Briefing

The City in May

I've got mail - about the coalition:

Simon...Whatever else might be said about our sainted Coalition, it's certainly transformed the political landscape. Already, a coupla weeks down the line, New Labour are the oldest news. Scarcely a day (or a joint press conference) goes by without the ober-Tories going a deeper shade of scarlet. The Rage on the Right is a joy to behold and the smart money has to settle on the short-odds bet that Dave and Nick probably mean it...never thought I'd wake up to sniff a bonfire of Tory manifesto pledges - Inheritance Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and constitutional reform to name but three. Neither would I ever have associated St Vince with yet another assault on the Post Office* (sugared with a helping of shares for the workforce). These guys are serious and a full five years begins to sound less than fanciful.

Dave is clearly the King of Political Opportunity, out-ballsing even Blair in his C4 moment (parking his tanks on the 1922's turf was a delicious piece of Sudenten-kraft). So where do the ubers go now? And - much more importantly - WTF happens to the metropolitani of New Labour?

In the annals of Blind Robbery, Dave is an extremely gifted operator. In broad daylight, with Lib Dem connivance, he's stealing NuLab's clobber and leaving the poor bunnies to their fate. The only real direction to head is leftwards, towards (brace yourself) some kind of socialism... but a journey like that would tear the party apart. No wonder Cruddas, wise man, said no thank you.

And here's the best quote from this morning's press...an aside from a comparison with the giddy days of '97. These guys, says whomever, are moving at breakneck speed and bolting down promise after promise. Much of this stuff will necessarily have to wait a while, not least because - as smiler Liam confirmed - we're skint. But the sheer velocity of what's happening takes your breath away. And Blair's boys? Back in '97? They hit the ground reviewing.

Nice.G.

** ** **

Took the train to London, cycled through the city to the river, via Holborn and Fleet Street, King William Street; crossed the river on Waterloo Bridge, commuters coming the other way; east on to Tooley Street. When I ride at rush hour in the city I think lines in the heads of thousands since they were composed, since I heard them at school - recorded by Eliot in Mr Lushington's English class at Westminster. He encouraged listening, slipping in analysis when you weren't looking. Redemption and commuting elide unhindered by reasoning:

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought ... And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

... Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours...

But London wasn't like this. Nor I. Lushington also explained the objective-correlative in a way I could understand; which still makes sense. Unvoiced words - phrases - assemble in my head - the river glideth...mighty heart...all bright and glittering in the smokeless air...and with the heart of May doth every beast keep holiday - correlating artlessly with my surroundings connecting them timelessly to all I've known and been taught since birth - sublime and banal, agreeably jostling.

The crowd, like me, did feel sprightly, flowing indeed but more like a parade than a procession. Brown fogs gone.

I'm working with a new council executive next week. This morning I met with with a senior officer and the new council leader to talk through my draft:

GOVERNANCE IN XXX: GETTING THE BEST FROM OFFICERS

Seminar for a new Executive

AIMS

• To understand political and managerial roles, responsibilities and structures and how they are changing,

• To demonstrate ways in which member-officer collaboration gives direction and purpose to local government,

• To learn more about working effectively with and through officers.

This event for senior members aims to strengthen the purpose, creativity and direction of the Council in difficult times. It will focus on better understanding of how new policies emerge, about negotiating the respective roles of members and officers, about clarifying the role of cabinet in the decision-making, modernising corporate governance, reviewing individual skills and information needs, and enhancing organisational capacity.

STYLE: Simon Baddeley with xxxx will use short talks, films, and exercises to stimulate analysis, reflection and shared discussion of these issues.

PROGRAMME (As the programme is participative, timing of specific sessions between start at 1000 and finish at 1500 may vary. Short breaks to be agreed)

Welcome. Introductions. Purpose of the day - Leader and CEO

'The Improvement Journey': working with councillors and officers – invited elected Mayor from an exceptional council

BREAK

Briefing on Xxx Council’s organisational structure – xxxx

A performance framework for the new Cabinet? – Simon Baddeley/Cllr xxxx, Leader of the Council

LUNCH

Constructing trust between members and officers – short talk and discussion introduced and illustrated by SB

Summary: What we take from the day; implications for our work as a Cabinet – Leader of the Council

CLOSE

* * * My colleague Philip Whiteman has helpfully extracted local government relevant policies from ‘The Coalition: our programme for Government’ published by the Cabinet Office yesterday, putting in bold what will be of most interest to us at Inlogov: 4. COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT The Government believes that it is time for a fundamental shift of power from Westminster to people. We will promote decentralisation and democratic engagement, and we will end the era of top-down government by giving new powers to local councils, communities, neighbourhoods and individuals.

