A glimpse of the new porch

Ο Άλαν Μπάρατ το έκανε

As well as replacing the balcony and stairs on the outside of the house on Democracy Street, Alan has designed and is now putting final touches to a new porch, which we saw as a sketch at the beginning of May. Honey has emailed us latest photos:

Hi, Simlin. Here's an early look at the porch as it's coming along. Still a lot of finishing work to be done. It's all the details that need doing now. We'll send another shot in a few days to let you see the progression. The neighbors are coming there every day and seem delighted and surprised at each new additional detail. We hope you are equally pleased. Love, Alan and Honey

Lin replies:

Hi Honey. The porch looks fabulous! We love it. I particularly like the curve down to the bottom of the steps - it has a very art deco feel to it. Only 6 weeks till we see it 'in the flesh' (so to speak). Can't wait to sit on the little bench with a cuppa - it's like getting a new house. lol. Please pass on our admiration to Alan. He's very lucky to be so talented and makes me very jealous! My cousin Val from New Zealand is coming in September, followed by friends from Australia, so I'll be taking some time off from roofing, plaka-ing, painting, etc. Hope to see a bit more of the island this time - we hardly went out last time. Simon has work in Australia again at the end of October and I've taken the plunge and booked to go with him...Simon's been digging our new allotment and I've ordered seed potatoes, which I hope will arrive tomorrow. We're not planting anything else this year, as we won't be here. We reckon that potatoes can look after themselves. lol Must go - lots to do before I go to bed. Love to you both, and give our thanks to Alan for his beautiful porch. Linsim xxx

The cubby's just right for my Brompton, and a cat or two

** ** ** We are hearing that at last Greek forest maps could be in the public domain during September.

Kathimerini 22 July '10: An ambitious draft bill that aims to curb illegal construction on forestland by drawing up comprehensive maps delineating the boundaries of the country’s forests is to be submitted in Parliament next week and the first few maps are to be put on public display in September, Environment Minister Tina Birbili said yesterday.

...and although, it's not a story for the redtops I'm impressed that after years of politically massaged statistics on the state of the Greek economy there is an independent statistical office responsible for producing national information - especially financial.

* * * *

Two good sessions with elected members - one near London, another in the Midlands - on overview and scrutiny.

Tailored to address the needs of new and more experienced councillors this evening focuses on driving the work of scrutiny, aiming:

• to familiarise councillors with the unique dynamics of chairing scrutiny as this relates to roles, activities and processes that contribute to successful scrutiny

• to help members assess their own learning, and practice the skills required,

• to explore the organisational role of scrutiny and its contribution to good governance

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

Part of the pleasure of in-house work with particular councils is travelling there and back with the opportunity to rehearse on the train, mark papers, read, gaze from the window and cycle to and from my station. I travel with others, part of the teeming diversity of the public domain - in trains, on platform and concourse, on the street - interesting people, noisy, silly people, puzzling, distracted, eccentric, beautiful, zombie-like people, reading, sleeping, chatting, phoning, working on laptops, watching films, playing computer games, earphone absorbed. I'm so acclimatised to this motley, accustomed to being the anonymous author of an involuntary internal commentary, mostly curbed by public civility - emitting cartoon bubbles of vexation, amusement, frustration and curiosity amid a stream of impressions I'd feel slightly trapped on my own behind the wheel of a car compared to the openness in all weathers accorded by cycling, walking and the company I share on public transport.

I’ve been untruthful about some public exchanges lest the extra detail shadow the good light I hope to shine on myself or to avoid the whimsy of self-depreciation. An encounter at the end of May on New Street Station concourse, when I called out to someone “Your shoelace is undone” and he replied, “Piss off”. It didn’t end there.

I got out my taser, the one I use for repelling aggressive dogs, and brought him to his knees pleading for mercy…no, no of course not, but I did cry out

“What a horrid thing to say!”

and when he ignored or failed to hear me, I repeated

“Hey! that was a vile thing to say…” He turned to stare at me “...really vile. Don’t you know small incivilities lead to big ones?”

“What do you mean?”

I had his attention

“What you just did when I tried to do you a favour. That way leads to Auschwitz, Birkenau and Belsen.”

“O fercrisake”

“You share the same moral deficiency”

By now we had an audience; amid the early commuters, one witness - a man from Network Rail stood observing our exchange.

