Kendal High Street

The day before I leave. I'm in Kendal, Cumbria. A five hour train journey awaits before getting home, packing my stuff, checking it, rechecking it and then grabbing a few hours sleep before tomorrow's eleven hour train journey down to Plymouth.

So I arrive at the station early. An hour and a half early to be precise. The taxi driver on the way here did something I've never before seen done, he tried to undercharge me. I had the same guy yesterday and he tried the same trick then. Unusual people around these parts.

Yet things got stranger when I ventured into the town centre in search of breakfast. Kendal is a beautiful old town in the heart of the Lake District with cobbled streets and boasts the oldest surviving church in Britain, dating from the 1200s. So I was expecting to find a local little cafe where I could put down my bag and get a coffee. Walking down the high street however I stumbled across a McDonalds restaurant, and with nothing else apparently open I went in. After all McDonalds do some incredible coffee. But this was a Maccy D's like no other. On the surface it was the same, it had obviously recently been refurbished in that oriental style that seems to be in with the Mcbig-wigs, but it was the people that made this place.

All the staff appeared to be old women, and when I arrived they broke off their Cumbrian natter and seemed genuinely thrilled to see me. I made my order and a voice politely asked Dora behind the shoot to prepare me an egg McMuffin.
'Right you are' came the cheerful reply and the grannies swung into motion. Still nattering.

An old man came in behind me and was received with a 'Morning Graham, tea is it? Ill bring it right over'.
'Thanks Jan' he said as he gave a wave to those working in the kitchen. What a player.

But it dawned on me that all the customers were old men and they were all drinking tea as they studied the pages of the FT. Just what was going on here? This was McDonalds. Where were the disillusioned teenagers? Where was the atmosphere of utter indifference that is one of the franchise's saving graces?

As I ate more men came in and were met with the same service. Old women in their McDonalds baseball caps lent on their brooms and exchanged gossip with their flat cap wearing customers. Amongst all this one man got up and left, he clearly wasn't local and he had left a lot of his food. The old girl that went to clear the table quickly alerted the others to the situation and soon a large committee had assembled by the abandoned egg and bacon roll, discussing what to do.

'Do you think he'll come back for it?'
'How long has he been gone?'
'Did he get a phone call?'
'Perhaps it was an emergency'
'I hope he's alright'.

In the end they decided to take it round the back and keep it warm in case he came back. I could only look on in disbelief. The only familiar sight was a police poster pinned to the wall warning against anti-social behaviour. Though I was beginning to wonder what exactly passed for anti-social behaviour in Kendal.

I finished my breakfast, downed the coffee and made a show of clearing away my tray before heading back to the station. People moan a lot about cloned high streets and the McDonaldisation of Britain. However in Kendal I think the fast food giant has met its match. Mcdonalds, it would appear, has fallen victim to Kendalisation.

Born to be

I’m not much very good at any one thing. I think that’s a given. I’m not charismatic, I’m not confident and I don’t have a natural gift for numbers. I read a lot but am far from ‘widely read’ and couldn’t last two minutes discussing classical literature. I have a masters degree in history and wrote what I consider to be an interesting if a somewhat unremarkable dissertation about RAF Coastal Command. That is the one and only field in which I would consider myself an expert. And as I’m sure you can tell, it isn’t one of the most in demand subject areas right now.

I’m unemployed with only a basic background in frying up English breakfasts to decorate my CV. I have no employable skills whatsoever. Worse than that, the one field in which I assumed I could simply fall into, is proving far more difficult than I ever imagined. Teaching – it is what you do when you run out of options right? It is the butt of countless (very funny) jokes, particularly in the recent “Armstrong and Miller show” – ‘Good enough to get a degree but not good enough to get a job? -Teach’. How very true.

Therefore it is a rude awakening for me to realise that I can’t even do that. I could apply to be a History teacher but two reality checks await. Firstly all history training posts are massively over subscribed so the chances of getting on to any program, let alone the one I want, are slim. Secondly even if successful becoming qualified as a history teacher is almost as useless as having a history degree in the first place. No one wants history teachers. Jobs for history teachers are very few and far between. The thought of spending a further year and further money to end up in the same economically redundant situation does not appeal in the slightest. Yet teaching retains its appeal and after a discussion with a friend of a friend the thought of primary school teaching suddenly became a viable option. Primary schools are crying out for male teachers, desperate in fact – a whole generation of kids are growing up without any male role models at all and I for one believe that this can cause some problems. And wouldn’t it be great if I were trained in a profession that actually wanted me? How cool would that be? To actually be valued.

