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by Stoker   Last month Stoker brought you the press pack camping on the White House lawn as The Donald demolished the east wing of The White House.  This month; a few local journalists, more demolition, smaller scale .   To North Norfolk (again) where a little local difficulty is starting to blow up into a cause celebre.  Norfolk is flat and windy and when the wind is in the east, cold and wet into the bargain.  That means, if you are waiting for a bus to come along….;  but no, let us explore local politics a little. Don’t worry, not much.    In rural England there is a network of small local councils known as parish councils or town councils which in many areas is the lowest level of government. Town councils don’t do much, and parish councils even less, but they are important consultees in the planning process for building-related matters, and they often run playgrounds and car parks and deal with minor local troubles.  Above them are District Councils which are responsible for actual planning decisions, run some local services (housing, rubbish collection, local tax collection).  And above that are County Councils which run education, many roads, social care, the emergency services. If this sounds cumbersome and pretty inefficient, it is. Though arguably it is democratic and consultative of the rural electorate.   Our late, not very much lamented, Conservative government and our new, unpopular, Labour government do have one thing in common – neither like the complexities and inefficiencies of local government.  The Conservatives started (in urban areas) to try to cut layers of government out, mainly by introducing a further layer, an executive mayor on an American or French model, where the mayor would have considerable powers to get things done.  This had been fairly hopeless in the one area – London - that had such a structure, where Mr Ken Livingstone (Labour) was followed by Mr Boris Johnson (Conservative), followed by Mr, sorry, Sir Sadiq Khan (Labour).    But failure never stopped politicians and for some reason the incoming Labour government seized the new structures with enthusiasm.  About now there should have been a restructuring of four counties to introduce a mayoral system and merge the two upper layers of local government into one. Size and details to be advised.  This has mostly not been a hit with the electorate or indeed with many local politicians, who will be in many cases losing their roles and ability to lord it over their local electorate.   Suddenly though, Labour politicos have rather gone off the idea. For why?  Because in each of the four areas due to be put through the mincer, the leading party to win the mayoralties are Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. Er, whoops. Not the idea at all. Thus the government has postponed all the local elections for at least two further years (on the grounds that more time is needed to prepare).   With which thought, let us board a bus to the bleak ,windswept, little town (sorry, charming, pretty, seaside resort) of Sheringham.   Your bus, usually more or less empty, arrives next to the steam railway station – Greater British Rail, or whatever it is to be called, has retreated to a one platform single line on the other side of the railway crossing, where a tiny train arrives periodically, rests nervously for about seven minutes and then hastens back toward the civilisation that is Norwich, thirty miles away. But never fear, there is a rather handsome brutalist brick and concrete bus shelter, built in the early 1950’s, in which to tie your hat, don the wellies and scarf, and button the extremities of your coat, before stepping out for your seaside experience (see photo above).   Well, there is at the moment.  For Norfolk County Council (“NCC”) announced last Tuesday it was about to knock the shelter down and replace it with a smaller plastic shelter a few yards away, at a cost of, it seems, £400,000.  Why? The chairman of the finance committee, who we will call Councillor P, of the NCC says, as only a politician could: “The government has given us the money and so we must spend it”.    Sheringham is a town of mostly older persons with a slight Green fringe. Conservative and conservative, quiet and well behaved. But something snapped last Tuesday and a group of unlikely militants occupied the bus shelter, vacuum flasks and sleeping bags at their feet.  Councillor P, who knows how to make a bad thing worse, had the shelter barricaded with crinkly tin sheets.  Perfect; what had been rather windswept became sheltered and cosy. The squatters moved in their sandwiches and laptops and settled down.  Councillor P sent in the bailiffs. The police arrived, and seemed to rather side with the occupiers.  The bailiffs left, rather tersely.  Councillor P professed outrage and complained that his men had been booed by the occupiers. (Oh diddums’.) The local MP, a LibDem in this surprisingly marginal seat, turned up and with some passion supported the squatting heroes.  At 4am on Monday morning Councillor P sent the bailiffs back to the shelter and the sleeping defendants and apparently kicked one to get him to wake up (told you it was cosy in there).  Further retreat of bailiffs; various notes made by attending police officers. Much laughter and sea-shanty singing.   In an unexpected swerve, the Sheringham Town Council announced that it was its belief that it owned the bus shelter, not the NCC.  It promised to hold a meeting to consider “further steps” .  Cheering by protestors.  But that the meeting would not be open to the public. Booing by protestors. It reflected and said the protestors would be allowed to briefly address the meeting. Rather faint cheering.   Which is where things stand at the time of writing.  By the time you read this no doubt things will have moved on*; in which direction your correspondent refuses to forecast, though with the acumen and sensitivity shown by Councillor P so far one fears a second Kett’s Rebellion**.   So often, indeed as with Kett’s Rebellion and the Sarajevo Crisis, minor things can get very out of control when greater issues lie under the surface.  In Norfolk, the electorate are not happy about effectively been disenfranchised for three years.  Councillors are not happy about losing their roles and status.  The major political parties are not happy about the Reform threat (Reform are sensibly keeping their heads down in the Battle of the Bus Shelter).The LibDem MP is very happy that the public mood is with the occupying protestors and he has a nice clear-cut cause to push.  Oddly, the people not so happy are bus passengers, who have nowhere to shelter from the storm.   And the Conservatives?  Knocking down architecturally handsome buildings is not very conservative; nor is spending ratepayers money in a county where services are being heavily cut.  The protestors are local heroes at the moment.  Councillor P may have a cunning plan, but at the moment it looks as though the local Tories will lose any election that comes along this century.  Maybe Mrs Badenoch should make a pre-Christmas visit to the seaside and get a grip on her party.  The protestors will happily give her a mince pie. *[Editor's addendum] It has. Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, fresh from trying to save Ukraine from being invaded further by the Putin-Trump duo, stepped in to the Sheringham bus shelter row on Thursday 11 December (shortly after Stoker had submitted his article). He said: "NCC should listen and respond to local people who obviously have strong views on this and I am not surprised." Alongside him, the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander knew better how to speak to folk: "...the people also want to keep their bus shelter, so Norfolk County Council should pull their finger out and get on with the job."   ** Kett’s Rebellion in 1549 began with the tearing down of new enclosure fences and ended with a major uprising around Norwich (during which the city was almost entirely burned); the government of Protector Somerset, ruling on behalf of his child nephew Edward VI, had to bring in Swiss mercenaries to supress the rebels.

by Michael Carberry   I read with interest Stoker’s piece in last month's Only Connect - Mr Trump Leaves Town. As always, Stoker’s article was well informed, thought-provoking and amusing.  But I fear that his attempt to airbrush the extent of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Mayoral elections in New York as “not quite so overwhelming for Mamdani as the BBC might have you believe”  will fool no one.  With the Democrats’ vote split between Mamdani and former Democrat Governor, Andrew Cuomo, backed by the outgoing Democrat Mayor, Eric Adams, the result ought to have been a shoe-in for the Republicans even in a Democrat stronghold like New York.   That Donald Trump’s party only managed to poll a pathetic 7% of the vote was not entirely the fault of the hapless Republican candidate, Mr Silwa.  Because, Mamdani was not just up against the other candidates in the election.   Ignoring the long-established convention that Presidents do not interfere in State elections, Donald Trump threw everything he could against Mamdani, repeatedly and (naturally for Trump) quite untruthfully, labelling him a “communist”  which for many Americans is rather worse than a “paedophile” . Even threatening, quite unconstitutionally, to withhold federal funds from New York if he got elected.  Stoker is quite correct in his - not so “cynical”  - assumption that many Republicans chose to vote for Cuomo; not least because Donald Trump, with typical lack of integrity or any sense of loyalty to his own party’s candidate, urged them to do so in an attempt to keep Mamdani out. In the face of all that, and especially given his youth, inexperience and fairly radical politics, that Mamdani managed to win an outright majority over both the other candidates was, by any standards, a stunning victory.   So, the idea that the President was “quietly amused”  by the result is laughable.  Donald Trump does not do “quietly amused” .  He does nasty abuse of anyone he dislikes, threats to anyone who dares stand up to him, public bullying and humiliation of anyone he perceives as vulnerable, like Ukraine’s President Zelensky or South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and fawning sycophancy to perceived strongmen such as Valdimir Putin.  All of which makes his reaction to the Mamdani victory rather interesting.  In one of those dizzyingly frequent volte-faces which we have come to expect from someone with no discernible principles other than self-adulation, Trump invited the erstwhile communist pariah to the White House, called him a “nice man”  and declared that that they had much in common.  But why this sudden about-turn?   Although not on the ballot sheet, Trump had intervened hard in the election and got a bloody nose.  The President famously does not like a “loser” and cannot be perceived as one. Hence his sudden cozying up to the victor.  That childish desire to be on the winning side might be endearing in a five-year-old but in an aging real-estate developer it is merely sad and contemptible.  But there is more to this extraordinary U-turn than mere vanity. Even Trump’s super-inflated ego could not fail to perceive the message of the electorate.  This was not just a vote for Mamdani; it was a decisive rejection of Donald Trump and his style of Republicanism.  And New Yorkers had a particular reason to dislike Donald Trump.   The outgoing Mayor, Eric Adams, was a controversial figure.  Nominally a Democrat, who had switched opportunistically between the Republican and Democratic parties, Adams’ harsh policies on homelessness, law enforcement and immigration had brought him into conflict with the Biden administration.   Since his election in 2022 numerous criminal investigations into abuses by his administration led to a swathe of enforced departures - of the Buildings Commissioner, the Police Commissioner, the Schools Chancellor and the Deputy Mayor. It culminated in September 2024 in the indictment of Adams himself on charges of conspiracy, fraud, bribery, and soliciting campaign funds from foreign nationals.  Unsurprisingly, Adams’ poll ratings dropped to a record low of 26% and dozens of New York’s elected officials, political groups and notable individuals were calling for his resignation.   On February 10, 2025, Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) instructed federal prosecutors to drop all the charges against Adams. Shocked Justice Department officials refused to carry out the instructions and resigned in protest.  In April 2025 Judge Dale Ho rejected appeals from the Justice Department to dismiss the case “without prejudice.”  Ho pointed out that the case against Adams was "entirely consistent with prior public corruption prosecutions"  and commented that the request from the DOJ “smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions."  Nevertheless, as the judge explained, the court "cannot force the Department of Justice to prosecute a defendant"  and the case was duly dismissed. Adams tried to run again but dismal poll ratings forced him to withdraw. Instead, he backed Cuomo who had himself been forced to resign as Governor in 2021 following numerous sexual misconduct allegations.   