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The wrong part of town

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June 21, 2020

(Photo by Patrick Hendry)

A week before the death of George Floyd, I re-watched two classic 80s American comedies – National Lampoon’s Vacation and Coming to America. Two scenes struck me even then.

In the first, Chevy Chase’s Clark W. Griswold plays it cool after driving the family into an African-American city neighbourhood, and nonchalantly asks someone for directions back to the highway while his car’s tyres are quietly removed.

In the second, Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem and his aide, Arsenio Hall’s Semmi, rock up outside a tenement in Queens and go in search of a bedsit to rent as their luggage is pilfered from behind their backs by the locals.

Why did audiences laugh?

Neither scene would probably be made today, and yet either would still resonate. The only difference might be the addition of Hispanic Americans alongside the African-Americans.

And the argument would probably go that the joke is not on the poor African-Americans in either case. It’s on the bumbling white guy and the African prince. As long as they’re the butt of the joke, it’s ok. Right?

We all get the joke. It’s about deprived urban neighbourhoods. The same jokes are directed at Liverpudlians or Glaswegians in Britain, with possible undertones of anti-Irish sentiment. In Greece, theft is invariably blamed on Albanians.

A version of these jokes could probably be found everywhere in the world: poverty and its associations with crime and potential violence. The popular imagination will always be inclined to put a name and a face to that threat.

Of course, nothing confers an inferior social status like state-sanctioned slavery. That is a level of dispossession of which America – and many other societies – are still grappling with the consequences.

On the subject of popular imaginations, Britain Isn’t What It Used To Be
If statues could speak…

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June 14, 2020

(Photo by Nicolas Dmítrichev)

In early October 2013, I visited Kiev. Several times, I passed a statue near the capital’s main square, the Maydan. On it was written ленин. Even my limited knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet told me this was a statue of the revolutionary leader himself, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. It struck me as odd that this likeness should still stand at the very centre of the Ukrainian nation, 22 years on from its independence from the Soviet Union.

Two months later, it became a focus of protestors’ anger in the revolution that ousted Viktor Yanukovich from power. At the time, I remember a Russian friend, who is no supporter of Communism, warning about the dangers of trying to eliminate the cultural remnants of the past. We both studied the Middle East together, and were used to watching statues being torn down, but it made me think about this question.

Clive of India

Close to my office in London, I used to walk past a statue on a grand pedestal just off The Mall. It was of Clive of India (Robert Clive of the East India Company). I had never heard of him in all my British education. Reading William Dalrymple’s new history, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, I have now discovered him as the rapacious, risk-taking military leader of a corporation that took over Bengal – and eventually all of India – through violence, asset-stripping and widespread slaughter and famine.

It could be said that his actions paved the way for Britain to eventually send the forebears of members of my extended family to the sugar plantations of the Caribbean as indentured labour. Yet his statue stands, on an unusually tall pillar, watching over Britain’s most hallowed thoroughfare, leading to Buckingham Palace and the seat of British cultural power.

Is that a problem?

If protesters have now turned their attentions to the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, labelling him a racist, then Robert Clive has a record in India just as murky. But then, what of all the important white men who stand on pompous statues the country over – and over the whole world? Must they all go?

‘The past is a foreign country,’ as L. P. Hartley wrote. We cannot return to it, but to attempt to write a new history will always result in creating a history based only on what we value today, in our contemporary world, and that too will be history one day.

When Soviets tried, in the 1920s, to rename everything, to eliminate Tsarist history and create a new world of Communist heroes and memories, they thought they were expunging the wrongs of the past. Whether a statue stands or falls, history is forever being edited inside the minds of every one of us. No single narrative is sustained, try as we might.

Talking of history, Think You’ve Got A Good Memory?
Ten albums that shook my world

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April 30, 2020

My friend Ruth Benton asked me to offer up 10 albums that had helped to form my taste in music. It’s one of those pass-it-on Facebook challenges, but this one really does act as an interesting glimpse into your past. Call it online therapy.

No explanation was required on Facebook, but if you’d like to know why I chose what I chose, here goes…

Bruce Springsteen – Live 1975-85

When I got this live compilation spread over three bootleg tapes in my early teens, it blew me away. Full disclosure: I spent the next several years rocking in my bed almost every night, being Springsteen on stage playing to packed stadia.

Dire Straits – Alchemy

Yes, another live set. Most music is better live, and when a guitarist is as good as Mark Knopfler, the more rein he has, the better. This was also on tape, of course, but not bootlegged, amazingly. Sublime plucked strings. My favourite guitarist. Tunnel of Love (for 10 minutes).

Rachid Taha, Khaled & Faudel – 1, 2, 3 Soleils

OK, another live album. I bought this on a stopover in Abu Dhabi airport on the strength of the shop assistant’s recommendation. My first experience of rai music – as we ascended over Arabia – was transcendental. Khaled is the man with the golden voice.