But no. I can’t even teach six year olds to glue their hands together because I didn’t get a B Grade in my GCSE Maths when I was 16. Instead I got a C grade and that means that MSc or not I’m not eligible to apply. Unbelievable. Not only that but before a teaching school will even look at you it is vital that you can demonstrate a ton of voluntary work in the school environment and that you have the glowing references that follow from this.

My assumption that teaching was my easy, fallback option appears to have been way off the mark. I am redundant in every sense of the word. You see, things aren’t helped by the fact that I really do not know what it is I want to do. I look at the jobs in the papers and online and there is nothing that jumps out at me as being wonderful. For example I looked at applying for the graduate training schemes at some banks and at the graduate training scheme in Marketing run by the Post Office. I mean – ugh. Firstly I would never even get on them because they require you to attend a hundred different interviews and compete against other unfortunate sods in various simulated exercises and debates. The thought of being constantly assessed as I present a pretend proposal to a room of potential employers makes me sick with dread.

And for the ultimate kick in the teeth I can’t even get a basic service sector job. Even Starbucks demands years of experience in serving coffee and that you be fluent in Italian coffee varieties before they fork out the minimum wage for you. If you happened to be unfortunate enough to have a degree then you’re done for, you’re application will almost certainly be put to the bottom of the pile because they are worried you might show some sort of aspiration to better yourself. Friends of mine have been told by job agencies to remove their degree from their CVs altogether and pretend they did something more productive during those three years.

So I am in something of a pickle. At the edges of my existence at the moment I am still soldering on with the Reserves and am making a very poor attempt at learning French. In fact this weekend I disappear with the Reserves for two weeks of basic training. I am excited and terrified by this in equal measure and hope to God that I pass (and earn myself a photo wearing a funny hat).

But then sometimes this state of semi-pessimism (this isn’t full blown pessimism - trust me) evaporates and I am overcome with a sense of just how awesome we all are and how I, just like everyone else, is capable of anything we put our minds too. Regrettably these spurts of enthusiasm for life tend to be short lived but they propel me through my day.

But why shouldn’t I be capable of doing anything I want? While I don’t know what I want – I don’t see why I should limit the infinite possibilities that lie in front of me. I mean, what would be cool? A diplomat. That would be neat. Working in a foreign embassy, speaking the native lingo, attending dinner parties of local dignitaries and smoking cigars. And of course occasionally being called upon to wake up my host countries President at 4am to gravely inform him that HMS Elizabeth II is sitting cosy off his coastline and that I suggest he sign the armistice now, before he upsets Her Majesty’s Government any further. Or something to that effect.

Or working as the operations officer for a NGO. Sorting out the transportation of construction materials through the dangerous tribal regions of central Asia before assembling the local labour to build a new school or orphanage. That would be neat too.

How about being the public relations officer for Virgin Galactic? Keeping the press up to date about our achievements and future price cuts. Or why couldn’t I work as the campaign manager for a political party or election candidate?. The West Wing in real life, with me as one of the main characters. I would love that.

I could go on. But the point is I honestly don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to do any of these things, or even why I shouldn’t be capable of achieving a handful of them. What I do know is that life is unpredictable and there is no telling where I will end up or what I will end up doing – and that is exciting just as it is frustratingly difficult to plan for.

So anyway. I’m young, I’m healthy and I have an education which while not preparing me for the world, has at least taught me of its existence. Time is on my side and given that we are all going to live until at least 120 years of age I shouldn’t feel rushed. But at the same time I shouldn’t hesitate to get stuck in to a career. Breaking into an industry takes time, a few years even, especially when building from such a low base, but it is possible and only strengthens you when you change directions again at a later stage.

Life is an exciting business.

