White Mansions? Legend of Jesse James? Hello?

I went all the way down to West Cork yesterday, to see a man about a dog.

This man is a musician, and he played me White Mansions and The Legend of Jesse James, two country concept albums, written by an English songwriter called Paul Kennerly. Clapton and his band play on both albums; as does Bernie Leadon; as do the London Symphony Orchestra. Singers on the two albums include Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Albert Lee and Johnny Cash. Both albums were produced by Glyn Johns. In 1983, Kennerly married Emmylou.

And I’m like, hello? Country concept albums? Who knew such a thing existed?  He MARRIED Emmylou? Why have I never even heard OF these really rather good albums, never mind actually listened to them? Are not many of my pals country nuts? Do they not spend their lives on he Word blog? Hello, Paul Williams, Dave Rothon, Bob Machin… is there some weird conspiracy going on? Has anyone heard of these things before and just not thought to tell anyone? Did you simply not like them? I think we should be told…

Mandelson the Destroyer

I guess I thought that The New Party might just shut the fuck up for the next few months until they are consigned to the dustbin of history, but no. The First Secretary of State, Peter ‘Lord’ Mandelson, who has responsibility for both business and universities, has announced his ‘new framework‘ for university reform. Universities are to be consumer led. Business is to have a much greater say in the design of courses. Apart from meeting the needs of employers, and to offer consumer satisfaction, the review’s third primary aim is that universities should promote ’social mobility’. Learning for its own sake is over. The instrumentalists have taken over.

I had the privilege of going to university twice. I started as a student at St. David’s University College, Lampeter, in 1976; the same year that ‘Lord’ Mandelson graduated from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, with a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, the traditional degree of those little shits who had already decided by the time they left school they wanted to be political apparatchiks for a living. (Will political parties post- Mandelson’s reforms get to have a say in the future design of PPE degrees?)

At that time, only about 5% of the population got to go to university. My Dad worked on Newhaven Docks, my Mum worked at the Co-Op, and my old school, Newhaven Tideway, was hardly a beacon of educational excellence. In fact, I was the only person from my year at school who went straight to university, though others followed after a gap year or two. I was supposed to be studying philosophy, but I didn’t, because I hadn’t gone to university for any other reason than that I wanted to get away from home, take drugs, lose my virginity, and sing in rock and roll bands, all of which aims I proudly achieved. You might call it ’social mobility’, I suppose.

Towards the end of my time at Lampeter, the Professor of Philosophy called me into his office.

‘Mr. Marchant,’ he said. ‘you’ve been with us almost three years, yet we have no record of any written work from you. How is this possible? What have you been doing with your time?’

I told him, and he nodded sagely.

‘Let me tell you a story,’ he said. ‘For many years, I taught in African universities, where having a degree was seen as a magic amulet, one which had voodoo powers. The mere flourishing of the certificate would cause doors to be flung open, and great wealth to accrue to those who were fortunate enough to hold such a powerful piece of paper. Imagine my disappointment when I came back to teach in this country to discover that having a degree was viewed in exactly the same way. I’m glad you don’t think like that, and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed your time with us; good afternoon Mr Marchant.’ A few months later, in June 1979, I was the proud holder of the rarest degree from any British university, the fail.  My social mobility had earned me nothing other than… fun, I suppose. A bit of space, some time to ‘find myself’ as they say in California. God forbid that in ‘Lord’ Mandelson’s scheme of things the ‘consumers’ of ‘employer designed’ degrees should achieve any such thing as fun, or pleasure. How will it prepare them for business? How will it enable them to be productive cogs in the creaking machinery of UK PLC? What use would such individuals be to industry?

Ten years after my non-graduation  I went back to university, to Lancaster, to study the history of science. This time I was motivated entirely by interest in the subject. It was 1989, and earlier that year, Tory Education Secretary Kenneth Baker had come to Lancaster and planted his ‘timebomb’; the doubling of the university intake. I guess that was no bad thing, as 5% was probably too low – although, Shock! Horror!- lots of highly intelligent interesting and wonderful people didn’t go, and didn’t particularly want to go. Many of my best friends… didn’t go to university! One of the persistant contributors to this blog, and one of the funniest and best bloggers I know… kids, he didn’t go to university! He hasn’t even got A levels! Still; more people who wanted to go to university could go, and that’s a good thing.  But 50% of school leavers, which is the New Party’s current target? A ridiculous nonsense, as everyone who works in higher education knows.