“It’s you who’ve got the serious moral deficiency, if you think me saying 'piss off' makes me a concentration camp guard”

Now we were communicating I felt embarrassed.

“OK I’m sorry of course the comparison’s disproportionate. I promise you’re not a concentration camp guard. Of course you’re not, but I was really vexed”

“OK. Yes...well...I apologise. I’ve had a lousy night”

I put out my hand; he his, and we smiled ruefully at one another as we shook hands. He went his way his lace still undone. I turn towards my platform and the Network Rail man said, “You were dead right. One thing leads to another”

I agreed with him privately but didn’t press the point, thinking Norbert Elias’ ghost backs me. Small incivilities do lead to larger.

The other day I went to the Public Convenience on the edge of the chapter grounds of Winchester cathedral. I wheeled my bike into the foyer; left it there to go to the men’s WC. It was clean without a trace of malodour or horrid perfumed camouflage. Going out I saw the attendant in his office.

“Your toilets are excellent.“

He realised I was talking to him and came out to the yorkstone street

“A civilisation is measured by the state of its public conveniences. Yours is an example.”

He was wearing a Serco badge on spotless blue overalls. A bulky man in his 50s.

“Have you been to the Abbey Gardens ones?” he asked

“No”

“They’re even better. Classical music. Rodgers and Hammerstein.”

“Right. If I get caught short in that vicinity I’ll call in, but meantime thanks for these.”

“They could be cleaner but it’s raining. People bring in…”

He unlocked the disabled WC door to show its pristine floor.

“A tiny difference.” I said

“Well thanks" and we waved goodbye. Now I thought of one 'who sweeps a room…’ which reminds me of something that happened on Sunday afternoon as I worked on the dry earth of our stony allotment with so much more to do. I was thinking what a long way I have to go before I can begin to plant anything when I saw, below my upraised mattock, an oak sapling hardly six inches high, that must have been missed by the developer’s weed killer. It had planted itself amid the scrub. I levered it gently from the ground and took it, still with a tiny root ball of dried earth, to the foot of the plot and replanted it, watering it in from the plastic bottle I’d brought to slake my thirst - the first thing planted on Plot 14.

In Jersey

Arriving over Jersey in a gale

So after getting home on Friday with the joy of seeing Lin - in the flesh - since we'd been chatting on Skype all the time I was away, and also Richard and Amy and Oscar dog, I've flown south to Jersey for two days, descending through driven clouds across a south westerly gale joyously stirring white caps in the distinctive blue of the English Channel below;

that dreaded tide rip harrying the rocks beween Alderney and France, as our medium size prop plane descended for a brief stop in rain and wind swept Guernsey.

Last time I made that journey was in Two Pearls - and it was summer, but she was a sweet sea boat. One advantage of so-called jetlag is that there's a whiff of an antipodean afternoon in my time clock even though I'm sitting preparing for tomorrow's seminars for members and officers of the States of Jersey at 2.00am in my hotel room in the Pomme D'Or. Tomorrow - well - later this Monday morning, I'm leading two seminars on Chairing Scrutiny. I'm not to say 'Chair'. Members, including women, will remind me they aren't 'furniture'. Trickier is members' animus against the idea of scrutiny as a 'critical friend' to the executive.

CHAIRING SKILLS FOR SCRUTINY

Seminars for the States Assembly of Jersey

30 November 2009, 0900-1300 and 1330-1730

The effectiveness of scrutiny depends on refining the skills and knowledge needed to raise the profile of a process still relatively novel. Scrutiny chairmen, and those who work with them, are usually the first to recognise that steering scrutiny differs from more traditional chairmanship tasks in government. These workshops offer an opportunity to rehearse the competencies involved. There will be brief presentations with discussion to guide analysis and reflection with a refreshment break during each seminar.

AIMS:

• to identify and review the responsibilities of scrutiny chairmen in the government of Jersey,

• to explore and clarify the skills and knowledge required by those chairing the scrutiny function, including scoping, questioning and weighing evidence,

• to consider how chairmen, members and officers can plan to develop and maintain these skills.

