...for they were not.

My dream study is St Jerome's as described by Albrecht Dürer - not so much the sublime spiritual dimension, more its order and the contented fauna by the desk and the suspended gourd signifying redemption and forgiveness. It looks like an anachronistic lampshade. I have finally, pressed by Lin and my own longing for a working study - instead of just the kitchen table (much as I enjoy that space) - set about tidying a marvellous mess, while listening to BBC Radio 4 - the last episode of a dramatisation of Dumas' Count of Monte Christo - the chapter of revenge.

My heart sinks. This mess is not just unshelved books. There are reports, cables, CDs, DVDs, postcards, letters, fliers, bags - some empty but more often holding a miscellaneous freight of semi-precious souvenirs and others things I couldn't quite be rid of nor find a place to file; many small objects of possible use like a digital gadget that tells me how many miles I've walked to improve my health, a small credit card sized multi-tool that I can't include in hand baggage when flying, a badge praising bicycles, a Japanese mouse-mat of exquisite design, a VHS tape of an interview done ten years ago possibly not yet digitised, cables and connections, instruction manuals and guarantees in many languages for unfamiliar software I might once have relied upon, visiting cards from different countries, plastic files and folders, old publications of mine, handouts for seminars, old planning applications I've opposed or approved in different places. What pleasure to cast most of these out, to pass Lin's final check before recycling...

...and what do I do with my old desk top computer and its screen and mouse and hefty external hard drive - a G5 AppleMac computer bought from KRCS Apple Centre in Birmingham (before the Apple Shop opened in the Bullring) in November 2003? It's working but seldom used; rather heavy..and painful - almost - was disposing of our aged white Sony television which we bought from Rackhams in 1980 for about £200 on a 12-month interest free deal; a most reliable old machine still working but which, even with a digibox, can no longer receive a signal.

I know why my favourite bird is the Jackdaw - a bird whose mentality, in me, refers to a tendency to store trivia in the fruitless hope that all may come together to give meaning to life. A sword has pierced many hearts; a voice in Rama, Rachel weeping, not to be comforted, weeping for her children, for they were not. Φωνὴ ἐν Ραμὰ ἠκούσθη, κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὀδυρμὸς πολύς· Ραχὴλ κλαίουσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς, καὶ οὐκ ἤθελεν παρακληθῆναι, ὅτι οὐκ εἰσί.

My friend Jim ~ a photo of my mum's from 1952

*** *** ***
After an afternoon's work I'd progressed

****** ******
From the village website:

Πραγματοποιήθηκε σήμερα στις 11 π.μ. η ετήσια Γενική Συνέλευση του Αγροτικού Συνεταιρισμού Άνω Κορακιάνας, με τη συμμετοχή αρκετών νέων μελών. Κατά τη συνεδρίαση εγκρίθηκαν ομόφωνα ο οικονομικός απολογισμός του 2011 και ο προϋπολογισμός του 2012, ενώ συζητήθηκαν θέματα όπως η τιμολογιακή πολιτική και η γενικότερη λειτουργία του ελαιουργείου. Από την πλευρά του Δ.Σ. έγινε αναφορά στα προβλήματα και τις επιβαρύνσεις που αντιμετωπίζει ο Συνεταιρισμός, αλλά και στα αισιόδοξα μηνύματα από την αύξηση της πελατείας, του κύκλου εργασιών και του αριθμού των μελών του. Των εργασιών της Συνέλευσης προήδρευσε ο Σπύρος Μιλτ. Ιωνάς, με Γραμματέα το Νικολούζο Σπυρ. Νικόλαο. Το ραντεβού των Συνεταίρων ανανεώθηκε για τις αρχές του νέου έτους, οπότε θα πραγματοποιηθεί η επόμενη Γενική Συνέλευση.

My tall neighbour Sebastiano Metallinos speaks at the village Co-op AGM

At 11am on Sunday the Annual General Meeting of the Agricultural Association of Ano Korakiana was held with the participation of several new members. The meeting unanimously approved the financial statement for 2011 and the budget for 2012 and discussed issues such as the pricing and overall functioning of the olive mill. The Board referred to the problems and costs facing the Cooperative, hopes for increasing custom, turnover and members. The work of the Assembly was chaired by Spyros Milt. Ionas with the Secretary Nikolouzo Spyr. Nicholas. The appointment of Associates was renewed from the start of the new year, to continue through to the next General Assembly.

...and Dimitroula, grand-daughter of our neighbours Lefteris and Vasiliki, was playing flute the other evening at the Ionian Conservatory Christmas concert in the Monastery of St Francis in the city.

