Very often after returning from the U.S. I contrast the chirpy cheerfulness of sales staff in the U.S. with the monosyllabic and apparent indifference of their counterparts in the UK. Arriving at Heathrow on Wednesday afternoon I bought a ticket for the bus and then a bottle of juice and was confronted by aforementioned monosyllabic staff.
For some reason, this time, I was more philosophical. Yes, the guy could have done with some training in how to relate to customers but on the other hand he was being himself. After dealing with car hire and mobile phone companies in the U.S. I had started to speculate that the U.S. forces people to modify their behaviour to suite the system. This arrangement is good in that it increases efficiency and allows greater material prosperity but I wonder whether the cost is increased alienation of people from society.
The Virgin Atlantic flight from L.A. to London had been on an airbus A300-600. The seats on this aircraft allowed virtually no room for one to move ones legs. I recall that, in the past, long haul flights made a big issue of telling you to perform leg exercises and I believe that this was to counter a tendency of long haul passengers to suffer blood clots in the legs following a flight. This is known as known as Deep Vein Thrombosis.
The emphasis on efficiency has led Virgin to pack the seats closer and closer together so that now it is not possible for even a person of my modest stature to raise ones legs once seated. Consequently the airline no longer deems it necessary to encourage passengers to exercise and I wonder whether the instances of known as Deep Vein Thrombosis, which can be fatal, have increased. I also wonder whether these chairs conform to any safety standards and whether Deep Vein Thrombosis is considered within these standards.
England was warm and sunny and I boarded a National Express bus to Brighton. Arriving home around 7:30pm I implemented my strategy for negating the effects of jet lag. There are two important factors to countering jet lag. The first is to attempt to stay awake during the daylight hours of the destination both on the aircraft and as soon as one arrives. For this one needs some kind of activity to perform on arrival. The second factor is to consume alcohol just prior to the desired sleep period.
As I had arrived home in early evening my course was clear. I occupied a couple of hours preparing and consuming a curry and then opened a bottle of beer.
I switched on Radio 4 and considered my three weeks in the United States. While driving around in California I had listened to talk radio. While American PBS fights a bravely to encourage intelligent debate it is a battle it seems destined to lose. I listened with interest to shock jocks and dismissed the right wing as bigoted. I listened to the liberals and began to think that there might be reasoned debate but soon realised that the left too is obsessed with over simplification and adherence to dogma.
A friend of mine once met an American woman who claimed to be allergic to glass and insisted on drinking beverages through a straw. He deduced from this that all Americans are potty and this is a widely held view in the United Kington. Personally I temper this with acceptance of difference and the knowledge that the United States is a vast country with numerous disparate people.
However, I sometimes find myself wondering, if Americans appear potty to the British, why do we not hold similar opinions of other nationalities? It is possible that pottyness is merely the most prominent defining character for Americans and that other nationalities too have their defining characters but I think that what is more likely is that the language we share with Americans enables us to gain an insight into their world view and that we are denied this insight with other nationalities. This reasoning is strengthened as I believe that Brits also consider Australians to be potty. Perhaps if we were fluent in Spanish or Chinese we would consider them potty too?
I guess that if an understanding of the language of a foreign country means that on is capable of appreciating their pottyness then, as English is the most common second language, it is the British who must appear the most potty and that is a stereotype that I am very happy to live with.
Oh dear. I am finding myself agreeing with the way that the UK is going.
I heard today that the plans to build a third runway at Heathrow airport have been scrapped. Good, all cheap air travel does is allow more people to travel to the other side of the world to see that the environment there has been ruined by things such as airports.
I heard that Nick Clegg is saying there will be tighter regulation on CCTV. Good, the UK is the most spied on society in the world. A free society is not one when the government watches everything you do.
I heard that they are designing a new Routemaster bus with an open back so that you can hop on and off. Good, this is a British classic and far more convenient than the curent buses.