• We will promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups. This will include a review of local government finance.

• We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils, including giving councils new powers to stop ‘garden grabbing’.

• In the longer term, we will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live, based on the principles set out in the Conservative Party publication Open Source Planning.

• We will abolish the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission and replace it with an efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects.

•We will publish and present to Parliament a simple and consolidated national planning framework covering all forms of development and setting out national economic, environmental and social priorities.

•We will maintain the Green Belt, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and other environmental protections, and create a new designation – similar to SSSIs – to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities.

•We will abolish the Government Office for London and consider the case for abolishing the remaining Government Offices.

• We will provide more protection against aggressive bailiffs and unreasonable charging orders, ensure that courts have the power to insist that repossession is always a last resort, and ban orders for sale on unsecured debts of less than £25,000.

•We will explore a range of measures to bring empty homes into use.

• We will promote shared ownership schemes and help social tenants and others to own or part-own their home.

• We will promote ‘Home on the Farm’ schemes that encourage farmers to convert existing buildings into affordable housing.

•We will create new trusts that will make it simpler for communities to provide homes for local people.

• We will phase out the ring-fencing of grants to local government and review the unfair Housing Revenue Account.

•We will freeze Council Tax in England for at least one year, and seek to freeze it for a further year, in partnership with local authorities.

•We will create directly elected mayors in the 12 largest English cities, subject to confirmatory referendums and full scrutiny by elected councillors.

•We will give councils a general power of competence (SB note: what about 'general competence'?)

•We will ban the use of powers in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) by councils, unless they are signed off by a magistrate and required for stopping serious crime.

•We will allow councils to return to the committee system, should they wish to.

•We will abolish the Standards Board regime.

•We will stop the restructuring of councils in Norfolk, Suffolk and Devon, and stop plans to force the regionalisation of the fire service.

•We will impose tougher rules to stop unfair competition by local authority newspapers.

•We will introduce new powers to help communities save local facilities and services threatened with closure, and give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services.

•We will implement the Sustainable Communities Act, so that citizens know how taxpayers’ money is spent in their area and have a greater say over how it is spent.

•We will cut local government inspection and abolish the Comprehensive Area Assessment.

•We will require continuous improvements to the energy efficiency of new housing.

•We will provide incentives for local authorities to deliver sustainable development, including for new homes and businesses.

•We will review the effectiveness of the raising of the stamp duty threshold for first-time buyers.

•We will give councillors the power to vote on large salary packages for unelected council officials.

Coming home on the London to Birmingham Pendolino

* * * And from the Ano Korakiana website a reminder, dated 19 May, that the current local council - Demos Faiakon (Δήμος Φαιάκων) - will very soon cease to exist under the Hellenic Government's Kallicrates Plan for reforming Greek local government, and hoping that attention will be given to the collapsing edges of the road just below Venetia by the ravine, and just below the bridge on the same ravine where rain is threatening more damage as well as the need to re-tender the work for the long uncompleted football ground below the village which I understand to be the property of the great Thessaloniki football club PAOK:

Όπως είναι γνωστό, σε μερικούς μήνες, Δήμος Φαιάκων και Νομαρχία Κέρκυρας δεν θα υπάρχουν, σύμφωνα με το σχέδιο «Καλλικράτης». Στη θέση τους θα δημιουργηθεί και θα λειτουργεί μάλλον ένας Δήμος…για όλη την Κέρκυρα. Όσο είναι λοιπόν ακόμη καιρός, η Δημοτική μας Αρχή ας φροντίσει να κλείσει κάποιες εκκρεμότητες και να προωθήσει κάποιες άλλες προς τη Νομαρχία. Ενδεικτικά αναφέρουμε: 1.Την αποκατάσταση από το Δήμο του δρόμου, που από την Επαρχιακή οδό οδηγεί στην είσοδο του χωριού στις Μουργάδες, μέσω Λαμπράδων. Κυρίως εξαιτίας του έργου της γεώτρησης, ο δρόμος έχει καταστραφεί από τη διέλευση βαρέων οχημάτων. Εδώ και μήνες έχει αναγγελθεί η αποκατάστασή του, ενώ έχουν γίνει και οι απαραίτητες τοπογραφικές μετρήσεις. Ενώ όμως το έργο ήταν να δημοπρατηθεί το περασμένο Φθινόπωρο, ακόμη δεν έχει γίνει κάτι και ο κόσμος που τον χρησιμοποιεί καθημερινά ανησυχεί… 2. Την ανάγκη αποκατάστασης από τη Νομαρχία δύο σημείων του επαρχιακού δικτύου εντός του οικισμού όπου το πλευρικό τοίχωμα του κεντρικού δρόμου έχει υποχωρήσει, από τις βροχοπτώσεις του Χειμώνα. Το ένα σημείο βρίσκεται στην είσοδο της Βενετιάς, όπου έχει υποχωρήσει το έδαφος στον τράφο μαζί με τα παρακείμενα δένδρα και το άλλο πριν από το γεφύρι στον μεσαίο δρόμο…όπου πέρα από το χωρίς οπλισμό τοιχίο που «έφυγε» με τις βροχές, έχει αρχίσει και ο δρόμος να «γέρνει». 3.Υπάρχει επίσης η σημαντική εκκρεμότητα του γηπέδου του ΠΑΟΚ, για το οποίο έχει δοθεί για άλλη μια φορά υπόσχεση στη Διοίκηση του Συλλόγου, ότι είναι προς υπογραφή νέα δημοπρασία για την ολοκλήρωση του έργου…Για να δούμε !

* * * Today is of course a day of celebration in Corfu and the other Ionian Islands. 21 May 1864 is the date of the formal ending of the British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands and their union - enosis - with the Hellenic Kingdom. How could any Ionian, unless they were paid servants of the British profiting from the continuance of our military and administrative presence, oppose the lowering of the British flag and the raising of the Γαλανόλευκη over the Septinsular? There were those whose material interests were linked to the spending of the British. There's a fine house near us in the centre of Ano Korakiana that Kostas Apergis - village historian - told me was built from the profits of providing bread to the Protectorate garrison. But I do not mean these people. I refer to that faction within the rizospastai led by Ilias Zervos of Cephalonia

who bitterly resented the calculative way - as they saw it - the British seemed to have deferred to the populist arguments of Constantinos Lombardos of Zakinthos

for enosis, abandoning their Protectorate to the Greek Kingdom before it had been possible to negotiate Zervos' vision of an autonomous Septinsular Republic.

The remnants of this resentment seem to have faded now that Ano Korakiana's band no longer, as they did for many years, absent themselves from the celebration of the anniversary of union along with the band of Kinopiastes

*** ***

Alan and Honey, as promised yesterday, sent pictures of the double doors at the top of the new stairs and the support column at the end of the balcony.

Today Greece received the first tranche of the EU bail-out loan. My Greek Odyssey posts Elytis' prophecy from Axion Esti - a recording.

