Social Clubs

As befits and becomes a man born in 1961, I find that I am becoming more reactionary practically by the minute and it strikes me that I haven't contributed to Sir Ian Blair's call for a debate on the role and duty of the police.

Any long time reader might guess that I recommend that Sheriff Joe is appointed to a senior role in the Met forthwith and also - hat tip Clive Davis - I'm quite taken with this old school approach to neighbourhood policing:

When George W. Walling was appointed captain of police late in 1853 and assigned to the command of the district, he found the entire area terrorized by the Honeymoon gang. To suppress them he organized the first Strong Arm Squad and inaugurated a method of attack which was used very effectively in later years. Walling had always been impressed by the fact that the gangster would seldom stand up before a policeman armed with a heavy club, and that there was nothing a thug feared so much as a sound thumping. So he chose half a dozen of his bravest and huskiest patrolmen, and sent them forth in the guise of citizens. They simply walked up to the gangsters and knocked them senseless before the thugs could get into action with their sling shots, bludgeons and brass knuckles. After a few nights of this warfare the gang leader withdrew his men from their accustomed posts, but Captain Walling gave them no rest. Every patrolman in the precinct was provided with the names of the Honeymooners, and whenever one was sighted he was attacked and beaten. Within two weeks the Honeymoon gang had been dispersed, and its members had fled south into the Five Points and the Bowery, where the police were not so rough.

From Herbert Asbury's book "The Gangs of New York", not the misfiring film.

I'm also reminded of an old joke of my Dad's.

"Are you in favour of clubs for boys?"

"Only when the cane has failed."

The idiosyncratic blogger at Chase me .. has been considering criminal justice and deterence Stateside as well:

The annual execution rate for prisoners on death row in the US is 2%. The death rate for street-level drug sellers is 7%, so they would be safer on death row.

Eat Your Way Around the World in London

Our regular drinks after work having become somewhat samey lately, Paul and I have decided to embark on a long gestating project: Eat Your Way Around the World in London.

The idea is to dine on fayre reflecting as many of the capital's communtities and residents as possible. This is our own small nod in the direction of multiculturalism and inclusion, but it should be friendlier than other more po-faced initiatives because restaurants are by their very nature convivial places and, when it comes to grub, yumminess is more important than authenticity.

We kicked off last night at Sree Krishna a Keralan place in Colliers Wood.

I started on masala dosai which is a rice and lentil flour pancake filled with potato masala and Paul had a vada which is a deep fried black gram doughnut with ginger, onion, curry- leaves and chopped green chillies.

For the main course Paul had a Karaikkudi chicken stir fry and I had a chicken Chettinadu. We shared a cabbage Thoran (which is fresh sliced cabbage with coconut, turmeric and spices) and some bog standard pulao rice.

When I was in Kerala I ntoiced that the people there ate their own local fluffy rice which is quite different to the hard grained basmati that we are used to, but I've never seen any Keralan rice in the UK.

(Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations.)

Happiness

Nigel passed away last night. This morning Jane asked me to think of a cheerful song for him, and its true that he was indeed a cheerful soul and that he loved his music and songs.

One of my most abiding memories of him was how content he was at the cottage in Kent. I remember his string. I remember following it up the drive where he had laid it to guide me. I remember him fishing out of windows with it. And I remember him lost in reverie twirling it joyfully round and round his head in the field.

So regardless of his learning disabilities, Nigel's great gift, and it is a gift not granted many, was the gift to be happy I think.

For me a song from Ken Dodd evokes him. It's from his era and I am sure he would know it.

I can't remember him ever playing it, but I can easily imagine him listening to it, laughing, and conducting - as he so often did - with both hands.

Happiness, Happiness
The greatest gift that I possess.
I thank the Lord that I’ve been blessed
With more than my share of happiness.

To me this world is a wonderful place
I’m the luckiest human in the human race
I’ve got no silver and I’ve got no gold
But I’ve got happiness in my soul

Happiness to me is an ocean tide
A sunset fading on a mountain side
A big old heaven full of stars above
When I’m in the arms of the one I love

Happiness, Happiness
The greatest gift that I possess.
I thank the Lord that I’ve been blessed
With more than my share of happiness.

