the sawpit

A Global Protection Racket

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

The bully boys (aka the U.S. State Department) have just left town and while they were here many businesses were told that if they were trading with Cuba, they might want to reconsider. The bully boys didn't visit multinational corporations who all know better, they reached down to the level of the mom and pop stores. Now don't imagine these little people were visited by big guys with sharkskin suits and dark glasses ('Nice little store you got here, Mrs Brown. Shame to see something happen to it,' he said, tipping over a barrel of kippers), it doesn't work that way. They let the banks do the strong-arm stuff. Any British bank with ties to U.S. financial institutions (read all of them) were told if they wanted to keep their cozy relationship they had better lean on their customers who were defying the U.S. trade embargo. So a tobacconist who sold Cuban cigars or a commodities trader who was doing brisk business in organic Cuban sugar was informed by his bank that if he didn't want to see his loan threatened or his currency exchange mechanism turned off, he might want 'to make other arrangements'.

Needless to say, these small businesses, like the rest of the world, are hoping to celebrate an Obama election.

Agatha Christie TV

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Exploring television in Britain you find you are never far from a gardening show or a cookery show.

Or Agatha Christie. In a country that loves a good mystery and possesses many a good murder-monger, she reigns over the airwaves like a prevailing wind. There are evenings when a loyal fan might have to choose between reruns of Joan Hickson's Miss Marple and David Suchet's Poirot.

Take this past Saturday for example. There was a oft-repeated Poirot on ITV, an old Tommy and Tuppence on ITV 3, and BBC 4 had 'Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures'.

And even BBC 1's Doctor Who, according to the Daily Mail's TV page, has become interested in '. . . the disappearance of Agatha Christie . . . Was it a nervous breakdown, as she claimed, or a publicity stunt? Or perhaps she was abducted by a giant alien wasp?'

This was all on one night. I swear.

Our New Mayor of London

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Londoners have just gone to the polls to unseat their long-time mayor, Ken ('Red Ken') Livingstone, in favor of maverick Tory Boris Johnson. This outcome was considered so unlikely back in the autumn when Boris announced his candidacy that the bookies would give you 16-1 against. Boris, you see, was considered something of a buffoon, if not an outright liability, within the Conservative Party. That he was elected says something about rebellious Londoners who refuse to be dictated to by the pollsters and The Guardian; sort of like high schoolers electing the class clown as student council president in order to stick it to the school authorities.

Following are some of Boris's more infamous pronouncements:

On George W Bush
"The President is a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate, who epitomises the arrogance of American foreign policy."

On using a mobile phone while driving
"I don't believe that is necessarily any more dangerous than the many other risky things that people do with their free hands while driving - nose-picking, reading the paper, studying the A-Z, beating the children, and so on."

On commuting
"I forgot that to rely on a train, in Blair's Britain, is to engage in a crapshoot with the devil."

On Euro-scepticism
"I can hardly condemn UKIP as a bunch of boss-eyed, foam-flecked Euro hysterics, when I have been sometimes not far short of boss-eyed, foam-flecked hysteria myself."

Tony Blair
"It is just flipping unbelievable. He is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall."

On becoming Prime Minister:
"My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive."

On Channel 5
"I don't see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap-dancing, and other related and vital subjects."

On being sacked by Michael Howard
"My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."

On how to vote
"Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3."

On why he voted for David Cameron as Tory leader
"I'm backing David Cameron's campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest."

On drugs
"I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed so it didn't go up my nose. In fact, it may have been icing sugar."

On the City of Portsmouth
"Too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs."

On tennis
"I love tennis with a passion. I challenged Boris Becker to a match once and he said he was up for it but he never called back. I bet I could make him run around."

On the Labour Party (or Papua New Guinea)
"For 10 years, we in the Tory Party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing, and so it is with happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour Party."

On the Liberal Democrats
"The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition."