A cynic would say that the Con / Libs are just announcing the good news first to make a good first impression. However, at the least they have some good news which is more than can be said for the ghastly burbling drivel spouted by Ed Balls this week when interviewed by Eddie Mayer on Radio 4′s PM. Mr. Balls waffle was staggering. This is a man who is standing for leadership of one of the UK’s great political parties. A potential future Prime Minister. Yet he could not think of a single thing to say.
Oops, there I go again attacking New Labour. I have this fear that the people of the UK will awake together and find we were dreaming. Pinch me someone. Is the New Labour nightmare really over?
Roy seems to have slept through the lost years of New Labour
Roy Hattersley revealed himself as a rank hypocrite on BBC Radio 4′s Any Questions on Friday evening. He continually accused the Liberal Democrats of dishonour and betraying their principles. At one point he said “what’s most important about a member of parliament is believing in something.”
This stands in stark contrast to Mr. Hattersley’s deafening silence during the lost years of New Labour when the media men took the reins of power. It was not just Mr. Hattersely, of course, the entire Labour party signed up to the idea that principles were no good if you did not have power. Tony Blair invited Margaret Thatcher to Number 10 while Mandelson and Campbell set about butchering party policy to imitate the conservatives. They cozied up to big business and made waffle the newspeak of government. Let us not forget that at the height of New Labour’s tenure in office John Prescott was pushing through the idea of build super casinos! One has to wonder what could have driven Two Jags to such stupidity? – It certainly was not principle.
Though I listen to Radio 4 a lot I find the audiences to many programs to be completely objectionable. They clap sycophantically after every word from the panel yet roar like football hooligans when they think they smell blood. Radio 4 is a predominantly middle class institution and I believe it reveals the underlying yobbish vacuity of many people who rank themselves among the British middle class. Radio 4′s Any Questions is one of the few occasions when when a sufficient number of them herd together to create a critical mass. The bigoted opinions of each one reinforces the bigoted opinions of the other and as a result they bay like animals at the Liberals for compromising and joining a coalition yet roared their support for the Green candidate, whom none of them voted for, ignoring the fact that the Green’s only real chance at government in the future is likely to be a coalition.
During my drive to work this morning I listened to BBC Radio 4 and heard Evan Davies interview the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Peter Mandelson. Of course Mr. Mandelson spent all his time evading and filibustering while Mr. Davies did his best to get a straight answer. Masochists may listen to the interview here
At the end of the interview Mr. Mandelson said something along the lines of “A pleasure as ever”. This sounded to me very much like he considered that this had been a successful interview. Well, it depends on how you define success.
Mr. Mandelson’s definition appears to be that it is not to answer any questions. If this is the definition, then this was a resounding success. If you think that the interview should have been an honest presentation of the governments record and plans for the future then it was a pathetic failure.
So why is it that Mr. Mandelson is completely incapable of being honest? Why is it that he appears to spend the whole time conniving to present an image rather than actually explaing the governments position?
The answer is that media manipulation is all he knows. Wikipedia gives us an interesting insight into Mr. Mandelson’s background.
Read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Catherine’s College, Oxford
Director of the British Youth Council
Three years on Lambeth Borough Council (1979 to 1982)
Worked as a television producer at London Weekend Television on Weekend World
Appointed Labour Party’s Director of Communications in 1985.
Ran Fulham by-election campaign 1986
Managed the Labour Party’s 1987 general election campaign
Do you see any evidence that Mr. Mandelson has ever built a road, for example? Has he ever turned around a failing company? Did he manage a budget? Did he raise funds? Has he ever worked on a factory floor? Has he ever managed a government department? Has he done anything in his entire life that could be deemed useful to the British people?
To my mind the answer is no.
Of course I understand that in the 21st century politicians will employ people to help them “get their message across” but New Labour have allowed these media wonks to take control of the party. When Mr. Mandelson finally pulled off an election victory, Labour supporters were so desperately grateful that they lost there sense of judgement along with their self respect. They allowed Mr. Mandelson to use his contacts to move from an advisor to become a main player in the government itself. Now that he is there it is obvious that he does not have a clue what to do. He merely continues to do what he has always done. Which is to try to convince everyone, by fair means or foul, that New Labour are doing a fantastic job. The activities of new Labour expend the energy of the political establishment while achieving nothing. Mr. Mandelson gives off heat but no light.
