Rick´s News

`Those the Gods love die young` is a saying dating to classical Greek as far back as the 3rd Century BC. The intrinsic meaning of this being the belief in an after life coupled to a desire of the gods to swiftly re-introduce select humans to godly domains. 

Of course not being totally ignorant of the classics even in younger years, I was aware of this proverb and having put a somewhat fatalistic twist to my own interpretation of it made driving my beautiful, red Ford Cortina GT to its limits slightly more relaxing. 

What was new to me was that being a favourite of the Gods involved a happy reunion rather than my interpretation which was more on a par with being spared the trauma of old age. Having reached the ripe old age of 74, apart from a number of irritating, worse for wear things that need to be addressed I have to admit that so far (touches wood) nothing seriously negative has materialised to warrant any fondness directed toward me in my youth by the Gods.  Add some 40 odd years (I matured late in life) of responsible life including work, travel, family, children, grandchildren, being cherished by the Gods seems to pale somewhat.

In fact quite so; age may be fraught with aches and pains but it brings with it a wisdom of sorts. I say sorts  because wisdom still requires an ability to analyse and in the absence of analytical skills is perhaps better filed under the heading experience.Whatever, ”done that been there” pops up more frequently as the years pass.

As a teenager I had a number of pretty close calls driving and I would have wholeheartedly agreed that the Gods did not love me when insufficient cash had resulted in my having to choose a Ford Cortina GT instead of the much faster Lotus Cortina.

 As yet I have not experienced the benefits of an after life in divine company and until I do, if ever, I find myself quite content with second best.

”That´ll be sixpence ha´penny luv,” said the lady behind the counter in the corner shop as she handed me my bag of sweets. Not that I actually remember any specific purchase of sweets at that age although there must have been quite a few. I would most likely have given her a shilling and received five and a halfpence in return. Not rocket science once you realise that there were twelve pence to a shilling and quite graspable even for an eight year old. 

Taking it a step further the arithmetic becomes slightly more demanding when two items, each with a price tag of 14s 10d (fourteen shillings and ten pence) are to be paid for.  The total cost for these two items is one pound nine shillings and eight pence (£1 9s 8d). I should add that mobile phones as well as electronic calculators were not yet invented, the latter not suitable for this system of currency anyway. To arrive at the correct total it must be remembered that there were twenty shillings to a pound and twelve pence to a shilling. So, ten pence + ten pence = twenty pence which works out at one shilling and eight pence (1s 8d). Fourteen shillings + fourteen shillings = twenty eight shillings which gives you one pound and eight shillings (£1 and 8s). Add the two together and bingo you get one pound nine shillings and eight pence (£1 9s 8d). Easy peasy!

In today´s world pound, shillings and pence come across as more of a nightmare than anything else 

 The `£´ which was the equivalent to 20 shillings or 240 pence, stands for libra the latin word for pound. The `s´ which was the equivalent to 12 pence stands for shilling from scilling a German coin first introduced to 15th Century England by Henry Vll. Finally the `d´ stands for denarius or penny derived from the Carolinguan denarius, a coin spread throughout western Europe under the reign of Charlemagne. Believe it or not there is method to this madness albeit historical. Silver pennies called sceattas (origin Friesland) were the  main currency in Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and 240 pieces of these would be the equivalent of one pound in weight, in case you were wondering why there were 240d to a £1.

The UK moved on to the metric system exactly 50 years ago and I would like to think that there are few regrets.  However in this day and age of Brexit Britain it might not come as a surprise that there are actually people suggesting a return to not only this system for currency but also the re-introduction of imperial weights and measures. You know, where there are 16 ounces to a pound, 14 pounds to a stone, 12 inches to a foot and 3 feet to a yard and so on. 

Actually it does come as a surprise to me when I hear Brexiters argue the value in preserving English history.  As mentioned above it´s basically all about imports from Germany, France and Italy. The conclusion one might draw, if their quest is successful, would be to hope Brexiter´s  arithmetic is better than their grasp of history.

