In Flanders Fields

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Joe

I was late in getting my Poppy this year – I didn’t actually buy it until yesterday (Saturday) morning, when I purchased one from a gentleman in Hillsborough whilst on my Saturday morning Odyssey known as ‘the weekly shop’. I get a British Legion Poppy every year – I’m afraid I don’t have much truck with the White Poppies that are available – and wear it proudly.

My grandfather fought in World War 1 – I barely remember him as he died when I was 5 years old, but I’m here because he was lucky enough to be captured rather than killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. My mother wasn’t conceived until after the First World War, so I regard myself as a lucky bod to just be here.

One observation I made to the gentleman from whom I bought my poppy was that I am of an age to be part of a ‘blessed generation’ of young men – for much of the last 2 decades the UK has had troops overseas in combat theatres – especially in recent years we’ve become used to seeing coffins coming home from the same places ‘east of Suez’ that the generation of young soldiers who fought in World War 1 would have been familliar with. My generation avoided this; our only war was the Falklands War – perhaps the last of the old style national wars before we got drawn in to the sequence of international coalitions and wars against terror that have been a feature of the world since teh fall of teh Berlin Wall.

British troops in World War 1 noticed that the most prominent wild flowers to sprng up each year on the battlefields were Poppies. The reason for this is simple enough; poppy seeds lay in the soil until the soil is broken up and disturbed; then they’ll start growing. Today we can occasionally get this effect when ground is broken up for building excavations. Historically, the effect was noticed by many authors over the hundreds of years in which Flanders was a battlefield. In Flanders the breaking up was done by digging trenches, shelling, the carving up of the ground by wagons and tanks and running feet.

And the excavation of earth for graves.

And the latter inspired Major John McCrae to write possibly the most famous (and my favourite) poem from World War 1 after being responsible for the burial of a fellow Canadian officer at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. McCrae himself would not see peace; he died of pneumonia in 1918. The poem is ‘In Flanders Fields’:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Three verses; observation, remembrance and a call to duty. Our attitudes towards concept such as duty and honour have become cynical over the years, and it’s perhaps only around this time of year that we remember these men for whom it was important enough to lay down their lives. Some suggest that we should stop remembering WW1 when the last combatant dies; I disagree. We should step up and catch that thrown torch of honour, courage and duty and not break faith with those who fell in Flanders Fields.

The ‘Why should I give a fuck?’ award for today goes to….

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Joe

OK – first of all apologies for the title. It’s just that the trivial background behind this post made me very angry this morning. I may just be having a grump, heading for a cold or suffering from fast-food overdose, but I guess I’m allowed to throw a strop occasionally.

So, what was it that generated the bile? It was the headline on ‘The Sun’ newspaper. Something about ‘2 Brits win Euro Lottery’. Like I said in the title ‘Why should I give a …?’ Genuinely. This matters to the people who won, their families, possibly their communities. It’s not really a matter of national importance worthy of large headlines on the same day that other news stories include:

The shooting dead at Fort Hood of 13 people and the wounding of 30+ others
The possibility that all of the new proposals for managing MP’s Expenses will not be introduced
The UK Government is saying that it’s unlikely that a legally binding climate treaty will be worked out at Copenhagen
Three ex-Chief of Staffs have criticised Gordon Brown for his support of UK troops.

But what’s more important, according to the tabloid press, is 2 anonymous Brits winning a lottery. I suppose that I should be grateful that it’s not being held up as another great British victory over the perfidious Europeans to match Agincourt, Waterloo or the Battle of Britain!

Unfortunately I expect to see more of this sort of thing as the months unfold this winter. It’s going to be a hard one; we’ll continue supporting a regime as bent as a hairgrip in Afghanistan, we’ll continue being in recession here at home and we’ll no doubt continue witnessing the political establishment carry on trying to worm out of it’s responsibilities. The Media will rise to the occasion with lots of stories like this, a good few about our new (apparent) National Treasure Cheryl Cole and almost certainly a good number of stories like that about Philip Laing and this latest pair of Chav thugs. Oh, and don’t forget The X Factor and the rest of the ‘reality’ shows.

Years ago, I guess we might have considered this to be a modern application of the old Roman method of keeping the Proletarians happy by liberal application of pannen et circuses – bread and circuses, with cheap credit supplying the bread and the media providing the circuses. One thing is definitely certain today – the media is able to provide circus entertainment by the bucket full with reality TV, lottery winners, ‘national treasures’ and a good few examples of throwing folks to the lions.