In the interview Mr. Evans attempts to get a point across. The point is that new Labour continually make promises and set targets which they fail to achieve but, by the time their failure is apparent, they have moved the agenda on to some new target. Mr. Mandelson ducked and weaved and eventually said:
“Evan, with the greatest love and respect, I think I’m going to have to take some time to answer your questions, would you mind?”
He then launches into a an enormous monologue which I reproduce here:
“Thank you very much indeed. I think it’s very important that the government, where appropriate enacts targets, benchmarks, by which it judges itself, but more importantly, by which the public judges its delivery. That’s why we are providing guarantees for educational entitlements that’s why we’re putting in place national health service guarantees for patients, including the right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks if their GP suspects that they have cancer, that’s why we’re going to lay the foundations for the national care service for the elderly, now, the point I’m trying to make to you isthat politics is about spelling out your policies, it’s about spelling out policy differences: what they mean for the public, what they say about the party’s values and beliefs, now that may be all too detailed and too policy wonkish [sic] for the taste and appetite of the BBC, certainly Today, butthis is what is important for the public, and whether it be fuel poverty and our ability and determination to drive on and meet our 2010 targets, how we want to enshrine clearer individual guarantees and entitlements, both in our schools and in the national health service, the debate, the very important provision that we have got to talk about in this country, about supporting families who are looking after elderly parents or relatives who need that care, all these things are about politics, they are about policies, they are about what the public is interested in , Even, and what in time they will judge us, and the other parties, by when the election comes.”
Of course Mr. Mandelson is Talking Bollocks. Most of this is just waffle to use up time and distance himself from the question but Mandelson reveals his deeply flawed understanding of politics. He thinks that politics is about getting the message across and he thinks that this is what the public are interested in.
It isn’t and we aren’t.
He has confused public relations with politics and this has been the flaw in New Labour from the very beginning. Politics is not about getting the message across! That is a secondary objective. The job of politics is to set policy and deliver. Endlessly setting new policies and objectives is merely an indication of the failures of past policies.
It’s worth considering the words Mr. Mandelson used to gain some space to waffle:
“Evan, with the greatest love and respect, I think I’m going to have to take some time to answer your questions, would you mind?”
There are all sorts of people in this world with all sorts of opinions. The kind I find most objectionable are the kind who can smile in your face while they stab you in the back. The sort that can lie through their teeth.
Peter, with the greatest love and respect, you are a complete shit who should never have been allowed into British politics.
On Thursday, 29 October 2009on BBC Radio 4′s Today program James Naughtie interviewed the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and the Conservative shadow Foreign secretary William Hague. Mr. Miliband accused the Conservatives of allying themselves with a far right party in Poland and based this on comments in the New Statesmen magazine by Polish MEP, Michal Kaminski from the Law and Justice party.
Mr. Miliband quoted The New Statesman and Mr. Hague quoted Poland’s Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich and cited the Israeli government as two sources who supported Mr Kaminski.
Mr. Milband would not back off and pushed home his accusation that the Tories were fraternising with Nazis.
The following day on the Today program James Naughtie interviewed Poland’s Chief Rabbi where he admitted that Mr. Kaminski had been a member of a far right party in his youth but had more recently rejected that path and was now “a strong friend of Israel”.
He went on to say that the “no one here in Poland would consider the Law and Justice party as a fringe far right party”
Mr. Naughtie asked whether the question over an apology for the massacre of hundreds or thousands of Jews was, for Poland, akin to the questions over whether Britain should apologise for the colonial era or the crusades and Mr. Schudrich agreed that this was the case although he obviously had reservations regarding “the way it was expressed”
Mr. Schudrich suggested that this attack on Mr. Kaminski played to the stereotype that all poles are anti-semitic which he claimed was false.
On Thursday the new Statesman had placed an article on it’s web site defending it’s report and suggested that Mr. Schudrich has been under pressure from the Polish authorities.