I see no more fitting title for this piece than the name of the person that set me out on my long path of education. I have heard somewhere that the memories of a person´s first teacher easily last a lifetime and if this is true I am no exception. I still see her before me although this memory may have been refreshed by the one remaining Abel Smith Primary School class photograph in my possesion. What cannot be attributed to the photograph however is that I can still hear the sound of her voice praising, coaxing or admonishing me,  which of these I remember not, only the distinctively gentle ”Jurgen” 

From my perch today as it were and looking back this was definitely the best start in life that anybody could ever wish for. The remarks and grades on my early school reports reflect Mrs Ramage´s success as a teacher and shamed me later during a number of educational years for not living up to the gift bestowed on me. 

Looking back, the benefits of age allow for a magnitude of experience just waiting to be analysed. I am in no doubt of Mrs Ramage´s positive influence and my later happy-go-lucky approach to school and resulting low grades rather underlines her capacity as a teacher. My eventual school career as a teacher, school principal, independent school management consultant not to mention working on a PhD in American literature (which I never finished) would certainly have rendered an incredible ”whatever is the world coming to” from most of my other teachers. 

Attempting to solely attribute success or failure to genetics, or social environment is in my opinion a blunt tool often oscillating between blame and wishful thinking with little acceptance of life´s complexities. It is said of Einstein that he suffered from dyslexia; enough food for thought there.

My choices in life always seem to have resulted in what might be described as a rather peripatetic approach. Something interesting turns up and away I would go taking any consequential side effects in my stride. A modest example of this attitude is when I was about 14 years old and boldly told my parents that I would be attending confirmation classes as I wished to be confirmed. Not that my parents cared either way. I have no recollection of even a raised eyebrow on their part. I had discovered that a girl at school who I fancied was attending confirmation classes and if by enrolling and being confirmed guaranteed me a seat next to her and as a side dish a seat in heaven, who was I to complain. 

Visiting Warnham decades later I was reminded that the church has no steeple, creating a rather disappointingly stunted atmosphere. As a lover of ecclesiastical architecture I am still pondering if there lies a message there.

November and March are in my opinion the most boring and dull months of the year. I have to admit that November has the edge on March as a long Winter dawns, whereas in March it´s a case of only a few more weeks and then…..  I should point out that my perspective is from a position along the 59th parallel North which when referring to weather in Sweden or the country´s climate for that matter is of importance. The country stretches from Treriksröset (Triple frontier) in the North to Smygehuk in the South. In navigational terms this is between the 69th parallel North and the 55th parallel North. By road a distance of some 2050 kilometres. My point is that it´s a lot colder up the top than down the bottom. 

This becomes abundently clear when you become aware that this distance is only just short of the distance between the United States border with Canada and that with Mexico. Expressed in European terms Copenhagen to Naples. Unfortunately the climate variations in these distances are not on a par with the Swedish equivalent or if so only at the northern end. Putting it another way there are no palm trees in the South of Sweden, it is just less cold than the North. This area of less cold has now spread (by now I think everybody knows why) further North. I am no fan of long Winters with the accent on long  but have fond memories of what the Swedes call vår/vinter or Spring/Winter.  Basically a battle of the Seasons, with Winter despite daily temperatures still below zero relinquishing territory during the day to an ever warming Sun as it melts snow and ice on rooftops, pathways and roads. The gurgling rivulets of water and the drip drop of melting icicles is the voice of Spring.

Whatever, vår/vinter or no the season of the long nights with only one or two exceptions, family Christmases and family holidays in the UK, is our season for travelling. Needless to say intercontinental travelling as most places in Europe during the Winter at best match a Swedish summer and who doesn´t like a change? 

The point I am trying to make here is that Covid19, Happy Birthday by the way, has thrown one gigantic spanner into the works of our lifetime routines. The digital world with its mobile phones, IPads, computers, social media, chat sights, Messenger, Twitter, Facebook, bank apps, Swish ad infinitum has served us well as, or maybe even almost as good as, substitutes for physical social interaction, shopping and banking and so on. In fact it is exactly 1 year since I paid for something in actual hard cash. 