Like many Americans, New Yorkers have become tired of Trump’s lies, bombast, personal abuse, petty vindictiveness, crazy and disruptive tariff policies, and flagrant disregard of both domestic and international law and constitutional proprieties. The wave of massive “No Kings” demonstrations across many American cities protesting at the President’s authoritarian and fascist behaviour shows that this is a national issue by no means confined to the ‘Big Apple’.   For New Yorkers, Trump’s attempt to interfere in their city to pervert the course of justice against a disgraced former Mayor and to influence the election in favour of a disgraced former Governor was the last straw. They had had enough and by electing Mamdani they sent an unmistakable message to the President to that effect.   Lest there be any doubt, that message was confirmed by the results of the two gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia which Stoker again tries to dismiss as “ Perhaps, not a pronounced swing away from Mr Trump and the Republicans, but a movement back towards moderation and courtesy, to a more traditional form of politics.”  It is to be sincerely hoped that Stoker is right about the second half of that statement, but the first part is wildly wrong. True, New Jersey is, as Stoker says. fairly safe Democratic territory.  But when voters are fairly confident that their candidate will win, they often fail to turn out.  So, for a new female candidate to not only win handsomely, but to increase the size of the vote share held by her predecessor by almost 10% is hugely significant.   And Abigail Spanberger’s thumping victory in Virginia, overturning a comfortable Republican majority to a whopping 14% majority for the Democrats speaks for itself.  So, despite Stoker‘s attempt to disparage the BBC’s reporting of the elections, they got it absolutely right.   Far from being “quietly amused”  Donald Trump was seriously rattled by these results.  Apart from cozying up to Mamdani in an attempt to curry favour with New Yorkers (still - contrary to Stoker’s assertion - a hugely important constituency) he has reacted in the way he knows best: playing to his base by falling back on what got him elected - whipping up fear and paranoia about immigrants.  His opportunity came with the shooting of two national guard members in Washington DC on Thanksgiving Day (November 27 th ). The perpetrator was Ramanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan who, from the age of 15, had served in Afghanistan in one of the CIA’s “zero groups”  or death squads, carrying out secret raids against suspected terrorists or Taliban fighters, and who were notorious for multiple human rights abuses, including the summary execution of women and children.  Admitted to the United States as one of almost 200,000 Afghans who had assisted the US forces and whose lives would be in danger if they remained in the country, he was extensively vetted at the time. But in recent years he had exhibited severe post-traumatic stress disorder and his mental health had spiralled downwards with increasing signs of manic-depressive disorder.   Despite all this being well known, the Trump administration seized on the incident to immediately pause asylum decisions nationwide and ordered a new review of green card cases from nineteen “countries of concern” (essentially Black or Muslim-majority countries) which could impact thousands of people, despite the fact that immigrants are statistically much less likely to commit violent gun crime than native-born white Americans.   Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen called it, “…outrageous and unfair”  to punish “an entire class of people for the evil acts of one person.”  He stressed that many Afghan evacuees “worked side by side with America in the fight against the Taliban,” and could be killed if forced to return.   Trump, as usual, tried to blame the Biden administration for the incident. When a female journalist politely pointed out to the President that Ramanullah Lakanwal had been granted asylum by his own administration, Trump’s response was a typically unedifying and misogynistic outburst, snarling at the woman “Are you stupid or something?”     The administration has now cut the cap on refugee admissions from the previous 125,000 set by President Biden to a record low of 7,500 for the coming year. Many people, like those Afghans who fled in fear of their lives for having helped the US forces, will now be excluded, not least because the majority of those places will be reserved for white South Africans.   The President’s Executive Order 14204 “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa” actually promotes the resettlement of relatively wealthy white Afrikaner “refugees” on the alleged grounds that they are “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation,”  an assertion which has been widely discredited.   So, what are we to make of all this? The election results have energised Democrats, who seemed sunk in a lethargy of defeatism and despair since the defeat of Kamala Harris in the Presidential election.   Will this translate into a comeback for the Party?  It is very difficult to say.   Trump’s poll ratings have plummeted and, alongside Elon Musk, he is now one of the most unpopular public figures in the United States. But in the current extremely toxic and divisive state of US politics, with no truly independent news sources and most of the MAGA faithful getting their information from media controlled by moguls like Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch or Trump himself, Republicans who are disillusioned with the President are tending to look to his Vice President JD Vance rather than the Democrats.  Much, will depend on the outcome of the mid-term elections next year.  If, as seems possible, the Republicans lose control of one or both houses Trump will be a largely lame-duck President and that could presage a swing back towards the Democrats. At least by then, Stoker may have had time to take off his rose-tinted spectacles and see the Trump presidency for what it really is - a grotesque aberration in the political life of the United States which will take Americans decades to live down.

by Lynda Goetz            There are currently a whole host of things to write about. I considered a number of them for my contribution to this month’s Only Connect . Should I write about the worrying rise of anti-Semitism; the attempts by the Labour government to bring in a blasphemy law by the backdoor with their committee discussing a definition of Islamophobia; David Lammy’s proposals to do away with jury trials for any offence for which the maximum jail time is less than three years; the concomitant plan to bring in digital ID; the damaging effects of Rachel Reeves second budget; the state of our universities; the declining mental health of our youth; Ukraine; Russia; China; the EU and current attempts to reverse Brexit?  The list is endless. However, having only recently been accused by a family member of “an offensive rant” on one of our family WhatsApp groups (followed by them effectively cancelling me by leaving the group, without any discussion, in protest at my “Fascist, racist”  views), I decided that, as it was very nearly Christmas, it was perhaps time to avoid controversy and to address something less contentious.   As I do enjoy a good debate though,  I thought that maybe I could still provoke some discussion by raising the subject of ‘dogs versus cats’ as pets. Those who have followed my writings, both here and in the sadly-now-defunct Shaw Sheet , will know that I am most definitely in the dog camp. I own four of them (and frequently look after a fifth), which most people probably consider to be a rather excessive number.  I take the view that like children, once you get beyond a certain number – say two or possibly three – adding to them doesn’t really seem to increase greatly the workload or time spent. I would add though, that for larger numbers of either children or dogs, it is advantageous to have space, both indoors and out.   Cats, on the other hand, do not require you to have large amounts of space. They will happily avail themselves of other people’s space. So, provided your neighbours all have  even a small amount of garden or just a terrace with some pots, your cats have access to bird and small mammal-killing territory as well as ‘bathroom’ facilities, as the Americans might euphemistically put it. The only problem then is the number of other felines in the neighbourhood. Too many and your cat’s territory becomes restricted. This can lead to brawling. However, this is unlikely to cause you too many sleepless nights if yours is an ‘outdoor’ cat, as these unpleasantly noisy catfights will almost certainly not take place in your garden or on your backwall, but those of your neighbour six doors down. As you have probably never met them anyway and it is equally improbable that they will know which of the ‘pesky’ local cats belongs to you, you need not concern yourself unduly.   In contrast, should you lose track of your dog, you have a problem on your hands. At best he or she will reappear several hours later looking smug and generally very pleased with themselves. They have clearly enjoyed their unsupervised ‘walkies’ and know that they will be greeted, rather like the ‘Prodigal son’ with relief and joy rather than harsh words (you fear they may not want to come back next time if you shout at them and you are genuinely relieved they have not been kidnapped or run over). At worst, they have been run over or picked up by the local dog warden and you have to pay a not-insubstantial fine and charges; the amount depending on the local council in your area. In between these scenarios is the chance that someone has been reasonably sensible and taken the dog to the local vet who has read their chip and who will contact you, or possibly a kind neighbour has recognised your pooch trotting down the road or has read the phone number on their collar. For anyone to behave in the same way with a cat, the cat would have to look half-starved and seriously bedraggled or actually be injured. Cats are just allowed to do their own thing. No-one expects otherwise.   This independence is one of the things which appeals to cat owners. Unless you own one of the pampered cat breeds such as the ‘Ragdoll’, Burmese, Siamese or Persian cats, it is unlikely that you feel the need to take it for a walk. It will walk where it wants, thank you very much. All it expects from you is feeding at the appropriate times (unless it is a ‘farm cat’ or a ‘barn cat’ when its job is to kill the mice and rats and generally to survive without your intervention or attention at all) and possibly the occasional stroke, or lap time when it is in the mood. This usually has little to do with your mood or your need. You are merely there to service its needs when it requires.   Dogs are generally far more needy.  This is, to some extent, what appeals to many dog owners. Your dog needs you. It needs you, not only to provide food, but to take it for walks, to play with it and to love it – often. If you go out, for however short a time, the welcome on your return is enthusiastic, effusive, exuberant. You may have only been gone an hour, but you have been missed. Your return is a cause for joy, and jumping, even where this has been expressly discouraged. It has to be said that the welcome cannot really be greater if you are gone for a week or a month. This does rather lead to the conclusion that a dog’s idea of time, whilst accurate when it comes to time for food or walks or even lighting the fire, is rather ‘off’ when it comes to your absences. Any absence by you is excessive.   It is often said that dogs give you ‘unconditional’ love.  In my experience this is not quite accurate.  Dogs are as capable as children of temporarily withdrawing their attention or affection if you have displeased them. They will turn their head away or remove themselves entirely if you reach out to them.  These small ‘fallings out’ can usually be remedied by giving them a food treat of some sort, after which you can be friends again. Cats with their natural aloofness and sense of superiority know that they are always in charge of your relationship with them so any sulking by them will generally not be noticeably different from their usual behaviour.   I would conclude by saying that although clearly all of the generalities above do depend to some extent on the breed and temperament of dog or cat, owners of both are well aware of the beneficial effects on humans of their proximity to these animals. What is more, scientific research does actually back this up. Apart from the promotion of exercise for those who own dogs, as well as the psychologically calming and de-stressing effects of stroking your pets, recent research has apparently revealed an entirely unsuspected benefit for young people with dogs in the family. It seems that the almost unavoidable transfer of bacteria from dogs to humans alters the gut microbiota, leading to changes that can boost mental health and increase sociability. For me, that confirms the case in favour of the canines as opposed to the felines. However, there will be many who do not share that opinion. Let the debate continue!

