A famous person spoke to me

I was on the phone to Elvira from Kings Cross Station, trying to make myself heard over the resonating boom of the platform announcements, when he strode into my field of vision.

To begin with, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. A hint of recognition captured my attention. There was a familiarity to this face amongst the thousands of strangers I had passed by, barely noticing, on my commute through the busiest and loneliest parts of the capital.

Then it struck me – I recognised him, like Fraggle Rock lighthouse against a stormy sea! But where did I know him from? Was it someone I knew? I looked at his brown coat with black collar. His black satchel. His blue checked shirt. His closely cropped hair, fooling no one in concealing male pattern baldness.

I knew the face, no doubt about it. Wait a minute – a flash of inspiration and I knew exactly who it was. It was none other than TV’s very own Phil Spencer, the Channel 4 property guru and co-host of once-must-see-now-hopelessly-retreading-the-same-old-ground sensation, Location Location Location!

My heart skipped a beat. Possibly two. I told Elvira I was looking at a real life celebrity – and not a rubbish one like the time I saw Richard Stilgoe in Leicester Square. Someone who people I told would have heard of.

And here at Kings Cross Station no less, where only seconds beforehand I had seen a bald female homeless person demanding that a hapless passer-by buy her a sandwich. She wasn’t asking for money – she was asking for a sandwich. Cheese and tomato in fact.

Oh, where else could you see an intimidating beggar one minute and a TV house buying expert in the same place? Where, but wonderful, magical London town?

He walked towards me. I had to stop describing him to my wife, lest he realise I was talking about him and I look like a star-struck peasant. He walked round behind me. I held my breath. He walked on, and had a bit of a look at what was on offer at Burger King.

I looked up at the departures board. Still my train had “not yet arrived”. But it was “on time”, so that was ok. I looked back - I had lost sight of Phil.

Thinking my brush with fame was over, and still having 20 minutes to kill, I went to buy a bottle of water and reflect on whether seeing Phil Spencer at a railway station in 2012 was better than seeing Bob Geldof at the National Gallery in 1998, or Phil Tufnell at Sharm el Sheikh airport in 2006.

Well, fate had not finished with me for the evening yet.

Who do you suppose was in the station shop, perusing the pot salads? Yes, him. Celebrities even eat better than us, I thought – but at the end of the day, I challenge anyone to spend £3.37 more satisfyingly than at McDonalds.

I joined the queue. As he walked towards the back of the queue, the woman in front of me greeted him. God, what an idiot, I thought. How embarrassing. For all of us. Especially me and Phil.

But Phil was delighted. Turns out they knew each other. Or something. I wasn’t listening. I was inspecting his face, in all its familiar high-definition detail – there, in conversational animation just a couple of feet in front of my very eyes. I could well imagine him, with resigned good humour, telling a young couple how unrealistic their expectations for £150,000 were, or casting a sly glance to the camera and saying that he’d found something this one – no matter how awkward she’d been so far – was going to love. I could almost hear Kirsty’s voiceover pretending to talk back to him in those prematurely headmistressy tones.

And then it happened.

Salad in hand, Phil turned to me and said “do you mind if I...”

He meant, “push in the queue in front of you and carry on talking to this lady”. But he didn’t finish the sentence. His star power completed it for him. It said “I am a popular TV personality, who you obviously recognise. Indeed, I’m sure I overheard you talking about me to your wife about five minutes ago, when I walked behind you. And now you’ve followed me in here, like a stalker. Oh yes, random people in crowds rarely catch my eye or say ‘Location Location Location’ as I’m passing by – so when they do, I always pay attention. I am sure you will indulge me, clearly the normal rules of railway station shopping do not apply”.

“Not at all”, I replied.  

Like this sort of thing happens to me every day.

The rest of the journey home after that was just a blur.

What is Britain for?

An awful lot of democratic states seem to be facing crises of legitimacy at the moment.

Greece is the extreme example with Italy close behind – the EU and global finance deemed their democratically-elected governments unfit to manage the task of paying back their debts, and so economists were installed in their stead.  

A risky move, you might think, in countries where democratic roots are so shallow (Greece only got rid of its military government in 1974, just seven years before it joined that bastion of democracy-on-paper, the EU).

