This poem is dedicated to all those lost loves who have broken our hearts and sometimes their own too.  The title comes from a text message I received from my daughter one day, the sky was very heavy and dark and she had said in her text the clouds were skyscraper black.  I don't know if she mispelled something or if she meant that but it struck me immediately as a great description, and this poem just poured out it.

Skyscraper Black

Searching across a moon dark shore

Leaving midnight traces in the sand

I follow the trail of my lost love

To this distant other-worldly land

I feel the grief of other lonely souls

Moving in shadowed circles around my head

Crying for life and dreams not realized,

For hopes and wishes now long dead.

For I was loved, though he is now gone,

My heart remains clasped firmly in his hand

And feeling his presence still, I follow

His ghostly foot trails across the sand.

Now, standing alone along this darken'd shore,

Lost between his reality and my dream

I wait for the sun to rise and lighten

The skyscraper blackness in my soul

If rumours of a possible appearance by Noel Gallagher as a judge on the X Factor are true then all I can say is ‘NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! Please Noel, don’t do it, pulleeeeese!

If this turns out to be true, then it will go down as another black day in the history of human kind, like the day the first McDonalds opened in Moscow or the day Robert Plant accepted a knighthood. It’s a bitter disappointment when your heroes sell out, Plant I could overcome to some degree, at least he was English but Bob Geldof will never be forgiven.  His honorary knighthood, for Live Aid, was just too much. Firstly, because he was Irish but mainly because he came to fame on the punk wave of the late 70’s, this made it doubly unforgiveable. You sold your soul Geldof, but not to rock and roll, shame on you!!!

My first big music hero, like many others, was none other than David Bowie, and recent reports of a comeback were a surprise to me because he’s always been a regular in my music collection so, for me, he has always been there. David Bowie was my first love and I still love him, even more so now because I read recently that he turned down both a CBE and a knighthood. Way to go Bowmeister, I’ll luv ya forever!!!

My favourite Bowie album is Hunky Dory but my favourite song is Drive in Saturday from the Aladdin Sane album, the saxophone on that song raises the hairs on the back of my neck every time I hear it.  Aladdin Sane was my teenage rebellion album, songs like Time, with its sexually provocative lyrics used to drive my mother nuts, her being ultra Catholic, so I used to ramp the volume up whenever it came on.

The TV is so crap these days, I’ve been listening to a lot more music recently, George Harrison has been getting a lot of play round my house and I’m awaiting the arrival of a Sparks CD, Kimono My House, remember them from the 1970’s, I loved the strangeness of the Mael brothers.  I’m going to stick my neck out and predict a renewed interest in them.

By the way, none of these albums belonged to me, they belonged to my older brother who had great taste in music and it was through him that I was first introduced to Bowie. He still has all his albums too, now there’s a collection worth robbing!!  Although, I probably have most of the same albums now, anyway. My brother didn’t allow us to play his records and used to keep them locked up in a case but my sister and I were able to open the lock with a hair clip and played them when he was out, well, what’s the point of having older siblings if you can’t borrow their stuff!

I didn’t have the money to buy LP’s when I was young but I got a job the summer I turned 13 and bought my first Bowie single, Young Americans. I haven’t bought the new CD yet but it’s on my to-buy list. Bowie has so much symbolism for my generation, he was never just a singer, he was an artiste, and he drove the parents crazy! 

That’s one thing I really miss about the changes to how we buy our music, there’s nothing special about downloading a piece of music compared to buying an LP which had its own ritual. Everything was much more expensive back in the day.  You had to save your pocket money if you wanted to buy an LP. Then, when you had the money saved, there was the whole experience of going around your local music shops, and spending a Saturday afternoon just browsing through the records before deciding what to buy. There would be deep discussions between you and your friends before the purchase would be made, as the covers were taken out and examined in detail.  LP covers were like works of art and there were some amazing ones, like Led Zeppelin’s, Physical Graffiti or the futuristic landscapes on the great prog rock band, Yes’s covers. Browsing through the records was probably the teenage equivalent of walking around an art gallery now. Then when you had made your purchase and headed out around town to show it off to your peers. Now, that was a big deal, everyone would ask what you had bought and your coolness lived and died by it, and if your choice was approved you walked tall all day. 

There are many advantages to all our modern technology but it is robbing us of so many great experiences too, and I am grieving the loss of HMV. There are only two shops I love to visit now, HMV was one, the other is any bookshop anywhere, and they’re rapidly disappearing too. If the local bookshop goes, I’ll have no reason to go out again. It seems, the more connections we make online, the less connections we have with real people out in the real world. Sad...

One for the working classes whose political voice is rapidly disappearing, in and out of Parliament.  Free market economics are fine if they apply to all, but workers are forbidden from joining unions and striking, the law is skewed in favour of practices that favour employers. Banks gamble and lose, and the tax payer is left to pick up the bill; so where is the ‘free’ in the free market?  Are we under the Orwellian, ‘everyone is free only some are more free that others’ or are those on top ‘free’ to exploit those on the bottom?  Time for a wake up call.

Alarm Call

Wake up the working classes!

Wake up! Wake up!

Your life is disappearing,

down the drain

While you watch TV

That’s rotting your brain.

A cell killing diet

of soap from the sink.

Until, you no longer know

what it is, to think.

                        2

Wake up the working classes!

Wake up! Wake up!

Your future hopes

Are being cut away,

While you sit dreaming

of stardom in X-Factor

for your son or daughter.

Blinded by celebrity:

wake up and face-up to,

the con of this ‘reality’!

                        3

Wake up the working classes.

Wake up! Wake up!

You’ve forgotten your history

The story of your labour,

What your ancestors fought and died for.

Remember Tolpuddle and Peterloo,

The Suffragettes and Miners

As citizens, not subjects,

This nation is not one class,

It is your country too.

Reading through some of my notes this morning I was drawn to a passage in my politics book, (we’re on ideology at the moment) about Simone de Beauvoir and her book, The Second Sex, where she suggested that the female body made them amenable to being constructed as a man’s ‘other’. Well I was thinking about this, and I concluded that you could say exactly the same about a man’s body, it really all depends on who’s on top!!

Now, for those of you who may not know this, Simone was the long time love of Jean Paul Sartre who wrote The Age of Reason. If there is anyone out there who ever got to the end of this book, then stand up and take a bow because you deserve a gold medal for endurance. I have tried on several occasions to read this and maybe, it’s the practical side of me, or something but I thought this was the most overblown pretentious piece of navel gazing I ever had to endure.

The main character has got his girlfriend pregnant, now this character is not 16 or 18, this guy is, as far as memory serves, around 30, he’s running around trying to get her an abortion and all I could think was ‘grow up and take care of your responsibility, because if you weren’t prepared to face the consequences of your actions then you should have kept it in your pants’. To me this was all a non issue, it was just a story about a man trying to avoid the reality that it was time to grow up which unfortunately IS the reality for 90% of the women in this country.

A friend recently sent me an email extolling all the virtues of Thomas Jefferson and all that he achieved in his life and all the way down reading it, I was thinking, ‘ Well, that’s very interesting, he was able to do all that because there was obviously a woman at home who did all the cooking and cleaning and childcare, leaving him free to think and act.  I bet he never cleaned the toilet in his life!’ Which is not to take anything away from how brilliant he was, but just how brilliant could we ALL be if we were freed from the drudgery of housework?

So, on the question of domestic drudgery and gender equality in the home, here is the argument as to why it should be shared by EVERYONE! I call it the ‘Everyone principle’, well why not, I can be as pretentious as Sartre when I need to.

EVERYONE lives in the house, EVERYONE uses the facilities so it’s the responsibility of EVERYONE to care for and maintain them.  That’s it, plain and simple.

