The buck passes downwards

#18

Not one speck of volcanic ash from Iceland has been spotted in the Bus Lane so far this week. Our test vehicles, probing as far north as Watford, have reported no instances of volcanic ash sand-blasting their windscreens or choking their air-filters. We therefore press on regardless, adopting the maxim learned from Ry*n A*r[1] that: It’s safe to go until somebody crashes. Then it isn’t. That’s how we’ll know.

President Harry S. Truman[2] famously had on his desk in the White House a plaque bearing the inscription “The Buck Stops Here”. Was he, I wonder, the last senior executive to believe that? Throughout all the financial upheavals afflicting the western economies since 2008 I cannot immediately recollect any government minister or regulator – any where – who stepped forward to take the blame or simply resigned as a way of accepting their share of responsibility. Quite a few may have been sacked, but that’s hardly the same thing.

In the United Kingdom we assume we have a convention under which government ministers carry individual and collective responsibility. Considering all the many failures of both policy and administration that have befallen various British governments in recent times – and excluding cases where dubious personal conduct has come to light or individual probity has been questioned - I am hard put to think of a single instance where a minister has accepted responsibility to the point of actually resigning from office. The last example that springs to mind is that of Lord Carrington who resigned from the Foreign Office when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. This was an honourable decision. The invasion wasn’t his fault, personally, but he was the man in charge. The invasion happened, as they say, ‘on his watch’ and Peter Carrington dutifully carried the can.

The more modern approach seems to have become to pass the buck back down the chain of command whenever possible. This observation dates from at least the mid-1970s and possibly earlier. I first heard it from a bright young spark named Simon Elliott (where is he now, I wonder?). In the organization for which we both then worked, Simon noted that whenever a junior member of staff was given an administrative task to perform their superiors gave them about 50% of the information they would need if they were to complete the job without appearing to be a total prat. By working diligently, an astute junior could hope to piece together most of the missing details. But the final, crucial, 5% of withheld information would only reach you at exactly the same moment as the buck, descending from on high at a very considerable rate of knots, smacked the unfortunate junior firmly across the back of their head.

When the RMS Titanic hit the iceberg in 1912, Captain Edward J. Smith was not the lookout on duty at the masthead nor was he the helmsman at the wheel on the bridge. He was probably at dinner with the wealthiest of his passengers and quite possibly discussing how soon the unsinkable liner, currently steaming full-ahead, might traverse the ice-field and dock at New York. Captain Smith did not appear at any of the subsequent inquiries, anxious to maintain that the disaster had not been his fault. Nor was he sacked by his employers. In the honourable maritime tradition, Captain Edward had gone down with his ship.

Not so Sir John Cope, commander of the Hanoverian army defeated by the Jacobites at the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans. Despite living more than 150 years before Captain Smith, Cope was so much more the modern executive. Legend has it that he was the first to gallop back to the safety of Berwick-upon-Tweed bearing news of his own defeat.

In 2007, the then Director of Children’s Services for the London Borough of Haringey did not cause the death of 17-month old Peter Connelly. Movingly known as Baby Peter, this child was failed by practically every adult he encountered during his brief life. Every one of them either added to his distress or failed to take steps to rescue him. In addition to the three who are rightly serving time for causing his death, there may have been as many as 100 adults who were, in varying degrees, culpable for what befell that child. And yes, let there be no doubt, we are all our brother’s keeper[3]. You don’t need to be a Believer to benefit from the wisdom in the Bible.

Sharon Shoesmith has brought a court action claiming wrongful dismissal. But she was the person in charge; she was the captain of the ship. For all I know she was paid a very considerable salary (was it in six figures?) to take responsibility for the conduct of children’s services in that Borough. If you are paid to take responsibility then, when the unthinkable happens, responsibility is what you have to take and the honourable course of action is to resign. It is not to think of reasons why I’m not to blame, why I can’t be held to account, why I couldn’t have known, why I wasn’t told, etc etc.

The biggest mistake Shoesmith made was to wait until she was fired. Send not to ask where the buck stops, Sharon, it stops with thee.

Take comfort, if you can, from the words of John Donne (1572-1631) a sometime resident of our neighbouring town of Mitcham, just a little further down the bus lane from here:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”[4]

Compensation, Sharon? I wouldn’t give you more than the cost of the first class stamp you should have used when you posted your letter of resignation.

Next week: Cheer up, chaps; Zebedee looks at the Arab spring.

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[1] No relation to Ry*n G*ggs, we trust.

[2] 33^rd President of the United States, 1945-53.