Talvin Singh presents Soundz of the Asian Underground

This compilation of British Asian dance music feels like my London album. It felt to me like a coming out ceremony for a more multicultural British identity, and it felt good. Just listen to this…

The Black Crowes – The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion

These good ‘ol deep southern boys mainlined blues-rock straight from the source. Lead singer Chris Robinson’s lyrics were mostly gibberish, but his gaunt androgynous sense of style was awesome and I tried hard to perfect it.

The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

My parents had their old LPs in a sideboard behind the sofa. I found it. The rest is history. The Rolling Stones always had a soul The Beatles couldn’t match (let the debate commence!) and this album is the perfect balance between the old blues and the new rock. I rest my case…

Led Zeppelin II

Another from behind the sofa. I also found Led Zep I among my Uncle James’ possessions in the attic over my grandparent’s garden room. It’s a close call, but the second album just has it. The ultimate ecstatic British schoolboy interpretation of classic blues. This is how to open an album.

The Pogues – Rum, Sodomy & The Lash

In the mid-80s, my whole family went Celtic crazy (well, a whole swathe of England did actually). Shane MacGowan must be one of the best songwriters of his generation, and the way he honours and reimagines the Irish tradition is epic and iconic.

Flanders & Swann – At the Drop of a Hat

And suddenly, some 50s West End after-dinner entertainment. You see, it’s not all blues-rock. Michael Flanders was a comic genius, and his on-stage patter felt of a piece in my mind with the PG Wodehouse books, Oscar Wilde plays and Stephen Fry skits I was devouring at the time.

Paul Oakenfold – Live at the Ku Club, Ibiza, 1995, Radio 1 Essential Mix 05

And then the era of the album was over… Mix tapes offered up a whole new way of listening to music, more like classical in that it went on for hours without end. This set includes the sublime ‘Odyssey to Anyoona’ by Jam & Spoon and still takes me to higher places.

More music? Bruce Springsteen’s latest album, Western Stars, got me thinking: Are Nomads Bad?
Someone tell me what to do

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April 21, 2020

(Photo by Grant Durr)

The world already had ‘strong leader syndrome’. And now this… Behind all the shock at the sudden curtailment of freedoms (in countries where they existed), how many of us are secretly relaxing into it?

A few years back, I read Witold Szablowski’s book Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny. Its basic premise was this: even after rescue and recuperation, dancing bears will still dance whenever they see a human. It’s hardwired into them.

Szablowski argued that the same goes for humans. Even after the chains of Communism were removed across Eastern Europe, give people a strong leader who tells them what to do, and they’ll still dance for them.

Who’s dancing now?

There was much disapproval of the rise of leaders like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Then democracies like Hungary and Brazil voted in Viktor Orban and Jair Bolsonaro. Westerners shook their heads some more.

Then mature democracies like the US and Britain began voting for a bigger, culturally narrower, more intervening state. In Britain, they even voted voluntarily to curtail their own freedom of movement.

“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
George Orwell

I want to be free

But with freedom comes pressure. If what comes next is up to you, then on your head be it. Suddenly we are confronted with the tyranny of (almost) infinite choice.

As soon as I limit those choices, things get easier. I can be anything! No, I can be male. I can be anything! No, I can be heterosexual. I can be anything! No, I can be British…

I can do anything! No, I can’t leave my country. I can do anything! No, I can’t leave my house. I can do anything! What are we current allowed to do?

From one perspective, it looks like a prison, from another, it looks like the happiness of someone else telling you what to do, so you don’t have to think about it anymore.

Talking of freedom, Is It Your Right To Migrate?
Are you social distancing?

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March 22, 2020

(Photo by Everton Vila)

This is an emergency. Where is the urgency, Sweden? Well, the same accusation was being flung at the UK until this week, but let’s look a little more closely at the facts.

Slowing the curve

So, the scientific evidence is clear. During epidemics you get ‘the surge’, and the only way to avoid an uncontainable spike in cases is to limit people’s contact with each other, or ‘social distancing’.

This means, essentially, avoiding large-scale organized fun, no kissing, no bear hugs, dammit no shaking hands. It involves a nod at best, or if you’re getting avant-garde, a foot rub (through sealed footwear).

It means keeping chat to a bare minimum, and certainly making sure to avoid animated chat on subjects liable to impassion (to minimize the spread of saliva). Since coronavirus is the only subject in town, and a passionate one at that, it means zipping it.

Supermarket sweep

It means heading to the supermarket at asocial hours when you are least likely to bump into people you might have to interact with either verbally or otherwise.

It involves dressing soberly, betraying no emotion, and acting as if everything is entirely normal. This, despite the fact that it’s clear there has been a run on legumes and toilet roll, like some strange inversion of a midsummer BBQ weekend.