So I want to be a teacher in Scotland. I want to teach overseas and I want to use my teaching skills to travel around the world, teaching as I go. I want to work for a political party and campaign during an election. I want to advise governments and businesses in sustainable economic practices. I want to run my own renewables company. I also want to help in someway to propel human civilisation into the heavens. I want to freely travel the globe and drink cocktails with my small diaspora of international friends. I want to be a global citizen. I want to go into space and I want to see the Earth from outside. I’d like to step on the moon. I want to allow as many people as possible to share that experience with me, because I believe it would act as an enormous injection of perspective. Like Arthur C Clarke once said, flags do not wave in space. Oh, and I want to have kids. Well, I’m thinking that adoption would actually be the best way of doing things (and get me kudos green points), but we’ll see. I want a little feller to take to football practice and see grow up. But that’s a long way off as yet. If push comes to shove I can wait until I’m 50 and then find some desperate whore of a 20 year old to adopt as mother to my children and as a humanitarian side project. I’m thinking I’d like to climb some high mountains and spend weeks at a time trekking through jungles and deserts. I’d like to work for the UN and the EU, and accordingly I’d like to speak at least five languages fluently. At least. I want to be a junior officer in the Royal Navy or if possible in some other nations armed forces, just because I think it represents a fantastic achievement to join the ranks of this incredibly diverse but extremely capable bunch of young people. I want to write academic studies and advise government policy.

And I think that, as with everything else, once you’ve done one of these things, the others become a lot easier. Perhaps I need to work hard at cracking just one and hope that a domino effect kicks in. Of course I will achieve none of the above, but I could potentially achieve a few other things, which while not on the list are just as exciting.

So here’s hoping. What I actually meant to say today was this. From now on I think I’ll keep this blog as the site for all my human posts. Posts about me and funny things I notice in other people. More of an autobiographical set of accounts and I’ll begin to put things like book reviews and political thoughts in my Athenia 1939 blog. That way there is a clear distinction between the two, which also caters nicely to my audience. As far as I can tell I actually have two relatively frequent readers and three others who I would call seasonal readers, who check in on my blog about once every three months or so. The seasonal readers have no desire to hear about my racist and arrogant opinions on stuff that I really don’t have a clue about, so I think they will gain more from not seeing them. But really, anyone that reads this stuff has to consider themselves a pretty privileged individual now, don’t they?

But as ever, this blog, and indeed most blogs are merely designed to be a form of self therapy, helping me get things off my chest and allowing me to reflect on how things are going. It is nothing more and nothing less.

But to return to my earlier theme of what the future holds. So this is what I shall do. My immediate objectives, my three-year plan if you will, is to become a qualified teacher, to learn French and to advance my part time career with the Royal Navy up to a level where I’m in a position to comfortably request some real operational tours of duty. I think this provides a pretty sound base from which to then branch out into other careers and quests. Three years may sound like a long time to me right now, but it’s really not. If it all goes to plan than I’ll be twenty six by the time this is all done, which isn’t at all bad. So, that’s the plan then. I’ll have to make sure I stick to it and create perhaps some mini objectives in between, and maybe a few additional ones around the fringes, just to keep me interesting. Who knows? Anyway. Thanks for reading.

PP4: Troops to Teachers

I just read about this on the bbc website (I'm on a 12 hour coach journey atm and have time to spare) and thought it sounded great. Troops to Teachers is a US scheme in which service personal with a degree and more than ten years experience are re-trained as teachers. Results so far are said to be impressive and they have a higher rentention rate than your average teacher too (although this is probably just because they already on to their second career).

In an age where school discipline is said to be sliding, and knife and drug use are almost certainly on the increase, there is a case to be made for their presence. Experience with dealing with unruly teens and that self confidence that is drummed into all recruits should do wonders for Britain's fatherless youth. I think strong male (and female) role models can and will make a difference. Perhaps the scheme should be broadend to include former members of the emergency services too.

Some might worry our kids will be led astray by war hungry monsters bent on indoctrinating the next wave of soldiers. This shouldn't be a concern, after ten years in the services I would happily bet that many of them are just as pink as their union loving commie colleages will be.

I have long thought that teachers could do with a dose of reality before entering the profession. How can a teacher prepare a child for the world if they themselves have gone straight from student to teacher, bypassing reality all together?

I'll admit that I myself am now considering taking up teaching and find myself in that exact situation. In defense I see it as a skill I can acquire now and rely on to always find me work, where ever I end up. But my plan is to then leave the profession and do what I was REALLY born to do!(?) Before returning and helping shape the next generation in my image when I'm old and grey.

But no, a similar Troops to Teachers scheme in the UK would work well I feel (and give some of our troops a viable future). Thankfully the Conservatives have already backed the plan and hopefully it will crop up in a manifesto near you.

America has all the best ideas.

PP3: Barack’s Bursary

In Arkansas I was always impressed with the professional and focussed attitude of the students I met. Unlike the poetry reading, pot smoking and shot downing inhabitants of any British campus – these guys actually wanted to get things done. They even maintained that attitude while growing their hair long and wearing sandals. A truly remarkable feat.