[3] Genesis IV:9  -  And the Lord said unto Cain, where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?

[4] John Donne ‘Devotions upon emergent occasions and several steps in my sickness’ – Meditation XVII, 1624.

Happy Birthday, Bob!

#17

Update of The Week:

Ai Weiwei has – at last - been visited in prison. He does not seem to have been charged yet or brought before a court. No worries about ‘habeas corpus’ in the People’s Republic, then Mr Hu? It looks like they are going after him for ‘economic crimes’ – possibly tax evasion. I find it hard to believe that he is the ‘Mr Big’ of Chinese tax-dodgers even if he has evaded some taxes. The million or two top-ranking, heavy-duty, tax cheats in China probably had the good sense not to stick their heads above the parapet by going public with criticisms of the regime’s human rights record. The authorities will probably bring him before a court when they’ve “found” enough evidence to send him down. Is that the Chinese way, Mr Hu Jintao? Bust the guy first, then go looking for the evidence to justify his arrest? Not so much ‘Innocent until proven guilty’, more a case of ‘Arrested until proven guilty.’

Twit of the Week:

“Mr CTB” wants to take on Twitter (an economic entity incorporated in the state of California) for insufficient cleansing of gossip among the Twats who use it as a platform. I find it difficult to grasp how an American corporation can reasonably be held accountable for breaches by others of an injunction issued by an English court. Contempt of Court is a serious business and, difficult ‘though it may be, I do encourage you to conceal your contempt for super-injunctions and the courts that issue them.

I neither know nor care who Mr CTB might be. Whatever happened to the convention of calling the egregiously shy ‘Mr A’ or ‘Miss X’? My hearing is not what it once was and I’m easily confused these days. For a while I thought they were calling him ‘Mr TCB’. Down here in the South London ‘hood, TCB means ‘taking care of business’ - the nicest interpretation of which might be taken to mean ‘get a job’. Other interpretaions tend to involve violence against the person.

Quote of the Week:

In a trailer for BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Review programme (21.5.11) apropos Tracey Emin’s show ‘Love is what you want’ at the Hayward gallery, Tom Sutcliffe was heard to ask, “…When will she overcome her chronic shyness?”

Admission £12. The show runs until 29 August.

I just checked my diary. Imagine my disappointment – I don’t have a window until Tuesday, 30^th Aug. Hey ho, never mind eh.

Joke of the Week:

Bloke goes into a pub with a parrot on his shoulder. The barman looks up, clearly amazed. “That’s fantastic,” says the barman. “Where did you get it?”

“China,” says the parrot. “There’s millions of them.”

Next week: Norman is an island entire of himself…[1]

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[1] With apologies to John Donne, 1572-1631

Ai Weiwei / Ai Weiwei / Ai Weiwei...

#16

I can’t tell you much about Ai Weiwei except that he has been silent again this week. You may well know much more about his work than I do - and if you don’t you can always use Google… unless you happen to live in China, in which case... Ah but that’s the point; I don’t think you can successfully Google Ai Weiwei from inside China, can you?

Ai Weiwei was arrested in Beijing on Sunday 3^rd April and, in effect, has been made to disappear. The cops say he is ‘under investigation’ on suspicion of economic crimes. ‘Economic crimes’? If that’s what the sleuths are after, might I suggest that Beijing’s finest could usefully spend a month or six investigating bankers in the City of London before they get heavy with the man who brought ceramic sunflower seeds to the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern? Any connection between the arrest of Ai Weiwei and the Chinese leadership’s fear that popular uprisings in the Middle East could inspire imitators in China is, we are told, entirely coincidental.

One of the factors that helped run the USSR into the buffers was The Communist Party’s efforts to administer an intensely bureaucratic system without resort to photocopiers. It was not that the Politburo decreed Mr Xerox to be an enemy of The People, it was just that if copiers were widely available they could be subverted and used to propagate samizdat literature[1]. And if the people read the wrong stories by the wrong authors, well that would never do, would it? Technology moves on apace and today the paranoia of the Chinese authorities focuses on the internet. To plagiarise Winston Churchill - these are paranoid little men with much to be paranoid about. The denial of freedoms of expression and association is one of the principal ways in which they aim to keep their ruddy great lid on things.

But what Mr Hu Jintao (Gen. Sec. Communist Party of China) really needs is a Super-Injunction. Give him one of those and then the media couldn’t even report that Ai Weiwei had been arrested. In fact they couldn’t even report that they couldn’t report that Ai Weiwei had been arrested. How Mr Hu must look with envy at the protection which the British courts offer the rich, the powerful, the infamous and the paranoid.