So what are we to make of this? Is Michal Kaminski a member of a far right party or did Rabbi Schudrich, shoot off an angry email and then regret it afterwords?
We should remember the context of this debate. The Labour government is trying desperately to defend itself from accusations that it’s reputation on the economy is in tatters and simultaneously Labour is finding it hard to score hits against the Tories.
We should remember that New Labour came to power on a wave of media manipulation and spin. Over ten years later, it is obvious that this is all they ever had. Their ideas and judgement has been proved worthless (No More Boom and Bust!).
When Gordon brown called upon his arch-enemy from the Blair years, the twice disgraced Peter Mandelson to rejoin the government he was signalling that he needed Mandy’s manipulation skills back in the government for, without that, they had nothing.
I suggest that this palaver over this Polish MP is more of Mandelson’s spin. With Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time fresh in the public consciousness Mr. Mandelson decided to play the race card. He thought that he could smear the Tories. Remember that this is Mandelson’s profession. He was not brought in to government for his knowledge of business or economics; the only career he knows is the media. A basic rule of journalism is “simplify and emphasise” and this is what he has done in relation to this Polish politician.
The politics of all countries are complex and a country such as Poland, newly emerged from occupation and which sees itself as conquered by the Germans and betrayed by the British and the Russians must be tortuous. To pick up on a one paragraph email to a pro-Labour magazine and use this for a public accusation of fraternising with Nazis shows to what levels new Labour will sink as they thrash around to stay afloat.
This morning I listened the Today program on Radio 4 and heard Tony Woodley, the joint secretary of the Unite union, discussing the recent take over of Vauxhall/Opal by a Canadian parts manufacturer named Magna. Obviously Mr. Woodley argued for retaining the jobs at Ellesmere Port and Luton.
Save Vauxhall campaign logo
The role of a Union is to represent the worker so it is right that Mr. Woodley argues for protecting the jobs of workers. In a Capitalist system, it is also right that the managers of the company protect the value of the company for shareholders. Ideally the two sides would meet to discuss the issues involved and reach some kind of compromise.
These days, corporations have become global and many are classed as multinationals and have shareholders from multiple nations. The managers of these corporations will naturally look to base their business in a location which provides the maximum Return On Investment (ROI) and in the case of Vauxhall/Opal this might mean that they may decide to close down Ellesmere Port or Luton in favour of continuing or expanding production in Germany.
You may not agree with Capitalism but this is how it works.
The response of trade unions has been pitiful. Mr. Woodley has merely argued that the British government should intervene to protect British jobs. This is an inadequate response.
Politically unions tend to be lean to the left and some are outright socialists emphasising the fraternity of workers world wide. Indeed the very purpose of a union is to unite workers so that they cannot be picked off individually by the employers.
“United we stand, divided we fall” is a common phrase within trade unionism yet when job cuts loom union leaders scurry to save their workers jobs at the cost of foreign jobs.
The corporate managers must love it. Governments of each country are badgered by their unions into supplying incentives to the multinationals. More often than not these incentives boil down to tax payers money and the tax payers are the same workers who’s jobs the government is trying to protect.
Dr. Johnson has been much in the news recently and it was he who said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. I am not suggesting that union leaders are scoundrels but they show a woeful lack of imagination and principle when allowing corporations to play one nation off against another.
We have comparatively free markets within The European Union for goods and services. The unions within Europe should unite to protect the jobs and rights of workers throughout Europe.
Of course the argument is then that the jobs will go outside the European Union but as we do not have a global free trade area yet perhaps global union action can also wait.
On Wednesday morning The Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Reverend James Jones, spoke on Radio 4’s Thought For The Day. He talked of war and referred to “the inevitable slaughter of innocents”.
The Slaughter of the Innocents by Tintoretto, 1587
It’s true that, these days, we expect that war will involve the slaughter of innocents but I wonder if it’s always been that way.
Certainly armies throughout history have committed massacres after defeating opposing forces but is this the same as today’s collateral damage?
