Smh In The Wild

Back in Cologne

Ten years ago I came to Cologne to start talking about agriculture standards harmonisation. Today having had a good life as part of the Global Good Agriculture Practice (Global GAP) community I am back but batting for the ther side - the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).

Funny how things work out. They say that you should never close doors and here is a great example. Same office, same meeting room, actually a few of the same people just a different hat for Homer.

I am still proud of my contribution to Globalgap and still support the broad objectives of the scheme. Ten years on I have a new broader view and a new team uniform but still the same objectives of reducing duplcation of audit and reducing costs.

Budget airlines mean rubbish travel times so the 7.15pm flight from Cologne home is my only option despite finishing my meeting at 2pm.

What to do ? ...

Starbucks, McDonalds or sit in a café drink some cold Kolsch beer and look at the Dom Cathedral ....

With at least three hours to kill I have to drink slowly at risk of not makng the flight but being swept up with the braatwurst trash at midnight.

Back in Cologne for probably the twentieth time but the Kolsch still tastes good.

Cheers !

Going off the rails ....

In a bizzare turn of events one national figure of ridicule announces its failure in the wake of the death of another.

Micheal Jackson is long past his picnic basket sell by date, madder than a whole set full of badgers he has finally moonwalked off to that great never-never land in the sky.
Overdose, heart failure, who the hell knows but we all know its not going to be straight forward. Autopsy and documentary theories will follow I have no doubt.

In the midst of this outflowing of tacky plastic media mourning for a rich and ready source of wacky newsfill the bosses of network rail announce a BIG bonus.

There were accusations - strongly denied by Network Rail - that the company had attempted to "bury bad news" on the day Michael Jackson's death dominated news coverage.

"They are treating passengers and ministers with contempt. And their cynicism in trying to bury bad news on the day of Michael Jackson's sad death is truly breathtaking." said Transport Salaried Staffs Association leader Gerry Doherty

BBC transport correspondent Tom Symonds said Network Rail strongly denied it waited until the death of Michael Jackson to release its annual report and details of executive bonuses, in an attempt to "bury bad news".

Network Rail says the annual report was put in the post on Thursday, before the singer's death. (great statement !)

A spokesman said that "the general secretary of the TSSA, Gerry Doherty, should have found it in his mail this morning". - before he turned on news 24 then !

Lets face it - can you believe that the boys at Network Rail having decided to give themselves a few quid in the back pocket said " 'ol jackson looks peaky lets give it a week or two"

These boys can't even manage a 4 day rail upgrade on time with a years notice !!

I don't know what is more stupid ......

The gushing tributes to a washed up but truly sad nutter, a complex time dependent conspiracy theory based around the most random person on the planet or the thought that rail execs who have failed almost every performance test thought that a bonus was a good idea.

A great story sad for all the wong reasons

Now its more than congestion charging ...

In the last few weeks a woman in the Isle of Man and David Blunkett the ex labour MP have been injured by charging cows. In both cases dogs were the cause of the problem and in poor Mr Blunketts case he is of course blind and his guide dog is his only method of sight. The temptation to write something in such extreme bad taste about Mr Blunkett being tugged around a field by his dog is emense .... the mental images make me smile even as I deny myself the moment of writing it down !!

However - The reason for writing this note is not to make fun of the unfortunate Mr Blunkett or the poor lady in the Isle of Man but to qusetion the statement from the Isle Of Man government.

Dog warning

The Department of Transport on the Isle of Man said that the situation could often be made worse if dogs were present.

Walkers should keep dogs under close control and not try to protect their pets if attacked, the government said.

Minister for Transport David Anderson said: "It is vital that members of the public remember there are a lot of cows with calves in fields at the moment which have public footpaths going across them.

"Cows with young calves can be unpredictable and can cause serious injury to walkers and other animals.

"Always be aware of your surroundings and remember that, although you may not be able to see any animals from where you are, there is a chance that there could be livestock in other areas of the field."

Since when has the ministry of transport had anything to do with Dogs or Cows ??? - Is that not the ministry of Agriculture ?? I have seen dog sleds and cow carts but not on the Isle of man for a few years....

Now - I am confused ... and still guilty of thinking about poor Mr Blunkett grass skiing around a field full of of cows pulled by a fleeing labrador in a high vis jacket

Is that a LARGE queue sir ?

McCafe will crush Starbucks is the headline as Mcdonalds start to offer Latte and other frothy options in its restaurants. Does anyone think that is true ?

I don't particularly like Starbucks over roasted coffee ( Charbucks ) and I hate it when you get a miserable Eastern European with a heavy accent giving you attitude and talking to her friend who should be making your coffee.

I hate it when someone in Starbucks ahead of you wants a winky-wanky-decaff-organic-slim-fippy-floppy-frothy-extra-wet - WHAAAAAAAT ! - just order a coffee and get out of the way...if you want to drink shaving foam thats your problem but don't go to a coffee shop.

