Speed

The arrival of the postman these days nearly always means another bill, or a flyer from someone trying to sell you insurance cover for the pet gerbil you haven't got. since the introduction of mobile phones, text messaging, and email took over the worlds communication the art of writing with ink on paper has become the sole domain of school children and doctors, the fact that in both cases whatever written is barely illegible, probably makes most of us thankful for the cell phone, computer and printer.

It was predicted that the explosion in alternative communication would decrease direct contact with others and a drop in interaction, however talking, sharing views and exchanging ideas has increased in volumes way beyond anyones expectations, and in ways that none of us could have anticipated or even dreamed of just a few years ago.

I started traveling abroad with work about 15 years ago, and on those week long trips we were allowed a single phone call back to our families to say that we had arrived safely. more frequent interaction would have required either computers the size of your average industrial estate, or smoke, a blanket and a high mountain. Soon after this I did a stint in Georgia, USA, this involved spending 3 months or so at a time in a place just around the corner from the dark side of Jupiter called Brunswick, and aside from the initial phone call the only other means of communication was via a 56k dial up modem and email, although as we never had a computer in our home this proved fairly pointless for communicating anything other that telling work that you were still alive, and hadn't spent all of your company expenses - yet.

In contrast I am now able to tell my family when I am about to go to sleep, when i have woken up, what I had for lunch, how bad the taxi driver smelt, and how soft the toilet paper is in the hotel, in fact technology allows us all to record, display and share every second of our day to anyone anywhere in the world, as it happens, and in full colour. Whilst I can not deny helping my son do his maths via msn, as I travel in a taxi somewhere in the middle of Swaziland is useful, or that checking-in online for a flight to allow yourself the luxury of an extra 30 minutes in bed is a great treat. However i do think that this can all go too far, first we had email, then text messaging, instant messaging, blogging and now twittering.

As a blogger myself it may seem hypocritical for me to dispel twittering as a fad or a craze that doesn't have any real merit. However (although it may not always seem like it) I only use email, texts, or instant messaging if I want to tell somebody something, or conversely find something out. You could still argue that blogging in this context is pointless? I suppose, my original purpose was to let family and friends know what I was up to, However i found that I enjoyed writing and have used it as a way to capture what was going on in my life, my thoughts, ideas and at least it gives me something to do at the airport.

I don't twit, or twat or whatever the correct term is, and I don't post pictures of my shoelaces on Facebook. The idea of twittering doesn't fill me with any excitement, knowing the precise time when your next door neighbour has emptied his bowels or brought a new dishcloth, isn't top of my "things to understand before I die" list. I can see the appeal of following a 'celebrity' if that's your bag, but trying to fit my life into 120 words would be a big problem for me, and besides I have enough problems trying to make my blog interesting using 1000+ words each week, let alone making every 5 minutes seem at all worthy of publishing.

So for the moment I will still to my blog, although a couple of things will/have changed recently, the first is that I am slowly defecting to wordpress, after several years of sticking with Blogger, i have grown tired of not being able to access it in China without engaging the type of technology used by the worlds espionage fraternity. I have also had many problems with reading blogger via Internet explorer and having to revert to the more accommodating Mozilla. Which despite being superior to Microsofts offering, isn't as widely used or even known by many people.

The other event is one that I am bursting to tell, just like a small child would be when wishing to tell everyone where the last friend is hiding in a game of hide and seek, or if his brother had just kicked the football through the kitchen window and his burgeoning desire to denounce any responsibility to his parents. Some people in the press have suggested that the event I am talking about can compare with the feeling they had at the birth of their first born, how stupid - it is far more important and emotional than that, and it doesn't require feeding every five minutes, it doesn't smell like the devils armpit and isn't subject to screaming fits.

Of course the event is the introduction of my new new toy, I am writing this blog on the equivalent of Moses tablets of stone - the Apple iPad. Yes I must be crazy to buy into an unproven technology and of course this isn't as revolutionary as we may have all hoped and dreamed of during the longest labour in history, but it is pretty spectacular.