by Richard Pooley The Danes have led the way, as so often these days. From 1 January, 2026 the national postal service, PostNord, will stop collecting and delivering letters. Their red post boxes have been disappearing fast, reflecting the 90% decline in the number of letters posted over the past twenty-five years. I thought about this as I fought to get ten Christmas cards destined for abroad into a British post box late last Sunday night. I hope the postie managed to catch the avalanche on opening it at 8 a.m. on Monday. One of the letters was to Søren and Marianne in Denmark. They’ll get it this year, though the UK postal system is so dismal even sending it seventeen days before Christmas for £3.40 does not guarantee its arrival in that time. Søren will probably ask me why the late Queen's head is on the stamp when she died over 3 years ago. I asked the same question of the post office woman who was unable to explain why the self-service machine was taking over five minutes to spit out sixteen 'worldwide' stamps. She didn't know. I don't think it will be long before Royal Mail will follow PostNord's lead. Why  do my wife and I, and evidently our neighbours, still send Christmas cards? My children, now 39 and 36, thought it a quaint thing for us to do when, as teenagers, they could use email, Myspace and Facebook. Today, our doing this is incomprehensible to them. Why spend £88 on cards and stamps – the damage this year -  and several hours of time during one of the busiest periods of the year writing a few scribbled lines (at best) on 58 individual cards when you could send one electronic message full of your news to all of them at no cost and in very little time?   Because we always have done? Yes. Tradition is not to be scoffed at. Because we find email too impersonal? Yes. And because we hardly use social media. Sure it would be easy to choose a Jacquie Lawson ecard and personalise it with a newsy message for all. And it’s fun receiving them. But it’s yet another thing on my phone. I’d prefer to have something to put on the mantelpiece. Yes, I’m that old and old-fashioned.   When  to send? At least three weeks before Christmas for those going abroad, unless they are for France where New Year cards are the norm or Japan where Christmas is meaningless to 99% of the population (the 1% are nearly all in or around Nagasaki). Japanese Christmas ‘traditions’ include couples having romantic dinners on Christmas Eve and eating Kentucky Fried Chicken and strawberry shortcake on 25 December (a tradition dating from a successful KFC marketing campaign in the early 1970s).  For everywhere else, send them early and harvest more (“ Damn, Richard’s sent me a card; I’d better send him one.”) .   Where to send? "Not to Johannesburg" , says friend Sandy: “ Post does not work here, Scan a copy of whatever it is and email.”  Sigh. Not to Zambia either. One friend there sent us a photo of our card when it arrived. In April. Our success rate in the USA is not great: cards have been returned (oh yes, remember to put your name and address on the back for dodgy places such as America). Trump is right to call the USPS “a joke” .   What  to send? We have drifted into linocut prints of birds, hares and wintry landscapes. You know, the A-List Women: Angela Harding, Annie Soudain, Angie Lewin. I used to be less lazy and go for a wider range: Pieter Brueghel the Elder paintings and Japanese woodcut prints for the secular, Madonna and Child images for the devout. Charity cards all, of course. For a long time we eschewed the newsletter, preferring to scribble variations on a central Pooleyworld news theme. Better that than the typed screeds boasting the brilliance of multiple children we had never met and listing the exotic places visited during the year. But that was very Eighties. I noticed a switch to self-deprecation and interesting observations on local cultures and decided to follow suit. It helped that we were reporting on life in Japan at the time. More recently I have drafted a brief, factual, typed update (dull), had it edited by my wife (duller), and then written a few bon mots whose mots  are both indecipherable and mauvais. Humour? I leave that to such long-running practitioners as fellow Only Connect writer, Eric.   Who to send to? Ah, there’s the rub. For years I agonised over this. To family, of course. To those I had not seen all year or indeed for many years, especially if they were in another country from the one we were living in. To people I had recently met? Yes but only if I really liked them and, much more importantly, thought they might like me. This was a big problem. As a management trainer I met tens of fascinating business people from around the world every year… and hundreds of unfascinating ones too. Guess what? Several of the latter sent me cards but only a few of the former. Another Life Lesson there. Since coming back from France to the UK in late 2018, the rule has been simple: If they sent us a card/ecard/email/text last Christmas, we’ll send them a card this. We’re down to 58 this year.   The most cards we sent was in 2004. 105 of them to some 180 people (not counting children). How do I know? Because since 1980 I have kept a record of who I have sent cards to and who I have had cards from. Nerdy? Yes. Boring? Never. Who are all these people I knew and liked well enough to send them a card forty-five years ago of whom I know nothing now? Quite a few are dead. Of those twenty-seven with a surname beginning with B listed in 1980 (B’s, C’s, S’s and T’s are the most common), six may have discovered that Christmas is not one big con after all. Of the remaining twenty-one I have no clue whether five are still alive.   What on Earth persuaded the Saudi Embassy in London to send me a Christmas card in 1983? What was so wonderful about that group from Elf Aquitaine Norge that I noted down five Norwegian names when they sent me a card in 1986? Why was I so stupid as to lose touch with Clive, the lepidopterist and property developer with whom I travelled along the Kenya coast in the late seventies and whose car – a converted London taxi - I inadvertently damaged (well, I was very drunk) the following year. The man set up Butterfly World and has butterfly farms in Belize and Florida. Opportunities missed. Why am I no longer communicating with Aniela, the beautiful Pole who pretended love as a means to get a UK visa in the mid-Seventies but by 1980 was sending me Christmas cards together with her new British husband, Chris?   The record has proved useful in bringing me back together with old friends, especially female ones whose surnames have changed on marriage. Sandy in Johannesburg introduced me by email to Jill in Bath three years ago. Jill had told her that, in fact, she knew me. I said “Er…sorry, I don't think so.”  Then she told me her maiden name. I looked at the Christmas card record. Oh yes. I exchanged cards with her in 1980 (and before that date, she later told me). My wife and I are having dinner with her next Tuesday.   And only last week did I spot that Christopher, who moved with his wife into my street recently and who I discovered was my step-grandmother’s favourite godson, had sent me a Christmas card in 1999 when he was working for the European Bank of Reconstruction & Development. I have yet to ask him why.   Michael and Michelle (he had been a flatmate in the early 80s) I have not seen since our wedding in 1985. Yet we have exchanged cards ever since, apart from 2013 when I sent them one but received nothing back. I had forgotten to tell them we had moved to France. So, in 2014 no card went or came. In 2015, we did not send but did receive. Shamed into action, I resumed normal service in 2016.   If Søren and Marianne in Denmark post a card to us this year, I’ll send them one next year. But PostNord will no longer deliver it. Will they be bothered to go down to the nearest branch of dao, a private company who already deal with 25% of letters in Denmark (and who insist on using lower-case lettering for their name), and collect it? I do hope so. Merry Christmas!

by Eric Boa   The far northeast corner of Bangladesh pokes an uninspiring finger into India’s West Bengal. The landscape differs little from the rest of the country: a carpet of rice fields, more rice fields, scattered settlements and bamboo clumps. Flat as a paratha . The patchy tarmac road north of Panchagarh got progressively worse and eventually I stopped my Land Rover and gazed around me. I was hoping to see the the Himalayan foothills, less than 100 km away, yet even on a clear day could see nothing but rice fields. Remote, desolate yet oddly serene, I knew I had reached the 'Back of Beyond'. I was curiously satisfied for reasons I can’t quite explain.   This was back in the mid-1980s during the six years that I lived in Bangladesh.  I’ve just checked on Google Maps and found a smart new highway heading towards Siliguri in India, a town squeezed between the tip of Bangladesh and the beginning of majestic mountains. My update of my journey is courtesy of Google’s StreetView. This took me up to a border post with India. Everything looked smarter and busier compared to my earlier visit. It’s still a remote place, far away from the heaving cities and mayhem of the rest of Bangladesh but is no longer to my mind the back of beyond. It made me wonder what this means, partly because I have until now associated the back of beyond with somewhere romantic, even exotic. And a nebulous sense of having achieved something unusual.   I’m also curious to explore the attractions of the back of beyond, if only because there’s a travel industry offering to take you there for large amounts of money. Where to start? The summit of Mount Everest would appear to qualify as the back of beyond. It is remote, serene, mysterious … and incredibly expensive to reach ($70k plus per person per summit). I was going to add exclusive until I remembered recent stories about people having to queue to reach the top. “ Next please! ” In the last year snowstorms halted ascents and over 200 people were stranded on the peak. Another 350 were led to safety. The exclusivity tag no longer seems appropriate.   Some do the ascent multiple times, diluting the sense of Mt Everest being the back of beyond. As of December 2024, 7,269 individuals had completed 12,884 summits. The climb is arduous and the sense of personal achievement on reaching the top must be immense and even overwhelming. But somehow it sounds more like a pilgrimage than a journey into the unknown. The mystery of climbing the world’s highest mountain has faded.   From the highest to one of the coldest places on Earth. The North Pole was once the epitome of remoteness and exclusivity. The earliest visitors weren’t even sure when they’d go there. How about that for mysterious! I haven’t been there myself but each year several hundred people visit. Prices start at around $25k for the basic trip, rising to double this if you put on skis. Or more if you attempt a record of some sort: first person to walk backward? If so, you will of course be sponsored and nobly raise money for a worthy cause. This means allowing the rest of the world to view your progress, with TikTok and Instagram feeds working overtime. Watching someone struggling to the North Pole on your mobile, in the comfort of your home, diminishes the notion of any destination being the back of beyond.   I’m slowly working up a list of features to define the back of beyond. To recap: remote, desolate, mysterious, perhaps serene (still not sure about this feature) and a sense of achievement once you’ve got there. I’ve thought of some more features, because now I’ve remembered a trip to Maradi in southern Niger in the 1990s. Maradi is what South Africans might call a dorp , somewhere unimpressive   or even backward. Cruel, but let’s explore further. The thing about Maradi is that you’re not sure where to go next. Maradi is between nowhere and nowhere.   I am being unkind, unduly influenced by a nine-hour drive from Niamey, the capital. On the plus side, the road was excellent and the traffic light. But oh so tedious. I fell asleep and woke up several hours later thinking that we hadn’t moved. The landscape is relentlessly brown and flat. Flat as a ngome , the millet-based flatbread of neighbouring Mali. When I finally got to Maradi I knew instinctively I’d reached the back of beyond – and not in a good way. It didn’t help that my second trip to Maradi repeated the tedium of the first. Plus languishing in a guest house for three days with nothing to do because a meeting had been cancelled.   Here's the thing about the back of beyond: it’s not always an attractive place. In fact the more I think about it the nothingness of a place can be an important feature of the back of beyond. You can still feel serene or even tranquil. Cape Wrath lies on the northernmost coast of Scotland. It’s close to a field station, based at a converted school in Bettyhill, that belonged to the Botany Department of Aberdeen University, and which I visited several times in the 1970s. You have to take a small boat to cross the Kyle of Durness in order to get to Cape Wrath. Remote and desolate: tick, tick. It’s also scoured by winds and with endless vistas of the sea. All rather bleak and definitely the back of beyond.   Sir Walter Scott is credited with coining the the phrase “ the back of beyond” . It first appears in his novel The Antiquary , published in 1816. He used to mean somewhere remote, isolated and, curiously, uncivilized. I didn’t notice this last epithet at first. Now it’s made me think about less exotic locations and in particular one experience in central Scotland. Alexandria may have been renewed and refreshed since the 1970s but back then it was definitely the back of beyond. And not in a good way. It seems an unlikely designation given that it’s neither remote nor mysterious. It’s north of Glasgow, on the the way to Loch Lomond, a tourist hotspot and gateway to the Trossachs National Park. The thing I remember about Alexandria was its unremitting bleakness and dreariness. I remember a major grocery store without any fresh produce. Everything was in tins.   There are good and not so good back of beyond’s. They can be mysterious, remote, desolate, uncivilized, bleak, serene and even tranquil. The back of beyond can’t be all of these things at the same time. Trying to define the back of beyond is elusive and I leave you with the attempt of US Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, to define hard-core pornography. He was unable to do so but “ knew it when he saw it .” Good advice for the back of beyond: you’ll know it when you get there.

