williamonthehill

Olympic Flame Relay - Leg reports

London 6 April:

This leg was never seriously in doubt even though there were two or three moments when one's heart was in mouth. The two teams were unevenly matched from the beginning. The Metro Police are  at the top of their game perhaps not surprisingly. They are used to the regular exercise of crowd control in the Nation's Capital and they really are very good at it. What we should be truly proud of is how so very amateur they appear when compared with some of the other contestants in this competion. Never a scent of CS Gas, nor sight of a baton, a riot shield, a side arm or a water cannon.

Sure we saw some rough struggles and a lot of very poorly tailored uniforms. That 'Blue Peter' moment was truly a moment when hearts stood still. The opposition was very good and competed quite hard. The plucky little Tibetans are due a special mention for semingly remaining polite even while manifesting great anger.

I would comment that the Police might have done even better if they had not had to contend with the so called inner circle of the special Guardians of the Flame. At times they sowed nothing but confusion and at other times they acted like cheap thugs, lashing out and kicking at any demonstrator who dared to venture close. This was both uneccessary and in clear breach of the code of amateurism so gallantly upheld by the Metro Police. 

But as the flame entered the O2 Arena we knew that the Metropolitan Police had won the day yet again. A magnificent game and one which makes me quietly confident that Team GB will take this competion yet.

Paris, 7 April

Sad to say but today's leg was never very far from descending to farce. The hard faces of the Corps Republican Securite even with their magnificently tailored uniforms and their sense of Elan, so very French could not conceal the marked lack of enrthusiasm and the boredom with which they greeted their task today. The CRS are used to having rings run around them, the good students of Paris have been doing so for forty years. The very fact that the arrest figure given was a mere five says it all. The cRS were clearly not into their task.

Tonight rumours are circulating that the CRS 'threw the match', thanks to a rather mixed message from the French Government which manged to both uphold the Beijing Olympics, and condemn the Chinese Government for its behaviour in Tibet. We shall see what Monsiieur Sarkozi does at Beijing.

The Olympic flame is due to arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday. Already the protesters are gathering. We shall see how San Francisco's finest will handle their leg.

Olympic Flame Relay competion

So far, with two sections already completed, Team GB is ahead.

London - 18 arrests, flame protected successfully

Paris - 5 arrests, flame put out 4 times.

Early days yet and we shall see what happens in San Francisco on Wednesday but I am quietly confident that Team GB (Metro Police) may yet pull this competion off. Our first Gold!

Mugging

Here is a further comment on New Labour and the breakdown of society. O' all right this is about my son getting mugged.

Yes he was, last Wednesday afternoon in the Horniman Gardens. Him and his mates were held up at knifepoint by a gang of blackboys. The usual things were taken - phones, MP3 players, bus passes, money. The Police responded very quickly but they do not get into my good books today. Asking the victims about the describing the perpetrators one of the Police Officers apparently commented words to the effect: if they were about the same height and build as yourselves why didn't you just have a fight with them? If you had beaten them up they would not have taken your stuff.

Yes, right Mr. Policeman. And it is true that you do not require 'A' Levels to join the Police. What would have happened if a bunch of esentially 'nice', well mannered, middle class white kids had tangled with these other kids? Who are not 'nice', not well mannered, actually quite feral, amoral, armed with knives and who knows what else.

Catholic Church "To Blame" for HIV Infections in Africa say Tory Peers.

In a debate in the House of Lords yesterday (Thursday 3rd April) two Tory Lords attacked the Catholic Church for failing to stop the spread of AIDS.

Lord Fowler said: " [it was] Extraordinary that the Roman Catholic Church can do so much in dealing with the casualties of AIDS... but so little to prevent those casualties from coming about."

Baroness Flather accused the Church of breaching human rights no less. She went on to say;

" If it [the Church] were to say, 'use Condoms', I think we would see a change instantaneously"

This does prove my thesis that most of the incumbents of the Upper House are flakey indeed where they aren't actually Ga-Ga.

Baroness Flather is a regular anti-catholic bigot. She has spoken in similiar vein several times in the past year on this topic, and she usually ends up invoking the Human Rights Act against the Church.