‘If only it were!’, I hear you cry. Now men will argue that the women stand over them and criticise how they do things, fair enough, I accept that does happen. But the thing about housework is this, we’ve been doing it for many more years than you, and there is a method to it which we have perfected from all the practice we have had. 

So, in order to stop this argument, here’s my advice for women, SHOW them how it’s done, don’t just tell them to do it. Show them the method and don’t criticise them if they don’t get it right first time, just recognise that they need MORE practice. For men, just LET her show you how it’s done, it just a job that needs doing, it’s not a threat to your masculinity (whatever that may be) and remember it’s your home too, so take care of it. 

By, the way this advice applies to the children as well, they are quite capable of doing some housework, within reason and depending on age. I mean, tie a couple of dusters to the hands and knees of that crawling baby and get the floor polished as they go along, simple! 

Just use your imagination and maybe some day, we can all grow up to be brilliant.

I was watching a great programme on BBC 4 last week about Harry Belafonte.  I didn’t know he was so politically active in the civil rights movement in the US in the 1960’s which is period I have a lot of interest in. (My great political hero of that time is Malcolm X, and I would urge anyone with an interest in politics to read his autobiography.  Actually, I would encourage everyone to read his book, it’s a great read).  Anyway, towards the end of the programme he talked about establishing a council of elders which intrigued me because I’ve often remarked to a friend of mine that here in Ireland, we’re seriously lacking in wise elders, and he would often remark that you only had to look at our politicians to see that!

Anyway, there have been many times in life when I really needed some good advice but could never find it, and it took me quite a long time to realise that most people are fairly useless when it comes to giving advice and are often motivated by the desire to either create drama or hear a juicy bit of gossip, (an unfortunate side effect from watching too much Eastenders).  Even today, it’s still difficult to get good advice without prejudice, and doubly difficult to get if from someone who has a genuine regard for your welfare.  I found, when I was growing up, questions about life were generally met with a wry ‘you’ll learn’ with the implication (hope) that if you did, it would be the hard way.  People almost took a perverse pleasure in withholding information that may have been of use to you, and then enjoying watching while you struggled and invariably failed. 

The cult of youth in society, has probably helped to devalue the elderly and they are seldom regarded as having little of value to impart.  Ironically, most of the older people I know have never really matured, they just got old.  I know people in their seventies who still operate on the emotional level of a fourteen year old, some are not even that old.  It seems appropriate that the legend of Tir na N’Og would be Irish, it means Land of the Young, a place where you never grow old.  There is a strange attitude to growing up here, it’s as if it is a form of surrender, or maybe it’s just to do with the fear of death.  No one seems to actively seek maturity here, people think that once they’ve turned eighteen, they’ve matured and have no need to grow anymore, as if the day of their eighteenth birthday magically conferred on them all the wisdom and knowledge they would need to carry them through the rest of their lives.  Then there are those who try to maintain the lifestyle they were living at eighteen, which generally means out drinking and partying all weekend which is actually quite sad in a forty year old. 

Paradoxically, we also have here what I call, the middle-aged teenager.  Young people who never had a youth and just went straight from childhood to middle-age.  They generally come from very religious families and belong to the cult of the ‘mammy’.  In these families, mammy knows all, generally has her nose in everybody’s business and dictates how her children live their lives.  They in turn, remain strangulated by her apron strings and never raise a word against her because no-one is ever allowed to question or upset ‘mammy’.  They aren’t mature either, just old in their thinking and habits, and I’m always very wary of anyone over the age of 12 who still refers to their mother as ‘mammy’.   There is often one rebel in there somewhere who no one talks about except when ‘mammy’ is feeling sorry for herself and in need of the collective sympathy, who couldn’t take the claustrophobia of it all and cleared off to England at a young age and hasn’t been heard from since.  Fortunately, for Irish society these families are on the decline.

There are two reasons why I think we as a country and a society, are like this.  The first is religious, and has to do with the long domination of Irish society by the Catholic Church.  The other reason is centuries of British rule.  Together, these two elements have created a society that doesn’t know how to think or act for itself, it only knows the way of the invader, Britain, and the oppressor, the Catholic Church (although their influence has waned considerably in recent years). 

I often wonder how we would have evolved as a society if we hadn’t had the imposition of those outside forces on us.  We have no real sense of ourselves as a people, other than as cultural clichés, and there is a tendency to blow with every wind that comes through.  I often think we are the world’s biggest fashion victims, I’ve watched fashion trends come and go, with everything from rottweiler dogs, to large jeeps, which really are ridiculous for a country like Ireland with all the small back roads we have.  It was a revelation to drive through France a few years ago and in the entire country I only saw two four by fours vehicles, and one of them was being driven by an Irish man on holiday.

This is what happens when countries with different cultural values and practises invade others and impose their way on them.  The continuity of natural evolution is disrupted and sometimes lost, often to the point where it is irretrievable.  Many societies across the globe have struggled to maintain their own culture in the face of the cultural holocaust of foreign invaders; the aborigines in Australia, the many native tribes in the US (a lot of whom never survived) and more recently the Tibetan people whose country has now been wiped off maps of the world after invasion by China.  Then, of course, there is the ongoing saga of Israel and Palestine. 

A few years ago, the Anne Frank Exhibition came to my home town and as I wasn’t working at the time, I volunteered to help present it.  It turned out to be a great learning experience.  We’re all aware of what happened to the Jewish people under the Nazi’s, but what I learned from this, was that the story of how this is presented in history is highly suspect.  The attempted systematic extermination of the Jewish people is often presented as a one-off, a terrible aberration, when in reality it was the accumulation of almost 2000 years of anti-Semitism by the ‘Christian’ churches.  Someone, somewhere, back in the day, decided that the Jewish people were collectively responsible for killing ‘God’ when Jesus was crucified and that kicked the whole thing off.  Other interesting facts I learned are that England was the first country to expel the Jewish people as a whole back in the middle-ages.  The word ghetto is Italian, and means ‘ironworks’ because that’s where the first ghetto was, in Italy in an old ironworks.  We all know the character of Shylock from Shakespeare’s, The Merchant of Venice as a money lender, but what we don’t know is the reality behind it.  The image of the Jewish person as a money lender and tax collector is based on fact but what I didn’t know was that Jewish people were forced into those occupations because no one wanted to do them because of how unpopular they were. 

For almost 2000 years, the Jewish people were marginalised, discriminated against, oppressed and expelled and treated in all manner of rotten ways until finally someone decided to wipe them off the face of the earth.  The Jewish people with their long history of expulsion and oppression went along and did as they were told for the most part, probably believing that it was another of those anti-Semitic pogroms and if they kept their heads down and went along they would probably come out alright in the end.  As Malcolm X said, they ‘sleepwalked’ to the gas chambers and in light of their history it becomes understandable now how that happened.

But what I don’t understand is this, why in 2000 years of this treatment did no one ever seriously object, why did no one ever speak up on their behalf, why did no one ever stop and say, 'these people are human beings too, what if  we are wrong in what we are doing to them?'  Where were all the ‘Christian’ voices in the so- called ‘Christian’ churches?  Quite frankly, I think the ‘Christian’ churches should be sued under the Trades Descriptions Act for false advertising.

And again, we come back to the same old story, because people don’t think for themselves enough and will often choose the easier road in life.  They don’t want the hassle, they prefer to keep their heads down and go along with the crowd, it’s easier to have someone do your thinking for you than to sit down and think for yourself, or to stand up and say ‘Well, actually I think you’re wrong!’   To go against the crowd, to stand apart, to challenge the authorities.

