Panini Days

So that was unnerving. All I did was walk back home from my friends flat. Down the same old streets, past the same old coffee bars and restaurants. The same old paninis and cappuccinos. The sorts of places where people like myself like to frequent and discuss their theoretical futures. Nice places.

Yet this time it was different. It was all of a sudden a lot more sinister. Firstly there were two Romanian immigrants wondering the pavements, each with the same written note in their hand. In almost perfect handwriting someone had carefully written something along the lines of ‘I am from Romania and have no food or shelter, please… something something … £3’. I didn’t quite catch it all because it was too long and she was waving it pretty aggressively in my face, so I quickly made my excuses and fled the scene. The second one was even worse, an older woman with a child in her arms who was positively balling her eyes out as some guilty looking Scotsman stood trying to half comfort her and half read the sign in her shaky hand.

Next up was the ‘usual’ scene of a couple of homeless guys sitting under blankets by the corner of the road. Edinburgh has its fair share of homeless folk, most of whom it would seem are constantly ‘only a few pence short of a bus fare if only you’d be so kind’, so this in itself was not a strange sight. But coming hot on the heels of the previous one it seemed to stand out more than usual.

Lastly there was an Asian looking guy selling the Big Issue outside my door. He was wearing a suit. You never see Asian guys selling the big issue. They are normally to busy running restaurants, shops, bars and clubs to even think about poverty. You could tell he wasn’t cut out for it. Very peculiar.

I’m sure this was just a one off, all three of these scenes I wouldn’t even normally consider as being strange – but taken together – and on my friggin doorstep of all places, it’s a little hard to accept.

Something has to give sooner or later, right? The rich can’t keep on getting richer while the working poor sit around stagnating can they? I notice the Daily Mail, finding it futile to undermine a Prime Minister at the end of his tenure, have recently jumped on the ‘corporate pay’ bandwagon. Personally I’m not sure what shaving a few millions here or there off what is only a handful of executive pay packets is going to achieve - but hey ho – middle to lower class Britain needs something to scoff about during their lunch hour I suppose.

But seriously boys and girls. This is my passion of the week, so stick with me while I get this off my chest once again. The world is getting richer on average but behind this a great gulf is opening between the haves and have nots. If we want to continue feeling good about ourselves for buying fair trade coffee while lounging about in wooden floored coffee houses we need to first placate the demands of those unfortunate enough to be sitting on the outside.

A rising tide, it would seem, does not raise all boats equally.

Me thinks we need better boats.

High Horse

Please excuse me for this post as I rewind back to my sixth form days. I’m once again sitting in the common room surrounded by plundered sociology texts and daydreaming about a day when the sun will shine a little brighter…

- So let us assume that globalisation is a process in which, through the ever more efficient exploitation of the earths resources, all nations become richer. Let us also assume that this process widens the gulf within nations between the haves and have nots.

Add to this an assumption that there will be a revival of religious bigotry as working classes under stress reach for their opium and middle classes under false allusions grasp for a social reforming tool.

In addition we have Islamic terrorism, which to my increasingly cynical mind simply is a clash of cultures. ‘They’ are traditional and conservative. ‘We’ are modern but decadent. Lets also accept that the real danger lies not in how many deaths Mohammed inspires but more in the degree to which the democracies of the world resort to Orwellian police state tactics in response.

Further we have the rise of China and India, which will forever reshape global geo-politics, and to underline it all we have the environmental clock ticking down to oblivion. Those Antarctic ice sheets are approaching critical mass boys and girls. Now would be a good time to learn how to swim.

So these seem to be the broad waves of the future (ha.), the rules by which the next fifty years must be lived – and probably fought.

So, as an armchair general, what must be done? Well fear not, I will put the world to right for you all:

1. Welfare states must do more to distribute opportunity equally, a large mass of poor whites in the US and EU will lead to xenophobia and fascism, this must not be allowed to happen.

2. Secular education must improve across the globe and laws must be reinforced to deny religious dogma a place in free societies. Yet, pray as I might, religion will never disappear and hence we would do best to engage with it at every level, it can not be sidelined and allowed to radicalise. If people insist on being shallow enough to base their life on what was originally an anti-Semitic pamphlet then we must ensure they at least do it where we can see them.

3. Fight Islamic terrorism with dollars, politics and love – not ID cards and detention camps.

4. Invite India and China (and possibly Brazil) into a cartel of super powers and together squash-small states with destabilising ambitions. E.g. Iran and North Korea.

5. Spend on alternative and nuclear energies like our lives depended upon it. Then spend some more. Also we need to make provision now for the inevitable environmental catastrophes to come. Unless your American - in which case you clearly enjoy watching democrats drown in republican cities.

6. Like it or not mankind is a parasite on the planet. Our rapacious feasting has left our host looking a little worse for wear. Lets find a new one.

So there you have it. The next fifty years summed up and guidelines on how to save mankind. All in a nutshell.