by Vincent Guy Photo by Kami on Unsplash   My first memory, very clear, is of me cosy in my pram, being pushed along by Opa, my loving German grandfather. We’re passing the pub on the corner near home; up to the right is Harp Hill, round the corner the newsagents, a little further on the council estate known as Waddon, something of a no-go area for my resolutely middle-class parents. Just one thing is odd: the point of view is a few yards away, outside the pram and about eight feet up in the air.   Another pram journey comes to mind. My sister and I, aged 11 and 6, are at the Hunt Meet, held outside the Queen’s Hotel every Boxing Day. I had a passion for the hunt, not so much the extermination of foxes but the pageantry, the colour, the sounds. My mother even went so far as to embroider my bedroom curtains with hunting scenes. In the middle of the crowd there was a large fountain, its pool frozen over on that chilly winter’s day. Three or four boys were testing the ice, walking onto it. Nothing daunted, I too jumped on and went straight through. I can still feel my feet sliding down the curved side of the pool. A kind gentleman hauled me out, holding me aloft to the gawking crowd, ” Whose kid is thi s?” My sister had disappeared, chatting and exploring with a friend, who happened to be the sister of one of my classmates, Eric Lindsay. And it was the Lindsay family who stepped forward to claim me. They did their best to dry me off, wrapped me up, popped me into their baby’s pram and pushed me home; the infant quite happy to travel in its mother’s arms. My father’s comment on opening our front door “Went out a gentleman, came home a baby” . We’d passed the Lindsays’ house on the way to ours. No. 24 King’s Road. The only confusion in my head now: was No. 24 the house of Eric Lindsay or of Eric Yates, my history teacher ten years later?   As I write this, I happen to be staying with my sister. She mentions by chance that she’d written a poem about the young man in pram incident and recently shown it to me. I must confess, I have no recall whatsoever of her doing this.   They say people remember vividly where they were at certain world historical moments. I certainly do.   Where was I when I heard Kennedy had been shot? In my college room in front of a gas fire, the radio on for music, as I canoodled with my girlfriend, Belinda. Our affair was passionate if never fully consummated; eventually she felt obliged to go back to her fiancé.    On hearing of the death of Princess Diana? In my London flat with a Cretan friend, Thalia. Breakfast time and she was just on the verge of leaving for Heathrow to get back home. She wanted to take a bunch of flowers to Kensington Palace, not that far away. Did I go alone after she’d left or did we go together? Not a typical thing for me to do, but several thousand others had done so. The palace gates were almost buried in blooms.   As the planes crashed into the Twin Towers, I was out walking in the Chilterns with yet another girlfriend, Susie. As we came back to her house, the TV was on. At first sight I thought, like many others, that it was a Hollywood movie, “ Towering Inferno: the Remake ”. But hearing the commentary brought home the truth. We watched, appalled.   The trick that memory played with me and Susie was not about world events but our first meeting. We were at a gathering of recent graduates in studies related to psychotherapy. She and I had completed the course in different years and now chatted trivia before practical sessions began.  An exercise was set up like this: “ Pick a partner. Now stand face-to-face and stare into each other’s eyes for three minutes. Keep blinking to a minimum .”    Call us susceptible but by the end of three minutes we thought we were head over heels in love. At the end of the day, she drove me to the station where we sat talking before the train was due. Only then did we realise we’d met before. Not only met but worked together over several days on my dissertation project. I’d not been much taken with her then, but now was very different.   When I first met Tina, her stories fascinated me; they still do. One was this:   “ Hitchhiking through Northern Greece, I’d got a lift from a travelling salesman with a boot cram-full of children’s dress-up rings. I politely declined his offer of one of these “diamond” rings in exchange for sex and we continued towards the Turkish border. At a lightly wooded area the driver stopped; he needed to stretch his legs and have a rest. He lay down and suggested if I wanted to get back on the road smartish, I should have sex with him. Or carry on hitching without him… but also without my luggage, which he’d locked in his car. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep. I tried snatching the car keys but to no avail. Should I try bashing him on the head?  Would it stun him, kill him or just make him bash me back? Would the murder squad catch me before I reached the border?  I remember picking up a nearby rock and carefully whacking him. He didn’t open his eyes. I took the key, grabbed my case and returned to the roadside, where a random soldier emerged from the trees and helped me flag down a lift. All the way I was sick with worry that I might have overdone my KO blow, to be apprehended by the Law just as my foot hovered over the border to freedom.”   To me it felt romantic, bohemian, daring, to enter a love affair with a murderess. Later I even married her.   Decades on, a friend came by collecting stories about hitchhiking adventures. As Tina told him this one in proper detail, she realised it was mostly in her imagination. Reality: she had found the wandering soldier and appealed to him for help. His firm military manner persuaded the driver to hand over the keys. Her feverish imagining of what might have happened if she’d killed the guy had blotted out the relatively simple reality. Murder had been just in Tina’s mind.   This shakiness of memory has implications for the procedures of the Law. While hearsay evidence is dismissed as irrelevant, eyewitness accounts are valued like gold. Perhaps a more nuanced view would be wiser. I’ve had some courtroom experience, fortunately not in the dock but as jury member or interested observer.   A young black man stands in the dock at the Central Criminal Court, London, accused of stealing a tape recorder from a private house. The police say they’d spotted him emerging and given chase. They’d lost sight of him but then come across him again at the top of a flight of stairs, trembling with fear. To some police all blacks look the same and trembling is an obvious sign of guilt; so they’d cuffed him and hauled him off. He’s been held on remand in prison since then, spending the time studying relevant law books, and he now feels able to defend his plea of innocence without a barrister. The coppers throw abusive insults across the courtroom at him, and he breaks down near tears. The judge calls a pause and clears the court to instruct him. It emerged that the police had cooked their notebooks to make them consistently point to him. The coppers did much to undermine my middleclass faith in their virtue and probity. But the judge bolstered my faith in the British justice system.   Like every case I’ve attended, this was enthralling. Events are examined in such detail, from so many points of view, unfolding in slow motion. They fix themselves on my memory, seeming in retrospect more vivid than things I might have experienced directly.   Where does memory live? For me it’s in the faces of people I love, in the pop songs of my adolescence, in the school poetry books on my shelves. For neuroscientists it’s distributed around the brain but most significantly in the hippocampus, a tiny unit so named for looking like a seahorse. I recently learned that we in fact have two of them, one on the right and one on the left. I find that somehow comforting. Lose half of your memories and, with luck, the other half might survive.