But remember, the greatest scientific minds in our nations have been studying the facts, not the fake news. They have observed quite clearly that social distancing measures have been rigorously enforced by Swedes and Brits for generations.

Put out the fire

Clearly, drastic measures were required in Italy, where social distancing was a concept so alien as to be entirely uncommunicable. The same goes for Spain and France. Even those hot-blooded Danes (the Latins of the Nordics) had to rein it in.

Meanwhile, life has continued entirely undisturbed in Sweden. Policy only started to shift in Britain when it was realised that eradicating free movement of people was a central plank of government policy. Talk about win-win…

Yes, Swedes and Brits were separated at birth, and Swedes are just Brits with good branding
You’re lucky to be alive

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March 19, 2020

(Photo by Shane Rounce)

If you’re conscious, you’re lucky. Seriously. Almost all the people who have ever lived aren’t alive right now. But you are (‘cos you’re reading this). Lucky you.

I was getting off the commuter train this week and it struck me: Bugger me, I thought, I’m actually alive at the moment. For ages I wasn’t, for ages I won’t be, but now I am. How refreshing. It pepped me right up.

I had been a bit stressed.

Run of the mill stuff. Work, home, kids, money, the fact that people are actually panic-buying legumes, the realisation of the futility of stockpiling (if the food supply chain collapses, it all collapses, brothers and sisters! Forget the bog roll).

Wasting my precious time.

Depression is the constant fear of losing something. You’ve got nothing to lose. Except consciousness. Are you conscious? Tick. It’s your lucky day.

Still feeling stressed? Remember, if life gives you cucumbers…
Pardon my Swedish!

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March 4, 2020

(Photo by Calvin Hanson)

Whenever I heard my grandmother – who was from the North of England – say something was ‘dear’ (i.e. expensive), I assumed nothing could be more English than this classic colloquial word.

Then I was on Blocket – a Swedish eBay – and it had a little indicator on each sale item, telling you if Blocket thought the item’s sale price was expensive (or ‘dyr’ in Swedish). Hang on, I thought… dyr?

So, it turns out the English of the Danelaw regions have never stopped saying ‘dyr’. You can bring in your Latin expens, but when it comes to the price of bread, we’ll keep our own words, thank you very much!

How come?

Here’s another English colloquialism. Rather than asking ‘Why is that?’ we often ask ‘How come?’ What could be more English? Well, then I saw this sentence in my last Swedish class: Hur kommer det sig att en boxare inte får lov att tävla med skägg? (How come a boxer is not allowed to compete with a beard?) Hur kommer? How come?

The more you look, the more you see. ‘Hoppa’ means ‘jump’. ‘Springa’ means ‘run’. ‘Pratar’ means talk, or prattle, as we sometimes say. ‘Barn’ means child, as any Geordie or Scot could tell you. And ‘kvinna’ – which sounds very like ‘queen’ – means ‘woman’.

English is a mongrel language

It may have stalked the globe, but we all know English is a mishmash of Nordic, Germanic and French, with a solid spicing of other lingos from around the world. Living in Sweden, the debt to the Norse tongue is obvious.

Loads of Swedish words sound very like English equivalents. Even when it looks strange written down, when spoken the link often becomes clear.

When you see ‘Näste station’ on the screen in trains, you can make an educated guess that ‘näste’ must mean ‘next’, but when you hear the conductor pronounce it, it becomes basically the same word.

Language is always being made and unmade, as my son showed me with Lost and Found Words
What’s your storm name?

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February 12, 2020

(Photo by Gatis Vilaks)

Mine’s Storm Caleb. That’s if the rule is Storm followed by the name of your first pet. Otherwise it’s Storm Eileen. That’s if the rule is Storm followed by the name of your maternal grandmother. But enough of this frivolity…

I live in windy city. Malmö, on the southern tip of Sweden, is so windy it ought to have Chicago’s nickname, but has clearly been windy for so long, no one really bothers to mention it anymore.

With Storm Ciara coming through, followed apparently by Storm Dennis this weekend, it’s taking ‘windy’ to the next level.

Let’s be Swedish about this

Obviously, as new Swedish residents, we chose to avoid car-shame and head straight out to buy secondhand bicycles. Let’s take back the planet, one revolution of the pedal at a time!

We have moved into an apartment on the very westerly tip of a peninsula sticking out into the Oresund Strait, a tip of land that locals pointed out wasn’t there 10 years ago. It’s meant to be sea, and the wind thinks so, too.

Time for some turbo

So of course, we did what every new arrival does in February after their first Swedish winter. We said screw riding into a force 8 gale and bought an electric-powered cargo bike to carry our son to preschool, like any self-respecting Swede.