Millennium Celebration: America's Rapid Decline

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Along with the Bechtels and Exxons and the private security firms of this world, one other group stands to profit from the successive administrations of Il Bush: future generations of schoolkids will thank him for making their lives a little easier. After trying to memorize all the important dates in American history that seem to be based on prime numbers – 1775, 1917, 1941, 1969 – they will come upon one more, the watershed year when the power of the U.S. began to decline. What could be easier to remember than 2000?

Along with the Bechtels, Exxons, private security firms and the students yet to come, I too celebrate the millenium year of 2000. I have made my peace with the decline of the U.S. as the wealthy superpower. At all odds it had to come; no state, no empire stays on top for ever. But the descent should have been gradual, like the beginner's slope, not freefall like the downside of the rollercoaster. History tells us it could take hundreds of years; after all, Rome wasn't burnt in a day. Fortunately the we will all be spared that. The decline will be precipitous and I couldn't be more pleased. The faster the firepower is removed from American hands the better off we'll all be.

If the latter half of the twentieth century proved one thing, it proved the U.S. cannot be trusted to act responsibly on the world stage. Behind the shibboleth of democracy we left a trail of right-wing dictators, cock-of-the-walk generals and a lot of dead peasants. The only honest government the U.S. ever put in power was the Taliban.

When future historians try to account for this sudden devaluation of American power they will focus on that one year. 2000 will be marked as the year that George Bush came along to give it a good healthy push. We should all celebrate.

Christmas in Goa, Part 2

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Shortly before we left for Goa, Marina's nephew mentioned that a friend had just returned from Mumbai where he'd gone to have some dental work done. Having just had the work on her own teeth estimated on Carnaby Street at ten thousand pounds plus, Marina was interested and the day after we landed she was at a dentist's office in Candolim. Their price was one-tenth that of Carnaby Street and Marina gave them the green light. After three weeks of intermittent appointments she now, as my Aunt Patsy used to say, 'looks like a million bucks'.

And she wasn't the only one. We became aware that repairing the chops of the westerners was an avowed business strategy of the dentists with a practice in the beach towns (the Indians couldn't afford them) and we bumped into Brits, Swedes and Russians who had traveled to Goa specifically for a new smile and a tan. Notice that all the nationalities mentioned ostensibly have socialized medicine and dentistry. Why would all these folks spend the money? One reason is that few of their national health plans cover cosmetic work; another is that their own dentists have full appointment books and extensive work can take months. In Britain the National Health dentists are becoming harder and harder to find as they scramble to open a private practice and escape the government's red tape. The Goans profit, the patient saves and the strain on the National Health is alleviated; it would seem that dental tourism produces only winners.

If this info is of any interest to you, look for a cheap package deal and spend a couple of weeks alternating between a dentist's chair and a beach chair.

Christmas in Goa

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Once upon a time, back in the mezzo-twentieth century, I returned to Delhi after six months up along the Nepalese border, intending to catch the first available flight and be rid of India forever. In the evening, while taking a stroll toward the bazaar, I was passed by a horse-drawn taxi with bells on the reins. It hit me: It was Christmas day. I had seen nothing on the streets to remind me.

I mention this because I have, in fact, broken a longtime promise to myself and returned to India; only it's not really India and I'm surrounded by Christmas decorations. Marina and I are in the former Portuguese colony of Goa and it bears as little relationship to the India I knew as Bangkok does to Vatican City. When the British departed India they left behind their language and their form of government. When the Portuguese pulled out of Goa what remained was their culture and their religion. Over 75% of the population is Catholic, they drink and they merrily slaughter cows and pigs and eat them. Even a Hindu restauranteur will will not blush as he serves you a cheeseburger. The Goans are, in the main, an easygoing and honest people. This is so dissimilar to the rest of Brahmin-run Hindu India that Goa is virtually a separate country.

