The Obscurer

Saturday 12th March 2005

Blow Up

The BBC is screening one of its adverts at the moment promoting their current affairs documentaries, Panorama and Whistleblower. I haven’t seen Whistleblower before, but the clip they are showing makes it pretty obvious what it will be about. We see a BBC journalist on board a plane, explaining how easily she has managed to get past security; the clear implication being that if she was so minded she could simply plant a bomb and hey presto, another terrorist outrage.

We regularly hear of such security breaches and how disturbing they are; Fathers4Justice getting through security at Parliament or Buckingham Palace, or Aaron Barshak gate crashing the royal party at Windsor. Now, clearly, these are serious lapses of security and should be dealt with, lessons should be learned; but occasionally I do wonder why so much time is spent worrying about such events when there are a plethora of soft targets all over the place which we can do nothing about?

Returning to that BBC reporter on board the plane; if she has a bomb then she will indeed be a risk to passengers due to fly on that aircraft; but presumably, if she has a bomb she will be a danger wherever she is. The problem is the bomb and the terrorist, not so much where they are.

Imagine that same reporter being in any number of different situations; imagine yourself being in any number of situations where you are surrounded by a large crowd of people. You are at a football match, in the Trafford centre during the January sales, at a level crossing with two inter-city trains approaching, in a traffic jam beneath a flyover at spaghetti junction while sitting next to a petrol tanker. Now, think what you could do if you were a suicide bomber packed with explosives, think of the havoc, the chaos, the death and destruction you could cause; and all without the merest breach of security, with no slip up required.

I think we have to be realistic about what we can and cannot do in a free society. I am not suggesting that we wave a white flag, that because there are millions of soft targets we should give up and not bother about security measures. We should maintain security, and tighten any loopholes we become aware of. More importantly we should concentrate on intelligence in order to prevent terrorist attacks – I personally am happy to make use of intercept intelligence (as are Liberty) – and when we identify those who are planning an atrocity we should of course swiftly arrest, charge and (if found guilty) gaol them.

Alongside this, however, I personally think it is sensible not to engage in the sort of activities that I believe will only encourage terrorism; you know the sort of thing, unjust wars of dubious legality, draconian security measures reminiscent of internment. Apart from anything else, nothing short of complete totalitarianism, a sort of The Prisoner meets 1984, can prevent terrorists from murdering people if they are determined to, and if the intelligence just isn’t available.

But I also think we really have to put the “war on terror” in perspective. I want to cry whenever I hear a high-ranking politician talking about defeating terrorism; such people shouldn’t be in positions of responsibility, they should be sectioned. Unless human beings evolve beyond all recognition some people will always want to kill others; if people are determined to commit a terrorist attack then they will, and there is little we can do about it. Terrorist are often just criminals with a cause; if you can erase both of these things then you can defeat terrorism, but we are talking about a Utopia now; and Utopia, of course, means “noplace”. Winning the war on terror will just never happen. In any event, we can spend all our time and energies trying to prevent terrorism, but that doesn’t prevent natural disasters like the tsunami causing more deaths than any terrorist could ever imagine.

And perhaps there is a lesson in the tsunami. Perhaps we should treat terrorist attacks as we treat natural disasters; we accept that they are going to occur. Of course we do whatever we can to prevent them, and to forewarn people about them, we do what is humanely possible; but in the end we just have to accept the way things are. Bad things are going to happen, and to think anything else means we are just deluding ourselves.

1 Comment
Monday 7th March 2005

Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale

At work the other day I read a copy of The Sun that someone had left lying around. It didn’t take long, of course, but I was struck by one article by Trevor Kavanagh, the Political Editor (I can’t find it online, so you will just have to take my word for this). If you ignore Kavanagh’s usual slagging off of the “many sneering western lefties” who opposed the Iraq war (who he associates with “clerics who claim the Boxing day tsunami was Allah’s vengeance on homosexuals” and who accept “the treatment of women as slaves”) then it actually makes interesting reading. He quotes the Lebanese political leader Walid Jumblatt (via a David Ignatius article), a man noted for many loopy and insanely nasty anti-US and anti-Israeli statements in the past; but this time we are invited to take him seriously. Regarding the current developments in Lebanon Jumblatt says “It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world”. He goes on “The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it”. Oliver Kamm writes in a similar vein, calling the cause of democracy and liberty “the crux of the case for the grand strategy that the US and UK have pursued since 9/11”.

If this does indeed come to pass and freedom sweeps through the Middle East, where does this leave those of us, like myself, who opposed the war? Since the war is the event that has brought about the democratisation of Iraq, and could therefore bring democracy to the whole Arab world, is it time I just accepted that the war was ultimately a good thing, a bitter pill perhaps, but one that has resulted in a freer world?

