Along with many people, I have been gripped by the BBC's freshly-made telling of the Nativity story, quite originally titled Nativity, on at 19.00 GMT for four days this week. It was actually quite refreshing to see the whole story through Joseph's eyes, and walk a mile in his shoes. Well, 85 miles in fact, from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
I thought Andrew Buchan, who plays the upstanding William Garrow in Garrow's Law was an outstanding piece of casting. His mild-mannered attitude and gentle demeanour made him the perfect Joseph. Tatiana Maslany, one of the most innocently beautiful women ever to grace the screen made it all the more worthwhile. They together were two inspirational main subjects who brought the whole story to its sweetest conclusion and quite frankly I would have liked it to go on and on and on in that manner, telling the whole story. I might be a Pagan, but I too find the Christmas story humbling, yet empowering. An odd juxtaposition of emotions which culminate in just a day from now.
The reason it was so gripping was because there was no exaggeration, no Ben Hur-style über-glory, no fanfare, no great announcement by archangels, just the bare bones of the story, the poorest of poor shepherds, the Magi following the astronomical signals and two caring parents worried about their daughter and future son-in-law. The other interesting aspect of this particular version was the inclusion of planetary movement, making this astronomical event seem much more relevant, as it should do.
As a Pagan, we respect and tolerate all reasonable religions, and find comfort in and gain knowledge from many of their teachings. I would never shy away from hiding the story of the Nativity from any child of mine, as it is a story of hope, as well as a lesson in the equality of all people at birth. If Jesus could be born in a stall, and become the great man he was, and for many still is, so the dustman's son could one day grow up to be a footballer, the daughter of a party pack salesman could grow up to marry the heir to the throne of the UK, but at the same time, Nicholas II, the Tsar of Russia could be pulled from his haughty position to be executed, and the greatest leader of all time, Winston Churchill, could lose a general election and be a mere commoner the day after.
The Nativity story also tells us that life is a gift. The planet we live on is a beautiful spheroid perfectly climatised to allow us to evolve and gain intelligence to improve our existences. The story also teaches us that death is but a condition for our existence and comes to us all in the end, like a final bill at the end of a prodigious meal. Some of us will be lucky and drop dead without any symptoms. The most shocking for those left behind, but the way most of us would like to depart. Many of us will die of illnesses which we hope we will never get. The long, protracted suffering of my mother is one of the things which made me understand the tenuousness of our lives. Some of us, a very tiny minority in fact, will be killed by another person. This is the greatest crime in any society, and in all right-minded religions. The more brutal the death, the more horrified we are. But there is also war. That is for another day.
The benefits we receive from the Nativity story far outweigh the man-made rules and regulations taken down by human hand afterwards. Christianity today is a shadow of itself - it is losing the battle of hearts and minds, suffering from neglect, threatened with becoming irrelevant, even obsolete. This tragedy is due to the one and only fact: human desire for power. How can those in the Vatican claim to be Jesus's and St Peter's successors when it takes residence in great halls, monasteries, castles and cathedrals worldwide? How can a commercial enterprise fill the space where charity and compassion should be? And how can self-appointed representatives of such a humble man claim to be owners of countless masterpieces of a priceless nature whilst at the same time sanctioning the donation of money at church level to pay for their upkeep?
The fact that the BBC invests money, time and effort into telling the story properly and putting it on TV during prime time tells us a lot about the world we now live in. We are finally going back to basics. The simple things in life are coming back to us. The hubris years of credit cards, big spending and partying may finally be over. This is no time for decadence and carefree living. For the greatest thing taught to us by the Nativity is, we only have the one life. Why have so many people been raised to want more? Why are so many children in the North and West not happy with their situations? If they do not have any brand labels in their pile under the tree, if they do not have the latest downloads for their iPods, if they do not have junk food awaiting them instead of proper meat and vegetables for Christmas dinner, then that is another soul lost to the great demon of consumerism, the religion of the late 20th and early 21st century.
Then there are those that would destroy everything around them for their own beliefs: the fundamentalists, the crackpot element of this world. Why would anyone sane even think that the God of Abraham would consider a hero a person who believes his miserable existence should be ended by exploding himself in a busy street, killing tens or hundreds of innocent members of the public? And why would any sane individual even consider building a nuclear bomb, let alone using it? The story of the Nativity teaches us that very point: life is worth more than any ideological hangup, and certainly more than not having the latest toy/gadget/song to hand.
So maybe, if trends continue this way, the ungratefulness shown by spoiled kids may soon be a thing of the past, and we can get back to reality once again. When you wake up on Christmas morning to open your presents, remember two things: first, the fact that countless numbers of children worldwide will have been sleeping without a roof over their heads and will have no presents this day, and secondly that you are very, very lucky to even be here on this Earth in the first place. Bombs, wars, ideology and established religion are all just rabble-rousing hype. A life lived to the full and enjoyed as often as possible is worth so much more. So make the most of it!
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Friday, 3 December 2010
How much did it cost, Mr Putin?
So Russia has won the right to host the World Cup in 2018.
Take a look at the following press freedom rankings of the candidate countries:
The Netherlands (3)
Japan (12)
Belgium (14)
Australia (18)
The UK (19)
The USA (20)
Spain (39)
Portugal (40)
South Korea (42)
Qatar (120)
Russia (140)
Now, considering the alleged backhanders and oiled palms that took place in the bidding process, I regard it as a badge of honour that England was last in the votes. Australians should feel proud that their democracy came last in their own election for 2022.
I do not mind whoever won, but the way the day progressed frightened me - is this a sign of the future? I would prefer my country to have press freedom and my human rights respected than win the right to host a football competition in which even the goals scored might not be given because FIFA refuses to allow TV replay evidence.
I hope the UK press is galvanised into running a deeper-than-deep investigation into the dealings of that self-appointed, self-important, self-deifying group of stuffed suits.
There are three places the UK press needs to look:
1. Why did Blatter say China invented football? I knew the writing was on the wall then. After that, he gave a less-than-convincing speech on the need for the losing countries to accept the decision of FIFA. In other words, "we've been doing things behind everyone's backs and we're really worried about the reaction of the losing bidders."
2. Why did 5 members of FIFA tell David Cameron that they could be assured of their votes which then never materialised? Blatter's speech to FIFA delegates just before voting may have had something to do with that, where he told the voters to remember the recent criticism directed at their organisation when they cast their votes.
3. The last place the UK press should look is the pockets of every FIFA member, to make sure they're not getting too full.
I, for one, would welcome this media intrusion. I didn't mind the fact that England lost the voting. I never thought it would win. But the manner in which it happened suggests there was something not right in the voting process.
This is also a mirror of the intransigence which FIFA deploys in regard to their refusal to allow TV evidence to assist referees. It is a powerful hint that it is not in their interests to allow certain results to interfere in the smooth coronation of the world champions.
I have always had a dark brown suspicion that World Cup winners were not always the teams that played the best. Now I am wondering how much it costs a country not just to win the right to host, but to win the World Cup itself.
Well, why don't the larger countries get together and break away from FIFA, set up a rival code and then see who blinks first... Spain, Portugal and Italy would relish the chance to join a breakaway group with England. Then the Germans and Dutch might feel a bit lonely as the biggest European footballing countries still clinging to FIFA. And as the only two larger countries left, a little like the Scottish football league, the Celtic and Rangers of world football, Argentina and Brazil, would not take too long to switch suits either. Then the torrent would come led by France, the Czech Republic, Japan and Scotland. In the end, only Switzerland, Qatar and Russia will be left. They can set up a proper, fan-based democratic football union run on the basis of what is really good for the game.
It'll never happen though. Too many threats from FIFA will see to that.
Now let's get back to playing (mainly) honest sports like cricket, golf and rugby.