Another consequence of Baker’s speech  was the disapearance in 1992 of the Polytechnics. I’d love to know what was wrong with polytechnics. They had a proud history stretching back into the 1830’s. I can’t see that there was any stigma attached to going to, for example, the City of Birmingham Polytechnic, but there sure as hell is in going to Birmingham City University, where I was Royal Literary Fund Fellow between 2006 and 2009, and which I’m going to come on to in this increasingly overlong and ranting post…

Anyhoo: polytechnics… what was wrong with them? If we really value work and experience based models of higher education, why abolish the institutions which were best at it… and force them into the shape of a university… and then force the universities into the shape of polytechnics, except without the proud history? Two stories of pals of mine who went to polytechnics, specifically Portsmouth Poly… One old pal from school studied automotive engineering at Portsmouth Poly, did very well, and then went to work at the world famous Ricardo plant in Shoreham. After ten years or so working there, he fell in love with a French lass, and applied for a job at Renault in Paris. ‘Where did you go to University?, they asked him. ‘I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘I went to Portsmouth Polytechnic…’ ‘Oooh,’ said his very impressed employers… ‘Le Polytechnique!’ (Because the Ecole Polytechnique is about the best college in France.) My pal didn’t think to make clear the difference, but perhaps he didn’t need to. He is one of the best qualified and passionate engineers in his field; the ghost of Portsmouth Poly should celebrate him.

And which top British poet has a third in Geography from Portsmouth Poly? And is proud of it?

So I emerged from Lancaster University in 1992 with a degree in the history of science, and I passionately hope that it is of no utility whatsoever to any employers ever, because I did it for its own sake; because, as I said earlier, I was fascinated by the subject. I also hope that it has done very little for me as a consumer, and that it has not aided my social mobility one jot. Of course, The New Party’s view of history is well known; who can forget Charles Clarkes’ pronouncements on medieval history? No no no; only politicians need to study things like philosophy and history; the rest of you can study whatever shit British Industry deems necessary.

And… what British Industry would that be?

According to ‘Lord’ Mandelson, British employers are unhappy with the standards of graduates who enter the workplace. Well, my Lord, please be assured that universities are dissatisfied with the quality of entrants they get after 13 odd years in your shitty, curriculum driven instrumentalist schools. At Birmingham City University, I was in a permanent state of shock at the uneducated state of many of the undergraduates who came under my care. They could have shit their pants, and thought they hadn’t.

Of course, it’s the humanities which will most obviously come under threat from ‘Lord’ Mandelson’s decree; but the sciences will wither and die too, as ‘blue sky research’ is increasingly exported to the States. Three of the top five universities on Earth are currently in the UK; you might imagine that was a cause for pride; you might imagine that The New Party might want to see if they could replicate that excellence elsewhere. But no. They want to tear down the ‘Ivory Towers’, and hand the ruins over to employers, and consumers, which are the only relations they recognise. The New Party have left our country on its knees, in the name of… what, exactly? What are they for?

To my daughter Minnie, who is in her second year at UEA studying philosophy, and who was telling me last night about her fascination with ancient greek epistomology: ‘Lord’ Mandelson says ‘Fuck Off. You should have done Marketing. Philosophy is not for the likes of you, you nasty little counter jumper. Its for me, and the New Party’s cadres, like ‘Ed’ ‘Bollocks’ Balls and ‘Ed’ Milliband.’

To Claude Levi-Strauss, whose death was announced yesterday… ‘Lord’ Mandelson says, you should have stopped wasting your time on the raw, or the cooked, you stupid cunt. Write us something about consumer behaviour. I’m glad you’re dead, you time wasting old shit.’

