Layer 53 Summer in the City

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Today there was blue sky, sunshine and a warm breeze blowing through the city.

I’ve recently read some very complimentary pieces on how civilized it is to travel in London, compared with other places, and I’m sure this is largely true. There are days like yesterday, though, that make we wonder.

All I had to do was travel 5 miles to a meeting - from north-east London to south-east London. On a quiet evening it can be done by car in about 20 minutes whilst listening to four or five tracks on a CD. Here’s how it went yesterday afternoon by bus and train.

Ten minutes wait for bus. As it came to a halt at the bus stop the driver called out to a couple of Turkish women sitting at the back of the bus, to let them know that the bus had reached the terminus.

They seemed reluctant to halt their conversation, and then decided to come down and try to understand what the driver was saying. Finally he got through to them that the bus wasn’t going any further.

They got off, and then got back on again, saying something like, "??£lkshshsh **66&rtrd%$$$mnbnbm Clapton, Clapton! kgkghfhfgjg ffgtrgftrg dfdrtrgrtdf Rommanrod."

So the driver said, “OK, stay on the bus - we’ll be passing Roman Road”.

After 10 minutes one of them attempted to communicate with me, and noticing the puzzled look on my face, her friend interjected, “Want Clapton! Rommanrod.” So I said, “Which would you like, Clapton or Roman Road?”

She said, “Clapton/Rommanrod!”, so I said, “They’re two different places. Which one do you want? Clapton is back there. Roman Road is ahead.”

At which point she gave up on our non-conversation. Five more minutes and she approached the driver, calling to him through the plastic screen “CLAPA-TON/ROMMANROD!!” I could just about hear the driver saying, “Clapton is back there . . . ”

So now she explodes in a frenzy of anger and frustration. “FUCK YOU! I fucking say Clapton. You say yes. Fuck you! Want Rommanrod - where is? Fuck you pig. Stupid pig! You fucking pig!!”

Meanwhile her friend has been moving towards the centre exit, and when the bus stops they both get off, gesturing at the driver, who is by now leaning round, trying to see what they’re doing, and looking a little bewildered - as well he might.

“Fuck you!” they chorus as the bus pulls away, leaving these two lost souls in the middle of Hackney Wick, which is possibly not the best place in the world to be when you have no idea where you are, or where you’re trying to get to. Clapton? Rommanrod?

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Two stops later a woman gets on and decides she wants to sit next to me. No sooner has she sat down than she starts talking, and talking, and she talks NON STOP for the next 30 minutes, all the way to Stratford.

She’s 73, hates London as it is nowadays, feels sorry for her grandson because he can never get a job and they never even contact him after an interview, she’s having to lend him money again, he lives with her and has done for most of his life because his mother is an unfit mother, she can’t afford a holiday, the council still won’t offer her a little house, she hates her flat and her estate, and so on.

She pauses for breath and asks me if I’m not working today. I explain I’m going to a work meeting, but essentially I’m retired. “Ooh you don’t look old enough to retire dear - I wish I could get a little job - I wish I could have a win on the lottery - and on and on and on. Lovely lady. Salt of the earth.

She concerned about me living in Hackney. “It’s rough there innit? My grand daughter can’t go there - she’d get beaten up ‘cos she’s not from there, though once she went there and pretended she was from there, etc, etc, etc.”

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Stratford station is manic. Walking past the Big Issue seller and an ancient-looking guy busking with a violin I notice the long queue slowly snaking towards the ticket office and thank goodness I have an Oyster card and can speed through to the platform.

The first carriage of the stationary train I get into (this is also a terminus) is pretty full, but silent apart from one big burly guy who’s speaking non-stop rubbish to someone across the carriage, in a voice that’s just short of a bellow. It’s a stream of virtual nonsense.

First to bolt is a small guy sitting a couple of seats away from the loony, who gets up and swiftly departs from the carriage, heading further down towards the front of the train.

Second is me. Sod that. I can’t cope with loonies at the best of times, and certainly can’t hack it in the confines of a train with someone so noisy and nutty.

Two carriages down I sit on the only available seat next to a guy who’s sitting slumped back with his legs stretched out in front of him at right angles to one another. A perfect 90 degrees. So his left leg is somewhat across my seat, which means that I either have to ask him to sit in a more regular fashion, or I need to swivel my legs slightly to the side. I decide to swivel. This clearly isn’t my day.

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My last blog mentioned the government’s new policy of sacking headteachers and the governing bodies of those schools that are failing to reach their arbitrary targets. Today on Radio 4 we had Ed Balls, pal of the prime minister and secretary of state for education, confirming the government’s intention to do precisely this. The way he says it is so macho, so commanding, so tough and decisive. Stupid little prick.

I need to say this again. I fucking hate this government. I hate their arrogance, I hate their weakness, I hate their dogmatism, I hate their stupidity, I hate their pomposity, I hate their lack of imagination and understanding, I hate their fucking 10p tax fuck-up, I hate their failure to empathise with good people who have given their lives to public service and deserve some respect, not dismissal.

What really gets me is that the heads of the schools they’re talking about won’t have a fair trial, with a chance to present their case to a jury of their peers, who know what real life is like. They won’t have any entitlement to advice and support in order to improve their work performance, before getting the boot because they then fail to show evidence of good progress, or evidence as to solid reasons why progress hasn’t been in line with external demands.

The government will simply look at the data, see that targets aren’t being reached and BANG - you’re fired, the governing body is fired, the school’s closed down, and re-opened the following week as the Snottykid Academy or the Smartarse Academy, in all probability run by a newly appointed vastly overpaid so-called superhead recruited through some profiteering agency, and managed by a private sector company like Harris Carpets or Atkins Civil Engineering. I’m not making this up.

Fuck you! Stupid pigs! Rommanrod!

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I guess most of us feel like the filling in a sandwich between the mental and emotional inadequates at the bottom and the mental and emotional inadequates at the so-called top. In between those that have no status, no resources and no money, and those who have them, undeservedly, in super-abundance.

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The government has missed its child poverty targets by miles. Channel 4 has just done a 20 minute feature on the issue as the first item on its programme. Consistency and logic demand that the government sacks itself.

Pensioner poverty is another subject featured on BBC news this evening. More of that soon!

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Privatising Warfare

Panorama, on BBC1 today - watch it on the internet if you missed it. Watch it and weep. As someone on the programme said, the only people who have benefited from the illegal invasion of Iraq are Al Qaeda, the leadership in Iran, Halliburton, and a shitload of other American companies who have made megaprofits from the outsourcing of the aftermath of the invasion. The scale of the corruption and extortion is incredible. And we're all guilty by association, thanks to Blair and New Labour, as well as all the other parliamentary idiots, the media, and the gullible fools who believed the nonsense that was peddled to get us involved.
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