Χριστουγεννιάτικη συναυλία Ιονίου ωδείου — Άγιος Φραγκίσκος

**** ****
The lovely tribute given by my nephew, Anthony, at his grandmother's memorial service:

'A LIFE OF FAVOURITE DAYS' 

I will never forget the day about this time of year 4 years ago. I was sitting in my office reading a document when my computer beeped, notifying me that I had a new email and there it was. A message from barbaraburnettstuart@btinternet.com  An email from a 91 year old. In that moment, I smiled the smile we have all smiled so many times in our interactions with the human being I (and many of us here) I proudly call our grandmother. Never just a token smile – always a real smile that made your whole body tingle as I delighted in Grandma’s constant ability to surprise us all.
Now I am sure you all want to know the content of this 91 year old’s email, so let me read it to you.
‘Dear Anthony, it’s your ancient grandmother here. I told you I could crack this email thing. Now please write back to Grandma (ps Hurry up)”
For me, that email summed up Grandma, always yearning to learn and discover, an immense thirst for everything new. Where many of her generation would despair at new technology and convention disrupting the traditional and conventional, she would delight. And she wouldn’t simply delight, she would adapt and embrace.
I can tell you that it is more than mildly embarrassing when your Grandmother has an iPad before her Grandson does! Even more embarrassing when your grandmother asks for your Skype address and you have to timidly explain that you aren’t  on Skype.

This was how she led her life – always looking forward and seeking out the new. I will never forget the excitement with which the arrival of Starbucks in Inverness was greeted by Grandma. She happily swapped her tea and digestives for a cappuccino and chocolate brownie and never looked back. And while we are on the subject of swaps, who can forget the great llama for sheep exchange – I vividly remember her beloved Angus almost falling off his chair as Grandma announced she was to become the joint proud owner of a pair of llamas which were going to reside next to the Garden. Whether it was llamas or ipads or cappuccinos – it was all part of the adventure that was grandma’s life, and it was a constant inspiration to us all. A reminder that resonates today more than ever that life is to be lived to the full. In A A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, Winnie asks Piglet “What day is it, Piglet?” Piglet squeaks back “It’s today, Winnie” Winnie responds “That’s my favourite day” Grandma lived a life of favourite days and on her journey she accomplished so much – a photographer, a publisher, a journalist, a war correspondent, she was the first women’s editor of Farmers Weekly. She edited, commissioned and part-authored a range of country life books. She was a staunch supporter of many charities and regularly used her network of grandchildren to pound the streets of Inverness collecting money for the Samaritans. And of course, there was her beloved Angus - and their 40 years together was another great accomplishment. The life they made for themselves for 30 years at Mains of Faillie enveloped us all in its warmth and joy. Our annual 2 week summer pilgrimage to Faillie to see Grandma and Grandpa (as Angus became to us) was like Xmas – the highlight of the year and for me, the beginning of a love affair with Scotland and the Strath.  

Faillie ~ 1990

At Faillie, every day we would wake to a new voyage of discovery – Grandma would pack the rented camper van with picnics and dogs and multiple toddlers and children and off we’d go in pursuit of adventure. Nothing would stop us, for Grandma, a locked gate or a private lane was an invitation to explore and on the many times we were confronted by an irritated  gamekeeper or an angry farmer, our intrepid bold Grandmother would remarkably quickly turn into an innocent and charming old lady who had seemingly lost her way while trying to shepherd her herd of errant young grandchildren. Within seconds the farmer’s frown had melted into a smile and regularly elicited an invitation from the farmer to come again and have some tea. But the real highlight of our days at Faillie were storytelling at bedtime. It was magical for all of us as the adventures of the day were matched by tales of fantasy read by Grandma. She always had the most amazing selection of books born out of another of her great passions – reading. She was a prolific reader and as in every vein of her life she sought out the different and bold as well as the traditional. She introduced me to everything from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the Koran. Her bedside table was always a fascinating patchwork quilt of literature. For her sitting in an armchair with a book took her on as much of an adventure as the real thing and she instilled that sense of imagination in us all. Albeit I will never forgive her for deliberately getting me hooked on ghost stories from a young age! But that was part of another great treat – the streak of mischief and cheekiness that flowed through Grandma. She loved a bit of naughtiness and even better a good tease delivered with that cheeky grin. Let me read you one more email that she sent me. “Dear Anthony, I hear on the grapevine that mum and dad’s guest room is full of Anthony Gutman’s clobber and paraphernalia. Please urgently rectify, otherwise your ancient Grandma will spend Christmas sleeping in the loo. Love Grandma.” Anyway, I could carry on for many hours but let me finish by saying grandma left an indelible imprint on all of us and that makes this a sad day, but one that’s tempered by the knowledge that that imprint will always be with us, particularly with her children, Bay and Simon, Fiona and Jennifer, and her grandchildren and now her great grandchildren. With that in mind let me tell you a final story. A week or so after Grandma passed away, a little present arrived for us in the shape of a 7lb 7oz baby girl with a full head of hair and the face of a cherub. Unfortunately she developed some complications and was transferred to an intensive care unit. It was a terrifying time for my wife and I and all our family, but our little daughter fought hard and, like a mini-Barbara, showed steely determination (and equally like Barbara sometimes steely stubbornness, as well as an incredible ability to be awake when everyone else wants to sleep!). And after four days, our daughter recovered and hasn’t looked back since. And as she has already done in the short time she has been on this planet, I am sure she – like all of us – will perpetuate Grandma’s traits and values – Grandma’s thirst for knowledge, her curiosity, her sense of adventure, her love of friends and family, her unbelievable resolve and courage, but above all, that cheeky smile and that zest for life.