At the same time, the year-old Arab Spring and every-growing protests in Russia show that it’s not just democratic governments that have a problem. Dictators are having a hard time of it as well.

Then look at the USA, where Obama can’t get anything done at all thanks to an increasingly bonkers opposition who appear to think he’s a communist (showing just how far in the world they must have travelled). Each side is delegitimising their political system by – in essence – talking so much shite about the other.

Even here in the UK, we have a few issues beyond the usual matters of no-one giving enough of a toss to vote or take part in the political process themselves.

First of all, after the massive bender that was the post-war socioeconomic settlement, we’re facing a hangover of epic proportions in which real sacrifices are going to be demanded of the citizenry.

Secondly, that is coinciding with Scotland staging a referendum on independence, in a bid to become the new Slovakia.

Both of these seriously threaten to upset the ideas that our way of life, place in the world and sense of who (or whatever) are written in stone, god-given gifts which could never be changed, no matter what the silly foreigners may get up to.

The idea of a permanent retreat of the welfare state and Scottish nationalism both challenge whatever it is that holds this society together, and start to beg the question “what is Britain for”?

I can see how the idea of a “nation state” helps you to get round that problem by giving a specious rationale to the idea that these people, here, somehow ought to have a common state and a common government.

But isn’t that all rather quaint 18^th century coffee-house chitchat which – when people started taking it a bit too seriously – ended up reaching its logical bloody conclusion in the first half of the 20^th century?

Although he’s leading an ostensibly “nationalist” party, I think it’s a fair bet that Alex Salmond is not envisaging a “Blut und Boden” idea of Scottishness. Boden maybe, Blut no thanks.

Like most sane politicians, Salmond recognises that national identity today can’t be a question of shared ethnicity – real or imaginary. When you acknowledge the reality of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity that exist in almost every country in Europe, ultimately I don’t think it is possible to avoid the idea of that the nation state (in this sense) must distill down into some kind of racism. I hope it’s unnecessary, dear readers, to add the final term of that argument – that racism is BAD.

The SNP can avoid getting too far into the mire of what “Scottish” means by defining their national struggle as one of liberation from the Westminster government – and playing on all the historic hostilities that arouses. And that’s fair enough. It is, of course, much easier to stir people up on the basis of what you’re against than to spell out exactly what you are for. And you’ll only get the chance to show what you’re for – and to work it out for yourself – by stirring the people up enough to take power.

Neither Scotland nor whatever the post-independence UK might turn out to be called (if they keep the Queen, maybe we can call it the Disunited Kingdom or DK?) can – in my humble opinion – rely on an exclusive idea of national identity to legitimate itself.

Not just because it is ultimately incompatible with democratic values in a multicultural age, but because pretty much every example in history of multiethnic states that tried to enforce the hegemony of one group – or pretend that their values were everyone’s values – failed dismally, and more often than not bloodily.

Whether it’s Austria-Hungary, Yugoslavia or the Roman goddam Empire they ended up the same. And that’s why I find “developments” like this so depressing. Presumably, all those other historical exemplars failed because they were whacky, barbaric foreigners who get far too excited about things.

So the government is going to make immigrants speak proper English, learn British history and take pride in British values is it? One might suggest that it should perhaps take a look at the native population and ask itself whether its priorities are right.

Oh, it would be all too easy to go off on a rant about the ghastly poor and thick people we - the favoured - have to share our island with.

But what I am wondering today is rather what exactly the British values “we” are supposed to be teaching “them” are.

Hold that thought, and let me turn to what’s left of the economy.

Let me suggest unto you, dear readers, that up until the end of the Second World War – the last time we realised that we had no money left at all – the UK could command a degree of loyalty from its subjects on the basis of its self-appointed mission to civilise the world through the values of rapacious capitalist exploitation, tempered with slightly more Christian-infused pity for the victims than most other colonial powers. It was great to be British because it meant you were better than everyone else, and Britain had a purpose which was to share its awesomeness with everyone else, no matter how reluctant they might be about it. And we were winning, so we must have been right – right?