One very important element of our lives that has come to a complete standstill with really no ”Ersatz” (best offer looking at old pictures) is the ability to travel abroad. In the first instance some might say, ”you should be so lucky, many people can´t afford luxury travel, so just shut up and stay at home.” I have no case for disputing that argument although in the second instance in this world of refugees, what if I want to get away from not only Winter but from a virus gunning for people my age? 

The answer is staring me in the face. There is no running away. From a pandemic today, from climate tomorrow.

Teasing my granddaughter Nellie the other day as she crash landed a tray with coffee and biscuits in front of me,  I said she would need more practice if she ever intended being a waitress. The instant rather characteristic reply was, ”why, you said I was cut out to be a lawyer,” rather underlining the case for that statement if quick responses are anything to go by. Realizing the importance of a credible answer in order to immediately divert any rising suspicion that grandad garbles a lot of rubbish whenever it suits him, I found my safe harbour in, ” you´re going to need a summer job, aren´t you? The logic of that raised a slight smile and an acknowledging if somewhat reluctant nod and we both went on with our day.

That little conversation brought to mind my own experience of summer jobs and in a rear mirror perspective their effect on me. With few exceptions the two common denominators were boredom and cash. Not really a bad starting point in life becoming aware that any future sustainable existence could result in sacrificing one´s soul on the alter of boredom. There were of course exceptions and not all boring jobs were without their highlights. 

As I am not counting doing a paper round as a boy or selling ice cream in my parent´s business, my first real summer job ever was as a Horsham council refuse collector generally referred to as a dustman. I have few negative memories of this job although I understand if people wonder about that when I describe carrying heavy dustbins from their location at the back of the house to the dustcart and then having to manually empty them. Maybe I didn`t have time to ponder over this as we had specific rounds that meant once completed our work would be done for the day which could be early afternoon.

The year after saw me driving a lorry for the council´s parks department. That was the good part sitting behind the wheel depositing lawn mowers and council workers to ”grass needs cutting” locations. That and picking them up at the end of the working day was the interesting parenthesis where wielding a hand scythe was the dominating flavour for the rest of the day. On occasion a sorry looking pile of grass at the back of the lorry would induce me to convince my co-workers it was time for me to take a trip to the tip. On Fridays we collected our pay, standing in line to receive a small brown envelope with holes in it. I was paid £10 a week with no tax deduction as I was a student, resulting in me earning more money than the men I worked together with and had families to support. The holes in the envelope were there to check that the amount of pay was correct, as once opening the envelope there would be no recourse for complaint.

Learning is like oxygen, an unseen pre-requisite for life. Perhaps the most mind bogglingly boring job I have ever come across has stuck in my mind as vividly as when I was a boy once attempting to join two electric cables together without turning the power off. Every morning I was picked up outside my home by a landrover complete with a tractor on a trailer and as one of a team of four driven to any one of the many chicken farms within a radius of maybe 20 or 30 miles. The tractor was used to clean out enormous chicken sheds and was driven exclusively by the driver of the landrover. There was a definite pecking order and man number two was responsible for moving things that needed to be moved and replacing them afterwards. My immediate superior was man number three, a man of few words I might add, whose soul task in working life was to point a steam gun at a chicken feeding receptacle and once satisfied it was clean enough wait for man number three, your´s truly, to turn it round for further attention on the reverse side. Eight hours a day minus travelling time and that for several weeks. Best lesson ever.

My first experience with cruise ships including the Queen Mary was a summer job working for a carpet cleaning company. This mostly involved driving round to various locations with large areas of wall to wall carpeting and steam cleaning them. The mobility and frequent changes of location not to mention the odd celebrity made for rather a good fun job. The prize however was a trip to Southampton and spending a few days cleaning cruise ship carpets, hotel and expenses all included. One of the perks for my QPR supporter workmates was filling the Dalek look alike vacuum cleaners with duty free cigarettes purchased from the crew way down in the holds of the ship. I have to readily admit I profited from this contraband as at the time I smoked although considering the quantities involved I suspect there existed further motivation for these guys than just dying for a fag. Her Majesty´s Customs and Excise were apparently not fussy about the whys and wherefores and each of them ended up being fined £80 which is more than a £1000 in today´s money. Me? I overslept that morning and was initially very upset that I had missed out on cheap smokes. Lady Luck wags finger.