PROGRAMME

Introductions and overview of the seminar

The roles of scrutiny chairmen

Challenges of chairing scrutiny

Skills and knowledge before, during and after meetings

Future learning

Summary and final observations

What is it about that term 'critical friend'? It's an issue on the horizon of nearly every chair/chairman of scrutiny I encounter. The political context in Jersey is of course unique to the history and personalities involved and despite studying their impressive website - 'Scrutiny: ensuring transparency and citizen involvement in our government' - I am strong in my ignorance of its traditions, but the matter of scrutiny's relationship to the executive has generic qualities existing in the relationship between the government and select committees at Westminster, where scrutiny has a 30 year start - at least - on its equivalent in sub-national government in the UK. In our Parliament there've been recurrent attempts to whip chairmen, resisted with increasing success after many more years of select committee existence than constitutionally established scrutiny in Jersey and similar functions across English local government. It's an inevitable constitution conundrum; one of the more recent of the stream of attempts to tweak that cumbersome system we call 'democracy' into better working order. It would be foolish of me not to anticipate opinions on this, if for no other reason that if I try to ignore it, the concerns I've been cautioned about will rear up anyway, because anyone seeking to make headway with scrutiny will have encountered this tension. If they do not give it thought, they'll be reminded of it by their colleagues. Understanding and handling relations with the executive is part of effective chairing of scrutiny, which doesn't mean there shouldn't be reciprocity, and readiness among executive members to agree quid pro quos, and indeed an understanding that ineffectual scrutiny can mean ineffectual executive. Is there a problem that being a 'critical friend' runs counter to the long tradition in law and government of adversarial debate, so that being 'a friend' - critical or otherwise - suggests collusion, collaboration and weakness. I was first introduced to the important principle that opposing the government of England was not treason when I was about 12 - when introduced to the term 'Her Majesty's Opposition', an idea that enshrined the notion that it was for certain subjects of the sovereign their duty to oppose.

* * *

In Birmingham before going to Jersey I had Saturday clear. From the bike kennel in our cluttered garage I chose - not my usual Brompton - but my full sized bicycle. The habit of using my folder has been interrupted by the cycling in Australia. Feeling slightly disloyal I took out the Eco Real to enjoy the extra speed of a full sized bicycle. The contrast is marked. The wind rushed, chilly, despite my warm clothes, into unguarded crannies around my neck as I swept over the Hockley flyover, enjoying the choice of 16 rather than 6 gears. But the bigger bike can't be taken inside places. I have to keep locking it. I can't take it on buses or trams. On the inter-city trains I have to buy a ticket to have it with me and put it a special compartment and worry whether there'll be space on trains back if I take it to other cities. For work I'll be sticking to my Brompton but I'm exhilarated by the novel sensations of the larger bicycle as I was on Geoff's Orbea in Melbourne and John's MTB in Bendigo. The additional pleasure here is being free from the Australian compulsion to wear a helmet.

At the city centre I worked my way into the cheerful crowd enjoying the German Market, sipped a mug of mulled wine and savoured a plate of fresh fried mushrooms and diced potatoes mingling with a generous covering of creamy garlic sauce. Then out again to Handsworth for an excellent haircut at a little barber in Nineveh Road. I'll go there again, especially as I can see the large bicycle through the window, where it's locked to a lamp-post. I was reading something I wrote about 9 years ago about the trend towards urban utility cycling - wondering how things would be in ten years time. There are more people relying on bicycles but the car continues to proliferate - still the preferred way to get from A to B. Is there any acceleration of change?

I doubt it, though in London increases in cycle commuting are evident. Lin drives. Richard drives. Amy drives, though she's been experimenting with cycle commuting "but not now it's turned cold and dark" she admitted to me slightly ruefully on Friday. So while I have fun, my hopes that many more would share it, seem confounded. I console myself by enjoying the benefits of escaping the inconveniences of autodependency, while little by little people of vision lower the profile of the car in plans for the city.

* * * * *

The Agiot Newsletter for December '09 has used an old piece of mine on the Parthenon Marbles - pages 8-10. Written in November 2007 when New Democracy are still in power it looks odd, but the argument survives - more or less. And to show my hopelessness as a predictor of political fortunes, Dora Bakoyannis lost a fight with Antonis Samaras for the Leadership of New Democracy, in opposition since PASOK won a General Election in October '09. Op-Ed from Kathimerini