Take a look at the following press freedom rankings of the candidate countries:
The Netherlands (3)
Japan (12)
Belgium (14)
Australia (18)
The UK (19)
The USA (20)
Spain (39)
Portugal (40)
South Korea (42)
Qatar (120)
Russia (140)
Now, considering the alleged backhanders and oiled palms that took place in the bidding process, I regard it as a badge of honour that England was last in the votes. Australians should feel proud that their democracy came last in their own election for 2022.
I do not mind whoever won, but the way the day progressed frightened me - is this a sign of the future? I would prefer my country to have press freedom and my human rights respected than win the right to host a football competition in which even the goals scored might not be given because FIFA refuses to allow TV replay evidence.
I hope the UK press is galvanised into running a deeper-than-deep investigation into the dealings of that self-appointed, self-important, self-deifying group of stuffed suits.
There are three places the UK press needs to look:
1. Why did Blatter say China invented football? I knew the writing was on the wall then. After that, he gave a less-than-convincing speech on the need for the losing countries to accept the decision of FIFA. In other words, "we've been doing things behind everyone's backs and we're really worried about the reaction of the losing bidders."
2. Why did 5 members of FIFA tell David Cameron that they could be assured of their votes which then never materialised? Blatter's speech to FIFA delegates just before voting may have had something to do with that, where he told the voters to remember the recent criticism directed at their organisation when they cast their votes.
3. The last place the UK press should look is the pockets of every FIFA member, to make sure they're not getting too full.
I, for one, would welcome this media intrusion. I didn't mind the fact that England lost the voting. I never thought it would win. But the manner in which it happened suggests there was something not right in the voting process.
This is also a mirror of the intransigence which FIFA deploys in regard to their refusal to allow TV evidence to assist referees. It is a powerful hint that it is not in their interests to allow certain results to interfere in the smooth coronation of the world champions.
I have always had a dark brown suspicion that World Cup winners were not always the teams that played the best. Now I am wondering how much it costs a country not just to win the right to host, but to win the World Cup itself.
Well, why don't the larger countries get together and break away from FIFA, set up a rival code and then see who blinks first... Spain, Portugal and Italy would relish the chance to join a breakaway group with England. Then the Germans and Dutch might feel a bit lonely as the biggest European footballing countries still clinging to FIFA. And as the only two larger countries left, a little like the Scottish football league, the Celtic and Rangers of world football, Argentina and Brazil, would not take too long to switch suits either. Then the torrent would come led by France, the Czech Republic, Japan and Scotland. In the end, only Switzerland, Qatar and Russia will be left. They can set up a proper, fan-based democratic football union run on the basis of what is really good for the game.
It'll never happen though. Too many threats from FIFA will see to that.
Now let's get back to playing (mainly) honest sports like cricket, golf and rugby.
Saturday, 27 November 2010
The world's worst music genre
There are many styles of music that speak to the heart or quicken the soul: the bandoneon-inspired tango, the tubthumping anthems of a metal group, the simplicity of a folk ballad, the bewildering and beguiling sound emanating from an opera singer's lungs or the hair-raising wall of sound provided by a good old-fashioned big band.
But at the same time, there are some godawful melodies out there. Here are my top (or should it be bottom?) five:
5. Rap
The music with the silent "C", as the joke goes. This is comparatively much further down my list than other people might place it because there are nevertheless some redeeming features. Rap as a genre is a two-faced creature: one face is actually quite brilliant. There can be frustration in the voice, meaningful lyrics with a dark side accompanied by an angry backdrop and a desperate air of inability to change the state of the world. French rap is also particularly good. I defy anyone to tell me that it is not.
But there is also a side to this music which makes one want to leave the room and go and listen to a recorded speech by Fidel Castro. It can go one of two ways: firstly there is the semi-old geezer with his baseball cap on at a precariously adventurous angle, or even on back-to-front if they're really looking for the sales, where he sings of a moral issue and is surrounded by a backing group of real singers. He tries to look cool and in turn it just desecrates the whole act. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Daz Sampson and his now legendary Teenage Life!
The second way is simply brutal and not worth writing about.
4. X Marks the Spot
If there is one thing that distinguishes our generation from that of today it is the variety of skills and talent on offer. When I glimpse trailers of X Factor or something similar, I feel like smashing the television. Or at least shouting at it. There can be nothing worse than knowing that a glorified karaoke run by a narcissistic despot from Hertfordshire and his evil assistants is going to define your children's obsessions which they will look back upon wistfully in twenty years, bemoaning the quality of talent on their televisions and comparing it to their own youth. There is a subgenre here - the songwriters. When they go on to have a career, many of these "singers" cannot read or write music, have but a basic understanding of how timing works and can barely hold a note one octave above middle C. The songs produced for them are therefore melodically unadventurous and full of clichés.
Clichés like "baby", "beautiful", "believe", "heart" and "crazy" are just the start. "Get together", "(whatever) through the night", and many others of course started before Simon Cowell was even born. But surely songwriters and lyricists could add their own twist to the songs they write. Oh, of course, they do: the act. Fire, smoke, backing dancers to start with. But you need to have a routine per song, where you rock from side to side or look pleadingly into the spotlights, change costume at least three times per gig and hawk your new product on everything from breakfast talk shows to appearing on primetime spectacles as the interval act. These people also try to get themselves in the papers every day, either by having someone call up a journalist and tell them where they are to be found, or by doing enough stupid stuff to warrant a full-time photographer who parasitically follows the idiot around, in some cases earning as much as the "star".
If you want to know what I mean, then here is the prime example, the alpha male of all that this soulless world showers on its easily-hooked victims. Despite there being talent of sorts, I still think that the music of my youth and that before me was much more imaginative, being totally unreliant on computers and pyrotechnics, routines and clothes changes.
3. Christian Rock
If you ever want a category that sums up everything that is wrong with religion, it is Christian Rock. Trying to be cool by having a live band in your church thumping out melodies generally known as "praise" is seriously wrong and sends a very, very bad message to those you are trying to draw in. As my views on religion are well-documented, it will come as no surprise when I tell you that the paradoxical nature of mixing rock music, the 20th century's gift to the arts, with a belief as outdated and fuddy-duddy as Christianity is a shockingly underhand tactic to try and tell the world "we can keep up with the times!"
No you cannot.
Ditch the political bigotry associated with religion, allow women the right to be full clergy members, stop saying yours is the only true religion and everyone else is wrong, stop preaching doom and gloom to all sinners (usually unmarried parents or smokers) and finally ditch those silly men who preach by shouting out their beliefs as if theirs is the only voice that counts, then maybe, just maybe, you might be permitted to play rock in your church. Even then, I'm still having trouble pairing the two together. How can you sing songs with euphemistic lyrics like "arise", "lift me up", "worship", "fill my cup", and "mercy" in them and still keep a straight face? Sorry, this particular choice should have taken first place, but there are, I believe, two even more abominable genres than this.
2. Café and public space music
To explain this, I need to go into a little more detail: you're sitting with a friend, some family members or a date on a café terrace, the sun is shining and there are about five nationalities of tourist sitting in a radius of ten metres from you. You're having a quiet lunch/dinner, or a decent chat about things, catching up on news, or simply having a family holiday while it's sunny. Then you hear, drifting across the muttering throngs from a café nearby, the distinct sound of an accordeon, a fiddle and sometimes a singer. The songs are well-known to you, but you just don't remember their names. That also annoys you. I'll name some so you can run a search on them: Ochi Chorniye, Cielito Lindo, Under the Bridges of Paris, That's Amore, Oh Du Lieber Augustin, My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean, La Vie En Rose, Beer Barrel Polka, Kalinka and Those Were The Days.
I know people who get great pleasure from the sounds of the accordeon, but there are surely more songs to play than that. Lady Kirsten also plays the accordeon and her repertoire is a hundred times broader than that of a streetside café busker. She can play songs from Sweden, Israel, Spain, Russia, Serbia, Belgium, Scotland, the USA, England, Wales and a lot of other countries.
The other public space I am referring to is the loud speaker found at railway stations, some pub-restaurants and shopping centres. The kind of music I am about to talk about requires me to prepare myself even to mention the name. That's why I paired it up with naff busking. The word is... euhm... (I feel like someone shy trying to explain to head of personnel I have haemorrhoids and need a new chair) is....