This week the media in Britain have been highly exercised about human rights. Not, as you might hope, ‘human rights’ in the sense that might be of any use to Ai Weiwei, but rather ‘human rights’ regarding ‘privacy’ versus ‘freedom of speech’ where the sexual peccadilloes[2] of the rich/powerful/famous/good at games are concerned. Doesn’t it make you want to slip out to the shed and execute a quick haiku?

Declarations on the subject of Human Rights have seldom been better stated than they were in the eighteenth century. I have in mind the first eight words in the second paragraph of America’s 1776 Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” If you are a journalist or the editor of a half-decent newspaper you shouldn’t need a QC or a Supreme Court judge to decide on the balance between the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to privacy. It’s not rocket science – although one may wish that, for the safety of humanity, rather more about ‘rocket science’ had, in fact, been kept secret.

Would that we could persuade the media to stop using the label ‘celebrity’ in these exposés and use ‘prostitute’ instead. To prostitute is “to put to unworthy or corrupt use for the sake of gain.”[3] I think that pretty much hits the spot for the folk and their activities that were Twittered about. Any genuine prostitutes who get mixed up with the tabloids should – if they have yet to achieve ‘celebrity’ status in their own right – be given the appellation ‘sex worker’. And then we might all know where we stand – or lie or bend over[4].

Until Ai Weiwei is released, whenever you hear mention of Max Mosley, or of wayward footballers or of super-injunctions or similar baloney, please feel at liberty to shout ‘FREE AI WEIWEI’ – or you could even risk ‘UP YOURS HU JINTAO’ – if you are of a more militant persuasion.

Me? I think I’ll go and lie down[5].

Next week: “A bloke goes into a pub with a parrot on his shoulder…”

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[1] Self-published, underground literature usually expressing views contrary to those endorsed by the state.

[2] Peccadillo n. a trifling fault, a small misdemeanour. Chambers Dictionary 9^th Edition 2003.

[3] Concise Oxford English Dictionary. 11^th. Edition 2006

 - yes, I do have more than one Dictionary…

[4] I’m told that other positions are available.

[5] See above.

"We don't need no ....(blank)"

#15

Fill in the blank with the name of anything you don’t need. It has been a week for not needing things, for rejections. Even the tulips I bought last weekend one by one flopped over in the sorry way that only tulips can. Instead of browning or gradually loosing their petals like most other cut flowers, tulips manifest their demise by folding over the edge of the vase and pointing their heads at the floor. It’s a symbolic response, a poetic accusation. ‘Now look what you’ve done…’ It’s another form of rejection.

The “We don’t need no…” opening comes, of course, from Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’.[1] In the song, the blank supplied was ‘education’. Loverly. As an erstwhile teacher I have to insist that if you can begin a sentence with ‘we don’t need no’ then education is something that you do actually need. But then, because of the double negative, the sentiment expressed perhaps recognises that if “we” don’t need no education then, logically, “we” must need some education.

(Have a word, Dad, for pity’s sake. You’re boring even yourself now.)

Rejection, rejection, dejection. This has been the week when Scotland rejected the Labour Party and when England, Wales and Scotland all rejected the Liberal Democrats in general and Nick Clegg in particular. Oh, and everyone rejected the Alternative Vote system for parliamentary elections. I say everyone - of those eligible to vote in the referendum only 42% actually turned-out to make their mark. And of those, 68% voted NO and 32% voted YES. (Really? Were there no spoilt ballots? There are usually a few jokers…) And it was another ‘X marks the spot’ ballot. Someone suggested that more than two alternatives should have been put forward (Yes, No, Don’t Know, Don’t Care) so that voters could list them in order of preference…and the votes cast could then be re-distributed until someone has an overall…zzzzzzzz. Wake up at the back! But the No to AV campaign said preference-ranking was too complicated. What? Surely if a voter can find their way to the polling station on the correct day, we can assume they’ll be able to count up to three at least - using their fingers if necessary?

Curiously, the only constituencies where the Yes voters were in the majority were Cambridge (Yes = 54.32%, turnout 48.15%), Camden (Yes = 51.40%, turnout 37.28%), Edinburgh Central (Yes = 51.36%, turnout 55.38%), Glasgow Kelvin (Yes = 58.78%, turnout 40.49%), Hackney (Yes = 60.68%, turnout 34.11%), Haringey (Yes = 56.62%, turnout 35.62%), Islington (Yes = 56.92%, turnout 35.68%), Lambeth (Yes 54.69%, turnout 33.07%), Oxford (Yes = 54.11%, turnout 38.98%), Southwark (Yes = 52.73%, turnout 34.31%). The biggest No vote was 80% at Castle Point (Essex) on a turnout of 41.20%. In Lewisham, which had the lowest turnout anywhere (33.09%), the No votes exceeded the Yes votes by only 745.