But surely it's just an overweight iPod touch? But that's like saying the Bugatti Veyron is just a faster Fiat Panda, Concorde was just a sleeker Bi-plane or Buckingham Palace is just a large house. the iPod touch and it's brother the iPhone reinvented the mobile phone market, love or hate Apple you cannot deny the impact these products have had on the industry - especially now that everyone is running to try and catch up.

I have had all 3 generations of iPhone and despite the obvious limitations have loved each one, the iPad just does everything the same just bigger and better - ask any women if size matters, and if they say no, they are trying to protect your ego!

With a desire not to sound like an Apple nerd I won't jump into a 5000 word essay on why it's brilliant, but I will sum my views into one word - speed. Any one who has lived with a windows laptop, will know that the boot-up time can feel like passing a kidney stone, as can the time to find a document, or switch between applications. I can now understand why Steve (The Messiah) Jobs couldn't understand the need to run multiple applications at once, he obviously hasn't used one of Mr Gates windows products, if you don't keep your applications all open at the same time, you die of boredom between waiting for one to open up. The introduction of running multiple applications on the next OS 4.0 may make some people happy - I just hope it doesn't kill the ipads single biggest advantage - speed!

Sleep

One of life’s real pleasures is sleep, although for most its not until you have been through the ‘joys’ of parenting that you realise just how precious those 8 hours of slumber really are. Sleep can be overlooked as an inconvenience, getting in the way of our busy lives, interrupting schedules and quality time, we take it for granted and abuse our bodies by preventing what should come naturally.

As an infant you have no recollection and no control (it seems) of when you wake up and subsequently when you wake your parents up. According to research, new born baby’s sleep for 16 hours a day, reducing to 13 hours by the age of 3. I am not sure who investigates, researches and prints such tripe, but my experience suggests that babies don’t sleep - ever, and when they are awake they have some incomprehensible power to suck the energy from their parents with a force greater than that of a collapsing star!

I have suffered from mild insomnia and have therefore been used to only sleeping for 3-4 hours a day for months on end, however even this could not prepare me for the worst form of Nazi/Japanese 2nd World War prisoner of war torture, dished up by the cute bundle of love in the pink bunny suit! If you see a women or a man walking the street splattered in food, excrement, and puke, looking as if they haven’t slept for 6 weeks, with creased clothes, un-cut, uncombed hair, odd socks and grey lifeless skin – don’t worry its not an invasion of zombies its merely the result of having a baby in the family.

Things change as you grow from a baby / infant into a child, this is when your parents send you to bed when you’re wide awake, and wake you up when you’re in deep sleep – the value of sleep when your young is not necessarily recognised or appreciated. Sleep gets in the way of fun, in the way of playing with friends, riding your bike, building dens and generally enjoying life. The fact that your parents pull you out of bed with a full 5 minutes before school starts amazes most kids, as does the need to shout the time every 30 seconds just in case you never heard the 120 decibel scream the first 18 times. I do remember being a child’s (honest), and I do remember being pulled out of bed by my toenails as my parents tried to extract me from the pit of foul teenage smells. With the resurgence in vampire movies this has become even harder, my son is only 12 and thinks he is one of the Nosferatu, staying up so late we pass on the stairs – me off to work, him off to bed.

As you get older and enter your late teens, sleep is only essential for recovery from hangovers, relationship disasters, and other activities that will endanger my ‘child safe’ website status. Previously the role of university dorms, bed sits and flat shares, it has moved more mainstream family homes, as more and more ‘young adults’ stay home festering and leaching on their parents goodwill rather than risk spending a Saturday nights money on rent or mortgage repayments. Acceptable and almost expected behaviour in your own (or shared) abode is becoming the norm in family households. Including the half naked friends wandering around at all times, the drive festooned with all sorts of scrap iron dressed in spoilers and GTI badges alongside the ‘man’ of the houses Volvo, watching your utility bills treble despite spending more time away from home, and resigning yourself to the fact that you will never find any food in the cupboard despite spending the entire Royal Navy’s canteen budget each week. The dream of repossessing your home, your bed and most importantly some sleep, like the dreams of retirement have to be shelved and put back to a point where they cross and happen sometime after death.