BUT .... Can you imagine how SLOW.... Wayne and Debbie the spotty sixteen year old McJobbers will be... They can't even keep enough food coming to be called a fast food restaurant anymore and if they have to plod around making a Winky-Wanky Mcfrothers your food will be cold(er) before you get it.

The theory is that McCafe will attract people as it will be significantly cheaper than Starbucks and during a recession people trade down. McD sales of food have risen 4% in the recent bad times according to McDs as "people seek out good value nutritious food".

I will think of the fat family in velour tracksuits, all ten kids in football shirts and grade one home haircuts frothing at the mouth while Bradley and Sigourney McJob make a frothy no coffee coffee with extra chocolate sprinkles for a down at heel Starbucks customer. I wonder when the first McCafe murder will take place as the slavering bison bottomed family stampede to the front at the sight of someone opening a second till point. Blinded by hunger and the scent of the fries we hear the sound of twenty four nike trainers with no laces treading over the wafer thin woman waiting for her winkywanky McFrothy ?

As I sit in Starbucks having paid ten quid for a double shot, fully leaded, blacker than coal coffee and a Maple Pastry I think I will keep my coffee and burger habits separate - at least until things have had a chance to settle down out there.

Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress....

Last year I was in America a number of times as Obama fever swept the nation. It was more than just Obama worship it was a real political fever with the war veteran supporters of Mc Cain, woman supporters of Clinton, black voters for Obama (and everyone anti Bush) all mixed into an addictive political cocktail. At the time I have to say I was envious of America and how they had managed to get the whole of society energised into a real political debate.

“The Onion News” ran a headline that said “Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress” and I wondered when the UK would reach that turning point when people would become re-engaged with campaigning politics. I could not see a horizon that gave me any hope at the time.

For many years falling voter turnout and lacklustre sound bite politics have been the UK norm. A decade of stable and soporific prosperity gave us only distant military interventions to add a measure of intermittent public dissent. The government and a tame parliament managed the country rather than led it. The familiarity of Blair and Brown dividing the foreign and domestic agenda like president and prime minister was a comforting apolitical style that was hard to argue against.

In the autumn I was in America again and I saw the markets falling and companies failing and I wondered if the wheels would come off of the Gordon Brown bus. With Blair gone and Brown indecisive and heavy footed I really felt he was a liability but with an ambivalent electorate what were the options. I wrote in my blog about the polyester Tory boy or the Scottish tax bandit - do we vote for the least crap option? - Why would we bother to turn out to vote? It seemed that we would replace the leaders of UK Plc by having a management tender rather than a general election. No ideological debate of wealth verses workers or private enterprise verses state social control just a seamless management takeover based on a least cost tender

This week the wheels really came off and still it rumbles on ....

MPs expenses have put the people back to ballot box to protest but are they really re-engaged? My feeling is that they are entertained by the No.10 version of the Big Brother House, the English love of a good political farce and they smell the blood of a chase. This is little more than a political soap opera played out on 24 hour news media with TV pundits interviewing blog pundits about what the newspapers wrote. Once the public indignation and fury has passed will there be a mood in the country to debate policy?

Will the “Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress” question come into play or is the next bland management takeover inevitable?

The Onion News 5 Nov 2008 Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress 

Perfect airline reading

 

I have always hated budget airlines. Not because of what they are or the people who fly on them - although in recent years that has become a big part of it !

The thing I hate is the really poor service. I know that if something is cheap or budget then something has to be taken out but the budget airlines are not honest about this. When someone sells basic no frills travel I know what I am buying, If someone sells a damaged or broken product I do not.

Arriving at an airport to find the flight cancelled is one thing but finding that there are no staff there or staff with no information is common. To find that when your luggage is lost that there is no interest or responsibility - Claim on your credit card they say.

And finally the famous cheap flight that when you add all the charges, surcharges, extras and try and try to book more than one seat for a penny -  it is better to fly scheduled.

I have ordered this book as the guy claims that you can be offended and like it so I am hoping that this will be my chance to work out what i am doing wrong.

Getting a cobb on

Boys love to barbeque and they love gadgets. Boys love stainless steel and nice engineering so put the lot together and you get this. - It’s as close as it gets to a Swiss army knife of outdoor cooking It looks like a spare part for a tumble dryer but what an amazing piece of kit.

Inside this mesh outer is a stainless steel bowl with a fire box that takes 10 standard briquettes. That’s it - ten briquettes and 2 hours of barbeque heat and at all times you can pick the thing up and move it around as the outer is stone cold - awesome, lovely, gadgety boys stuff.

I cannot claim the credit here. My neighbour Martin found these and raved at me that I needed one. All the stories about the sublime gadget-tastic-ness and I still did not get it. Last week we swapped Peters smaller bike for one with the same neighbour and so I am now all Cobbed up.

