A sad sense of déjà vu.

In July 2013 I wrote a blog in which I voiced my concern about the declining quality of understanding and engagement of significant portions of the electorate with regard to making sensible, considered and valid assessments of political policies and politicians. I further worried that it seemed to me that many voters were apparently less able to ask pertinent questions in order that they understood exactly what was on offer from politicians, the media, and what the implications might be of this or that policy. In April of this year, 2016, with a referendum looming in the UK about membership of the  EU - an issue that would profoundly effect for generations the very essence and soul of our country - and in America the certainty of a new President on the horizon I again voiced the same concerns. In both blogs I raised the spectre of what I suggested was an electorate of Homer Simpsons and the consequences that might have for good government and leadership in both the UK and the USA.

It has been, three years after I first blogged on this subject, with a sad sense of both déjà vu and “I told you so” that I have viewed the political stories of the last few days and weeks. The UK has voted for Brexit – to leave the EU, and Americans have voted for Donald Trump as their next president. Social media and the press have had a field day. In the wake of Trump’s victory we were told that the TV show the Simpson’s, with its usual unerring insight, forecast the rise of Donald Trump sixteen years ago. No one can say we were not warned. When I wrote my blog in 2013 and again in April of this year I received several critical emails telling me that I was absolutely wrong (they were less polite than that!) – and totally out of order to criticise the abilities of the electorate to make wise decisions or to draw the conclusions that I did. All I can say today is”I told you so” . And for those who criticised me, it sounds even more today than previously as if my critics wished to shoot the messenger rather than accept the reality.  

What, only a few months ago, seemed an impossible nightmare has come to be. The Brexit vote and Trump’s election success have caused shock waves through both the political establishment and wider society – and in my view we ain’t seen nothing yet. There will be short term anger and protest but the real fall out will develop over months and years; our respective societies have been fundamentally changed. In the interim, however, every political pundit on the planet and every grumpy old man like me seems to think they know the reason for these political shocks: the inequalities in society, a rebuff to the establishment, the lack of an effective left, the rise of the have nots, fear of globalisation, job security, austerity, the financial crash,    .....and so it goes on. Each and every one of these analyses has undoubted validity but for me there is still one overriding reason: the “Homer Simpson society”. We have managed to create in both the UK and the USA societies where to know little and care even less is seen as a virtue. This same effect is spreading through other societies too – but we are at the forefront.

In his book The Price of Civilization  American economist  Jeffrey Sachs discusses what he calls “the epidemic of ignorance” pervading western societies but especially the USA.  He suggests that “in America the growth of untrammelled commercial TV and its “race to the bottom programming” based upon “lowest common denominator entertainment rather than instructive public education; the growth in internet use and, at the same time, the demise of newspapers and reading as an activity has meant that citizens are increasingly ignorant of basic facts about important issues”. He comments “It would be a profound irony if the new information age coincides with the collapse of the public’s basic knowledge regarding key issues that we confront as individuals or citizens.........The insulated mindset of individuals who know precious little history and civics and never read a book or visit a museum is fast becoming a common, shame free condition”.  Sachs further says that, in America, at least, academic scores are declining. “If this be the case” he argues “then the consequences for individuals and the society will be profound”.   Ignorance, Sachs says can threaten the very soul of society: “....when the country must grapple with complex choices about taxes, spending, military involvement and outlays and all the rest, the lack of basic knowledge becomes dangerous. A poorly informed public is much more easily swayed by propaganda and much less able to resist the dark manoeuvrings of special interest groups that pull the strings in Washington.”   In short, in the highly complex and interlinked world in which we all now live where what happens in one corner can, because of the instantaneous connections that exist, profoundly affect what happens elsewhere. When one country sneezes others, through the power of technology, catch a cold. The consequence of this is that the decisions that we make, the policies that we follow can and do affect others – and the decisions that they make affect us – in ways never before possible because of the instant and global nature of the world. Added into this complex web is the fact that there are simply more factors to consider and more complex factors; life is no longer simple. The people that we elect and the policies that we adopt have, therefore, to be fit for purpose in the world that we now inhabit – and that means that those who elect these people and subscribe to these policies they too must be for purpose otherwise good government collapses. We must, in the modern world choose our leaders and our governments wisely – not to do so endangers us.

In my view Sachs is undeniably correct. People may not wish to hear this message, some, indeed may find it offensive but in the end if individually and collectively large numbers of electors are, through intellect, basic knowledge or attitude, unable or unwilling to bother to discriminate effectively between the virtues, qualities, disadvantages or dangers of different ideas, policies, politicians, or media presentations then society is indeed threatened.

Big business reinforces the dumbed down message too

This is not about being “brainy” or having “qualifications” – it is about the degree of interest and importance that one attaches to something and consequently the amount and time and effort one is prepared to put into finding out the important issues, rather than Homer Simpson like just relying upon prejudice or the talk of the barman. Finding out things, doing a bit of sensible reading round and so on, however, takes time and effort which in contemporary England (and I think Sachs would argue the USA too) far too many are prepared to give – it is considered boring, hard work, useless, or a waste of time. We increasingly live in a society of wanting it easy – we watch the TV simplified adaption of the book rather than read the book; we want TV documentaries that explain things in user friendly language because we cannot be bothered to work at the vocabulary; instead of “experts” fronting documentary programmes we now have celebrities giving a dumbed down voiceovers - we live in  a society where the celebrity is more important than the message. In 1972 the BBC produced a magnificent TV retelling of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It was twenty, hour long episodes. Last year they showed a new production – it had been reduced to six episodes – a travesty of Tolstoy’s mighty novel because, it was suggested, viewers are no longer capable of the required attention span of former years. In our own daily life we say of our children and grandchildren “All I want is for him/her to be happy” – really? - what a total lack of ambition or challenge for the child? It seems to me to be the most pathetic and patronising thing one could say about one’s offspring; in reality one is suggesting that being happy is the only thing of which they are capable. Say it to Chinese, Japanese, Indian or any other Asian parents and they would look at you askance – “how can you have such low ambitions for your child?” they would rightly ask. As societies both the UK and the USA are setting the bar ever lower for themselves. Homer Simpson doesn’t want to be bothered by hard questions, he doesn’t do ambition – he wants his beer, his TV and his ball game.  We laugh at him and the scrapes that he gets into – but in reality we are laughing at ourselves.

Our TV is filled with increasing amounts of dross requiring little or nothing of the mind or the viewer. In the UK each night is filled with a diet of cookery programmes which don’t actually tell you how to cook but allow you to watch others entertain you cooking in a competition to see who comes top – and then, as happened  only a week or two ago when the final of the Great British Bake Off was reached, it made headline news on the BBC. People felt that it was so important it made headline news and the front pages of allegedly serious newspapers! Or we have endless programmes of the X Factor talent show type or the mindless Strictly Come Dancing variety where even ex-senior politicians now take part ( such as Ed Balls – former potential Labour Party leader) and to the joy of millions people tune in – it’s only a bit of fun, they say; but Balls freely admits that although he enjoys it, it is also a vehicle to allow him to reconnect with the people. Again, the results of programmes like this are headline news in the media. What on earth is going on! In modern Britain and America the name of the game is entertainment rather than instruction, challenge or widening horizons

Hi, my friend, I'm Nigel, your friendly bar man.

Have a drink, it's on the house and then I have

something to tell you...