As you hit middle age, you find that sleep is addictive, although somewhat untouchable. I crave for 8 hours deep sleep, and then find myself guilty after only 6. Panic sets in that you are being selfish and ‘sleeping’ your life away. I get out of bed at 6.00am every weekday morning, weekend, bank holiday even whilst on vacation it takes about the same amount of time for me to start to relax, as it does for the early morning start to catch the plane back. Your body becomes conditioned to rising early, and if my father is anything to go by, I have another 20-30 years of this. That is not to say you don’t grab a sly afternoon snooze once in a while, my favourite is to snuggle down on a winters Sunday afternoon following a large lunch and a copy of Harry Potter or Pirates of the Caribbean on the TV – both instant insomnia cures, not that they are bad films, just that my ability to watch a film longer than 36 seconds without snoring is legendary.

Grabbing 20 minutes on a Weekend afternoon, between flights or train journeys is like earning a bonus, buying something decadent or receiving an email from someone thought lost. Those small moments of pleasure when your snoring causes other airline passengers to ask flight attendants to check the aircraft status with for fear of a mechanical disaster, the awkward looks thrown at you from the train passenger next to you as they wipe the remains of your dribble from their shoulder, and the groans from your children as you jump up and declare that you were only resting your eyes as Hermione Granger turns Jack Sparrow into a toad.

As all of my anecdotes and stories recount my times in China, it would be wrong of me to ignore one story that links in with this blog quite well. I remember travelling with a group of senior Chinese colleagues between Nanjing and Beijing, accompanied by my trusty assistant, translator and friend (Hu Jin), we boarded the plane, took our seats and were being served noodles for breakfast before you could say “why is everyone wearing 15 layers of clothes, and asking for the cabin temperature to be increased”. Soon after breakfast the rest of my colleagues (about 8 people in all) kept their tray tables down and proceeded to lean forward and rest their heads on the trays falling to sleep soon after. I had seen this many times before in China, on planes, trains and automobile journeys. It seemed that in every possible circumstance the Chinese would take the opportunity to rest their eyes and recharge their battery’s. I put this down to a harsh life and poor diet, rather than just being lazy. What I was surprised at was my assistant’s insistence that I do likewise and sleep for the next 30 to 40 minutes despite not being tired, when asking why? I was told that taking ‘dead’ time out to sleep shows that you are being efficient with the company’s time, and that you must be working very hard at other times to need the rest. I just continued to pick the weevils out of the bread roll served with the noodles.

I can t really finish my journey of sleep through life by talking about how sleep affects you in old’er age, as I haven’t quite reached it yet. However If I read the most recent research into sleep from the University’s of Warwick and Naples I will get all the sleep I need soon. The research conducted across Europe, Asia and the US suggests that people sleeping less than 6 hours per day are 12% more likely to suffer from premature death. Looks like I had better get my head down!

Patriotism

When did patriotism become a dirty word? I remember a time when celebrating your national colours, a patron saint or your national heritage was taught in schools, celebrated in the streets and sung about at sporting arenas.  In England, St Georges Crosses were displayed in shop windows, on top of flagpoles and moulded into plastic bowler hats.  They showed a love of the Queen, a tribute to those lost in war and a large chunk of pride for a country synonymous with stiff upper lips, self-righteousness and ‘British-ness’.   The majority of people these days would rather stab themselves in the eye with a sharp stick than wear an St Georges cross hat.   Displaying the national flag on ones personage has become a symbol of thugishness’, racism and ‘chaveness’.

This phenomenon seems to be fairly recent; I seem to remember that it was still ok to display a flag - during the Silver Jubilee, Diana’s ill fated wedding, celebrating Torvill & Dean winning gold, the Falklands War, Botham’s 1986-87 Ashes series, Jonny Wilkinson playing football to win the rugby world cup in 2003, and probably the last time it was respectable to support England - the 2006 European football championships. These episodes in history cut across boundaries of class, culture and social standing, those that knew nothing about Rugby enjoyed Jonny’s biceps, and millions of people celebrated the works of the 19th century composer Joseph-Maurice Ravel without even knowing it.  In fact I remember proudly displaying a St Georges Cross from a flag pole at our home in Shanghai – that was until the local Gestapo intervened and demanded we take it down – the Gestapo in question were actually a family of Welshies who lived nearby and hated the fact that I hung a flag that reminded them of the English who had invaded their small hamlet in the valley’s by buying all the houses for holiday homes, either that or they just hated the English!