Sandra, Anthony, Simon and Lulu, Barbara, Bay, Raef, Susie at Coignafearn (photo: Dave Roskelly)

*** *** ***
The National Rifle Association (NRA) plays a familiar game. To defend free access to assault weaponry it turns sober campaigns for ‘gun control’ into a debate for or against guns. As a gun user (though not much these days) I’ve nothing in common with the average member of the NRA. Under cover of defending the right of good 'ol boys to shoot turkey in the woods, the NRA lobbies for domestic access to military weapons. I was brought up in the country - hunting, shooting, fishing. I was taught about safety - a season’s walking up and beating before my first shotgun, a four ten. US gun law suffers from the NRA velcro-ing its interests onto the sacred 2nd amendment 'right to bear arms', distorting it into a licence to, in effect, drive F1 cars on normal roads. Who goes hunting with automatic weapons - or even semi-automatics like the one used at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday 21 Dec? They are unnecessary for field sports, or the pot. Too many websites on guns, are, in a largely urbanised world, larded with fantasy. I see BB guns and air rifles, even in the UK, marketed as 'boy's toys' imitating, in their style, high powered infantry weapons. The debate on gun control needs to focus on restricting exaggerated domestic fire power – ‘This gun from Bushmaster will always shoot straight and aim true’ Yes. Well.  Wal-Mart may take down that ad - withdrawn Monday afternoon - but there are many similar:

 So, I was in Wal-Mart to buy ammo and walked by the gun display, when...
- I spied an AR in the case
- Immediately, a smile appeared on my face and I knew that things were looking up for the store. I asked the clerk to take it out for inspection.
- Holding it in my hands, I knew I had to take it home. How does she shoot?
- Perfectly
- Amazing
- Performance shooter
- Positively the best rifle I've purchased from Wal-Mart. Kudos for stocking it

I am vexed at the repeated assumption that li'l country towns are safe 'from this sort of thing', that spree killings of the kind with which the world has become too familiar are 'anomalies'. Don't believe it. That's where this stuff happens (The Bath School bombing in 1927, Hungerford 1987? Dunblane 1996? Aramoana 190? Port Arthur 1996? Virginia Tech 2007 in Blacksburg - a town of under 45k? Columbine 1999? Aurora 2012? Cumbria 2010? Utøya Island 2011?*) in small and medium settlements where the countryside is just close enough for some citizens to get away with running around with heavy weaponry. In cities there's usually a majority of sane voters supportive of tight regulation..and rather better mental health services ("We need to talk about, Kevin" see 12 Feb blog).

Conan Doyle sensed this; put it into The Copper Beeches (1892) ('...Charming rural place...five miles on the far side of Winchester. It is the most lovely country, my dear young lady, and the dearest old country-house...') in an exchange between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson on the train from Waterloo to Winchester: 

By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.
"Are they not fresh and beautiful?" I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.
But Holmes shook his head gravely.
"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."
"Good heavens!" I cried. "Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?"
"They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."
"You horrify me!"
"But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser...

*Yes. I know. There was that man with the knife in Tokyo's Akihibara quarter, but it hardly changes the point made by Sherlock Holmes.
**** ****

OBITUARY IN THE SCOTSMAN

Published on Wednesday 19 December 2012

Barbara Burnett-Stuart, journalist and publisher

Born: 11 February, 1917, in London. Died: 1 November, 2012 in Inverarnie, Inverness-shire aged 95.
Only days before she died, nonagenarian Barbara Burnett-Stuart was listening to Radio 4 – via her iPad.
A few years earlier she had mastered e-mail and become part of the Skype generation.
But her resourcefulness and curiosity were perhaps not entirely surprising, given her own history and heritage: the daughter of a Government Code and Cypher School founder whose feisty wife escaped South Kensington to set up an Essex dairy farm, she had been both a debutante and a war correspondent for Vogue.
A sense of adventure and an ability to adapt were evidently in her blood. They were also traits she needed to survive in the male-dominated world of Fleet Street where she was a successful magazine editor.
She went on to publish and edit numerous books, sometimes under the guise of a male pen-name, and enjoy a long relationship with journalist and broadcaster Jack Hargreaves before marrying the head of a newspaper group and retiring to the Highlands. There she introduced her grandchildren to rural adventures and delighted in the surrounding rivers, tracks and hills.
Though she was born in Hereford Square, London, she was proud of her Borders roots as a descendent of Kelso-born Sir Henry Maine, an “evolutionist” thinker and Cambridge University law professor.
Growing up in Kensington between the wars she enjoyed a privileged lifestyle with a maid, servants and cook, but a new life began when her mother introduced her and her sister to a “secret”. Thinking she was about to be presented with a pony she was terribly disappointed to discover it was a funny little thatched cottage, down a country lane, in the Essex village of Clavering.
In an effort to do something useful with her life, her mother had acquired the property where she proceeded to farm at the weekends, somewhat amateurishly initially, before moving outside the village to Mill End, where she bought some Jersey cows and established a dairy farm.
For the youngsters, brought up as nursery children, Clavering was an idyll, a place where they could career around on bicycles and enjoy previously unheard of activities such as shopping for sausages at the local butchers. Meanwhile, their father worked as a secretary to Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace where, in the late 1930s, young Barbara came out as a debutante. She then began her journalistic career at Vogue magazine where she reported and arranged photo shoots.
During the Second World War she married diplomat John Baddeley at Clavering, where she lived peacefully, avoiding the bombing raids endured by the capital (SB note: Mum didn't entirely avoid the Blitz, though Kensington was not its focus)

They soon had two children and, devoid of a pram, adapted an old goat cart to accommodate the youngsters, transporting them around the countryside....