Since then and since decolonisation, that mission is obviously gone. And what has taken its place? I suggest that all it is, is the idea of guaranteed, state-underwritten rising living standards. Losing an empire was compensated for by fridges, TVs and cars for everyone. Economic growth gradually took the place of civilisation as the “British mission”. And while we were winning, we were still right.

Now what though?

If you and your family getting steadily richer and more comfortable was the only reason you acquiesced in the social, political and economic shenanigans of the last 70 years – and finally, I get to my point - why the hell would anyone be prepared to accept the long-term sacrifices now demanded for the sake of governments and their credit ratings?

Why would the Greeks beggar themselves, their children and their grandchildren to rescue something that fucked up so badly the one thing (in their eyes) it had to do?

“Because they only benefited for so long on credit, and now they have to pay it back?” you may say. That argument might work if one accepts that I can owe something for bad decisions someone else took, that “we are all in this together”, or that my suffering doesn’t matter so long as my country recovers its former glory.

Who thinks like that today? Not many people, in my opinion – and most of them, I suspect, are no longer paying tax.

While I don’t feel it myself, I can understand the nationalist answer to that question. If you are part of a “tribe” or a family, you naturally feel like to you owe that group something at a visceral, pre-rational level. And so “national pride” or a “national idea” can sustain a society through adversity.

But our societies are not “nations” and our states are not “nation states” any more, and there’s no point wishing that they were.

I just read a book called The New Society by Walther Rathenau - painted here by Edvard Munch. The Scream guy. Rathenau was the foreign minister of Germany shortly after the First World War, when that country had lost everything – not only total economic collapse but also a collapse of faith in what it was for. A few years after writing that book, he was murdered by proto-Nazis, who had a pretty clear idea of what they thought Germany was for and didn’t like his alternative.

Rathenau recognised that narrow economic interest wasn’t enough to hold a society together, but while he was a nationalist he hated the chauvinism that he held responsible for Germany’s collapse. He then went off into some romantic idea of a spiritual mission, which I must confess to not really understanding.

But I reckon he was onto something. It’s only with a sense of common identity and common values that we can accept our individual subordination to the interests of the group. And private gain and indifference to one another is not enough to secure that. Without knowing what it’s for, the British won’t tolerate the economic demands that Britain’s future (apparently) requires.

I just hope that a new, inclusive sense of identity and shared values can be found – not the sterile multiculturalism of the last 20 years but something that has the power to unite diverse people substantively – before the age-old answer of retreat into narrow nationalistic paranoia rears its ugly head again with a new, respectable mask.

Because right now, there are no British values to teach that are worth the trouble.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m out of touch. If you think so, tell me below. Just don’t think it couldn’t ever happen here.

T-303, by the way. 

Journey to the Garden Centre of the Earth

Have you ever or do you know anyone who has ever bought one of these CDs of pan pipes, whale song, bird noise or other soothing relaxation sounds from a garden centre?

Me neither. So why do all garden centres stock them, in their own custom-made display cabinet – complete with wood-panelled speakers and the option to play short samples therefrom?

I must confess that I am not a keen gardener, and so cannot presume to understand the mentality of those who are. Perhaps the sound of a “Cuban spa” is the perfect way to while away the hours clipping your lawn with nail scissors. However, the only kind of “Celtic mood” garden centres evoke in me is the belligerence of a drunk Glaswegian.

I have hated going to garden centres ever since I was a boy. They’re the perfect “opportunity cost” outing – the whole time you’re there, you are thinking of how much fun you could be having almost anywhere else.

Now though, as a parent, I have discovered a whole new reason to go to garden centres. They are fantastic for kids – much cheaper and less likely to result in fights you have to apologise for than play centres.

Yesterday, while Elvira looked at the random selection of metalwork wall hangings, folio-sized picture books about the history of the Lancaster bomber, expired cough sweets and domestic chemical warfare agents on offer, I trailed around behind Roger Jr and Tancred, for whom the garden centre is the funnest place ever.

They’ve got fish and lizards in tanks you can bang on! Garden furniture you can climb on! Sheds you can hide in! Aisles you can each run in opposite directions along leaving Daddy frantically calculating which one to follow and which one to leave!

The boys had an absolutely fantastic time, and the very light staffing of doddery pensioners and couldn’t-care-less (possibly backward) teenagers you get in these places made for perfect unsupervised chaos.