Well I don’t, and there are at least two main reasons. Firstly, I still have this quirky idea that invading other countries in an unprovoked attack is wrong, even if that country’s dictator is an evil piece of work. This I feel is more or less an absolute; I am not saying there aren’t any circumstances where such a war could be justified, but in laying down the conditions where I feel such an action could be acceptable I set quite a high bar. The Iraq war, in both the Coalition’s stated war aims, and in what I feel were its real aims, doesn’t meet those conditions.

But secondly, I believe war should only be used as a last resort. This is hardly a revolutionary statement, it is one I think most people would accept, even if we may differ on exactly when all other options have been tried and failed and we have to resort to war. So, with regards the spreading of democracy, can the Iraq War be in any way described as a war of last resort? Even nearly? Was this the only way to spread democracy throughout the Middle East? Are we really saying that all other avenues had been exhausted, and war was the only option left?

I cannot think of many attempts at peacefully spreading democracy through the region, and it is not as if it couldn’t be tried. Leaning on Iran in the hope that they will set elections is unlikely to prove fruitful, but there are pro-western countries in the area who we could at least attempt to persuade to reform their institutions. Wasn’t there a golden opportunity after the 1991 Gulf War when we could have liberated Kuwait on the proviso that, once reinstated, the Kuwaiti royal family would make moves towards democracy and a more open society? If democracy is so important then why wasn’t that ever considered? If Iraq can apparently set off a domino effect transforming the Middle East, then why couldn’t Kuwait? Imagine the TV screens full of Kuwaiti voters, going to the poll, hopefully untroubled by the sort of terror being endured by the Iraqis; why wouldn’t that similarly snowball through the region, triggering election after election? Perhaps if that had been done in 1991 the tremors could even become felt in Saddam’s Iraq, and with support a popular movement could depose the tyrant. Wishful thinking of course, but any more wishful than the theory that Iraq can be the catalyst for a Berlin Wall style makeover? And even if you think my suggestion is silly, can anyone say, with their hand on their heart, that every other peaceful method of spreading democracy has been tried, that they have all run their course, and that war was the only answer?

Anyway, my suggestion didn’t happen, and nothing like it would ever happen. Kuwait was liberated and handed back to the old autocrats, and why not? Far nastier regimes than the emir’s have been supported in the past, and are being supported now. Democracy has its place, and its place is clearly after the self-interests of the Western nations. It has always seemed preferable to have pro-western dictatorships than unreliable democracies.

But we have had our war, and Iraq has had its elections, and I sincerely hope that a democracy can take root there. I hope the theory that there will be a clamour for votes in the neighbouring countries turns out to be true, and will lead to the spread of democracy across the region. Time will tell whether this is a genuine “Cedar Revolution” or just a kind of “Beirut Spring”. I guess the real test will be if Saudi Arabia becomes a democracy and looks like it will “do an Algeria”, but we are a little way off that. Perhaps we will be able to look back in a few years time and see that the war did lead to a much-improved situation in the Middle East, but I will take a lot of convincing to believe there could not be another, less bloody way. For all the comparisons currently being made with the fall of the Berlin Wall, what some people seem to overlook is that it didn’t take a war to bring freedom to Eastern Europe; the most important single factor was probably that a superpower decided to stop interfering and propping up its friendly despots. South America can tell a similar tale.

In the end, though, I think that rather than the onus now being on me to accept that the war was justified, it is up to others to prove that military action was the only way to advance democracy through the Middle East; and until they do I will accept it as a truism that good ends can spring from bad means.

Leave a comment
Thursday 3rd March 2005

The Other Rowntrees

Fresh from the whole Sudan 1 scare, Premier Foods are currently withdrawing another product from our supermarket shelves, this time a rather more scary substance called “Jelly”. According to The Independent, Premier are axing the Rowntrees jelly brand, memorable in my youth for the “Shakin’ all over” advert (there’s tremors in the lemons, apparently). In future they will manufacture jelly under their Hartleys brand name.

The reason for this change is that while Premier own the Rowntrees name for jelly, Nestle own it for sweets such as fruit pastilles and fruit gums. It seems that this is a cause of confusion.

What confusion? How many people do you think wander into a shop looking for some nice, lovely Premier Foods Rowntrees jelly, and instead wander off with some nasty, evil Nestle Rowntrees fruit gums by mistake? Not very many, I suspect.

Put another way, how many people actually know that Rowntrees jelly and Rowntrees fruit pastilles are owned by different companies, and does it have any influence on their purchasing decisions? I very much doubt it.

So Rowntrees jelly will now be called Hartleys jelly; but isn’t that confusing. As far as I remember there used to be a company called Chivers Hartley, and they sold jelly under the Chivers brand name. Are Chivers Hartley now part of Premier Foods, and if so, why not resurrect the Chivers name for jelly?

