George Formby and Max Miller - two goliaths of 20th Century British Comedy

Having recently watched Frank Skinner's excellent TV documentary on George Formby (above) and read John East's biography of Max Miller (right), I was struck by some of the similarities between these two British 20th century comedy icons.

• George and Max were proud Lancastrian (Wigan) and Sussex-born (Brighton) comedians respectively who built their careers on working class humour and pride in their roots (although George was actually working class made good as his father George Formby Sr had already dragged the family out of poverty through his own music hall success)
• Both changed their names (George Formby from 'George Hoy', Max Miller from 'Thomas Henry Sargant')
• Both George and Max began their careers in the music hall and both progressed to films, although sadly in Max's case his film career was short-lived as he had the misfortune to be cast in several low-budget films which did not capture the public imagination or cast him to make best use of his talents. He was also ten years older than Formby and found it harder to get into his natural stride on film. Max was always more comfortable treading the boards and playing to a live audience and it showed.
• Both married female performers (Beryl Ingham and Kathleen Marsh, respectively) in the early 1920s
• Both attempted comedy double acts with their new wives with limited success before it was realised that the men were the stronger performers at which point both wives made the decision to sacrifice their own stage ambitions and devote their lives to raising their husband's star.
• Both wives proved fiercely astute managers who drove a hard bargain and were widely feared by the showbusiness world (though it needs to be remembered that they were operating in an almost exclusively male environment in an age where women had little choice but to be fierce in order to be taken seriously).
• Both wives edited, approved and coached their husbands with their material and acts (George and Max both struggled with literacy). Kathleen also made most of Max's famously flamboyant stage clothes.
• Both comedians were always impeccably dressed for their performances, although Max would revel in his sartorial derring do with floral fabrics which dared to tease the inflexible masculine norms of the times.
• Neither comedian had children, Kathleen lost a baby, after which she was advised not to risk another pregnancy for medical reasons and Beryl chose to have a hysterectomy shortly after marriage as she did not want children
• Both wives followed their husbands everywhere they performed in their heyday and kept them on a short leash in terms of drink and female temptation (Beryl went as far as to prohibit George from kissing any leading lady, even if the script required it, so his films often involve a romantic moment comically interrupted at the crucial scene. Beryl also made sure she appeared in as many off-screen photographs with George as possible, lest anyone get any ideas!) 
• Both comedians were known for their comic songs and stock-in-trade cheeky double entendres, though Max was far more risque compared to George's mock gormless hero of the hour, coining the term 'blue jokes', a reference to his 'blue book' of jokes, tame as these seem by today's standards. However George went on to have the stellar film career, which eluded music hall 'There'll never be another' Max, albeit Max also made a few films.
• Both were excused from conscription in WWII and became famed for entertaining the troops as their contribution to the war effort (George was awarded an OBE)
• Both were exceptionally mean with money, using their manager wives as an excuse (George was famously only given 5 shillings a week 'pocket money')
• Both shared a love of luxury cars. George also had a boat, Lady Beryl.
• Both comedians lived in the same area all their lives, although their houses became larger as they grew in stature and both dabbled in smallholdings with a few animals for a while. Amusingly each of George's homes was christened 'Beryldene'.
• It was rare for either comedian to spend a night away from home, though this was not necessarily about devotion - both were highly reliant on their wives, almost to an unhealthy degree, to manage every aspect of their lives and careers. Max even called Kathleen 'Mum'. 
• Both comedians would eventually confess (George publicly, Max privately) towards the end of their lives that their marriages had not been entirely happy unions and they had been deprived of marital relations for many years (no matter that their wives would assume jealous reactions of almost epic proportions if they dared exchange more than a glance with another female).
• Both managed to conduct one or two affairs despite stringent marital controls. Or perhaps because of...
• George died in 1961 and Max died in 1963, both following heart problems and having suffered from depression as health and career declined in their final years. 
• Both comedians have societies devoted to them. The George Formby Society and The Max Miller Appreciation Society, still going strong over 50 years after their deaths. Both are also commemorated as bronze statues in their home towns.

In conclusion, these comedy giants were almost brothers by other mothers in my view and I wonder if this ever struck them on the occasions that they met. The world would certainly have been all the poorer without them.
I think it's only right that Beryl and Kathleen are remembered too though. Whatever personal frustrations went on behind closed doors in their marriages, Beryl and Kathleen were undoubtedly devoted to their husbands and sacrificed everything for them (which in itself must have been a hard pill to swallow and not without its tensions). But their talents went on to shine in other respects and they struck their own pioneering blow for female equality in the world of stage management, intentionally or not.