There is a real danger that I will set up my space age South African Safari cooker on my campsite table and be mobbed by interested but plainly dull campers. I of course will be casual and smug (and equally dull) in a gadgety kind of way. Just look at the Teflon coated griddle and the easy clean stainless steel cover they will say and I will confidently lift the whole cooking lot up with cool hands and listen for the crooning amazement that follows from the Velcro flap trousered ensemble.

In my excitement I want to be taking my Backy (South African pickup truck) into the African veldt to cook fresh caught wild bush hare under a dazzling African sky of a million stars. But in reality I will be in a field with sixty other caravans 6 metres apart in the Home Counties looking up at the grey clouds reflecting the orange glow of the local ring road .

........BUT - with a gadget like this I at least have a chance to dream about distant wild safari while munching on a co-op premium lincolnshire low fat sausage

From survival to satisfied ...... but not complacent

 So here we are my first set of company accounts to send off to the Inland Revenue.

There is something about having a limited company that is different to being self employed. Even though I am a company of one, acting and working like a self employed person the feeling that there is a company entity out there is a significant difference As the accounts are published another milestone is reached.

Survival for the first year, break even financially for the family and no appreciable drop in income from being employed at Flamingo. Less security and some of the embedded benefits are lost but generally no change.

As with all accounts the current position of the company is six months ahead and that simply compounds the same news that we are now further down the same road of steady work coming in and stable outgoings. Work quality and type has balanced a little from the travel and presentation based work to more desk based and home based work. Getting the balance right of being "out there" to attract work and being home long enough to do the work is still a challenge.

As I write this blog entry I am entering into 35 days of desk based work with two nice week long breaks fitted into my schedule so a two and half month period of well paid work with weekends included. The thought that there will not be anything to do at the end of that period is still there but not a fear anymore.

Jamie opens a new pad

I am in Brighton today. A bright sunny May day in the true English tradition of warm but not warm enough. Brighton Laines area is a warren of jewellery and organic, fairtrade, harvested by mineral water washed virgins carefully picked food. One shop is selling vegetarian shoes which has something to do with ethical leather I guess and I am tempted to see if they have anything in Halal with a slight heel.

So I am technically working, planning the annual trade compliance report with the editor who is a friend of mine. Today is the reason I gave up corporate life, to use long public transport journeys to visit nice people in nice places, have lunch and get paid for it - smashing.

So while I am lurking and waiting for my friend I see a gaggle of middle to late middle aged woman at the kerbside. The level of noise and chatter is loud and highlights the agitated state that the post 45 group were in. – Bright coloured big skirts over fifty-something house wife bottoms make them look like turkeys or chickens clucking and squabbling around the yard.

It turns out that today is the opening lunchtime of Jamie Olivers Italian restaurant. The 50 or so excited turkey diners were gathered outside to be the first diners to "bosh it all in a bowl and make it luverly" at Jamie’s new gourmet pad.

At spot on twelve with a restrained whoop the crowd filtered into the new venue. I wandered over and looked at the menu and the prices and was surprised at the average numbers and pretty average menu. This is main stream food at mainstream prices.

I hoped to get a glimpse of the mockney cockney chef on his Lambretta scooter, perhaps be offended by the menu prices or be astounded by the range of exquisite food.

In the end it was a Carbonara of an event. - Plain, nice if well served - but could easily have come from a jar made in Holland.

I wandered across the road to the famous 'food for friends' place where I would eat my vegetarian, with extra ethical bells and whistles alfalpha sprout lunch with a friend and I will not be "boshing it all up" as it turns out.

New food politics or an old dogs dinner

I am off on one of my regular adventures into the world of the EU. My invite to attend a meeting where DG Sanco and DG Trade will sit alongside the WTO and discuss SPS and TBT, IPCC, Codex and OIE in the context of private agri-business standards. Everyone will have a mis spelt name badge and the organisation acronyms will be everywhere. Many of the acronyms at these occasions are in French so there no hope of a Sussex farm boy with a low grade in French working them out either.

There is always an indignant smell in the air at these events. The power of the big supermarkes and food companies to demand higher standards and conditions than are legally required to send products to an EU country hangs in the air all day like a ....well ..... you know !

Everyone can smell it, it is unpleasent and they are all pointing a finger but no one is owning up to it. It is just there polluting conversations and making people point their noses upwards like the french aristocrats of old.

Much of the debate is driven by the indignation of the technocrats themselves and the myriad of appointed committee dwelling ant like officals that serve to advise them.

The power of private enterprise to regulate and control access to majority shares of food markets is not new but the increasing scale of that corporate power is relentless.

It is OK for the free marketeers to cheer and for most of us to quietly enjoy the obvious discomfort of the Eurocrat regulators but the lack of global commercial and operational transparency is worrying. The accountability of these huge corporations with the proxy responsibility to feed the majority of us in western europe is in doubt. The dependency we all have on this closed system should raise a concern in the post banking meltdown. If the institutions that regulate our daily finances can fail what would happen if our food supply collapsed or food prices spiraled out of control because of our dependency on oil transported food goods.

The question I still think is unanswered is where do we hold this debate ?