Happiness is a field of grain
Turning its face to the falling rain
I see it in the sunshine, breathe it in the air
Happiness, happiness everywhere

A wise old man told me one time
Happiness is a frame of mind
When you get to measuring a man’s success
Don’t count money, count happiness.

Happiness, Happiness
The greatest gift that I possess.
I thank the Lord that I’ve been blessed
With more than my share of happiness.

Do Go Gentle

I went to see Nigel in the hospice yesterday afternoon. The nurse at reception told me that although he would recognise me, he can't speak anymore. At first when I looked through the door of his room I thought that the bed was empty, but he was there. It is just that he is so shrunken he barely ripples the bedclothes. He was only diagnosed on October 6.

I said hello and saw, I think, in his eyes that he was aware of me. No one else was there and I stayed for quite a while, sometimes talking to him but mostly quiet.

It was peaceful and dignified, and I sensed again the grace that I have been aware of on each of my visits. It is something that I can't explain, but it is real, and when I left, although I was sad, I felt that there was comfort.

Far and Wide

I was lucky enough to sign "A Welsh Born Icon" up for Google Anayltics before demand forced them to pull up the drawbridge while they add new capacity.

One of the reports that they provide is a geographical breakdown of site visitors and I have posted a Geo Map Overlay of a few days worth of data on the left.

Who would imagine that people would be looking at this site from all over North America, from Tokyo and Moscow, from Australia and New Zealand, from China, Bulgaria and Malta etc. etc?

What a strange new world this is! People being what they are though, after looking at the map for a while I find myeslf sulking that I have only got one reader in each of South America and India, and none at all in Africa. Must do better.

Binge Peeting!

Stepping gingerly through the broken glass, the discarded prophylactics and syringes - not to mention the comatose bodies - on my post apocalyptic journey to work now that the licensing laws have been relaxed, I find myself daydreaming in Nadsat o my brothers.

Youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal. But oh, but now with the tonyblairs' alldaylong firegold.

"Not to our blame," sterns the goloss of the millicents.

"All the poor malchicks; all the poor ptitsas; nothing but pyahnitsas," fret the poogied pee and em's. "Alldaylong peeting, a tolchock on the rot, and then - unprotected my bog - the drunken consented in out, in out."

Now, and more responsible like, the tonyblairs governing govoreets, "late licences will curb baddiwad behaviour by stopping peeters from heading domy at the same raz," ha ha ha ha.

(Appy polly loggies to Anthony Burgess.)

Infomania

When the Daily Telegraph opines that the Tory party should be more like Linux and Wikipedia than Microsoft and the Encyclopaedia Britannica the world has changed more than even I - a confirmed infomaniac - imagined.

Intention

Along with several other voters from the constituency, I met with Paul Goggins MP last night to discuss the “Racial and Religious Hatred Bill”.

His manner was emollient, and I did indeed find him rather a slippery character to be honest. If you’re familiar with the Bill you’ll know that the notion of intent has been central to the discussions. When the minister was speaking to us, he was asserting that for an offence to be committed the provocation must be intended to be threatening, abusive or insulting and intended to stir up racial hatred. Which is all very well, but it is not what the Bill said originally. When I asked him if he was talking about the original Bill, the Lords Amendments, or what might be in the draft for the Third Reading, he just tried to glide past me leading me to lose my rag a little and accuse him of sophistry.

In all honesty, and although I was there to damn the Bill, it is impossible to have a discussion about it when it is such a moving target.

There was another revealing moment, when the minister observed that it was “only a small gap” in the law that the legislation was required to close, someone asked him to explain exactly what this gap was. He appeared to answer in that he opened his mouth and words came out but no explanation was forthcoming.

All in all, I was very disappointed but not surprised by the quality of argument from the Government. On the other hand I was pleasantly surprised by the eloquence and attention to detail evident in the contributions of the other voters who attended with me.

I will just sign off with a couple of other small observations.

We were told that religion is not defined in the law as this will be left to the courts to do. This is madness. Case law and precedence will ultimately make something ridiculous of this.