***

*It's going to anger many, especially Liberal Democrats, seeing Vince Cable pushing further privatisation of Royal Mail. I fact the LibDems raised this at an annual conference 5 years ago. It's about risk and who'll pay for it, given the demise of paper correspondence, even for legal documents, and growing consumer resistance to junk mail, one of the main items now carried by postal workers. I've scanned the response from businesses that use the post office - the Mail Users Association; also the Postal Services Commission's response to the Independent Review of the UK Postal Services Market. Believing instinctively in the contribution of village and 'corner shop' post offices to social cohesion, this is sad reading. Two years ago I imagined trying to explain to intrigued great grandchildren the process of writing and posting letters. It may be that my sense of place can no longer be confirmed by objects and actions to do with the post as we've known it for two centuries. Perhaps I have to brace myself and unpack, empty and refill a bundle of cherished things I associate with a sense of place and community; fill it with other objects and activities. It's chicken and egg. As conventional paper mail declines so the cost of providing it to those who still use it increases. People, as have we, turn to other ways of doing what was previously done by post. Post boxes are threatened with the same future as phone boxes, even though removing them has taken away traditional place markers - objects older people and their ancestors knew as part of the unnoticed noticed. For the young these things have less resonance. This isn't just a public-private issue, though that debate will dominate the politics of the matter. It's about human invention - socio-technical change. Where do I look for other ways to maintain and recreate what matters? Closer settlement patterns versus sprawl; villages instead of suburbs; access via proximity (walking, cycling, urban transit) replacing access by mobility (motoring, flying); carfree and car-lite rather than autodependent; local rather than global food chains - allotments, city farms and home produce versus big box food retailing. Further invention. Smart growth. Sustainability. In Ano Korakiana we don't have much to do with post, collecting electric and water plus rate bills from the last shop in the village.

Replacing the side-balcony and stairs

We had two estimates for the work and on Monday Alan began setting up scaffolding for the job of replacing the external staircase, and side-balcony so unwisely removed by the previous owners' builder - I suspect without their say so, while they were in England and before they'd even seen the completed property he'd promised to have ready for them when they arrived in Greece. A while back, our neighbours had remarked in passing - very politely - that before the English had arrived "the house was beautiful". We've spent some time discussing restoring the stairs and the balcony to which they led and now, at last, it's happening. In a few weeks we'll have a place from which, as Natasha remarked when praising balconies in general and ours in particular, to say 'Kalimira' to people.

A sampler in Leftheris' dining room (with permission)

** ** **

Greece's credit rating on the international economic stage has been downgraded even further...

Western stock markets were on tenterhooks this morning after share prices tumbled in the Far East following the decision by the credit rating agency Standard and Poor to downgrade Greek debt to "junk" status yesterday. The move - which made Greece the first Eurozone country ever to suffer such a downgrade - came just as the financial world waits to see whether German MPs will finally agree to help bail out the Greeks...Jack Bremer, First Post Daily 28 April 2010

Yesterday while paying our rate and waterbill at the Demos office - Δήμος Φαιάκων - at Ipsos I asked the cashier what she was expecting for her future. "We don't know. We think this office will move to Corfu Town." This is a result of Papandreou's Kallicrates Plan, which in Corfu, is set to reduce 13 local council's to just three, perhaps only one. This is small but personal incident reminding me amid the quiet here that much of the population's on tenterhooks. Regarding our own General Election on 6 May, Graham H wrote on the 24th:

Simon, I know sports analogies are dodgy, especially because you might not have much time for football and more especially because you probably didn't see the Pompey/Spurs FA Cup semi-final. But in that treasure of a game there came a moment - just after half time - when it began to dawn on you that lowly, bust, beleagured Pompey - the dead and the near-dead - might just do it, might just win. Why? Because whatever Spurs did, however many attacks they mounted, whoever they threw into the penalty area, however many trillions their team was worth, the ball just wouldn''t go into the fucking net. Why? Because it wasn't to be. One of those afternoons. And maybe, after umpteen decades of the Two-Party Stitch Up, we're heading for a similar upset. Whatever Dave and the other bloke do, nothing seems to work. Bad week to be a Tory. Worse week to be Prime Minister. Call for the oranges...and an early shower. In haste, G.

Dear G. Frank Skinner (whose bio' I just read) would scorn me for not seeing football as life and death - unlike my Greek half-brother for whom your image would make immediate sense. There's a level of engagement I've reserved for other things I guess, knowing that when it matters, blowing hot and cold is worse than just blowing cold. As for the link to the political scene I'm with you all the way - x 100 in fact! The value of hung/balanced democracies is that it forces brokerage between the parties that gets a richer conversation between them and us - the great ignored. Best S

Reply just now (keeping me in valuable touch):

Back in the (un)real world, the plot thickens. Clegg is visibly wilting under pressure (you probably didn't see him on C4 News last night? but might grab a night's sleep and score a hat trick in the last debate. Dave, ominously, seems to have got his second wind while our Leader has lost it completely. Appearing on The World At One phone in yesterday, clearly under instructions to pretend he's half-normal , he kept getting the script wrong. "Lovely to see you" he told one startled housewife from Tallybont. Lovely to see you? On radio? Stay tuned... G.