And there is another dimension to this. The vast array of channels and programmes available mean that when combined with on demand TV we watch only what we choose, like and know. At first this might seem attractive – indeed it is. But “on demand” means that in allowing us to be selective about what we watch it also means that we can also choose to omit what we don’t like or what doesn't interest us. In other words reinforcing what we like and know but not exposing us to what is new and different! The world of the internet – Google, Wikipedia and the rest – allow us to find specific items in whatever we are interested in – but at the same time be quite ignorant of the bigger picture. In the past people browsed newspapers and books and in doing so picked up on other things that might not have been immediately of importance or interest but quietly became part of their experience. Similarly when we had to watch TV as it was broadcast one could be exposed to other things when the TV was on and maybe we weren't actually watching it. For example, mum and dad watch the news and the children play in the back ground – but all the time just maybe they are “soaking up” bits of information about the world. Similarly, internet enthusiasts might be in contact with like minded people on the other side of the world – indeed via this blog I know this to be the case – but again this is a form of self reinforcement of what we know or like rather than a widening of our horizons. We like what we know and we know what we like – what we don’t know or don’t like is potentially and subconsciously excluded. In an age of information and widening horizons we are potentially limiting our horizons and making ourselves ignorant!

Modern technology and the consequent untrammelled choices that have been brought with it have caused a rush to the bottom for programme producers; programmes are easy, requiring no input or little thought, just low level entertainment. The name of the game is ratings. What is hard or challenging attracts only small numbers of viewers or is not “demanded” so we get entertaining cookery programmes rather than instructional ones. We get hours of cheap talent shows of the X Factor type rather than Young Musician of the Year; we get glitz and banality of Strictly Come Dancing rather than an insight into ballroom dancing; or we watch the Apprentice rather than receive information about how to succeed in business; and we follow Gareth  Malone’s Choir competitions rather than see a production of La Boheme. I am not suggesting that we live on a diet of opera, drab documentary and high brow productions but we are increasingly supplied with only things that the majority will watch and we increasingly approve of and choose to “demand” these low brow programmes. One can imagine that if Homer Simpson thought he might take up ballroom dancing, he might watch Strictly as his guide rather than attend a class; if he wanted to open his own business he might choose to watch the Apprentice and think he was on an MBA course. This is where we are at: whole swathes of the population increasingly cannot discriminate what is worthy and of value – and can’t be bothered to find out. And what is really worrying is, as Sachs suggests, ignorance is becoming a shame free condition; the result is that our society is in serious decline and danger.

Look what a regular guy I am

Comedian Alexei Sayle wrote this a few months ago: “...programmes such as X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Strictly have come to dominate prime-time viewing.......Noam Chomsky says the media’s function is to “amuse entertain and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.” Thus the propaganda role of the talent show is to promote the idea of simplicity over complexity, of popularity over talent, of banality over genuine invention because complexity encourages critical thought and critical thought is the enemy of authoritarianism........”

Quite, and when everything is reduced to its simplest, lowest level terms there is no place for shades of grey, everything is black and white. You have won or you have lost. I am right and you are wrong. The message is reduced to its simplest format. If you are not with me you are against me. Thus, Sayle went on: “Tyranny is the removal of nuance.” And over the past months throughout the Brexit campaign and during the American presidential race everything was reduced to its lowest terms by Donald Trump and his English counterparts: Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and the rest of the right wing politicians and media. 

If an electorate is increasingly tuned in only to the simplest messages then Sachs is right. If the world is increasingly populated by Homer Simpson clones unable to ask pertinent questions or use their knowledge and minds to critically consider and make judgements upon what they are presented with by peers, politicians,  and the media; if these Homer Simpsons know what they like and like only what they know and are interested only in lowest common denominator views and entertainment then society is at risk of a scenario where  powerful lobbies and potential extremism and evil will flourish. It is easy to influence the unthinking and, as Edmund Burke reminded everyone almost three centuries ago “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”.

Simple, repetitive reinforcement of a bit of propaganda

And this is where we are at. In April of this year, it seemed the prospect of a British exit from the EU led by political misfits like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove was an impossible nightmare and that in America a megalomaniacal reality TV show star with no political experience, or personal grace, or wisdom would become the next  president and thus the most powerful man in the world was laughed at. We all mocked and said no electorate could be so utterly foolish to be taken in by these obvious con men. But the electorate, vast swathes of whom were clearly unable to discriminate between good and bad, worthy and unworthy, false and true were taken in or simply too uncaring to question or find  out and it has, indeed, spoken. Democracy has had its say; “Cometh the hour cometh the man”; we are now not only ruled by the mistaken and the unwise but have reached this low point because millions are wilfully unwise and uncaring; Homer Simpson man has won. Dumbed down land has arrived. We are all losers in the race to the bottom. We have got the politicians and the policies that we deserve – and we should be very afraid.

As I sat at breakfast on the morning of Donald Trump’s victory my eye was drawn to a letter in the Guardian which reduced me to a further level of despair and anger at what we have allowed our society to become. The letter related the comments of American journalist Dorothy Thompson who met Hitler in the 1930s as he was rising to power. The letter explained that Dorothy Thompson was a pioneering American journalist who in 1939 was recognized as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934.

The sharp end of what these political snake oil salesmen create. Their

simple messages are working with the mindless mob.

Having met Hitler Thompson later commented “No people ever recognise their dictator in advance … When our (American) dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say Heil to him, nor will they call him Führer or Duce. But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of “OK, Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!”  Were Dorothy Thompson alive today she would surely say “I told you so”  as she watched Donald Trump and surveyed the American political scene of November 2016 or maybe even the British experience.  She didn’t use Trump’s mantra of “Make America Great Again” nor did she refer to Nigel Farage’s preferred TV pose for the electorate of standing in a good old English pub, with beaming smile and pint in hand: just, one of the boys, like you and me, “have a beer old chap”, whilst saying to millions of sheep across the UK “We want our country back” – an easy to remember and vacuous slogan for unthinking minds to latch on to. You get the point - dictators and extremist politicians and ideas creep into our politics, our homes and our minds as "good blokes" and "salt of the earth people", they are everything to everyman- they are Mr Ordinary and because of that we should know them and fear them.

Just like your mates in the pub - a good bloke. Except that he

is pursuing a very carefully planned and insidious campaign

to win your mind......and you make it so easy: you don't ask hard

questions, you don't challenge you simply follow and repeat

his words.

Would be dictators and extremists like Trump, Farage, Johnson or Gove and the rest of the Republican and Brexit crew come not calling themselves Führer. Nor do they come as conquering heroes with the beating of drums and brass bands. No, the uniforms, jack boots and black shirts come later after the softly, softly groundwork when they have established themselves as essential parts of ordinary life. They come as Mr Ordinary, whispering, what they tell us, are self evident truths and which everybody might relate to. They come telling you what you already subconsciously often want to hear, whispering, what they say everybody would agree with.  Their power is their ease of words and ability to talk to and continually repeat their message to influence the common man. Boris Johnson has one of the most carefully cultivated personas of the day – and because of it he is supremely dangerous. “Look at me”,  his persona suggests “I’m a  cuddly buffoon, quite harmless you know. Everybody’s mate, good for a laugh. I don’t mind people laughing at me. I know it gives me more power over you since you like to be entertained and have a laugh. I know that in Homer Simpson land having a laugh and not thinking too hard about boring things is what it’s all about. Leave it all to me. And while you’re having a laugh at me, my message will creep into your mind, it will be simple and seem so right......because after all, I’m Boris, your mate. One of the boys, such a buffoon, couldn’t possibly do any harm, have a beer pal.....”  Today, I have just read the Johnson has chastised those in Europe who are anxious about the declared policies of Donald Trump; Johnson tells us, in the sort of language and words meant to appeal to Homer Simpson, “It’s time that we snapped out of the general doom and gloom about the result of this election and collective whinge-o-rama that seems to be going on in some places”. As predicted simple words, simple idea, no nuance, easy for Homer Simpson acolytes to remember and repeat. The vocabulary of the bar and the locker room; simple, uncomplicated, not intended to induce critical thought. And the message is, as Alexei Sayle suggested, without nuance, it is little more than the propaganda envisaged by Noam Chomsky: simple, repetitive, easy to understand and repeat. It requires no thought and its simplicity is crucial because, as Chomsky argues, “complexity encourages critical thought and critical thought is the enemy of authoritarianism........” . It is the message of the mob.