Of course both peers are very badly informed on this issue. The African country with perhaps the highest rate of HIV infection is South Africa, which country also has the lowest population of Catholics (7%). So, tell me 'Me Lawd' how the Catholic Church can be blamed for the situation in South Africa? Why should the average non-catholic give a single moments thought to what the Catholic Church might say about HIV?

Uganda on the other hand has a higher Catholic population (34%) and the Health Ministry has invoked the 'ABC' programme which argues for sexual abstinence as well as Condoms. The infection rates in Uganda are the lowest in Africa.

I intend to write to these two rather ignorant Peers concerning these matters. I urge others to do the same.

Armoured Harriet

Harriet Harman wears Kevlar body armour to tour her own constituency. Whoa! There! Isn't she one of the New Labour harridans who lambastes us ordinary folk all the time about how the crime rate is falling year-on-year? Doesn't her colleague the Home Secretary tell us how safe it is to live in London and other big cities? So, what was she scared of? Why did I so not believe her self justifying (self righteous?) interview.

As a Londoner what am I to think of Harriet's stunt? What message am I to read into this? As is usual, the message I take from this stunt is the one that perhaps she never intended (or perhaps she did?). That she, one of the governing elite is worth more than I. I mean, her life is clearly worth more than mine.

Today I had to go out and see a highly disturbed young man who, last night had tried to strangle his own mum. I visited him at home. He would only sit in the kitchen (all those knives). Its my job. I am a mental health social worker. It doesn't happen every day, but it does happen some days. My boss doesn't think I am worth that much to him that he wants to give me a Kevlar vest. I don't know of any social worker who is issued with such kit. But we social workers are not just walking the streets (and, no, I never feel endangered on the streets during office hours) but, actually going into people's houses, sometimes challenging our clients, telling them things they don't want to hear, telling them we are going to take their kids away, send them to a mental hospital they don't want to go to. And, no, the Police don't always attend  even when we ask them to. In people's houses (all those knives), in their spaces where they feel (perhaps) particularly invulnerable. Yes, a few social workers have died doing their duty. I don't know of any Labour MP who has ever died in similiar circumstances.

So, who is she kidding? No, I don't like Harriet Harman. Never have. But I expect the feeling is mutual.

Sunday Evening Rudeness

I am confessing to a moment of unchristian behaviour. Earlier this evening I was waiting for a 176 or 197 bus at the Dulwich Plough. I waited ages, at least twentyfive minutes. The stop was empty when I got there. People and buses came and went but the bus that I wanted failed to appear.

Anyway, a number 12 bus pulled up and a few people got off just as a 176 bus came down Lordship Lane. At last! The 176 bus pulled into the stop and I got on the bus, thinking nothing of it except that I had waited a long time. Anyway, as I shuffled down the crowded bus, making my way to the stairs to the upper deck an older black lady just behind me starts to rant at me about how rude I am to get on the bus ahead of her. Pardon me? Rude? Moi? I am rather afraid that I let her have it and gave her more than a piece of my mind, pointing out how long I had waited, how I had been the only person at thr stop when I changed buses, etc.. I am afraid that I got treated to the 'sucking teeth' treatment, as well as the shaking heads and the odd 'snidey' comment about "White people" being this and that.

Magical chattering mobile phones

The announcement earlier this week that airlines have been given permission to allow the use of mobile phones on flights, made me groan.  As I have stated below, I am not a frequent flier and with the imminent arrival of mobile phones I am less likely to want to fly. I can think of nothing more horrifying than the prospect of being locked in a confined space with no way of escaping until the door is opened at the arrival airport with a person less than 10 mm from my own ear, shouting inane 'chatter' into his or her piece of grey plastic. At least on a train I can walk away. The bus is similar, but in an aeroplane one is a prisoner. As someone who feels that sharing germs on an aeroplane is bad enough, the prospect of  sharing someone else's phone chatter feels me with absolute dread.

The mobile phone seems to free people from all normal commonsense and etiquette. For a start, most people have a need to shout - What's that?!!! Dinner! No! I'm on a train (plane, bus). The contents of most people's mobile phone chatter seems to consist of post-mortems; " so he said, and then I said, then he, then I,... The more embarrassing post mortems are frequently to be heard on the bus or the train on Monday morning. When Helen phones her mate Cathy and gives a blow-by-blow account of everything that happened from the Friday night dancing around the handbags, up until Sunday night's good night sexual manoeuvrings. The most embarrassing such call I was ever forced to listen to was on a bus. The 14 year old schoolgirl had a voice like a megaphone and she had no shame, or not much that was obvious. Some of the contents of the phone call would have curled your hair.I will spare you the details.