Perhaps too it was hard to sustain a romantic relationship when Beryl and Kathleen knew and helped with every last detail of their husbands' lives and were no nonsense business partners as well as spouses. Beryl's last few years were also spent battling leukaemia (and alcoholism to control the pain) which can't have been easy for her.

           (Shyer) Kathleen Marsh Miller           

       

Beryl and George Formby

George and Beryl attempt to make it as a double act (1920s)

Kathleen and Max also attempt to make it as a double act (1920s)

Why Libraries Are Not An Unaffordable Luxury in a Digital Age

Yesterday I noticed an advert for Brighton and Hove Debating Society. The motion was 'Libraries Are An Unaffordable Luxury In A Digital Era'. I nearly didn't go, imagining that I would get too angry and probably be thrown out anyway.

I needn't have worried.

Even the proposer did not wish to see the end of libraries and it was a majority victory against the motion, though the proposer argued that libraries still had to 'stack up' and be financially viable. I did not agree. Libraries are a public service. Nor do I accept the argument that cuts must be made somewhere and we need to decide what we want to keep. As long as we are paying for all our services through our local and national taxes. we need to RECEIVE all our services in my view. To talk about alternative methods of funding (as one audience member suggested) for public services such as libraries just means that we would pay for the same services in different ways twice over!

There was an interesting letter in the local paper this week pointing out how in the days when our city was truly broke (ie late 70s with 3-day weeks, endless strikes, not much cash around), we enjoyed immaculate parks with award winning flowerbeds, plentiful and spotless public toilets, free museums, bowling greens, leisure centres, a well-resourced library service, free social care and virtually no social housing queue, not to mention plentiful Police and a reasonably well-run NHS. Yet now in an age where the council has never enjoyed more citizens paying council tax and rakes in parking and parking permit revenue undreamt of in the 1970s plus the benefit of a year-round seaside economy, thanks to university growth, suddenly we are expected to accept cut after cut to our local services. If there is genuinely such a deficit we need to first demand to know where our money is going, rather than blithely accept what we are told. Nor did we receive a council rebate for our water rates when they left council jurisdiction to be farmed out to privatised companies under PM Margaret Thatcher in 1989.

But to get back to libraries, yes they have had their cyclical and fashionable ups and downs over the years and some are better supported than others, though this is largely down to how well they are run. Of course they have had to change with the times and run clubs, meetings and events and offer internet access, DVDs, CDs and even toys, but they remain an essential social hub in most communities, without which there is literally no non-commercial public space left for people to go when it rains or for people who can't afford to spend vast sums of money on education, entertainment or taking their children out. NB: It is a truth universally acknowledged that children LOVE libraries and regard them as something akin to magical kingdoms of endless possibility. They are also sadly more likely to get a story read to them at their local library than they are by their own exhausted parents at bedtime these days. Autobiographies abound by poor children made good or who survived bad childhoods crediting the library as their refuge or the key to their success as adults. Let's not forget that Andrew Carnegie himself was such a poor boy made good by libraries and determined to extend that privilege around the world.

In an age pushing us towards 'contactless' life libraries are also a lifeline for the lonely and elderly who are rapidly losing their banks, post offices and human interactions in shops, not to mention free museums. They are also a lifeline for those failed by schools but who cannot afford further education fees.

23% of the population still don't have internet access either, some because they have never joined the internet age and others because they live in parts of the country which don't have internet coverage. It can be a polarising and socially isolating phenomenon leading to some segments of the population suffering disadvantage.

I speak as one who spends half their life on computers and the internet for professional as well as personal reasons. I have nothing against the digital world, except for its threat to take over my life if I let it. The online world may be seductive (and I've had my moments of addiction) but nothing beats real life and spending time doing real things, hanging out with real friends and generally keeping it real. I have to regard the online world as a tool to be kept in life's toolbox for the sake of my own sanity. Often at weekends I refuse to check my Facebook or email for a whole 24hrs, occasionally a whole 48. It feels good and I feel healthier for it. It is rare that I miss anything of importance as a result as a real life friend can always phone me if it's urgent.