Now, this is not to excuse what is happening in Israel and Palestine today, but in order to understand a people you need to understand their history and in doing so we gain perspective and some understanding of the mind-set and the collective anger that must exist within the Jewish community.  Of course, they are going to be defensive about their territory, especially when they perceive themselves as being surrounded by so many hostile forces.  Who will guarantee their safety and security?  Who can they trust when they have been subjected to 2000 years of oppression, who can they have faith in when less than 80 years ago, they were almost wiped off the face of the earth?

Everything that is happening in the present has it’s roots in the past, there is no easy road to resolving the problems that exist today.  It is going to take a long time for the Jewish people to be able to trust the world and it irritates me to listen to the simple condemnations of Israel by people and politicians without regard to the whole picture.  If they really want to help they should reach out the hand of understanding and friendship, and maybe a collective apology on behalf of mankind for what was done to them as a people for 2000 years, would be a good place to start. 

To the Israeli people, or to Mr Netanyahu and the Zionist right, I would like to say, in remembering your history, remember that the Palestinians are human beings too and that oppression in any form leaves a bitter taste.  Whether as the oppressed or the oppressor, no one can predict the future and no one knows what may lie ahead for any of us but one thing I do know, is that the more friends you have on your side if, or when trouble comes, the more support and protection you will have against those forces who would seek to do you harm.

For God and all of humanity.

As always, comments are welcome.

There’s a lot of talk about the ‘obesity’ crisis and no shortage of ideas as to it’s cause and it’s cure.  Luckily, I don’t have a weight problem, actually, it’s got nothing to do with luck, just good eating habits.  When it comes to food, I have a fairly straight forward philosophy – if it isn’t real, don’t eat it – at least not in large quantities, and if you can afford to, go for the organic.  I’m not saying I never eat a biscuit or some chocolate but my diet is about 97% good, and 3% less good.  That figure is reducing daily because the dreaded hot flushes have started and I’ve found that certain things exacerbate them, sugar in all it’s forms is one of the worst, along with tea and coffee too, to a lesser extent, so I’m in the process of removing them from my diet, although I had cut the tea down to about two cups a week.

 I am not a fan of fast food and because I’ve never had a lot of money, I make most of my own meals from scratch.  I have tried McDonalds and quite frankly, you won’t find me in there unless I’m absolutely starving and there is nowhere else open, and when it comes to fast food, nothing is faster than a banana, just peel and eat or even quicker, an apple, you don’t even have to peel it.

The thinking behind my eating habits is this, I am a human being, I evolved over thousands of years like the rest of the animal life on this planet.  I am part of the eco-system.  My body was designed to eat the food that occurs naturally on this earth, which is meat and fish, fruit and vegetables and some crops.  

If you look at the list of ingredients in something like those fake butter type spreads, there are ingredients in them, I can’t even pronounce.  They’re full of chemicals and colourings and flavourings.  Now I am a human being, NOT a chemical processing plant.  The human body was not made to process this kind of stuff.  A case in point, Diet Coke. Everyone I know who drinks this stuff has two things in common, they have a weight problem and they are addicted to it, and it’s disgusting, it’s just a tin of coloured water with chemicals in it.  Now, ask yourself a question, would you give Diet Coke to a dog to drink?  The answer of course, is no, (at least I hope it is) so if you wouldn’t give it to a dog, why would you give it to a child?

Taste like everything else, develops over time and the more real food you eat, the more your taste for it will develop. 

Now not everyone can cook, and I remember watching one of those reality cooking shows about diet a few years back, and it showed a family in which there were four children, and neither of the parents could cook.  I was stunned, I couldn’t understand how you could have four children and not cook, not to mention the huge expense buying processed food or having takeaways all the time.  Eating is a basic human necessity, we all have to eat so we should all learn how to cook.

Now, I’m not slagging off people who can’t cook.  I understand there were changes to our eating habits with the advent of frozen and processed food in the sixties, coupled with the invention of the microwave oven and the removal of cookery classes from schools under the Thatcher government. (although I think they are now back on the curriculum, and if they’re not they should be)  This created a hole in our diets which has been filled up with overly sweetened, salted and processed food, full of the aforementioned colourings, flavourings and whatever else they put in there.

Realistically, this stuff just can’t be doing us any good.  Now, most of us know who Gillian McKeith is, and I know she came in for a lot of stick about her fake science and fake degree, and she was a bit extreme, but one thing you can’t argue against and that is, she got results.  She took stones off people and added years to their lives.

I watched another programme recently on GM crops, and to be honest I didn’t really know much about them and had always thought how harmful could a crop be?  Well, extremely harmful is the answer.  This programme was about crops in India and how companies have genetically modified the wheat and cotton crops so they don’t generate seed, so the farmers have to keep going back and buying new seed every year from these companies.  But the scary thing about these crops is that they suspect they killed cattle.  What happened was, the cattle started dying and when they opened them up they found that one of the stomachs in the cows,  (they have four) had dried up.  They put it down to lack of natural enzymes in the food they had eaten.  Scary stuff.  I also read recently that some researchers believe that ‘man boobs’ are caused by wheat in the diet.  How do we even know if the wheat used in baking is GM free?  Mostly we don’t.

There’s an arrogance in science that thinks it can do better than nature, that thousands of years of evolution can be disregarded and that we have the right to screw around with nature as much as we like, with no consideration for the consequences.  I watched another programme a couple of years ago about plagues, and every plague they discussed was caused by man screwing around with nature, from rabbits and mice in Australia, to killer bees in South America, every one was down to man’s interference.   We get so carried away by what we can do, we never stop to question if we should do it.

So people, think on, you owe it to yourself and your health.  Eat well and organic as much as possible, and go for the real food.  Start today, try and cut out the sugar or at least to cut it down; throw out those manky fake butters and treat yourself to the real thing, there’s nothing to beat it for taste. 

Comments as usual, are welcome.

I was reticent about writing on this subject, and I was going to comment on it earlier this year when Senate hopefuls, Todd Akin, and Indiana State Treasurer, Richard Mourdock came out with some crassly stupid remarks on the subject but decided to leave it as a topic for another day, sure that it would come up again but I never envisaged that it would be in such shocking terms.

The death of the young woman in India from injuries sustained from a violent gang-rape has sickened and shocked me, and I am not one who is easily shocked.  This young woman was stripped and gang-raped for an hour before being badly beaten and then thrown into the street. 

I feel physically ill when I think of how utterly helpless and terrified she must have been. The thing that is missing in relation to many discussions about rape, is that very little attention paid to the long term effects and aftermath. Over the years there has been a lot of nonsense written about rape, mostly by people who know nothing about it. Some say that it has nothing to do with sex that it is about power. I disagree, it is about sex and power but it is also about immaturity, and cultural and religious beliefs. The question has been asked many times, why do men rape?  Well, the simple answer to that is, because they can, and mostly because they know they will get away with it. Just to clarify, when I say men, I mean it only to denote male in gender because no real man would ever rape anyone and would be abhorred by the idea of forcing themselves sexually on another human being. The preoccupation with sex in our society merely reflects our own immaturity in dealing with it, and is also reflected in the fact that almost every woman I know has, at some point in her life, been sexually assaulted by a man, the only difference is the degree to which it happened. I remember as a teenager, even before the assault, being hunted like an animal by young men who thought they had the right to manhandle me in any way they chose.  There was nothing extraordinary in this, it was almost a social norm. 