To the University of Cambridge, for raising £550 000 to buy Seigfried Sassoon’s papers, ‘Lord’ Mandelson says, ‘You wankers. Who will be left to read this crap? You should have given the money to The New Party, or to me. I fucking love money. I’ve got fuck loads.’

This time next year, Mandelson and The New Party will be history themselves. And what will their legacy be? The Tories in charge again. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

19 Cannabis Deaths per annum?

According to a table of drug harm accompanying a piece by the excellent Prof. David ‘Nut by name but not by nature’ Nutt in today’s Guardian (and I’m sorry, but this table hasn’t been reproduced in the online version, so far as I can see), there are 19 deaths from cannabis use per annum in the UK.

Prof Nutt in his piece says, ‘… that’s one of the reasons why we thought cannabis should be class C, because you cannot die of cannabis overdose.’

So I wonder where the 19 deaths come from? Over-eating cake? Falling asleep on the sofa with a burning spliff in your hand? Failure to catch your breath because you are giggling too much? I think we should be told.

Off The Page, Vietnamese food, 2666 and all that…

I’ve just been to that London for a recording of the Radio Four series ‘Off The Page’, which is due for broadcast sometime in November. My fellow guests were the excellent Melissa Cole, and the legendary Simon Fanshawe. We were debating the demise of the pub, and hopefully it will make for a fun listen.

I struggle more and more with that London, though I did have the enormous pleasure after the recording of running into the worshipful Matt Barnard outside the Salisbury on St. Martin’s Lane. Astute readers of ‘The Longest Crawl’ will notice that I ran into him in the penultimate chapter on the ferry to Shetland; he is a great human being, and I love to run into him, at Pilton, on ferries, and outside pubs in London and Edinburgh.

And old Charley is now living and working in that London, so I went to stay with her, which was the hugest pleasure, and she took me out to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Dalston with loads of my nieces and nephews and my ex-sister-in-law, Em, with whom I once lodged, and of whom I am very fond. Niece Z lived in Vietnam for a year, and speaks quite a bit of Vietnamese; and this particular restaurant is clearly very well thought of. So if ever I was going to start liking Vietnamese food, this was my moment. Thing is, I’ve had Vietnamese food a couple of times before, and on both occasions I felt quite ill afterwards. But I bit the bullet, and let Niece Z order for me; and it was quite horrible. Is it me? Or am I alone in disliking  cold pancakes stuffed with under cooked vegetables, or slimy boiled up fish? All the Londoners seemed to lap it up; perhaps I’m just being provincial, as so often. I made my excuses as soon as I could, and hurried off to find an all-night newsagent to buy a Mars Bar to take the taste away. But I’m beginning to suspect that Vietnamese food is the Emperor’s New Clothes of metropolitan cuisine. After all, who would go to Dalston and eat anything other than Turkish?

But a huge thrill of being in London, one which sustained me all through a white knuckle ride of a hell flight back to Belfast, was buying and becoming utterly absorbed in Roberto Bolano’s ‘2666′. The reviewers have gone bonkers for it, and I can see why. The reviewer who said that it was like the novel that Borges would have written was spot on. But I’m reminded too of the spooky story-telling power of Isak Dinesen, or the hypnotic list-making of Perec or Harry Matthews, with some breath-takingly vast Proustian sentences that carry you through the narrative like waves carrying surf dudes up Fistral Beach. Astounding stuff; buy it here!

Microsoft Launch Party Poll

Please have a look at this You Tube clip promoting the idea of launch parties for Windows Seven, and then consider your answer to the poll. We will be forwarding the results to Microsoft. Your vote really counts.

Headhunters

Not really an entry, as such, but another link which I felt my readers must see…

The Headhunters Railway Museum and Barbers Shop in Enniskillen. Who amongst you will be able to resist the temptation…

As their website says, ‘Whether you are a railway enthusiast, former railway employee or just a child brought up on ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’, why not combine your visit with a unique opportunity to have your hair professionally styled in the most nostalgic surroundings?’