by Vincent Guy Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash The culture of swearing has changed radically within my lifetime. I was just 21, with a fairly humble job in theatre, when I found myself guarding the door against a mob of marauding paparazzi. They were intent on getting at Kenneth Tynan, the theatre critic, who had just uttered the F-word on television for the first time in history. These days, while a new puritanism seems to be affecting young people’s actual behaviour, their speech is peppered with the F-word even without any provocation.   Nonetheless, euphemisms abound, described in academic terms as "semantic bleaching” :  “Golly, Gosh, Lawks, Frigging, Rear, Oh Dear.”   “Sugar”  as a euphemism for “Shit”  I find especially twee. “Shoot”  is another, popular mainly in the US, but at least that has a strong consonant at the end. And in fact the etymology of “Shoot”  and “Shit”  is the same: a separation, a parting of the ways.   I’ve racked my brains to find the actual word for the room where we urinate and defecate. “Gents/Ladies”  sorts out who’s going to which one, but not what they do there. “Toilet”  is a place for adjusting make-up and clothing. “Lavatory”  is a place to wash yourself. “WC” describes the flushing mechanism but not the thing which is flushed.  Well, there is “Urinal”  but that’s only the half of it and seldom used (the word, I mean).   An American comedian’s line from long ago comes to mind revealing the absurdity of semantic bleaching , “Hey, man, your dog’s just been to the bathroom on the sidewalk”.   A recent arrival is the use of “Poo”  in scientific contexts, at least where scientists are speaking to the lay public; the US variant is “Poop” . It’s a twee, nursery word when there are inoffensive terms that say what’s what: excrement, faeces. Please, let’s call a spade a spade.   Looking at a shelf in a bookshop recently I see half a dozen books with titles including “SH*T” . Most were aimed at self-improvement on the lines of “Let’s sort your SH*T” . I find this annoying, trying to catch attention through shock while at the same time self-censoring.   A recent trend heard on the streets is compression. “Fucking” is largely swallowed, glottally-stopped, squashed into half a syllable, emerging as “ ‘in’ ”.  Used about three times per sentence. This seems not so much euphemism as revealing a need to swear so often that there isn’t time to utter the word in full.   But take care: ‘the science’ indicates that if you swear too much it will lose its magical power. An experiment on TV involved performers Bryan Blessed and Stephen Fry with buckets of iced water. Blessed uses swear words all the time, and loud; Fry seldom does so.  The issue was: how far does swearing help in the relief of pain? Do strong words lose their strength if overused? Both men plunged their hands into a bucket of iced water and proceeded to swear away. Fry significantly outlasted his companion. The conclusion was that Blessed had eroded the power of his curses by overuse over many years; Fry’s mouthings still retained their full anaesthetic effect. It was far from a rigorous trial but suggested that further research is required, perhaps a large-scale, double f-ing and blinding test   To swear an oath is to make a solemn promise as in a court of law or a marriage ceremony. It’s also to speak in a filthy, aggressive manner which shouldn’t be done in front of the children. It’s like the word ‘drug’ which can be a life-saving miracle of medical science or a forbidden black-market substance which will pretty soon kill you.   “Bloody”  is now falling out of fashion, or has it just lost its power? Supposedly a shortening of “By our lady”,  which seems to me doubtful.  Other suggestions are that it comes from “ ’Sblood” , short for “God’s blood” , morphed into an adverb/adjective. “Doggone”  is perhaps a soft distortion of “Goddamn” . This style has long roots. As a boy I read many a tale of those bold knights of old using terms like “Zounds”  for “God‘s wounds”  and “Odds bodikins” for “God‘s body” . But I’m not sure that Richard the Lionheart and his crew really spoke like that. The only one that just about survives is “ ‘Struth, God’s truth” , expressing surprise - I can’t believe it.   The phrase “Swear like a trooper”  suggests cussing is prevalent among the lower ranks of the armed forces. Rather like tattooing which used to be a sign that a man had been a sailor, probably including the South Seas in his travels. Now everybody does it. My informal research reveals there is also fertile ground for the F-word in the offshore oil industry, another predominantly male community working under isolation and stress. The C-word is widely used there even as an affectionate term for a male friend (see Spanish below).   The approach to strong language varies widely over space as well as time. They certainly order some things oddly in France. They use a word for the female private parts to describe someone who is not very bright; it’s not strong at all, carrying about the same weight as “daft”  in British English. Another French oddity: if I want a French girl to give me a kiss, I must ask for “Une bise” , a diminutive of the word I learned at school, “Un baiser”.  This latter has now come to refer to the act of full sexual congress and is definitely on the taboo list. Not used to express annoyance, just a dark term for copulation.  To tell someone in strong terms to go away, the French return to their version of the F-word, “Fou-moi le camp”.   The French are famous for their hundreds of cheeses, love of butter and excellent entrecôte. The cow, “la vache” , is central to their civilisation. Odd then that they use “La vache”  as a mild expletive. “ Vachement”  as a modifying adverb, as in “ C’est vachement bon!” , is widespread even in the most sophisticated circles.     “Une pute" is the word for prostitute, (“sex worker”  in modern cleansed English). By extension it might refer to a slut or loose woman. “Putain”,  on the other hand, doesn’t describe a person but is simply an all-purpose swear word: adjective, adverb, noun, exclamation, whatever your fancy. You’ll see it translated in movie subtitles to the English F gerund.   Meanwhile in Spain, the C-word is an expression of friendship, equivalent to something like “Pal”  or “Mate”  in English. Wandering in Spain in my 20s I had an induction course in strong language from a bunch of young lads. The strongest insult they coached me in I will give to the reader in Spanish: ”Me cago en la leche de la madre que te parió.”  You can translate it for yourself online. It’s an unpleasant idea but, apart from the word for defecating, “Cago”,  it’s all expressed in decent everyday language. A brief variation on the same theme, “Ay, Leche!“ , is frequently used; not to attack but to express frustration, something like the British “Oh bother”.   “Caramba”  is a softening of the strong word for the male organ, “Carajo”,  which also has a stronger sound. Remember that in Spain the letter J is pronounced gutturally, KH, like the Scots CH in “loch”.  My impression is that “Caramba”  is not used that much by Spanish speakers. It’s more like stage-Spanish, what foreigners imagine. Indicative of this is that it’s a catch phrase in The Simpsons .   “Cornuto il clero!”  An Italian acquaintance who took delight in strong language had this favourite to express frustration. Does it mean “May the clergy be cuckolded” or “Things are a mess because they’ve been cuckolded” ? Given the official celibacy of the Roman Catholic priesthood a hint of self-contradiction, of impossibility, gives it special piquancy.   I’m told that the Chinese and Urdu communities in the UK lack obscene vocabulary and, while speaking their own language, have to pepper it with English swear words. More research needed.   Meanwhile, the Germans seem to leave sex out of the business altogether. Their expressions of impatience or anger all relate to activity, or lack of it, in the defecation department. “Das ist mir scheiss-egal”  would translate mildly as “It’s all the same to me”, literally “For me it’s all shit-equal.”  A famous literary quotation comes from Goethe‘s account of a Renaissance warrior. When cornered by the Kaiser’s forces he simply says “Er kann mich im Arsche lecken!”  Mozart even wrote a Canon for six voices using similar words, listed as Kirchel 382c in the catalogue. Have a listen.   My main focus here has been on sexual and lavatorial obscenities. I have scarcely mentioned any current blasphemies. The injunction against “taking the Lord’s name in vain”  is one of the Ten Commandments. These days, however, such is the prevalence of “Oh God/ Oh my God/ Christ/ Jesus”,  as well as the more coy “Oh my”  or “ O.M.G.”,  that one scarcely registers them.   Profanities have lost almost all their power, just as obscenities are losing theirs. Will strong language just be weak?  Fear not; you may have noticed a creeping invasion of asterisks into such words as “Su*cide”  or “K*ll”.   Maybe new taboos will step forward to protect us against bowls of painfully icy water.

by Richard Pooley My mother-in-law, Jane, will be ninety-nine years old in February. Her first forty-five years – working in the UK's Land Army during World War 2, engaged at seventeen to a man killed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, escaping a first marriage in Tanganyika to find a second husband in Kenya, widowed at thirty with an eighteen-month old daughter (my wife), rebuilding a life in England with almost no money, married for a third time to a man eight years younger than her – were full of pain and privation but also much joy and laughter. The second half of her life has mostly been spent frugally but contentedly on the edge of a Cotswold village, the centre of a network of devoted friends.   But for the past three and a half years she has been imprisoned in one of Bupa Healthcare’s so-called “ luxury”  nursing homes just outside Bath. It’s a beautiful place, a mid-18 th  Century mansion designed by John Wood the Elder, surrounded by an 8-hectare park across which you might expect a Jane Austen hero to have galloped. Thomas Gainsborough painted several canvases in the Orangery (still there, up a steep hill which no current resident can reach unaided). William Pitt was staying when he got news of Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz. So, why “ imprisoned” ? Because she can’t get out, unless an ambulance comes to take her, in a wheelchair, on the few occasions she has a hospital appointment. The lift was out of order for eight months, confining her to the first floor. The food is advertised as being “high quality” . A prison inmate would reject it, just as she sometimes does. Once the only person available to cook for the thirty residents was a cleaner. And how much does she pay for this brochure-described “ paradise” ? £343 (US$ 450) a day. That’ll go up by at least 7% in January. Okay, the care home staff are…well, caring. There is none of the horrendous abuse that has occurred elsewhere. And they arrange activities for the residents. But it’s a lonely existence for an intelligent woman who can still recite poems learned by heart decades ago (those of that old curmudgeon, Philip Larkin, are her favourites) and whose daily highlight is the phone call with an old friend, also in a care home, some 30 miles away. Too late for Jane but can we really not do better for those soon to leave us? Can we not have places where the old and the young can mingle, where there is a community, where there is life before death? Yes, we can. The Dutch have shown us the way. Twelve years ago, a Dutch nursing home — the Woon-en Zorgcentrum Humanitas in Deventer (east of Amsterdam) — made real one of those ideas so simple yet so obviously brilliant that you wonder why it wasn’t thought of long ago: in exchange for thirty hours of their time and companionship each month, local college students could live in the care home rent-free.  “It started with the idea of ​​becoming the warmest home for seniors in Deventer,”  said Gea Sijpkes, director of WZC Humanitas, earlier this year. “And we wanted to do that with the energy of the youth.” Young (in their early twenties) and old (mostly in their eighties and nineties) mix in the communal dining room not because they have to but because often they want to. People wishing to dampen my enthusiasm for this Dutch project doubt that the students would wish to spend any time listening to old people reciting the problems they are having with various bits of their bodies (the Organ Recital ), or recounting the joys of their own youth. Wrong. Here is what two of those Dutch students say: “It doesn't all have to be grand and exciting. If you talk to each other and show interest in each other, that already gives so much meaning.”   “They [the old residents]  taught me to slow down a bit more. That doesn't make me older, but more aware of life.” And the elderly love it. As part of their deal with the care home, the students also spend time teaching residents new skills – like how to email, and use social media, WhatsApp and Zoom. What can the old teach the young? History, life lessons, what not to do. The quote which is the title of this article came from Alison Hesketh, founder and Chief Executive of TimeFinders, a British organisation which provides advice to old people to “do whatever is necessary to live in the right place at the right time”. I heard her tell of a 93-year old friend who upon arrival in a hospital was irritated to find that all others on the ward were also old, even though the illness she was there for was not age-related. The assumption of the hospital administrators was that old would wish to be with old. The Netherlands is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. At the recent general election the unavailability of affordable housing, especially for young people, was the biggest issue. This has long been the case and was the other trigger for Sijpkes’ brainwave: “At the same time, there was a shortage of student housing, which meant that more and more young people were staying at home. I then thought: why don’t I combine the two?” I read this and thought of the vast number of student flats built over the past decade in Bath, where I live. The city’s university, now one of the best in the country, has seen an explosion in student numbers, to the growing ire of local residents. Where, they ask, is the affordable housing so badly needed by the non-student population? My questions are a little different. Why are we providing so much student accommodation which is unused for 15 weeks of the year (the student holidays)? Why is the city’s government not doing what WZC Humanitas have done and started combining student accommodation with that for the elderly? As Sijpkes says “It does not require huge investments or complex care structures. It only requires people who are prepared to share their lives with others from a different generation.” Apparently, WZC Humanitas’ intergenerational programme has been copied around the world in the last few years. Has it been in the UK? I heard several years ago about a project at my old university, Exeter, which had a similar aim. Since 2011 students from the university’s Department of English and Film have donated their time to bring conversation, literature, and companionship to the elderly in over ten residential care homes in and around Exeter. About half of these residents have dementia. Research has shown that reading poetry with (not to!) dementia sufferers brings joy and comfort to them, especially as so many learned poetry by heart when young. It triggers memories just as much as old photographs can. And what do the students get out of it? Insights into other lives, other times and  other ways of looking at the world. But during my wife’s search, close to Bath, for somewhere suitable for her mother to live, she found nothing similar to the care home in Deventer. Hence, we were both cheered when we heard that the winner of this year's Royal Institute of British Architects' (RIBA) Stirling Prize is Appleby Blue Almshouse, which provides fifty-nine affordable flats for over-65s in Southwark, south London. It has been designed to combat loneliness. Residents keep their independence and can choose to remain in their flats as long as they wish to. When they come out they can sit on a bench in the many plant-lined, window-bordered hallways and landings, observe the world go by or fall into conversation with others. There is a roof-garden to tour or to work in. Likewise, the communal kitchen is not out-of-bounds to residents; many cook there too and give cooking lessons. The place creates an "aspirational living environment"  that stands "in stark contrast to the institutional atmosphere often associated with older people's housing” according to the RIBA judges’. Architect-speak for an enjoyable place to live out your life.