The Governments estimated costs of the Bill for the criminal justice system are £225,000 in the first year and £109,000 in subsequent years. Yeah right.

Let’s take those numbers for a walk. There are 43 police forces in England and Wales giving them a budget of £211.24 a month each once the system is up and running and assuming that the Crown Prosecution Service don’t spend any money at all. Does that sound feasible at all for support of a system where any decision to prosecute will be taken by the Attorney General personally?

A War Like No Other

I always find Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers an interesting read, so I lobbed them a donation a couple of weeks ago. In return I got an signed hardback copy of his latest book, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Sparta Fought the Peloponnesian War, that arrived in the post today.

I'm very interested in the Greeks at the moment. I bought a 6CD audio version of Persian Fire recently. I think that I'll listen to it in the car the next time I drive to Wales and back.

Buddha Joke

From the eccentric, but ever diverting, Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry:

Anyway, so the Buddha goes into a pizzeria and says, "Make me one with everything."

Attention blowhards of the world: Religious Hatred not deliberately incited above.

Stopped Beating Your Wife?

After brooding last night, I've slept on the issue of my chance to lobby on the Racial and Religious Hatred bill and I have decided to go down with all guns blazing condeming the whole thing out of hand.

Strangely the clincher has been the proposed PEN freedom of expression amdment that nothing in the bill "shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytizing or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practicing their religion or belief system.

Let's imagine for a second how that would read to a pious Muslim for whom Islam would be to all intents and purposes synonymous with religion. Such a person would be entirely justified in reading the amendment as saying that nothing in the bill "shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of Islam or the beliefs or practices of their Muslims, or proselytizing or urging Muslims to cease practicing their religion or belief system.

Why on earth should we enact such a law? A law that by failing to prohibit or restrict, permits "expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse"?. Why can't the Government just shut up for five minutes? Putting such a thing on the Statute Book as an amendment is an act of lunacy comparable to the original tabling of the legislation. It is clear to me now that once one gets involved in the detail of drafting such laws, almost every wording carries a risk and threat like the unanswerable "have you stopped beating your wife?" question.

The Victorian prime minister Lord Salisbury's maxim on foreign affairs seems apt for this situation: "Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible."

What is to be done?

My meeting with Paul Goggins on Tuesday is fast approaching so I guess I need to start to think about what I am going to try and achieve.

First off the bat I believe that all hate crime legislation is an insidious dead end, bad for society and disastrous for jurisprudence. I would like to see it all overturned tomorrow. Specifically:

1. Many if not most crimes are committed with an element of hate, so defining a specific subset of laws as 'hate crimes' is meaningless
2. These very laws in fact imply the inequality of citizens before the law (as they grant 'castes' of special sub-groups privileges other groups do not enjoy).
3. The government should outlaw actions, not thoughts or states of mind.

That position, however, is unlikely to get me very far in the current climate of opinion. (I'm scarcely hiding it though as I'm publishing it here.)

I've been corresponding with PEN about the NO Offence campaign. The line that they are taking is that because Labour has made this a manifesto commitment, it is unlikely to get voted down completely so they have been working with the House of Lords to try and make sure that the Bill is amended so that its nastier implications are strictly contained.

So, while they purport to recognize the government's good intentions in putting forward this bill, they say its very loose drafting means that it is open to a great many abuses which will cost society a great deal as the bill is likely to be read as a de facto extension of the blasphemy law that will have to be tested time and time again in court cases and police investigations of complaints; and further that it will be used to intimidate writers, directors and performers.

So they support the Lords amendments which spell out in great detail requirements for

• the protection of free expression
• the need for an 'intention' to incite hatred to be written into the face of the bill
• the words 'insulting and abusive' to be removed so that what is criminal is what is threatening.
  

They think that the last is the least important, but they're adamant on the first two.

There are negotiations going on in the upper house at the moment and quite soon there will be a third reading which will include some amendments as concessions.

The PEN Amendment for the Protection of freedom of expression reads as follows: Nothing in the Racial or Religious Hatred Bill "shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytizing or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practicing their religion or belief system."

Which seems reasonable enough until you start going round in circles thinking, in that case why have the blasted bill in the first place? Which is of course where I started off.