The average 18-25 yr old apparently checks their smartphone on average 85 times a day with up to five hours a day spent streaming films and music or on social media. Mental health issues are on the rise as a result of such behaviour as is bullying and that lovely internet trend known as 'trolling'. Concentration levels are also plummeting leading to serious mistakes in people's everyday lives and lower productivity at work.

So what has all this got to do with libraries? Well the true aim of a library is to provide information. To offer signposts in a confusing world. It doesn't matter if that information is multi-media in form or in a book. The modern Library can still provide and the public are still helped.

One also has the regular joy of discovering something new in a library or which you would never have dreamt of reading/watching/listening to had you not stumbled upon it. This doesn't happen on the internet. You search for something, you find it. no surprises. Your horizons are neither challenged nor broadened. And however high resolution screens become, I for one don't want to be staring at them 24/7. I love the smell, tactility and jacket of a book. Nor is it easy to wrap a download as a present for someone. Downloads make lousy presents to go under the Christmas tree! And many people remain unaware that digital downloads are never truly yours, no matter how much you have paid for them. You are merely renting them for life when you buy. Should you wish to leave your music or movie download collection to your son or daughter when you die, you can't. The collection dies with you. Buy a real librarysworth of  books, DVDs or CDs and they are physically your property to leave to whomever you wish

Aside from addiction, the online world carries the huge unspoken risk if we put all our eggs in its basket as we are increasingly driven to, the more real life services are transferred onto it. Almost everything online is free now, but the moment it reaches a tipping point of the vast majority of the real world being reliant on the online world to function is the moment we will begin to be charged for all data, including our own. Have you ever wondered what the true intentions of 'clouds' are, aside from making it easier to share files? Why, so that you no longer save your own information on your own C-drives or USB sticks of course. So that you have to pay subscriptions to carry on using both software and your data. And it won't just be financial control. Your data will be able to be stolen and used against you in all kinds of ways. Microsoft, Apple and Google are no benign entities. Each has world domination intentions or are owned by powers who do. Those endless compulsory computer 'updates' are not for our benefit, no, but to increase the stranglehold on us and our data (sic the recent case of an HP printer download rendering all HP printers unable to accept cheaper generic cartridges so that printer owners were forced to pay through the nose for genuine HP cartridges).

When this digital bubble bursts and our love affair with the computer age ends I predict libraries will enjoy a renaissance comparable only to their rise in Victorian times. Free information, education  and entertainment will be prized above all else once we have had a taste what digital Big Brother has to offer.

Meantime with national literacy and grammar levels plummeting and the rise of social media contributing to the shrinking and bastardisation of our vocabulary. we remain in dire need of our libraries if we did but know it. Social mobility and progress is currently going backwards to the bad old days when few people could read and write properly. We are well and truly in the age of the unenlightenment, but hang in there and this too will pass, for ultimately we are cyclical beings who learn, forget, make mistakes and then learn again.

Invasion of the Vegans...

At 22 a friend's son announced he was going vegan. There was a general rolling of eyes as 

a. Jason had always been an enthusiastic meat lover.

b. Jason wasn't known for sticking to anything for more than about ten minutes and had already dropped out of two universities.

c. Both Jason and his dad Paul were wind-up merchants and it was their greatest hobby to devise new ways to annoy one another, so it was a natural assumption that this was just Jason's latest thing to annoy his dad.

Merciless teasing inevitably followed along with various mealtime battles, some jovial, some deadly serious resulting in full scale morality arguments and fall-outs and Jason leaving home and disowning his family for several months at a time. Eventually his family got the message and always kept a pack of Linda McCartney sausages in the freezer, just in case.

Much to everyone's amazement, having lost a whole Facebook network through his relentless vegan proselytising (and doubtless gained a new one through joining various vegan FB groups), Jason is still a strict vegan five years down the line.

He is not alone. Like a new religion, veganism is sweeping the country and our youth with a fervency seldom seen, seemingly fuelled by a succession of young and glamorous 'Deliciously Ellas' with their clean eating revolution combined with the easy availability of horrific animal abuse exposes and films online. Vegan Facebook groups frequently descend into rabid arguments over the tiniest ignorances or points of difference and have to keep urging each other to 'Be nice to newbies' or close down particularly contentious threads altogether.