The attitude of the man who assaulted me and the men who assaulted this young woman is exactly the same. It is two-fold, on the one hand it comes from their overblown sense of entitlement, culturally they have been socialized to believe they have the right to do and to take what they want. On the other hand, it can reflect the religious and cultural belief that a woman is of less value than a man. The Bible is often used to justify this belief and we saw it in action recently in the vote against women bishops in the Church of England. The Bible is an amazing book, it contains a lot of history and also a lot of truths about humanity and our origins. But people have used it many times to justify their own prejudices and to give credence to beliefs about the superiority of men over women and other ridiculous ideas like Manifest Destiny and the superiority of some ‘races’ over others. Within the Bible you could find a passage to support any argument, just by virtue of the volume of writings contained within it. We also need to remember that the Bible was put together by men not God. It has been edited and re-written in part by several Popes. Its texts are selective and reflect the times in which they were written and what has been left out of the Bible is almost as significant as what is contained within it.

Unfortunately, these archaic cultural and religious ideas of a woman’s inferiority are still prevalent throughout the world, even in supposedly more advanced countries. It can be seen all around us from the extremism of the Taliban, to the front benches of the present Government and again the only difference is in how it manifests itself in action, is in degrees. We all remember Mr Cameron’s patronising ‘calm down dear’ to Angela Eagle. 

Most societies, ours included, has patriarchy as one of its foundations and when something is that inherent it is very difficult to change. It was only recently that the primogeniture rule in relation to the Crown was changed to allow a first born female to be monarch.

The caste system and the class system are no different in practice, they both promote the idea of inferior and superior people. The most extreme case of this was in Nazi Germany, which is often presented as an aberration in history, a one-off event. This is a lie. Nazi Germany was the accumulation of 2000 years of bigotry and prejudice against the Jewish people, driven in the greater part by the ‘Christian’ Churches. Again, I use that term lightly because too often the Churches act in ways that are far from the Christian ideal. 

It really is time for a re-think on these issues but I don’t hold out much hope of it happening soon. It would be wonderful if the horror of this incident changed attitudes, maybe it will, but I think it will take a lot of time. I do, however, take heart from the younger generations here in Ireland where I see change happening and fathers being much more involved in the care of their children than past generations. 

As long as we continue to create social hierarchies among people, as long as we continue to bring up our males to believe in their superiority, as long as the class and caste systems remain in place, and as long as these cultural and religious beliefs go unchallenged, unfortunately, incidents like this will continue to happen.

Comments, as usual, are welcome.

Well, plays have all been performed, to good reviews I might add, and assignments are up to date, so now that I am all rested and recovered, let’s catch up with what’s been happening in the world –

Riots in Belfast?  Didn’t we do that already?

They’re at it again.

So, what’s it about this time?  Flags, eh!!

You know, when I see people out protesting like that on the street over some perceived attack on their culture, faith or whatever, I often think, ‘You really don’t have enough to bother you’, and it really must have been a slow week for news when this lot made the national headlines.

Now, in the great scheme of things, how ridiculous must this seem to any outsider, the Union flag is taken down and there are protests and riots, for what, a piece of coloured material?

Now, the thing about all this is, you can say it’s about flags, or culture, or identity, or religion, or nationality, or loyalty, and you might think you’re right, but when you strip all that down to the bare bones it comes down to this, and this is what no one else in Northern Ireland will ever just come out and say publicly - identifying with the Union Jack is about clinging to an idea left over from the British Empire (of which NI is it’s last outpost) and that is, to identify yourself as British is to claim that you are superior and not just to the Irish, but to everyone that isn’t white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant, that’s it in a nutshell. 

It’s about nothing more than that, ‘I’m British’ means saying I’m better than you without actually saying, ‘I am superior to you’.  It’s the exact same attitude that prevailed in the days of Empire when Britain went stomping around the globe terrorising the natives and bringing us heathen types civilisation, and which still prevails today among right-wingers, from the Tory party to the National Front.

Ulster was planted hundreds of years ago by the British, actually it happened about a hundred years before Britain even existed, and Ireland has never been part of Britain, it’s always been the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or as it is now, Northern Ireland.  

So, there are no British here in NI, only a few confused Irish or Northern Irish, for we surely are a breed apart from the rest of the country.  I mean, how many years do you have to live in a country before you consider yourself a citizen of it?  Hundreds of years later, and they still can’t lower themselves to stand up and say they’re Irish, or even Northern Irish.  They treat it as an insult to be considered Irish, and as someone who is Irish by nationality, I find that insulting.  What is so wrong with being Irish?  What does nationality mean at the end of day, I was born in Ireland so I am deemed to be Irish, they were born in Ireland too, but they’re British.  What’s going to happen when/if the Scottish vote for Independence, Britain isn’t going to exist anymore, what will they be then?

When I think about my identity, I think first and foremost, I am a human being, then I am female, and identifying with a country, a flag, or one culture is far down the list of what I am. There are very few singularly, one culture people left in this world, not when you sit down and consider how much of our lives have been influenced by other countries and their habits, especially in these days of globalization.  In reality, each of us is a single multi-cultural unit.

As long as people don’t think for themselves, they will cling to other’s ideas of what their identity is.  It’s easier to adopt the cultural stereotypes we’ve been spoon fed by our respective communities, than to look at the reality of these things and challenge notions that are as archaic, and out-of-date, as the dinosaurs.   

Now, if you really want to go out and protest about something that may be wrong in Belfast then here’s an idea.  In October of this year in East Belfast , in the space of 10 days, 7 people committed suicide.  Also, in West Belfast this week, apparently 5 people committed suicide.  (I haven’t been able to confirm this yet, I heard it at work in relation to the tragedy of another local suicide)  The rate of suicide in the North is off the scale compared to the rest of Europe .  (see previous post: In defence of young men)  With the ongoing stranglehold on the working-class Protestant areas by the paramilitaries, the decades of economic neglect by government and the pressure of culture and tradition, there are communities here in real crisis, and no-one seems to give a damn.  

And it certainly doesn’t help when a Chancellor gets up in Parliament and starts sneeringly classifying the working class of this country into strivers and skivers, especially when he got to be where he is, because he had the double good fortune of being born into a wealthy family and the privileged classes, where their money and social connections bought him all the advantages that life has to offer.

There is a lot of pressure in people at the moment, the rising cost of living and falling value of wages, the added pressure of conforming to the social and financial pressures of the season of 'Goodwill', not to mention the fear of losing your job, or of trying to find a job if you don't have one in the midst of a recession.  These all make for extremely stressful times and it's heart-sickening to watch this government gleefully slash at the poorest and weakest in this society and arrogantly scapegoat them for the present economic ills which they were not responsible for, while giving all the breaks to the rich and fellow members of their class.  All I can say is, roll on the revolution!!!

As always, comments are welcome:

A little quiz question for today, what do the Pope, the Queen, David Cameron and Bono have in common?  

Well, if you said the Pope is head of the Catholic Church, the Queen is the head of State for Britain and the Church of England, David Cameron is the head of the present Government, and Bono has a big head, then head would be the connection and you might be right and, actually, that is a right answer too, when you think about it. 

But that’s not the answer we’re looking for today, so, sorry if you said that but good thinking just the same. 

The answer we’re looking for is, and this might surprise some people, they all say or think they are Christians but in reality none of them are, which might surprise some people since two of them are heads of Christian Churches and at least one of them thinks they are God. 

So, how is that the right answer, I hear you say? Well, I was at mass a couple of weeks ago and the priest was talking about the reading that day, which was the one about how it would be ‘easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it would be for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God ’ (or heaven, anyway, same thing).  And he went on about wealth and poverty and I was sitting there thinking, ‘Well what about the Vatican?’  I almost got up and said it, and if it had been another priest I might have, but this priest is old and retired and then I thought, ‘Well he’s not Rome so why harass him about it’. And then yesterday we were back on the money question with the story of the Widow's Mite. Now, I go to mass, I consider myself Catholic, definitely not a Roman Catholic but Catholic in the original sense of the word, which comes from the Greek and means ‘universal’, and that is how I consider myself. I am a member of the ‘universal church of humanity’. 