Perhaps the most useful if not the most exciting summer job I had was as an odd job assistant doing anything from mixing plaster or cement to fixing leaking pipes thus paving the way for my later D.I.Y. home owner career. 

Writing editorials for conservative Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden´s leading national newspapers was definitely not boring and had little to do with cash, as I was already earning a living as a teacher and not caring much about the extra income. A love of writing, an interest in politics, writing in Swedish, writing for a newspaper with a circulation of well over 100 000 readers was about as tantalizing as it gets. In fact I could hardly sleep, waiting for the distinct sound of next day`s newspaper complete with my very first editorial make it`s way through the letterbox to land with a gentle thud on the floor of my borrowed one room flat. As summer jobs go undoubtedly the best.

As I have already mentioned in a number of my pieces, I travelled the world or some of it at least as a publisher´s representative. At the age of 24 I was the envy of my friends. Me with a diploma from the Institute of Linguists but otherwise no university education landing a job where universities and educational bookshops were at the forefront was strange if not incredible. Not only was I seeing the world but also meeting up with lecturers and professors in various university cities in Europe to discuss and promote the company´s latest publications. A further objective was to recruit presumptive authors although in this respect I was unsuccessful. 

Basically the job was visiting people teaching introductory courses, i.e larger numbers of students, in the subjects that could be matched with the company´s publications. Forwarding the correct complimentary copy could result in sales of several hundred books. The subjects involved were not many, primarily psychology, sociology, education and medicine yet enough for me to keep to the publication´s need to know sheet. Despite this one lecturer suggested I might apply for a teaching position at the University of Bergen on hearing how impressed I was with the city when arriving  on the ferry from Newcastle a few years earlier for a Scandinavian hitch hiking tour. Obviously I had represented the company well in that interview. 

Pride comes before a fall they say and it was only a few days later in Oslo that I became aware of how easily it is to put a foot wrong in this world and all down to good intentions. The subject was psychology and I was really excited because the lecturer I was interviewing indicated he was toying with the idea of writing a book he could use as teaching material or something like that, I don´t remember exactly. What I do remember is that he said something about it not being boring. My spontaneous reaction was about to confirm that my company would see this not only as a plus but more or less as a pre requisite for publication. I was only 24 but had thankfully lived long enough to realize not everything is as it seems and somebody stating what might be obvious to me might just be a little more elusive. I learnt two things that day; sometimes it pays to keep your mouth shut and that Edwin G. Boring was an American psychologist.

Well there you are then, the first of my metaphorical ships has executed a somewhat cumbersome 180° turn. Ship number two has signalled it will follow shortly whereas my Brexit ship has a serious navigational problem and is at present becalmed in the face of what looks to be a very fierce storm. In other words, one down, two to go! 

Of course I´m over the moon about Biden winning the election for president. Not least for very soon being able to follow American politics for at least four years without having to listen to the ramblings of an infantile, narcissistic lunatic cluttering up Twitter with his lies.

In my opinion a man like Trump ought to force us outside of our political comfort zone to rely instead on our own personal moral code and act accordingly. Obviously wishful thinking on my part considering the number of Americans who voted for Trump making the election a closer call than anticipated. That included Evangelicals not too fussy about his hobby of ”grabbing women by the pussy….when you´re a star they let you do it.” (his words not mine) That included Latino voters not too bothered about him separating Latin American refugee children from their parents and putting them in cages. That included ordinary working class Americans idolizing him despite his mocking handicapped people and dead soldiers as losers. That included Republican lawmakers not standing up for their country and the constitution when fully aware of this monstrosity of a president with dubious national and international connections . Not even when being aware that his futile efforts to delegitimize and overturn the election, will almost certainly result in the weakening of many people´s faith in democracy and a search for alternatives. 