.... where she continued to help out on the farm.
Cleared as a war correspondent for Vogue, in 1946 she was given permission to visit and report from Vienna. She later recalled one memorable episode during the trip – an evening spent drinking with Russians, French and British in a nightclub where the entertainment’s finale featured a naked young dancer parading on the back of a baby elephant. By the late 1940s her marriage had failed and she was working on the women’s magazine Home Notes. At a Fleet Street event she met the editor of Farmers Weekly, who offered her a job starting up a women’s section of the publication. She became the first editor of its women’s pages, writing and commissioning articles on the countryside and country living, the home, produce and recipes.
She was there for 14 years and was hugely encouraged by her partner Jack Hargreaves, with whom she began a relationship in 1948. Although they never married, she changed her surname to his by deed poll and published and edited numerous books as Barbara Hargreaves, including Handbook of Country Crafts and The Sporting Wife: Game and Fish Cooking. She also used the pen-name John Bedford and edited the book Restoring Junk, decades before recycling old furniture became fashionable. Other publications covered pressure cooking and deep-freezing food.
She left Hargreaves in the 1960s and married Angus Burnett-Stuart, a Dunkirk veteran and head of Thomson Regional Newspapers, in 1965. They had been social friends and he first fell for her when he saw her as a 16-year-old girl.
She was living on her own when he came into her life again and he was finally able to win the woman he adored.
They lived in Cheshire for some time and she continued her own publishing career when they moved north to the Highlands after he retired. They settled at Mains of Faille near Daviot and she was involved in many local causes, including the Samaritans.
She also enjoyed the company of her extended family, who would descend on her home in the holidays. She would pack a camper van with picnics and a gaggle of dogs, toddlers and older children, setting off on adventures with her little gang of explorers.
Little defeated her, not least a locked gate or private lane. Confronted by an irate gamekeeper or angry farmer, as she often was, the intrepid grandmother could quickly metamorphose into a charming, innocent old lady who had simply lost her way while shepherding her straying brood.
She retained a mischievous streak and cheeky grin coupled with an effervescent lust for life and was unfazed by the march of technology. At 91 she contacted a grandson via computer informing him: “It’s your ancient grandmother here, I told you I could crack this e-mail thing.”
Widowed in 2005, she moved, aged 88, to a smaller house at Brin Croft, Inverarnie, but continued to be involved in the local community life. Latterly she relied on a wheelchair and earlier this year, while being wheeled round a supermarket, she reached the electrical department and announced: “I want the best iPad you’ve got.”
She was ever eager to learn and it summed up her thirst for new experiences.
“More than anything else she wanted to be an independent woman with a career,” said her son Simon. “Her mother had tried it and never quite broken through. She used to say that her mother was always a bit disappointed with her life. My mum was anything but disappointed.
“She had a marvellous adventurous life and shared it with all her progeny. She liked the feeling she had made it in the world as an independent woman.”

She is survived by her children Simon and Bay, step-children Fiona and Jennifer and extended family. 

ALISON SHAW

Trouble in Newtown

We made up some sandwiches for Amy and I took them down to her on six hour cordon duty after a shooting in Newtown on Friday evening. Lin had put her some cola in a little wine bottle we'd got on a flight, "Dad! I can't be seen drinking from that." I went off to the local shops at Newtown and got her a coke.
It looks as if gun crime is on the increase again after a lull with a linked shooting in Bilston. Mark Cowan and Laura Corcoran wrote in the Birmingham Evening Mail last Wednesday - before this incident:

'that the police and the council had been hoping to rely on civil injunctions to ban so-called 'nominals' (people about whom information is kept on files shared between agencies) from city streets or hanging around with each other in a novel way of ending tit-for-tat gang violence.'

Police and the council were hoping initial interim orders were having an impact.

'But two months ago, the Birmingham Mail revealed the project had hit a snag after a High Court judge dismissed an application for the first full ground-breaking injunctions in January.
West Midlands Assistant Chief Constable Suzette Davenport told a commission on gun and knife crime (video) that firearms offences had started to climb since January. "Having been very successful at the end of last year where the number of gang-related shootings were reduced, since January those figures have gone back up," she said. The figures include gun-related incidents and street robberies. Mr (sic) Davenport later stressed the number of incidents had not reached the same levels as before the operation, codenamed Malva, was launched last summer.
The gun crime setback emerged as Mr Davenport gave evidence to the Channel 4 Street Weapons Commission, chaired by Cherie Booth QC, when it came to in Birmingham yesterday to hear evidence on what could be done to tackle the problem. While the use of injunctions under Section 222 of the Local Government Act 1972 to target gang members is a break from the traditional use of the legislation, which is normally used to target dodgy traders, the authorities are confident they are on firm ground. Birmingham City Council lawyers have lodged an appeal against the decision. Mr Davenport said it was ruled that so-called Section 222 injunctions could not be used they hoped to encourage Government to work on alternatives. She added: "I am hoping we can encourage the Government that if they do not feel Section 222s are appropriate, we can look at other things which can give us an element of control over these people so they are not shooting each other or innocent people in the community."'