by Dr. Mark Nicholson  Nyungwe Forest, Rwanda " Excuse me, Sir"  asked the controller of the baggage scanner at the airport as he viewed a large mass of something opaque, " What are you carrying in your luggage ?" " Soil ", I replied.  " What are you doing in Rwanda ?" " I am the dendrologist for Victory ." That tends to be a conversation stopper so he shrugged and went back to his screen. In fact, I had tree seedlings in bags of soil in my suitcase for reasons which I shall explain. I was in Rwanda at the invitation of a friend and entrepreneur who has started two fish farms on Lake Victoria and Lake Kivu. I was travelling with the company's Board comprising investors and aquaculturists from nine countries. We set off to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border in the southwest corner in a convoy. The roads are good, and unlike in Kenya, there are no spring-breaking humps/bumps (with three-inch high rumble strips) in the road every hundred metres. After a six-hour drive we arrived at the border with DRC on Lake Kivu. The company, Victory Farms, has expanded massively on both lakes. New 30m cages (each holding 200 tons of fish) are being set up on Kivu: production is set to rise from 5000 tons of farmed tilapia this year to more than 25,000 tons in 2026. Seventy-five percent of the daily catch is harvested at 2am and sold at 6am in Bukavu in the DRC 100m from our hotel every morning and the company is paid upfront in US$. The Congolese boats are filled and ferried 50 m across a creek to the fish markets. The supply is of huge nutritional benefit to the inhabitants of Eastern Congo. I always liken Rwanda and DRC to David and Goliath, since the latter is ninety times the size of Rwanda and yet DRC always seems to come off second best after their frequent squabbles. The reason is clear of course: in Rwanda, order prevails. In the DRC, or even in Kenya, life is different. On arrival in Kigali from Nairobi (or Kinshasa), the difference is striking. In Kenya, laws exist but no one takes any notice of them. In Nairobi, traffic lights are either ignored or don’t work. In both countries, the hordes of motorcyclists are legally obliged to wear helmets and carry only one passenger. In Kenya, over half the motorcycle drivers are without helmets and their passengers (up to four at a time) almost never. In Kigali, every driver and every passenger (ONE only) wears a helmet with a visor. Overspeed in Kenya and you will be arguing with a cop about the size of the bribe for the next thirty minutes; in Rwanda, you are caught on camera, stopped, you pay the fine on your phone immediately or go to jail till you do. Kivu is a smaller lake [1]  in the western Albertine Rift to the north of Lake Tanganyika between DRC and Rwanda, which are not the closest bedfellows at the moment. Most of the western shore of the lake is guerilla territory supported (says the DRC) by President Kagame of Rwanda. Immediately to the south is Burundi, a small country the same size as Rwanda, with the same population and the same ethnic makeup. Another friend was there recently and described that country as a basket case. The border between Rwanda and Burundi is closed. In the extreme southwest of Rwanda, where the three countries meet, is Nyungwe, one of the most stunning tropical forests in East Africa. This was the venue of a treat for the Victory Board, generously organized and paid for by the CEO. Setting off at 3.30a.m. we were split into small groups to track chimpanzees. Unlike Virunga in the north, Nyungwe has no gorillas (but plenty of guerillas judging by the number of fully-equipped Rwandan soldiers on the roads). The terrain is very steep, and the forest in places often impenetrable. Sure enough, one of the Directors, an old friend, managed to get lost for an hour or two till he heard a guide shouting for him. But during his solitary peregrination, he managed to get a good photograph of a tree ( Entandophragma excelsum  or Umuyove  in Kinyarwanda), the seeds or seedlings of which I have been searching for 20 years.  It is the tallest tree species in Africa and we reckoned it was at least 80m high.   I find chimps much more interesting than gorillas, which, being vegetarian are on the thick side (apologies to my veggie friends!). Eating leaves all day does not elevate the IQ. I am clearly in the minority because a day of gorilla-tracking will set you back $1500, in contrast to chimp-tracking at $250. Chimps are group planners: they are also aggressive, devious, murderous, manipulative and greedy, remarkably like their closest cousins. So why does a fish farm need a tree planter? The answer is that Rwanda is one of the most degraded and hilly countries in Africa. The native forests have almost all gone except Virunga and Nyungwe and they have been replaced by eucalyptus from Australia which have leaves that do not break down into fertile soil. Every rainstorm increases soil erosion into rivers which feed the lake and this affects water quality and fish yield. The fish farm has purchased a large area that will be restored to forest. We started with a tree-planting ceremony for (and by) the Board but Rwanda is so devoid of interesting tree species that I had to smuggle in some rare ones in my suitcase.   Lake Kivu was only discovered in 1894 by a German explorer. It is difficult to understand how Burton and Speke could have missed it in 1858 on their way north from Lake Tanganyika. For a limnologist, Kivu is one of the world’s most interesting lakes. Firstly, it is meromictic which means the water stays in layers unlike most lakes which mix freely. The very deep (over 500m/ 1650ft) and dense bottom layer is saline and stagnant, full of organic detritus which breaks down very slowly. It is also one of three lakes on the planet that undergo limnic eruptions when vast trapped ‘bubbles’ of CO 2  and methane can be released after an earthquake. Those of us of a certain age may remember  the Lake Nyos eruption in Cameroon in 1986, which killed nearly 1800 inhabitants and thousands of livestock. Should Lake Kivu belch, it is likely to result in 2.5 million human deaths from asphyxiation in five minutes. This may also explain the absence of crocodiles in the lake. Such thoughts were far from my mind as I floated serenely on the glass-like blue surface on a Sunday afternoon.   The southern tip of Lake Kivu (showing cages in the distance) Almost every village in Rwanda has a genocide memorial site. 1994 seems like yesterday to me but then I realized that most Rwandans today were born in the thirty-one years since that terrible year. I was born thirty-two years after the end of World War One, and what does that war really mean to me? They started with a one-month long memorial, since when it was shortened to two weeks, then one week, and now one day a year. Does a Remembrance Day stop wars or genocide? I doubt it. It is taboo in Rwanda to mention ethnicity. I was working with the majority tribe who come across as gentle, polite and slightly introverted. It is almost impossible to understand how politicians could whip up such a frenzy of hatred that could lead to mass murder on such a scale but it happened and it could happen anywhere. Today the country is peaceful and one feels safe; but it is no democracy. In contrast, we all thought Tanzania was a safe, budding democracy but we were disabused two weeks ago when Madam Hassan banned or imprisoned all opposition candidates and won 98% of the vote. Around a thousand people were killed there in two days by "security" forces. The path to democracy in many countries remains a stony one. Boris Johnson, when UK Prime Minister, cut a deal with President Kagame to deport illegal immigrants to his country. Rwanda has received around £350-400 million as an incentive but no one has ever been forcibly deported. If I were a Syrian given a choice between a gloomy, depressed, fractious country in Europe or starting life in a young and growing economy in a beautiful country with a wonderful climate and lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs, I know which I would choose. My last day was spent in the Nyungwe forest with a lady guide on a non-stop, eight-hour hike to the top at 2900m (9800ft.). I had a lot to burn off. I had spent the previous day with the Afrikaner Head of Security and a white Liswati who owns a game farm near Mbabane, Eswatini (ex Swaziland). Lunch was a gigantic potjiekos [2]  followed by an evening braai with an unending supply of springbok steaks (one of the most delicious game meats), downed with local beer and Irish whiskey. When I told them about the soil in the suitcase story, the Liswati laughed and said:  "Ach, man, don’t worry. Every time I come up from Jo’burg, I ‘ave two suitcases, one containing 20kg of frozen springbok steaks. The okes [3]  at the airport make a fuss, but they always let me in ."   .   [1]  ‘Small’ is relative. It is twice as deep as Loch Ness (the UK’s largest freshwater body) and seventy times the volume. The huge Lake Tanganyika is forty times the volume of Lake Kivu. [2]  An Afrikaner stew of beef T-Bone, butternuts, pumpkins and assorted vegetables [3]  Informal and friendly Afrikaans word for fellow or bloke

by Lynda Goetz If you were living in a country on a temporary basis, would you expect to be able to vote in their elections? I am pretty sure it is not a question many people have thought to ask themselves. They would have thought the answer was self-evident.  Nor are they likely to have considered the flipside of the coin. How many foreigners who are not UK citizens, many  living in our country on temporary visas, are entitled to vote both in our local and our national elections? Rather large numbers, it turns out.   This issue came to my attention quite by chance. As a landlord (of just one property), I was collecting post from the then-empty property. There was a notice to “The Occupiers’ ” encouraging them  to sign on to the Electoral Register. Well, I said to my husband, “I can bin that.  It's likely that the new tenants will be foreign students, so they wouldn’t be entitled to vote.”  “I wouldn’t count on that, “ ,  he returned. So I checked. It turns out that anyone on any sort of visa from any Commonwealth country, including student visas, is entitled to vote here, not only in local elections, but in national elections as well. (The rules for EU citizens changed in May last year as a result of the 2022 Elections Act to which I will return later). I was surprised and shocked, as I’m fairly certain many others would be too, if they realised.   The Commonwealth of Nations is a free association of fifty-six countries, all but four  of which were formerly colonies or dependencies of the UK. The four - Gabon, Togo, Mozambique, and Rwanda - have no historical constitutional connection with the UK. As most people are fully aware, the Head of the Commonwealth is the monarch of the United Kingdom, currently King Charles III. The position does not carry with it any degree of power and is largely symbolic. All fifty-six countries, with very diverse political, economic, social and religious backgrounds, are regarded as equal and cooperate as an international organisation within a framework of supposedly common goals and values.   In addition to citizens of the  UK, this country also gives the vote to anyone over the age of 18 (probably shortly to be 16) who is a citizen of the Commonwealth.  “ Qualifying Commonwealth citizens must be resident in the UK and either have leave to remain in the UK or not require leave. Your leave to remain can be indefinite, or time limited .” (from website ‘ Voting as a Migrant’ ).  The majority of Commonwealth countries do not reciprocate this right. Most view other Commonwealth citizens as indistinguishable from any other foreign citizens. In just fourteen of the other Commonwealth countries rights are granted to other resident non-local Commonwealth citizens to vote in elections.  This does not include either Canada or Australis, two of the longest-standing members of the Commonwealth. Yet here, basically because of the historic connections with most Commonwealth countries, citizens of those countries,  resident, however temporarily, in this country are essentially not viewed as foreign nationals. Subject to their right of abode, many are even eligible to take up public office and stand as MPs. In spite of the stated  ‘common goals and values’, many such foreign nationals, citizens or not, do not actually share our culture and values, as has been highlighted by the rape gangs (euphemistically referred to as “ grooming gangs ”) operating up and down the country.   