note on baksheesh

William Golding notes in his excellent Egyptian Journal that over twenty years of visiting Egypt the immemorial begging for baksheesh diminished hugely. People got richer, tourists got more numerous, officialdom grew more aware and more effective at halting begging. I hardly notice it when I am around especially after I adopted the dead pan refusal to be annoyed in the street. Mostly.

But it remains one aspect that makes some people suffer. There is obvious corruption, both low and high level. People think they are the same but they aren’t. One is a small payment to speed things on their way, the other a sizeable Al Fayad style chunk of money designed to pervert the public good. Some think they are connected- I don’t. The baksheesh is a hangover of a feudal non-money centred society. The big bribe simply their version of lobbying, or big business doing what it does the world over. Sometimes, qute often, you are surprised to meet people who are utterly unbribable, perversely almost when I offered 10 sterling to a waiter (a weeks wages) to go and buy me some coffee from another shop (he was out of the stuff)- he wouldn’t. His job wasn’t at risk, he just wouldn’t do it. I’ve also seen people who refuse huge sums of money to have their photos taken living next door to people who let you photograph them for free or 10p for the kiddies. I suggest the dysfunctional state of the economy here is a result of people refusing to sell themselves quite as cheaply as we do in the West.

parking fable

When I moved into my building four years ago few people had cars and there were enough spots for all to park. I had my own slot in fact. Then people got richer, credit got looser and everyone got cars, or more than one in some cases. Then the parking got a little like a rubics cube solution- there was a way to park but it needed full cooperation and everyone had to leave off their parking brakes so you could shift cars to get out. But it worked. Then with the addition of just a few cars more and one person who sometimes left on their handbrake the cars started getting parked in a way that trapped in the inner cars. So you had to wait, get the doorman to call on the people who blocked you in and wait. Never longer than fifteen minutes - but still. So in order to avoid being blocked in people started parking way back- leaving a huge gap in front of them so they could leave. Thing is: the whole front area of the building- the original parking area in fact was now unused. So now only the same number can park as they did before except their cars hang way out into the street so that no one can park behind them. So there is less space all round but less parking too and more wasted space. And more cars everywhere else. The funny thing is- people pretty much get on in this building too. Some tension but no real feuds. And you want to solve the middle-east problem? 

don't be suckered by narratives of success

The media love to parade success stories, writers, artists, businessmen, performers- people they have ‘discovered’ and anointed as ‘successes’. After a few years many of them disappear-why- because what makes a ‘success story’ is not the reality of a success- the story is not the success- merely a nice sugar coating, something that reads well. When a singer or writer dies young their work often achieves a considerable posthumous success- simply because their life now has a better narrative value- ie. nothing to do with intrinsic quality of their actual work.

I can't help wondering if the recent mega success of Stig Larson and Roberto Bolano hasn't something to do with this James Dean effect- the sudden transformation of a boring author into a compelling story.

 Unfortunately, reading these success naratives one can get suckered into losing hope because your life is so dull compared to that of the ‘success’ or losing faith because what you are doing is not interesting to the media; or copying the externals of the success story without realising the inner story, what is hidden from the media, probably contains the real insights.

Instead, refocus on your own efforts. Set your own definition of what counts as a success for you and achieve it. Being in the papers brings attention. Achieving self-set goals brings much more lasting satisfaction. 

poem by Ramsay Wood

My friend and fellow poet Ramsay Wood included the following in an email to me today so i thought I would share it with a few more people.

The dice in my head are rolling, 

the shootist has shot his bolt. 

When the petard hoists me aloft 

will I behold the target I missed?

the time paradox

“What kind of rule is this? The more time saving machinery there is the more pressed a person is for time.”

Sebastian de Grazia

no free lunch

Anything that makes life easier makes people lazier. Think of some exceptions.

paddleboarding D-Day beaches

For those keen on a way to combine history with stand up paddleboarding (I almost wrote stand up comedy there- and some spectators of my efforts might have denied any difference) I can suggest a fine place in the five beaches- Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha and Utah- though the last two became conflated in my nephew's mind to become 'yuhooter' and 'ohomer'- the names stuck- the five beaches that saw the incredible effort of landing thousands of men on the 6th June 1944. The highest surf is on Omaha and Utah, the calmest- and best for stand-up practice- to be found inside the artificial 'mulberry' harbour constructed from concrete platforms just after the landing- this is Gold beach, right by the town of Arromanches. At Sword, Gold and especially Juno there are lifeguards who may ask you to go further out or along. No such interference is to be found at the more remote Omaha and Utah. There are great regular waves or lowish height at Juno, though Omaha, which saw the fiercest fighting was also the best for surfing.

I couldn't help thinking that the Germans would have been even more freaked out if the 1-29 Division of General Bradley had been riding into battle on big Hawaiian surf boards...