Israel often asserts a distinction between the deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian groups and the targeted attacks on Palestinian individuals which result in civilian casualties. When Great Britain or The United States launch missile attacks against individuals in Afghanistan and kill scores this is generally thought of as unfortunate but inevitable.
Conventional armies can claim to target specific individuals as they have the technology and the ability to assert absolute power over an area even if only temporarily. The forces which we term “terrorists” are usually the weaker side, they are the people who are reacting against a status quo. They have no standing armies and only limited technology and they often resort to isolated surprise attacks on civilians.
We brand these people “terrorists” as they aim to cause terror by but can a random explosion be more terrifying than a F16 fighter bomber screaming overhead firing missiles into the ground? Donald Rumsfeld called it “Shock and Awe” and this sounds like a pretty good definition of terror to me.
Terrorism is a tactic, it is not an enemy. You can no more declare war on terrorism than you can declare war on a siegewarefare or attrition warfare.
I wonder if this acceptance of civilian casualties might have developed during the second world war with the use of mass aerial bombing. Even though it was known that dropping bombs from thousands of feet in the air must mean a high degree of inaccuracy and consequent civilian casualties the bombing was accepted. Perhaps it was accepted because of the enormity of the struggle and the sense that this was a life or death struggle for each nation.
The military have developed more accurate missiles since then and we have been shown videos of “smart bombs” being guided directly to their target yet still we hear of attacks on wedding parties in Afghanistan.
We have become so inured to civilian casualties during conflict that now a Christian Bishop tells us that the slaughter of innocents is inevitable. Perhaps it is not? Perhaps we should be a little more careful in our choice of targets and our choice of weapons?
The fact that our opponents kill innocents is no reason for us to do so. The mass slaughter of civilians in New York nearly eight years ago can be seen as the reason for much of the current military activity by The West but surely the fact that civilians were targeted should emphasise that the reason our troops are fighting is to prevent attacks on civilians be they Americans or Afghans.
It is easier to just get angry. It is easier to fight anyone or anything. It’s easier to lob missiles and hope you get the right guy.
Inevitable?
I met an American soon after 9/11 and we discussed the attack on the twin towers and the war in Iraq and I said that the Iraqis were not involved in the 9/11 attacks and I recall his response. He said “I don’t care”.
He didn’t care who the U.S. military attacked. He thought that the 9/11 attacks were so atrocious that the U.S. was justified in hitting out at anyone.
But killing random strangers only serves to enflame hatred.
The United States are reported to have mounted a large laser weapon inside a Boeing aircraft.
I have read speculation regarding effectiveness of this laser when destroying tanks but we already have very effective anti-tank weapons which can be mounted on smaller aircraft so what is the point of the laser?
I wonder of the United States hasn’t realised that it needs a weapon which can target individuals from a great distance.
Sadam Hussein goes for a walk in the garden of his palace, a telephone call is made by someone inside the palace, a military jet stops circling and moves into position. Pfzzzzzzz!! Sadam boils away into thin air and a large sum of money is deposited in the Swiss bank account of an Iraqi official.
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Yet another British soldier was killed in Afghanistan on Thursday and in Britain there is a sense that this conflict is going nowhere. Of course it is possible for NATO to maintain control of Afghanistan and to tolerate the trickle of military casualties but are we achieving anything?
In the wake of 9/11 The United States may have two immediate goals: To bring to justice those behind the attacks on New York and, arguably, to avenge the deaths of thousands of innocents. Two overlapping and some might say contradictory goals.
In the days of the British Empire this may have resulted in punitive attacks but since the Second World War, followed by The Cold War, The United States sees itself as a moral power bringing liberty to the world and punitive strikes are not now considered an acceptable response.
The United States is trying to replay the experience of the Second World War. It’s game plan is the total occupation of it’s opponents country followed by the rebuilding of that country as a industrialised capitalist democracy.
This worked very well with Germany and Japan but this is not an appropriate response for a tribal, mostly illiterate people with a weak sense of nationhood.