Many people feel their mobiles are a type of magic totem or fetish. Research studies tell us that very few owners of cell phones understand the technology behind them. I swear that many people actually, really believe that they function by means of magic. Wherever one goes one can see people gazing into their phone screens and scrolling through their address books. I never know whether people do this in order to validate themselves in some way - "what a good and popular person I am; see, 150 numbers"; or are they looking desperately for someone to phone so they Can 'chatter'. I was once behind a middle-aged couplee in a department store who were looking at buying a cordless telephone ("so we can chat in the garden") The wife turned her nose up at one model since it could store "only 200" numbers. "We want at least 500" she said in her rather shrill voice. Why? You can't tell me that this woman, or even this couple, have 500 friends they want to talk to every day. Most of us, even those of us popular, have anywhere near that amount of 'friends' in real life.Is this an indication of the loneliness that most people feel most of the time? Loneliness and insecurity.

I think that what fuels the need to just 'chatter' in as loud a voice as possible is  so as to drown out that negative self-talking that most of us hear most of the time. To drown out our own chatter and to break down that sense of feeling lonely and feeling unimportant.

Mediocrity 1 - Excellence 0

Who has not watched the very public fiasco that has been the Terminal 5 story since Thursday and has not felt sorry for the members of the travelling public who have suffered?  I am not a frequent flier and so can afford to feel smug. I do not intend to pass through Terminal 5 any day soon.

What has struck me about what I have heard or read about this story is how it illustrates very well a thesis of mine which I have been working up for a few years. I have a very strong belief that Great Britain Plc is actually under the governance of the mediocre. Once upon a time we were told that the country was governed, managed and taught by a meritocracy. This was back in the days when we were governed by a man who smoked a pipe and spent his family holidays in the Scilly Isles. I actually think that Harold Wilson was right. It was the time when a bright boy or girl could go to the local Grammar school and then get a government grant to go on to University. It was indeed the time of the meritocracy and these Grammar school types entered into Academia, the civil service, the city and business. The country did all right by them on the whole.

Now I detect a change and not for the better. I am not sure that the change took place solely under the governance of New Labour. I think this tendency towards mediocrity began before 1997 and indeed, was probably detectable by those who had eyes before the end of the 1980's.

When I look about me at our public services and our financial institutions what I see at the highest levels of those institutions and organisations is mediocre, even very poor management and leadership (actually, in most situations leadership just isn't there).

I have listened to Willy Walsh chair of BA on several occasions now. He neither inspires nor impresses. Indeed, he seems to be one of those creatures on whom I ponder and think: how did you get your job? He is the Chair of BA and yet he barely acknowledges his own failure to lead this project (Terminal 5) to a successful conclusion, nor does he seem willing to admit that, yes, just perhaps the project management of this huge and important project was not what it should have been.

The failures are many and great. This is probably not even the place to unpack the issue and I am not privy to the whole story. I rely on the media but I have no doubt that some of the insiders would tell you things that would make your hair curl. But lets look at what is now in the public domain. As I understand it BA was handed Terminal 5 nearly six months ago. Yet, if the media is correct, there have been no major test's of the facilities, rehearsals of the tasks nor the recruitment of the necessary numbers of staff to cover the jobs to be done. It appears that Willie Walsh was going to take Terminal 5 into full operation with (pretty much) the same staffing levels in the organisation as he had before Terminal 5 became operational. What was the project management team thinking? Anyone with commonsense will know that Computer dependent  projects will have faults and errors. That is usually why you build into the project some 'proving' and 'refining' time. And, and here is a simple thing - the Architect might think it is very cool to minimise on signage but, on Thursday it led to complete confusion and panic when staff brought in from the other terminals couldn't find their way to the posts where they were meant to be. Oh, and no one had sat down to work out how many cars and vehicles could pass through the car park entrance in a given period. There was much confusion, congestion and frustration caused because staff couldn't get into the car park quick enough, and the lack of signage confused the work force.