** ** ** There’s a proper cycle shop in Corfu, just by the hospital in town, that Paul, who by another of the happy coincidences of Democracy Street, is a real cyclist, had recommended. OK Paul’s shipped his cycles from Bermuda - one I can lift with my little finger. All the same I’ve been thinking of dropping in on George Gkavardinas (Γεώργιος Γκαβαρδίνας) at Loulias Andreadi (Λουλίας Ανδρεάδη 5 www.bikeworks.gr bikework@otenet.gr) and while getting some money from our bank in town the other day, strolling in from about half a mile out so as to get easy parking, I stopped to look around and George showed me two hybrids – “something for riding up hills which I can take to the shops please” for under €500 that I reckoned would, unlike my beloved Brompton, get me up most of the road gradients on the island. I ran these by John Martin who said the Ideal Megisto – 28” wheels, 24 speed - looked OK for me. “Could I have that with mudguards and a rack?” “No problem”. So perhaps I’ll treat myself later in the year.

... and having discovered this place I catch sight of just the same kind of hybrid I'm seeking leaning on the wall outside the Beer Bucket in Kontokali; go in and find it belongs to Creeky, who I'd met at our lamb roast. "I got it from just up the road, the hire shop opposite the Alpha Bank kiosk - €280"

Rolando's place at Kontokali just off the main road - got cycles too!

He had a couple of used hybrids I liked but in the end I was taken by a sit-up and beg machine - an Atala Discovery - fitted with mudguards, lights and rack and 21 gears and, with the promise of instant payment via the ATM across the road, a good reduction on the asking price, with a lock thrown in. Now to see if I can make it up to Sokraki.

** ** **

Lin and I are lucky if we can get 3½% interest on one of our savings account. To meet the 1 April deadline for investing an allowed sum I have an HSBC ISA that pays ¾% annual interest. I can transfer to something slightly better, but it’ll be nowhere near the credit rate Greece is being charged and if we wanted a loan, with all the security in the world, we’d probably be paying around 6%. Amid the talk of market runs on Greek assets, fears of default on sovereign debt is raising Greece’s short term ‘mortgage’ interest higher by the hour - thus Thursday's Athens News quotes a 13% annual interest being offered on two year Greek government bonds - ‘worrying trends’ in bond-yield spread, ‘junk’ bond rating, and an almost triumphalist chorus on the theme of debt restructuring, hummed to the theme of maturity extensions, write-downs – haircuts – as 24 hour negotiations continue among the continent’s policy-makers, harried by their own voters, anxious about the future of the Eurozone and beyond, about the levels of ‘austerity’, needed to justify a ‘bail-out’ from the IMF. The matter of what will stimulate rather than simply save the Greek economy - the crude monetarist solution - gets little attention, probably because few know or will risk speculating about it. I suspect that those who do have ideas on this are quietly getting on with it. Extract from a letter to an old friend in New England who wrote in a recent postscript:

Poor Greece. Just not making it from all I read, including the Economist. Read a fascinating op-ed piece in the NY Times by a Greek woman lawyer - Philomila Tsoukala - who left Greece for the US. Her thesis: that all Greece is organized around small family businesses who tyrannize the younger generation by not letting them go off and start their own business. This especially shackles women to the family stable. It certainly seems that Greece is in a tough spot and that its inability perform economically could throw the whole European union into doubt especially if the problem spreads to Portugal and Spain. What do you think?

