citizen ethics in a time of crisis…

While searching through what we laughingly refer to as our filing system (somewhat predictably, I was unable to trace the actual document I was seeking!), I came across a quite brilliant supplement entitled ‘Citizen Ethics in a Time of Crisis’. It was published in 2010, exactly 13 years ago this week, by the Guardian newspaper (in conjunction with Citizens Ethics Network, Barrow Cadbury and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust). In it, a number of prominent thinkers – philosophers, politicians, economists, theologians and writers – considered how the financial and political events of the previous year (ie. the sense of outrage following such matters as the Banking crisis, Bankers’ bonuses and the MPs’ expenses scandal) had given rise to a crisis of ethics… although it’s interesting that the document relates to “Citizen Ethics” (not politicians’ ethics).
I was so taken by the document that I’d sent away for a copy of 60-page bound version.
 
I’ve been re-reading much of it this morning and it makes for fascinating reflection… especially at this time of a ‘Cost of Living Crisis’, an ‘Energy Crisis’, attitudes towards migration (and refugees) – not to mention (but I will) the dishonesty/lack of integrity of some senior politicians; allegations of sexual misconduct against dozens of MPs; allegations of ‘irregular’ PPE funding during the pandemic, Brexit, Climate Crisis… actually, the list goes on and on).
It speaks about how self-interest and calculation have derailed our values.
 
The document’s articles asked some crucial questions (dozens and dozens of them) – that are JUST as relevant today as they were 13 years ago. Here are just a few examples:

• Do we leave it to the market to distribute riches or must the state intervene to ensure more justice than market mechanisms have achieved over the last 25 years?
• We have looked into the abyss where individualism is concerned and we know it won’t do.
• We have lacked a language to respond. How are we to articulate our misgivings? How can we regain our ability to reason ethically?
• It is not a manifesto, it is an argument we have left derelict, a crucial public concern.
• We need a public life with a purpose.
• A promising measure would be to grant all adults a basic income, leaving it to them to decide how to work. This would make part-time work viable for many.
• Shareholder value is shorthand for doing whatever it takes to pump up the stock price.
• What human beings most desire is not material wealth, but social recognition.
• That the economy should meet human needs means we have to focus on needs, not wants.
• London and Westminster, the twin epicentres of power, feel as rotten as Rome under Caligula.
• Politics must come from the people.
• The ethical human being has a need for meaning in order to sustain a sense of aspiration.

How little has changed in the past 13 years… and, sadly, I suspect things won’t change in my lifetime.
Note: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/series/citizen-ethics

february 2023 books…

Diary Of A Void (Emi Yagi): This is something of a surreal novel (understatement!). The protagonist (Shibata) has a mundane office job at a Tokyo paper-core manufacturing company. She is the only woman in a sea of men and she’s been expected to do ‘little things’ outside of her job description: make coffee for everyone during a client visit, replenish the printer ink, tidy up around the office. One fateful day, she finds she can’t handle this anymore and, on the spur of the moment, decides to ‘become pregnant’… and her life immediately changes. She’s no longer expected (or allowed) to undertake the menial tasks; she’s no longer expected to stay late at the office… In fact, Shibata completely ‘takes on’ her fantasy pregnancy (gets a seat on public transport; watches films in newly-acquired spare time; registers for an aerobics class for expectant mothers etc). She doesn’t go overboard in trying to convince people she’s pregnant, she merely allows people to believe what they want to believe and uses the experience to discover what she really wants out of life. The novel takes us through her ‘pregnancy’ from week 5 to week 40 and beyond (with the help of her Baby-N-Me App!). Intriguing, weird, delightful and entertaining.
A Will To Kill (RV Raman): This is our Storysmith bookgroup’s next book (on ‘whodunnit?’ theme). Published in 2020, it’s RV Raman first novel in the ‘Harith Athreya Mystery’ series and is set in a remote mansion within the Nilgiri mountains of modern-day eastern India. A rich, aging and wheelchair-bound patriarch, Bhaskar, has invited relatives to his mansion, knowing that family members expect to gain from his death, so he writes two conflicting wills (which of them comes into force will depend on how he dies). Harith Athreya, a ‘seasoned investigator’, has been called in to watch what unfolds… It’s a classic ‘classic locked-room murder mystery’ that could have been written by Agatha Christie or her contemporaries (but the mention of mobile phones and people going jogging acts as a stark reminder that it’s not the 1920-40s!). Because it uses typical plot devices from the ‘golden age of crime fiction’, I was initially quite sceptical… but it’s quite a clever, detailed mystery novel and I ended up quite enjoying it (escapism from our present world?!)… and I liked the Athreya character.
Devotions (Mary Oliver): I love Mary Oliver’s writing. I love the simple, crafted reality of her words and her ‘take’ on the world. This is a collection of her poems spanning more than five decades (the first published in 1963, aged 28, the last in 2015)(she died in 2019, aged 83). Her most recent poems are at the beginning of the book… and her first at the end. I read the collection quite slowly – perhaps three or four pieces each morning – and frequently out loud (to myself!). Most of her poems are self-explanatory but, for some, I would have loved to have had some additional words to set things in context perhaps. For me (and perhaps it’s part of my own ageing process?), I think I loved her later poems best… they seemed to capture the wisdom and experience of old age with beautiful simplicity. It’s a VERY special book that I know I will dip into frequently over the coming years.
The Secret Lives Of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw): When I first picked up this book, I thought it would be about ladies who ‘do-the-flowers’ at some quintessential English parish church(!). How wrong can you be?! The author is a young, black American woman and the book is a series of short stories exploring the “raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires, and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good” (as the book’s cover puts it). It’s rather wonderful in its way… beautiful, bruised, intimate, sad and very funny. Surprisingly good and very readable.
The Seven Dials Mystery (Agatha Christie): First published in 1929 (we have 34 Christie books on our bookshelves, but this is one I hadn’t previously read!). There’s always room for a classic crime novel as a form of relief from our challenging world. Predictably, it’s set in a world of high society and privilege and features the exploits of Lady Eileen Brent (a highly-intelligent young woman, affectionately known as ‘Bundle’) and Superintendent Battle. Inevitably, there are some deaths and a complex trail of clues and deceptions. Seven Dials turns out to be a seedy nightclub and gambling den and Bundle manages to get into a secret room there, where she hides in a cupboard and witnesses a meeting of seven people wearing hoods with clock faces (as you do!)… I’ll leave things there *no spoilers*. It’s a typical, ingenious Agatha Christie plot but, for my money, I felt somewhat cheated. Instead of being able to make an educated guess at the ‘solution’ on the basis of clues contained within the novel, Christie holds back information which the reader should have had(?) and, on top of that, I felt that the solution itself was pretty preposterous/far-fetched (but I still enjoyed it!). Hey ho! 