I say that this is a pretty mediocre show by British Airways and as well as making BA a laughing stock, it also makes GB Plc a laughing stock. It is inevitable that we should now have opinion formers and newspaper editorials looking worryingly across to the eastern part of London and worrying about whether we actually will be able to deliver on the Olympics.

The story of the L'Arche Communities

I promised a few weeks ago to post something about L'Arche communities. Here is something I wrote last year and which was published in Catholic Life magazine.

A Sign to the Downtrodden - The L’Arche Communities

The names Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux will not attract instant recognition. Who are they you will ask? Raphael and Philippe were two middle-aged men with intellectual impairments (we would say; ’learning disabilities’) who were befriended by a quite extraordinary French Canadian man who knew he had a call from God to make a difference to our world. That man was Jean Vanier, ex Royal Naval Officer, son of a Governor-General of Canada and a Catholic who was on fire with the love of God. In September 1964 Raphael, Philippe and Jean moved into a house in a small village, Trosly_Breuil, near Compeigne, France. They lived together as three friends and slowly, as they grew in love for each other they became a family. The three companions called the house ’L’Arche’, the Ark. Like the ark of Noah their little home was an ark or a sanctuary against the prejudices of the world. Today there are over 130 L’Arche Communities worldwide. So was the L’Arche movement born.

What Jean Vanier wanted to create was a different way of life for persons who hitherto had been locked away from society in vast Institutions. With his friendship with Philippe and Raphael he saw a way of doing this and he had the resources - personal, spiritual, financial to carry it out. What happened next was an Epiphany for Jean Vanier.

“ I found with Raphael and Philippe, the first two people I began to live with, that I began to discover myself. I began to find the child in myself. I was never so happy as when I was living with them in a very simple way in a little house, working together, having fun together, praying together. That is to say, I sensed a completely new meaning to my life, very different from when I was in the navy, very different from when I was teaching philosophy, but something much more fulfilling. It was a place where it was quite clear that Jesus was present.”

Jean Vaniers’ message as lived and witnessed by those who live in L’Arche communities world-wide is that we are healed by those whom we have rejected. The charism of the L’Arche movement can be defined as friendship with people with learning disabilities, being with them, living with them sometimes but being with them as friends and comrades always.The Charter of the L’Arche movement states that :

“L’Arche seeks not to offer a solution but a sign, a sign that a society, to be truly human, must be founded on welcome and respect for the weak and the downtrodden.”

L’Arche are small communities; households where the learning disabled and the able live together, sharing life as a family and as equals. Everyone is a volunteer, both the able and the (dis)abled. No one has to live in a L’Arche community unless they really want to. As relationships of mutual trust and respect with each other are built they discover the gifts of the person with a disability and in the process their own values are revealed. All this is lived in the spirit of the Gospel and prayer forms part of daily life. L’Arche are communities of faith where the Gospel values of Jesus are lived out every day.

One person who famously shared his life in a L’Arche community was the Theologian and spiritual writer Henri Nouwen. Invited by Jean Vanier to be ‘writer in residence’ at Trosly-Breuil, Henri Nouwen discovered, as his friend Jean had before him, that being in such a community became a healing experience. For years Henri had experienced severe depression. At L’Arche he discovered that the love he received from his fellow residents, and the love which he gave in return healed him. This was an example of what Jean Vanier described as the ‘theology of brokeness’ in action. When his time at Trosly-Breuil came to its end Henri decided to move permanently to a L’Arche Community, ’Daybreak’, at Richmond Hill, Toronto, Canada where he became Chaplain. There

Henri was asked to assist a core member, Adam Arnett who had severe disabilities. In a L’Arche community a Core member is a resident with disability. The able-bodied volunteers are known as ’Assistants’. Later Nouwen wrote about his experiences in a book, Adam,God’s Beloved. Henri became Adam’s friend, guide and teacher.

Between 1986 and his death in 1996, Henri felt deeply fulfilled during his time at L’Arche. He demonstrated a core value of L’Arche in that wherever he travelled to speak about his work as spiritual guide and theologian or as Chaplain to the community he was accompanied by a core member who was also co-speaker. “They won’t remember a thing I said but they will remember that Bill and I stood here as friends and equals together.” he said.