Goebbels knew all about manipulating minds - he was

the undoubted king. He could make millions do

exactly what he wanted so very easily.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, knew all this and was an expert. He said: “If you tell the same lie enough times, people will believe it; and the bigger the lie, the better... There is no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals for intellectuals will never be converted. Always speak to ‘the man in the street’ and arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect.....Truth is unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology".

And we have made it easy for these peddlers of untruths, of disharmony and of division to gain the footholds they crave. The mindless sheep who couldn’t be bothered, who listened to the snake oil salesmen while having their beer and mindlessly watched Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing or laughed at Trump’s locker room misogynistic and xenophobic banter (to use his defence) and were taken in by the easy slogans and half truths. They have danced to their music with wide eyes, open ears but closed brains, never thinking, never questioning; thinking only of themselves and their own prejudices and having that laugh. And we, who should have known better, have done nothing to halt this slide

Doesn't look like a dictator or a misogynist or a xenophobe.

Just a regular guy - even down to his baseball cap - which,

of course, carries his simple subliminal message

In years to come we will look back in both regret and horror at the self harm that we have inflicting upon our two once great and honourable nations. We have become societies in terminal decline. The parallels between the election of Trump and the promotion of Caligula to be Emperor of Rome as that great Empire declined two millennia ago are both stunning and frightening. The nations we are bequeathing to our children and grandchildren, where ignorance and an insulated mindset are prized more than learning, insight, questioning, and high ideals, and where ignorance is a shame free condition, are now savagely poorer places - not in the economic sense but rather in the spiritual, humanitarian, cultural, social and political sense. And in the end these virtues are the things of humanity that matter - not wealth or trade agreements or balance sheets. They are the virtues that people have, over the ages, fought to preserve, defend and attain. They are the virtues that define us as human beings. They are what mankind has striven for throughout time – to be better men and women and to make the world a better place for our children. The lauding of division and hatred and the rise of all the other things that define Brexit and Donald Trump diminish us all. But even more worrying is the thought that our children and grandchildren may grow up not knowing any different.  They may grow up believing that the Trumps, the Farages and the Johnsons of this world are what  constitute good leaders; they may grow up believing that the X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing  or the Great British Bake Off  is high culture and worthy of their minds; they might think that the Sun or Daily Mail newspapers carry truthful unbiased news and comment; they may grow up thinking that misogyny, xenophobia, division and a callous disregard for humanity are normal and acceptable aspects of being English or American. And they would be wrong about all these beliefs – but, sadly, that is where we are at.

Our children and grandchildren will not thank us or forgive us for our actions this year of 2016.

A Dreadful and Awful Symmetry

Last week in my blog I ranted about the way in which our contemporary English society is becoming small minded, increasingly intolerant and extreme and thoroughly grubby in its dealings with the outside world. We are - and especially so since Brexit - becoming increasingly isolationist. I now read, it seems, daily in my Guardian of increasing numbers of foreign workers who are thinking of returning to their native country so unwelcome do they feel in this country. Only yesterday I read, with mouth agape, that an increasing number of Jewish people whose family origins can be traced back to pre-war Germany - their forefathers and mothers having fled from Hitler or having arrived in the UK on the kindertransport as children  -  are now seeking to regain their lapsed German citizenship so that they can return to their historical homeland as German citizens. They felt they would be more welcome there – what a terrible irony there is in that reasoning. The anti-foreigner/anti-Semitic/anti-Islam feeling abroad in this country that was once seen as a beacon of liberty and welcome for all is on the march. Whether you are Jew, Muslim, Sikh, French, Pole, Italian, German, Indian or any other creed, colour or culture I suspect that you might not be sleeping quite so easily in your beds at the moment.

But there is another dimension to all this - and one that has equally worrying implications.

Throughout the Brexit campaign two messages loomed large from those who sought to gain freedom from the EU. They were, firstly, that they wanted the alleged control of our borders back so that we English can decide who has the right to come, live and work (and, to misquote Shakespeare's John O'Gaunt) in our "septic isle". "We no longer want", said the Brexiters, "the EU "right" of free movement of peoples, we don't like all these foreigners coming to our fair and pleasant land and taking our jobs and changing our English culture". It is this plea is that is behind our increasing dislike and dismissal of anyone in our land who is not a pure bred white Englishman in the John Bull mould. It is why so many from other ethnic, cultural and national backgrounds feel now so unwelcome. And the second message from the Brexit camp was that of "we want our sovereignty back - we want our Parliament to make the laws not some faceless bureaucrats in Brussels. Parliament is sovereign" they called. Well this latter point has been at the forefront of debate in the past 48 hours and it illustrates a second frightening characteristic of 2016 Britain.

Yesterday the most senior judges in the land crossed swords with the government by pronouncing in a judgement that Parliament is indeed sovereign and must, therefore, have a say in the government’s negotiation of Brexit. Despite the referendum of June the government cannot, according to the Law Lords, go it alone and simply negotiate what it wants with Europe as part of our leaving the EU without reference to the elected representatives of the nation – because, the judges argued “Parliament is sovereign”. The result is that the right wing press, Brexiters, the government and every other rag, tag and bobtail outfit who sing the Brexit song are up in arms at this judgement; they thought the referendum was a done deal, that it gave carte blanche to the government to negotiate whatever European deal they chose. The judges thought otherwise saying the sovereign Parliament must have a say and thus they have been vilified in the right wing/Brexit press this morning. The is cry is now that “the will of the people” (i.e. the referendum decision on Brexit must obeyed). Suddenly, it seems, that these Brexiters now wish that Parliament is not sovereign for it doesn’t say what they wanted it to say. In other words Parliament can only be sovereign  in Joe Brexit's eyes so as long as it says what Joe Brexit, the government, the tabloids and the right wing press want it to say! If it was not so serious this would be like a Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera: W.S. Gilbert would have had a field day with the warped and bizarre thinking of the Brexit brigade!

I have to say that when I read of the judgement and the reaction I quietly nodded and felt a warm glow of satisfaction: the spirit of Oliver Cromwell is not dead. As a nation we fought a Civil War 400 years ago to decide who should be master or sovereign – an unelected monarch or an elected body; King Charles by Divine Right or the people through their elected Parliament. Since then the fine balance of our unwritten constitution declares that Parliament is our sovereign institution. Governments can come and go, as can political parties and prime ministers but all have to operate within the laws and requirements of Parliament – the elected body that represents our nation. Governments do not make laws. It is Parliament’s prerogative to pass or refuse a change in the law.  The government of the day might introduce a proposed law for discussion by Parliament but it is Parliament who has the deciding voice –  but only after the proposal has been discussed, analysed and amended as required by the elected House at Westminster.

Following the High Court Brexit decision, of course, all the politicians have had their two pennyworth.

All were pretty predictable as were the banner headlines in the tabloids and right wing press. Nothing that I see on the front page of the Mail, the Express, the Sun or the Telegraph ever surprises me anymore. It merely saddens me that this is what our country has become and very worrying that clearly many millions actually read (and presumably agree with) the trash that passes for journalism in contemporary Britain.