My reply:

...You wondered what I thought of the situation here. My view is that it is not just a Greek problem. This is not the beginning of a case for local complacency nor for resignation. There are much harder times ahead; hard times for many already. My sense of urgency is intense. I’m not for stoicism, let alone resignation. When the 20th century's great depressions created comparable fears and breakdowns many turned to totalitarianism - left and right - and we learned the terrible consequences of big decisions in the name of big ideologies. These dinosaur recipes - fascism and communism - are being replaced by the 'small mammal' solutions - some reactions of despair unlikely to survive, but even in their failure showing the way for other initiatives and experiments whose combined impact on the world we probably can't see - since we're too close to the ground to recognise historical trends and there’s still a believe in another big solution - ‘the market’ . No, I’m thinking of self-employment, already a significant cushion amongt the PIIGS (though by definition unmeasurable, being purposely evasive of data collection by governments), self-sufficiency, co-operative building projects, co-operative everything, local food growing, local trading schemes to exchange goods and services (not the one's that are no more than scams), local nearly everything, alternative transport, different rather than necessarily lower standards of living, sustainable sewage systems, sustainable everything, greater reliance on solar, wind, wave and geo-thermal energy, home education, recycling, free-cycling. This does not mean an end to R & D, human progress - especially in health and communication and even the home comforts on which the rich world has become so understandably dependent. This is not about 'back to nature' - though we have to rethink (radically) our relationships with the environment. Our so-called 'natural' lives were nasty brutish and short and homo sapiens understandably sought to escape such existence. Education helps, but no government can make people live in ways that are less demanding on the world's resources. It has to be about choices, examples and desire - initially in the landscapes of creative imagination. I guess that's where Greece's crisis might come in, driven by exigency. It's not about trying to rejoin the community of the old successful economies. There are none. It's about finding new ways of living and working and that, I guess, is where the need for changed expectations comes in. The thinking goes on... and I'm sure you're right about 'a generation at least' for such things to work their way through. What will our children make of this climacteric as they start to understand such things separate from us? Have we parents been able to instill skills, values and thinking for a different world – or are we part of their present problems? What personal crises must the brightest of our youth go through to break with the assumptions and habits we’ve given them? (I mean that collectively. I’m hoping I may have done marginally better and I’m sure you have.)

** ** **

And now Alan starts on the shuttering that will carry concrete laced with iron rods. Our balcony and steps begins to take shape.

* * * Aris has just given me a most interesting reference Experiencing Dominion: Culture, Identity, and Power in the British Mediterranean by Thomas Gallant. Given my fascination with interactive dynamics - in my case between Lord High Commissioners and Ionians during the British Protectorate - I'm especially fascinated by the reference in the publisher's description to the way Gallant is ...

moving discussion away from an emphasis on a simple polarity between hegemony and resistance, and instead focusing on the shared interactions between colonizers and colonized, rulers and ruled, foreigners and locals.

It continues:

Thomas Gallant - widely recognized as one of the leading scholars in historical anthropology - argues that a great deal can be learned about colonialism in general through an analysis of the Ionian Islands, precisely because that colonial encounter was so atypical. For example, Gallant demonstrates that because the Ionian Greeks were racially white, Christian, and descendents of Europe’s classical forebears, the process of colonial identity formation was more ambiguous and complex than elsewhere in the Empire where physical and cultural distinctions were more obvious. Colonial officers finally decided the Ionian Greeks were 'Mediterranean Irish' who should be treated like European savages.

Back in Birmingham

In the post awaiting me in England was a handwritten letter from Richard R. Hill, introducing himself as featuring in an Out of Town film in 1975 involving fishing for Black Bream at Littlehampton. As holder of the copyright for all of JH's writing and films Richard wondered if I'd give permission for a copy of the film to be released from the South West Film and Television Archive in Plymouth. Done at once. My letter sent to him and copied to SWFTA by email. What especially interested me was that Richard mentioned in his letter that he'd done wood carvings of fish and that some of these were shown by Jack in the same film. Was this the man who made the beautiful carving, left me by my stepfather, of what - because if its reddish eye I took for a roach but for the shallowness of its tail-V and its long dorsal fin making more like a common carp or - the likeliest candidate - a large crucian carp?

[Back to the future 15 October 09: I've just had an e-mail from one of Richard Hill's children: '... Unfortunately, and a big unfortunately, this is not the fish that dad carved for Jack! The fish was mounted from memory on a black background and framed in wood. It was definitely a roach that Jack had and dad can confirm that the fish you have at the moment is definitely a crucian carp and has commented on its quality.]