Of course you may have guessed that I am talking about the flag of England, rather than the flag of Great Britain, when asked abroad unusually I say that I am British first then English second.  I say unusually because I understand that the Scots, Irish and Welsh will always claim they come from their respective enclave before (if at all) saying that they are British.

Our neighbours have always come across as more patriotic than the English and I am not so sure if this denigration of a country’s flag as happened to our neighbours? Not the most independent or unbiased of newspapers, The Daily Mail recently published a survey that showed the English as the least patriotic people in Europe, I am sure the survey was intended to spur on public feeling and the headline grabbing sentiment certainly made me read on, what it actually goes onto say is that most people are concerned about displaying their patriotism for fear of being thought of as racists.

Adopted by the BNP, xenophobic pit-bull terrier breeding, lager swilling, tattoo wearing, beer gut spawning, shaven head wearing, Sun newspaper reading, football hooligans, and all other far right crack heads. The cross of St George has become associated with all that’s wrong with England and distanced from all that is great.   In 2008 St George's Day parades were banned by local authorities in Bradford and Sandwell in the West Midlands on the grounds they could cause trouble or were 'unhealthy' and 'tribal'.

It seems that being patriotic is not a desired virtue in modern England, as with politics leaning too far left, too far right or even having a strong opinion is frowned upon.  Patriotism shows passion, a strong strength of feeling, and belonging, living with principals, history and a sense of knowing where you have come from. 

Perhaps this is why patriotism is out of favour, like British politics everyone is now too scarred to say what he or she mean, take affirmative action or make difficult decisions, too worried that it may harm their chances from getting into office.  But then is this so surprising?  Putting yourself up for government is like attending a job interview, you seek to understand what the interviewer is after, and alter your answers accordingly, reading the situation is key, and how far your willing to abandon your beliefs, ethics and standards is I guess a measure of how much you want (or need) the job, as much of a measure of your principals.

Which brings me onto the recent political farce in the UK, despite one party receiving a resounding majority – that is a majority in everyone else’s definition of the word, we cant decide that it should govern alone.  So now we have to have a yard sale of policies to try and gain a coalition between both sides of the force.  Akin to a coalition between George Bush and Sadam Hussain, Hitler and Ghandi, or Kate Perry and Lily Allen, it should never happen and wouldn’t unless the protagonists were power hungry, job seeking hypocrites who would dance with the devil in order to get what they want.  Still we may at least get a Bank Holiday for good old St George as stated in both party’s policy documents – or will we?

Grappa

Monday meant my first flight since the Icelandic Volcano fiasco, not sure whether the removal of the restrictions on flying were due to a shift in the wind, reduction in tectonic activity or simply Willie Walsh convincing the faceless authorities that if they didn’t lift the ban soon – there wouldn’t be any airlines left to fly any as they would have all gone out of business. The flight itself was the normal encasement in aluminum, steel, fuel and flammable seats, sitting next to someone who believed they have paid for the whole row and saved showering until they landed, today’s destination Venice. The company I work for has some fairly prosaic plant locations around Europe, one that isn’t, is located just an hours drive from Venice in a small town called Bassano del Grappa, famous for its covered bridge the Ponte degli Alpini, its cathedral and of course its proximity to the Grappa mountains which the Italian national drink Grappa gets its name.

Grappa seems to be brewed from the residue of diesel refinerarys, mixed with turpentine and caustic soda. Like most national drinks; Irelands - Potcheen, Greeces – Ouzo, Chinas – BeiJiu and Scotland’s – Irn Bru. They all taste similar to licking the inside of a petrol tank – whilst it’s on fire. Not sure why they become national drinks, perhaps its similar to why the Beetle or the Mini became national cars – they were cheap, easy to make, readily available and would probably cause blindness, rotten livers and ultimately death – a great way of controlling population growth. Whatever it is they are forced onto weary travelers until they empty their wallets and the insides of their stomachs.

