Making A Winter Even Colder

By all accounts, the good people of the United Kingdom may be in for a rough winter. It will be even worse if the economic conditions cause some of the country’s excellent pubs to close–including a pub that is reputed to be the oldest continuously operating pub in the U.K.

The pub is Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St. Albans, and its problem is the cost of energy. The pub says it has been serving thirsty customers their pints and pies for 1,200 years, but now its energy costs have doubled. And, being a public place, a pub can’t conserve energy by turning off the lights in certain areas during business hours, as a British home could. The cost increases, and the fact that winter tends to be the slow season for pubs, raises the possibility that some pubs will close–which would make the bleak mid-winter even bleaker.

The pub businesses in the U.K. have warned that the crushing costs for electricity, heating, and other pub supplies might cause widespread closures, and resulting job losses. They say that pubs have faced an average 150% increase in energy costs, and the impact of the costs is causing “irreversible damage.” Some pubs say they are dealing with a 400 percent increase in the cost of a one-year gas supply contract, and some say they can’t get a contract at all. (Pubs are not alone in suffering, incidentally, the average household faces an 80 percent increase in energy costs.) The costs increases are attributed to the Russians exercising periodic shutdown control over natural gas supplies, which has caused fears that supplies might be cut off entirely in the winter to increase Russia’s political leverage in its war against Ukraine. The fact that the U.K. doesn’t have extensive gas storage facilities doesn’t help the price volatility, either.

Times have been tough for the pubs over the last few years; they were forced to close during the COVID pandemic, and they are dealing with changing drinking habits in their communities. But it’s impossible to absorb increased costs of the kind pubs are facing without also dramatically increasing prices to customers- which would cause further deterioration in pub business.

I’m hoping that the pubs somehow make it through, and Ye Olde Fighting Cocks gets a chance to give visitors a warm, friendly place to quaff a pint or two for another 1,200 years. I can’t imagine a trip to England without spending at least time in its iconic pubs. Pubs are one of the things that make England England.

Studying Stonehenge

When I took a trip to England right after I graduated from college, one of the coolest places I visited was Stonehenge.  There was a strong air of ancient mystery lurking among the massive stones arranged in a circle on the Salisbury plains.  You couldn’t help but walk among the stones and think about where the enormous stones came from, who put them there, how in the world they got there — and what their mysterious purpose actually was.

Now scientists have answered the first question, at least in part:  many of the smaller stones at the Stonehenge site came from ancient quarries in the Preseli Hills of Wales, and they were consciously mined and taken to Stonehenge, not deposited on the Salisbury plains by glaciers.  Scientists used tools that allowed them to test the chemical composition of rocks in the quarry and match it to the composition of the rocks at Stonehenge.  The tests are so precise that scientists were able to determine that the Stonehenge stones came from quarries in the northern part of the hills rather than the southern part — a finding that is significant, because it means that the stones were probably transported to the Salisbury plains over land, rather than floated there on rivers.  The scientists also found mining tools at that date back to 3000 B.C., when the first stage of Stonehenge was built.

So now we know that, 5000 years ago, human beings mined large stones from Wales and then somehow dragged them 150 miles away, where they were arranged in circles that seem to be related in some way to the summer solstice.  But we don’t know why ancient humans would undertake such an enormous task, or how they accomplished it.  Unless someone invents a time machine, the answers to those questions probably will forever remain an unsolvable mystery — which is one reason why Stonehenge is so cool.

British Swear Words

Do our polite and refined friends from across the pond curse?  I know they use words like “bloody” when they want to up the emphasis a notch and demonstrate that they are really miffed, but do they ever actually swear?

Apparently they do!  Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s communications regulator — who even knew they had one! — interviewed more than 200 people to determine how they reacted to an array of rude and offensive terms and swear words, and then ranked them in order of offensiveness.  In order to be sure that they covered every form of communication, they threw in a few well-known hand gestures, too.  Words in the mild category include “bloody,” “bugger,” “damn” and “arse,” as well as “crap.”  (It’s hard to imagine someone with a British accent ever saying “crap,” isn’t it?)  “Ginger” and “minger” — which means an unpleasant or unattractive person — were also placed in the mild category.