My late vegan father and campaigner would have been astonished. When he was hawking veganism in the 1970s and 80s, few people gave him the time of day. It was embarrassing to be around him as a child as all he ever seemed to do was lecture everyone about what they should (and shouldn't) eat. Going to a cafe was mortifying as he lectured every waiter and waitress on the merits of the vegan diet and the dire health consequences of not converting, rather than simply telling them what he DID want to eat or drink! If anyone he knew died of cancer or heart trouble, it was 'their own fault for eating rubbish' or 'smoking' because 'I warned them!'.

Not that I wanted to eat meat. I just wanted us to be normal apart from not eating meat. Instead we were known as local freaks in the small town in which we lived, bullied at school and never invited to other childrens' birthday parties or sleepovers. I learned being messianic about things won neither converts or friends. 

My late friend Jill Phipps (killed by a lorry exporting calves at the anti-live export protest at Coventry airport in 1995) would have been similarly astonished by the vegan revolution and I wish she could have lived to see it. 

Despite all, it fills my heart with joy going to events like VegFest and seeing queues around the block in their hundreds. I am glad to be a strict veggie (if not quite a vegan anymore - I just can't do that level of raw food!). I am glad my parents never got me vaccinated with animal tested products using animal ingredients, not to mention hazardous heavy metals). I am really glad we have so many great new foods and products nowadays, though I miss some of the old like the amazing Granogen soy milk powder. I am also glad I feel balanced and sane (sadly many vegan men were a little tooo eccentric for me and it wasn't the diet!). I will happily advise people on going veggie or vegan and share tips, but I will never shove what I believe down anyone's throat. Apart from anything else, I learned from my father's example that it doesn't work as a tactic to change the world. 

My partner is veggie-friendly, careful to avoid cross-contamination in the kitchen, and has reduced the amount of meat he eats, but it is not my business to convert him and I have seen a good friend lose her husband by trying to convert him and him pretending to embrace veganism and then sneaking off to burger bars to 'cheat' on her! This to my friend was even worse than him cheating on her with another woman! But I do see how converting to please a partner can lead to hidden resentments, which then build up over time, whether it is a religion or a diet.

Therefore I just encourage my other half to eat as organically and humanely as possible. The rest has got to come from him as and if he is ready.

Ultimately life has to be about each of us trying to do our personal best to live a good life with as little harm to our fellow humans and animals as we can manage. If each of us did this, how much better the world would be, immediately. Not perfect, but then nor are we.

Greetings (and apologies) From The Grave

Recently I felt prompted to book a sitting with a recommended medium called Louise Eaton of Hove just out of curiosity - to see if anyone I once knew had a message for me - and maybe a few words of advice or celestial wisdom to share.

After a stunning message from a young relation where she produced over 20 items of accurate information about her life (which I can't share here for extended family reasons), Louise brought through a surprising message which I can share, from my late father, who as a staunch atheist would have held no truck with life after death or any such 'superstitious nonsense' when alive.

All of the following is absolutely true though, including the very specific place he fell on the stairs before his final admission to hospital and then nursing home. This was on a mini landing in between two staircases and the bathroom in my parents' home. Not a usual house layout. She also referred to his mind - he suffered from an unspecified form of dementia in his final years.

Had a messy study 
Had collection of something in frames (coins or stamps?) (both)
Nice voice 
Didn't take any nonsense from anyone. 
Not co-operative or patient 
Was in army (National Service)
Chip on his shoulder 
Angry at being raised to eat meat 
Fell on stairs or in-between stairs and bathroom prior to last illness 
Something wrong with finger  
Something wrong with mind 
Didn't like catheter
Ran away from hospital (several times) in pyjamas. Caused nurses a lot of trouble
He'd had enough in the end 
Can think clearly now 
Good luck with researching building to save it (reference to a current project of mine)

A week later I found myself on a ghost night at Preston Manor where there were two mediums who surprisingly also had a message from my father.

Very organised and tidy but got messy as years passed 
Difficult character. 
Didn't suffer fools gladly 
Everything revolved around him 
My mother put up with a lot and did a lot for him. 
Chip on his shoulder 
Sorry that he was so hard on me as a child 
Watching over me. 
Is proud of me ten times over 
He can think clearly now

So he's apologised for my harsh childhood at last, albeit from beyond the grave...

My mother has now booked an appointment to receive her apology!