I'll do some more explaining first, to build myself up to it. That might help.
You're in the lobby of a three-star hotel in Kidderminster or Krefeld or Córdoba or Kaliningrad...
You're waiting for your spouse/son/daughter/grandma/secret lover, etc...
You're getting upset for no apparent reason...
Then you realise why. It's the utter bastardisation by re-timing (so-called jazzing-up) of songs you used to love, being slowly put through various stages of torture from limb removal to crucifixion via the codling grinder, turning them into musical monsters. The worst time of year for this contemptuous type of sound to reveal its hideous countenance is December and the weeks leading up to Christmas. I once heard Troïka from Prokofiev's magical Lieutenant Kijé Suite being stabbed to death by the sharpened knives of a trumpet player, a riff drummer and a supporting jazz orchestra. That made me cry. Another time, I heard Silent Night being bludgeoned by a group of musicians who made it sound like Mack the Knife. I stood still in disbelief for at least three minutes afterwards and could only speak again when I had had a whole night's sleep.
Big band is good. But not when it has to switch genres in order to make music.
Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Glenn Miller, Joe Loss. All wonderful band leaders in their own right.
Tchaikovsky, Bach, Wagner, Mozart, Prokofiev, Händel. All great composers in their own right.
For the sake of public decency, don't mix the two.
1. Schlager
Utter drivel of the most evil kind. It defiles the entire subject of music and is not even worth the CD it has been burned on. Schlager is the rape of sound. It is the abomination of art, the whore of the radiowaves. There is no devil in Hell who could have thought up Schlager music. It must have been a human as humans are intently much, much more evil than all the demons in the Underworld.
I would define Schlager in several ways: the first, a frilly variety of saccharine sweet ballads sung by women of a certain age or girls who have never seen a male organ, but can hold a guitar whilst being driven along a mountain path on the back of a horse-drawn cart with their friends, Irmtraud, Poldi and Hannes. But it can also be sung by a group of camp, moustachioed Austrians in Mexican sombreros and billowing white shirts carrying musical instruments, pretending they're on their way to Mallorca for a holiday. Or it can be a prodigiously suntanned blond guy who looks 40 but is probably 20 years older than that and wearing a toupée, singing songs of his first love or of his departed girlfriend, gone off with someone new (or should that be young?), whilst he sits at home on a tacky, red geranium-infested Tyrolean balcony with commanding views of the Alps, but oddly featuring regular close-ups of the local village's friendly goat. Let us not forget the blurred camera lens for special watery-eyed effect.
Schlager is Be'elzebub's eardrum. It is blasphemous to even call it music. Schlager is the result of too much incestuousness in the countryside, where generations of farmers' sons have shagged their naïve, uneducated female cousins who think it's a remedy for acne, slipped away from the scene of the act and written a song about marriage, kids, and flowers to atone for their inexplicable desires, which then gets aired on German, Swiss or Austrian local radio and bought by hundreds of thousands of people who know no better.
I think it is a very good thing Schlager music is a post-war thing. Imagine if it had been around before... the events of 1939-1945 would have lasted a lot more briefly. I can see it now - instead of bombing the place to smithereens, we'd have all been terrorised by the sounds of Schlager music and come out with our hands above our heads - "you can switch it off now, we surrender!"
The bus driver who takes me to Luxembourg in the morning likes Schlager music. He is the one I spoke about in a previous article here, who can't smile for love nor money. I believe this to be because he has, for the whole of his life, thought the world was like a Schlager song, and every day that he wakes up realises it isn't. Schlager has turned him into a cantankerous, vindictive and miserable man with little to live for. I just hope he's not at the wheel of his bus when he decides to end it all.
But at the same time, there are some godawful melodies out there. Here are my top (or should it be bottom?) five:
5. Rap
The music with the silent "C", as the joke goes. This is comparatively much further down my list than other people might place it because there are nevertheless some redeeming features. Rap as a genre is a two-faced creature: one face is actually quite brilliant. There can be frustration in the voice, meaningful lyrics with a dark side accompanied by an angry backdrop and a desperate air of inability to change the state of the world. French rap is also particularly good. I defy anyone to tell me that it is not.
But there is also a side to this music which makes one want to leave the room and go and listen to a recorded speech by Fidel Castro. It can go one of two ways: firstly there is the semi-old geezer with his baseball cap on at a precariously adventurous angle, or even on back-to-front if they're really looking for the sales, where he sings of a moral issue and is surrounded by a backing group of real singers. He tries to look cool and in turn it just desecrates the whole act. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Daz Sampson and his now legendary Teenage Life!
The second way is simply brutal and not worth writing about.
4. X Marks the Spot
If there is one thing that distinguishes our generation from that of today it is the variety of skills and talent on offer. When I glimpse trailers of X Factor or something similar, I feel like smashing the television. Or at least shouting at it. There can be nothing worse than knowing that a glorified karaoke run by a narcissistic despot from Hertfordshire and his evil assistants is going to define your children's obsessions which they will look back upon wistfully in twenty years, bemoaning the quality of talent on their televisions and comparing it to their own youth. There is a subgenre here - the songwriters. When they go on to have a career, many of these "singers" cannot read or write music, have but a basic understanding of how timing works and can barely hold a note one octave above middle C. The songs produced for them are therefore melodically unadventurous and full of clichés.
Clichés like "baby", "beautiful", "believe", "heart" and "crazy" are just the start. "Get together", "(whatever) through the night", and many others of course started before Simon Cowell was even born. But surely songwriters and lyricists could add their own twist to the songs they write. Oh, of course, they do: the act. Fire, smoke, backing dancers to start with. But you need to have a routine per song, where you rock from side to side or look pleadingly into the spotlights, change costume at least three times per gig and hawk your new product on everything from breakfast talk shows to appearing on primetime spectacles as the interval act. These people also try to get themselves in the papers every day, either by having someone call up a journalist and tell them where they are to be found, or by doing enough stupid stuff to warrant a full-time photographer who parasitically follows the idiot around, in some cases earning as much as the "star".
If you want to know what I mean, then here is the prime example, the alpha male of all that this soulless world showers on its easily-hooked victims. Despite there being talent of sorts, I still think that the music of my youth and that before me was much more imaginative, being totally unreliant on computers and pyrotechnics, routines and clothes changes.
3. Christian Rock
If you ever want a category that sums up everything that is wrong with religion, it is Christian Rock. Trying to be cool by having a live band in your church thumping out melodies generally known as "praise" is seriously wrong and sends a very, very bad message to those you are trying to draw in. As my views on religion are well-documented, it will come as no surprise when I tell you that the paradoxical nature of mixing rock music, the 20th century's gift to the arts, with a belief as outdated and fuddy-duddy as Christianity is a shockingly underhand tactic to try and tell the world "we can keep up with the times!"
No you cannot.
Ditch the political bigotry associated with religion, allow women the right to be full clergy members, stop saying yours is the only true religion and everyone else is wrong, stop preaching doom and gloom to all sinners (usually unmarried parents or smokers) and finally ditch those silly men who preach by shouting out their beliefs as if theirs is the only voice that counts, then maybe, just maybe, you might be permitted to play rock in your church. Even then, I'm still having trouble pairing the two together. How can you sing songs with euphemistic lyrics like "arise", "lift me up", "worship", "fill my cup", and "mercy" in them and still keep a straight face? Sorry, this particular choice should have taken first place, but there are, I believe, two even more abominable genres than this.
2. Café and public space music
To explain this, I need to go into a little more detail: you're sitting with a friend, some family members or a date on a café terrace, the sun is shining and there are about five nationalities of tourist sitting in a radius of ten metres from you. You're having a quiet lunch/dinner, or a decent chat about things, catching up on news, or simply having a family holiday while it's sunny. Then you hear, drifting across the muttering throngs from a café nearby, the distinct sound of an accordeon, a fiddle and sometimes a singer. The songs are well-known to you, but you just don't remember their names. That also annoys you. I'll name some so you can run a search on them: Ochi Chorniye, Cielito Lindo, Under the Bridges of Paris, That's Amore, Oh Du Lieber Augustin, My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean, La Vie En Rose, Beer Barrel Polka, Kalinka and Those Were The Days.