It’s a shame we haven’t got bread any longer, though – I do wonder how long teh circus will keep the punters distracted when the bills start piling up and the larder starts getting bare.

Are you a ‘but’ man?

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Joe

I was reminded earlier today, whilst reading a book called ‘Life 101’, of a useful piece of advice from one of the more under-rated personal development gurus of the mid 20th Century – Sergeant Ernest Bilko of the United States Army. Let’s listen to what he has to say on the topic of a three letter word…

You said, “but.” I’ve put my finger on the whole trouble. You’re a “but” man. Don’t say, “but.” That little word “but” is the difference between success and failure. Henry Ford said, “I’m going to invent the automobile,” and Arthur T. Flanken said, “But . . .”

And so it was, according to Bilko, that Ford remains in history whilst Flanken doesn’t even make the footnotes.

‘But’ is indeed one of the words in the English language that fills me with trepidation. During my years in consulting, hearing someone agree with what you were proposing, and then adding the word ‘…but’ (complete with pause) to the end of a sentence was the equivalent of telling me that I was as likely to get cooperation as I was to win the Nobel Prize for Physics and Literature in the same year.

There some occasions when it’s valuable to pull someone up short before they thunder off and implement some plan or other that at best can be described as ‘unwise’. And there are times when the use of but can provide a useful reminder for folks that their master plan requires a few tweaks before it will work properly. But often ‘but’ is used as a prelude to a road-block.

Rather than ‘but’ I now try and use ‘and’ or ‘or’ instead of ‘but’ – then rephrase the part of teh sentence after the old ‘but’ to look towards solutions. For example:

I’d like to buy a new computer, but it costs too much.

becomes

I’d like to buy a new computer, and in order to give me time to save the extra money, I’ll put the purchase off for a month and see if I can do some overtime in the meantime to help raise the extra cash.

The first sentence becomes, in the but-less second sentence, an intention with a timescale and a partial solution to the problem of money. As the guys at Honda say, ‘and’ is a great little word – it opens up opportunities for solutions, rather than closing things down.

Don’t be a but-nik!

All hail the scapegoats!

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Joe

In ancient Jewish society, the scapegoat was a normal goat that was ceremonially loaded with all the sins of the community, and then driven from town in to the wilderness, as part of the ceremonies around the Day or Atonement. The goat would almost certainly die in the desert, and with it would die the sins of the community. The term has passed in to general usage, as we all know, to refer to someone who gets to carry the can when the crap hits the fan.

Earlier today I blogged on the topic of Philip Laing, the student in trouble here in Sheffield, and was reminded of a comment made by my better half about whether the venom being expended towards this fellow was actually a form of scapegoating. We’ve had over two years of miscellaneous nonsense here in the UK – the banking crisis, MP’s expenses, the Recession, the War in Afghanistan and Iraq – the list goes on. Then conveniently along comes someone who we can all have a go at, who isn’t rich and powerful and who’s actually done something that is pretty damn stupid and manages to annoy vast numbers of people.

In fact, the perfect scapegoat!

Here’s a quick guide for you to help you play ‘Spot the Scapegoat’ – a useful parlour game for this winter preceding a general election when we can expect the Government and Media to try and blame anyone and everyone – except the genuine culprits – for the wrongs of the world.

Plausibility

A scapegoat must be plausible. there’s little point in picking on someone totally innocuous. You need someone or a group of people who’ve been bad, been caught out, and for whose behaviour there can be little excuse. Little old ladies caught exceeding the speed limit by 5 miles per hour don’t really meet the requirement.

Powerless

An ideal scapegoat would be suitably powerless. After all, we don’t want them coming back at us, do we? Really powerful people will rarely become scapegoats unless they’ve upset some even more powerful people. The media don’t want to upset someone with muscle who could make the media look like horse’s bottoms.

Scalability

Having found a plausible, powerless person to act as scapegoat, their bad behaviour has to be ‘scalable’. Scalability is a technical term for the ability of a system to cope with heavier loads than expected without needing a lot of work. So, if we want a good scapegoat on which we can unload a pile of public anger, the scapegoat’s behaviour must be something that can be ‘worked up’ in some way. So, Mr Laing’s offence can easily be used to indicate that it’s the start of the end of Western Civilisation as we know it as respect for all that is good in society declines, etc.

Publicity

If you want a good scapegoat, they have to be public figures or elevated in to the rank of public notoriety by the media or the Internet. If you can get a good gossipy campaign going, apparently driven by the general public, you’re in clover.