But, as I indicated above, this was not laughable it was serious for one comment did stand out for me in this morning’s right wing and Brexit dross – and worrying it was too. It signals a ramping up of a potentially dangerous viewpoint. Just as our increasing intolerance of other colours, creeds and cultures is a demeaning and worrying trend so, too, this development which is hinted at or made clear in many of the pronouncements of the right wing, the tabloids and the Brexiters. Specifically, UKIP leadership contender (and favourite for the top UKIP job) Suzanne Evans gave her view on the High Court decision. She said: “How dare these activist judges attempt to overturn our will” It’s a power grab and undermines democracy. Time we had the right to sack them” The first two sentences were pretty predictable it was the third that set my alarm bells ringing: “....time we had the right to sack them”.

Suzanne Evans

Does this woman really think that? When we have “the right to sack judges” just because we disagree with their decisions we are indeed in the totalitarian state. It is exactly that right that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and any other dictator yearned for and enjoyed. The independence of the judiciary is absolutely fundamental to democracy and to a free society. When judges only give the decisions that the populace want then the lynch mob rules and none of us can sleep easy in our beds.  When the judges and the judiciary do the will of political masters then political masters can do anything they wish - imprison, murder or eliminate opposition in any way they desire. Hitler knew this only too well. Suzanne Evans is asking for the right to sack judges who do not do her will and we should all be afraid because although she is only one there are, it seems, many out there who read and support her views. A compliant judiciary is the enemy of freedom and democracy.

It is seriously worrying that this woman is in some position of power and may yet gain more. Either she believes what she says – in which case she, her policies and her politics are very dangerous. Or, she is just putting her two pennyworth without thinking of the ramifications of what she says – in that case she is unfit for office.

But she has previous form. Only a few weeks ago she told the UKIP Conference that more UKIP activists should become teachers to influence “young minds”. That sounds remarkably like indoctrination or brain washing to me and I seem to think it is exactly the formula that Hitler with his Hitler Youth, Stalin with his Young Communist League, or Mao with his fanatical student paramilitary movement known as the Red Guards of Communist China used to such terrifying effect. Watch any news item today about modern totalitarian regimes such as that in North Korea, ISIS, Taliban, or many in Africa and it is clear that the harnessing of young minds and the ensuring of control of the country’s legal system are classic, insidious and terrifying ways of gaining ultimate control.

In all this there is a dreadful and awful symmetry. We have, on the one hand, a feeling abroad in the country that those who are different than us – in colour, belief, culture or background – should feel to be unwanted, a threat, despised or less worthy. Only those who fulfil the right criteria can be considered  worthy of a place in our post referendum/Brexit society. And on the other hand we have a declared desire from a senior politician to require that the judiciary do the bidding of those in power – or face losing their jobs. The whole thing is reminiscent of 1930s Germany and other places where totalitarian regimes have done, or do, flourish. It is the stuff of Orwell’s 1984 in bucketfuls – if George Orwell was alive today he could never believe that the country he loved and wrote about in books like The Road to Wigan Pier could descend so low or could mirror so exactly the dystopian fictional world he wrote about. The awful and terrifying symmetry is clear. In Suzanne Evans’ proposed world those that we dislike, fear or despise and who don’t fit into our view of the world – the Poles, the gays, the Jews, the Frogs, the Krauts, Blacks, the Muslims, the benefit scroungers and any other group that the right wing media and right wing politicians and Brexiters choose can be dealt with, criminalised, officially excluded, become non-people, or shipped off to some foreign shore by compliant and obedient judges and courts.

Reading Suzanne Evans’ awful words and demands that judges be made compliant to the wishes of the powerful, and looking at the hatred pouring forth from the mouths of the right wing press, Brexiters and the extreme elements of the Tory party reminded me of the words by German Protestant Pastor Martin Niemoller who spent seven years in a Nazi concentration camp when he took a stand against Hitler. Niemoller famously wrote:

 "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me".

Hitler sent millions of Jews and others to the gas chambers. Stalin and Mao, too, sent millions to oblivion. They were able to do so because they had exactly the powers that the right wing in England now demand. Just as with today's Brexiters and right wing media they identified groups upon which they could cast  the populist feelings of envy, hate or fear; in Germany, of course this was the Jews. And I wonder why we in the UK should think that we are so very different from 1930s Germany or Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China. What happened there can easily happen here. We are already well along the road – we know who we hate: the European nationals stealing our work and claiming unpaid for benefits, the Muslims all of whom are of course terrorists, the Blacks, the gays, the Argies, the Afghans......and so the list goes on.  It is now only a compliant judiciary that is required to sign the orders that expel, imprison, punish those who are not of the right English stock - and today a major political figure, Suzanne Evans demanded that judges be sacked if they did not comply with the wishes of the powerful and the mob. It seems to me that all the necessary ingredients are falling  into place for the dystopian society of 1984 or Berlin the 1930s or Moscow of the 1940s and 50s or Peking of 1960s.

It is an independent judiciary and an elected, sovereign Parliament that keeps things in check. Lose those and we not only lose our democracy and basic freedoms we also lose our individual and national souls.  We should all be very worried. England 2016 is entering a very dark phase in our "septic" island's history.

Open for Business - or Tales From a Grubby Little Island

Mourinho (top centre) and Charlton (centre bottom row)

Can there be a telling metaphor for the way that our society has declined and coarsened in recent years than this photo taken at Manchester United’s ground Old Trafford yesterday? Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho banished (again!) to the stands during yesterday’s game following his abuse of the referee at half time. Sitting immediately below him is Sir Bobby Charlton – a man who represents, and has always represented, all that is good in sport in general and football in particular – never booked, given a yellow card or sent off in the whole of his illustrious career at Old Trafford and for England. In this same week another of our great footballing sportsmen, Gary Lineker (like Charlton never cautioned, booked or sent off), was savaged in the right wing, Tory and tabloid press and by Little Englanders for his Twitter comments supporting humanitarian efforts to solve the refugee crisis and for criticising our government for their lack of any credible humanitarian response to the refugee situation. We should hide our individual and national heads in shame at what we have allowed ourselves to become and for what - especially since Brexit - we have allowed our country to become.

In this same week, too, we have read of the refugees in France having their makeshift shelters bulldozed while our elected representatives, the British government, largely turned their backs; it seems that the parable of the Good Samaritan would get little hearing in modern day England (and I choose my word carefully there). Hate crime and foreigner bashing (either verbal or physical) seems much more in tune with the current social and political  climate than the Samaritan’s little bit of doing good for his fellow man.

Mr Nice - Gary Lineker

But whether the government, the Tory party, the Little England Brexiters or the tabloid press like it or not, we have an obligation here and we are more than partially responsible for the flood of refugees. In our "wisdom" we teamed up with George Bush, and bombed and lit many of the fires that now glow bright the middle east, and for that we are now reaping the rewards such as they are. We are, too, hugely lucky that the French are, in many ways, taking the heat off us by doing our dirty work by keeping the refugees on their side of the Channel. The French are right to demand that we now do the decent thing and take our "fair share". Doing the decent thing, however, seems not to be much in the mind set of contemporary England.