cricket, lovely cricket…

The cricket season starts in two months’ time (13 April)... and, yes, it's that time of the year for my annual moan about the game!
Gloucestershire are my ‘home’ side (just a short bus-ride away and, thanks to my bus pass, free) and, despite the fact that they were relegated to Division Two last year, I’d still like to attend as many of their 2023 home County Championship games as I can… afterall, this is the format most readily associated with Test Cricket.
“You need to become a member then”, I hear you say.
Basic membership at Gloucestershire costs £256. It includes the five home 4-day County games played in Bristol; attendance at all the home T20 Vitality Blast matches; the home one-day cup matches; and two 4-day games at Cheltenham.
The trouble is that I ONLY want to attend the 4-day games in Bristol.
In reality, the County Championship season is reduced to a mere FIVE games in Bristol (I KNOW!)… three of them take place in ‘balmy’ April and May; one in June; and the final one in the middle of September)… July and August are reserved for bish-bosh cricket (and, of course, 'The Hundred' - which takes up most of August, but doesn't happen in Bristol).
Whatever happened to our so-called ‘Summer Game’?

Last year, I wrote to the club secretary and asked if there were any reduced rates for people like me. Well, it seems they HAD considered it, but decided not to bother.
Daily attendance at Championship games is pathetically poor at Bristol – maybe 200-250 mid-week. Perhaps it would make more sense for the Club to waive entry fees altogether for Championship games? 
Controversial? Foolhardy? Revolutionary? Sensible?
Answers on a postcard…
Think I might just concentrate on watching cricket at Bedminster CC for free instead!

 

drive your plow over the bones of the dead…

Moira and I (together with a number of us from my Storysmith bookgroup – the novel of the same name was one of our discussion books) went along to the Bristol Old Vic last night to see international touring company Complicité present a play, directed by Simon McBurney, based on Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk’s novel of the same name.
I’ve previously read the book twice before… so was very keen that the play shouldn’t ruin the book for me. I needn’t have worried!
 
It’s set in a small community on a remote mountainside near the Czech-Polish border. Men from the local hunting club are dying in mysterious circumstances. The principal character, Janina Duszejko (brilliantly played by Amanda Hadingue), is an ex-engineer, environmentalist, devoted astrologer and enthusiastic translator of William Blake… and she has her suspicions (she’s been watching the animals with whom the community shares their isolated, rural home, and believes they are acting strangely)… they couldn’t have committed the murders, could they?
 
Olga Tokarczuk's book is wonderfully weird fable in the form of mystery whodunnit and represents something of a rallying cry for nature (exposing as it sees the hypocrisy of institutional power). Asking such questions as: why is the killing of animals regarded as sport and that of humans murder?
It’s a hugely impressive play. The acting is absolutely excellent throughout and the set design, lighting and music powerfully perfect.
A brilliant evening.
Photo: The image (copyright Bristol Old Vic) actually shows Kathryn Hunter in the role of Janina. She and Hadinque shared the role during the course of the play’s run in Bristol (with Hunter performing 19-31 Jan and Hadinque playing Janina 1-11 Feb).
Footnote: Moira and I usually find ourselves part of the largely silver-haired generation of theatre-goers(!), but we noticed last night that the age range of the audience was significantly younger. Was it something to do with the cost of the tickets perhaps? Last night, tickets were available from £14, whereas they’re often double that... and there was a full house. 