Onwards high horse, onwards…

Latvijas Republika: Rīga

In 1931 a ‘Freedom Monument’ was erected in the centre of Riga in celebration of Latvian independence. During daylight hours a ceremonial two-man guard of honour protects it. As it turned out Latvian independence could probably have done with something a little more substantial. Since the 1930’s Latvia has been invaded three times, occupied for over sixty years by a foreign power and been subject to genocides and blunt demographic engineering on a horrific scale.

So it would be fair to say that the twentieth century has not been kind to Riga. Yet in 1999 something of a new hope emerged with the election of the Canadian educated Vaira Vīķe-Freiberg as President. Since then Latvia has not looked back. In 2004 its 2.4 million inhabitants joined the European Union while its armed forces inflated the ranks of NATO. Wages and house prices have since shot up and many have taken the opportunity to earn small fortunes in western Europe – usually sending the proceeds back home. Clever micro-economic policies have sustained the flow in foreign investment and low taxes have spurred on growth. Things have never been so good.

Essential in all this success has been the near constant stream of weekend tourists. Mostly boozed up, arrogant and cash flash Brits who revel in 80p cigarettes, £1.50 Vodka bottles and some of the best looking women in Europe.

So two weeks ago, not wanting to miss out on such decadence, I hoped on a carbon oozing flying machine with some friends to partake in this weekend long migration. And we were not disappointed. We were however, perhaps unfortunately, stereotypically British at every turn. English and Irish bars dominated our stay while at night the clubs teemed with fellow Brits, all of whom were simply awe struck at the calibre of the local girls. Only later did we realise the club was operating a somewhat disturbing ‘face screening’ policy. No uglies please – unless you’re a westerner with cash to burn. While the morals of pretty young Latvian girls flirting outrageously with drunk Brits solely on the size of their GDP are best left untouched, I will say one thing for it: This club would only take about five minutes to turn even the most ardent Eurosceptic into a devotee of Brussels. Perhaps also best left untouched is the all to evident scale of the sex industry. But hey, even pimps have children don’t they? Children that need their education paid for somehow. The future of a nation has been built on far more exploitative grounds than this. The rapid construction of flats and coffee houses throughout the city is evidence of more than just an influx of rich foreigners. Latvia itself is developing its own culture of middle class and pretentious professionals. Hurah!

The skyline of Riga testifies to its changing fortunes. It is an eclectic mix of 19th century Art Nouveau architecture (apparently), Soviet era concrete blocks and EU era skyscrapers and hotels. A quick bus tour takes you from glittering affluence right through to old workers communes that look like something out of war torn Bosnia. Although all districts are linked together by an excellent tram system, a small benefit of Soviet occupation.

Another peculiar phenomena on display has to be the rise of the globe trotting, working class Brit. Cheap flights and a visa free Euro zone have gifted the average Britain a stunning opportunity to sample the delights of Europe at his or her leisure. This is no bad thing, it is far better having them mingling around the streets of Dublin, Madrid and Prague than it is to have them cooped up in their local pubs exchanging racist jokes and marrying one anothers cousins.

While admittedly not everyone going for the weekend will become budding Europhiles - fluent in nine languages and avid readers of Estonian newspapers – the point is that it is now at least possible, whereas ten years ago it was not. And even those that take little but a hangover from the experience will now be able to react differently to migrants back home. Instead of falling into a xenophobic frenzy when they realise their new colleague is from Poland they will instead simply enquire if they are acquainted with the ‘Bongo’ club in downtown Warsaw. Inter-European exchanges, even if propelled by the promise of cheap beer and cheap women are no bad thing.

Globalisation (or regionalisation in this case) has a habit of making all countries richer while simultaneously increasing the wealth divides within them. This can be seen in Latvia. So if the latte drinking classes of Britain, and increasingly Latvia, are to survive the next fifty years then what is required are sensible social policies to pick up those left behind. Stability can be bought. In order to do so Latvia will require yet more tourists receipts. And this is where we, with our over drafts, come in.

Who ever said saving the world couldn’t be fun?

Toot Sweets: Ian Fleming and the construction of British identity

I just saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – the musical. Ha. It’s amazing.

What I didn’t realise until afterwards was that Ian Fleming originally wrote it. Who would have thought it hey? Well – not me at least. But yet it makes so much sense, it fits so perfectly. It features an eccentric British inventor, by the name of Caractacus Potts, who teams up with the deliciously named Truly Scrumptious to spread insurrection in an Eastern European totalitarian state (Vulgaria - ha). It has Fleming written all over it. Brilliant. And how do they infiltrate said country? Why, they use none other than the greatest gadget ever devised – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Q himself could do no better.

Combine this with a healthy dose of waffle about how great it is to be British and a grandfather telling stories of the old colonial days and all in all you have a fine post war, pro-British story. We may have lost the empire and we may not be as rich as our American cousins but we still have that cutting edge, that cheeky wit, that gift of the gab to see us through. At least, that is, according to Fleming, a bored clerk in the department of Naval Intelligence.

I’m not sure how right he is, but its one hell of a myth. I fear I’m becoming something of a patriot these days, but why not hey? The rest of the world doesn’t seem to be doing so brightly. Britain has its problems but in the words of Mr Potts himself, while it may ‘need a little work, there’s a fine engine under here’.