I think some people at Premier Foods seem to have too much time on their hands, rectifying problems that don’t appear to exist. But what I really wonder is what is the point in running a company that goes around buying famous, historic brands if you are then going to ditch these very brands for no good reason?

Leave a comment
Thursday 3rd March 2005

Grave Architecture

I have been reading a fascinating book recently, entitled Played in Manchester by Simon Inglis. It is published by English Heritage, and is in effect a history of sport and leisure in the city and surrounding areas. I suppose you don’t have to be a Mancunian to enjoy this book, although it probably helps; however, this is just the first book in the Played in Britain series; further publications on Liverpool, Glasgow and Birmingham are in the pipeline, along with other books covering such subjects as the football stadia designer Archibald Leitch and the best of British lidos. Played in Manchester relies heavily on Francis Frith type photographs to tell its story, and personally I could look at old pictures of the Victorian and Edwardian era all day long, lost imagining others’ lives.

The book reveals countless surprises. I had no idea that the first ice rink (or Glacarium) outside London was built in Rusholme in 1877, cashing in on the craze for “rincomania”. It was John Gamgee’s refrigeration process that allowed skating on real ice during the summer months; a huge improvement on the concoction of crystallised alum, hog’s lard, soda salt and melted sulphur that had been used as one of the earlier substitutes for ice.

I always wondered why Lacrosse was so popular in my local area, when it is virtually ignored elsewhere in the country. It seems to be down to a quirk of fate. Some former members of the Stockport Rugby Club, disbanded in 1876 due to a player’s death, were on a train stuck at signals in Longsight when they saw an exhibition match between the Montreal Club and the Caughnawaga Indians. Fascinated, they decided to try the game out, and Stockport Lacrosse Club was born; it is still the world’s oldest surviving lacrosse club.

The book reveals many lost sporting grounds I didn’t know existed; there is the convoluted history of the Castle Irwell race course, now just wasteland; the White City botanical gardens and amusement park in Stretford, where only a the white entrance arches survive, standing isolated and alone on Chester Road like some sort of folly; the Fallowfield Stadium, accessed via a narrow path off Whitworth Lane, which hosted the 1893 FA Cup final when 45,000 converged on a stadium built for 15,000 (a University Halls of Residence now stands on the site, but there is no memorial plaque).

There are also the tales of the places I do remember such as Victoria Baths, winner of the first BBC Restoration programme. It is a truly beautiful building, with stained glass, mosaics, the words “well loved” emblazoned on its clock tower; yet when I went there as a child I just remember it as being old, cold and dirty. Some things are wasted on the young. Especially evocative is the chapter devoted to Belle Vue, which from memory was like Blackpool Pleasure Beach transported to East Manchester. I know that sounds tacky, but bear in mind there is no such word in a 10 year old’s vocabulary, and I remember it as a wonderful place with its big dipper and lake, its zoo and miniature railway. On my last visit, to the annual circus, I was one of about 3000 cubs who pestered Joe Corrigan for his autograph, poor bloke. Apart from the greyhound stadium, the whole of Belle Vue has now been levelled.

But as Mark E Smith once said, “Vimto and Spangles were always crap / Regardless of the look back bores” and there is more to Played in Manchester than nostalgia. There is a chapter devoted to SportCity, the area redeveloped for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and Inglis details many of the more recent changes and developments in the region’s sporting grounds. I was particularly struck by the information regarding the redevelopment of Old Trafford football ground that began in 1995; the architects chosen were Atherden Fuller Leng, the same firm who, as Atherden Nutter, had developed OT during the 1960’s. I was impressed that a large public company such as Manchester United had stuck loyally with the same architects over four decades. It seemed a testimony to the firm’s work. Later in the book the author returns to the matter of the work done by Atherden and partners; I continued to read about their designs for stadia throughout the North West and London, including Liverpool’s Anfield ground.

It was reading this piece of information that made me reconsider my opinion of Atherden. Is the word epiphany? Whatever, as soon as I discovered that they had been involved with both the Old Trafford and Anfield redesigns I immediately saw the similarities.

Anfield first. I have only been there once, to watch a 6-0 trouncing at the hands of Liverpool; it was the game where the chant “Alan Ball’s a football genius” made its first appearance. I was sat with a Liverpool supporting friend of mine in the new Centenary stand, and the cartilage in my knees still bears a groove formed by the back of the next seat down. To say the bloke in front of me was close really doesn’t do justice to the whole proximity thing. They really did squeeze us in; next time I will bring a shoehorn. We were sat on the far left side of the stand, right by the Kop; my mate was sat to my right, but the seat to my left was empty which was a good job, as they’d had to slice off one corner of that seat to squeeze it in next to the concrete wall dividing our stand from the Kop. There was even the frame next to that seat presumably with the intention of fitting another spectator in, but they had been unable to make use of it.