The American Dream versus the American Nightmare. Trump may be gone by the 20th of January but the problem won´t be.

I think we have all had our fair share of years where unpleasant events or bad luck never cease to end. Since the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 I cannot remember experiencing a year where events beyond my control affected me so much. Even today I can still vividly remember the feeling of enormous relief when the Soviet vessels turned around mid Atlantic.  Ironically enough, apart from two cancelled holidays and some rather irritating social distancing routines, this year  could otherwise be seen as no worse than most other years. 

What is different though and in many ways similar to 1962 is the feeling of helplessness in the face of events.  A disease holding the world to ransom, with the pain and fear shared across the globe and the anonymity, the meaninglessness and the purposelessness of this virus adding to the anxiety. As if to twist the knife in the wound the world’s largest democracy, a country many people have a relation to and often look to as a guarantor of global stability, is caught in a surreal spider’s web of Trumpism. On a lesser scale you would see Brexit as the icing on the cake if you are that way inclined. 

All three have already been proven to be destructive yet not one of them is a spent force. On the contrary they each still possess the ability to ruin millions of people´s lives, acting individually or in symbiosis. At present there is a panacea being bandied about by the hopeful. A vaccine, an election and a deal. The frightening thing about the times we live in are that these solutions are not acceptable to all. In fact for different reasons e.g. stupidity or political cynanism, many do not see them as solutions. Stupidity is easier to live with, as putting your hand on a hot stove usually results in better behaviour. Political cynanism is the elephant in the room. Stupidity will of course come round eventually but by then it will be too late. 

History is not repeating itself, it´s simply mutating. 

Next week on Tuesday the 3rd of November 2020 I am hoping the first ship will be turned around.

For a time as a child I had a couple of white mice housed in a beer crate turned on it´s side (we lived in a pub) and fitted with two panes of glass to easily let me see what was going on. I wonder whether the person who thought up ’Big Brother’  also had pet mice as a child?  Experience has taught me the benefits of focus so I won´t allow myself to be diverted by going down that road tittilating as it might be. 

Apart from the usual receptacles for water and food,  I had installed a small Hamster wheel designed to allow the inhabitants of my converted beer crate some exercise. I am firmly convinced that my little white friends saw not the benefits of exercise and I must conclude that the wild running in the wheel is most likely to be contributed to the effort on their part to imagining they were going somewhere e.g. leaving or as one might put it today, doing a Brexit. 

From an exercise point of view it was of course a successful ruse, from a mental health angle, I´m not so sure. More than half a century has passed since then and had I been able to see into the future I would certainly have named my master of the house mouse, Boris.

Like my furry friend PM Johnson has been frantically running in his own personal Hamster wheel and getting absolutely nowhere with the world looking on in amazement. 

Since the electorate left the country holding the Brexit baby, conceived after NHS sweet, we hold all the cards talk and a malfunctioning advisory condom, the country has been in turmoil. Two Prime Ministers, two elections, a couple of opposition party leaders later and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is now in charge and reminiscent of my white mice, not getting anywhere. The promise of an ”oven ready” deal guaranteeing an orderly Brexit bestowed on him a much sought after premiership and an 80 seat majority in the House of Commons at the last election. 

Brexit with a side order of Corona is the kind of stuff that requires politicians with the mettle of Churchill. The same stuff however is in the process of breaking the man who would so much like to be a new Churchill but is sadly lacking in most of what is required. Nobody knows what the outcome at the end of the transition period will be for the UK but anybody with a bit of sense realizes that it is a choice between economic devastation and humble pie. The lesser of the one brings on more of the other.  No 80 seat majority in the House of Commons will change that.

I can’t remember the names of my two mice but I do remember that one morning I looked into the crate to see a large number of tiny pink baby mice. Obviously my master of the house mouse had found time off from his important business in the Hamster wheel. Eventually my mother insisted I evict my room companions, crate and all. She couldn´t stand the smell any longer.