I know people who get great pleasure from the sounds of the accordeon, but there are surely more songs to play than that. Lady Kirsten also plays the accordeon and her repertoire is a hundred times broader than that of a streetside café busker. She can play songs from Sweden, Israel, Spain, Russia, Serbia, Belgium, Scotland, the USA, England, Wales and a lot of other countries.
The other public space I am referring to is the loud speaker found at railway stations, some pub-restaurants and shopping centres. The kind of music I am about to talk about requires me to prepare myself even to mention the name. That's why I paired it up with naff busking. The word is... euhm... (I feel like someone shy trying to explain to head of personnel I have haemorrhoids and need a new chair) is....
I'll do some more explaining first, to build myself up to it. That might help.
You're in the lobby of a three-star hotel in Kidderminster or Krefeld or Córdoba or Kaliningrad...
You're waiting for your spouse/son/daughter/grandma/secret lover, etc...
You're getting upset for no apparent reason...
Then you realise why. It's the utter bastardisation by re-timing (so-called jazzing-up) of songs you used to love, being slowly put through various stages of torture from limb removal to crucifixion via the codling grinder, turning them into musical monsters. The worst time of year for this contemptuous type of sound to reveal its hideous countenance is December and the weeks leading up to Christmas. I once heard Troïka from Prokofiev's magical Lieutenant Kijé Suite being stabbed to death by the sharpened knives of a trumpet player, a riff drummer and a supporting jazz orchestra. That made me cry. Another time, I heard Silent Night being bludgeoned by a group of musicians who made it sound like Mack the Knife. I stood still in disbelief for at least three minutes afterwards and could only speak again when I had had a whole night's sleep.
Big band is good. But not when it has to switch genres in order to make music.
Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Glenn Miller, Joe Loss. All wonderful band leaders in their own right.
Tchaikovsky, Bach, Wagner, Mozart, Prokofiev, Händel. All great composers in their own right.
For the sake of public decency, don't mix the two.
1. Schlager
Utter drivel of the most evil kind. It defiles the entire subject of music and is not even worth the CD it has been burned on. Schlager is the rape of sound. It is the abomination of art, the whore of the radiowaves. There is no devil in Hell who could have thought up Schlager music. It must have been a human as humans are intently much, much more evil than all the demons in the Underworld.
I would define Schlager in several ways: the first, a frilly variety of saccharine sweet ballads sung by women of a certain age or girls who have never seen a male organ, but can hold a guitar whilst being driven along a mountain path on the back of a horse-drawn cart with their friends, Irmtraud, Poldi and Hannes. But it can also be sung by a group of camp, moustachioed Austrians in Mexican sombreros and billowing white shirts carrying musical instruments, pretending they're on their way to Mallorca for a holiday. Or it can be a prodigiously suntanned blond guy who looks 40 but is probably 20 years older than that and wearing a toupée, singing songs of his first love or of his departed girlfriend, gone off with someone new (or should that be young?), whilst he sits at home on a tacky, red geranium-infested Tyrolean balcony with commanding views of the Alps, but oddly featuring regular close-ups of the local village's friendly goat. Let us not forget the blurred camera lens for special watery-eyed effect.
Schlager is Be'elzebub's eardrum. It is blasphemous to even call it music. Schlager is the result of too much incestuousness in the countryside, where generations of farmers' sons have shagged their naïve, uneducated female cousins who think it's a remedy for acne, slipped away from the scene of the act and written a song about marriage, kids, and flowers to atone for their inexplicable desires, which then gets aired on German, Swiss or Austrian local radio and bought by hundreds of thousands of people who know no better.
I think it is a very good thing Schlager music is a post-war thing. Imagine if it had been around before... the events of 1939-1945 would have lasted a lot more briefly. I can see it now - instead of bombing the place to smithereens, we'd have all been terrorised by the sounds of Schlager music and come out with our hands above our heads - "you can switch it off now, we surrender!"
The bus driver who takes me to Luxembourg in the morning likes Schlager music. He is the one I spoke about in a previous article here, who can't smile for love nor money. I believe this to be because he has, for the whole of his life, thought the world was like a Schlager song, and every day that he wakes up realises it isn't. Schlager has turned him into a cantankerous, vindictive and miserable man with little to live for. I just hope he's not at the wheel of his bus when he decides to end it all.
Saturday, 20 November 2010
The world in 2050 - part III, the scenarios
So, with the observations of the previous two articles in mind, how can the world look in 40 years?
If you're in the Western hemisphere, I think you have a good chance of finding the place quite different, possibly for the worse. The various scenarios are either chilling or hopeful, with little in the middle.
Scenario 1: China rises and rises
With this in mind, to see 2050, it would be wise to consider the world we live in today, as I said at the beginning. People are becoming less able to concentrate for long periods of time; the effects of the Internet, TV and computer games mean that most people do not really spend long thinking, really contemplating. Politics has become a bit of a soap opera in many democracies, and businesses are more powerful than at any time in history, some being classified in GDP listings alongside nations. China has had a part to play in this temporary, throw-away world we have permitted to come into being. For this reason, China may use this to its advantage, slowly infiltrating people's lives without them knowing, slowly affording itself the purchase of the odd bank here, the odd mining company there, an oil giant or two, plus some car companies, and gradually the world takes on a reddish hue.
Once various strategic firms have been purchased, the only way is up. The world will be a Chinese one. This is not an anomaly. The last three millennia have mostly been Chinese-dominated, with the exception of the 17th to 20th centuries, where the British, Americans and to some extent the Europeans have been in the ascendancy. Now things are going back the other way, and although most forecast this for the year 2050, I think it could be much, much sooner than that. If not already.
The Chinese could quite easily take advantage of the weak economies now at the mercy of the IMF, and choose to invest heavily in them. Imagine: the Chinese bail almost everyone out of the current mess, then start imposing their own policies and ideologies on everyone. I mean, there is no way the West would be able to further criticise China's dismal democratic record if they are the ones who put us back on track again. Furthermore, there would be reason to believe that businessmen and women favoured by the Chinese government would be sent to take control of those companies and banks bought or saved by them, and what then? If you dare criticise, insinuate, even look incredulously at their business policy or political stance, not only will you go out, but you may even be blackballed for various other positions elsewhere after.
Once this slow erosion of our rights has been noticed, only the people pigeonholed as conspiracy theorists, or those classed as slightly deluded will voice their opinions more strongly, but once it is too late, the rest may have understood.
Scenario II: China rises and falls
This is also a possibility, but could only happen if China makes some rash errors or gets too big for its own good. But how big can that be when you are a behemoth already, and have not even begun to execute your masterplan for world domination?
If China is to fail, then it will be a collective effort of everywhere else. And it will have to be done behind their backs - this may be impossible in the world as it is now, but once the Chinese have bought nearly everything that matters, own a sizeable chunk of the banks and have uncalculable mineral reserves to hand, then what would stop them? Only when the governments of the West have paid back their debts to China can they even think about tackling the re-establishment of democracy.
The Internet is currently politically neutral, but for how much longer? It may be a golden period for us, with free access to nearly everything, but with newspapers beginning to charge, with other outlets considering a priority list, it could go the way of US TV, which is full of advertising and only the good stuff is on pay-per-view. There is also nothing stopping China from influencing the future's media and broadcasting; allowing itself a self-congratulatory headline each day.
But there is an alternative.
An alternative so radical, it may not even work, but would be worth it just to keep us democratic: the governments of the Western world should consider having no truck whatsoever with China, keeping their hands free of debt to Asia and keeping it in the family, so to say. There could be an agreement where debt to each other is delayed so that debt to China can be the first repaid. Once that is out of the way, we can squabble amongst ourselves, but at least then we do not have the extra worry of having to do China's bidding.