I’ll tell you what ruined it though. You can never leave one of these places without the kids noticing one of those awful ride-on dinosaurs or cartoon vehicles by the exit. You know the kind. You put a quid in and it sways gently back and forth for a couple of minutes making a noise like it’s drilling through the earth’s core. Please, please, please - if anyone can understand the appeal of this most disappointing of ways to spend a pound, let me know. 

They see me rollin, they hatin

The day I went to Chester

Last week, I spent an afternoon wandering aimlessly around the historic city of Chester.

Since the start of 2012, I have begun wandering aimlessly around every city in which I happen to find myself. Having given up my gym membership last year, I am now going for walks around Leeds every day I am at work. The effects so far have been (i) half a stone lost in a month and (ii) I have a much better knowledge of the place where I have been working every day for the last four years.

So, when I found myself at a loose end on the Welsh border, I naturally thought “I must find a town to wander around” – and there Chester was.

Chester dates back to Roman times. It has an amphitheatre and everything. But the city centre is mostly medieval, full of wonky doorways, tiny passageways and long drops. Of the places I have been to, it reminds me most of Edinburgh – only warmer.  Or Godalming in Surrey.

It is one of those beautiful English towns where normal people like you and I have precisely zero chance of ever owning a reasonably-sized house. 

The only way people who are not either professional footballers or oil billionaires – two groups of people hardly renowned for their appreciation of historical architecture – could afford to live in Chester is by inheriting their parents’ property.

When is this property market insanity going to end? Well, in 318 days I suppose - same as everything else.  

Indeed, housing is starting to look like Albania in 1996, so it will probably end with us all machine gunning each other to steal bricks.

I walked a full circuit of the city walls. Sensibly, they are at their highest facing Wales. Ravening Celts would be obliged to cross the River Dee, the racecourse, a 30-foot wall AND the inner ring road before managing to sack the cathedral.

Chester cathedral is home to some of the finest medieval carvings in Europe. It also costs £6 to get in, unless you are going “for an act of worship” – in which case it’s free. So I didn’t go in. Until they find a way of charging to look at the outside of things, I will content myself with this sort of view.

I did go into the Newgate Street multi storey car park, though.

Honestly, who knows the height of their car? When it says max height 6’ 9”, do you expect me to get out and measure? Or to drive in, and start backing out when the roof box scuffs the ceiling? Hopefully I will be able to get out later on.

Postscript – Shortly after finishing the above, I found that I had lost my parking ticket. I expected to get fined £10, but the attendant let me out for the normal price. Sometimes, having the face of an idiot is a huge advantage. 

Life as a dog

While criticising the NHS is an almost permanent temptation, anyone who thinks we’d be better off without it would do well to imagine life in Britain as a sick dog.

Since the start of this week, one of our dogs (we have two, haven’t mentioned it previously on here) has had something wrong with his right hand side. He keeps going over on his front wrist/ankle joint and can’t correct himself. His back right leg is wobbly too. It’s pretty upsetting to watch, but apart from the falling over, he seems broadly fine.

Elvira took him to the vet a couple of days ago, and the vet was baffled and referred him to a neurologist for an MRI scan. The nearest dog neurologist and MRI scanner, it turns out, are in Chester.

So, there being no ambulances to transport poorly animals around, I have taken a day off work to drive him the 80-odd miles over here.  

I shan’t bore you with the details, but he is having a series of diagnostic tests to figure out what the hell is wrong with him. And the estimate I’ve been given for the cost of that – which has to be settled before I leave – is just under £2,000.

That’s just to find out what’s wrong, not to give any sort of treatment.

Now, the hospital is very nice, and all the staff are very nice – but I suspect that if I had not had pet insurance, they might not have been quite so nice to me. And given that the maximum cover of the dog’s policy is £2,500, we could very well end up later today in a situation where life-saving treatment awaits awkward financial decisions. 

Now I know vets tend to give the impression of being all cuddly and Rolf Harris-like when they are in fact as financially rapacious as Fred Goodwin. But just imagine if it was your kid and not your dog getting that bill. It’s almost enough to make you think that there are some good things about this country after all.