I had visited our Bassano plant several times before, but had started to think that it was located deep in a valley or even in a cave. Having only ever visited in the winter months, I would arrive at night to a hotel 50 yards from the entrance to the factory, and leave via Taxi to the airport the following night. Such is the glamour and delight of international travel, you rarely get an opportunity to enjoy the places you visit, and the only local culture you savour is normally the inside of a Taxi cab, hotel room or works canteen.

I was there for a conference in which I would give a presentation on a topic, that if you had asked me to give say 10, 5 or maybe even 1 year ago I would have laughed at you, shot another peasant and moved on.
The subject has become something that I find myself feeling more and more interested and passionate about, at first I thought it was a virus or I had been subject to some kind of subliminal experiment, my mind seems to have been warped, my beliefs torn and shattered. Everything I held dear to me has been turned upside down and inside out.

At heart I am a result of, and a rabid follower of consumerism, I collect cars, computers, watches, homes and air miles like most people collect socks. I had no interest in how many 4 year olds it took to skin kittens, so that I could have my favorite trim on the seats in my 14-litre Gas Guzzler. The sweat shops of Vietnam, where one armed lepers pick the individual hairs from warty toads, to provide warty toad flavored drinks to westerners never kept me awake, nor did the fact that they slept on razors, whilst being whipped with the tails from those pussycats made me donate to charities set up to look after their orphaned children. However, here I was preparing to give a speech on a Corporate Ethics and Social Responsibility. Had I gone mad? Had I caught some kind of disease? Had all my indiscretions come back to haunt me? The times I had thrown good food away, left the TV on whilst asleep, and buried my right foot firmly into the car mats whilst watching the MPG meter go into single figures, had they started to prey on my conscience? Or had I turned into the world’s greatest hypocrite?

Well I am not sure which it is but I genuinely feel that I (we) have an obligation to ‘do our bit’, and whilst profit, EBITDA and shareholder value keeps Warty Toad flavored drinks on my kids table, it shouldn’t be at the detriment of those one arm lepers. Not only do I find myself at the recycling plant each Saturday, I am now writing about ethics and even addressing a bunch of what could be considered as the most ecologically inept, 'rip-the-shirt-off-your-back' purchasing buyers, that would shanghai their own mothers to a Nigerian pirate if it meant cutting the price of a part by 0.00001 grouts. I wont write too much more at this point as revealing my tree hugging, sandal wearing, Mother Teresa worshiping ‘outage’ has made me feel light headed and need of a lie down – or could that have been the Grappa?

News

Three issues dominated the headlines this week, all of them fairly big stories and each significant for different reasons.  The largest of the stories was of course the ongoing war between the UK and Iceland, not content with emptying what was left in our children’s piggy banks they decide to perform the single largest act of Eco-terrorism the world has ever seen.  The grounding of the entire UK airspace for over 3 days (so far) has only ever happened twice before, once during 9/11 and during the second world war – when let’s face it the only planes flying then were painted green and had Browning machine guns bolted to their sides.  The unpronounceable volcano (Eyjafjallajökull) which translates as “up yours international airlines” has decided to retaliate for the millions of tons of CO2 spewed put by airlines each year and the melting the glaziers that entomb the country. 

The second big story was the inaugural Televised political debate between the three main parties contesting this year’s election in the UK.  At this point I have to admit that I have never voted before, which I know is deplorable and would cause all of those that died for democracy and fended off the Nazi’s all those years ago to be spinning in their graves, but since Margaret Thatcher’s era – what is the point? Not since the ‘Iron’ ladies days have we had any variation on a theme.  Political parties have merged, policies have become mirrored and the leaders have morphed into clones.