The committees and regulators have tried in vain to summon the big food companies to meetings to account for their actions. The thinly veiled threats of sanction based on layers of international declarations have no value against companies that have the profit to go into years of expensive litigation. These corporations would be very happy to be enterprise and consumer champions in the face of Euro-Quango challenges. A public relations gift not a slap on the wrist.

Debating fairness, finance and proberty as seen by the politicians would bring ironic smiles to the faces of the shoppers and no doubt an degree of sardonic humour. It is obvious to the man in thestreet that politicians and especially MEPs would not be first choice as an independent arbitor of the public good.

So that leaves us with the NGOs to campaign, leaflet, scare, swear and lobby on our behalf. Well meaning angry woman from the home counties throwing home made rock cakes at the thick skinned corporate elephant in the room - hoping that once in a while they will get a lucky hit in the eye of the beast.

Can this random chance activity be considered a suitable regulatory methodology for our global food security system ?? - you have to decide.

In fact it is the who decides this part that is generally ignored in these committee debates. It is the current public mandate that the retailers have by default that is always overlooked.

Whether by free market mechanisms, clever corporate deception or simply indifferent, passive consumer accident the retailers in Europe have the daily, hourly vote of tens of millions of happy consumers.

Comparatively many times more transactional votes than the democratic ballot votes cast at poorly supported local, national and european elections. The elections that bring the politicians to power and ironically 100% more than invisible appointed regulators that advise them to act.

The families contnue to vote with their feet and their pockets. Trusting or sub contracting their trust to the ability of the retailer to bring them safe food. That brand trust trend continues to grow in time stretched homes in established markets but also in the new markets where lifestyle changes from EU membership are coming fast.

If an average shopper was asked if they trust Tesco or a faceless government department who would they cite ? Do you know the name of the agriculture minister or the CEO of Tesco.

If consumers were told that a small percentage of imported products would receive the legal minimum safety checks on arrival in the UK or they could choose extra ongoing checks right back through the global chain to the farm what would they prefer ?

Would consumers prefer "one up - one down" traceability as in the EU regulation or complete chain traceability right back to the field and the growing row that the crop came from.

Whether it is fair and affordable for emerging countries and small farmers is a valid point to debate and I am firmly in the sceptical camp on this one. But although often raised it is a visible symptom not the real issue.

So there we have it a traditional vegetable safety standards committee meeting glazed with a new spicy sauce of global food security and unregulated corporate power.

Like a posh restaurant platter of "locally grown mulled spiced seasonal vegetables" ..... Its still Brussels dressed up as something new.

Swine Flu the chance they have all been waiting for

The pandemic that will kill us all is breaking news on every news media. The World Health Organisation is finally getting a chance to prove to the world that it does exist and has a reason to spend the millions of bucks it consumes. A grateful UK government are able to get recession, sleaze and pay per view sex TV subscriptions off the front page while shares in Roche Laboratories soar again and Tamiflu budgets get revised upwards.

As an average punter I have no idea whether to dig a hole in the garden, buy a shotgun and protect my family from my plague ridden zombie neighbours or buy a packet of tissues and avoid Tex-Mex food. The Brits are playing this down for sure, bad humour and the casual cynicism that marks our island race seems to be able to deal with the media hyperbole and the dire warnings of the global institutions far better than the urge to put on face masks and high visibility jackets.

Crying wolf may not be the fault of the WHO (and perhaps not appropriate around sick pigs) but that is how civil governments run our lives these days. How many times has a road been closed in your area for a whole day after a minor road crash? How many times have you sat in traffic and said “why don’t they just get the cars out of the way?” – It’s because this is what whole teams of people have planned for their whole lives. These are the people who got up at 4am and covered themselves in tomato sauce and laid in the car park of the leisure centre for six hours on an autumn day last year in rehearsal for your personal protection!

Emergency response team kits that have languished in the boot of fleets of red coloured Vauxhaul Astra vans are finally broken out and blue lights gleefully fired up and stuck on to the roof. The emergency machine springs to life. Finally Nigel Nobody from office 43c at the end of the corridor in the old part of the building is king for a day and he is going to make the most of it.

The computer simulation models, the post it note and brown paper spider diagrams the think tank seminars and scenarios are all suddenly coming to life for Nigel. Your obvious grumpy ingratitude is evident as you cruise past the three cars with dented bumpers. You scowl out of the window as the experts study the puddle of anti-freeze from the broken car radiator; take samples with rubber gloved hands, peering through safety spectacles steamed up with excitement. They shout into portable radios because they are wearing ear defenders and meanwhile the chemical hazard unit vehicle sits there like a mobile disco with lights flashing waiting to be deployed.

So how can we tell if swine Flu is a three car bumper shunt or human Armageddon? – We can’t and because we have all busted our bladders and shouted our self deaf at our bored kids while stuck in miles and miles of institutionalised self inflicted road chaos I think I know the answer.