More importantly America has no responsibility to bring democracy to Afghanistan. This is not to say that liberty and democracy are not excellent in themselves but only that, in defending itself, The United States need not take on the burden of nation building or democratisation.
Liberal democracy in The United States and Western Europe did not come about through outside intervention. It came about through a long struggle by the people themselves. The people struggled for liberty and they now value liberty.
It was reported in the British press recently that in one area of Helmand province as few as 150 Afghans may have voted while 10 British soldiers died to allow that election. One has to ask the question:
If the Afghans are not prepared to put their lives on the line for democracy then why should foreign soldiers?
The United States has suffered a tragic attack on it’s civilians and in response has taken on the probably impossible task of converting Afghanistan to a Western style democracy. It need not do so.
The United States was attacked and it required justice. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan must have cost numerous lives and billions of dollars. If all that blood and gold had been spent on relentless tracking down the individuals implicated in the attacks on the United States then America could have justice and in addition take pride that it had resisted the impetus to simply lash out.
I have been mulling over the expenses scandal currently bubbling away in the British press and it seems to me that this is the straw that broke the camels back. The expenses scandle is the last in a long stream of betrayals by our leaders and specifically by New Labour. It is time for a general election. (See petition information below).
New Labour came to power promising an end to the sleaze that defined the fag end of the last Tory government. Tony Blair portrayed himself as embracing an innovative vision of The United Kingdom and promulgated a bold modern vision of the future of the UK.
MPs who tried to stop you seeing their expenses
However, it quickly became apparent that the cardinal attribute of New Labour was not vision but spin. One after another New Labour ministers proved themselves corrupt and were dismissed from office only to be brought back in once the fuss had died down.
New Labour policies turned out to be the wholesale adoption of Thatcherism but, as with all converts, the policies were embraced as a doctrine and without understanding or judgement. Privatisations continued and New Labour became the bitch of big business.
Tony Blair began hobnobbing with the super rich and power went to his head. At the frenzied height of New Labour devotion to hyper-capitalism he tried to introduce super casinos. That a Labour government should consider the massive expansion of gambling in this country when the only people calling for it were greedy American business men beggars belief but by this time he was so far gone he could not see further than the Gordon Brown’s balance sheet.
When George Bush decided to go to war with Iraq Blair’s dragged us in too. The Islamist terrorism unleashed the Big Brother tendency that is never far from the minds of any Labour government. New laws were introduced to detain people without trial, CCTV became almost ubiquitous
The credit crunch brought claims from our leaders that this was a global phenomena that had little to do with their policies ignoring the frequent articles in newspapers such as The Economist describing the dangerous asset price bubble which was being fueled by cheap money and would eventually burst.
When ordinary people protested against the bankers in London the police responded with highly questionable tactics such as kettling and casual violence which may have left one man dead. Yet our leaders supported the outrageous tactics and trotted out the usual platitudes about violent demonstrators.
Luckily the widespread use of video technology by the general public revealed that the violence was mainly perpetrated by the police.
Now we learn that those we trust with the leadership of our country are fiddling their expenses like so many seedy second hand car salesmen.
On The BBC, Radio 4 program Any Questions this week it was suggested that the British people use the upcoming European elections to withhold votes from the major parties. Our leadership on the panel showed the depth of their depravity once again by attempting to scare the public with the spectre of racism and erroneously implying that this meant a vote for the BNP.
Lord Falkner went on to complain that it was a tragedy that New Labour would be judged on the expenses story and that this was a distraction when more important issues were at stake.
Lord Falkner is Talking Bollocks!
There can be no more important issue than whether our leaders are trustworthy. Their policies and promises mean nothing if the are prepared to waive aside their probity and obligations for a few thousand pounds.
While preaching prudence our leaders have led us into the worst economic crisis for decades. They led us into an illegal war that caused the deaths of thousands and severely damaged Britain’s reputation abroad. They continue to introduce ever more draconian laws which erode our civil liberties and they encourage the police to suppress protest using methods not dissimilar to those found in Zimbabwe.