Gone are the days when one party stood for the Gentry, One stood for the workers and one stood for the trees.  Their policies were divided into more money for the rich and keep the dirty rotten foreigners out; higher salaries for clip board holding union officials and keep the dirty foreigners out, and more land for the trees and vegetables rights.  These days it is hard to identify differences between the parties, the old face of socialism, communism,  conservativeness, fascism, liberalism and capitalism have all morphed into parties politics that bend with public opinion, relying more on Big Brother style polls, public relation campaigns and hair gel. 

This week’s televised debate has done nothing but dilute the differences between the parties even further. The fact that viewing figures were comparable with ‘X-Factor’ or ‘Big Brother’, could be seen as a positive move in engaging more peoples interest in politics, however we all know that the reasons for watching were more to do with seeing if Gordon Brown ‘s facial twitch was still as pronounced , or would the Botox under David Camerons eyes droop at the last minute.  The potential for one of the 3 contenders to swear on national TV, drop a bullock, or be belittled by their opponent was too much of a temptation to be missed.

In reality what we found was 2 and a half men professionally groomed, rehearsed and surprisingly respectful of each other – but then why wouldn’t they be?  To be respectful is to walk down the middle line; to criticise or disagree strongly would be to object to at least one potential voters view.  To be a contender you need to support everyone’s football teams with a passion, like all kinds of food, have no allegiance over Coronation Street or Eastenders, and see the virtues in Lady Gaga’s lyrics.  Oh and also support constraint whilst seeing the need to invest, making harsh decisions albeit protecting jobs, reducing emissions, but not stopping progress and supporting basic values whilst recognising independence – basically you need to have more faces than a Deltoidal Hexecontahedron (look it up!).

Which is why the only differences we now have is how they look, and what this debate has done has refined politics into facial features rather than policy, just imagine if it was Tony Blair instead of Gordon Brown! We would have been introduced by three individuals from the Satchi and Satchi school of politics, each groomed within an inch of their lives, hair gelled millimeter perfect, teeth shiny enough to advertise tooth paste and ties so straight they must have been painted onto their crisp white shirts. This isn’t so much of a debate, more of a beauty pageant.  Not surprising then that Dicky Clegg won hands down over corny Cameron and Bland Brown, forget politics show us those dimples. 

The final piece of news had a traumatic effect on me and millions like me, news that caused suicidal tendencies to surface and moments of extreme depression.   For over a year reports emerged that would change our lives, at first it started with rumors on the internet, these developed into accusations and counter claims, sneak peeks and spy shots.  After all of this the messiah of modern day technology finally announced the second coming on January 27th 2010.

Steve Jobs put is all out of our misery and announced that Apple would launch the iPad in April.  Ever since the birth of my iPhone, I had longed for her to have a brother or sister, the announced pregnancy in January meant a birth in April; this led to sleepless nights, anguished days and untold accessory preparation.  Then as the delivery came closer we heard that they had got the conception date wrong, and we wouldn’t be receiving our little packages of technological joy until the end of May.

Too much to bear I hurried to find an importer and scoured eBay.  Sure there were plenty of them for sale, it wasn’t the Jack Sparrow sellers that but me off, nor the over inflated prices, but the thought of leaving the handling of something so precious to Fedex or Parcel Force caused the most concern.  This led to only one alternative, I would have to travel to the states to collect and hand deliver back to the UK, of course the price would be extreme, but the use of all of those airmiles collected would mean it was only time that would be given – and after all what price can be put against delivering a new life?  So decision made, time booked off, cash prepared ...... yes you guessed it those bloody Icelandic's!

Dreams

Through the medium of television, cinema and books we all know that the American dream is an ethos centred around the virtues of an “all men are created equal” philosophy, it goes on to emphasize that the pursuit of happiness, life and liberty cross all boundary’s of sex, colour or creed and that we are all born equal.




I guess from around the word, America is seen as the land of opportunity, a land where success has no limits and streets are paved with gold.  Where a poor 2nd generation immigrant can become president and ruler of the free world – or something like that. 