january/february 2023 books…

Tin Man (Sarah Winman): This is the third Winman book I’ve read and I have to admit that I’ve become a huge fan. There are LOTS of reasons I loved this book, namely: a) it was set in Oxford, b) much of the ‘action’ takes place a mere half mile from where we used to live, c) the story takes place at the time when we were actually still living in Oxford, d) the two male characters were pretty well my age… but also e) it is a beautiful story. Ellis, Annie and Michael form a tight friendship and they absolutely adore one another. The novel is about sexual identity and the 1980s Aids epidemic, love, loneliness and loss (heartrending and emotional)… but also about celebrating life and even relinquished dreams. It evoked wonderful memories of our own time as students in the city at that transition stage in our lives… away from home for the first time, full of wonder at finding ourselves in beautiful Oxford, making mistakes but still feeling keen to discover new things, forming new friendships… and still naïve enough, perhaps, to think we could probably change the world. I loved this book.
Pew (Catherine Lacey): This is our next Storysmith bookgroup book. It’s a haunting, mysterious fable about a silent stranger of indeterminate age, gender and ethnicity who wakes up on a pew during Sunday morning service in a church in a small American town. The individual – who for want of a better name is called ‘Pew’ by the family who discover him/her – is unwilling to speak, has no memory of who they are or where they came from (although the opening chapter indicates something of a recent life of rough sleeping). It all takes place in a small, sinister, devout town in the Bible-belt American south and book describes the events of the next seven days in seven chapters. The family who finds Pew decides to ‘do the Christian thing’ and take him/her in. The narrow-minded townspeople can’t agree on anything about Pew (Pew isn’t really given any choice in the matter): some think he’s a child, others believe she’s a young woman… and even the colour of their skin is confusing. To complicate matters, the story takes place over a week leading up to an ominous-sounding ‘Forgiveness Festival’. The fact that Pew doesn’t correspond to community’s conservative Christianity principles presents an intolerable challenge to the town’s ‘leaders’. At times, it almost felt like reading ‘1984’ – where society was insisting on compliance to its rules by all members, without question. A sinister, disturbing and somewhat depressing read.
The Trees (Percival Everett): This is another of the shortlisted Booker Prize 2022 books. It’s potent satire of US racism involving the investigation of gruesome murders in Mississippi (more murders, it seems, than the opening frames of a Clint Eastwood ‘Spaghetti Western’?). The book is, somewhat ridiculously, brilliantly funny (and horrific). It’s set in the small town of Money in deep south Mississippi… and begins with the bizarre murders (and brutal disfigurement) of three members of a dysfunctional white family… but, as one critic points out, unit with its morose matriarch Granny C, her son Wheat Bryant, and her nephew, Junior Junior. “this time it’s the white folks’ turn to be rendered in grotesque caricature, and the actions of this feckless clan are played as broad knockabout, almost like a reverse minstrel show”. It transpires that the family had been partly responsible for the death, by lynching, of a 14-year-old black boy in 1955, after being wrongly accused by a white woman (from the family) of making suggestive remarks. The 105-year-old black grandmother character points out that “Less than 1 percent of lynchers were ever convicted of a crime. Only a fraction of those ever served a sentence… No one was interviewed. No suspects were identified. No one was arrested. No one was charged. No one cared”. The latest murders lead to a gruesome series of copy-cat murders around the country and the plot escalates as the lynched dead begin to rise up. The initial crimes are investigated by (among others) two hilariously funny black officers of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. It all gets very complicated(!), but the central focus of the book (taking a direct aim at racism and police violence) leaves a lasting, powerful impression.
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe): This is our Blokes’ Book group’s next book selection. The novel is set in the late 19^th century (first published in 1958) and tells a story of the colonisation of Africa at the height of the ‘scramble’ for African territories by the great European powers. It focusses on Okonkwo, a proud and highly respected Igbo from Umuofia, somewhere near the Lower Niger. Okonkwo's clan are farmers, their complex society a patriarchal, democratic one and where village life has not changed substantially in generations…  but then the English arrive, with the Bible and the gun. The white man is allowed to stay, but he essentially regards the incumbents as a primitive people who need to be educated and brought to faith. The story is set against the background of Ibo culture and the complexities and traditions of Umuofian society. It represents something of an embarrassing, shameful indictment of the colonisation of Africa. It’s a stark, beautifully-written, tragic story and I found it profoundly impressive.
Ink (Alice Broadway): This is our daughter’s first book of the ‘Ink Trilogy’ (published in 2017) and, obviously I’ve previously read it (twice)! I re-read it AGAIN while recently staying at Alice’s – having finished the book I’d taken with me. The words on the book’s cover set up the story: “Imagine a world where your every action, your every deed, is marked on your skin for all to see…”. It’s a powerful, quite brilliant, YA novel (me? biased?) written in the form of a fable which in some ways, perhaps, reflects what’s happening in the world today. It’s about truth, wisdom, loyalty, justice, love… it’s about fears and taboos; it’s about greed and power; it’s about belief and conformity; it’s about integrity and honesty… Our daughter has a real gift for storytelling!