Revenge Poem to a Former Housemate

Controlling The Weather

When you swear
You pollute the air
You say you're green
Yet can't keep it clean
You turn it blue
Shame on you
You claim to use hate to punctuate
Your narrative, my will to live
I suspect it's more to hide
A void inside
Or that you're about as articulate
As an invertebrate
A poor ambassador for our race
Should they visit from Outer Space
When you swear
You pollute the air
Turn it ugly and stormy
Where it was blue sky and balmy
Don't walk, run
From those who spite the sun.

LS King 2016

You know who you are...

Coming Soon to A Town Near You...

City Heritage Tour 2043

This blue plaque marks the spot of the last shop

And this plaque marks the spot of the last Library

This is a statue of a scholar where the College once stood

And here is a hologram of the old Victorian pier

To give a bit of atmosphere

Next we have a living museum of a drinking establishment

Known as a pub

You can have a Latte shake here at the end of the tour

Over here stood the Regency theatre

Over there, the Art Deco cinema

Next to it a Gothic-inspired church, would you believe?

This blue plaque marks where the market was

Before it became a block of living pods

And you'll laugh when I tell you

But this used to be a Post Office

Lastly we have a plaque to commemorate the public toilets

The last of their kind

Now we're digitising humankind

LS King 2016

The Real Reasons for Brexit

There has been a lot of doom and gloom about Brexit, but I for one don't love our European neighbours any the less as a result and I've yet to meet anyone who does.




I prefer to see Brexit as the biggest blow to the banking and oil dynasties who really run the world and apparently want first, a European superstate, and then a world government - concepts I personally am far more uncomfortable with than the turmoil and tough times (for a while) of leaving EU - a wasteful and inefficient behemoth if ever there was one.



A friend has just sent me a link to the Kalergi plan. If you take out the word 'genocide' and assorted paranoia, it makes interesting reading. Not that immigration per se is the problem for most people. It is mass immigration, unplanned, unconsulted, and without the infrastructure to support it without turning various communities upside down and making them question their own identity that has caused the anger. Along with tax exiles, corporations and the super rich dodging their taxes, MPs fiddling their expenses, housing shortages, NHS pressures, Gulf Wars, Philip Green asset stripping BHS, bedroom tax. the fall of the steel industry, homelessness and all the other blows the working class in particular feel they have been subjected to without anyone noticing or caring. And even though not all of these are the EU's fault - this was Britain's big opportunity to register a protest vote - for better or worse - and they took it.




Notwithstanding, why shouldn't they be angry about imported workers who are prepared to live in garden sheds or 4 to a front room for the privilege of working in a central London coffee chain outlet and at being undercut in the labour market generally? For many natives (and I count established or second generation immigrants in the term 'natives') wages have been effectively frozen for the last ten years as the cost of living continues to rise inexorably. And that is if they have been lucky enough to keep their jobs. We are constantly being told Britain is a WEALTHY country, but the reality is Britain is only a wealthy country for the top 5% of those who live in it, not for most of the rest. When open borders were first proposed by Tony Blair back in 1997, it was estimated only 13,000 people would move to UK per year. That figure turned out to be nearer 300,000 per year. Meaning 180,000 new houses need to be built per year to keep up with the immigrant population alone, let alone the home market. This places towns and cities under the most enormous pressure from development and many are in the process of being over-developed beyond all recognition. Heritage in particular has never been more at risk. Separately to this overseas buyers - generally from the far east - are snapping up just about everything built in city centres off-plan as an investment (developers prefer selling off-plan in order to get their money back quicker). Many such buyers never live in them and some won't ever visit them either. They are simply gold bars in the sky, there to accumulate ever more wealth. However despite not serving local housing need, such developments are still counted towards each council's 'housing target.'



My Hindu newsagent was over the moon at the Brexit vote and gleefully started telling me how many other countries are planning to exit too. He is not the only established immigrant I know who could be construed as 'racist' by the PC brigade. But ultimately labels like this are just an excuse not to listen to people's concerns (valid or otherwise), an excuse to shut down all constructive debate and this is what leads to the enormous anger building. David Cameron has been proven not only to be a poor gambler with this Referendum (a professional gambler would never risk what they weren't willing to lose) but wildly out of touch with huge swathes of the electorate and their experiences of modern Britain and anger at being ignored and hammered by their government on all fronts. This also explains Corbyn's popularity against all odds - many working class people feel they have a chance of being listened to by him, rightly or wrongly.