A further way is that China could be the victim of its own success. Once, we dreamed that countries like Ireland and Spain were the Monaco and Switzerland of the future, but how wrong we were. Although I do not believe for one moment that China will be so complacent, I can see it taking some wrong decisions. Mainly, having too much going on at the same time. Empires always collapse in the end. The Chinese have learned from the Europeans that colonisation does not work as it causes rising anger in the places you colonised. The Chinese have also learned from the Americans and Russians that invasion wins you few friends and causes your expeditory departure from that place far more quickly. So they know now that the best way to conquer is to buy everything. In the corporate sector, where there are no political entities, no land borders, and where business pervades borders like tobacco smoke which does not remain solely in the smokers' area, the Chinese can make their mark where the Western powers failed.
We should not let this happen. However, considering the spineless leaders we have, I am sure they would sell their own grandmothers to make some money.
If you're in the Western hemisphere, I think you have a good chance of finding the place quite different, possibly for the worse. The various scenarios are either chilling or hopeful, with little in the middle.
Scenario 1: China rises and rises
With this in mind, to see 2050, it would be wise to consider the world we live in today, as I said at the beginning. People are becoming less able to concentrate for long periods of time; the effects of the Internet, TV and computer games mean that most people do not really spend long thinking, really contemplating. Politics has become a bit of a soap opera in many democracies, and businesses are more powerful than at any time in history, some being classified in GDP listings alongside nations. China has had a part to play in this temporary, throw-away world we have permitted to come into being. For this reason, China may use this to its advantage, slowly infiltrating people's lives without them knowing, slowly affording itself the purchase of the odd bank here, the odd mining company there, an oil giant or two, plus some car companies, and gradually the world takes on a reddish hue.
Once various strategic firms have been purchased, the only way is up. The world will be a Chinese one. This is not an anomaly. The last three millennia have mostly been Chinese-dominated, with the exception of the 17th to 20th centuries, where the British, Americans and to some extent the Europeans have been in the ascendancy. Now things are going back the other way, and although most forecast this for the year 2050, I think it could be much, much sooner than that. If not already.
The Chinese could quite easily take advantage of the weak economies now at the mercy of the IMF, and choose to invest heavily in them. Imagine: the Chinese bail almost everyone out of the current mess, then start imposing their own policies and ideologies on everyone. I mean, there is no way the West would be able to further criticise China's dismal democratic record if they are the ones who put us back on track again. Furthermore, there would be reason to believe that businessmen and women favoured by the Chinese government would be sent to take control of those companies and banks bought or saved by them, and what then? If you dare criticise, insinuate, even look incredulously at their business policy or political stance, not only will you go out, but you may even be blackballed for various other positions elsewhere after.
Once this slow erosion of our rights has been noticed, only the people pigeonholed as conspiracy theorists, or those classed as slightly deluded will voice their opinions more strongly, but once it is too late, the rest may have understood.
Scenario II: China rises and falls
This is also a possibility, but could only happen if China makes some rash errors or gets too big for its own good. But how big can that be when you are a behemoth already, and have not even begun to execute your masterplan for world domination?
If China is to fail, then it will be a collective effort of everywhere else. And it will have to be done behind their backs - this may be impossible in the world as it is now, but once the Chinese have bought nearly everything that matters, own a sizeable chunk of the banks and have uncalculable mineral reserves to hand, then what would stop them? Only when the governments of the West have paid back their debts to China can they even think about tackling the re-establishment of democracy.
The Internet is currently politically neutral, but for how much longer? It may be a golden period for us, with free access to nearly everything, but with newspapers beginning to charge, with other outlets considering a priority list, it could go the way of US TV, which is full of advertising and only the good stuff is on pay-per-view. There is also nothing stopping China from influencing the future's media and broadcasting; allowing itself a self-congratulatory headline each day.
But there is an alternative.
An alternative so radical, it may not even work, but would be worth it just to keep us democratic: the governments of the Western world should consider having no truck whatsoever with China, keeping their hands free of debt to Asia and keeping it in the family, so to say. There could be an agreement where debt to each other is delayed so that debt to China can be the first repaid. Once that is out of the way, we can squabble amongst ourselves, but at least then we do not have the extra worry of having to do China's bidding.
A further way is that China could be the victim of its own success. Once, we dreamed that countries like Ireland and Spain were the Monaco and Switzerland of the future, but how wrong we were. Although I do not believe for one moment that China will be so complacent, I can see it taking some wrong decisions. Mainly, having too much going on at the same time. Empires always collapse in the end. The Chinese have learned from the Europeans that colonisation does not work as it causes rising anger in the places you colonised. The Chinese have also learned from the Americans and Russians that invasion wins you few friends and causes your expeditory departure from that place far more quickly. So they know now that the best way to conquer is to buy everything. In the corporate sector, where there are no political entities, no land borders, and where business pervades borders like tobacco smoke which does not remain solely in the smokers' area, the Chinese can make their mark where the Western powers failed.
We should not let this happen. However, considering the spineless leaders we have, I am sure they would sell their own grandmothers to make some money.
Friday, 12 November 2010
The world in 2050 - part II, the EU vs the USA vs China
When comparing Europe with the USA, the most obvious place to start would be with the military roles each side of the Atlantic plays in the world. The USA has had a long tradition of military intervention, and the EU has a great amount of nation-building expertise due to its colonialist past. You would think, therefore, that they were perfect for each other. No. Despite that, the USA has not really admitted that had Europe been given a greater say in its endeavours to establish nation states in the Middle East and central Asia, it might not be in the current situation of fighting on at least two fronts almost a decade on from "that" event. The USA has always deemed itself more capable than others in its military prowess, more prestigious in its powers to negotiate and more respected - or feared - in battle situations. This is far from the truth. As it happens, there is a chasm separating the ideals, purposes, abilities and capabilities of the military in Europe from that in the USA, and one of the basic differences is in intelligence. Both senses of the word.
In Europe, most military personnel is trained in warfare as well as peacetime skills, but those who sign up are also given an opportunity to gain a degree or qualification for after they have completed their service or if their careers are prematurely cut short (disability, illness, injury, etc.). In the USA, the majority of new members of the basic army are found at recruitment drives at supermarkets on week days. These are people who are already unemployed, sometimes long-term, often because they do not have any basic qualifications. They may have been deemed unemployable. In other words, I am not sure this is the sort of person you would give a gun to. Not all, of course. Many are career soldiers, naval officers and pilots, but a lot are going to give you a hard time in areas concerning discipline and approachability. I met some US Army personnel a while back and they seemed quite personable, if a little incapable of pulling a different face other than what I might call "haunted".
And in the other intelligence area, namely that of information gathering and execution, the USA has always been stubborn in accepting others' tip-offs and alarm-raising. But vice-versa seems to be working well, namely recently when a cargo plane from the Arabian Peninsula was found to have a package containing highly explosive material. The USA suffers from a superiority complex and in military affairs, its days as the world's only superpower are numbered. This is also due to its budget and operating costs. It is spending far too much time and money in two conflict zones in Asia and if a third theatre of action were to open, it would probably be incapable of coping.
For this reason, Europe needs to assert itself more on the military front. Its proposals to begin a proto-European military through British and French members is a start. But its intelligence and investigative skills could also benefit from a boost, especially considering it has the added bonus of being seen as a lot less aggressive than China and a lot less opinionated than the USA. Militarily, Europe could easily cut its field operations budget by joining forces, and at the same time developing its intelligence services. It can also show its credentials in nation-building and spreading democracy simply by listing what it has done to keep the EU's 21st-century member states from the wolves of dictatorship. Only 20 years ago, eleven of its new member states (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and the eastern part of Germany) were shaking off five decades of communist dictatorship. Prior to that, Spain, Portugal and Greece had lived under Franco, Salazar and the Colonels respectively in various autocratic fascist or military régimes. It is only thirteen countries, less than half its current membership, which have been free of dictators (the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Austria, Malta, and to some extent Cyprus).