Old Trafford is little better. The past few times I have been, borrowing another mate’s season ticket in the K stand, I have had a similarly uncomfortable experience. United fans get a lot of stick from their club for standing up throughout the game, but I don’t blame them; it is the only way to get through the 90 minutes pain free.

Now I am not a particularly big bloke – 5’10, that’s all – so I really pity some people who regularly attend either of these grounds. In contrast City’s ground is great; it may not be perfect – the so-called extra wide concourses are nothing of the kind – but at least you can watch the game in relative comfort. The Kippax where I used to sit at Maine Road was also fine. Hats off to Arup Sport then, designers of the City of Manchester Stadium, showing how it can be done.

Who is to blame? It may be that Atherden have set out their stall as a firm who are happy to undercut their competitors by cramming as many seats as possible into the available area. Perhaps though it is down the football clubs themselves, giving a commission to architects, and telling them not to worry about such quaint notions as deep vein thrombosis and blood circulation. It would be interesting to listen in to the discussions between architect and client when designing a new stadium, to see where the comfort of the paying customers comes into the equation. Unfortunately, I would imagine it will often come pretty low down the pecking order. Football fans blind loyalty leaves us open to exploitation most of the time, I fear.

But with so many new stadia being built at the moment, I will keep my eyes open to see who is getting the contracts, and what the subsequent reaction is from the fans. If your club is getting a new ground, it may be worth asking a few questions, particularly if Atherden Fuller Leng get the job. We may no longer fit 45,000 people into stadia built for 15,000, but perhaps it’s not for the want of trying.

Leave a comment
Sunday 27th February 2005

Blogs And The Blogger

Just as novelists have a nasty habit of writing novels about novels and novelists, so bloggers have a tendency to write blogs about blogging and bloggers. And I don’t mean people mention another blog as a starting point to go on to discuss another subject; I mean the subject is blogging itself. This is not meant as a criticism, just an observation. I’ve done the same myself; in fact I’m doing it right now.

Blogging about blogs has gone into overdrive the past week or so; everywhere you go you can read discussions about Iain Duncan Smith’s article in the Guardian concerning blogging as a political tool, about the Backing Blair campaign by bloggers to affect the result at the forthcoming general election, about the new list of Top 10 British Blogs. Everyone seems to be talking about blogs.

Through all the articles written this week concerning blogging, I think the best was by NoseMonkey at Europhobia; he pretty much hits several nails right on the head in this post. I particularly empathise with him when I read that he thinks, “around 80% (of bloggers) seem to be either single-issue obsessives, vindictive arseholes or nowhere near as educated or clever as they think they are. The remaining 20% is made up of people – like me – who really just want to be columnists on a national newspaper. Why the hell do our opinions matter?”. He believes that relatively few bloggers are like him and just want to “think about the issues a bit and work out where I stand”.

But a particular mention must go to Tim Worstall, and his idea of publishing a weekly roundup of the best posts across a range of blogs. The idea is that everyone nominates one post each week, either from their own or someone else’s blog; you email the details to Tim, and those that he considers to be the best will be listed on his blog each Sunday. This really is a cracking idea, and could act as a great introduction for people new to blogs, and to showcase blogs different from those you would normally read. The first roundup was posted last week, and was terrific. There were some blogs I especially enjoyed reading (Nick Barlow, Liberal England) and I will visit again; others blogs (no names, no pack drill) I won’t; but that is as it should be. Tim’s intention is to select differing, contrary and wide-ranging viewpoints, which is admirable (That said, I won’t be nominating a post entitled “Why all Libertarians are wankers”; but then again I wouldn’t write one).

I will probably pop in a few suggestions and submissions of my own, from other blogs, and from The Obscurer when I think I have written something half decent; but more than being a just a way to publicise my own writing, and the writings of others I admire, I like the the way the weekly roundup could act as an invaluable summary of the best writing from British bloggers.

As I have said before, I feel weak and ill when I see how regularly some bloggers post; every day, or even several times a day. I really don’t know how they find the time; I will never be so prolific (perhaps I just don’t get bothered by so many things, or I don’t have as much to say). But at the same time that I find it difficult to spare the time to write, I find it difficult to spare the time to read half the stuff out there, particularly by the more prodigious writers.

When I first started reading blogs I could lose hours flitting from one to another, following a thread from blog to blog; but since my son has started referring to the dog as “daddy” I have realised I am unable to spend as much time sat at the PC. There are more important things to do, which I enjoy doing; such as talking to my wife, that sort of thing.

So a concise list of highlights each week is a great idea. I hope Tim’s roundup takes off, and given the mild egotism inherent in most bloggers souls I guess submissions aren’t going to be a problem; the biggest threat will be if Tim is swamped with suggestions and is unable to wade through them all. But for the time being the BritBlog Roundup is with us, and I am looking forward to the second instalment.

2 Comments