No apologies

Your perfect scapegoat should ideally be photographed with a black cloak and a Victorian moustache, eating babies and shouting that they are sorry for nothing. If this ideal scenario can’t be achieved, then a lack of apology will do. If the scapegoat attempts a half-arsed apology, all the better. But if they go for the genuine apology, their value as a scapegoat is diminished.

Have something ready to sneak out

Apart from deflecting blame from the real culprits, the exposure and persecution of a good scapegoat can offer the Government and other people of power and influence the opportunity to sweep other things under the carpet. If you have a scapegoat, never waste the opportunity to get a few bad-news stories out at the same time.

‘A butterfly on a wheel’

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Joe

laing The phrase ‘A butterfly upon a wheel’ was used in originated in piece of writing by Alexander Pope in the Eighteenth Century, but was popularised by Sir William Rees-Mogg in a Times editorial in July 1967 in which he railed against the jailing of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on a drugs charge.

His piece finished with “If we are going to make any case a symbol of the conflict between the sound traditional values of Britain and the new hedonism, then we must be sure that the sound traditional values include those of tolerance and equity. It should be the particular quality of British justice to ensure that Mr. Jagger is treated exactly the same as anyone else, no better and no worse. There must remain a suspicion in this case that Mr. Jagger received a more severe sentence than would have been thought proper for any purely anonymous young man.”

And so we fast forward 42 years to the story of Philip Laing, a 19 year old Sports Science student from Sheffield Hallam University who was incredibly daft in two ways; he urinated on a wreath on a war memorial, and was photographed doing it.

My own view on his behaviour is that it was absolutely disgraceful; whether he deliberately set out to urinate on a wreath is a debatable point; I have no idea one way or another – but the bottom line is he committed a profane act on sacred ground, something frowned upon in all civilised society since Ugg the caveman decided to bury the body of his best friend rather than leave it for the vultures.

There is no excuse; there’s no excuse for using any street as a toilet, and to be honest he or his friends colleagues (one of which was obviously sober enough to take a photo) should have known, even in a drunken state, that there are certain places you don’t pass water on.

Enough – I can go on for a long time about the fact that to me it’s desecration of the memory of the dead, and that the chap should be punished.

What the punishment IS, however, is the point of this piece. In the last few weeks I’ve seen some serious vitriol poured out about this young man on the two local forums here in Sheffield and on Facebook. Indeed, I was told to ‘get a life’ because I dared to suggest that any form of urination in public for an adult is inappropriate. I’ve seen people suggest that guy should be tortured, executed, thrown out of college. I had the feeling that were it possible, his lands would be ploughed with salt, his house reduced to ashes (and then ploughed in as well), a sign saying ‘the glory is departed’ hung over the wreckage and he and his line cursed unto the Seventh Generation.

The judge at his trial yesterday said that a prison sentence is a possibility. OK folks…STOP!

Isn’t this all getting out of hand? If he’s jailed, will South Yorkshire Police be expected to arrest any drunken oik who urinates in the street with a possible result that the drunk ends up filling up a prison cell likely to be needed for a more serious crime? Despite the emotions raised here, we do not have a crime of desecration in English Law. For example – grave robbery tends to be treated as a particularly unpleasant form of theft, breaking headstones as vandalism or, in some cases, racially aggravated crimes. The closest we have in terms of a law that applies to this sort of thing is the Military Remains Act that covers war graves – that’s typically used to stop folks looting sunken ships and other designated ‘war graves’ for souvenirs and such. No matter how deplorable and ill-advised his behaviour, this youth committed an act of vandalism on the wreath, and a public order offence.

What might be appropriate? Send him down from University for 3 years; have him pay a suitable fine and then have him spend some time cleaning our war memorials. Appropriate punishment, I feel.

And perhaps, whilst we’re at it, we might invite the the company who organised the event to make a contribution from their profits to the British Legion as an apology.

Oh…and whilst we’re at it…perhaps determine whether such events should require special licensing permission from the City Council?

When Ministers are right to fire advisors

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Joe

I think it’s safe to say that these days I rarely agree with the behaviour of Government Ministers. Part of it is a knee jerk reaction (:) ) and part of it is that Government Ministers rarely seem to exhibit a capability in their jobs above that of Jim Hacker – without the aid of Sir Humphrey. But, much to my dismay, I found myself agreeing with the Home Secretary with regard to the firing of his Drug’s Advisor, Professor David Nutt. Now, I have no intention in getting in to the rights and wrongs of Cannabis classification or whether illegal drugs are more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco. My thoughts here are on teh roles and responsibilities of advisers.