If we are to die like pigs snorting into our jojoba balm Kleenex tissues (Nigel Nobody is even now sitting in his bunker reading this with a smug I told you so on his face) ....... well so be it.

I would rather be turned into a bubbling mass of apple sauce coloured mucous than to suffer death by state suffocation in a high visibility cotton wool cocoon.

Hey hombre ! - Pass me another fajita before I sneeze again.

STOP PRESS :::::::::::

Just found this in my RSS in-tray - seems that Mark Easton the BBC home affairs editor is getting the same thoughts as me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/

Another African Boycott ....

The wife of Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga says she supports the sex ban imposed by women's activists over the country's political impasse. Ida Odinga said the week-long boycott had already worked by drawing attention to the squabbling which has hit Kenya's power-sharing government. She, however, refused to be drawn on whether the fiery wife of President Mwai Kibaki would join the movement.

'Pillow talk'  - "There are many women who are suffering rape, there are many women who are suffering hunger. And yet the leadership is not thinking about the common person. They are thinking about who should be the leader of what and what," the prime minister's wife told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

The Women's Development Organisation coalition imposed the sex boycott on Wednesday and urged Mrs Odinga and Mrs Kibaki to join them. Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), one of the organisations in the campaign, said they hoped the seven-day sex ban would force the squabbling rivals to make up.

"Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: 'Darling can you do something for Kenya?'" "I support them because I am a woman," Mrs Odinga said. But questioned whether she would ask Mrs Kibaki to join her in the strike, she replied: "Please let me not answer that question, you can ask her."

Lucy Kibaki has a notoriously fiery temper.  In February, she publicly criticised the security minister, a close ally of her husband. In 2005, she sparked a media furore when she stormed into the offices of a leading media company to protest at its portrayal of the first family and slapped a cameraman.

“I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time.” Charles Schultz

 In just one month he has been seen grinning to death on U-tube, has been defeated by the liberal dems on Ghurkhas, backing down on MPs pay and conditions. Disaster looms around every corner for GB and he faces destruction in the European and local council elections next month too. Following the local and EU elections the pace is relentless as he has to face a rebellion by 147 of his own MPs on Royal mail privatisation.

No doubt the young (and soon to be young and unemployed) Millibands and Balls brothers will keep urging him to embrace the new media to reach out. As a result there will be a hundred malformed policies and recycled pledges announced on

Twitter http://twitter.com/DowningStreet

Face book http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=34682862911

Gordon Brown’s YouTube message on MPs’ expenses has been watched only 4,000 times. By contrast, the video of him picking his nose has been watched 630,000 times and the video of the Tory MEP Daniel Hannan haranguing him in the European Parliament has attracted more than two million hits.

This cartoon came from Private Eye late last year and I just clipped it out and kept it. So beautifully simple, so funny, so perfect for how things are shaping up for Gordon Brown.

Communication perfection in nine little boxes some drawings and thirty words...

Eurostar for a day

I have not been on the Eurostar for a while. Last time I traveled it was from Waterloo and now it is the NEW St Pancras. First impression is that Eurostar has come of age.
It is now just a crappy long distance train and no longer the strange novelty luxury transport of men in suits and blackberry users.

The terminal at Waterloo was big and empty with duty free shops a little like an airport terminal. Silver and blue navy new age travel into the next century even if we had to travel at a snails pace through Kent on worn out victorian railway lines. It was a business class space and romantic new age facilities for the everyday traveller. Star Trek meets Stevenson as the twenty first century shakes hands with the Victorian railway pioneers.

The new facility at St Pancras despite being in a suitably magnificent building has been squashed into a basement hall. All the usual hold ups of bored people in uniforms at security gates, students with oversize backpacks that are full of things that make the beepers go off. Families with push chair buggies stacked with snack food and loose items in the undertrays that have to be stacked and stowed incompartments designed for Louis Vitton overnight bags and Tumi executive briefcases.

Its now just a normal understaffed, overcrowded station with longer unmanged lines at the barriers and higher prices at the sandwich counter. The orient express to Paris experience has dissapeared under the pile of two quid a packet hand cooked crisps.

After the scrum of boarding the trains appear to have faired quite well. I am in the 'not-quite-business-class-cold-sandwich-and-plastic-cutlery' class. No perks at boarding but thankfully no one with 4 kids under four with quadrouple buggies and a spare microwave for the brother-in-law. The seats although worn, faded and slightly soiled are still far better than the first connect cattle train that got me to Kings Cross.

In two hours I will be in rainy Paris instead of rainy london. The street beggers will be selling 'le Grand Issue' from urine smelling rain soaked dooways and begging for euro change from Mc Donalds cups.

Take the Orient Express and see Paris in the spring time seems several centuries ago....

Ebury Hill - Spring has arrived at last

My Birthday ....again

My birthday comes creeping around again and I am 47. That's 47 without really thinking about it or actually caring too much either. I have never been one to dwell on age, particularly years, when I generally struggle to remember what I had for lunch yesterday or who we will see at the weekend.