E-mail: Simon. Thank you for your email and your kind comments on the story. Unfortunately, it would seem a production error resulted in a few key words being changed regarding the title of Suzette Davenport, who is obviously a woman. I shall raise the matter with the news editor later to try and find out what happened. Regards, Mark Cowan

Trigger points
On Tuesday morning we have a meeting arranged by Councillor Mahmood Hussain at the Parklands Housing office off Hamstead Road to try to hasten the promised playing fields and allotments on the site of the old Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA). In return for building on a good third of the site the developer contracted, on 13 May 2004, when planning permission was granted to build on the site, to use the remaining space to lay out 80 allotments which would be transferred to the City Council, to provide a toddlers' play area and associated open space, a play area for older children, to pay £150,800 towards open space improvements off-site, to lay out and transfer to the city council two playing pitches and a cricket square, a pavilion changing room facility and car parking, and 24 affordable housing units on the same site. The section 106 Agreement was completed on 23rd August 2004 and we've been assured by the Constituency Planning Officer, Alan Orr, that at the end of April 2008, 'no changes to the Agreement had been made.' (e-mail sent to Mark Jackson while we were in Greece, dated 30 April 08)

According to Alan Orr 'the required affordable houses have been provided. The developer (initially Westbury Homes, and now Charles Church) entered into a partnership with more than one Registered Social Landlord, to build affordable housing on the site, and there are now more than those required under the S106 Agreement.

Alan went on to say in his e-mail to my friend - and fellow campaigner - Mark Jackson:

that in respect of the other provisions of the 106 Agreement, it is 'common practice' to work to a number of 'triggers' (my italics) depending on the stage of the overall development or the housing element of the development. Thus, the provision of the allotments and the sports pitches is related to the occupation of 40 open market dwellings on the new housing development (but, guess what? '40 dwellings' does not include the 24 affordable housing units. Currently, the sports pitches, according to Alan, have been laid out 'but their transfer to the City awaits the completion of the changing room pavilion and associated car park.'

Alan believes the trigger point for the allotment provision 'has been, or is soon to be reached' and claimed to be arranging a meeting with representatives of Charles Church to ascertain their detailed timescales for the delivery of the sports pitches and allotments to the City Council.

'The provision of the tertiary (older children's) play area and associated open space is required within 6 months of the completion of the final residential unit of the housing development, and the sum of £25,000 towards the provision of a secondary play area (off-site) is to be paid on commencement of the laying out of the open space. The sum of £150,800 (to be used towards open space improvements in Handsworth Park) is to be paid by the developer on approval by the City Council of the works carried out to provide the allotments and sports pitches. '

There's much room for fudge and further prolonged delay, especially if Charles Church are not marketing these properties with any enthusiasm - and housing sales have slowed. I ran a check on Parklands in Handsworth and came up with nothing - though Midland Heart, one of the area's prominent Registered Social Landlords, has property for sale on the Parklands site. The collateral impact of playing fields, allotments and play areas in this area of city can help fight crime as surely as greater contentment can help people's health. I'll say as much at the meeting on Tuesday morning with the developer's representatives, ward councillors, Alan Orr and the chairman of Handsworth Cricket Club, Basil Hylton. We can only perservere.

* * *

I have had a phone chart with Paul, my stepfather's biographer, about the VJA after he pointed me towards a website on which he's doing podcasts about allotments - the Allotment Channel. He also pointed me towards another interesting site which I've linked to Democracy Street - Home Farmer. Narrowcasting works so well for important interests that aren't as yet mainstream.

* * *
I've been enjoying a variety of journeys to work in the Midlands this week - negotiating the canal between home and campus and taking the bus and tram on the way to Dudley on Friday. I got change for a tenner from the conductor on the Centro tram. "Gosh that's nice" I said to a chap older than me even as he handed me my change. "Like the old days" he said with a smile. I have the conviction that were the cost savings of single staffed buses and the disappearance of park keepers balanced against the cost of the harm done to urban civility by these so-called savings, the wages of those who provide stewardship of public space would have been amply justified. But you can cost putting out a fire. It's far trickier to cost stopping it happening in the first place. How do you measure and justify the tax bill for prevention and maintenance. I conjecture that rather as the Titanic disaster and the recent Asian tsunami produced almost immediate responses in early warning measures, regardless of cost, so the slow burn growth of public squalor in the wake of the widespread withdrawal of stewardship of public places, has taught us that if people are to return in large numbers to public transport, to parks and urban streets, they must be confident such spaces are afforded protection. Our learning is the product of a long slow decline, lasting over 40 years. It will take as long to recover, and in the meantime we have trickier lessons to learn - about how to ensure our inclination to acquisitiveness, or in the case of most of the world the need to have reliable food and shelter, while protecting and sustaining the Earth's diverse yet mutually supporting system of living things. We are just learning 'to wake from a 300 year old dream' and challenge the tragedy of the commons.