It’s inevitable and highly desirable that Ministers will have access to a wide range of advisers to help them and their departments come to policy decisions. The role of any advisor is to advise; that statement may appear to be a tautology but it seems that some advisers believe their role is to actually make policy. It isn’t. When a Government policy fails, it’s incumbent on the Minister to fall on his or her sword. (OK…that’s how it should be, but I appreciate that that doesn’t happen much these days!) the advisor responsible for giving the advice that led to a policy being made is almost certainly going to be unknown to the public. The process is that the advisor gives their advice, the Civil Servants and the Ministers and Secretaries chew it over, and eventually the Minister decides and takes it to Cabinet for approval.

It’s similar to some of the consultancy work I do – I (as Advisor) am briefed on a problem by my client (Minister). I advise the client to the best of my professional abilities, and the client then takes the choice to go with my recommendations as given, implement part of what I suggest or use my consultancy report to line his cat’s litter tray. I obviously hope that it won’t be the latter.

But that’s the prerogative of the client, whoever they are – to take or not to take your advice. Whilst you’re on the payroll you may argue your case strongly within the confines of the organisation, but if you don’t get what you want you have two – and ONLY two – choices. Shut up or quit.

That is all – if you feel very strongly about your advice not being taken then the only intellectually honest and principled thing to do is to quit the job. As a consultant I’ve done it maybe once or twice in 20 odd years. My own thoughts were that there was no point in me being paid and giving advice if it was never taken, I felt I was just taking money for nothing, so I quit.

What you don’t do is mouth off to teh media or outside the organisation in a way that’s likely to get attention whilst you’re still employed. That is, in my opinion, disloyal.

For me, the role of an advisor is like that of an Executive Officer on a ship. You advise the Captain, you may even question the Captain’s decision, but once that decision has been made you fulfill whatever duties you have in making that decision work. If you can’t, then ask for a transfer or ersign your commission; don’t try and organise a mutiny.

I was a twit not to Tweet!

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Joe

Many moons ago I posted a piece on here – ‘Am I a twit not to twitter’. Well, I’ll admit it. Yes, I was a twit not to Tweet, and I’m happy to say that. I can’t argue with objective facts, so here’s my brief thoughts on what converted me. Just in case anyone wishes to follow me, I’m on twitter, funnily enough, asJoePritchard. Serious lack of imagination there but no excuse for missing me!

So, here are my hints and observations from a beginning Twit! There are plenty of articles around with more detailed hints and tips of how to use Twitter, and I’m not going to re-hash what’s said elsewhere. These observations are my personal thoughts and insights, for what they’re worth, as to how I found that Twitter could be useful.

Two Way Street

I think the first thing that I learned about twitter (or rather had it pointed out to me) was that it’s a two way street; if you want people to follow you you need to follow people, and that you need to have an idea of what you want to gain from Twitter.

Identify what you want

Apart from keeping up with your friends and colleagues, I’ve found Twitter invaluable for getting a good newsfeed from sites of interest. In fact, I’ve found it a better proposition than RSS feeds.

Use a Twitter Client

When I first tried Twitter out, I used the Twitter web interface to use the Twitter service. It didn’t work well for me – so this time I decided to try out a couple of dedicated Twitter applications. I have Twhirl and Tweetdeck installed and they’ve both made using Twitter on a regular basic much easier – I just leave them running quietly in the background, they dynamically update, and they make it a pleasure to Tweet.

Think of it as less intrusive MSN

I’ve actually used Twitter as a form of MSN with some people – it’s more spread out in time than a typical MSN conversation, more compact than Email and certainly doesn’t clutter my inbox with lots of short mails.

Use it for promotion

I’ve recently re-activated this Blog and integrated it with both Twitter and Facebook, and have been studying the referral logs to see where blog referrals are coming from. There does appear to be a fair amount of traffic from Twitter. A recent event I participated in – ActionForInvolvement’s Climatewalk – made significant use of Twitter in the run up to the event to promote it and encourage re-tweeting about the event. Again, I gather that the results were well worthwhile!

If you need to, run multiple accounts

I was considering tweeting on behalf of my business from within my ‘personal’ Twitter account but I’ve decided to set up a separate account for the business. The reason? People following my business may not be very interested at all in everything else I do. Let’s call it ‘brand protection’ – I want my business brand and my ‘JoePritchard’ brand to be different entities online. Whilst folks who know me will know that I run ’em both, the separation will be useful for business connections who I really don’t want in my personal life – and vice versa!