"Fascinating," he yawned.

Apart from the presence of significant numbers of people able to count, the few constituencies returning a Yes majority appear to have no other common factor uniting them. Some are affluent, some have an unusually large number of students, some are ethnically diverse. What does it all mean? I hear you ask, stifling another yawn. Well, probably not a lot, other than that electoral reform is out the window for, say, 25 years at least. In several other countries this weekend people are being shot dead for wanting to vote. In the UK last Thursday, more than half the electorate (58%) simply couldn’t be arsed. Surely another resounding victory for the confederacy of apathy, that enduring coalition between the Don’t Knows and the Couldn’t Give a Tossers. That’s where the real power lies.

Talking of coalitions; (yawn) I had a polite rejection this week from the BBC Writersroom of my film script for a satirical drama depicting a coalition government coming apart at the seams. No topical interest there, it seems. When I get a rejection (and I’ve had plenty; from Agents, Publishers, Theatres, the Beeb etc etc) I’m never 100% sure if it’s because my manuscript is crap or if the unpaid intern they dumped it on for reading (the first ten pages at most) didn’t get my point. I try to think positive, telling myself that somebody turned down The Beatles and many also turned down J.K. Rowling before the ‘arry Potter franchise went global or viral or whatever it did. I tell myself that I may remain 49% successful. Perhaps I should move to Hackney where the Yes vote was biggest of all?

In Scotland, Alex Salmond’s Nationalists swept all before them and now contemplate a referendum on Scottish independence. Smart move; the Scots always know what they’re against – it’s the English, stupid. But after independence, what’s to reject then, Alex? Apart from your plump self, that is? Anyway, most of us already knew that Scots rule over England began with King James in 1603 and lasted at least until Brown & Blair. You would indeed be most welcome to bail-out in full your Royal Bank and your Bank of Scotland as soon as maybe, Alex. Come to think of it, if Cameron (Scot by name only) wanted to play the joker he could suggest an early referendum for the whole of the UK on getting rid of Scotland. I mean what have they ever done for us[2]? Golf? Tartan? Deep-fried Mars bars? Lulu? Bagpipes? Midges? The Gay Gordons? The Old Firm Derby? And now that their oil is running out….

Why, that’s it, Cleggy, eureka! If you’re still feeling sorely abused and rejected, dry your eyes, mate, there’s always nationalism – for all practical purposes the last refuge of the scoundrel[3]! It works for Salmond…

Next week: “We don’t need no thought-control”[4]

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[1] Pink Floyd ‘Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2’. Roger Waters 1979

[2] Reg, People’s Front of Judea (Official). Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979

[3] ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’. Samuel Johnson via Boswell, 1775

[4] Pink Floyd/ Waters. Op. Cit.

Funny thing, humour...

# 14

When I heard David (“Call me Dave”) Cameron using the “Calm Down, Dear” riposte in Parliament last week I confess I laughed. Not much, just a little. It was mildly humorous and it was effective. What else can you say? At the time, it seemed to put most of his opponents on the Labour front bench into states approaching apoplexy[1]. I’m choosing my words carefully; avoiding saying ‘hysteria’ because of the obvious sexism still associated with that word[2]. Now, I’m told it wasn’t funny, it was patronising – especially his use of the word ‘dear’ - and that I shouldn’t have laughed. Whoops!

Sorry; but laughing is what I do when I find something funny. And to be honest I can’t promise to check out everyone’s political and cultural sensibilities before laughing. There isn’t time. It’s a reflex action. In life, I find, some things make me laugh and some things make me cry. As I get older I find I am becoming less inhibited about both. Afterwards, I am happy to analyse why I laughed or why I cried. I have yet to be ashamed of crying but there have been times when I’ve felt guilty or even downright ashamed for having laughed. Could it be that knowing you shouldn’t laugh increases the likelihood that you will?

I hope I would feel remorse if I had laughed at something that was intentionally racist or sexist – but I’m not sure I can guarantee absolutely not to guffaw at something that turns out to be hideously politically incorrect. I am a product of the 1950s – at school, our playground humour was frequently smutty and/or exploited the misfortunes of others. I still love old seaside postcards – the one that comes to mind has a man lying in agony and an irate doctor saying to a nurse (guess which was male and which female), “No nurse – I told you to prick his boil!”