* * *
An exchange with my friend Jan about my talk in Tokyo:

Dear Jan. Just getting acclimatised to England again. Hope you're well. I'd appreciate your views on the talk I need to give in Tokyo to Japanese civil servants in June on 'how to ensure standardisation of services across local governments'. Yes, they want me to talk about that - not how to nurture local choice. Best S

Hi Simon. Good to hear from you. I've kept in touch via your blog. Regarding 'how to ensure standardisation of services across local government', it seems to me that Britain is the perfect example. Despite verbal utterances to the contrary this is exactly what the Government has tried to impose and with some success through: targets, national indicators, inspection regimes, intervention (e.g. Hull & Lincolnshire), ring-fenced funding, capping, 'naming & shaming', to mention but a few. The postcode lottery has been used as an excuse. In the present political climate where Conservatives and Liberals are the dominant forces at local level I can not see any significant decentralisation take place. In fact I think there will be further neutering of local democracy under the banner of local democracy. Sorry to be so pessimistic but I simply cannot see any meaningful 'place shaping' taking place in the foreseeable future other than rhetorically and tokenistic. Hope I am wrong! Best Jan

Dear Jan. I think much can occur in the informal space between legislation and politics. Humans are ingenious. What I have found fascinating from preparing this talk - hardly more than 30 minutes (with translation) - is that in Japan which certainly contains distinctively different areas, the idea of standardised services across the country is a matter of pride and their absence regarded as a problem to be put right quickly. Local choice is not high on the agenda. So I am unclear what this man's work involves.
And what am I to make of this - the local decentralisation law. Thanks for your response. I'm delighted you are taking a look at my blog. Best Simon

Simon. This is fascinating stuff. I suppose national cultures play an important role in all this. I think he is the equivalent of a local government minister in the national government. I also get a strong sense of local ADMINISTRATION being the most important element of decentralisation rather than local GOVERNMENT. I do think developments here since 1997 are interesting in terms of what localism now has become and what the drivers are. The content of Local Area Agreements are almost identical in every locality. The same goes for Community Strategies. Variations, as they exist , tend to be linguistic and in terms of impact and emphasis rather than substance. Everywhere you will see safer & stronger communities, healthier communities, sustainable communities, economic development, wellbeing of the vulnerable, being the priorities. The reason for this is that these are the national priorities upon which LAs are judged through CPA and other inspection regimes and their star rating determined. Also LAs can only access additional funding though performing well on national priorities (e.g. stretched targets). Decentralisation can never be absolute but the absence of powers to raise revenue for local priorities based on popular demand is a major obstacle to local democracy. I think the profiles of local councillors and turn-out in local elections tell their own story. Best Jan

Yes indeed, Jan. The core fact is that only 4.71 pence of every one of my tax pounds is paid directly to local government (I dug that out from Chris Game this morning). I know more is clawed back through grant - but with many many conditions as we all know. In Japan far more of people's tax yen are raised locally. Thanks for your other thoughts. All grist to my mill on this complex subject. S

Simon. Although I remain sceptical, perhaps in a paradoxical and perverse way the present circumstances may just be conducive to more meaningful decentralisation. Given the government's unpopularity they may throw caution the wind and be more inclined to pass powers downwards (it helps with the blame!!) although their track record is not good and I don't think it is in Gordon's nature to give up any powers. There's a Scottish bean-counter for you! It is more likely this debate will ebb and flow with changes hard won and substance difficult to achieve. 'Place Shaping' can only ultimately happen with more powers (of the positive kind, not spying on people's bins or surveying people for school catchment areas) and more revenue being collected locally. It means fundamental questions about policing, health, transport, development, being given much higher local determinants. There are dangers in too much power at local level e.g. Southern states of USA in 50s & 60s re race is a sobering lesson. Only federal intervention turned it around. The dark forces of local determination must somehow be curtailed by national government or counterbalancing forces locally; a real conundrum. Some real challenges for officers and members - local collusion vs professional engagement, corruption - moral & financial. You can see the Japanese anxiety. Best Jan

This is great, Thanks Jan. Yes I know the horror stories. The village can be a source of companionship and care and the locus of a lynch mob. Simon

Good luck with your trips to Australia and Japan. Keep writing your blog so I can keep up with what you are doing. Let's get together when you're back. Best Jan

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From Kalamos Books: A law extending a smoking ban in Turkey to most enclosed areas - including taxis, ferries and shopping malls - came into effect Monday 19 May. Outdoor smoking was also banned in locations such as stadiums and playgrounds. A ban on lighting up in bars, restaurants and coffeehouses will be implemented next year. Smoking is already barred on buses, airplanes and in larger offices.

Petition to save forests in Greece. The Save our forests and give our planet a chance Petition to The Greek Parliament,The United Nations,The European Union was created by and written by Konstantina Stafylaki (ambelos_village@yahoo.com).

