A Brighton Boy Blogs

I used to get most frustrated with people. People are, after all, apt to do things that prevent our own smooth motion through existence. Don’t get me wrong, they can be fabulous too; but by and large, frustrating.

These days it’s more and more the fault of technology. But since technology is created by people, doesn’t it ultimately amount to the same thing?

For example, right now I’m coping with: Read more…

Oh dear. Oh dearie dearie me. Another U2 song wrecked by someone who doesn’t really get the idea of real passion or soul. Thanks Mary J Bilge – oh, sorry, Mary J Blige. Yet another Mariah Carey lookalike. Someone who can’t stick to the tune, or even sing a single note of it. Someone who can’t bear to allow one moment of well-crafted, thoughtfully arranged, skilfully played instrumental melody to pass without being obliterated by her wailing, the awfulness of which makes me want to put her out of my misery without further delay. Someone who can’t understand why she should sing one note when 20 will do. And that’s soulful, is it? No, it’s crap. Sad that U2 has lost so much faith in its own music that it has to ride on the back of someone like that. Get back to writing and performing, Bono, it’s what you do best.

Once again, Britain has been rocked by the foul stench of terrorism, and although London was the site of the atrocity, the people affected were of course predominantly commuters from the wide area inhabited by London’s workers. Whilst George W. Bush, the American President, spouted yet more hypocrisy about compassion and not yielding to people who would impose their beliefs and way of life on others, The Queen, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone each said pretty much the same thing, that the terrorists would not prevail, that they would not change our way of life that we proudly live in Great Britain. Winston Churchill once said much the same thing about the threat of the Axis powers in the Second World War.

Unfortunately of course, our way of life is already threatened, and has already changed. In many ways, therefore, the terrorists have already won a victory; however this victory has been perpetrated over us from within. Just take a look around: the UK’s Police forces have unprecedented powers and autonomy, and have even started to look and behave like paramilitaries. Their power grows, under the overwhelming force of common sense in this, our democracy, our coalition of the meek. Of course we need greater security in the face of the growing threat from extremists. But we should not lose sight of that which has been lost.

When I was six years old, I wrote a small book entitled “All About Me”. At the end, upside down – whoops – a drawing of a police panda car and a friendly-faced British bobby accompanied my statement that, when I grew up, I would like to be a policeman. A number of my friends also wanted to be policemen. Of course we did: Policemen help people; they’re a force for good. They’re heroes, in the mould of Dixon of Dock Green.

How times have changed. I would not be proud to be a police officer now. I am so glad I didn’t follow my childhood whim. More telling is the complete and utter lack of ambition amongst my sons’ generation towards a police career. My sons have said a great deal about what they’d like to be when they grow up, as have all their friends. However none of them want to become policemen. And if so few children of nice families want to become policemen, what sort of material does that leave today’s police recruiters with?

The police no longer command the respect of the man in the street. Little wonder, when all the man in the street sees of the police is the aggressive-looking individuals in paramilitary-style uniforms driving around in police cars, walking around eyeing passers-by suspiciously, or, as I saw just the other week, six of them bringing down one shoplifter in the street with, I have to say, undue force, whilst shoppers tried not to look or get involved in any way.

Two days before I wrote this, a Police CCTV van was seen in my road, a quiet suburban road that peters out to a dirt track, in which nothing much happens. I’ve seen the same van hanging round a lot in my kids’ school road. On this occasion, the camera, mounted atop the van, was for some minutes pointed directly at my flat, at approximately the right height to look directly through my second-floor windows. “Smile” said a happy smiling face pictured on the side of the van; “You’re on CCTV”.

“No”, I say, I shall not go smiling towards a future in which our police force is free to harass people, detain, or stop and search people without reason and film people without their consent. These are direct and outrageous contraventions of our civil liberties, but we all accept that they’re necessary to protect us from the dark forces of Al Qaeda and other extremist organisations, don’t we? Hang on a moment… Al Qaeda in my quiet little road? I think not. So what the hell are the police doing using CCTV in a quiet little village backwater in Brighton, where clearly, nothing untoward has occurred? Who, exactly was using the camera, and for what purpose? Have our police turned into peeping toms?

Power corrupts. People in uniforms, as anyone else, entered their jobs because there was an attraction. If that attraction was a power or control over people, one has to ask the obvious question. Should people who want power and control over other people be allowed to have that power and control? When those people are given greater and greater powers in the face of a perceived threat from without, there has to come a point at which we question from whence the real threat originates. Beware of the enemy within.