I was in Rome a couple of years ago and while there was a lot to see, from an historical perspective, I didn’t particularly like the place and I certainly didn’t feel too inspired by the ‘Christianity’ of the Vatican, and wouldn’t be in a hurry to go back any time soon. When I was there, I was hoping for some profound spiritual experience and the nearest I got to encountering anything like that was looking at Michelangelo's Pieta, which is in St Peters and is a stunningly beautiful piece of sculpture. If you ever go to Rome, I couldn’t recommend going to see this highly enough. 

The other big attraction was the Sistine Chapel and, honestly, I felt a bit let down by it. Firstly, it’s not really a chapel, as you would imagine, it’s just another room in the Vatican and by the time you get to it, you have passed through so many rooms painted from floor to ceiling with angels and the like, that your eye is a bit tired by the overload.  

I had the same thing in the Renaissance section of the Louvre, I remember coming out and thinking, ‘If I see one more picture of the dead Christ…!’ And, for the record, the painting of God creating Adam, which I had always imagined was this huge painting across a domed ceiling, is in fact a small panel in the centre of the ceiling about 5ft by 3ft. (it probably is bigger than that, but from my perspective, that is how it appeared). The place was also packed, it was a hot day and, between the crowd, the stifling air and the smell of body odour, it wasn't a pleasant experience. 

Anyway, what got me about it, was the wealth of art in the Vatican museum and, also, the fact that the Pope lives like an earthly king. He lives in a palace, is surrounded by lackeys and riches, he is dressed in expensive robes, waited on hand and foot and separated from the people. He is supposed to be Jesus’ representative on earth, how is that anything like Jesus? And another thing, he is supposed to be infallible, says who? I would like to know where that idea came from? He can’t be infallible, he is a human being, it isn’t possible, all humans are flawed and imperfect, it’s the most interesting thing about us. Just think how boring it would be, if we were all perfect and flawless?  

When you look at it, everything about the Pope goes against everything Jesus preached about and the same goes for the Queen. It is a complete hypocrisy to have a Queen as head of any Christian church and the same applies to David Cameron and Bono, you cannot be that rich and be a Christian, it just isn’t possible, you may perform Christian acts now and again, but as long as you are sitting with all those millions (and avoiding paying tax) you are not and never can be a Christian in the truest and only sense of the word. 

And since we’re on the subject of Churches and religion, any religion that differentiates between men and women is wrong, especially if the Bible is a big part of the religion, because one of the first statements in the Book of Genesis says, that God made them, male and female, both equal. That’s it, equal, no more, no less, equal.  Not the Animal Farm kind of equal, where ‘everyone is equal, only some are more equal than others’, no, not that one. There was no qualification to it, all equal, no argument. 

And if you really believed in the God of the Bible, you couldn’t regard any human being as not being your equal, (or as discussed in previous blogs, of equal value), because if you believe God made everything, then to say that a woman is something less than a man, is to insult God. If God made them equal then who is any human being to say that Her/His/It’s creation, woman, is something less, when they are both human. The value for what He/She/It has created, then extends to everything because if you truly believed that, then you have to consider that everything that God has created is of value to God, otherwise it would not exist.  

Which makes it very arrogant and insulting to go traipsing around claiming dominion over other lands and other human beings and treating them badly, or as your own personal property. Because if everything is God’s creation then, maybe it’s time we started to really think about that and consider how we are living and how we treat other people and the planet. Maybe it’s time we cleaned up our act and started taking care of what we have been given because whether there is or isn’t a God, and whether you believe or don’t believe in a God, we only have a short time here so why don’t we do our best to live well and respectfully, and try and make life better for everyone.  

I mean, does the Queen, David and Bono, and all those other millionaires and billionaires, really need all that money. They can’t spend it in a lifetime and it won’t buy them another life. They can’t take it with them so what do they need it for, to feed their egos and make them feel like they are successful, that they are better human beings than the rest of us?  

Sorry, but the bad news about that is, if you can sit with millions or billions in a bank while on this planet another human being is dying for the want of something as basic as food, then you have failed in the most important area of life, you have failed as a human being and you have certainly failed as a Christian. 

What are we here for, if not to live, life is supposed to be lived is it not?  Why does it always feel that life is something to be endured or survived, why can we not just live and live well? We speculate and ponder on the meaning of life and maybe it is something as simple as that, to live it and live it well. 

Comments as usual, are always welcome.

Following on from last weeks post, I talked about our equal value as human beings and recognise the belief systems and social constructions that we have created which divide us into classes and hierarchies, placing the value of some humans higher than others.

Most of us agree with the idea of equality but find it difficult to see how it would work in practice. The main reason this difficulty arises is because when we try to articulate it, or when we look around us, we see that there are many ways in which we are not equal.

Each of us is an individual with individual talents and abilities and to try and come up with a statement that encompasses the idea of equality, while recognising the diversity of mankind, is a challenge in itself. I used to always say I believed in equality but having children opened my eyes to how individual each child can be, even when they come from the same parents and, also, how much the individual personality of each human being is present in the infant child.  

This is what I came up with as a statement in support of equality, I have concluded that while it is about the value of each human being, we also need to recognise and appreciate the individual.

Equality (of Value) - To allow and encourage the growth and development of all people to their full potential as human beings, without impediment or prejudice.

It may come as a surprise to you all to know that me and Jesus have a lot in common, I kid you not. You probably already know that on the day Jesus was born, there was a new star in the sky to announce his arrival.  Well, it also happens that on the day I was born, there was also a new star in the sky. It was called Telstar, and was the first telecommunications satellite, launched to improve telecommunications between the US and Europe. So if you want to Google that, you’ll know exactly when I was born, and what age I am, no prizes for finding it though, sorry, and I’m too much of a lady to reveal my age publicly.

‘Ha!’

Sorry, did you say something?

‘Nut'in, just clearin’ me throat’

Ok then, moving swiftly along…….as you probably already noticed I am ‘Devine’ by name, I like to think I’m ‘divine’ by nature too, at least that’s what I tell people, and if I tell them often enough they might start to believe it.

‘Ha!’

‘Do you have something to say?’

‘Jist a bit ova tikly throat’

Well, perhaps you should go and get a drink of water or something……preferably, somewhere that isn’t here?

Anyway…..you may also have noticed my initials are AD, which stands for, yes you guessed it, Anno Domini, which of course means, ‘In the year of our Lord’.

I also read a while back, that historians had pin-pointed Jesus’ birth to the month of July, which is also the month I was born in.

‘Aye well ad hiv tae agree that July’s a gud month’

I wasn’t born in a manger but I did once know a dog with mange, if that counts?  A bit of a stretch I know but you can only take them where you find them.

My early years were spent in Mount Sion, a street in a town in Northern Ireland and, as an Irish Catholic, I too grew up in a country under foreign occupation, just like Jesus under the Romans. So instead of ‘Romani Ite Domum’, we had ‘Limeys Go Home’ which later became 'Brits Out'.

 ‘Yer showin’ yer age now love’

 ‘REALLY, I just can’t be doing with all this interruption, are the pubs not open tonight?’

 ‘They probly are but am skint’

 Well, that’s just TOO bad then isn’t it?’

I’m SO sorry about this, he’s a disgruntled Ulster Scots speaker, he’s been hanging around for the last few weeks, I don’t know what he’s looking for, I’m hoping he’ll get fed up soon and go back from wherever he came …anyway, shall we carry on?

OKAY…On the miracle front, I haven’t quite managed to feed five thousand with a few loaves and fishes but I could feed a small army on half a stone of spuds and a pound of mince. But one other memory stands out for me where, like Jesus, I first ran into trouble with the religious authorities. I recently entered it in a memoir competition although it is more autobiography, but it came nowhere so here it is for your reading pleasure or not!