Watching the ships go by

One of the things that you can do on a WordPress blog is see which of the links that you post get clicks. To my horror, no one, exactly no one, has clicked on the link I posted a couple of days ago to the ShipAIS website. My friends, you are quite simply bonkers.

AIS is a collision avoidance system used by sea-going ships. Heroic anoraks monitor this system, and keep track of ship’s movements on the ridiculously time-wasting ShipAIS site.

Old Charley was staying in Southwold a few weeks ago, and she said that at night the horizon lit up like a city because of the dozens of ships that are lying in what I now know is called the Southwold anchorage. Using this brilliant website, you can find out the names of these ships; and even look at photos of them. For those occasional visitors to my site of a railway enthusiastic bent, your life is about to be transformed…

My old Mum’s habit, world peace, an end to crime, etc.

My old Mum is hanging out at present, and it’s not fun times for anybody. The doctor has said that her new knee is working fine, and so he’s taken her off the morphine patches. If she could bend her knees, she’d be huddled in the corner, sweating, rocking to and fro, and grasping them.

My old Mum is just one of millions of people who are suffering from opiate withdrawal world wide. The limited legal supplies of opiates come to Western Europe and the States, and not to the places where people are in the most pain. It is 4000 % more expensive to buy morphine for pain relief in Lima than it is to buy illegal opium from the farm gate in Afghanistan. The glut of illegal opium poppy production in Afghanistan since the start of the war is probably being stockpiled, since supply currently outstrips heroin demand by about 2:1. Researching for the ‘Longest Crawl’, I learned that during periods of prohibition, consumption goes up, and that during times of tolerance, drug use levels off. I also learned that drugs screw up the heads of those who attempt to legislate against them just as much as they do those of users.

Meanwhile, British soldiers are fighting the Third Opium War. Our masters are spending our troops on two fronts; ‘Terror’ and ‘Drugs’. In Afghanistan, these fronts cross. We try, and fail, to destroy the poppy trade, and wonder that the main poppy growing area is up in arms. If someone declared lamb illegal, and soldiers came to Radnorshire to eradicate sheep and get us to grow watermalons instead, we’d fight. Not me personally, obviously. I’d make the tea, though.

It has seemed to me for years that the obvious thing to do would be to buy the poppies from the farmers. Just buy them, and bring our girls and boys home; and keep them west of Suez for good and all. This policy has also seemed obvious to those hippies I’ve talked to about the idea in The Dukes. Last weekend, one of the hippies I was talking to about the idea told me that his nephew has just come back from Afghanistan, and that all the lads he knows in the Army think that it is only buying the poppies from the farmers that makes any sense.

This old hippy, after talking to that old hippy, came home and had a look at the Wonderful World of Web, and discovered the joy-making Poppy For Medicine campaign. The idea is simple; you give the farmers the equipment to make morphine from their poppy crops, and then buy the morphine at almost twice the black market price. Unlike the shit I talk with my mates in the pub, this is a beautifully thought out project; a policy of peace, just waiting to be grabbed by a party with a little political courage.

Apparently, the Taliban make ‘hundreds of millions of dollars a year’ from the black market trade in opium. We spend that in an afternoon. Just fucking buy it. We could do it today.

All farmers should have the right to grow on their own land what they judge to be the most economically viable crop, and to recieve the best price for it. In Afghanistan, that crop happens to be  Papaver somniferum.

So I’ve done something enormously C21, and started a Facebook group, called Poppies For Peace. We also serve who only sit and surf. This is the blurb I’ve put up on the site…

‘Poppies for Peace thinks that we should remember what it means when we wear our poppies to commemorate the death of British servicemen and women. We are still fighting opium wars, and still killing our soldiers and airmen in the futile ‘War Against Drugs.’
This year, when you wear your poppy, please take a moment to write to your local newspaper and your MP, asking for their support for the Poppies For Medicine programme.’

Innit?

One possible drawback of this madcap scheme to pay Afghan farmers a fair price for their crops instead of bombing their weddings is that the black market price could be driven higher over time. So the next bit of a sane heroin policy would be to manage demand by making smack available on prescription. But that, my loves, is another story.