One of the best issues of Carfree Times is just out - edited by Joel Crawford, author of Carfree Cities. There's a fascinating conversation with the traffic scientist Professor Hermann Knoflacher of Austria in this issue.
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On 17 May it was Arthur's 90th birthday, enjoyed at home with Dorothy in Bevan Lee Road in Cannock. Lin decorated the cake.

Fire prevention - reducing harm

This is as good an example as any of the kind of work in which I specialise.

We got managers from several Fire and Rescue Services together at a workshop on political-management for professionals.

•To enhance understanding of politician/officer working
•To understand the separation of roles
•To appreciate inter-political dynamics
•To learn more about working with politicians individually and at meetings
•To increase confidence in working with politicians from all parties
•To help develop the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to deal with a range of specific political contingencies

Themes: Working positively with the chair and members of your Fire Authority. Agreeing and applying a working definition of “best practice”. Constructing trust between lead politicians, professionals and managers. Appreciating political structures and processes and their interaction.

This has taken a good deal of planning with me doing films of lead members and fire officers to add to my archive of political-management conversations. Working with training officers from the three services we'd written over a dozen examples of the class of problems arising. We were joined by a senior politician and three chief fire officers in the afternoon. What a bright bunch of self-educating practical people, ready to help each other, enthusiastic about ideas, keen to solve problems and make things better; as concerned about one fatality as many - and developing a new kind of hero who stops fires and road crashes before they happen (they're working with the police on road safety). This sort of preventative work doesn't photograph, yet it stops the weeping before it starts. One of the people at the workshop was doing a masters on civilising and decivilising

He referred me to the work of Norbert Elias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Elias
and the course he was doing led by Professor Adrian Linklater at Cardiff. http://www.aber.ac.uk/modules/current/IPM5830.html
In a chat at lunch he mentioned his focus on genocide in the Balkans. I said I'd send him the reference to Mark Mazower, who's edited essays about Greece's recovery via 'the reconstruction of family, nation and state' after the decivilising of the 1940s. It seemed right that in services directing creative attention to fire prevention I should find someone who could point me towards Elias and Linklater - that the darkness historians recorded was preceded by a prolonged and undramatic process of leaching out civility that, even now, evades understanding.

On my way home I was given a lift to N. I had an hour to pass and cycled into the centre where I came upon the grave of Robert Owen, founder of the Co-operative movement. It was in a restored churchyard by a roofless church. Gravestones had been laid flat. I chatted to an old lady who'd asked me the name of the blue flowers thriving on top of a stone wall. I did a bit of weeding. On one gravestone it said in pink slash "DIE PAKI". On a board fixed over an empty window were affectionate and recent mementos in grafitti smudges to a pal who'd died young in the trenches of small town anomie. The old lady shared her memories of the town with me and wished me well on my holiday in France. 'We've got too many Poles here" she said. "What's the problem?" "They're taking houses ... and jobs." We spoke more about the loveliness of the garden. I promised to try and recall the flowers' name. "Come again. Goodbye."

I went to the station. The train was late. There was a long platform with no-one on it until a young man came by chatting on his mobile. I was reading 'Prospero's Cell". He finished his call and stood near me then sat on 'my' bench and breathed and seemed to sigh. I was irritated but kept my thoughts to myself and went on reading. On the train I sat opposite a trainspotter with a little notebook who began a longish phone chat about the various ways he could get back to Newcastle. At Shrewsbury, where he got off to head for Manchester and the north, a younger man came in and talked cheerfully on his phone all the way to Birmingham. I had a call from a friend in Corfu who wondered of I'd like to do a charter, saling someone to and from Paxos. "There's good money in it". I said I was on a train in England. "OK, Another time.See you. Miss you." "Me too. Bye."

My history of the founding of Handsworth Park

The Earl of Dartmouth opens the Victoria Park Extension on 30 March 1898

O My history of the founding of Handsworth Park Originally uploaded by Sibad.