But to end on a more positive note, Britain once ruled the world. Why should it be so impossible for it to rule itself? Especially now we have the opportunity to do so minus the slavery, child labour, sexism, racism and other undesirable traits of our forbears. I just hope we can recover both our independent spirit and our ability to roll up our sleeves and get on with things. As for controlling our borders, every country should have this right without being branded 'racist', That does not mean they don't let anyone in, just that they have proper procedures in place for doing so which strikes some kind of a balance between those emigrating and those immigrating in order that resources are not overstretched and wanted criminals and t.e.r.r.o.r.i.s.t.s not allowed in. Mind you, it took my Canadian friend and former colleague TEN years to be allowed into UK, despite having proved himself charming, polite, articulate, well-dressed and hard working, not to mention an Anglophile of the first order who knows more about this country than I do, so the powers that be had no hesitation in being unreasonable to him, a citizen from a Commonwealth country, for goodness' sake!




An alternative future scenario might be that enough European countries pull out of EU to cause its total collapse in order that something better can rise up from the ashes which truly represents our interests and listens to our needs.

Italy - where beauty and heritage are treasured.

A recent trip to Italy (these are only a fraction of the images I took) brought home to me how much we have lost of Britain that was special. Yes, the Italians have ugly towns and cities too, but by and large they don't touch their heritage and build the ugly stuff on the outside of their historic centres or in new places altogether. Rather than bulldozing their narrow, often-mediaeval streets for modern convenience, they have adapted their lives to suit, whilst still installing all the mod cons anyone could possibly need. Scooters and small cars abound. The majority of parking in city centres is UNDER the beautiful buildings and not exposed in open or multi-storey concrete monoliths. Supermarkets and retail parks have not yet stolen the place of city centres. Nor has internet shopping. The Italians have smart phones but they prefer real life. Cafe/bar culture looms large and while it is not unusual to see a customer with a glass of wine in their hand at 10am, we didn't see a single drunk person all week, drinking being regarded as an accompaniment to life and often interspersed with rounds of coffee. There is no race to the bottle bottom to get drunk first or fashion for binge drinking in the Italian culture. Talking and passing the time of day and cultivating personal roots is what matters.

Children often play late at night in town squares on their bicycles. No one seems to mind and they are not overly noisy. Relaxed as their upbringing may be, they are expected to respect their neighbours and elders, and they do. With the exception of surprisingly copious amounts of graffiti in various corners and white knuckle moped rides around the narrow streets and hairpin bends, that is.

To return to heritage, whether it is simply reluctance to adopt corporate ideas of 'progress' or mafia rule that has resulted in so many well-preserved historic streets, it has paid off. The tourists LOVE it and spend lots of money - particularly Americans - who have waited decades for the dot of retirement to flock to the country in their droves. 'Doing Italy' is top of their bucket list according to the many we met, and they have never had sufficient holiday to do it while working (the US being mean with its paid leave). The locals exhibit great nostalgia for their towns and cities too and revel in their cultural identity. Another stark reminder of how civic pride and a sense of place and identity is now seldom seen in the towns and cities of Britain, albeit still a feature of smaller conurbations.

Confessions of a Former Green

As the child of vegan, tree-hugging, organic-gardening atheists long before it was fashionable, let alone de rigueur, I had little choice but to grow up believing that green was good.

Nightmares about overpopulation even drove me to the GP at 18 and again at 23 to request sterilisation. On both occasions I was turned down on the grounds that I was 'too young' and would be 'bound to change my mind later'.  Last week I heard on the radio that 20 years later young women like me are still being turned away from their GPs on the same grounds, no matter that it is apparently possible for a four-year old to receive trans-gender treatment on the NHS these days and over a decade before reaching the age of consent (is this even legal?) who is clearly not deemed 'too young' to know his/her own mind, let alone required to go through the myriad phases, moods and experiments of a standard-issue child, before finally deciding who and what they are.

But to get back to the point, scared rigid by the oft-repeated threat in children's encyclopaedias that 'the world's oil supply is predicted to run out in 20 years' - a rolling '20 years' in hindsight it would seem, I was 100% wholeheartedly in favour of being green and lived frugally and carefully for years, doing my bit to recycle every jar, every piece of string. purchasing very few new clothes, until I realised my behaviour was sailing dangerously close to my parents' joint hoarding habit which meant we hadn't had friends to visit since 1981, and taught myself the reverse joys of throwing away 'that might come in handy one day'.