OK, so Brighton & Hove City Council wanted to drop the costs of collecting refuse & recyclables: fair enough, costs must have risen dramatically since the Government quite rightly decreed that recyclables should be collected separately. So, wheelie bins were the solution, unless it was decided that your road just happened to be unsuitable for wheelie bins. All around Brighton, but especially in the Preston Park Conservation Area, people hated the idea of the dreaded green monster bins. My ex-wife’s street escaped, prompting us to wonder which of the City’s councillors or officials lived there.

Then our wheelie bins were delivered. I live in a small block of six flats. Of course the bins wouldn’t fit inside the bin store used by the residents in our property for the last 30 years, so we collectively, albeit reluctantly, decided we’d modify the area of the store at our own cost.

Over the course of a week, the bins filled up. Unfortunately, when Thursday came around, there was no collection from our bins. Luckily a resident spotted this while the operatives were still on the job and asked why. “Insurance” they said; “We’re not insured to collect away from the roadside”. Of course it hasn’t stopped them collecting for the last 30 years, but that’s progress I suppose.

Several residents rang the Brighton and Hove City Council (sounds much more accurate with a speech impediment) to register our complaints. They assured us that in fact our bins should be collected as before, and that the crew would be instructed to collect our bins from outside our bin store. The following week, however, there was no collection either. Nor the next week. In fact it went on for four weeks before the council’s operatives emptied our now overflowing and stinking bins.

The following week, our bins disappeared. Our complainant was informed, when he rang the Council, that it had been decided that two bins rather than six would be sufficient for our block (of six flats, three of which are temporarily unoccupied), and that the remaining bins would be collected from the roadside only. That’s actually a 100 metre round-trip for me to empty my rubbish, not including the stairs I’ve always had to negotiate.

Actually I’d much rather take the rubbish a shorter distance, for example to the boot of my car, and drive it to the council offices for dumping in a more suitable waste facility. A lady from the Council advised me however that the Council would very likely fine me up to £2,000 for fly-tipping if I were to protest in this way.

Rather heavy-handed, this “City” Council of ours. Heavy-handed, incompetent, and arrogant. Trouble is, that sounds so stereotypically accurate a description of local government, doesn’t it.

If you’re in the business of pest-control, get yourself to Brighton sharpish. I feel a boom coming on.

On Sunday 16th May 2004, a lovely sunny day, eight people tragically died in a horrific crash on the A23 north of Brighton, when a black BMW went out of control, flew through the crash barrier and over the central reservation, and ploughed into a Land Rover Freelander travelling the other way.

It took nearly a year for the inquest to take place. Of course the press had done its bit at the time of the accident, making huge capital of the entire incident as it unfolded, with full-colour shock-horror photographs from the scene of the accident, no doubt selling lots of extra copies in the process. Then the inevitable happened; unprepared to actually expend any mental effort to analyse the findings of the inquest, the good old gentlemen and ladies of the press decided to fall back on that most British of modern journalistic devices, the gross oversimplification. In this case it was, of course the general verdict of the press that “Speed Kills”.

Had they been talking about amphetamine sulphate, they may have been right, of course. Unfortunately they weren’t. No, these people were actually claiming that when human beings travel quickly from place to place, they have a tendency to die. Quite right. Just as in the USA, guns kill. That is, the mere presence of guns within society causes the lives of countless people every year to spontaneously end. It’s nothing to do with the people who wield the weapon, whether that weapon happens to be speed, a gun, or a hijacked aircraft. Oh dear me no. Can’t possibly allocate responsibility to individuals.

Blimey. Do the ordinary men and women in the street really believe any of that twaddle? Aren’t they intelligent enough to work out for themselves that there can’t possibly be answers that simple to any complex issue?

Basically this accident was caused by one young bloke with far too much testosterone and far too little driving skill. He managed to kill himself, his friends, and several members of another family. However just the other day my car touched the magical/horrific (depending on your point of view) 100mph and a red (naturally) Ferrari overtook a moment later doing at least 125mph; even so, I am apparently still very much alive, and I certainly didn’t see any assorted bits of red car and red gore on the motorway later in my journey.

Of course it’s not the press who started the speed myth, but they love to perpetuate it. Funny, because they can’t wait to shout down politicians, defame celebrities, uncover scandals and so on, all in the name of the common good – telling the truth to the nation. Not when it requires intellect, obviously.

The final insult was the “at last, some proof so we can settle this argument” attitude of the press. I think it’s tragic that so many died. Let’s not insult those who died by using their untimely demise as some sort of “told you so” moment.

Speed kills? I think not. But historically, ignorance has killed millions, and in the confident and capable hands of the delightful ladies and gents of the press, I daresay it will carry on doing just that, long after this speed-freak has passed away, peacefully, in his sleep.