The American dream is centred on home ownership, as is the British Dream of ’A man’s home is his castle”   Although to be honest I am not sure what a ‘British’ dream is? As an ethos, it probably doesn’t have the same basis as an American dream; but as an aspiration I guess it’s about owning a corner shop, becoming a train driver or playing football for the team of your choice Vs becoming a barrister, classical musician or ‘something’ in the City whichever path you achieve or desire is still firmly divided by which school you went to, and what family you were born in to – as well as colour, creed and sexual denomination.
 

Of course there are always the examples that break the rules, and those of us who try to ignore precedents and prejudice, but anyone who thinks it no longer exists is either a naive plum sucking, white, male, public school taught toff, who is eighteenth in line to the throne of Hampshire or a politician or both.

Discrimination is still rife, be it class, colour, creed or what football team you support.  The one thing we hold onto is that the belief that despite where you come from, you can make a difference by where you live.  The right side of the river, a certain street, school catchment area, postal code or even council tax bracket can enable you to at least rub shoulders with the upper echelons of society – albeit with a couple of caveats, the first – whilst you can live next door, you will never be adopted – regardless of how much money you have, how deep your St Tropez tan is or how big the ‘rims’ on your shiny new car are.  When your relatives arrive in their 1986 model Serra, sporting florescent pink boob tubes ripped jeans and a bottle of Black Tower, the neighbours curtains will twitch and mumbles of “this area has gone downhill” will echo across the manicured lawns and wrought iron entrance gates.  Perhaps this first point isn’t really unexpected and has been well documented before, what I didn’t expect was the second foe par made by those with enough money (or credit!) to find access behind walled community’s, discrete hamlets and secret enclaves of prime real estate. 

On my return to the UK, the thought of buying a property filled me with dread.  I had spent the last half a dozen years renting accommodation in China, and to be honest thoroughly enjoyed it –no maintenance, a wide choice, limited commitment and need to tie up half the national debt of Greece at exorbitant rates of interest.  So when looking to move back to the UK and not knowing what was going to happen next in my life, I decided to rent rather than conform to buying a property. 

The pressure to buy is everywhere, I don’t necessarily believe in conspiracy theories and wouldn’t suggest that our crazed obsession with making a financial commitment to a faceless banking organisation  that will invest your life savings into a scheme for milking sparrows, then require you to sell a kidney, a left toe and your first born so that they can continue to slalom down the black run at St Moritz on gold skis, is all part of one gigantic government George Orwell inspired conspiracy to keep us all working 600 hours and eat boiled liver 6 days a week.  

 

My parents worry that I will end up on the street if I don’t buy quickly, and every friend, foe and stranger will go at lengths to tell me that renting is dead money and that I am an evil father for not providing a ‘permanent’ home for kith and kin.  This leads me onto what is the 2nd downside of renting,  I am considered a second class citizen, a lower life, a lesser being.  When moving into my million pound former footballers abode, I felt proud, important and like I had finally made it.  I had a gravel drive, a house name rather than a number, bits of wrought iron, even a fountain.   The ceilings were low; beams were exposed and taps gold plated. 

Friends would be invited to cocktail evenings, and lesser relatives not informed of our new address, the feeling was amazing – until... we received a visit from the Lady of the Manor, with a bottle of expensive wine and with a nose so sharp you could open letters with it.  Along with her welcome gift came a – “I understand your just visiting us, and only renting – how long before you leave and buy somewhere?” said with such distain that all of the pride and delight of moving to a new home instantly disappeared, ever since I have been made to feel as welcome as a puss ridden facial boil on prom night.  She is not alone, mention the fact that you are renting and you’re treated as an escaped paedophile, which once raped a horse and swore at the Queen mother.



I put the fact that people were aggressive to my bizarre decision to rent over buy, because they were jealous.  I had a bank account full of unreleased cash from the house that I had sold some years earlier, my weekends weren’t spent with tirelessly trying to peel, plaster, prime, paint and preserve homes that they had mortgaged the next 25 years wages on, and I was able to take a choice of home based on how glamorous, ostentatious and individual it is rather than how practical, sensible or conservative it was.  Not worrying about resale value, appreciation, depreciation and who would pay the mortgage if another baby came or if I lost my job is a fantastic relief of stress, anguish and fear.