The medium category then includes words like “bitch,” “bollocks” (which Americans of my age know because of the Sex Pistols) and “pissed,” as well as words I’ve never heard used, like “munter” (an ugly or excessively drunk person) and “feck” (a milder substitute for you-know-what).  From there we move up to the strong category, which curiously has “bastard” in it — suggesting that the Brits find “bastard” a lot more offensive than we do, perhaps of the connotations of the word in a land that still has royalty and nobility — and “fanny,” which seems pretty mild to me.  The strong category also includes a bunch of British slang I’ve not heard of before.  From there, the list moves up to the strongest category, where the queen mother of curses sits, as expected, atop the swear list pyramid.

The list apparently is to be used by the Brits in their communications, with words rated as mild considered to be okay to use around children, whereas most people thought the “medium” and “strong” words shouldn’t be used until after 9 p.m.  The study also found, encouragingly, that the Brits are increasingly offended by words involving race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.

I’m still finding it hard to believe that the Brits ever say “crap.”

Leaking Like A Sieve

We’re living in the midst of the leakiest America in history, and it’s causing lots of problems for our country.

The leakiness isn’t confined to just Washington, D.C., the Democratic National Committee, or the confused conduct of the Trump White House, where it seems as though every confidential meeting must end with a dash to the door so that everyone in attendance can call their favorite journalist and recount what just happened in excruciating detail.  Now the leak-fest is also affecting foreign affairs and criminal investigations, too.

The latest evidence of this problem involves the investigation into the horrendous suicide bombing in Manchester, England, where an Islamic extremist specifically targeted kids and their parents at a concert and killed 22 innocents and injured 64 more.  British authorities shared information about the attack, including the name of the bomber and photos of the debris being examined as part of the investigation, with an intelligence network that includes the United States.  Some unprincipled American recipient of the information then promptly leaked the information to the New York Times, which published it.

The BBC is reporting that British officials are furious about the leaks, which could affect the success of their investigation, and have stopped sharing intelligence about the attack and its investigation with American authorities.  British Prime Minister Theresa May also plans to raise the issue with President Trump at this week’s NATO meeting.  Of course, it’s not clear that Trump has any ability to stop the rampant leakiness — he can’t even get his own White House personnel to keep things confidential.

When the profound leakiness in our government invades the intelligence agencies and the criminal investigators, to the point that our allies can’t even trust us sufficiently to disclose information about terrorist attacks that are bedeviling all western countries, then we’ve got serious problems.  Obviously, we want to get whatever information we can about terrorist attacks, so we can use the information to prepare our own defenses and procedures to try to prevent future attacks.  If our allies withhold information because they’re afraid it will be leaked, that not only embarrasses America, it hurts us, too.  And if criminal investigators become as leaky as White House staffers, the confidential investigatory information they provide may help the criminal actor to avoid capture or prevent a fair trial — neither of which is a good thing, either.

The reality is that some things must be kept secret, and if the people in our government can’t keep their mouths shut about the truly secret stuff, then they aren’t qualified to serve in positions where the ability to maintain confidences is a crucial part of the job. We need to determine who is leaking intelligence and investigatory information and thereby imperiling both our relationships with our allies and our own security and replace them.  The leaks have got to stop.

Posing With A Hijacker

Let’s suppose you were still on a plane that had been hijacked by a guy wearing what appeared to be an explosive suicide belt and been diverted to a different airport, where authorities were negotiating with the hijacker and passengers on the plane were gradually being released.

Would you (a) sit quietly in your seat, hoping that authorities resolved the situation, (b) send your loved ones a message so they knew you were OK, and hoping for the best, or (c) get your picture taken with the hijacker and then text it to your roommate, telling him that you don’t “fuck about” and to turn on the news?