This year for a change we are camping and have a gathering of Homer family generations to make the afternoon a real birthday celebration and far better than the rather non year of 47 deserves. It is sharp contrast to other birthdays spent alone in hotel rooms watching CNN, sitting on airplanes or in one case sat on the toilet all day in Kenya. This really was a really nice day in its own right and better for marking my birthday actually on the day itself, in England, with family.

So I am 47 with a son of 10 and looking to retire at 55. The logic being that Son will be 18 and off to university or the van dealer with my firm handshake and best wishes for his new career. I will be off to France with my caravan and string back driving gloves to find a corner of a field and moan about things. Not anything specific just things that I will choose at random but moan about them in a way that only people with time on their hands can do.

But 47 is not close enough to look forward to 55 and far too far away to start wishing your more than half used life away. I have 8 full years of my son to look forward to ( Except the six years of that when he is a grumpy teenager) and 8 years to work my little socks off and feed my pension pot. If 8 years is too long to think about wishing your life away then the thought that you only have 8 years to finish your pension is a real sobering one.

This could be the 8 years as a consultant that tops up the pot a little faster than the stock market, inflation and Gordon Brown can erode it. Or it could be the 8 years when I stumble and fall at the last fence and have to work at the help counter at B&Q until I am 75 to pay off the debt of my last years of self enforced unemployment. - So near and yet so far the stakes are higher than ever and rise each year of course.

47 today and two more birthdays until I have to celebrate a life marking half century not out. Perhaps I will learn to like 47 during the course of the next 365 days the as one of those life years that lives with you and departs without fanfare or drama. It has started with family, chili chocolate and red wine and even a little Grey spring sunshine.  - I'll take that for starters.

The end of the long haul of winter

The winters seem longer every year and with my annual Christmas, valentines and mothers day migrations the three dark months until the end of March always hit the family worst. Dark morning depression, white translucent skin and big black bags under the eyes are common across the family not just for me with my permanent airline pallor.

Easter is a week away and the caravan and some camping are closer. The light at the end of the tunnel is a week away, Peter finishing school tomorrow for two weeks and somehow, god knows how, we have done another UK winter.

Despite all the banter and humour around caravans - and there is a lot for sure - this escape from the cage of home, winter and life albeit to another 20x20 box is vital to our sanity. Bikes on the roof, gin and tonic in the fridge and goodbye to politics, falling economies and bad news for at least a week. It is actually the opening of the new season that i think brings a bigger lift, the feeling that this first week is the first of another twenty weeks of reasonable weather, potential for outings and adventures and a welcome relief for winter boredom.

April Fool and the joke is on us ...

As the jobless totals rise and the repossessions mount the country still remains in the grip of the panic and chaos of the downturn. Lower interest rates and a nipping of the VAT rate have done nothing to halt the slide of the economy and public confidence into a new low ebb.

On the day that President Obama the new defender of the free world arrives in London for the G20 talks and Gorden Brown is all over the news as the beaming host promoting his plan for economic stimulus the government make April Fools of us all.

Almost without mention on any news bulletin Petrol tax went up by 2p a litre. - Not the price of oil, not profit chasing oil companies - just the thieving tax bandits at it again. A cruel April Fool on thew whole country just getting to terms with moderate oil prices and energy bills still high from the autumn surge.

It is not just the cost of driving the family car but the cost of road freight and the knock on effects across the whole of industry. This is not just a tax on family cars but another crass and desperate stealth tax hidden for six months and revealed at a time when no one would be looking at the news.

32 Million car owners made an April Fool in one motion - impressive work

100 Christians Singing ...

Its 4 am in Guatemala airport and I am the first to arrive for my connection to Houston. The nice new airport is clean, empty and quiet. Outside two huge yellow buses arrive and out onto the dark pavement disgorges a huge pile of youth. I don't know what the collective noun would be but a "flop of youths" would suffice here.

I would guess they are about 15 to 17 spotty, lank long hair and with many many friendship bracelets. T-shirts and baggy combats abound with Nike sneakers or bright ethnic flip flops and no safe method to separate girl, boys and the undecided gender tadpoles. Some of the bigger girls are squeezed into tight jeans but generally the clothes hang and flop around them like the hair and the neutral disconnected facial expressions. As they start to enter into the building, like a convict line shuffling as if manacled at the ankles many are clutching pillows to their chest as maternal placebos, all are plugged with iPods wired in like new born aliens on mini battery pack life support shuffling forward toward the bright lights.

There is much blinking and coming to terms with this new bright marble municipal world. Mouths ruminating slowly open to reveal multi coloured tooth braces that make them look particularly gruesome. Small bubbles of pink gum laden spittle forms in the corners of the scaffolded mouths and the bright airport light flashes on the wetter exposed metallic dental fixings. Almost without exception they all have the fixed dental hardware like a toothy badge to show that they come from good middle class homes and one day will have a perfect and sincere white American smile. The first group of mainly young woman seem to only have small trail type back packs but the second phase of twenty or of androgynous Zombies seem to all have guitar cases as well.