However, before everyone runs out, sells their home, deposits the money in a not so high interest account and moves into a national trust managed 16th century  castle. Beware, it has its downsides, choice is limited due to our passion with buying property, landlords vary between Sweeney Todd and Peter Mandleson, and when you read “security deposit”, read “one off payment never to be seen again” based on the fact that you will have worn the thread out on the carpets by half a nanometre, and have therefore waived any right to reimbursement.

But worst of all you will receive a recorded letter through the post at some point, for me it was yesterday when I was informed that my landlord wanted to sell his property and I would need to vacate by the end of the month. 

Perhaps buying is a good idea after all.

Easter

Whilst living in China I wrote about the varied and sometimes strange local festivals and celebrations that occurred during the year.  These included such delights as ‘Tomb Sweeping Day’, ‘Dragon Boat Day’ and of course Chinese New Year. So I thought it only right and proper to write about the reason why I am sitting here at home in the UK feeling rather sick – Easter.


If you were a visitor to the UK during this period you would be forgiven for thinking....

Easter is a festival to celebrate the creation of probably the most important, widely worshipped and infinitely desired icon of popular culture – chocolate.  At this time of the year millions of people purchase billions of pounds worth of cocoa based products to celebrate the foundation of the church of Chocolate.  A religion spanning thousands of years with origins based in central Mexico and the Aztecs.  Born of the Cacao tree it was hailed as “The Food of The Gods” (Theobroma cacao in Latin), a product with powers to heal, to cure, to invigorate and to ultimately corrupt.

"The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue.

A cup of this precious drink [cocoa] permits a man

to walk for a whole day without food."
Montezuma II

(1502-1520)

John Cadbury

The word of Chocolate soon spread across the oceans, across cultures and into the hearts of millions, its addictive quality’s quickly corrupted and consumed populations.  Disciples sprang up everywhere, including John Cadbury, Milton Hershey, Franklin Mars, and Henri Nestle (Founders of Cadbury, Hershey, Mars and Nestle respectfully) they all increased its popularity through propaganda and the creation of ‘Chocolate Churches’ or confectionery stores.  Soon we would all become devout followers.


The creation of chocolate effigies in the shape of coins, eggs, bars of gold and stars are used at various periods of the year to remind us how important chocolate has become.   We cease work, school and play to celebrate chocolate, we share amongst friends and family, offer as presents and symbols of love, lust and affection.  Movies, Books and videos are created in its name,  it is all consuming and drives children to hunger, parents to despair and dentists to the sports car dealers.
Easter is one such time that we celebrate the greatness of chocolate, formed into egg shapes to represent new life, we gorge ourselves on high calorie, high sweetness brown parcels of delight. 

The tradition started early in the 19th century and was perfected by John Cadbury in 1875.  Mr Cadbury born in 1801 in Birmingham, to Richard and Elizabeth Cadbury, become a disciple for millions of children and adults.  From humble beginnings, with doubters, and critics, he came to inspire Roald Dahl to write the ‘bible’ of the Chocolate world – ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, a book expelling the virtues of chocolate excess and worshipped by chocolate lovers across the world.  Millions of people travel thousands of miles to visit the Mecca for chocolate, Bourneville in Birmingham.  A shrine to Cadbury, his family and the divine teachings of this great man, here are some facts and figures to consider:

* On average, each person in Britain eats approx. 10.2kg of chocolate per year.
* The UK chocolate market was worth £2.36 billion in 2009
* Approximately 80 million chocolate eggs are sold annually in the UK.
* The most popular chocolate egg worldwide is Cadbury's Creme Egg, they first went on sale in 1971, and now sell over 200 million each year.
* Easter chocolate sales make up 10% of Britain's annual spending on chocolate.
*  £280million was spent on Easter eggs in the 4 days leading up to Easter 2008.
 

Proof indeed that the tradition of celebrating chocolate at this time of the year is still strong, and that our devotion to this biblical product does not wane even after thousands of years of human development.

Of course some would say that Easter is about the resurrection of some bloke called Jesus – but try telling that to a seven year old!