Ben Innes, a 26-year-old guy from Leeds, England, chose (c).  His picture with Seif Eldin Mustafa, who hijacked an EgyptAir flight and diverted it to Cyprus, shows Innes sporting one of the worst fake smiles in the history of the world as he stands next to a sad-faced old guy wearing a belt of supposed explosives (which turned out to be fake).  Innes later explained that he wanted to let the hijacker know that he was no threat and to help the hijacker realize that everyone still on the plane was a human being.  Perhaps . . . but it sounds like an after-the-fact rationalization to me.  His text to his roommate right after the photo was taken sure makes it seems that Innes was more interested in getting his face and name on the news — and his ploy worked.

So Innes has had his five minutes of fame, and everybody got off the plane safely.  But let’s suppose the suicide belt wasn’t a fake, and Innes’ decision to approach the hijacker for a picture made the hijacker feel threatened and decide to change course from the “negotiate, then release” approach he had been taking.  What Innes did was an unbelievably reckless and stupid stunt that could easily have endangered his fellow passengers when the authorities had the situation under control.

Apparently some people are so self-absorbed and so hungry for attention these days, from their own circle of friends and from others, that they will intervene in a hijacking to take their own picture. It’s mind-boggling.  The modern world just grows weirder by the day.

It Sort Of Serves Them Right

On the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire, England, a huge, 20-foot-high modern art sculpture of two clasped hands that used to form a kind of galvanized steel wire archway over one of the walking paths had to be moved.

Why?  Not because it was ill-suited to the classic and graceful lines of the church — although it definitely was.  No, it had to be moved because texting people kept walking into it and hitting their heads because they weren’t paying attention.  It’s part of a trend.  In 2014, 2,500 people went to emergency rooms for injuries they sustained because they were distracted by their cellphones while walking.  This occurs even though texting walkers tend to change their stride to protect themselves while walking, because they know they are putting themselves at risk of, say, stumbling into an open manhole.  But even baby steps can’t save you when your attention is fully occupied by your cellphone’s buzz and a friend’s emoticon and LOL that apparently demand an immediate response even as you are walking down the street.

Should the clasped hands sculpture have been moved?  Yes, of course — but because it was butt-ugly and should never have been put there in the first place, not because members of the Constantly Texting Brigade were walking into it.  In fact, you could argue that we would be doing the texting addicts a service if we installed more fire hydrants, sculptures, canopies, abutments, and crotch-height traffic bollards along our sidewalks and pathways.  After having a few painful but non-lethal encounters with objects in plain sight that attentive, non-texting pedestrians can easily detect and avoid, maybe the texters would come to realize that they should just put away their damned phones while they’re walking, interact with their surroundings, and pay attention for a change.

Her Majesty’s Bloomers

It seems that people collect almost everything these days, and are willing to pay amazing amounts of money to do so.  Still, some of the “collectables” are decidedly . . . odd.

Consider a recent auction in England, where an anonymous collector paid $16,500 for a pair of Queen Victoria’s underpants.  The white cotton u-trou, which are, well, expansive, bear a monogram with a crown and a “VR,” and experts believe they were worn by England’s longest-serving monarch back in the 1890s.

This story is weird on two levels.  First, why would anyone want to acquire such items?  Were the Queen’s old bloomers bought to be part of a collection of royal family memorabilia, or as part of the apparently growing interest in underwear collection — with people paying big money for the unmentionables of Elvis and Michael Jackson and even the dingy undergear sported by Walter White on Breaking Bad?  Are these underwear collections ever actually displayed to anyone?  Can you imagine being invited to someone’s country estate and, while there, being taken by the proud owner on a tour of their collection of celebrity boxers and briefs, nicely displayed in glass cases?  Small wonder that the bidders at these auctions are acting anonymously.

Second, it’s sad that people are selling this stuff, and it’s got to be embarrassing for the descendants of the long-deceased Queen.  Who wants to see an ancestor’s underwear being publicly displayed, especially when it is very much plus-sized?  Apparently Queen Victoria’s clothing was parceled out to staff members after her death, and some of the staffers’ families kept the garments for generations before finally being unable to resist the temptation to make a few bucks.  If I were Queen Elizabeth, or any member of the current royal family, or any kind of celebrity, I’d make sure to include a provision in my will that required all of my underwear be cast into the bonfire as soon as I breathed my last.