So again, while not deluding myself that I have any influence, should I decry the whole deluded misadventure or soberly boost the first two PEN objectives? As of today I just can't decide.

What are the Police For?

Sir Ian Blair in this year's Dimbleby Lecture (transcript here) has said that the public must decide what they want from the Police.

What the police are for is a surprisingly difficult question. The first time I ever saw it addressed was in a a remarkable article called "Broken Windows" published in the Atlantic in 1982.

Broken Windows has cast a long shadow. It is really the inspiration behind "zero tolerance", neighbourhood policing, and all sorts of initiatives.

You can read it (in Adobe Acrobat format) at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/_atlantic_monthly-broken_windows.pdf

On Acting

I'm off with Andy - younger than me, erstwhile Thump the Clouds stalwart, brother of Phil and widower of Sara - tonight to see Kurt Elling in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Elling's 'Flirting with Twilight' is one of my most treasured albums, and Moonlight Serenade - the opening cut - is one of the tracks I would take to a desert island.

I can't remember how or why I became aware of Elling - I bet if I was blogging at the time I would - but I'm really looking forward to this evening.

I remember that back in 1989, Andy's father was working at Matthew Hall in London, pretty much opposite the theatre where Dustin Hoffman was playing Shylock in a production of the Merchant of Venice directed by Peter Hall. The show was sold out, but Andy's Dad decided to check for return tickets at the end of each day on his way home. When he eventually got a ticket, I remember him comparing the production to a recent RSC version with Anthony Sher ans saying that, although Anthony Sher convinced him, he wasn't really convinced that Hoffman wanted the pound of flesh.

At the time I took that as a criticism of Hoffman's performance. However, as it happens, the South Bank Show shot a documentary around the rehearsal's for the Hall/Hoffman show, and in that when it was screened several months later I remember Hoffman saying that - in his take - Shylock didn't actually want Antonio's pound of flesh; he just wanted to humiliate him; a point of view he evidently managed to communicate on stage in character.

Note to self: what I had taken for criticism was in fact the success of a precisely articulated and achieved performance,

Benglish

I asked my five year old this morning why he was always starting fights with his older brother.

"I don't start the fights," he said. "It's just that whenever I punch him he starts a fight with me."

Out Come the Freaks

For anyone who doubts that the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill will aggravate community relations, spur bigots and loonies to stir up trouble and waste our institutions' time with vexatious complaints and campaigns; for anyone who doubts, in short, that it will have precisely the opposite effect to that intended and promulgated, this from Christian Voice.

Christian Voice opposes the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill as an illiberal attack on freedom of speech. It actually does nothing about racial hatred, that’s already on the Statute Book, but it brings in a subjective law against religious hatred which we say will stop legitimate criticism of religions. We want the freedom to preach the Gospel, to say Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life, and that the gurus and prophets of other religions lead nowhere except to hell.

Odd but true: the Bill was only brought in to buy Muslim votes at the last General Election. Muslim leaders see it as a Bill which will stop anyone criticising Islam. The Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP, Home Secretary, wrote to every mosque in the country before the election promising to bring in this Bill if re-elected. We shall continue to fight the Bill, by the grace of God. However, if this Bill is passed, we shall do two things, God willing and as He gives us strength and courage:

(1) Report Islamic Bookshops for selling the Quran and Hadith, which, if they aren’t hate speech, nothing is. In fact, Muslim leaders have already tried to have the Quran exempted from the Bill - and failed. (2) We shall be quick off the mark and fearless in His strength alone in pointing out what is wrong with other religions and what is right with Christianity. If anyone is going to be a ‘hate speech martyr’ it must be a Christian, and not the leader of the British National Party, who would love that distinction.

Though I wouldn't presume to offer any advice to Christian Voice about reporting Islamic bookshops for selling the Quran, perhaps I can pass on some from St Augustine: "hold thy peace".

Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.

I don't hear a great deal of love in the tone of Christian Voice.

(Bizarrely St Augustine has been in the back of my mind since, channel hopping the other night, I stumbled across Robbie Williams, apparently paraphrasing the great Church Father, singing, “Oh Lord, make me pure . . . but not yet,” on a track from his new album.)