Before writing back to Richard, I'd phoned the Archive and given verbal permission. Mike said he'd be able mail a DVD of the requested film to Richard and told me that a whole lot of Out of Town and The Old Country in 16mm had been delivered to the Archive "in a white van". I know something about this and phoned Paul Peacock to suggest he had a chat with Mike about the possibilities of marrying sound and film in the future. I'm going to have visit the archive and find out just what is down there. For the moment I'm delighted to think I've discovered - through no effort of my own - the carver of the fish....and goodness me! It's 2-o-'clock on a windy leaf-blown October afternoon and he just called me by phone, having already got my letter. "It's a roach" Richard assured me. He and I spoke for a quarter of an hour and promised to stay in touch. I've not see the film in question, filmed off Littlehampton from a boat called Pauline - skipper Charles Fox. "A wonderful day! I'll always remember it. Mr.Hargreaves was new to sea fishing then but by the end of the day he was catching those bream as well as the rest of us. I can never pronounce the cameraman's name. Stan?" "Stan Bréhaut" "That's it". We agreed as soon as the film arrived Richard would let me know. I'm a lucky man.

* * *

Email to John Martin on 4 October 2009:

Dear John. I've know processed the following DVDs and film clips, so that they are sufficiently compressed to go on my laptop desktop as MOV or AVI files which can also be put on CDs to transfer to another laptop or be webstreamed, if and when we select appropriate extracts. Can I just check that these four films comprise the complete list of what I should have?:

1. Coffs Harbour.mov

2. Toodyay Shire.avi

3. Marion City.mov

4. Wyndham City.mov

Fascinating material John. I'm really impressed with the way the films have evolved from the Coffs Harbour film earlier in the year. Have you the stills that you mentioned of you and Annie filming? Best. Simon

** ** **

This 'newsletter' printed in 'cut-back' black instead of the colours of previous letters from ther allotments team was in my post when I got back to Handsworth. Extract from a piece I've written for the local Friends of the Earth October newsletter

'... Burdened by recession, the Council has born down heavily on its allotments budget – making cuts, according to the Birmingham Post, of 65%. Front line staff who provide excellent service to plot holders are under great pressure, yet here we have a legal agreement in place, at no cost to council taxpayers, to open the largest new allotment site in the UK since WW2. The problem is demonstrably at the highest level in the city. Simon Baddeley, Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG) TO GET ON THE SHORT LIST FOR A PLOT ON THE VJA WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE PHONE 0121 303 3038, e-mail: allotments@birmingham.gov.uk or complete a form on-line.'

Note: 'Snagging' - an expression I've not heard until now - is used within the construction industry to describe a process of defect identification and resolution. It's now being used outside the building industry to describe conflicts between customer and provider.

* * *

...and tomorrow, Sunday, there'll be a crowd of people around the school in Ano Korakiana visiting the polling station for the Greek General Election. My knowledge of what the elections will mean isn't good. I suspect PASOK will win, given their pre-election poll lead but any new government will have horrendously difficult decisions to make given the political, social, educational and economic state of the Hellenic Republic - shared with other European economies, especially Spain and Italy. Last December the European Court of Justice gave three rulings against the Greek Ministry of Education for discriminating against non-Greek universities and colleges. Public debt is high and rising. George Papandreou's PASOK - if it succeeds in the election - will surely focus, as its Leader has promised, on corruption. Karamanlis tried hard, but it's a 'wicked problem', and he's struggled with a one seat majority. My hope is that there's a critical mass of ordinary Greek citizens who, even though they may have treated corruption as normal, want to change. We see many signs of this - particularly among Hellenic women in professional roles, as lawyers. doctors and accountants.

The Irish - second time round - self-confidence eroded by the end of their economic blooming, have voted 'yes' to the Lisbon Treaty. Note: Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 - just 70 years since the Nazis and and Soviets completed their invasion and division of Poland precipitating the crisis that, though I was unborn, and then just a baby and a child, has echoed through my life and the lives of so many others born in the 1940s. In my case it has made me an uncritical supporter of the European Union despite the unwieldy flaws of this messy diverse would-be super-state.

I also believe with Michel Foucault that governing yourself is no more nor less difficult than governing your household (in whatever form), and both endeavours are as tricky as governing a state. This was how I came to wrote Internal Polity.