The EU is setting itself up as a benign semi-superpower, able to help in a crisis, but less willing to spend great wads of cash on US-style intervention. The US, however, is a superpower on the wane, and within the next ten years, will find itself in the position the UK was in when Margaret Thatcher swept to power: it will need to downsize and sell of a lot of its own assets to keep afloat. It will also need to take a step back and look at itself because unlike the British at the end of the Empire, the Americans will be a lot less keen on relinquishing their title as military masters of all they survey. China is waiting to take over a large amount of American property and business, having saved up enormous amounts of cash, and soon India will enter the race. A new competition is about to begin, where those two battle it out for supremacy. My money is on a democratic India siding with the EU, other large Commonwealth countries, Japan and to some extent the USA, and China with its own sphere of influence, probably including its own backyard (Vietnam, Myanmar, North Korea, the 'Stans) and parts of Africa, its newly-extended backyard.
I can see China and the USA going head-to-head in some areas where they most want to exert influence, and cancelling each other out. This is where the EU can step in. It needs to focus on its own game, and not be too much influenced by others' squabbles. The EU can save money by keeping out of the buying game China is playing, vacuuming up all the gold, silver and diamonds it can, as well as all the banks, service enterprises and factories. The USA will try to match it, but they should not either. Eventually China will get too fat and explode. What we have to do in Europe is keep playing our own game, try to remain neutral, indifferent even, and attempt to extricate ourselves from some of the more worrying political and business deals we made with outside entities to reduce our debt.
The EU needs to keep to its own agenda, needs to shine a light of hope in dark times, and be a guide for democracy-loving people everywhere. What it should not be doing is competing, trying to be top dog. It does not need to do this because it is above all that. And all the armies in the world do not mean you are the best. You are the best if your streets are safe, if your nature is well-tended and preserved, if your hospitals are efficient, if your people do not have the worry of poverty if they cannot find work, if your politicians are held accountable to the forces of justice and can be easily removed, if your industrial base is well-regulated and has a good reputation and finally if you can say what you please, go where you want and learn the truth from an actively inquisitive press and get a free education in schools which do not force you to believe in an ideological right or wrong. It mostly does well here, with some countries being exceptions proving the rule.
This is where Europe excels and where it needs to stay. Leave the posturing to the Americans, Chinese and other would-be dominators and Europe can get on with the serious business of liberty and equality.
In Europe, most military personnel is trained in warfare as well as peacetime skills, but those who sign up are also given an opportunity to gain a degree or qualification for after they have completed their service or if their careers are prematurely cut short (disability, illness, injury, etc.). In the USA, the majority of new members of the basic army are found at recruitment drives at supermarkets on week days. These are people who are already unemployed, sometimes long-term, often because they do not have any basic qualifications. They may have been deemed unemployable. In other words, I am not sure this is the sort of person you would give a gun to. Not all, of course. Many are career soldiers, naval officers and pilots, but a lot are going to give you a hard time in areas concerning discipline and approachability. I met some US Army personnel a while back and they seemed quite personable, if a little incapable of pulling a different face other than what I might call "haunted".
And in the other intelligence area, namely that of information gathering and execution, the USA has always been stubborn in accepting others' tip-offs and alarm-raising. But vice-versa seems to be working well, namely recently when a cargo plane from the Arabian Peninsula was found to have a package containing highly explosive material. The USA suffers from a superiority complex and in military affairs, its days as the world's only superpower are numbered. This is also due to its budget and operating costs. It is spending far too much time and money in two conflict zones in Asia and if a third theatre of action were to open, it would probably be incapable of coping.
For this reason, Europe needs to assert itself more on the military front. Its proposals to begin a proto-European military through British and French members is a start. But its intelligence and investigative skills could also benefit from a boost, especially considering it has the added bonus of being seen as a lot less aggressive than China and a lot less opinionated than the USA. Militarily, Europe could easily cut its field operations budget by joining forces, and at the same time developing its intelligence services. It can also show its credentials in nation-building and spreading democracy simply by listing what it has done to keep the EU's 21st-century member states from the wolves of dictatorship. Only 20 years ago, eleven of its new member states (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and the eastern part of Germany) were shaking off five decades of communist dictatorship. Prior to that, Spain, Portugal and Greece had lived under Franco, Salazar and the Colonels respectively in various autocratic fascist or military régimes. It is only thirteen countries, less than half its current membership, which have been free of dictators (the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Austria, Malta, and to some extent Cyprus).
The EU is setting itself up as a benign semi-superpower, able to help in a crisis, but less willing to spend great wads of cash on US-style intervention. The US, however, is a superpower on the wane, and within the next ten years, will find itself in the position the UK was in when Margaret Thatcher swept to power: it will need to downsize and sell of a lot of its own assets to keep afloat. It will also need to take a step back and look at itself because unlike the British at the end of the Empire, the Americans will be a lot less keen on relinquishing their title as military masters of all they survey. China is waiting to take over a large amount of American property and business, having saved up enormous amounts of cash, and soon India will enter the race. A new competition is about to begin, where those two battle it out for supremacy. My money is on a democratic India siding with the EU, other large Commonwealth countries, Japan and to some extent the USA, and China with its own sphere of influence, probably including its own backyard (Vietnam, Myanmar, North Korea, the 'Stans) and parts of Africa, its newly-extended backyard.
I can see China and the USA going head-to-head in some areas where they most want to exert influence, and cancelling each other out. This is where the EU can step in. It needs to focus on its own game, and not be too much influenced by others' squabbles. The EU can save money by keeping out of the buying game China is playing, vacuuming up all the gold, silver and diamonds it can, as well as all the banks, service enterprises and factories. The USA will try to match it, but they should not either. Eventually China will get too fat and explode. What we have to do in Europe is keep playing our own game, try to remain neutral, indifferent even, and attempt to extricate ourselves from some of the more worrying political and business deals we made with outside entities to reduce our debt.
The EU needs to keep to its own agenda, needs to shine a light of hope in dark times, and be a guide for democracy-loving people everywhere. What it should not be doing is competing, trying to be top dog. It does not need to do this because it is above all that. And all the armies in the world do not mean you are the best. You are the best if your streets are safe, if your nature is well-tended and preserved, if your hospitals are efficient, if your people do not have the worry of poverty if they cannot find work, if your politicians are held accountable to the forces of justice and can be easily removed, if your industrial base is well-regulated and has a good reputation and finally if you can say what you please, go where you want and learn the truth from an actively inquisitive press and get a free education in schools which do not force you to believe in an ideological right or wrong. It mostly does well here, with some countries being exceptions proving the rule.
This is where Europe excels and where it needs to stay. Leave the posturing to the Americans, Chinese and other would-be dominators and Europe can get on with the serious business of liberty and equality.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
The world in 2050 - part I, the EU vs China
What will the world be like in 40 years' time? Most historians agree with the Churchillian view, that to look at the future you need to look at the past. By then though, all of that future will have been the past. But maybe we can look ten to twenty years ahead, which might give us clues.
We live, undoubtedly, in the freest and most enlightened society on Earth. And I hope this remains so in the future. But our greatest problem is the rise of the Far East and especially China, with its ability to manoeuvre in the world without asking 27 sovereign countries for permission. China is ahead in Europe's former colonial backyard simply because it can. Democracy is being defeated, even embarrassingly, by China's decisive nature and guilt-free ability to do what is best for China.
If the EU is asked to help in the building of a bridge across a predator-infested river in Africa so children can get to the school on the other side, it will firstly send an EU delegation to assess the impact to nature, the human inhabitants and the economy. It will take its findings back to Brussels, where committees in the European Parliament will sit and discuss matters before this project finally appears on the to-do list, maybe a year, maybe three years later. It is then transferred to the respective European Commission Directorate General for planning and execution. By this time, China will have sent its own delegate, who simply shows up in the village, says "where do you want it?" and calls up some builders to get the job done. In return neither for money, nor for nothing, but for the minerals in the ground around the village.