Communists in the Convent!

I don’t know where my interest in politics began, I think it was partly by osmosis. Growing up in Northern Ireland against a background of increasing political unrest made it inevitable that something would rub off. I remember the political figures of the day making their way into our skipping songs;

‘Vote, vote, vote for Bernadette Devlin, here comes Paisley at the door’….at which point someone would jump into the skipping rope and we would sing the song to the end. 

…. ‘for she is the one who will have the best of fun and we won’t see Paisley any more’.          

These names were interchangeable because to us they were just names and didn’t have any particular associations for us. Although it wasn’t long before we knew Bernadette was on our side, and Paisley was on the other. I remember her coming to our street, she was canvassing for election and my mother and several of the women in the neighbourhood all went out to shake her hand. This surprised me as I had never considered my mother as being political in any way.

I also remember learning the words to the Strawb’s  ‘Part of the union’.

‘You won’t get me I’m part of the Union, til the day I die, til the day I die!’ I can still sing it now.  This was probably one of the first signs that I was definitely headed left.

Then in primary 7, I found myself on the receiving end of a campaign of bullying and if there is a defining moment that stands out in memory where something fundamental changed within me then this was it. 

I had had a disagreement with a girl in my class, what it was about I don’t remember but she was someone I never particularly liked, she was spoiled and vain, and looked down her nose at everyone. From there it had escalated as she and her ‘gang’ had taken to following me home every day in a twisted game of follow my leader, where every movement and gesture was copied and mocked. There seemed to be no end in sight, as I endured another lunchtime of mockery and the gang seemed to be increasing in numbers, and that was when I decided enough was enough!

Parents seldom involved themselves in their children’s quarrels back then so there was no point in trying to get anyone at home to listen. There were too many of them to take on single-handedly and so, after thinking and re-thinking my options, I decided that after lunch I was going to take the only one available and talk to the teacher, and hopefully get it sorted out for once and for all. I waited until everyone was seated back in the classroom and then I walked up to the teachers desk and simply said: 

‘Miss I have a problem and I need you to help me sort it out’.

She was taken aback because I wasn’t known as the type to put myself forward and was usually quite reserved but she gave me a fair hearing, listened to the other side as, of course, they denied all but then, inevitably, broke down in tears. Apologies were made and accepted and so it was sorted and we passed our final months at primary school in peace. 

I was particularly pleased at how I had handled the situation and it had given me a renewed confidence which was exactly what I needed as I was due to start in the local Convent Grammar that September. My older sister had begun the year before and had regaled me with tales of real experiments in Chemistry and real cooking in Domestic Science. I couldn’t wait to get started and felt that the world was finally opening up and that bigger and better things lay ahead. 

As far as memory serves, it was a quiet summer and nothing extraordinary happened and I was glad when September finally rolled around and marched proudly off to school with a bag full of books and a heart full of ambition.

From being the oldest class in primary school, it was a bit of a come down to find you were back at the bottom of the ladder but this was the big school and the disappointment was soon forgotten when I was given my first time-table. Not only was everything more interesting and grown-up but there, first thing on Monday morning, was a subject I hadn’t even considered, Drama!  This was turning out even better than expected.

I had always loved performing. I had sang on stage at concerts in our local Parish hall, I played the violin and did Irish dancing as well, so stepping out on to a stage was second nature to me. This was the next step in my development, real acting on a real stage, Hollywood here I come!

Sister Pius was the teacher. I was a bit disappointed by that as I didn’t imagine it was a subject a nun would know much about. She was small, not much bigger than me, slightly built with a fringe of dark hair visible at the front of her veil, she was very neat in appearance and held herself stiffly which made her seem a bit uptight for something like Drama. However, when we had our first lesson all my fears were dispelled, she seemed to know her stuff as she talked about voice and poise. To help us with this, we were set an essay for our second lesson, it was titled, ‘Something I believe in’, and we were to read it aloud in front of the class the following week. 

I was thunder struck as I realized I had a head full of ideas and beliefs which I had never articulated. Not only were they there, but I all of a sudden I had an urgent desire to express them, I wanted the world to sit up and listen, I had important things to say! Opportunities like this didn’t happen every day and I determined I was going to make the most of it, Pandora’s box had opened.

A few of my classmates were nervous about having to stand up in front of everyone and talk but that didn’t bother me in the least, this was right up my street as I decided this was my destiny and imagined a future making great speeches to large audiences who cheered and clapped at every utterance.   

The only thing I had to figure out now was which great idea or belief I was going to write about. I definitely believed that David Bowie was the greatest singer in the world but I wasn’t sure if that would be an impressive enough subject, I wanted to dazzle everyone with my great thinking and wonderful ideas so, after some consideration, I settled on my subject, Communism, now there was something I could believe in. 

I had become interested in Communism for a few reasons, one being that every time Russia was mentioned my mother would go into a rant about the Communists wanting to take over the world and turn us all into ‘Godless heathens’. This really appealed to me as we were marched out to Mass for every Holy Day in the calendar, not to mention May and October Devotions. 

We had also been subjected to a daily round of family Rosary a few years before, after the Pope issued some edict on the matter, and my mother being the most Catholic Catholic in town, insisted in following orders. The thing about the Family Rosary was that it was to be at six every evening so, after being dragged in for it a couple of times, we soon realized that if we disappeared about ten minutes beforehand, then it was easily avoided. At five forty-five every evening, there was a veritable exodus from the street as not only me and my siblings disappeared but half the neighbourhood as well. 

The Rosary was soon abandoned amid despairing admonitions from my mother that ‘she didn’t know what kind of crowd she was rearing!’  There were a lot of good Catholic mothers back then whose devotion to their faith would contribute to a rising tide of atheism.   

The other reason for my embracing all things Communist was that under their system everyone was equal, at least that was the theory. I was the middle child in my family, quiet by nature, I was often overlooked and I was still smarting over the promise of a special present for passing the eleven plus which never materialized. So, after all that, quite frankly, the Red Army couldn’t get here quick enough!

As I started my essay, I realized I didn’t really know enough about Communism, apart from the idea that everyone is supposed to be equal so I had to do some research. I checked out the school library and got loads of information from one of the encyclopaedias.  All the big names were there; Marx, Lenin, Castro.

Totalitarianism was mentioned which I didn’t really feel comfortable about as it sounded a bit like the Catholic Church but, after some consideration, I thought I’ll stick it in anyway and resolved to look into all the authoritarian stuff later.  

And so I crafted it over the week, standing, reading it aloud to my younger sisters. This was great stuff, everyone would be dead impressed! 

Monday morning I was up and off to school early, the big day was finally here. Sitting in class, essay in hand I was suddenly struck by fear; what if someone else wrote about my subject and they got to read first?  It would look as if I had copied them. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner? I counted, there were about 9 in front of me…and the first one was about to go up.

‘Something I believe in’

I held my breath,

‘My Parents’

And let it out relieved.

‘Parents!’ I thought to myself, ‘is she serious?’ 

Of course we all applauded when she finished. The next one stood up.

‘Something I believe in’

Again I held my breath,

‘The Catholic Church’.

‘The Catholic Church!! You have got to be kidding me, God, these people have no imagination at all’ I thought. 

I started to relax as one after another, they stood up to read, a total of three subjects; God, the Catholic Church and parents, sometimes a specific parent like their daddy or their mammy. I couldn’t believe it! I had worried unnecessarily, there was no competition in this crowd at all, this was going to make me look even better!

Finally it was my turn, I stood up, took my place in front of the class, gave my papers a quick shake, a little dramatic gesture to draw their attention and read: 

‘Something I believe in’…I took a deep breathe and said…‘Communism’

I looked up to gauge the response…all eyes were on me...and so I began.