It's why I was enthusiastic when we were heard a story about the way the Faiakon Demos (Δήμος Φαιάκων), with their offices in Ipsos, had responded to village residents' plea to the Mayor about a long running nuisance involving a neighbour's illegal dogs making life unbearable, barking and whining at all hours below their windows.

The Mayor, Michael Karras (Ο Δήμαρχος Φαιάκων, Μιχάλης Κάρρας) brought in an interpreter, listened sympathetically, and almost immediately sent two very efficient women environmental health officers to enforce the law - that you may not own more than two dogs and you may not leave them unattended on land separate from your residence. This decisive action would have been unrealistic a few years ago. Word of it has spread in the village.

* * * Sunday 4 Oct 1838 UK time: Greek election exit poll results: PASOK landslide win predicted, but the Greens with 2-3% of the vote get no parliamentary representation.

*** ***

'The May Dance that was happening in the sun that day was first made up of a mob of fluttering females, all ready for what can happen as a result of going to dances.'

Read from a chapter in The Old Country at my stepfather's memorial service by his friend Cliff Michelmore ... and this is the email I've just had back from the Administrator of the SWFTA looking after Jack's films - not the one's I have, nor the ones published on DVD or posted on YouTube but original pre-production 16mm film plus sound tapes that he would have married to them and linked with a shed commentary:

Dear Simon. Many thanks for contacting SWFTA about the collection of Jack Hargreaves films that have been deposited with us. I know you spoke to my colleague Mike Brewis on Friday and I was delighted to hear all about it - I started work here in June and almost the first call I took was from a John Peters who was asking for a copy of the exploding bait box film on behalf of his friend, Richard Hill. At that time it seemed unlikely that we would make much headway with the request so it's very encouraging that so much progress has now been made.

However, there's still a certain amount of work to do before we can supply a DVD to Mr Hill, and I just wanted to let you know why. When Mr Peters first made contact, I explained that there were various reasons why it was difficult to work on his request. We are a charity with limited funding and only three staff members, and most of our time is necessarily taken up with commercial business activities. We receive a significant number of donated film collections throughout the year and our policy is to deal with these, when time allows, in the order in which they are received, and also one by one, to avoid any chance of collections being mixed up. And we would not consider releasing any copies of material from a collection until that entire collection had been properly assessed and logged. The position with the Jack Hargreaves collection was that it is very large, it is not material relating to the South West region, we had no idea who held the copyright and we had no named contact - and consequently it was not an item of any priority for us.

Mr Peters made it his business to trace the copyright holder, and we are extremely grateful that due to his efforts we are now in touch with you. Furthermore, after your conversation with Mike we now have a way of beginning to assess the collection. In view of this, and because we understand that Mr Hill is elderly and in poor health, we have decided to make an exception in this case, and to work on this single item from the collection. So far, we have found the item, but with no soundtrack. If we are able to locate the soundtrack, the work involved in marrying it up to the film and transfering the complete item to DVD will be a complex and time-consuming exercise because of the different media involved, and this work will have to wait its turn along with other less-urgent projects. We are keen to complete the DVD, but I'm sure you will understand why it might still take some time. I will of course keep Mr Hill informed of our progress.

In the meantime Mike has asked me to let you know that he has found a soundtrack referring to the woodcarving, and it confirms the carving was done by Mr Hill. As yet we have not found the film. We have also made an approximate count of the collection and we seem to have about 350 cans of film and several boxes of audio reels.

Many thanks again for getting in touch, and we look forward to keeping in contact about the collection in the future. Best wishes. Jennie Constable. Administrator, SWFTA, South West Film & Television Archive, Melville Building, Royal William Yard, Stonehouse, Plymouth PL1 3RP Tel: 01752 202650

**** Back to the future ~ 8 December '09: Lin and I were starting to clear things out of Amy's old bedroom when Lin found this carved fish. Richard Hill has told me that the Crucian carp above is not his work, so I'm wondering if this one - clearly a roach - is his, especially as on its reverse are signs of it having been mounted on another surface. I shall e-mail John Featherstone and John Peters to check as Richard doesn't do e-mails. (follow here and here)