if someone effects something - it's an 'e'. Sort of.

Do you know what - I don't think I'm going to remember this, but maybe writing it down will have helped.

More Star Letters

Another letter in the Morning Star in response to my wise, wise thoughts. This one is utterly brilliant!

I would like to congratulate you on the recent article by Jim Jepps (M Star November 2) describing the degradation of the relationship between science and the new Labour government.

However this article does not sit well with your news subs' policy of describing all scientists, from archeologists to zoologists, as "boffins." Come on Star, leave that patronising language to Murdoch.

Bill Atkins
Powys

You might also like to know that today's paper also had one of mine - this time on why men ought to be grateful for feminism. Do keep those letters coming! lettersed@peoples-press.com.

Vegetarianism

OK, I'm going to take the plunge. As a preliminary scouting mission from Friday I'm going to be vegetarian for a week. Wish me luck because I might have trouble remembering if I'm out and about. I'm leaving it to Friday as that allows me to use up various bits and bobs, thereby not wasting food. I hope that's acceptable.

I tend to eat too much meat anyway so I've been thinking about this for a while. I used to be vegetarian (for about two years) when I was a student but one drunken night I had fish and chips on the way home and the spell was broken.

Anyway there are lots of reasons not to eat meat. Health, climate change even ethics if you want to go all hippy on me but I do tend to be a bit useless at this lifestyle business (and I sympathise with everyone in a similar position so don't tend to be part of the finger wagging brigade). That's no reason not to try is it?

I will tweet regular updates for those particularly interested but never fear, I wont clog the blog up with stories about bland cheese sandwiches or a particularly succulent lettuce leaf, not even in digest form.

Isn't there a song about this?

I was out leafleting in Lewisham today and came across these chaps.


Not a partridge but three pigeons, and a sunflower rather than a pear tree but, well, you get the drift.

Meme: Firsts

AVPS has tagged me in a meme about political first times and to make up for a slow blogging weekend I thought why not.

First political experience I am pretty sure my first defining political experience was watching Michael Foot on TV. It was during the Falklands War and he seemed to be attacking Thatcher for not being patriotic enough. I remember thinking "Aren't you meant to be in CND and that? Shouldn't you be against the war?" Bizarrely the experience made me a committed Labour Party supporter, although I do see the contradictions in that now.

First vote I believe this was 1989 in the local and European elections where I voted - shock - Labour in both. The first of many, many times. I've run out of Labour goes now so my cross goes elsewhere these days.

First demo Seeing this made me remember an action day at my school where hundreds of kids congregated on the playing fields in solidarity with the teachers' strike. I was about twelve so, not being a little Lenin or anything, I basically attended rather than organising the thing. It was good fun though as the Deputy Head got angry with us when we wouldn't disperse and started chasing kids around - forgetting that he was an old man and we were Essex Yoof. Sucker!

Last vote I've no heresy to report I'm afraid. I voted for the Green Party in both local and European elections just a couple of months ago. Keeping up the tradition neither of the people I voted for got in.

Last political activity What's political activity? I just folded about a hundred letters to local supporters and stuffed them into envelopes. Does that count? It was literally a few minutes ago so there was nothing more recent than that.

If you'd like to tag yourself - please feel free - the more the merrier!

Politeness in politics

On a personal level manners are something I value pretty highly and it's doubly useful in politics to be able to work with others without generating needless feuds over some sideshow about so and so being rude to such and such. It's difficult to avoid entirely but bullies, bores and braggarts are rarely successful politically.

Trotsky went so far as to argue that politeness wasn't just about keeping an organisation ticking over smoothly without problems, it was actually a political virtue in itself when he said; "Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people."

I'm inclined to agree, although we're all human - naturally - so I wouldn't want to suggest I insist on the highest standards, I just prefer them.

Manners come into their own when you're talking to the general public about politics because whilst they are bound by no particular code the activist has to remain true to their task and put aside their desire to huff and puff if they feel offended.

I was collecting money for the firefighters during one of the Essex FBU disputes once when an older couple came up to me. The guy wanted to have a go at me and strikes in general and we had a little discussion in which he described striking firefighters as cowards. I replied that they weren't cowards "They're fucking heroes."

His eyes popped and then in horror he boomed "Don't you swear in front of my wife!" and they were gone. I don't take back the sentiment, obviously, but by swearing I lost any chance of persuading that guy that the strike was worth supporting. A little slip lost me my chance with him, oh well.

When knocking on doors today I had two contrasting experiences that made me wonder on the significance of manners in politics, if any.

The first was an older gentleman who told me flat out that he'd have nothing to do with the Greens. We got into a conversation where he told me what's the point of fighting in Afghanistan when we can't win and we're just killing "them poor buggers", and then there's the immigrants (pause while I waited for whatever was on his mind, which never came) and then those thieving bastards... those bloody MPs.

You could say it was a wide ranging conversation which was all very pleasant, included not a little laughter and ended with a hand shake and fond fair well. No political joy, but personally very pleasant.

The story round the corner was quite different, a woman came to the door already cross before she'd even seen me. Pre-cross if you like, her inner hive of wasps had already been poked with the sharp stick of life and I was the first passer-by.

She opened the door with a cheery "What the bloody hell!" and I prepared to have my buttocks handed to me with speed and force as I explained who I was and that I was canvassing the area. "I've got no time now," she barked and I prepared my retreat "but you can put me down as a definite, oh, and how do I join the party?"

She was obviously having a busy day and I don't begrudge her the fact she was having a strop but she was the rudest person I've encountered door knocking for a while by miles even though by my canvassing sheet she was a bit of a success. The general culture, at least in the places I go, is that you're polite to canvassers even when you despise their party - something I like to encourage out of self interest.

It was a good reminder, for me anyway, that whilst I respect manners more than possibly any other virtue in a person they don't necessarily go hand in hand with any sort of political affinity. Of course I knew this already, there's plenty of lefties I don't like and Tories that I do, but it's nice to be reminded of it now and then.