Yet the reason they were so focussed was because their college scholarships required certain minimum grades of them – drop below a certain level and lose the funding – and lose college. That’s quite an incentive. Yet their scholarships didn’t just require academic success, they asked for more than that. They stipulated that the students must put in so many hours of community service or do so many credits in other subjects, or provide tuition to other groups.

Listening to Obama’s latest impressive oratory display he mentioned his own policy of providing government scholarships that required a certain commitment on behalf of the student to put in extra hours in community projects and extra curriculum activities. “We invest in you, you invest in your country and together we will move America forward” – is what I think he said.

Perhaps deep down it is because I hate my own inactivity and wish I had done so much more with my time as a student, but I genuinely think British students need a kick to get them going. Lazing around in bed all day might seem like a noble and much admired tradition, but there is a whole world out there that our drunken sarcasm will never touch. Why are we so content to make wry commentary and yet never to get our hands dirty?

So why not introduce a similar bursary scheme in Britain? Hike up the cost of University but introduce scholarships for everyone that are obtainable only by demonstrating a commitment to your community and to the general welfare of your neighbour. Going hand in hand with Cameron’s ‘National Citizenship Service’ this sort of scheme would surely inject some life into our down and out liberal art students.

PP2: Bugging Britain

Britain ranks bottom of the EU nations when it comes to respecting its citizen’s privacy and internationally is on the same level as those bulwarks of liberty, Russia and Singapore. If proof was needed it has now emerged that the Metropolitan police have been regularly bugging meetings between lawyers and their clients for years. This of course comes on top of us being the most watched nation on earth, with some ridiculous figure 4.2 million cameras operating in Britain, and that doesn’t include the ones that actually talk to you. The average Brit appears on camera 300 times a day. I really didn’t think we were that interesting.

This is all very strange for a country with a tradition of safeguarding its privacy. It is perhaps something the Conservatives might want to consider conserving. David Cameron should propose strict new laws to protect British liberties – something to go hand in hand with a strong move against the increased number of days that High Chancellor Brown wants to incarcerate people without charge.

Once again playing on the totalitarian image that Brown seems bent on painting for himself.

Policy Proposal 1: Mosquito Buzz

I heard about his a few years ago and actually thought it was a joke. But no, a device that emits a high pitched tone audible only to those under the age of 25 exists and is apparently already in use (with 3500 in England alone!!). I find it difficult to understand how this even slipped through the net and became law, but today the government said it stands by its legality.

What!? What sort of message does this send out to our youths? To me! This isn’t even youths we are talking about, is the government even aware that many lawyers, nurses, policemen and women, firefighters etc etc are under 25?

Are they willing to mess us about because we don’t vote as much as those with poor hearing? Is the ability to hear properly and a persons voting tendency inversely connected? What does that say about society?

I suspect the Liberal Democrats have come out against this but what would be really great is if David Cameron and his Conservatives came out against it too. Sure he would upset the vast majority of his party who hate having to see young people hanging around the newsagent when they pop in to buy their copy of the Daily Mail, but so what? There is a much bigger prize to win in opposing this.

Make the argument that indiscriminate harassment of young men and women is no message to be sending out to the generation in charge of Britain’s future. That respect goes both ways. The people targeted are the same men and women who will have completed Dave’s ‘National Citizenship Service’, they will be the ones raising families and saving up to buy their own homes. What ever happened to hug a hoodie? Dave needs to oppose this and attack Brown from the left. Gordon is already busy cultivating his Stalinist principles with the ID Card; Cameron should not hesitate to expose this trait.

I’m glad to say that in Scotland a law banning this device is already gaining momentum and looks likely to succeed. But let’s not let the Scots have all the good ideas, alright? That’s just embarrassing.

The more I speak to people, the more I learn, the more I realise that Lizzy is a complete babe.
Rule Britannia.

An American revival?

On the surface it is something of a paradox that when members of a radical Islamic terrorist group slammed jumbo jets full of innocent civilians into buildings full of other innocent civilians on September 11th, 2001 it should become America that became the big evil. Of course it was the devastating wave of nationalism, totalitarianism and war mongering that the world’s last remaining super power unleashed upon an unsuspecting world that really turned global opinion against America. That this was all sanctioned by a resolute, yet apparently dim-witted President, made matters all the worse.