As I finished, feeling very pleased with myself, I scanned the crowd. I had definitely made an impression, there were murmurings in the crowd and quite a few looks of surprise. As I waited for my round of applause Sister Pius started to stand up, ‘I’m not going to get a round of applause, I’m going to get a standing ovation, from the teacher herself!’ I thought…..

In hindsight, of course, I think the only reason I got to the end of the essay was that the nun was in such a state of shock she was unable to speak or move until that moment. 

As she walked towards me, I could see from the expression on her face that something wasn’t quite right. Her face had gone very pale and hers lips were pursed tightly together.

‘THIS CLASS IS OVER AIDEEN DEVINE OUTSIDE NOW!’ she demanded emphasizing every syllable. For such a small, slight woman she suddenly had a very strong angry voice.

As I was marched out of the room, I racked my brains trying to think what had gone wrong?   

‘AID DEEN DEE VINE, where did you get this?’ she demanded. I didn’t really know what to say and looked at her dumbly.

‘I know your mother and your Aunt MaryB’ she said. My aunt was a teacher and best friends with Sister Ursula and my mother had done some substitute teaching in her time so the Nuns all knew them which, of course, didn’t help at all. 

‘WHO is telling you these things?  WHO is putting these ideas into your head?’ she demanded again, almost screaming. What was I supposed to say, I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about?  I thought about my mother and wondered if Sister Pius thought as she did. Did she too believe the Communists were plotting to take over the world and part of their dastardly plan was to accost Catholic school girls and brain wash them with their ideas, and they had somehow infiltrated our small town?  Before I could answer she snatched the paper out of my hand.

‘COMMUNISTS!’ she said, shaking it at me and starting to turn red. ‘COMMUNISTS!’ she repeated, a little louder this time as if she needed to hear it again because she couldn’t quite believe it the first time. Building to a crescendo she shrieked, ‘THEY DON’T EVEN BELIEVE IN GOD!’

To me that was a minor detail, in my thinking there was no real conflict between God and communism, I mean it says in the bible that we were all created equal in the eyes of God, to me that’s just what Communism was all about. In my naivety/stupidity (take your pick), I finally answered,

‘No-one sister, I thought of this myself ’ and was about to start to explain the thinking behind it when she started to gasp for air and her eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of their sockets. ‘God, she’s going to have a heart attack’ I thought and wondered if I should wait until she collapsed, or run and get help now. I hedged my bets, worried that I would be held responsible for the death of a nun and decided to wait. After some moments she managed to suck in a deep breath and recover some of her composure, much to my relief! 

‘YOU thought of this!’ she screamed, a little less hysterically. ‘HOW COULD YOU?!!’  The volume started to rise again. ‘You’re not even allowed to THINK these things, never mind SAY them or BELIEVE in them!’ she screeched.

I didn’t know what to say to that, I felt confused. ‘Not allowed to think!’ The phrase ran around in my head, this just didn’t make any sense. ‘Not allowed to think’ I thought again, because I couldn’t quite believe that was what she had really said. ‘Surely you can think anything?’ I thought. ‘How can thinking be wrong?’ I was about to query this when the bell rang for next period which interrupted the moment. There was nothing more to be said, at least not by me.

‘Go to your next class!’ she ordered and turned to go.  She stopped, and looked at me again, ‘I’ll be keeping my eye on you!’ she warned, and stomped off towards the Staff room….

So, apart from the Nuns, my mother, and some of the teachers, the response was on the whole quite positive.  Several of my classmates were impressed and wanted to know more and while it would give me the greatest pleasure to report that the Convent Grammar became a hotbed of subversive political activity, unfortunately, I can’t.  The only thing I can report is that Drama was taken off our timetable much to my eternal disappointment.

Unfortunately, this was a foretaste of what lay ahead for all my educational ambitions. Chemistry had a grand total of two experiments, dipping litmus paper in various solutions and making blue crystals. They changed the rules for Domestic Science that year too; there would be no cooking in first year, it would be theory only and by the time we got to second year, I had long since lost interest and gave it up. I was never destined for domestic servitude.

Although these were disappointments, there was one silver lining in this cloud. My old protagonist and leader of the bullies never got to read out her essay and was very vocal in letting everyone know how annoyed she was about it, but we were all on new ground here and since most of her gang hadn’t got into the Grammar School, there was nothing she could do about it.

Salvation also lay in English with Mr. Gallagher who had regular class debates where, although everyone got their turn, somehow, I always managed to have a place on one side or the other, even if we never got to debate the motion ‘This house believes in Communism’.

My dramatic ambitions thwarted, it would be many years before I would get up in front of an audience again but I recently joined a drama group and am very happily back treading the boards. It may not be Hollywood but at least I’m getting to do something I love.

Over the years my interest in politics never waned either, although it has gone through a few reincarnations.  I’ve joined several different political parties at different times but at some point my thinking always diverges from the party line and conscience, among other things, compels me to leave. 

I’ve been called an anarchist on several occasions, that being one of the nicer things that has been said and I’ve often been told I ‘think too much’. People think they’re insulting me when they say these things and I usually answer ‘Well someone has to, because no one else seems to be!’ 

The Red Army never got as far as my home town and with the fall of the Berlin Wall it’s been an increasingly lonely position being the only Communist in town. I think me and Fidel are the only two left, although his health is a worry these days and, whatever you think of his politics, you have to admire his staying power in facing down the bullies of Western capitalism (see I still know the lingo). Soon I’ll be the only one left, (I don’t recognize China, ironically, for political AND religious reasons), not that it bothers me, I was never one for following the crowd, being chased by them was more my style!

I still describe myself politically, as a Communist and what I have come to realize is, my Communism is my own and identifies more with that twelve-year-old believer in equality for all than Lenin or Marx. I’m still waiting for the Red Army to arrive but, metaphorically not literally and, who knows, with the present economic climate and discontent, my days of making great speeches to large crowds may lie ahead and the revolution might just start here!  

Today guys you are going to love me!  In the battle of the sexes there is one issue that it a complete mystery to me, leaving the toilet seat up. Seriously, what is that all about? So the guy comes in, lifts the toilet seat, does what he has to do and leaves without putting the seat back down. That's it, no big deal. Woman comes in puts seat down and does what she has to do, then leaves without putting the toilet seat back up.

You see this is the core of the issue and this guys shows that you're not giving it enough thought. I am now going to give you the return argument if the toilet seat is an issue in your relationship. Where is it written in stone that the toilet seat has to be down? Why can it not be up? Nowhere because, realistically, men you could make this an issue if you really wanted to.

'No she never leaves the toilet seat up when she finishes and I always have to come in and put it up. Next time I'll just not bother and splash all over it'. See what I mean - end of argument.

And, ladies, sorry but if this is an issue for you in your relationship, then my advice to you is to go live in a Sudanese refugee camp for a week or two, it might help you get a little perspective on it. Because the only real issue in the bathroom is - do we have toilet roll? 

Watching the Olympic opening ceremony the other night, I realized that the soundtrack of the opening was also the soundtrack of my life. While I was born, and still live in Northern Ireland, I identify with a lot of aspects of British culture.

I mostly watch BBC television and listen to BBC radio. David Bowie was my first crush and Led Zeppelin my favourite band. I recognized the films clips from Kes and Billy Elliot, they’re both in my own film collection and, of course, I can thank the OU for knowing all about Glastonbury Tor. When I thing about identity, or what country or people I identify with, then there are so many influences that have shaped me that it would be almost impossible to identify with one country or one group of people alone. I would have considered myself Irish growing up but, realistically, there are many aspects of Irish culture that I can’t relate to at all especially the drinking culture.