China is, without regard for ethics or morals, simply acting like the world's rich uncle in order to gain a certain kudos in parts of the world where, when the time comes, their United Nations vote could be crucial. On top of this, it is acting like a drug pusher, in that it makes promises to return with more fixes for the locals. But fixes are just that. Temporary. And no amount of posturing will hide the simple fact that its infrastructure is crumbling because of the temporariness of the structures China builds, and the shoddy workmanship it turns blind eyes to will mean that when the Europeans come back to that village in Africa, they should take a good look at the Chinese bridge, check for subsidance and crumbling, pull it down and build its own.
China is developing a "quick fix" economy for all. You're in a foreign city for a week and you packed one too few shirts? Pop down to the local department store and pick a Chinese one up for about 7€. You won't use it much more after, because the Chinese produce shirts that are too short, where the lowest button is about your navel area and it barely fits into your trousers. There was an article in a UK paper a few years ago about Christmas coming in on a mile-long freight ship from China, that we were now all subject to buying things Chinese. How much of it remains after two years is anyone's guess, but the simple matter is that China will never outdo the status of "Workshop of the World" simply because it relies on you to throw their stuff away and buy another one from the same maker. Workshop of the World implies that your material is so trustworthy you would not buy from anyone else, even if theirs was cheaper. That is why "Made in Germany" or "Made in England" will always have an extra advantage. It is the difference between an antique table of solid oak and a plastic-surfaced, metal-legged screw-down table with a loose fitting. The former you find in a top European restaurant, the latter in a Chinese takeaway.
What does the future hold, therefore, for China? I think it has learned from the Gorbachev break-up of the Soviet Union and does not want this to happen to it. The Chinese are busy promoting real estate in outer-lying cities in China to attract Han Chinese there, further cementing China's grip on its recent acquisitions, especially Tibet, Yunnan, Qinghai and Xinjiang. It is rapidly consolidating its status as polluter-in-chief, and will soon overtake the USA as largest in everything. But the one thing it does not have on its side is affection in the hearts of other countries in the world and this cannot change while China is still seen as a sinister and work-obsessed political entity.
All Europe has to do to gain the momentum is stay the same, because soon its fusty, clunking administrative machinery with its protracted overseas development projects will be seen as a breath of fresh air in comparison to the soulless efficiency, false smiles and black business suits accompanying the Chinese wherever they go.
______________________________________________________
The simple answer to the question, "where will China be in 2050?" is that it could go one of two ways.
Either:
It could sink in a treacherous sea of dissatisfaction in its inability to produce proper material and act in an ethical and trustworthy manner, causing buyers, investors and bankers to pull out, and a nasty rise in nationalistic indignation at feeling rejected by the rest of the world. This could have the knock-on effect of galvanising the Chinese against the rest of the world or causing the split-up of its various autonomous regions, over which it has extended its wide-reaching tentacles, from the main body. By the time 2050 comes, China could be half the size in territory, and a quarter of the size in stature.
Or:
It could start the slow process towards allowing human emotion and dignity to be given space alongside work and dump its cosying up to other mean-spirited dictatorships (Zimbabwe, Myanmar) around the world. It could admit to its mistakes of allowing mass profiteering and racketeering to take a leading role in its colonisation of Africa, and start clearing up its own mess, instead of leaving that to the EU and the USA and their allies. It could stop stealing ideas from the EU and the USA and adapting them for its own purposes. It could clean up its fuel burning, whether associated with its addiction to coal or its petrol-guzzling cars. It would take its place as a model reformed nation, a shining beacon to all those nasty little dictatorships in central Asia and Africa.
But, unfortunately, neither is likely to happen. China is likely to get more and more competitive, causing other area of the world to realise the secret to winning this particularly nasty war is to become just as flexible and decisive as China. All I can see is a slow erosion of workers' rights in the EU and USA and a rise in the amount of Chinese-led initiatives. And whilst the EU and the USA are busy spending literally billions keeping terrorists at bay in central Asia and eastern Africa, China's approach is rather than to put sanctions on those countries, or even invade them, costing a lot of money and even more in lives, China just hangs a few diamond-encrusted carrots and wait until they bite.
Should the EU and USA start doing this? It is hard to say, but for all the ethical politics the EU and USA spread is being quite simply negated, even cancelled out, by China's simple interventions. It is the equivalent of a drug pusher looking for a few gophers. Find the bad boys in the school playground ready to earn a bit of cash for some thrills, and he has an inexhaustible supply of mercenaries. I think, for all the good it has been doing in recent years, the EU is currently losing the battle to keep itself afloat, even asking China for assistance in some cases.
I personally think the EU will slowly turn away from social democracy and become big in government edicts, bigger in industrial labour, smaller in intellectual workpower, smaller in military intervention. It needs to, in order to stay in the game. But it will have to go through several enormous periods of civil unrest to achieve it. China, on the other hand, is the one who can afford to stay the same.
We live, undoubtedly, in the freest and most enlightened society on Earth. And I hope this remains so in the future. But our greatest problem is the rise of the Far East and especially China, with its ability to manoeuvre in the world without asking 27 sovereign countries for permission. China is ahead in Europe's former colonial backyard simply because it can. Democracy is being defeated, even embarrassingly, by China's decisive nature and guilt-free ability to do what is best for China.
If the EU is asked to help in the building of a bridge across a predator-infested river in Africa so children can get to the school on the other side, it will firstly send an EU delegation to assess the impact to nature, the human inhabitants and the economy. It will take its findings back to Brussels, where committees in the European Parliament will sit and discuss matters before this project finally appears on the to-do list, maybe a year, maybe three years later. It is then transferred to the respective European Commission Directorate General for planning and execution. By this time, China will have sent its own delegate, who simply shows up in the village, says "where do you want it?" and calls up some builders to get the job done. In return neither for money, nor for nothing, but for the minerals in the ground around the village.
China is, without regard for ethics or morals, simply acting like the world's rich uncle in order to gain a certain kudos in parts of the world where, when the time comes, their United Nations vote could be crucial. On top of this, it is acting like a drug pusher, in that it makes promises to return with more fixes for the locals. But fixes are just that. Temporary. And no amount of posturing will hide the simple fact that its infrastructure is crumbling because of the temporariness of the structures China builds, and the shoddy workmanship it turns blind eyes to will mean that when the Europeans come back to that village in Africa, they should take a good look at the Chinese bridge, check for subsidance and crumbling, pull it down and build its own.
China is developing a "quick fix" economy for all. You're in a foreign city for a week and you packed one too few shirts? Pop down to the local department store and pick a Chinese one up for about 7€. You won't use it much more after, because the Chinese produce shirts that are too short, where the lowest button is about your navel area and it barely fits into your trousers. There was an article in a UK paper a few years ago about Christmas coming in on a mile-long freight ship from China, that we were now all subject to buying things Chinese. How much of it remains after two years is anyone's guess, but the simple matter is that China will never outdo the status of "Workshop of the World" simply because it relies on you to throw their stuff away and buy another one from the same maker. Workshop of the World implies that your material is so trustworthy you would not buy from anyone else, even if theirs was cheaper. That is why "Made in Germany" or "Made in England" will always have an extra advantage. It is the difference between an antique table of solid oak and a plastic-surfaced, metal-legged screw-down table with a loose fitting. The former you find in a top European restaurant, the latter in a Chinese takeaway.
What does the future hold, therefore, for China? I think it has learned from the Gorbachev break-up of the Soviet Union and does not want this to happen to it. The Chinese are busy promoting real estate in outer-lying cities in China to attract Han Chinese there, further cementing China's grip on its recent acquisitions, especially Tibet, Yunnan, Qinghai and Xinjiang. It is rapidly consolidating its status as polluter-in-chief, and will soon overtake the USA as largest in everything. But the one thing it does not have on its side is affection in the hearts of other countries in the world and this cannot change while China is still seen as a sinister and work-obsessed political entity.