Educated classes all over the world flocked to their wine parties and vied to out do one another when it came to condemning the actions of the greatest democracy on earth. In Britain it reached the stage where American tourists were advised to wear Canadian badges in an attempt to avoid the inevitable hail of abuse whenever their high-pitched voices cut through the din of London tube stations and restaurants. The second largest rally in British history (which I attended) was held when President Bush came for tea with the Queen. In fact it was the one thing that you knew you had in common with other people. It has been quite a comfort actually over the past five years to know that when meeting someone for the first time there was little worry of the conversation ever running dry, you could always count on a mutual loathing of all things involving stars and stripes.

This bizarre international unity created some unlikely bedfellows. In Britain the ‘Respect Party’ was probably the most obvious example of how two opposing trends, that of rainbow coloured liberalism and socially conservative Islam, began to join forces in order to better rubbish America. Further more I would argue that on some level this common enemy of ours has done wonders for cultural integration in Britain. Suddenly it became cool to be a Muslim, or to at least to know one and agree with everything they said. Mosques became symbols of rebellion and the television pictures of illiterate and RPG armed followers of Muhammad became quite romantic. Britain’s creaky multi-cultural system will probably now survive at least a decade or two more than it otherwise would have.

Deep down however there was always that uncomfortable feeling that this really was all a bit of a show, and that this marriage of convenience was never destined to last. America, with all its freedoms, initiative and wild diversity had a depth and resilience that the frantic and seemingly aggressive shouting of Arabic verse could simply never match. It made little sense that British kids would forever watch documentaries like ‘Jesus Camp’ and gasp at the ignorance of misguided southerners while down the road the local mosque was holding one of its regular Madrassas in which young children sat on pillows, swaying back and forth as they chanted verses from the Koran. Indeed the whole idea that it was more shocking to see rich, white Americans saying stupid things than it was to see poor brown folk doing so was in itself a view that, if not racist, than was at least culturally elitist. Why should white Americans know better?

Then came the Democratic and Republican primaries. The world’s media has been hooked on this race. Praise has been near universal for this awesome display of democratic selection. America it would appear has come to its senses and by having a black man and a white women as two of the three most likely people to become the world’s most powerful person, Europe has once again fallen in love with America. What’s more Europe is even quite fond of McCain. He is the sort of Republican we can admire, a real individual with real life experiences and policies rooted in the concept that America can only thrive when everyone else is doing so. Of course all these candidates really can’t go wrong in the eyes of Europe, anyone that isn’t George Bush simply cannot help but be a hero. Indeed if given the choice Europe in its infinite wisdom would probably quite happily have replaced Bush with someone more to its liking, like Saddam Hussein or a Saudi Prince, long ago. Yet regardless of Bush’s legacy the three candidates genuinely are good ones and at this juncture, one day before ‘Super Tuesday’ it appears America really can’t do any wrong. Only the unwelcome victory of Mitt Romney in tomorrows primaries could really detract from what is shaping up to be a hugely inspiring period in American history.

What’s more (and I write this, somewhat awkwardly, with my fingers crossed) it appears that the worst has been and gone in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed young and fragile democracies (albeit highly corrupt like all such democracies) now exist where there was once nothing but totalitarianism and oppression. While we in Europe congratulated ourselves at being wonderfully inactive America was busy safeguarding and promoting the values that when pushed, Europeans pretend to cherish above all others. It seems that Bush and his cronies have done the dirty work and, much like we did with Reagan and Thatcher, we can now all sit back and criticise them at will, while silently enjoying the benefits of their hard work.

This sudden realisation that America might not be so bad after all is still in its infancy and could still be set back by several years should some bright spark in the Pentagon suggest so much as to build a conservatory on the back of Guantanamo. However I believe the world is finally beginning to get over its obsessive America bashing. That can only be a good thing for a world in which democracy, human rights and environmental protection face so many challenges.

The unholy alliance between European liberalism and conservative Islam is also on its way out, the Respect Party has already split due to infighting, and I am afraid to say that a lot more work needs to be done at cultural integration if Britain is not to suffer serious problems in the near future. Newspapers are already picking up on stories of widespread forced marriage and abortion within Muslim communities. Without the support of the wine drinking classes I predict Islam in Britain faces an uncomfortable future.

On the whole however I think there is finally reason to be hopeful. America is busy being brilliant, as it has always done, and Europe is beginning to sober up to that reality. So all that is left to ask is, is this change we can believe in? Ha.