In their Briefing paper No.315, Migrant Watch UK  wrote in 2013 that,  “There could be as many as one million migrants from the Commonwealth who have the right to vote in UK Parliamentary elections, despite not being British citizens”.  It went on to say that,  “ Voting rights for the whole Commonwealth are an anachronism from the days of the British Empire and should be brought to an end except for citizens from those few Commonwealth countries which grant British citizens reciprocal voting rights” . This paper was written twelve years ago, and a lot has happened since then, including the small matter of Brexit, which has changed the situation vis-à-vis members of the EU. Nothing has changed in regard to Commonwealth citizens, however.  All EU citizens who were resident in the UK used to have the right to vote in local, but not national elections. That right was reciprocal. The Elections Act 2022  changed that. According to the Election Commission’s blog: “You will only be able to register, vote or stand as a candidate in these elections if: you’re a citizen of Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain who is resident in the UK, has permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who does not need permission; you’re a citizen of any other EU country who on or before 31 December 2020 was legally resident in the UK, had permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who did not need permission, and this has continued without a break."   In other words, you will be entitled to vote in local elections here, either if you are a citizen of one of the four countries in the EU which has given British citizens reciprocal rights or if you were here prior to 31 December 2020 and still have a right to be here.   The legislation outlined above seems logical. It seems entirely illogical that, having amended the rights regarding EU citizens, we should still be giving rights to citizens of fifty-six foreign countries, (many of whom are now demanding trillions of pounds from us in reparations for perceived historic wrongs). This includes such countries as Cameroon, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda and Tanzania and gives them the right to vote not just in local, but in our national elections, should they happen to be here legally when they take place. As registration to vote can now take place monthly,  not just annually as used to be the case, this effectively means that almost from the minute they step ashore these foreign nationals are legally entitled  to join the citizens of this country in choosing our elected parliamentarians. If Migrant Watch estimated this number to be in the region of a million in 2013, how many more is it likely to be now?   Migrant Watch UK’s Briefing Paper, written over a decade ago, is extremely interesting and highlights the unusual situation prevailing in this country with regard to voting rights. Most countries in the world limit these rights to citizens, whether natives or those who have acquired citizenship. This would seem, as Lord Goldsmith pointed out in his report, produced several years earlier in 2008 for Gordon Brown’s government, to ensure that “ the right to vote is one of the hallmarks of the political status of citizens; it is not a means of expressing closeness between countries”. Unfortunately Lord Brown’s government did nothing about implementing Lord Goldsmith’s recommendations, quite possibly  for reasons of political expediency or advantage.   As was pointed out in the Paper, large numbers of Commonwealth citizens move to the UK, either permanently or temporarily. “ The 2011 census data shows that there are an estimated 960,000 Commonwealth citizens (who don’t have British citizenship) living in England and Wales who have the right to vote but are from countries that do not allow British citizens to vote”.  Up to date figures appear not to be available. The 2021 Census showed only ‘ Population of the UK by country of birth and nationality’  *and even that data collection has, according to the Office of National Statistics, now been discontinued.  No figures are available separately for Commonwealth citizens .   Nevertheless, numbers have clearly increased and could potentially have an impact on both local and national elections. The fact that the proliferation of foreign student visas  is one of the current issues we are facing and that large numbers of these do actually come from Commonwealth countries, particularly India, Nigeria and Pakistan, highlights the bizarre nature of our approach to non-citizen rights in this country. Given that successive governments have allowed, against the wishes of the majority of the public, for immigration to get completely out of hand, the very last thing we need is the addition of non-citizens to have any say in our election processes. This, as Migration Watch pointed out way back in 2013, is an anachronism of which the general public is largely unaware and which needs to be rectified immediately.  British citizenship alone should confer the right to vote in general elections and, of course, in any referenda.   *In the year ending June 2021, the non-UK-born population was an estimated 9.6 million and the non-British population was an estimated 6.0 million; both the non-UK-born population and non-British population have remained broadly stable since 2019.

by Stoker   The press pack are camping on the White House lawn. No really, at the moment they are, as the Donald has knocked down the east Wing of the White House to build his BEAUTIFUL ballroom (try knocking down the east wing of Buckingham Palace or the Elysee. Some things are easier in Washington.) But the media are happy to be out in the November damp of Washington DC in the hope of getting some juicy quotes and explosive photographs of the 47 th President exploding in rage over political events in New York, his home town.   But the President is not obliging just at the moment (he may have done by the time you come to read this); if anything he seems quietly amused by the election of a Communist; sorry, a COMMUNIST, to run the Big Apple.  Tuesday 4 th  November was election day with an almost record voter turnout (partially at least due to big efforts in voter registration) and was won by Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat who describes himself as a socialist, defeating Andrew Cuomo in the preliminaries who describes himself as a Democrat but who then ran as an Independent, who defeated in turn for the Democrat nomination Eric Adams the current Governor who describes himself as an independent.  All clear so far?  No, me neither.   What we seem to have is a dramatic left turn from New York Democrat voters who rejected the old mainstream, machine Democrats embodied in Cuomo and Adams for a revolutionary in the shape of Mr Mamdani whose proposals we will come to later.  What? No Republican candidate? Oh yes; honourable mention to Curtis Silwa who took 7% of the vote.  Thank you for your presence Mr Silwa, but it has to be said that New York is not currently a GOP heartland.  More interesting is the division of votes between Mamdani and Cuomo: 50% (1,036,051 votes) to 43% (844,995). Not quite so overwhelming for Mamdani as the BBC might have you believe.  One suspects, with an old-fashioned cynicism, that many Republican voters went for Mr Cuomo.  Though what is even more obvious is that Republican voters, professional types, mid and upper income types, even middle-aged types, have moved out of NY City into the surrounding suburbs which are now becoming majority Republican.   So why might Mr Trump be amused?  For several reasons. Because he thinks Mr Mamdani’s mayoralty will be a disaster; because Mr M’s victory will further damage the Democrat Party which is in total disarray but knows that the NY programme will not work in the wider US (or in New York, come to that); because he knows that New York does not matter in the wider scheme of things. The days when it symbolised the wider, greater USA are long gone. And even, perhaps, because Mr Trump himself moved to Florida long ago.   Mr Mamdani is a Moslem, an immigrant, an attractive candidate, a bright young guy who has never before held political office.  He ignored the party machine and focused on what was bothering New Yorkers, especially the young. Having found out – mainly rent levels and cost of living - he went after the big minorities – Latinos and black.  And he ran a brilliant and focused campaign to get his supporters out in huge numbers, a real lesson there.   Mr Cuomo of course assumed he had the Latin community sewn up and ran a very conventional campaign, appealing to the older voters and the middle-aged.  But if New York is anything it is a young people’s city now, young people who not untypically pay nearly half their salaries in rent.  There are big earners in New York City of course, but they tend to live in the above-mentioned suburbs, whilst the actual NY inhabitants do the menial jobs.  They turned out to vote, a new sensation for many of them, and the Mamdani strategy worked.    Which is another reason for Mr Trump’s quiet amusement.  Mr Mamdani really can’t do much about rental levels. He can impose all the rent controls he likes when he takes office in January, but that will not provide any extra apartments at all, rather the opposite.  He can have as many state-owned supermarkets as he likes (one of his campaign promises) but anybody who is in food retailing knows that margins on food are so slender that no downward discernible movement in food prices will happen. Price controls on food?  More likely to lead to food shortages and rationing than any other result.  He promised higher taxes on the rich but most of that is outside his reach. And as the rich move out to escape their pips being squeaked, the tax yield will drop and either tax levels on the poor must be raised or deep cuts made in state budgets.  Enjoy this month and next, Mr Madani, because this is as much fun as it is likely to get.    We should mention that there were also two gubernatorial elections on Tuesday last, in New Jersey and in Virginia.  Again we must poke a little fun at the BBC who reported overwhelming victories for the Democrats.  New Jersey is always pretty safe Democrat territory and had previously a Democrat governor, Phil Murphy, who could not run again. The new candidate was Mikie Sherrill, who won with 56% against Mr Murphy’s previous 51% so no change there.  It is a state to watch though as that Republican drift out of New York is slowly causing an erosion of the Democrat vote. Sherrill is a mainstream traditional Democrat, ex Navy followed by the law followed by assistant Attorney General in New Jersey, then into the House of Representatives by winning a marginal New Jersey seat with a strong campaign.  She reaped her reward with the Governorship.   In Virgina again is the phenomenon of suburb drift (from Washington DC) which had benefitted the very strong and politically skilled (i.e  he manages not to upset D Trump without sounding Trumpian) Glenn Youngkin. Governors there only get one term, alas for Mr Youngkin, as he probably would have won again.  His chosen successor was Winsome Earle-Sears, well known locally as Lieutenant-Governor, but who as it turned out lacked Mr Youngkin’s ability to execute skilled footwork and managed to upset a number of special interest groups, and came down rather heavily to defeat by Abigail Spanberger, 57% to 43%. Ms Spanberger worked for the CIA (it did no harm to George Bush either), then was elected from Virginia to the Houses of Representatives in 2017, and now moves on to Governor. She, like Ms Sherrill, is a moderate mainstream Democrat and the perfect candidate for the calm ways of Virginia.   So what conclusions do we draw from these north-eastern contests?  Perhaps, not a pronounced swing away from Mr Trump and the Republicans, but a movement back towards moderation and courtesy, to a more traditional form of politics.  Certainly, good natured candidates did well; Mr Mamdani was anxious to play down his fiery youth, but even so the traditionalist Cuomo did well in the circumstances.   And if you think either of these new female Governors would be good future presidential material, you must be right.  That ought to make the Republicans think about what happens post Trump.