Jean Vanier is himself a Catholic, and life in the communities have a ‘catholic’ flavour to them, in which prayer and the sacred life have an important part to play in the life of the communities. Jean himself has always been careful to emphasise the Ecumenical nature of his vision. Core members and Assistants come from all backgrounds and religious faiths although Catholics and Anglicans dominate. Prayer and the spiritual life are encouraged among both core members and assistants. But so also is meaningful work, education and personal development. The heart of the mission of L’Arche is to seek to encourage core members to develop and share their gifts and skills, and to become as independent as possible. ’Us’ (the able-bodied) and ’Them’ (the disabled) attitudes are discouraged within the community and all members of the community work hard at living together in community, with house meetings, prayer meetings, celebrations and meals eaten together and work done together. The type of life being lived in L’Arche households all over the world is best summed up by Jean himself when he spoke of that first ‘Ark‘ back in 1964: working together, having fun together, praying together.

To those who wish to volunteer the post of an assistant in a L’Arche community can be tough. Indeed it is closer to a calling than any mere volunteering because it calls on the volunteer to:

Enter into relationship with others,
To discover the gift of the person with a disability
To get to know themselves
To build community
To question society’s values,
To be people of peace and reconciliation,
To discover the Gospel of Jesus.

Typically but not exclusively the volunteers are young . For all of them life in a L’Arche community is a positive expression of a desire to be less self-centred; less ‘me’ and my ego. More about the other and living a life of service. In that respect it is very counter-cultural “a sign of contradiction” in our very selfish world.

Some assistants stay for a brief time, perhaps six months, others live in a community for years and even decades. Jean Vanier himself still lives in that same house in Trosly-Breuil that he purchased back in 1964. Athough no longer the President of ‘L’Arche movement world-wide, nor even the leader of the community, he is still engaged with core members and lives and works with them every day. Each day of his life Jean Vanier lives out what he calls ‘the theology of brokeness’.

“ You see, I believe that we are all very broken in our capacity to relate. Human beings like power and to be admired and to be brilliant. When you start living with people with disabilities, you begin to discover a whole lot of things about yourself. Some are easy to live with, but others can make you climb the wall. Others can make you touch your own brokenness, your own poverty, your own violence and so on. I have lived experiences when I have sensed incredible violence inside of myself. Maybe being in community I didn't hurt anyone, but I discovered who I was.”

The L'Arche Prayer

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Father, through Jesus Our Lord and Our Brother, we ask you to bless us. Grant that L'Arche be a true home, where the poor in spirit may find life, where those who suffer may find hope. Keep in your loving care all those who come. Spirit of God, give us greatness of heart that we may welcome all those you send. Make us compassionate that we may heal and bring peace. Help us to see, to serve and to love. O Lord, through the hands of your little ones, bless us; through the eyes of those who are rejected, smile on us. O Lord, grant freedom, fellowship and unity to all your children and welcome everyone into your kingdom. AMEN

A voice calling from the hillside

Someone has asked me about the title of this Blog; William-on-the-hill. Well, I live on the Sydenham/Forest Hill borderlands, high up on the hill ( a ridge really) on the summit of which lies Crystal Palace (burnt down in 1936). My bedroom window faces east and I would have a brilliant view over the eastern south 'burbs - "if it wasn't for the 'ouses in between"! As it is I often experience wonderful sun rises. I also use the title in the sense of trying to give an overview of the  things which I comment on.

Having recently purchased a digital camera I intend to post photos of some of the local sights just as soon as I can learn to control the technology!

I will also write on local history from time-to-time. The local Anglican church, St. Barts has a mass grave containing the bodies of 13 workmen who fell to their deaths on the same day during the construction of the Crystal Palace. In the house next door, once the Vicarage, Sir Ernest Shackleton was born (he later spent a term at the nearby Dulwich College). The neighbourhood was once very fashionable, especially after the Crystal Palace was opened. Along the hillside there are some large Victorian Villas, and in one of them the Oratorian Fathers lived. In 1856 they founded the Orotorian church, at the bottom of the hill in lower Sydenahm - Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception & Saint Philip Neri. Until 1976 this was the only catholic church in this area. The parish to which I belong - The Church of the Resurrection of Our Lord - was calfed off and consecrated as a church in its own right in 1985. Before that our church was a chapel of ease. We are the daughter parish of the Oratory church (not now an Oratorian church, sadly).