As I grew older, it dawned on me that my efforts were completely eclipsed by even truer greens in the family - my grandparents - to whom all such ideology was anathema. Childhood poverty the Depression and wartime rationing had dictated their green credentials.

I penned the first green policy of several early workplaces on my CV, before such things as Green Officers and even Global Warming (now Carbon Reduction) Managers came about, let alone a whole 'industry' of green experts, whose job it seems is to write impenetrable and interminable reports to help each company satisfy various industry benchmark criteria which they have created. Even Pest controllers now market themselves as 'Environmental Services', no matter that most of their activities are the opposite of harm-free when strong poisons and chemicals are deployed.

My green policy documents included such common sense tips as 'only fill the kettle with the amount of water you need' or 'swap your power shower head for a normal shower head' or 'Wait until you have a full load before using washing machine and program on economy cycle'. I pick up other people's nowadays and scarcely understand the jargon contained within. As if in sympathy, power bills have also become unreadable so we cannot tell what we use and what it costs any more.

Bit by bit, my commitment to greenness was being chipped away, not least when an anti-car activist of my acquaintance was espied taking driving lessons!

Now I don't know if global warming is true or not. We've had a few ice ages when no one was apparently around to cause them after all. And new motorway banks always seem to sprout up within weeks of the rock blasting, thus proving some kind of natural resilience. This doesn't mean I am a climate change denier, just an independent. Especially since I have noticed all the green taxes being levied by various governments make it somewhat expedient to carry on promoting that the world is in trouble. Well it may or may not be, but the world's management does not seem to be taking it seriously enough if so. Consumerism and built-in obsolescence is being allowed to continue unabated for starters. Countries are allowed to use carbon-offsetting to carry on polluting! For all our green pretensions we have never lived in a more materialistic or more throwaway age. Even buildings which used to last at least 100 years are constantly replaced with some in central London being bulldozed and rebuilt on average every 5 years. We have never lived in an age of greater global population. The list goes on of why it's hard to take the green thing wholly seriously for all the pious proseltyzing on the subject.

But to get back to basics, of course saving things and not wasting them is a good idea and absolutely fits into the 'good ideas box'. We should value earth's resources more than we do and not take them for granted. We should think of future generations and the type of world we want them to inherit (ie one careful
owner, though it may be a bit late for that). We should strive to be reasonably
minimalist when it comes to too many possessions, unless of special sentimental value, in which case they are generally recycled from previous generations anyway. This is the type of brass tacks greenness I understand.

I am not and never could be an extreme green who advocates 'depopulation'.
And what is that anyway? I think they should explain themselves. To 'depopulate' suggests some sort of fascistic activity with sinister overtones once human beings are already born and possessed of human rights. Free contraception, properly distributed and encouraged around the world, and I'm on board!

As for me, my main personal contributions to greenness have been lifelong veganism (unless you count the air miles of my mangos and spirulina), minimal personal flights (around 2 a year), oh, and no ankle biters, despite the unhelpfulness of my GP.

NIMBYs Unite - Your Country Needs You!

It started with this Daily Mail lead letter from George Rome Innes. A week later mine was printed below. We need more NIMBYs. And let's face it everyone's a NIMBY when it's THEIR back yard. Fact. But everyone should care about what is in their back yard And what is in their front yard too. Let's make NIMBY a badge of honour, not a term of abuse. It is just a criticism to shut down debate anyway. But the more debate the better. All too often tax payers are presented wtih a Hobson's choice of abysmal planning options to choose from, if any choice at all.

I say towns and cities are for people, not developers or corporations who seek to play Monopoly with our lives, strip us of our assets and sell us short, never mind quite happily bulldoze everything about Brighton and Hove that makes it special. Even the Royal Pavilion has suffered serious threats to its existence twice in its history. It has got to the point in Brighton where families born and bred in this city are being urged to move elsewhere as the city can no longer 'afford' to accommodate them. Meantime our council has plenty of money for silly road schemes that no one wants while they neglect upkeep of our seafront, close our libraries and lavatories and tell us we have to face a future of high rise developments on our seafront and the construction of 'Greater Brighton' cutting a swathe through our city.