The sanctimonious and self appointed guardian of

the nation's morals - the Sun newspaper was quick

castigate Lineker for his criticism of the UK government

and his support of humanitarian efforts in Calais

And, to put an ironic and unacceptable twist into the whole scene we have read this week, with tears in our eyes (not), of the dreadful life that United manager Mourinho now has to endure as (he tells us) he is having to camp out at the 5 star Lowry Hotel in Manchester while he earns his millions. His life, he says, is miserable; his wife and family are still in London and he can't get out for a meal because of the paparazzi and has to endure the awful life of dismal Manchester far away from the bright lights of Kensington and Chelsea. Life is truly tough for some, my heart should bleed for him, but strangely it doesn't. I wonder if he can relate to the refugees also far from home and family but with little or no prospect of life in a five star hotel any time soon. It’s been a tough old week for Mourinho – forced to live in a five star hotel, being banished to the stand for his unacceptable behaviour and his team only managed to draw a game they should have won! Well, as he sleeps in his silk sheets at least he isn't going to be bulldozed out of his luxury bed tonight – every cloud has a silver lining!
Let’s be quite clear. The refugee situation is not easy nor is it one that can simply be wished away with good intentions. It is a very real problem and will continue to cause very real and severe repercussions throughout Europe for years. These will only be resolved with long term careful, coordinated  planning, organisation, administration – and a huge amount of goodwill. But to misquote Shakespeare “There are tides in the affairs of men....”  - in this case when, quite frankly, to stand by and wring one’s hands, as our government is doing, is not an option. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the German borders to an influx of refugees a few months ago she may have acted in political terms rashly but it was, in humanitarian terms absolutely the right thing to do. What she was perhaps wrong about  was not having the administrative  back up in place to make it a success - her humanitarian impulse was also badly let down by other nations, most notably ourselves. The refugee situation impacts upon the whole of Europe – and will continue to do so whether we like it or not but since this impact will be upon the whole of Europe we are obligated to act in concert with our neighbours to ensure the issue is resolved and humanity triumphs. It is not an issue that one country can solve or take a stand upon - we are all in the same boat and we sink or swim together.

Sadly, however, the Brexit vote is a clear signal of our intention to be in our own boat, think only of ourselves  and to no longer be members of the European club acting in unison with our neighbours. If pushed, I might further conclude that following the Brexit vote and our government's abject response to the situation in Calais,  the increased level of hate crime in our cities and the general level of anti foreigner comment in our everyday society, tabloids and right wing media, we have lost all right to class ourselves as fully paid up members of the human race. Our selfish and inhuman outlook and morally compromised position in taking this isolationist and xenophobic standpoint at the expense of other human beings - be they refugees in Calais, foreign workers in our care homes and health service or legitimate workers contributing to the wealth and well being of our country via their expertise in commerce, industry or any other walk of life - means that we should all be very afraid for the future that we are offering our children and grandchildren. It is against a backdrop of such morally bankrupt and extreme isolationist viewpoints that people like Hitler gained credibility. Our children and grandchildren will not thank us for what we have done and are doing. The Brexiter’s cry is one of independent action: "look after our own" and "charity begins at home" is the cry from Westminster Tories and from the Brexit streets of England; it is the same cry as“I’m alright Jack pull up the ladder”, of "my home is my castle".  It is also  the cheap and nasty way of getting us off the European/refugee hook. We dress it up in all sorts of fine language “regaining control of our borders”, “reclaiming or sovereignty” and the like, but these are merely euphemisms for sticking two fingers up to our nearest neighbours and to the tide of homeless migrants. Brexit allows us to reject coordinated action with our neighbours, dismiss common decency and to ignore the plea of French President Hollande to "do the right thing" and take our “fair share”. Like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan we have passed by on the other side, unwilling to help our neighbour(s) be they the refugees, the French or any other of our European friends.  The only difference is that in our modern day working of the parable it is the other side of the Channel not the other side of the road upon which we are “passing by”. Brexit has given us a mistaken but nonetheless  perceived and powerful justification for our lack of humanitarian action. In doing so it has demeaned and lessened us all.

Our tabloids lampooned and criticised

England manager Allardyce but are at the

same time symptomatic and part of the

culture of a fast buck, dishonourable

action and questionable morals.

All this is a total and unforgivable nonsense. We are not only the laughing stock of the footballing world, unable to compete at the top level but we then compound our failures and appoint managers like Sam Allardyce to be manager of England who in turn disgraces himself and the country by involving himself in shady deals to accrue even more wealth. This whole sad episode is a mirror for our  wider dealings with our fellow nations and in meeting our obligations – humanitarian, moral and political – we are found seriously wanting; the French, Germans , Dutch and the rest must scratch their heads in puzzlement and sadness as they wonder what we, a once great nation known for its upright stance and innate sense of fair play, are doing and why we are behaving in such a crass, self centred, devious and dubious manner. 

But hey – not to worry! As Theresa Mayhem and her cohorts tell us “Britain is open for business” – and that, of course is all that matters in modern day England - following the money. Sam Allardyce was certainly keen to follow the money - he is the supreme metaphor for what we have become. In modern day England Allardyce's real crime was not doing shady deals but getting caught - such are the depths to which we have plunged in our everyday life be it in government, the City, or the home or the market place. Everything - every form of behaviour, every viewpoint, every action or belief is tolerated or excused or sanctioned in the quest for money – in sport, in society, in politics - and from the top to the bottom of society all is defined by its monetary value not its true worth. There is nothing so low that we will not sink to it in order to make a fast buck - in the final analysis that is why so many in our nation decry and dislike the rules and expectations of the EU for civilized behaviour. It is why the EU Human Rights Act is so despised in England  by the right wing and Tory press - it is about treating people with dignity and respect, it is about being a good neighbour; in short it is another manifestation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan and we in England no longer "do" the "good neighbour thing" - all is money and the school of hard knocks where Samaritans and "do gooders" have little place.  As we saw a couple of days ago a few metaphorical back-handers to the Nissan car company and all’s right with the world; St Theresa has a smile on her face, it is "fantastic news" she tells us - "Brexit Britain is open for business". It is the same with the government’s decision to plough ahead with the extension at Heathrow. The deciding factor was “It is good for business”.  Forget climate issues and the ruination of the planet, forget the nonsense of building in one of the most density populated bits of not only England but also the world, forget issues of whether we actually need this given that Brexit  we are told will impact upon our airport capacity needs for many years, forget the categorical promises given by the previous Prime Minister, David Cameron who said only a year or so ago “No ifs no buts there will be not extension at Heathrow” – business trumps all. In modern Britain integrity and doing the right thing is dismissed in favour of a few extra quid in the back pocket.

The hard nosed face of Brexit Britain

And the reverse of this is also true. We can magically find billions for Heathrow and almost certainly for the “sweetheart” deal with Nissan but in this same week we have read that the police are now acting as “carers” for those with mental health issues – police officers having to sit outside cells because we  refuse to afford to fund  proper mental health facilities. People with mental health conditions arrested or taken into custody by police cannot be found appropriate mental health care facilities so are banged up in a cell. Our schools, too, are not exempt in this “dash for cash” – the raison d’etre of post Brexit Britain and our post Brexit government. We read that subject such as art history, archeology and various classical studies are to be “dropped” by examining boards – they are no longer viable or worth the cost. So, we increasingly demand that our young (who will one day be the old) are versed in only the “hard” subjects that will make both them and the nation hard cash. So, they will be able to calculate and know the cost of a flight to Athens, Florence or Baghdad from newly expanded Heathrow but will know little or nothing of the culture or history of these far off cradles of western civilization. They will be able to afford a season ticket for Old Trafford but be unlikely to see the great sportsmen such as the like of Charlton or Linker; instead they will witness two teams of footballing mercenaries colliding on the pitch while their leaders, people like Allardyce and Mourinho, appear from their five star hotels, scowl, abuse the referee and count the notes in their wallets before disappearing back into their cosseted luxurious world far from the bulldozed tents and desperate faces of Calais.