Be picky in following and blocking

Spam has certainly increased on Twitter. When someone follows me, I’ve got Twitter configured to mail me. I always go and check out their profile, and then determine first of all whether to block or not. Folks who look like spammers always get reported; if someone seems to be mainly pedalling MLM or just looks ‘dodgy’ in terms of their content or places linked to – again, block ’em. I can’t understand why American High School kids of either sex can think that I can be interested in reports of their weekends drinking or shopping and don’t bother completing any parts of their profile – sorry guys, you get blocked. I know this sounds arrogant of me, but I want followers who know me or who are interested in what I say or consider that I somehow add value for them. If you are a US High School kid who IS interested in what I say, then let me know – but have something of interest to me on your profile, somewhere! In return, when I follow, I want to be following people that I know, am interested in or who add value to my online life by introducing me to new stuff or ideas. Twitter does seem to encourage the ‘numbers game’ in people. I prefer quality.

And that’s that – I’m going to start using Twitter Lists shortly and will let you know how I get on. And then there’s the API stuff….watch this space.

Luvviedom rules – time for a dose of reality for some?

Posted on November 1, 2009 by Joe

I rarely post twice in succession on the same item. But hey, it’s a very wet November 1st, it’s Sunday, we’re still in recession and I’ve let my tea go cold. Oh, and the issue concerned is one of those things that annoys me at so many levels – including making me wonder “Why am I so bloody annoyed?”

It’s Mr Fry again. After the rattle throwing episode I mentioned here last night, it appears from this article on the BBC that the rattle was, in fact, on a length of elastic and has come back to Mr Fry’s hands. “Huzzah! Call off the state mourning! Tell the luvvies to stop weeping! Let Guardian readers rejoice! He’s not leaving Twitter! ”

Now, let me state immediately that I am a big fan of Stephen Fry’s portrayal of the immortal Jeeves – the box-set of Jeeves and Wooster is currently spread out in front of the TV – and his magnificent General Melchett. However, on Twitter, he’s a writer. Writer’s get critiqued – it’s part of the job. It’s inevitable that occasionally you will produce a stinker of an article (I know I have) or even a boring Tweet or Facebook status. Again, I know I do….. It comes with the territory and to be honest if you don’t balls up occasionally and mis-read your public I wholeheartedly believe that you’re not pushing the envelope hard enough.

We now have Alan Davies wading in:

“Alan Davies, who stars with Fry in the television quiz QI, also waded in, calling the criticism of him “moronic”.”

Hello? Earth calling Alan? Why is criticism of Stephen Fry ‘moronic’? He’s human like the rest of us and will occasionally be boring to someone. If not, it isn’t personal enough. Some of my friends may well be very interested in the fact that I baked bread a few days ago. Others won’t give a toss. And that’s what life is like, Alan. You can’t please everyone, all of the time. (Oh Lord…I like Alan Davies as well….sorrrrry….)

The original poster of the ‘boring’ comment has apparently been on the receiving end of abuse from a baying mob of Twitter users. This is the dark side of Twitter – dare to make an unpopular comment and the local-yokels will be turning up on your electronic doorstep with burning brands, pitchforks and nooses looking for an online lynching.

I’ll give Stephen Fry his due – he commented as follows:

He wrote: “Arrived in LA feeling very foolish. Wasn’t the fault of the fellow who called me “boring”, BTW. A mood thing. Sunshine will help. So sorry.

“Feeling terrible for that poor guy. He had every right to call me boring. Not his fault it caught me at a vulnerable time. Pls be nice to him.”

He also apologised to the critic.

All now appears to be well in the world of the Luvvies. But maybe Fry and a few other celebrity Twits, Bloggers and Facebookers need to get a dose of reality from this story. If you put yourself up in this way you will get criticism. It’s inevitable. But these critics are your fans and people who bother about you. They keep you gainfully employed and support your lifestyle. And that lifestyle is a privilege that your fans give you – when you’re in LA or wherever, whinging about a perfectly legitimate item of criticism, or here in the UK calling someone who dared to criticise someone ‘moronic’ – do remember that those fans of yours who don’t have your ability and lifestyle actually pay your wages.

Be grateful to them. If you engage in conversations with them through Social media, play the game and be mature enough to take the occasional bit of crap.

In other words, grow up, stop whining, and appreciate your privileged position.

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