Ironic, isn’t it?  Queen Victoria so characterized primness and propriety that people now use the phrase “Victorian attitudes” to refer to antiquated, repressive views on gender and sex — and yet Queen Victoria’s underwear is being publicly displayed, sold to strangers, and made the subject of jokes because of its size.  I think the Queen would be shocked and sternly disapproving of this regrettable development.

The Known Versus The Unknown

On Thursday the people of Scotland will vote on whether to dissolve their ties with England and become an independent nation.  After an early history of bloody wars, Scotland and England settled their differences and have been part of the United Kingdom for 307 years.  All of that could end on Thursday if the Scots vote yes, and emotions are running high on both sides of the referendum campaign.

As part of the United Kingdom, the Scots have experienced the glory of being part of the world’s most powerful nation and won two world wars, but many of them are chafing under the restrictions that come from the current arrangement, where Scottish aspirations might be subjugated to the votes of the English.  Independence, and a sovereign nation that will consider only Scottish interests, therefore is a tantalizing prospect.

But there are risks in independence — and opponents of a yes vote are describing those risks in gory detail.  Major players in the Scottish financial industry, like RBS, have indicated that they will relocate in the event of a yes vote, and supporters of a continued United Kingdom argue that a yes vote will hurt Scottish universities and — horrors! — the Scottish whiskey industry.

The key question raised by opponents of independence is whether Scotland’s economy is sufficiently large to hold its own on the world stage, or whether its budget would be out of balance, interests rates would rise, and businesses and academic brainpower would flee the country.  Proponents of independence say that such concerns are simply scare tactics ginned up by the English, who fear how they will fare, economically and politically, if they are forced to go it alone.  Would an independent Scotland struggle — as has been the case in Iceland and Ireland — or would it be a sturdy economic engine like Switzerland?

Of course, it’s impossible to say what the future holds — so the vote boils down to a classic choice between the known and the unknown, comfort and risk, old and new.  Scotland’s great poet, Robert Burns, spoke of fear of the unknown in the first stanza of his poem A Prayer in the Prospect of Death:

O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear!
In whose dread presence, ere an hour,
Perhaps I must appear!

We’ll find out whether the Scots elect the known, or the unknown, on Thursday.  People throughout the United Kingdom are holding their breath.

Could A Rotherham Happen Here?

What happened in Rotherham, a large town in northern England, is appalling.  For more than a decade, local authorities looked the other way while gangs of men of Pakistani origin “groomed” young girls and then systematically raped and abused them.  At least 1,400 — 1,400! — children were sexually exploited.  The victims’ stories about their own personal hells of fear, rape, and hopelessness are harrowing and heart-breaking.

One question in this disturbing story is whether fear of being labeled a racist affected how authorities responded to reports of abuse they received.  The report that outlines the abuse and the massive failures of those charged with protecting the victims, criticizes the authorities for downplaying the issue of the race and ethnicity of the men who were committing the crimes.  Some believe that concerns about being called a racist or being accused of cultural insensitivity prevented the police and council members from actually doing their jobs.  (Of course, by not holding the perpetrators of the crimes to the same standards as everyone else, and by not properly acting on the complaints of the victims, the police and council members were in fact engaging in racist behavior.)

Could a Rotherham occur in the United States?  It’s hard to believe that a criminal enterprise of such scope and magnitude, with so many child victims, could happen here — but it’s hard to believe it could happen in England, either.  The British aren’t fundamentally different from us, and the circumstances that gave rise to the decade of abuse in Rotherham — in particular, the desire to “not upset the apple cart” that caused authorities to turn their heads — could be replicated in America.  Our own history is forever marred by instances where townspeople supported, or at least consciously ignored, murderous criminal gangs like the Ku Klux Klan.  Whether it is concern about running afoul of those in power, or just following along with the crowd, or trying to avoid being publicly called a racist, prevailing social conventions can be powerful motivators.