The fly in the ointment is that Goa is also a tourist Mecca which attracts every shady conman and peddler from several states around. This angers the Goans but there is nothing they can do about it. Nothing but emigrate, which they are doing in great numbers, leaving the place to avaricious Kashmiris and get-rich-quick Maharashtrans who are slowly but steadily trashing the place. Marina, who has been here a number of times, almost broke down in tears when she saw what had happened to Baga Beach. So many huts had sprouted up to sell beer and trinkets that the the restaurant owned by some friends of hers no longer had a view of the beach and water and business was suffering. This is symptomatic of the entire place.

Anyway, happy holidays

A Republic, if you can keep it

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Let's be perfectly clear: We, the people of the United States,

– are re-evaluating the Bill of Rights. No foreign nationals need apply

– are willing to allow our government to construct concentration camps where prisoners can be detained indefinitely, provided said prisoners are foreign nationals and said concentration camps are not sited on U.S. soil

– will condone torture, provided the victims are foreign nationals and it does not take place on U.S. soil

– authorise the Congress to give the Lying Worm another gazillion dollars to pursue his stupid war no matter which social programs go begging

– are satisfied that we have no national initiative on climate change, nor will we support others

– are content to settle no regional conflict. In fact we would like to add a couple

– consciously blur the constitutional distinction between church and state

That, my fellow Americans, is what the last seven years has to say about us; and it is no good saying 'But I voted Democrat'. As long as the Lying Worm is allowed to strut his Benito-on-the-balcony pose on the world stage instead of taking his rightful place, barricaded in the Oval Office while the sans-culottes bay for his blood outside, history will take a different view of our vaunted vote.

England's Prescription for Disaster

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Item 1. Scarcely a day goes by that we aren't informed we have set another meteorological benchmark: the windiest week, the warmest month, the wettest season since Norman the Conqueror. Global Warming is having a profound effect on these small islands, altering migration patterns, driving off familiar species and introducing strange ones. Several years ago I was in a park with friends watching the London baseball team (yes, the London baseball team) play Brighton when we were informed that the temperature had hit 1000F at Heathrow Airport. Such a thing had never happened in historical memory. This summer is promised to be the warmest on record, that record having been set last summer. If you remember a Britain where spring lasted until July 15th and autumn began on July 17th you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise on your next visit.

Item 2. There is tremendous population pressure upon England’s green and pleasant land. To put it in Yank terms, the problem is comparable to shoe-horning the entire populations of California and New York into the state of Alabama. Exacerbating the dilemma is the wish, amounting almost to a fetish, of every Brit to ‘climb on the property ladder’. Unlike their French cousins who are content to rent for their entire lives, the Englishman believes he is due his castle.

Now, with the influx of economic refugees from the impoverished EU countries like Poland and Lithuania, the pressure is such that cracks are beginning to show. Urban councils are starting to sell off their garden allotments and rural councils their farm holdings. More worrying still is the decision to extend London’s sprawl on down the Thames estuary. If the climatologists are right and the icecaps are doomed, and the geologists are right that the island’s southeast is sinking, there is here a prescription for disaster.

London Snaps

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

Below are two rare photos of London: (1) an absolutely unblemished blue sky over the Thames; (2) snow at The National Archives, increasingly uncommon in greenhouse-warmed London.

What about the Brazilian?

Notes from Blighty – by Chris Cobb

News item: A tour group bus holding eighteen British tourists who had just landed in Rio was held by a gang of three wielding pistols, an automatic rifle and a grenade. This was the second robbery of this kind this year, both parties were British. 'Mario da Silveira, a representative of the Secretariat of Public Security, told the Guardian there was no evidence to suggest the attacks were connected.

"Rio de Janeiro is a safe city . It is a city like any other in the world. You get robberies in London, Paris or Rome," he said. "What about the Brazilian who died in London? The British police have covered that up until now."' (Italics mine.)

They sound like the words of any police spokesman anywhere in the world until you get to those last two sentences. To some those sentences might sound almost comically irrelevent, an embarrssed cop snatching at straws, but I hear in them a insistence on the part of the Brazilians that the Jean Charles de Menezes execution should not be allowed to fade from British memory. I think that if that reporter had been talking to the Minister for Agriculture about the price of coffee those two sentences would have found a place.