This is – remember – one of the world’s great bike cities. It’s right up there with Copenhagen, only you’ve never heard of it. Cycle highways galore, loads of cute traffic lights for bikes, the works… But in the winter?

No. In the winter, Swedes lock themselves inside their very well-insulated apartments. That’s unless they go into their underground car park to take their Volvo SUV for a spin. Hey, wait, Volvo SUV? But Greta said…

So there I was…

Working my key into the automatic garage door operator after a grueling cargo bike mission across town with my son, only for the door to rise on a pair of Volvo SUV headlamps. I back up the ramp in ungainly fashion.

The Volvo purrs up the ramp and two middle-aged Swedes view me from their car seats, expressionless. What are they thinking? Look at that curious man on that contraption! In this weather! Hahahahaha

I don’t think Swedes name storms. Storm Ciara just belted through, but I think Sweden probably just called it ‘a storm’.

What else have I learnt about here? Hot Dogs, with added Swedishness
If life gives you cucumbers…

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January 16, 2020

(Photo by Charles)

…write a blog about cucumbers.

Sometimes life descends into pure farce. On a wet January evening in a shopping mall on the outskirts of Malmö. Or anywhere. It goes from the mundane to slapstick silly.

So I was in my local supermarket. I had my large-volume backpack on (I cycle my groceries home) and I was standing in front of the organic cucumbers. But why did I feel wetness just above my left hip?

It was definitely wet

I was wearing a heavy winter coat. It wasn’t raining outside. I took off the backpack and looked at it. The bottom left corner was dripping wet, as if it had been dunked in a puddle. Strange. I hadn’t put it down once.

I opened it. Empty. I’d come shopping. Of course it was empty. It was going to be filled. Perplexed, I put it back on and chose an organic cucumber from among the sad specimens, reflecting on how quickly my wife had eaten the last one.

Is that a cucumber in your backpack, or are you just…?

I walked away into the avocado aisle. Once more, I felt the wetness on my skin. Dammit! What is this? I whipped the backpack off again and glared at it. Why? Where was this water coming from?

Then I clicked. The side pocket. The long, thin side pocket. I unzipped it, thrust my hand in, and slowly drew out… what?

A long, thin plastic codpiece, containing the remains of an organic cucumber bought at this same supermarket the week before. It was now half liquid, and the top half was a phallus without gusto.

I held the dripping member in my hand and stared around the shop wild-eyed.

MAN CAUGHT SHOPLIFTING PUTRID VEG!

I saw the headlines already.

I scurried to the organic cucumber section and flung it on the pile. Then thought, Noooooo! What am I doing? That’s disgusting. I picked it up again and ran with it dangling in my hand.

Finally, God placed a wastepaper bin at the foot of the kumquats. I was saved. I slam-dunked it. I straightened up. I looked hastily around. Act casual: Oh, two paw paws for only 20 kroner. A surprisingly good deal…

If you enjoyed that, try Talking To A Three-Year-Old
Same place, different century

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January 10, 2020

(Photo by Emma Francis)

Stuck for a good read? Try two books about the same place from writers who were there a century apart. I’ve done it twice now, by chance. I recommend it.

First, I read Siberian Journey: Down the Amur to the Pacific, 1856-1857 by Perry McDonough Collins, an incredible account of his trip as the first American to travel the length of the Amur River on the border of China and Siberia.

I followed this up by reading Black Dragon River: A Journey down the Amur River at the Borderlands of Empires by Dominic Ziegler.

Collins travelled the Amur as Slavs from Russia were craving out territory for the Tsar. He envisaged a new America in the Far East, rolling back the primitive Chinese. Ziegler’s contemporary travels revealed gleaming Chinese cities looking across the Amur at impoverished Russian settlements.

From US Grant to Kerouac

It happened again when I read the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant – American civil war hero and president. He published them in 1885, just before his death. They largely recount the civil war years and the battles he was engaged in.

I followed this up with Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, published in 1957 and chronicling his road trips across the US in the late 40s and early 50s. I hadn’t intended them as comparison pieces, and yet they were.

Kerouac’s crazy drives from coast to coast, with almost no sleep, occasional fuel stops and bouts of drinking, happened to take him through both Vicksburg, Mississippi and the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Both were sites of major civil war battles Grant described.

A hundred years from now…

I was struck by how these two men were treading the same ground less than a hundred years apart, yet one was bogged down in constant mud, trying to pull mule trains of munitions and bedraggled soldiers through the mire, hitting the major obstacle of rivers they couldn’t cross.

The other was crossing the entire American continent from coast to coast in a matter of days, in an automobile on bitumen roads. For one, the conditions were so harsh they imperiled life itself, for the other, it was a joyride.

Same place, different reality.

More travel and books? Here’s how to spend a long haul flight