An African proverb states that “it takes a village to raise a child,” and Hillary Clinton later wrote a book about that concept.  Sometimes, however, villages like Rotherham fail.

Tipping A Glass To Our Unknown Irish Ancestors

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a day when everyone is Irish, or at least claims to be.

The Webners are no different. Richard recently took one of those mail-in DNA tests, and the results showed a significant percentage of Scotch-Irish DNA. I get the Scottish part; our extended family tree includes Neals, McCollums, and Fergusons. My grandmother, born a Brown, claimed Irish ancestry, and I’ve no doubt that there are other, now-unknown branches that undoubtedly touched the Emerald Isle. It’s enough, at least, to allow us to celebrate March 17 with a heartfelt Erin go Bragh.

I’m proud of whatever Irish ancestry we have. In my view, you have to give the Irish credit — of all of the countries that have contributed to our melting pot nation, the Irish have the best traditional holiday, by far. St. Patrick’s Day blows Columbus Day and Cinco de Mayo out of the water, and most other countries aren’t even in the running. There’s no Deutschland Day, or British Bash. And no other country has the branding of Ireland, either. Whether it’s leprechauns, shillelaghs, four-leaf clovers, or pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, the Irish stand alone at the top of the heap.

It’s also admirable that the Irish made drinking beer an essential part of St. Patrick’s Day. Sure, we know St. Patrick had something to do with chasing snakes off the island, but most people associate the holiday with beer. Beer drinking also is an essential part of the culture of the Germans, the Brits, the Belgians, and even the French, but the Irish have co-opted it completely. Years ago, some savvy Irishman obviously understood that focusing a holiday on beer-drinking is bound to increase the amount of participation.

St. Patrick’s Day is an easy day to celebrate: you wear something green and drink beer. You don’t have to go to church, and there’s no significant physical danger involved, such as you might find in running with the bulls in Pamplona. Instead, there’s just an opportunity to bend an elbow with your friends, quaff a few dozen ales, and pretend you like droning Celtic music. The only risk is being punched in the face by some drunken, red-faced IRA member, getting a wet kiss from a beefy red-headed woman wearing a “kiss me, I’m Irish” pin, or ending up face down in a vomit-filled gutter.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

A Cold Day’s Return

Today I go back to work after a wonderful two-week vacation with Kish and the boys. Apparently Old Man Winter wanted to make sure that I knew that the holiday’s over.

When we were in Paris and London, we got a lot of rain, but for the most part the temperature stayed in the 40s and 50s. One day we had dinner with a twenty-something British friend and, during a conversation about the weather over our meal, she mentioned that she hasn’t seen any appreciable snow on the ground in her home town since she was 4 years old. She lives in the southern part of England, and apparently snow is a rarity there — even though England is at a more northern latitude than Columbus, where snow is a commonplace occurrence during the winter.

When I woke up in New Albany today snow was falling and the temperature was 25 degrees according to my phone. When I went for the morning walk it was already down to 19 degrees and you could feel the temperature dropping faster than the early season hopes of a Cleveland Browns fan. And, with a sharp wind blowing, Jack Frost wasn’t just nipping at my nose — it felt like he wanted to rip my face off. As I walked gingerly on ice-covered walkways to avoid a slip, a salt truck rumbled by, with the salt crystals whirling out behind. The current forecast is for temperatures to fall all day and reach the point of 7 below zero tonight, with a wind chill factor of 32 below.

Yes, I’m home, and it’s time to get back to work.

Strand Scene

During our visit to London we stayed in the Covent Gardens area just off the Strand. It was a good location, and the Strand is a convenient avenue for getting around town. It runs from Trafalgar Square and meanders, roughly parallel to the Thames, up to the Tower of London. Of course, it being London, where roads were named centuries ago for reasons like the location of a tanning shop or a desire to use funny words like “Tooting” or “Barking,” the street isn’t called the Strand for all of that distance. It changes into Fleet Street and who knows what else, even though it’s basically the same thoroughfare.