Now we hear that they have been fiddling their expenses.
During the Any Questions program Susan Kramer, MP, suggested that we need a general election. She is right. The British people must be given the chance to decide whether their representatives deserve the confidence and the responsibility with which they are entrusted.
Are Americans all Potty?
Tags: society, Radio 4, efficiency, United States, United Kingdom, customer relations, the system, material prosperity, alienation, Virgin Atlantic, airbus, leg room, seats, long haul flights, leg exercises, passengers, blood clots, Deep Vein Thrombosis, National Express, jet lag, countering jet lag, consume alcohol, talk radio, PBS, intelligent debate, shock jocks, over simplification, allergic to glass, Americans are potty, nationalities, potty
Are Americans All Potty?
Very often after returning from the U.S. I contrast the chirpy cheerfulness of sales staff in the U.S. with the monosyllabic and apparent indifference of their counterparts in the UK. Arriving at Heathrow on Wednesday afternoon I bought a ticket for the bus and then a bottle of juice and was confronted by aforementioned monosyllabic staff.
For some reason, this time, I was more philosophical. Yes, the guy could have done with some training in how to relate to customers but on the other hand he was being himself. After dealing with car hire and mobile phone companies in the U.S. I had started to speculate that the U.S. forces people to modify their behaviour to suite the system. This arrangement is good in that it increases efficiency and allows greater material prosperity but I wonder whether the cost is increased alienation of people from society.
The Virgin Atlantic flight from L.A. to London had been on an airbus A300-600. The seats on this aircraft allowed virtually no room for one to move ones legs. I recall that, in the past, long haul flights made a big issue of telling you to perform leg exercises and I believe that this was to counter a tendency of long haul passengers to suffer blood clots in the legs following a flight. This is known as known as Deep Vein Thrombosis.
The emphasis on efficiency has led Virgin to pack the seats closer and closer together so that now it is not possible for even a person of my modest stature to raise ones legs once seated. Consequently the airline no longer deems it necessary to encourage passengers to exercise and I wonder whether the instances of known as Deep Vein Thrombosis, which can be fatal, have increased. I also wonder whether these chairs conform to any safety standards and whether Deep Vein Thrombosis is considered within these standards.
England was warm and sunny and I boarded a National Express bus to Brighton. Arriving home around 7:30pm I implemented my strategy for negating the effects of jet lag. There are two important factors to countering jet lag. The first is to attempt to stay awake during the daylight hours of the destination both on the aircraft and as soon as one arrives. For this one needs some kind of activity to perform on arrival. The second factor is to consume alcohol just prior to the desired sleep period.
As I had arrived home in early evening my course was clear. I occupied a couple of hours preparing and consuming a curry and then opened a bottle of beer.
I switched on Radio 4 and considered my three weeks in the United States. While driving around in California I had listened to talk radio. While American PBS fights a bravely to encourage intelligent debate it is a battle it seems destined to lose. I listened with interest to shock jocks and dismissed the right wing as bigoted. I listened to the liberals and began to think that there might be reasoned debate but soon realised that the left too is obsessed with over simplification and adherence to dogma.
A friend of mine once met an American woman who claimed to be allergic to glass and insisted on drinking beverages through a straw. He deduced from this that all Americans are potty and this is a widely held view in the United Kington. Personally I temper this with acceptance of difference and the knowledge that the United States is a vast country with numerous disparate people.
However, I sometimes find myself wondering, if Americans appear potty to the British, why do we not hold similar opinions of other nationalities? It is possible that pottyness is merely the most prominent defining character for Americans and that other nationalities too have their defining characters but I think that what is more likely is that the language we share with Americans enables us to gain an insight into their world view and that we are denied this insight with other nationalities. This reasoning is strengthened as I believe that Brits also consider Australians to be potty. Perhaps if we were fluent in Spanish or Chinese we would consider them potty too?
I guess that if an understanding of the language of a foreign country means that on is capable of appreciating their pottyness then, as English is the most common second language, it is the British who must appear the most potty and that is a stereotype that I am very happy to live with.