Horror fills my thoughts as visions of trying to get that lot through security scanners and into overhead plane lockers without being here for a month springs forth. Rising irrational tension that I get challenged for a laptop bag being 0.5kg too heavy or 10cm too wide for hand luggage but guitar cases and back packs seem invisible to check in staff. I try and bury my thoughts as it is too early to be getting full of maggots about the injustice of airline travel. Finally the second bus empties and I can see a line of 50 or so filing and shuffling in through the glass doors. All head down iPods gripped tight in rigor mortis grasps trooping into the departures hall. The sound is only of shuffling feet or the occasional call to a mislaid travel friend. The quiet squeak of Nike trainers on freshly polished marble floors and the swish of rubbing nylon backpacks fills the air as the bulk of the I-zombies trudge into a rounded pile of humanity on the airport floor. Some are laying on packs some on each other some on both. Like the 101 Dalmatian puppies puddled together snoozing and squirming for a more comfortable place on the cold hard honey coloured marble tiles. Struggling in from the bus three huge trolleys of check-in luggage pushed by sweating and puffing local porters bump and weave a crazy path toward the check in desks.

100 identical travel trunks with "doing the work of the lord" appear and then the whole thing makes sense. Like a metal dustbin lid being dropped in my mind I realise what this teen troop are - God Squad ! There are t-shirts with lines like "share his love" and other suitably vague but life changing suggestions that now come into clear focus in the slush puppy pile of bodies as my dawn drowsy brain flicks into panic mode.

Several adult group leaders appear at the rear of the parade ranging from the middle age pseudo military to droopy aging social worker. Some are attempting to take roll calls from the iPod deaf new born zombie hoard. Much to my horror several guitar cases are starting to be opened and the twang of strings being tunelessly adjusted rises from somewhere unseen from the back of the pubescent zit faced body pile.

Almost at once a group of young girls start earnestly whining out a modern hymn and various boys groan along in monotone gravel harmony with almost but not quite broken voices. The repetitive and not quite rhyming chorus lines rising in volume as the teen zombies are called to attentive group consciousness by the song. What a nightmare !! I have no idea if this lot have been building things, doing good work or just annoying the natives and wildlife. Looking at the unsoiled explorer clothes and general demeanour of the group I suspect they have been doing a lot of singing and praising and not a lot of practical helping. This is not what anyone needs at 4 a.m. I don't want to feel murderous toward teenagers, Christians or Americans but I also cannot think of one reason when a disjointed saccharine sweet hymn is needed outside of a church and certainly not before 10 in the morning.

If the parents of these 100 kids had put the two thousand dollars they spent on this yoof camp into a bank for the kids of Guatemala then I am sure there would be substantial benefit. But instead they are here annoying me in a pre-dawn burst of God smoothie with whipped cream and marshmallow topping. Thankfully the emerging handclap fades quickly as any movement, least of all rhythmic does appear to be a bridge too far for the zomb-ets who initiated the dirge.

The announcement that it will be another 30 minutes until the check in desks open does not bode well for my sanity

The road outside ...

If I step outside of the hotel this is the road that greets me. A view of the volcano, a local fountain and petrol station. The cobbled roads unchanged in hundreds of years and the quiet sounds of village life all around me. The luxury of the hotel with elegant grounds and rooms with staff to help you is all behind the wall. In the small town that is Antigua life goes on the normal way. No real poverty just a normal small working town, derelict in places, unspoilt in almost every way, people going abouit thier lives and business.

For me to walk around the town for hours unchallenged is a delight. I look dark and a bit Spanish and although I couldn't pass for a local I don't look like a tourist. No one offers me beads and snacks and I pass unhassled through the market places and side streets.

Lunch for $5

 

Two pieces of steak, guacamole, curd cheese, plantain, refried beans and rice. A real country meal for a hungry farmer. At a little roadside kiosk we get this and this amazing Rambo cutlery for $5. The steak just melted and it didn't need this severe tool to cut it. Why can't we get meat that tastes like this ?

I sit in the roadside cafe, sip my beer and after eating the food I feel my stomach full of meat and starch. The only thing that I feel like doing now is sleeping, heavy, heavy food, warm dull weather and a beer - ZZZZzzzzzzz

Room 243

  My room as the evening draws in and I close the windows onto the small balcony. The log fire could be lit but I have to call room service who will come and do the deed. Although its quite cold at 10 degrees in the evening I have plenty of blankets and the lights in the room seem to give plenty of heat. Like all rooms with a Spanish theme the room is dark, mainly brown and .. well.. brown. Once the light has gone from the morning the room becomes dark and er .... dark brown. The ceiling is black timbers and there is no way to show the nice detail as its simply too dark. There are only bedside lamps and the spotlight over the fire so "mood" lighting is the order of the day.

Guatemala is tropical and warm for 6 months of the year but cloudy and wet for the rest. It is not desperatly hot so the shade and cool interiors that you see in southern Spain are tempered with open fires and rush matting on the floor to cover cold marble or boards.