It also presents a good example of one of the best things about London. You can be tooling along, following your map, when you turn a corner and suddenly see a view like this one of St. Paul’s Cathedral and its colossal dome.

Westminster Abbey

Yesterday we visited Westminster Abbey. It’s the traditional burial site of British monarchs from Edward the Confessor to the Tudor area, the home of the Coronation Chair in which every British monarch has been crowned for a thousand years, and — predictably — a gathering spot for tourists.

The building itself is a beautiful example of Gothic architecture. Many of its original features, however, have been harmed or destroyed and then restored. Most of the stained glass windows, for example, are replacements. In addition, many of the grave markers, plaques, and other tributes to the dead are scratched and, in some instances, broken. Apparently the schoolboys who served in the choir and in other roles at the church were not worried about scratching a gibe into the back of an ancient chair or breaking off the nose of one of countless cherubs decorating the place.

It’s interesting to see the burial places of such luminaries as Elizabeth I, her half-sister Queen Mary, and Geoffrey Chaucer, among countless others. At a certain point, however, all of the gilt and marble becomes overwhelming and seems more like clutter than anything else.

That’s why my favor part of the Abbey is the only part where they allow photography. It’s the cloister of the original Abbey, where monks once strolled in quiet religious contemplation.

Here there is a bit less clutter, a bit less bustle, a bracing shot of bright green grass after all the gold and cold white marble, and a whiff of cool, rain-washed air. The monastery elements of this lovely old building are, in my view, the most interesting, and the most enduring.

Cabinet War Rooms

In the late 1930s, when war with Nazi Germany became increasingly certain, an employee of the British government was tasked with developing a safe underground complex from which the British government could conduct the impending conflict. The result of his work was the Cabinet War Rooms — or, because they became known by the name of the man who led Great Britain during the conflict, the Churchill War Rooms.

The rooms were locked after victory was achieved in 1945 and left undisturbed for years. Knowledge of the rooms was still restricted, but tours of the rooms were given to some VIPs, who were fascinated and urged that the rooms be made available to the public. As a result, the Cabinet War Rooms were opened to the public. Yesterday Richard and I paid a visit to the rooms, and it was like walking back in time.

The War Rooms are located in the basement of a government building a block or so away from 10 Downing Street. The museum itself allows you to walk through the complex, looking at the tiny bedrooms and dining rooms and offices of the people who worked there, the map rooms with different colored yarn to denote Allied and Axis positions, and the offices where different colored phones linked the Prime Minister and head of British armed forces to the various branches of the British military. The entire facility very much has the feel (and faint smell) of a place that was locked when it was no longer needed and left undisturbed for years. It’s wonderful stuff for a history buff.

One of the nicer aspects of the Cabinet War Rooms was a display at the beginning that showed pictures, correspondence, and in some instances video interview footage of the average British people who worked at this top-secret facility as secretaries, messengers, or code readers. These people kept the precise location and nature of their work a secret for years, risked injury and death by being at the center of London during the Blitz, and then went back to their regular lives after the war ended. It’s heartening to see that their important contributions to the Allied cause were recognized.

The Cabinet War Rooms also include a Winston Churchill museum that provides information about the brilliant and inspirational speaker who led Great Britain for most of the war, before being voted out of office shortly before Japan surrendered. Churchill’s speeches, uniforms, odd work habits, and relations with other world leaders are all addressed in the museum, which would be worth visiting on its own merits.

Our Traffic Savior

In England, they drive on the wrong side of the road. Of course, the Brits say the same thing about the United States, and every other country that wasn’t part of the post-automobile Empire.

Fortunately, some good-hearted Samaritan long ago painted helpful signs into the pavement to advise Americans which way to look for oncoming traffic when crossing the street. I can’t tell you how handy those signs are, even after a few days in the U.K. Sincere thanks to the Unknown Sign Painter, whoever you may be!