Weighty Matters

Let's take a break from the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill for a moment or two.

When I finished in the gym today I was pleased to see that I weighed 88.9 kg, essentially dead on 14 stone. That is a milestone and, I think the lightest I've been for a long time. I'm not really sure how long however, which - in a way - is why I'm recording it here. In the future I would like to know what I weighed in November 2005.

When I started recording my weight towards the end of September this year I weighed 14 stone 9, so apart from the occasional lapse, I've been shedding pounds at a steady but not spectacular rate. When I think that I've been working out since the beginning of June, however, I shudder to think how much I might have weighed then. Wobble to think might indeed be more appropriate than shudder, as I'm not dieting and I still drink like a fish so I've probably been shrinking for all of the over five months that I've been training.

Projecting trends into the future is always hazardous - I remember my friend John Carter warning me, in the early 80s, that "at the present rate of growth every other man in the USA will be an Elvis impersonator by the year 2000" - but my current rate of shrinkage would take me down to 80kg in another five months.

I'd be happy with that, hence I am officially adopting 80kg as my target weight even though I'd still like to think that the Lobster Challenge has a place in my future.

Power and Responsibility

Further to my post yesterday, I have found that Parliament published the the text of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, as introduced in the House of Commons on 9th June 2005 here, along with Explanatory Notes to the Bill, prepared by the Home Office.

I've also been looking at the Press Release that Charles Clarke issued back in May introducing his new team at the Home Office.

This is interesting as it clarifies more about the range of Paul Goggins responsibilties in supporting Hazel Blears. He has particular responsibility for:

Serious and organised crime
Drugs
Asset Recovery Agency
Security Industry Authority
Public order, sex offences, roads policing, animal extremism, internet crime, child pornography and football disorder
Voluntary and community sector, community cohesion, faith and race equality

Another Minister at an equivalent level in the Home Office Fiona Mactaggart - the Parliamentary under Secretary supporting Patricia Scotland - has particular responsibility for:

CJ system including race, victims and witnesses, inspection and IT
Criminal law
National Offender Management Service casework and restorative justice
Criminal injuries compensation
Criminal Cases Review
Commission
Prostitution

Which is also interesting to me because the bulk of our work is in Criminal Justice (CJ) Information Technology (IT).

I've found it interesting over the last couple of days to discover what a good tool a 'blog is for supporting research. I hadn't realised when I just used it for odd jotting and musing.

Free Expression

It seems that PEN and Penguin are bringing out a book of essays 'Free Expression Is No Offence' containing essays by, among others, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Hari Kunzru, and Howard Jacobson that will try an coalesce opposition to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill and explain why such opposition is necessary. It isn't coming out until a couple of days after my meeting unfortunately.

Hansard's account of the progress of the Bill in the Lord's on Novemebr 8th is given here. I imagine that what I need to track down next is the complete text.

I stand by my words

I'm reading Istanbul at the moment, Orhan Pamuk's impressionistic meld of memoir, history and guide to his birthplace. Still living at the age of fifty in the same apartment block in which he was raised and his extended family has long lived, Pamuk comes across as something of a homebody.

A simple orderly life is now a thing of the past. According to The Observer recently:

It began with an off-the-cuff remark in an interview with a Swiss newspaper. While discussing curbs on freedom of expression in Turkey, Pamuk said that 'a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in this country and I'm the only one who dares to talk about it'.
.......
Last August, an Istanbul public prosecutor charged him with the 'public denigration of Turkish identity'. The trial is set for 16 December. If convicted, Pamuk faces three years in prison.

There was a time when an offence like "public denigration of Turkish identity" would have sounded sound preposterous in the United Kingdom. That time is long gone, and the 'Racial and Religious Hatred Bill' is going to take us further down the slippery slope.

Paul Goggins is the Home Office Minister who has the unenviable task of steering this bill through Parliament. He is the Parliamentary Under Secretary who assists Minister of State Hazel Blears who is responsible for policing, security and community safety under the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke.

As I wrote yesterday, I'm going to get a chance to meet him later this month to talk about the Bill. As part of my research, I've found an interview and brief profile of him in the Tablet.