All Europe has to do to gain the momentum is stay the same, because soon its fusty, clunking administrative machinery with its protracted overseas development projects will be seen as a breath of fresh air in comparison to the soulless efficiency, false smiles and black business suits accompanying the Chinese wherever they go.
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The simple answer to the question, "where will China be in 2050?" is that it could go one of two ways.
Either:
It could sink in a treacherous sea of dissatisfaction in its inability to produce proper material and act in an ethical and trustworthy manner, causing buyers, investors and bankers to pull out, and a nasty rise in nationalistic indignation at feeling rejected by the rest of the world. This could have the knock-on effect of galvanising the Chinese against the rest of the world or causing the split-up of its various autonomous regions, over which it has extended its wide-reaching tentacles, from the main body. By the time 2050 comes, China could be half the size in territory, and a quarter of the size in stature.
Or:
It could start the slow process towards allowing human emotion and dignity to be given space alongside work and dump its cosying up to other mean-spirited dictatorships (Zimbabwe, Myanmar) around the world. It could admit to its mistakes of allowing mass profiteering and racketeering to take a leading role in its colonisation of Africa, and start clearing up its own mess, instead of leaving that to the EU and the USA and their allies. It could stop stealing ideas from the EU and the USA and adapting them for its own purposes. It could clean up its fuel burning, whether associated with its addiction to coal or its petrol-guzzling cars. It would take its place as a model reformed nation, a shining beacon to all those nasty little dictatorships in central Asia and Africa.
But, unfortunately, neither is likely to happen. China is likely to get more and more competitive, causing other area of the world to realise the secret to winning this particularly nasty war is to become just as flexible and decisive as China. All I can see is a slow erosion of workers' rights in the EU and USA and a rise in the amount of Chinese-led initiatives. And whilst the EU and the USA are busy spending literally billions keeping terrorists at bay in central Asia and eastern Africa, China's approach is rather than to put sanctions on those countries, or even invade them, costing a lot of money and even more in lives, China just hangs a few diamond-encrusted carrots and wait until they bite.
Should the EU and USA start doing this? It is hard to say, but for all the ethical politics the EU and USA spread is being quite simply negated, even cancelled out, by China's simple interventions. It is the equivalent of a drug pusher looking for a few gophers. Find the bad boys in the school playground ready to earn a bit of cash for some thrills, and he has an inexhaustible supply of mercenaries. I think, for all the good it has been doing in recent years, the EU is currently losing the battle to keep itself afloat, even asking China for assistance in some cases.
I personally think the EU will slowly turn away from social democracy and become big in government edicts, bigger in industrial labour, smaller in intellectual workpower, smaller in military intervention. It needs to, in order to stay in the game. But it will have to go through several enormous periods of civil unrest to achieve it. China, on the other hand, is the one who can afford to stay the same.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Keeping occupied
So, this time last year, Lady Kirsten and I decided to go house-hunting. We wanted to stay in the area but I wanted an easier ride to work in the morning. In Wiltingen, it took me 90 minutes to get to work and 2 hours to come home, which i didn't mind, considering I don't go every day and we lived in a water mill in the middle of some stunning countryside. Moving was always going to be hard, considering the nature of the place we lived in, so wherever we went would really have to be tip-top.
We didn't have long to wait. I ran a search on the main property website for the area, and found an absolute beauty in Saarburg. It was the very first place we viewed in the late autumn and we would compare it against any other property we looked at thereafter.
It was on a fairly steep incline, but the views over the valley and surrounding hills was memorable, and the roofed terrace (seen above on the right of the house) was perfect to survey the natural landscape all around.
Building a garden shed:
Lady Kirsten deciphering the instructions for putting on the roof. The hardest part about building the shed was shifting the soil beneath to level off the ground. I filled the hole with fine gravel to keep it dry.
Old and new:
Deer in the garden:
We are frequently visited by all sorts of wild animals, including a trio of deer one Sunday morning. I spent about 45 minutes admiring them in our and next door's gardens, munching on the grass. My admiration turned a little sour when I went outside later on in the day and found they had eaten literally every living and growing thing in the garden. They were great substitutes for my hedge trimmers but they could have stopped when they got to the worcesterberry, raspberry and blackberry plants...
Still, it has solved one problem for me: I know what I'll be cooking for dinner on 25th December now.
We didn't have long to wait. I ran a search on the main property website for the area, and found an absolute beauty in Saarburg. It was the very first place we viewed in the late autumn and we would compare it against any other property we looked at thereafter.
It was on a fairly steep incline, but the views over the valley and surrounding hills was memorable, and the roofed terrace (seen above on the right of the house) was perfect to survey the natural landscape all around.The downside was that even though it bordered on the forest, there were some busy roads nearby, including a spaghetti-style slip-road system that is soon to be adapted, and the planned building of a supermarket only a minute away, with all the palaver of construction and destruction. However, the bus to Luxembourg leaves from only 200 metres from the front door.
The most poignant thing about the house was that it had a certain dignified air, as if to say "like me or loathe me, this is what you get". And considering its most advantageous selling price, there were no major renovation issues, which baffled me and still leaves me wondering why, come the following spring, it was still on the market. Looking at other houses of various shapes and sizes in the meantime, nothing compared to that one, and so we put in a bid for it. It was the best decision we made.
On the top floor are four light and spacious bedrooms, a bathroom and a hallway, on the upper ground floor is a huge kitchen, a large dining room, a living room and a smaller room doing nothing, so we converted it into a library. The ground floor is a second residence, which helps to pay a large chunk of our mortgage, and behind that, built into the land, is a cellar large enough to use it for washing clothes, storing a huge amount of boxes and housing the gardening equipment until I built a garden shed.
The roofed terrace is a delightful place to sit and we decked it out with hanging baskets filled with long-lasting plants. We added some further plants and even tomatoes and peppers, which produced a small but rewarding yield in September. The main work was in the garden and upper meadow, where there is a huge empty space, just waiting to be landscaped. This will not happen overnight, but I wanted to get things going this summer and I built a shed (as I mentioned), although not one of those you hammer the panels together, like there is already in the garden (see photo below), but rather a cabin-style shed where you bang in the planks so they overlap. It may take longer, but it is a satisfactory feeling to know you built it yourself. I had to shift a lot of earth, as the incline of the hill would have not been a wise place to build foundations. With that soil, I made a heather rockery and kitchen garden.
We hope to stay here for many years.
Uphill:
A balloon passes overhead. Our nut trees (right of photo) provided the local deer with a huge Sunday breakfast one morning in October.
Building a garden shed:
Lady Kirsten deciphering the instructions for putting on the roof. The hardest part about building the shed was shifting the soil beneath to level off the ground. I filled the hole with fine gravel to keep it dry.
Taking a short break:
Me, discussing a shisha break with Iman, our renter. As an Iranian descendent, he has access to some of the finest flavoured shisha tobaccoes in Germany.
The completed shed:
Roof on, wood stained and heather rockery planted, I built a bird house with the remaining pieces of plank. It has become a focal point of our cats' entertainment. I still need to affix the guttering to the shed and place the blue barrels below to provide water for the plants come the spring.
Old and new:
The old shed will be sawn up and used to heat us up in midwinter. In its place will come a pergola and seating area for us to relax with a good book, some cheese, wine and bread. The grass area between the heather rockery and the wheel barrow will become a terrace next year.
Deer in the garden:
We are frequently visited by all sorts of wild animals, including a trio of deer one Sunday morning. I spent about 45 minutes admiring them in our and next door's gardens, munching on the grass. My admiration turned a little sour when I went outside later on in the day and found they had eaten literally every living and growing thing in the garden. They were great substitutes for my hedge trimmers but they could have stopped when they got to the worcesterberry, raspberry and blackberry plants...
Still, it has solved one problem for me: I know what I'll be cooking for dinner on 25th December now.
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