Politically, the group I identify most with are the working class, but I also identify with women across the globe, especially those in countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan in their struggles against male domination. I can also identify with the black man’s struggle against racial bigotry, Malcolm X is my one of my political heroes and I often think his assassination was a greater loss to the American people than Dr King. I also identify with the Native American community in their struggles to survive after the loss of their land and the ongoing problems that alcohol has caused in their communities.

Spiritually, I identify with their idea of the Great Spirit but I also identify with the Chinese philosophy of Taoism and Tibetan Buddhism. Christianity is the faith I was brought up in and I also have a lot of regard for the teachings of Jesus. There is a school of thought that believes that Jesus studied Eastern philosophy, part of this comes from his saying, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’….because Taoism translates as the ‘way’ and, of course, there are many other similarities between both philosophies. (I prefer to call them philosophies, not religions because, at their core, they are about seeking truths about how to live morally and ethically) 

When I consider all of these things, I can’t stand up and say I am one thing and one thing alone, I don’t belong to one homogenous group, to the exclusion of all others. I am a sub-culture of many different places and peoples and when you think about it, aren’t we all? 

We eat the food from different places, are influenced by other peoples ideas and ways of living, we have been shaped by so many different things that when politicians start deriding multi-culturalism, I often wonder how interesting it would be, if all the people in the country who had a parent or grand-parent from a different country went out on strike for a day. I think it would be really interesting to see just how multi-cultural we all are and I’m sure there would be a few surprises among them all. Even the Queen is descended from Germany on one side of the family.

And there was another thing about the Olympic opening, when the athletes were coming in, there were very few countries that weren’t multi-cultural. I have often said that time will prove Darwin right and all those people of dark skin who came to live in traditionally white countries, and all the white people who have moved to places like Africa and Australia, will eventually have descendants with different coloured skin. It won’t happen overnight, it’ll take a few generations but I remember the first time I saw a picture of Eugene Terre-Blanche, the leader of the right-wing National Party in South Africa, I remarked that it was strange for a black man to be leading a right-wing party, when I was informed he was white. Well, he didn’t look very white to me and that was what got me thinking about it. If the Theory of Evolution is right, it follows logically that is what should happen, as they adapt to their new environment. I discussed this with a friend one night, whose parents were originally from India, and he had to agree that his skin was lighter, and he noticed when he went back to India on holiday, how much paler he was compared to his relatives.    

I have done a bit of traveling in the last few years and what I have noticed over and over again is that no matter where you live, or what political or religious philosophy you subscribe to, the fact is, there is only one human race and the vast majority of us are just trying to make our way in the world. We want to be happy, we want a reasonable standard of living and we want to watch our children grow up in peace. 

We’re very lucky in this part of the world, in spite of our social and political problems, that most of us have a roof over our heads, most of us have enough to eat and, the truth is, most of us live like kings compared to other parts of the world. We have a lot to be grateful for and yet we take so much for granted, we throw away our lives and chances with drugs and alcohol. We have eyes but we don’t really see the great beauty that is all around us in nature and in people. We have ears but when we are out and about, they are usually plugged into an ipod, or suchlike, and we never stop and really listen to the birds singing, or the wind soughing through the trees.  (Great word that, soughing)

Western society has us tied in knots, we have been burdened with the stuff of capitalism and consumerism, we feel cut off and alone, most of us don’t even know our neighbours. Those who rule over us are so out of touch with our basic reality that it makes us feel powerless to effect any sort of meaningful change. We have grown tired and cynical as we have seen politician after politician promise us the sun, moon and stars only to watch those same people, once elected, become another political clone, the grey man in the grey suit who helps fill the pockets of the rich, while ignoring the plight and reality of the rest of us. We yearn to be part of something, to unburden ourselves of the debt and pressure of modern life, we want to live simpler and better lives. We don’t need to be millionaires or billionaires but is it really too much to expect a reasonable wage for a reasonable day’s work? 

In Steve Hagen’s book, ‘Buddhism, Plain and Simple’ -  ‘Henry Ford, after he make his first billion dollars, was asked how much more he wanted.  He said he wanted just a little more’.

Henry Ford was also a bigot, and ferociously anti- Semitic, he advocated expelling all the Jews from the US. So, for all his wealth, it doesn’t seem that Henry was a very happy man but it does allow us to see the thinking behind those who have so much wealth. Governments have advocated the ‘trickle down’ effect as way of re-distributing wealth. The idea is that if we allow the rich to become even more richer, then the wealth they create will trickle down. Unfortunately, the rich and the very rich, or ‘the haves and the have mores’, as George Bush so succinctly put it, like to keep all their money for themselves that’s why they are rich to begin with!

History will judge us, and history will condemn us, for the simple reason that those who had so much were allowed to keep it, while others were left to starve to death. We can’t say we didn’t know because we do know and while most of us are not millionaires or billionaires and are limited in what we can do, governments are not.  We need change and we need it at the top because that is where the power is. We need to think about who we vote for and why. Do we really subscribe to the tenants of the religious faiths we belong to or are we all just too worn out and tired trying to make it from one working week to the next to think about our actions from a moral or ethical perspective?

Change will come, whether by choice or circumstances, the global capitalist system has failed although governments across the globe are still desperately trying to prop it up. We are now living through the last days of global capitalism. This way of living is coming to and end, it was never sustainable anyway. The economy is contracting and India and China are experiencing an economic slow down as well. (One thing the recession has done for me, is that I realized how few of the trappings of consumerism, I really need. I was out of work for a year and living on the dole certainly helps focus the mind on what you really need, as opposed to, what you want) 

Capitalism is sustained by two things, oil and consumption. Oil is a finite resource and there are those who say we have already reached peak oil production, so it’s going to be all downhill from here. When I look around my house, as I’m sure you can too, ask yourself, just how many more products do you really need?  When every room has the flat-screen tv, there are two or, maybe three cars parked outside, your wardrobe is stuffed with clothes and shoes and all the incumbent accessories, and you probably only wear the same 3 or 4 outfits, again and again. The bathroom is overflowing with lotions and potions, the kitchen is the same with all the gizmos and gadgets and around the TV in the living room, there are so many electrical items that a six- plug extension, with surge protection, of course, can barely cover it. 

We need to really start thinking about the future and sustainable living, because if we don’t start planning now, then we are in for some very tough times ahead. If we don’t start preparing for a world without oil, then we’ll be facing a future of famine and war. There is a lot of talk around electric cars but how are they going to be built when manufacturing depends on oil, not to mention the tarmac needed for the roads?  And what about electricity, how are we going to be able to provide the energy levels that we enjoy now? 

These are all questions that need to be taken seriously and we need to start looking for the answers. In looking forward, we need to look back to how we lived before we all became part of the capitalist system. I have always envied and admired the Native Americans and their lifestyle before ‘old whitey’ landed. They lived sustainably and didn’t desecrate the land the way we do. Christopher Columbus didn’t have to wade through rubbish dumps, or slum housing and ghettoes when he landed in the Americas. The first Europeans who arrived thought they had found the Garden of Eden as the land was so pristine and abundant with food. We need to find some middle way between our technology and our resources so that we can take all the scientific and technological achievements and marry them so as to create a society that can sustain itself and work for everyone together, not just for those at the top. And to be able to do it without ravaging the planet, because this is one area where we will all be in it together and if, we don’t start making real plans, then there are some very dark days ahead for our children and grandchildren.

(The Native American communities are being ravaged by alcohol. The Lakota Sioux in South Dakota are trying to raise money to build a healing centre to help deal with the problems that alcohol is causing on the reservation and to care for children when their parents can’t. It is called Oceti Wakan, which means Sacred Fireplace. If you wish to donate you can log on to their website, just type in Oceti Wakan and you’ll find it)