Ah! That's a bit better, all smiles now.  Those pesky refugees and other such
distractions are all forgotten. Moral action is such a bore and a chore - and there's
no votes in it in post Brexit England. Let's keep things simple and keep the
Brexit punters happy.We are open for business as usual so it's a few more
back handers for our business friends, a few more directorships for us and 
money in the bank for Joe Public to spend on  his beer and his lottery ticket.
 It's win, win all round - unless they start thinking and asking questions that is!

But, worry not – for Brexit Britain is “open for business”; our leader, St Theresa, told us so! And as long as the cash tills clatter and companies and individuals make their fast buck we can all forget the darker side of the national psyche and what is happening only a few miles across the Channel. We can all block out the hate crimes, the treatment of the weakest in our society or the blatant and corrosive social, economic and educational inequalities that stalk our streets. Forget the morals, forget doing the right thing - the Good Samaritan and his tale of being the good neighbour is long dead in 21st century England. We have become a very grubby little island and nation – unable to recognise or distinguish what is right or just or good or worthy - interested only in ourselves and our own advancement. Oliver Goldsmith wrote almost 300 years ago: "Ill fairs the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay"; it's modern day version in today's England might be "The Good Samaritan is dead - but we're open for business as usual selling his clothes. Any offers accepted"  Goldsmith was right three centuries ago - Brexit and its supporters merely confirm it.

Changing the World

Outside King's College

A couple of days ago Pat & I had a lovely day in one of our favourite places – Cambridge. We have visited the city many times over the years and it never ceases to uplift and in a way inspire us. It seems to me to be the very best of the United Kingdom: a place which says much about the story of our nation but at the same time an ordinary place, for the most part untouched by the glamour and trendiness of other tourist places like London. There are of course – especially at this time of the year – thousands of tourists, attracted of by the world renown of the University but to a large degree the place has managed to not succumb to the mindless aspects and cheap souvenir elements of tourism. There is a gentle faded elegance and quiet eccentricity representative, I believe, of the many academics who have populated the city for generations and for whom bling and consumer trendiness might be considered rather distasteful. In other words, I feel completely at home there!

That, of course, is not to say that Cambridge is a backwater or old fashioned. The city and its surrounding environs are increasingly filled with cutting edge scientific research institutes and laboratories. As we sat on the bus taking us to the centre of the city from the Park and Ride car park at Madingly we passed an endless number of hi-tech establishments their names internationally known for scientific research and advancement. But as one nears the centre and the streets narrow, recalling the city’s Mediaeval beginnings, the hi-tech buildings and modern University colleges slowly give way to the ancient colleges that comprise the University – their names synonymous with the great names and occasions of our island’s history. Cambridge is a place to quietly inspire – where one can be reminded and feel proud of the nation’s history  and at the same time be encouraged by the knowledge that modern Cambridge is still doing what is has always done – furthering knowledge and being at the cutting edge of academic achievement.

Darwin at Christ's College

As we drove into the city centre we passed a bus stop where one could catch a bus to Oxford – the other great University city of the England. Oxford, slightly older than Cambridge as a University city and famed for its “dreaming spires”, its Cotswold Stone colleges, and its endless capacity to produce the great leaders of our country has all the attributes that Cambridge has but, for me at least, is not as agreeable as Cambridge.  Where Cambridge seems, despite it Mediaeval heritage, forward looking and unpretentious Oxford I find rather claustrophobic, backward looking, pretentious and “touristy”.  Whereas Cambridge has a faded elegance, Oxford so often seems rather tawdry; there is a subtle difference. Like Cambridge, Oxford boasts (and maybe exceeds Cambridge in this) a list of the great and good of our nation (and indeed many other nations).  But for me,  where Oxford’s list of the great and good might be judged to represent the past of our nation Cambridge has consistently represented the future. Oxford’s suffocating atmosphere seems to be about preserving our wonderful past but Cambridge has always, and still is, about making a better tomorrow.

As we passed Christ’s College and popped our heads through the gate way to admire the beautiful college buildings I noticed on the wall a relief portrait of Charles Darwin a man who changed our understanding of the human species forever. When we walked from the Fitzwilliam Museum towards King’s College Pat noticed a blue plaque on the wall of one of the buildings. It recorded the mathematician Alan Turing who was instrumental in the invention and development of the computer as well as the man who, using his early “computer”, cracked the German Enigma Code during the Second World War. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence – his work during the Second World War caused Churchill to comment that Turing had shortened the war by about 2 years and thus saved the lives of millions by his cracking of the secret code.

Alan Turing and the Apple logo that we all know so well

Sadly, this gentle, nervous, quiet, unassuming but outstandingly brilliant man was also a homosexual – a thing illegal at the time. He was chemically castrated when his condition was discovered by police in Manchester where he lived after the war and as a result of that dreadful punishment he committed suicide in 1954 by eating an apple laced with cyanide. In 2013 he was granted a posthumous Royal Pardon which although a gratifying salve for the national conscience seems to me to be an unfortunate reflection upon our behaviour as human beings towards such a man who had given his country and the world so much. If the Royal Pardon is supposed to reassure us that we are so much wiser and understanding today and that no similarly hateful and ethically bankrupt act could ever occur today in the name of "justice" one only needs to read the pages of right wing and popular tabloids such as the Mail, the Telegraph or the Sun. One would soon realise that the mob can, still today, even in these enlightened times be whipped up into a frenzy with lurid headlines and can subsequently force a government to take actions that would otherwise be judged quite unacceptable. In recent months the clamour for severe punishments and restrictions by right wing newspapers, huge swathes of the population and extremist politicians against refugees, Muslims or economic migrants bears witness to our capacity to hate and pick upon those who are different in body, mind or culture. Alan Turing in his brief, brilliant but tragic life left an enduring legacy from which we each and every one still benefit every minute of every day. A world without computers and all that goes with them would now be quite inconceivable; they are not simple toys to engage us and with which to write trivia on social networking sites or in blogs like this. They govern and impact upon our every waking and sleeping moment in some way or other. Turing was the lynch pin and most important piece of the jigsaw in their development. It is the stuff of legend that his role in the development of computing today is allegedly remembered within the logo of the mighty Apple Corporation.  The logo depicting an apple with bite taken out which decorates our I-pads, lap tops and I-phones – the great “must haves” of our generation - is,  it often asserted, a silent homage by Apple to Turing and his tragic suicide.  Apple neither admit or deny this story, but whatever, it’s a  reminder to us of how cruel mankind can be towards those who are different either by choice or birth. Royal Pardons are an inconsequential salve - no more no less  - a sticking plaster to cover the misdeeds of our nation and relieve our national conscience but they do little in the end to make us better as a species. As a nation the Royal Pardon's most important value is perhaps to make us all hold our heads in shame - sadly as a look at the Mail, the Telegraph or the Sun will prove, we have not and will not learn the lesson.

Remembering Crick & Watson a The Eagle

A little further along and up a side street is a pub, “The Eagle” where the scientists James Watson and Francis Crick would meet as they discussed their ground breaking work on DNA. When the University's Cavendish Laboratory was still at its old city centre site the nearby “Eagle” was a popular lunch destination for its staff. So the story is told that it became the place where Francis Crick interrupted the lunchtime repast of the patrons on the 28^th of February  1953 to quietly announce that he and James Watson had "discovered the secret of life." The event  is commemorated on a blue plaque next to the entrance, and two plaques inside by the table where Crick and Watson lunched regularly. Today the pub serves a special ale to commemorate the discovery, dubbed "Eagle's DNA".