This afternoon, I did another history tour of Handsworth Park - initially titled Victoria Park - but the chilly wet weather was too much for all but my friend Zarina, so we strolled round the pond in the wind and the rain for over an hour, meeting one of the rangers and the boatman and some people measuring the Canada Geese population ("There are too many" said one, while another wrestled a bird to the ground to ring it), sheltering under trees, gazing at the views, and chatting about lots of things - geese and whether its cruel to pierce their eggs, Guantanamo, that 'heavenly body' and the uses of sheep according to Lawrence Durrell in Prospero's Cell, the Sisters of Mercy Convent in Hunters Road, Mr Smiley's houses, plans for Aston and Lozells, the gate the developers want removed from the masterplan linking the park and the new houses on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments, the workings of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, discarded gum and cigarette butts, details of Austin Line's and Charles Palmer's lovingly restored fountains ("You know Palmer was a keen cyclist"), what to do about dog mess, the boats which were out again yesterday, the hoped for return of fish to the pond, the unmarked pauper's graves in St.Mary's Churchyard and the thinking of the people who created Handsworth Park - "so people like us could talk in a public place on a rainy day?" Strolled home to tea and coffee with Lin. Had a good afternoon yesterday attending a friend’s wedding where the pastor has been for 50 years and is struggling a bit with rituals - checking stage directions sotto voce. My friend M, arrived 50 minutes late, having struggled, she told me later, to get the clingiest of pale pink wedding dresses around her slender figure. She's now married twice - well actually thrice if you count yesterday. She divorced a while ago. Yesterday, having plighted their troths and sworn the vows the pastor started over “Do you – sorry remind me of your name – yes, right – OK - do you M take ... ?“ and so we went round again, everyone, including bride and groom, smiling and laughing at a joyful and hilarious piece of double knot-tying to the music of ‘Greensleeves’, through Handel’s ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ and the singing of ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘When Jesus Washed – Oh happy day’, a Lesson from Ephesians 5, 20-33, some vibrant preaching with the tale of Paul shipwrecked on Malta surviving a snake bite - ‘for his destiny was Rome’ - and a convivial blend of black and white. Someone whispered to me later that the ‘pastor was past his best’ - yet he founded this church and saw its congregation through hard years of settling in England – years about which the Anglican communion in Birmingham has reproached itself for being less than welcoming to Christians from the Caribbean. It will be decades or more before a faltering secularist like me can compete with this sort of thing. Around 4.30 I was at The Village Cafe over from the Arcadian Centre with Richard and Amy enjoying noodle soup with roast duck. R took the car to work in Broad Street. Amy and I walked home via Bennetts Hill, the Jewellery Quarter into Hylton Street where a shoulder-width alley between workshops leads to Key Hill and the closed post office on Hockley Hill. By a bus stop among broken bottles lay the glossy cardboard packaging of a legless headless torso branded 'Heavenly Body'. We threaded the low tunnels and non-agora under Hockley flyover, up the sidewalk, past flytipping, past the nearly completed Gurdwara Babe-Ke - "Hey the fibreglass dome is rotating!" - down Naden Street (more an alley) where we were asked to a boombox enhanced block BBQ in the car park behind the redbrick flats overlooking Soho Hill. Along Hunter's Road, with the exception of the Catholic church and St.Mary’s Convent with their flowered frontages, a street of fine buildings has suffered low-budget private renovation. We walked on to the top of the hill and the tripartite junction of Weston Road, Hunters Road and Barker Street, wondering why some roads are called 'streets' and v.v., passing The Observatory Pub in the bow of one junction, and walking up Barker Street to the acutely angled Villa Cross, its identity mishapened by the disorder of the 1980s, losing us a cinema (already a bingo hall), pub (a drug market), shops (uninsurable) and gaining us a carpark, boarded up buildings and grant-funded offices with frontages attracting fly-posting as a cul-de-sac attracts flytipping, prompting traffic to pass rather than arrive. How titanic a task to draw in the involvement of its present and future population in reshaping this place and its surroundings. It can be done. People are working at it. We do meet and strive to get our minds around many tasks. It helps to have lots of cups of tea and biscuits. Promise exists - despite the acronyms of planning - in the Aston, Newtown and Lozells Area Action Plan (AAP) Issues and Options Report handed out at the Ward Area Committee last week. Comments need to go by 15 June 07 or phone 0800 694 3100. This plan will be part of the Local Development Framework (LDF) replacing the Unitary Development Plan (UDP). It's about the interconnection of housing, jobs, architecture, green space, health, education, transport, sustainability. It's about the circuitry of the area – IT, lighting, energy and water. It's about places to buy and sell, to worship, to play, to grow, to sit and talk, to listen, to eat, to associate, to read and view. It's about museums, gardens, smallholdings and trees and all with an eye to the broader changes that transform the practices and objects of one era so they become incomprehensible or impractical in another. Coming down Heathfield Road we came across three quite new brick houses in this dystopian place. They’d been built with such care and skill I wanted to clasp the hand of their builder. Amy took a picture she hasn't given me yet of a carved plaque in the wall of one house, saying it was built and designed by a man called Anthony E. Smile in 1998. Of course I’ve seen these many times but never asked about them. We strolled down Heathfield Avenue under trees and peered at the backs of the houses through iron gates. With a 'peep' of its horn an estate drove up. A lady introduced herself as Mrs.Smile. I shook her hand. "When you see your son please pass to him my deepest respect. He is a craftsman!" Smiley's houses are hope in brick. Mrs Smiley said "See the Lodge at the top of North Drive. My son worked on that." We did. This was the Lodge at an entrance to James Watt's Heathfield Estate, the original house demolished and what would now be called executive homes built in eclectic styles in the 1930s and now made more eclectic by prosperous newcomers who instead of flying to the suburbs on making their wealth have stayed in wicked Handsworth. The rawness of some renovations, such as the giant rampant gilt lions on one frontage, has not yet been moderated by the patina with which time can moderate the flamboyant impulses of new money. We walked on down North Drive, turning left along Gibson Road cursing the non-planning that had permitted the placing of several ill-proportioned new houses, still fenced off with paling and barbed wire, much too close to the pavement with diminutive back yards taken from gardens in North Drive. "It's someone in North Drive who's built them" said Amy. Greed in brick. So we came home, having enjoyed several little adventures. (see this entry 13 Dec'11 on a proposed Heritage Trail for Handsworth and Lozells)