Nowadays I hear a lot of jokes and comments at work which are meant to be funny but which don’t make me laugh. If I don’t laugh it’s because the intended ‘joke’ simply wasn’t funny or really was unpleasantly racist, sexist or culturally insensitive. Most times, finding something ‘offensive’ is as much a reflex action as the opposite impulse which would have been to laugh.

When you think about it, quite a lot of humour is generated by the misfortunes of others. I love that German word Schadenfreude [3]. It’s surely a very ‘English’ deceit to have adopted a German word for responses that we all feel but which we know, deep down, are thoroughly impolite – not to say unacceptable. It’s a good let-out for us: “We don’t have a word for it but of course the Germans do. Well they would, wouldn’t they? Heartless bastards.”

The basis of good humour has to be self-awareness. You have to be able to laugh at yourself; that’s the starting point. If only the Labour front bench had had the collective nous to mutter loudly back at Cameron, “You stupid boy!”[4] Would that have made them all feel better? I hope so, but I fear not.

To me, the worst part of the whole sorry (but minor) episode was that I found myself Googling the words ‘Calm down, dear’ and that chucked-up (sic) a piece written by Richard Littlejohn for Mail Online[5]. I’ve heard of Littlejohn but I thought he worked for The Sun – a tabloid newspaper which, like most rational beings, I avoid like the plague. Mind you, I wouldn’t normally read The Daily Mail either for reasons that are not dissimilar. The dreaded Littlejohn (Wasn’t he previously something big in Sherwood Forest?) confesses that he “roared with laughter” not at the put-down but in anticipation of “what the splenetic reaction would be.” He then goes off on his own primal rant, unburdening himself of all the slights and scowls he has suffered from leftwing political opponents for some years. Better out than in, Richard, best to get it off your chest. Except that this type of diatribe is apparently your stock-in-trade and it must be what makes your similarly diminished punters keep coming back for more. More hurt than joy, Richard – it’s not good for you.

Personally, I felt I needed to gargle or at least wash my hands after reading Littlejohn’s outburst. I knew for certain that my reflexive laughter was / is / and will always be very different from his. Come to think of it, he did remind me a little of Jeremy Clarkson who - for all I know - also writes a column for The Mail (Does he?) Clarkson though is different. Unlike Richard Littlejohn you can sense that Jeremy knows he is a buffoon and his humour therefore has the saving grace of being generated by his talent for self-mockery. Self-deprecation, Richard, that’s the stuff! I never warmed to Bob Monkhouse as a comic until, quite late in his life and at the pinnacle of his career, he came up with;

“Years ago they laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian…Well, they’re not laughing now, are they?”

And finally…I confess I did enjoy the humour, intentional and otherwise, generated by the Royal Wedding. Okay, I avoided most of the spectacle by going to Sainsbury’s on Friday morning. But later, that cart-wheeling verger coming down the red carpet did it for me. Carry-On Verging, my dear old thing! Is it possible for his act to be incorporated into all future Royal Occasions? Could he become the warm-up for the Archbishop (you know, the one who looks like the lead-singer from Jethro Tull) doing a routine on the parallel bars? In full cassock and mitre, of course. What else? Well the stroppy little bridesmaid at front left of the ’Kiss’ photograph remains a hoot and I also enjoyed reading Grace Dent’s Wedding Watch in The Guardian[6]. (Littlejohn wouldn’t be at all surprised to know that I’m a Guardian-reader). One of her Highs was described thus, “Tara Palmer-Tompkinson’s electric blue vagina-inspired hat, plonked centre-stage on her forehead with the lower lips pointing at her new nose. Brave.” Am I wrong to find that funny?

Next week: It takes a lot to laugh. It takes a train to cry[7]

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[1] Apoplexy: such a fit of infuriation that one might seem to be about to burst a blood vessel. Gr apoplexia from apo– (expressing completeness) and plessein to strike. Chambers Dictionary 9^th Edition. 2003

[2] Hysteria: Gr hystera the womb, with which hysteria was formerly thought to be connected. Op. Cit.

[3] Schadenfreude: malicious pleasure in the misfortunes of others. Ger, from Schade hurt, and Freude joy. Op.Cit.

[4] Capt. Mainwaring (frequently) to Private Pike in Dad’s Army.

[5] Calm down pet, this is completely barking. www.dailymail.co.uk 29^th April 2011.

[6] The Guardian, Saturday 30 April 2011, Wedding Souvenir Section, page 10.

[7] Bob Dylan ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ Columbia Records, 1965.