The Eagle's Blue Plaque

The list is endless: people who have changed our world in their respective fields.  Fighting our way through a large group of Japanese tourists, all busily recording their visit on their mobile phone cameras we popped into Peterhouse College  and enjoyed  the Chapel. We discovered that the Chapel was built by Matthew Wren who was Master of Peterhouse in the 17^th century and the uncle of Christopher Wren who rebuilt London after the great fire of 1666. Sir Christopher Wren used his uncle’s ideas when he designed the chapel for another Cambridge College Emmanuel College and in 1666 adapted many of his uncles plans when he fulfilled the orders of King Charles II following the the Great Fire of London of 1666 to change the London skyline and “fill the sky over London with great church.” His design and building of St Paul’s Cathedral still today fulfills that function, filling the London skyline. In another field, ask anyone on the planet to name a famous scientist and it wouldn’t be long before the names of Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawkins are mentioned – two men who lived three hundred years apart but who have both changed our understanding of science, astronomy and mathematics. Both are alumni of Cambridge and inextricably associated with its story. In the arts and literature it is the same ground breaking narrative: in the twentieth century John Cleese and the other Monty Python characters, all Cambridge alumni, changed our perception of comedy while poets like Rupert Brook and Siegfried Sassoon changed our feelings about war as two of the Great War poets who recorded their horror of the First World War. At the end of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century a group of Cambridge friends increasingly had their effect upon the literature and art establishment and at the same time developed ideas that increasingly changed the way we operate as individuals and as a society: Virginia Woolf, John Meynard Keynes, EM Forster , Lytton Stracey  and others became very much the “shakers and movers” of social and intellectual change. As members of what eventually became known as the Bloomsbury Set their beliefs, ideals, way of life and intellect very much shaped  the world that we inhabit today. All were alumni of just two Cambridge Colleges – King’s and Trinity.

Peterhouse College & Matthew Wren's Chapel

In all, the University of Cambridge has provided 92 winners of the Nobel Prize since 1904.  Cambridge has provided 29 Nobel prizes in Physics, 26 in Medicine, 22 in Chemistry, 10 in Economics, 3 in Literature and 2 in Peace; there have been Cambridge recipients of the award in every one of its categories. Trinity College has the most Nobel prize winners (32) and the University as a whole has more Nobel Laureates than any other institution. Whilst it is true that both Harvard and the University of Columbia record more Nobel prize-winners than Cambridge these two institutions use a different recording system including the names of prize winners who might only have had a brief stay of a few months at the university. Cambridge figures, however, are based only upon full time undergraduates, researchers or members of academic staff.  Cambridge is, and always has been, a place of change and thinking the unthinkable in order to effect change. Where, for me, Oxford represents the status quo,  Cambridge has sought to constantly change the status quo in every field of academic, scientific, social  and artistic endeavour.

The Fitzwilliam

We had visited Cambridge for a specific purpose – to enjoy an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum. The Fitzwilliam is the art and antiquities museum of the University. It was founded in 1816 with the legacy of the 7th Viscount FitzWilliam. It has five departments: Antiquities; Applied Arts; Coins and Medals; Manuscripts and Printed Books; and Paintings, Drawings and Prints. There is also the world's  largest collection of 16th-century Elizabethan virginal manuscript music written by some of the most notable composers of the time, such as William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tallis. The Fitzwilliam is a joy: beautifully set out, exquisite works in wonderful galleries, bright and modern yet serious and reflecting its important role as a repository of important academic and artistic items and research. There is a museum shop filled with gifts to inspire and appreciate (very definitely no “tat” here!) and a very pleasant restaurant. And......it’s all for free! Had we been asked for a substantial entry fee I would not have quibbled in any way. As it was, there was an opportunity to make a donation - £5.00 was the suggested amount; I was delighted to drop my £5.00 in the box. For the price of one and a half pints of beer I had enjoyed 2 hours of the best that our nation (and indeed many other nations and cultures) is capable of. What a bargain!

We had come to see one special exhibition that the Museum is currently hosting: “The Art & Science of Illuminated Manuscripts”. The exhibition contains  some of the finest examples of illuminated scripts of Mediaeval times from this country and beyond  – all beautifully displayed, with hi-tech computer graphics to illustrate and explain the artistic, technical and historical  etails. This was not only an exhibition with the wow  factor of how good it looked but one that makes us appreciate the unbelievable skill of these masters of a thousand years ago.  How puny it made some of our efforts today seem – no lap tops, computer programmes or touch screens for these craftsmen of old. Just their eyes, the skills of their fingers, their knowledge of the medium - and perhaps a candle to light their way. Looking at each of these awe inspiring, minutely and beautifully produced works was a reminder of the huge pride and devotion that these Mediaeval artists possessed . And, to my eyes at least there was another quality: these were not only brightly and beautifully decorated pieces of art, nor were they simply bits of religious devotion and the glorification of God. They were also and often pointed and profound social, historical and religious commentaries that would not have looked out of place in our modern political newspaper cartoons.

A couple stand out from the many. One depicts Fate dressed in a long gown. Half of the gown and Fate’s face is a dull muddy brown colour. The other half of the gown and her face is brilliant white. She stands serene and unmoving and around the edge of the illustration are beautifully worked and richly coloured  lace works interspersed with  cherubim and seraphim. A pretty, ornate illustration one thinks at first glance. But when one looks closer you see that in the brown murk at the side of the brown side of the dress is a ragged family looking gaunt and hungry, their clothes little more than dirty rags whilst on the bright white side Fate’s figure and bathed it its brilliant glow stand a family well fed, richly clothed and filled with joy. The two sides of Fate and a social comment that would not look at all out of place today in the centre page of my daily Guardian newspaper: how our well being is so often determined by the uncertainties of Fate and things outside our control. This thread was continued in another illustration (see picture above). Two pages of a book showed on the left a picture of well fed, well clothed, prosperous huntsmen and on the facing page three skeletons each carrying a scythe – the harbingers of death. And the comment from the skeletons?  “Your are what once we were and we are what you will become”. The sub message was clear: “Your wealth and prosperity is meaningless – in the end we all die”. In our celebrity conscious world where material excess, trivial entertainment and having a good time has become the name of the game, the ideal of a good life and the defining goal for so many it is a cautionary tale of some merit.

Having eaten our sandwiches in the grounds of the Fitzwilliam we wandered through Cambridge to enjoy and revisit places that we knew, popping our heads into the gateways of colleges to admire the quadrangles or the chapels. At last we came to what is without doubt the biggest tourist draw in the city – King’s College and the world famous King’s College Chapel, a place we have visited many times and that I have blogged about previously (see blogs for March 5^th & April 9^th 2014).  We sat on the little wall outside Kings College Chapel, Pat eating her ice cream, catching what might be the last of the summer (it was a beautiful day following weeks of hot sunny weather but as I write this blog the weather seems to be slowly changing).

As we sat there, the modern world was passing us by.  Flocks of Asian tourists all with their cameras clicking and a teenager on a skateboard passed us. A large group of smartly dressed people each wearing identification cards around their neck emerged from the main gateway of King’s  – many were from Middle Eastern countries, their skin colour and the hijabs worn by the young women giving them away  – they were obviously attending a conference of some kind in King’s. A family of Spanish people sat on the wall at our side – parents, children, grandparents, each enjoying their ice creams and chattering away in their native tongue. An elderly man - looking every inch the Cambridge Don - dressed in a striped blazer strode along the pavement, a sheaf of papers under his arm and a brief case in his hand whilst innumerable other people many speaking in foreign tongues passed – some smartly dressed others in shorts or tee shirts emblazoned with logos of various kinds. One woman walked past speaking rapidly into her mobile phone as she went whilst another dressed like a 1960’s hippy with a huge flopping canvas sunhat pushed a baby’s push chair, both she and the baby devouring ice creams. A non-stop stream of taxis passed by some depositing passengers others looking for custom and across the road from us a rather more sober establishment Ryder & Amies: “Tailors, Shirtmakers & Gown Makers” - their windows filled with the colours, academic gowns and academic paraphernalia of Cambridge. Ryder & Amies has stood on the site and been official supplier of academic dress to the University for almost 200 years; countless thousands of undergraduates, graduates and academic staff have stepped through its doors.  Now, the shop jostles with a host of shops all, like Ryder & Amies, facing the great buildings of King’s College but these more modern businesses are aimed at satisfying the needs of the million tourists who increasingly flock to this city each year: Cafe Nero Coffee, the Old Sweet Shoppe, Benet’s Coffee & Crepes, the Cambridge Chop Shop – and, of course, the ice cream stall where Pat bought her ice cream cone to enjoy sitting on the wall of King’s.