The cable TV is back up and I have the option of about 200 channels selling home gadgets, what looks like vitamin pills and exercise equipment. I have found BBC world which at least gives me some sanctuary from the adverts.

The hotel internet is working again which is good news for the guy next door to the hotel. It seems that three of us in ajoining rooms all spotted his unlocked Wi-Fi and have been using it. I hope he doesn't pay for the usage as he will have a nasty shock at the end of the month. I am tempted to keep logged on to it and save myself the ten quid that the hotel charges!

There is a party tonight for the end of the exhibition. This party is always wild I am told with many people getting very very drunk on the local Guatemala fire water and many not making it back to bed before breakfast. As I am conspicuous as the only non spanish speaker I think that I will miss the festivities or at least grab some party food and glass of wine before heading for bed.

Dull it may be but having just got my sleep overdraft repaid and facing an early 6.00am call tomorrow for the grower visits I do not want to be in a mini bus for 5 hours with a hangover and sleep deprovation.

A Room with a view

When I arrived at midnight last night my driver driving down cobbled streets at 60 MPH I wondered what was going on. The driver who collected me from the airport spoke no English and offered no conversation or eye contact either. We drove for almost 45 minutes out of Guatemala City into the hills and into the small town of Antigua. The narrow streets with old Spanish buildings look like a Hollywood film set from a cowboy B movie and in the pitch black of the night I had to wonder if I was in the right Taxi. - The guy had a huge board with my name on and a sweatshirt with Agritrade Event so I could not believe I was the subject of a kidnap attempt.

We arrived at a wooden gate deep set into the pink red stucco painted high wall. He knocked on the gate and a little flap opened and the voice came "Si?" After much fast Spanish I was allowed to enter through a wicket side gate and before I could look around the driver was gone in a cloud of fumes. The old courtyard was very dark, full of ruined stone, an old fountain and statues - I thought I had just entered a roman building site. I said to the old guy ¿Dónde está la recepción por favor? - Where is reception ? - He just waved his had to follow him and off into the dark passage ways we went. The old guy showed me to straight to my room, didn't ask my name, how did he know it is me ? - The room was really nice and he departed quickly. No check in, nothing.

I locked the door, made coffee and thought about what next. A sign on the side table said that the TV and internet were broken at the moment so I was left to drink coffee and try and get some sleep even though it was already 2 hours after I would be getting up in Holland. I found an envelope saying Welcome Mr Steve so I was relieved to think that I was at least in the right room even if I had no idea where the hell this was and what I had to do tomorrow to get to the conference

This morning this amazing site met me as I opened my front door and looked out, there are four courtyards like this, beautiful old Spanish courtyards with flowers, parrots, water fountains and statues. None of this was visible last night as the old guy brought me up the steps of the service entrance and into my room in the pitch darkness. It is hard to do any justice to the beauty of this Hotel. Traditional ruined stone and old beams skilfully put together with stone walkways and tropical gardens to link the old houses together into a hotel and conference complex. A huge complex of meeting rooms and conference facilities, some tented some housed in converted barns. All of this from an entrance through a single heavy wooden door and all behind a 20 foot wall to keep the locals out. The street outside is a single track cobbled street with a few tourist kiosks and a cigarette booth.

This is a very rich persons oasis in a rural town of simple structures and lifestyles. Tomorrow I hope I have time to walk around the town a little, I am unsure if it is safe but as this will be the last time I see this place and I have to make the most of this wierd experience. The mystery tour and the hole in the wall introduction has only made this experience stranger than ever.

Bye Bye George Bush

The sun finally sets as I leave George Bush airport en-route to Guatemala. Since leaving Holland fifteen hours ago it has been light all the way as we chase the sun across the Atlantic. Finally a red ball sun drops below the Lego brick houses that cover the flatland around the airport. In the distance on the other side of the plane the glass skyscrapers of Houston glow orange and red like the towering inferno. I am counting down the destinations still, each airport a milestone, each boarding card a certificate of another part completed. I know that I will enjoy Guatemala when I arrive and for 24 hours will get the buzz and participate in the event with smiles and handshakes. It will be Saturday afternoon, alone with CNN waiting for the 3am wake up call on Sunday and begin the flight home. Once I start the journey home I will be energised and the 24 hours will pass quickly - Its the 12 hours with CNN on a 15 minute news loop that will grind away at the senses.

Schipol Again

Schipol lounge - thankfully the last time for a while. When I come back here on Monday I will be able to walk through the airport and out. No flying home to UK this time just on the bus - collect the car and head for the tunnel at Calais.

Ahead I have 10 hours to Houston and then another 3 hours to Guatemala after a 2 hours stop over. I will arrive at 9pm Guatemala time but about 4.00am in my head. The best way to deal with all of this is to drink a few glasses of red winr (despite the fact that it is only mid morning ) and sleep on the plane as much as possible.