by Eric Boa   " Haven't you finished yet?" "No. Bugger off!" Words have always intrigued me. I amused my English teacher, the wonderful Jack Roberts, by weaving new words into school essays: perfunctory, desultory and mendacious  were early examples. Not an easy task. I was hoping to impress and also showing off. Mr Roberts was perhaps more amused than impressed by my clumsy efforts, though I also got a hint of encouragement.   I revelled less in the array of new words that scientists use to be precise and unambiguous but more often confound. I stumbled through the technical descriptions used to identify plants and fungi and wondered if there was a better way to convey meaning. Why describe spores as subglobular  and not almost spherical ? Or cross-shaped rather than cruciform ? Two words perform the same function.   Medicine is awash with similar examples, best seen in diagnoses and describing symptoms. I’ve just received a letter which tells me that an unusual spot on my left ala has arborising telangiectasia . Who knew that the side of the nose is called an ala? I’m still working on telangiectasia .   Language is at its most powerful when a vivid meaning is conveyed directly. I’m curious about how we swear and are rude to others. How we express disappointment, annoyance, pain and general frustration, all legitimate reasons for swearing. In the UK we make frequent use of adjectives or modifiers to indicate degrees of being upset. Thus bloody   nonsense  and bloody   fool or even bastard stupid and  the bastard lock is jammed . More annoyed? Try shit  or shitty .  Really, really angry? I’ll avoid for now naming the obvious options, though our editor will be pondering how, without any intention to offend, I will reveal the strongest swear word.  I hope that the removal of vowels will suffice. You have been fckng warned*.   The most offensive swear words I know derive from copulation and the female anatomy. Other bodily functions also provide a rich source of swearing, particularly micturition and defaecation. One is frequently pissed   off , for example. I had never heard the Glaswegian term keech  until my friend David used it. Yes, this is a turd. At primary school we had our own variant, embellished for added effect, as in big fat smelly jobby . I can’t remember ever directing this at an individual. We got a thrill from simply saying the words. Yes, there is a thrill to swearing, something we don’t always acknowledge.   Big fat smelly jobby doesn’t work outside of Scotland, unless directed at a fellow Scot. It’s still the worse insult I can think of. Fortunately my cursing vocabulary has expanded though I still feel queasy about swearing unless I’m suitably worked up about something. Sadly, there has been an explosion in use of swear words to add emphasis. Was it really necessary for a friend at university to tell me that an exam had been fckng horrendous ?   I worry about the increase in use of swear words in public and in print. It does little to enrich language, though sometimes it can be subtly subversive. Joe Mercer, a potty-mouthed football manager, gave a press conference when taking up a new post. My daily newspaper liberally quoted his barely comprehensible replies to questions, stuffed full of swear words. Offensive? Well, yes, but also an indictment of Joe Mercer and unexplainably funny. More recently. a group of comedians renowned for swearing and being rude on stage were hired to perform in Saudia Arabia. They have been roundly condemned by other comedians and activists concerned about the kingdom’s unsavoury reputation. I also read about this in the press, where one of the financially-seduced comedians was clearly upset by these critics and, quoting verbatim, called them cnts  and that they should all fck off . All this from someone who presumably didn’t swear on stage or tell a joke about those who were cut up when they failed to get a visa from a Saudi Arabia consulate.   There are ways to be rude that don’t involve the use of swear words. I was once described by a fellow student as “ looking like Rolf Harris – but not as handsome .” I was a little miffed. I had a beard and wore glasses but, unlike this then popular Australian TV presenter, could neither paint nor play the digeridoo. None of us knew at the time that Mr Harris carried out repeated sexual assaults on young women. What if my insulter had known this? A mildly offensive remark would have become something radically different, a personal and pointed attack rather than a casual observation which could and has been dismissed.   Being rude can easily be misinterpreted and ambiguity exploited to mask discrimination. I’m always wary when someone says “ it was only a joke .” Insulting someone because of their race, nationality, gender, disability or immutable traits is not only offensive but unacceptable*. As a Scot attending an English secondary school, I took umbrage at the derogatory remarks about haggis, kilts and similar things that my fellow pupils imagined to be typically Scottish. I only realised that English pupils at a Scottish school had it much worse, with heartfelt insults that harked back to times when Scotland was being subjugated by its southern neighbour.   The best way of being rude is not to swear but make a keen observation. As a keen musician, I’m fond of the description of modern jazz players who may be musically gifted but have never knowingly played a tune . Jonathan Aitken, a former British politician, said that Margaret Thatcher knew so little about the Middle East that she thought “ Sinai was the plural of sinus .” I thought it would be fun to be rude about Hashing, a sort of fun-run that was popular amongst expatriate communities and families. We had a T shirt made in Bangladesh which had Catamites and Onanists   Welcome  at the bottom in small letters. Most puzzled about what this meant while the few who got it were more amused than insulted. Not in Indonesia, where I managed to add the words to a hashing T shirt. One of the runners was a devout Christian and knew her bible. Definitely not amused, as were others when told the meaning of the phrase. I had gone from being rude to insulting people. About to curse the photographer   Context and circumstance alter the balance between being rude and unacceptably offensive. The bus from Molepolole to Gaborone in Botswana was, at least for us youthful volunteer teachers, an eagerly awaited weekly opportunity to head for decent food, the cinema and the bookshop. For others it was a journey to be endured rather than enjoyed. I was quietly contemplating life on one Saturday bus when an enormous row broke out between the bus driver and an uncovered and apparently serial fare dodger. The driver let rip with a torrent of vehement expletives. I was taken aback and rather shocked before realising that the other passengers were unmoved. They either didn’t understand what was being said, or they’d heard it before.   A teacher friend dressed up as a resplendent and very pink Barbie doll for a primary school event. A 10 year-old girl responded aggressively to a simple request. She told Toni to – and here I do need to go verbatim –  “ Fck off you Pink Cnt .” Wow. Impressive in one so young. Also deeply offensive and aggressive, though distress changes to sorrow when you know that the child had a difficult home life and unresolved behavioural issues. I later used the same phrase, prefaced by “ And remember …”, to spur my niece and her stepfather on in a cycle race. Crucially, they already knew about the school incident. There was a short pause and then slightly nervous laughter, as an aggressive insult became ironic.   Swearing can be unintentionally funny. When hitchhiking in Norway with Richard, our cleanly spoken editor, we were given a lift by a cultured and well-spoken theatre director. He was eager to tell us about his country and its cultural heritage. He began with a long discourse on Edvard Grieg, pointing out a place where the Song of Norway  was filmed, then turned to another classical composer. He was particularly keen on Tchaikovsky, who he said was “ fcking good .” Scheiße! (in Austria)   Always be wary of swearing in a foreign language. It can often go wrong, even in neutral settings. I started to discuss French insults with a native speaker at a party, a jolly social affair. I naively thought I’d made it clear I wasn’t trying to be rude. It didn’t work and realised I’d made a big mistake. She was mortally offended when I said “ Vas te faire encule”  and “ Va te fair foutre” , even though our conversation was in English. Stick to your native language when swearing abroad. I offered this advice to our French au pair. She had become increasingly irritated by British driving habits. I had failed to consider the possibility in multi-cultural London that her curses might be directed at another French driver. He gave as good as he got.   Widen your vocabulary when being rude. It may confuse and obscure the intended insult, but I really do prefer onanist  to wanker . Egregious sounds better than totally shit . It helps if you imagine the ruder version, so that when you read or hear hubristic  you substitute it with cocky bastard . There is however no denying the power of an aptly used swear word. I never heard my father swear until in my late teens he recounted a favourite moment from a Shaft  movie, a series featuring a black detective, originally played by Richard Roundtree. My father loved a set piece where an elderly grandmother tries to leave a building but is brushed aside repeatedly as criminals are chased by the police. Her calm demeanour is destroyed as she finally gets to exit through the door and announces, direct to camera: “ That’s the trouble with today’s youth : no fcking respect .”   The meaning or rude words can change by location. Try explaining what bugger means to anyone who doesn’t come from Yorkshire or hasn’t lived in the UK for some time. I spent a year as a secondary school teacher in Leeds, a constant struggle in keeping ahead of the curriculum while trying to control pupils. I finally gave in to frustration and told a pupil to sod off . It’s not a phrase that I had ever imagined to be rude. Not in Leeds and not in a Catholic school: you can’t say that . Other pupils chimed in as collective offense amplified my wrong choice of words. I’m still puzzled by their reaction, mainly because the pupils regularly swore in class, though not directly at me. Things calmed down and though I had managed to be rude, I never used the phrase again.   * Fashions change in swearing. In times when delicate sensibilities prevented explicit language, the UK clothes retailer French Connection  replaced their name in shop fronts, billboards and advertising campaigns with the acronym FCUK. ** But you can insult yourself. Sammy Davis Jnr, a popular entertainer and actor, was asked what his handicap was at golf. His reply: “ I’m a one-eyed, Jewish, black person .”