Ryder & Amies - get your gown here!

And I wondered what all those great names from Cambridge’s past would have thought if they returned to sit with us on that wall? They would have recognised King’s and many of the old buildings that house the shops but what would they have thought aboutt what they saw? The crowds of tourists the many languages spoken, the intermingling of different cultures on the street, the tourist attractions, the informal atmosphere and dress of people, the mobile phones, cameras and skateboards that we take as so much a part of everyday life today? Henry IV and his Queen Margaret of Anjou who founded King’s College and the Queens’ College would, I am sure, have found the whole thing quite alien. I suspect, too, that Henry’s Flemish glass makers Bernard Flowers and Gaylon Hone – the two finest glass craftsmen of the Mediaeval world – would, too, have been mightly perplexed as they worked on the magnificent stained glass of King’s College Chapel. What about the great religious scholar Erasmus or the  philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell – I’m sure they might have had one or two incisive and profound comments to make at what they saw. Or Virginia Woolf and others of the Bloomsbury Set; I wonder if she would approve of how society has changed – a change that she and her friends were so instrumental in bringing about a hundred years ago. And John Cleese and his fellow “Pythons” they would surely have something pithy to say as would  Samuel Pepys have had some pertinent observation to write in his diary. So, too, poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Milton would have some thought provoking comments to make; and what about the great republican Oliver Cromwell – would he have approved of our modern society or would his firmly held religious beliefs cause him to decry the pleasure seeking world that we now inhabit?  Charles Darwin might have seen our modern society as proof of his theory of evolution but would economist John Meynard Keynes be pleased or disappointed with our society’s obsession with wealth and with spending? Isaac Newton, ever the great scientist, would surely be intrigued by the scientific wizardry the modern gadgets that we all today think nothing of whilst Crick and Watson might well look warmly at the healthy passers by and feel a certain satisfaction that their discoveries about DNA might somehow have helped to bring us healthier lives.

The Bloomsbury Set - moulders of our modern world - 

in their Cambridge days

And finally, Alan Turing – what would he think? His work as the father of computing was instrumental to the world that we now take so much for granted. What would he have thought to see even young children carrying and operating mobile phones or tablets that each have more computing power than the huge machines that he worked so long and hard to develop in the 1940s. What would he think when he heard that computers will shortly be driving cars on our streets without the need for a driver? And in a different sphere what would he feel about our modern society?  How cruel it was that he was born at a time when the fact of his homosexuality indirectly brought about his death but now our society and our legal system have such very different ideas about the issue.  On Friday night (August 19^th) Pat and I sat and watched England Women win the Olympic Gold medal for hockey after an exciting game against the Netherlands. At the end of the game the England captain Kate Richardson-Walsh stood with her arms around the England goal scorer Helen Richardson-Walsh – the two are married. What would Turing have thought about that. In his day gay people hid away and were vilified and punished in the severest manner but today they marry and are rightly accepted as valued members of society, their many achievements in every field of endeavour rightly applauded. Today, Alan Turing would be treated completely differently by society and the establishment. Surely he would never have believed that in such a short time attitudes could change so much. In 1954 Turing, a man who had, under the most difficult and trying personal and professional circumstances, done his country some great and mighty service was hounded by the press, the police  and the establishment. He was disgraced, then chemically castrated, and ultimately driven to take his own life. I am unsure if Turing would have laughed or cried, been pleased or angry, at how the world had changed since he so cruelly died and been the victim of the hypocritical, fickle but always hateful world of his time. I would like to believe that we have a better world today - I'm not too sure, however, that we are any less incapable today of the hypocrisy, fickleness and hatefulness of Turing's generation. Certainly looking at the popular press and the extremist views at large in contemporary Britain I have no reason to be confident.

Trinity College - 32 Nobel Prize Winners have gone through its doors

- and in doing so influenced and changed our world

But this is the nature of things and  nothing is forever. Things can and do change and Cambridge has shown for almost a thousand years a continuing capacity to test the notion that what is immutable and uncahnageable can and will be changed be it in science, the arts, mathematics, literature, philosophy, society or any other field of human endeavour. If there is one thing that seems to define this place it is that the great minds that have been involved and the work that they have done has caused fundamental changes in our world. Keynes, Crick, Watson, Turing, Darwin, Woolf, Cleese, Erasmus and a thousand others thought the unthinkable and by doing so brought a new world. And I think that if any of these great minds had sat on that wall with Pat and I watching the modern world go by they might have found it all slightly unbelievable; they might, too, have had some profound and maybe critical comments to make.  But  they would, I am sure,  have been gratified  to know that they had played their part in building a different and ever changing world and that modern Cambridge is still carrying out their mission and dreams –  challenging the status quo, seeking to extend knowledge and in so doing deepen mankind’s understanding and relationship with his world.

A Quiet Reminder in a Desperate World

Broadcaster, critic, author & poet Clive James who is terminally ill has written a wonderful new poem - Return of the Kagorah Kid - published in this week's New Statesman magazine. James came from the Sydney suburb of Kagorah but has lived in the UK for most of his life. He is now too ill to return home but hopes that his ashes might be scattered in Sydney Harbour and maybe his poem put on a plaque there.

Clive James

In our desperate, shallow, violent and clamorous world where sound bites, profanities, drivel, text speak and tasteless hyperbole fills our media and the minds of so many we are increasingly becoming unable to discriminate the good and the worthwhile from the dross and the banal. Millions, apparently, think that people like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are worthy of support to hold great offices of state in their respective nations; untold millions across the world see the acquisition of an i-phone or a Pokemon game as a desirable goal; and yet more millions see a selfie picture or a tattoo as high art. In a world increasingly populated by unthinking, uncaring, dumbed down and trivial Homer Simpson clones hooked on reality TV, Strictly Come Dancing, and the celebrity culture, mankind's awareness of his basic humanity and spiritual dimension are being obliterated from human comprehension; we are in danger of losing our very souls.  James' glorious, simple, and yet profound reflection and use of English is not only a clarion call to us all of the important, worthy and good things of life but a quiet reminder of all that it is to be human:

Return of the Kagorah Kid

Here I began and here I reach the end.
From here my ashes go back to the sea
And take my memories of every friend
And love, and anything still dear to me,
Down to the darkness out of which the sun
Will rise again, this splendour never less:
Fated to be, when all is said, and done,
For others to recall and curse or bless
The way that time runs out but still comes in,
The new tide always ready to begin.

Do the gulls cry in triumph, or distress?
In neither, for they cry because they must,
Not knowing this is glory, unaware
Their time will come to leave it. It is just
That we, who learned to breath the brilliant air,
And first were told that we were made of dust
Here in this city, yet went out across
The globe to find fame, should return one day
To trade our gains against a certain loss –
And sink from sight where once we sailed away.

Clive James

Click on the link to hear Clive James recite his poem:   http://bbc.in/2ail6mj