Cycling to places

  

In an aeroplane, even the slow descent to Corfu airport, passing high over Trompetta, Skripero and 'our' Ano Korakiana to the runway at Kapodistria, 18k further south, I travel further with one bite of a sandwich sat in my belted seat, than on a morning’s cycle ride along the roads far below. Our residency papers were ready at the police station in Paleokastritsa.

It took me nearly an hour to get there from Ano Korakiana via Skripero – 8 kilometres crow-flight, perhaps 10k on country roads. Vasili, a polite young policeman in the office, had our certificates ready – 23 cents each with a stamp, a photo, signatures – official. We can now stay here more than the previously legal 183 days. I was delighted to cycle, without a break, past many tavernas and hotels. up the long hill out of Paleo to where my road headed, below the turns to Doukades, to a T-junction along a rutted road through wood and meadow to Skripero and home. My knees start to ache after a while, but not so they trouble me.  That only happens first thing in the morning when going downstairs I have to take one step at a time until my joints loosen up. 

Another day, my road south is another country road, gnarled by irregular repairs, with cracks from roasting that run in the direction of travel, and a winding four inch scar after the laying of wifi cable. Lined with hollyoak, cypress, olive, lemon and orange, prickly pear, oak, fig, kokykias, eucalyptus and pomegranate trees, some wrapped in ivy, its verges brim with wild flowers, hiding occasional plastic bottles, cigarette cartons, soft drink cans. This land was once part of great estates, but it wasn’t subject to enclosure, where, in England, swathes of land were hedged from the commons by landowners. 

It’s piecemeal – the vanishing remains of a busy pastoral economy in which all but a few were country people. No hedges. Those are reserved for private gardens; rather a shifting mix of makeshift separations – chicken wire, chain link and barbed wire held by metal posts, upright wood palettes, a bedstead, olive timbers nailed to posts – made discreet by burgeoning greenery. Gulleys, leading to culverts and dry winterbournes in the dips, make edges beside the road. At times there are just clumps of unmown verge, bamboo, brambles, oleander, long grass sprinkled with wild variety - corncockle, mallow, loosestrife, convolvulus, the brightest red poppies, spurge, pellitory-of-the-wall (especially prevalent this year), bryony, dwarf elderberry, wild geranium, wild garlic, clover, vetch, white and yellow daisy, honesty, nettles, and, now and then, fugitive garden flowers turning feral - clambering rose, grape vine, wisteria, tall hollyhock and other plants I struggle to name. 

Lin had made a shopping list  - a box of wine, 6 eggs, 2 packs of butter, 1/2 kilo of mince, 6 village sausages, 1/2 kilo of mushrooms, 6 large potatoes, a kilo of onions, a kilo of carrots, crab sticks, margarine, sweet corn. 
I start by walking my bicycle 100 yards down the stony path from our house to National Opposition Street. By the bus stop I turn the bike upside down and, leaning it against the wall there, I examine my tyres for embedded thorns from plants on the path that produce seeds like caltrops - tribulus terrestris. We call them ‘yellow perils’.  I use a hard brush on the turning wheels, and the tip of my penknife to ease out suspects. 
I ride eastwards to the hairpin bend on the edge of the village, that leads south from the road to Ag Markos, freewheeling swiftly to Athanassios Street, taking the short cut that passes the olive oil works to 'barking dog corner' and the old main road from the village to town. This road has no steep slopes until Ag Vassilis. Then it descends more steeply to the main road between Corfu Town and Paleokastritsa. I’m heading for Kaizanis, the supermarket at Tzavros. 

I pedal by Luna D’Argento, night club converted to apartments, and the gate to Sally’s stables where I took our grandchildren riding, on past Stamati’s joinery and up a slight hill before passing the T-junction that leads down to Kato Korakiana and the shore. I continue through the hamlet of Ag Vassilis. The clouds are starting to drop rain. At the hamlet of Gazatika the rain increases. I find an open garage and shelter opposite an empty house. A few cars drive by, swishing on the wet road. Swallows settle on an electric cable over the way, preening fussily under the rain. I see no-one. The rain rattles louder on the corrugated roof of the garage, lessens and pauses. 

I’m working through the recovered footage of my stepfather's old Out of Town location film – 16mm reverse negative colour film 40 years old and more, synchronised with 1/4" reel-to-reel sound tape of Jack's commentaries, digitised, colour restored - brought here on a solid state hard drive. Where we have only Jack’s recorded voice, because the old studio image recording tapes cost so much, they got reused. I am filling in these. I'll be filmed in July by Paul Vanezis to make the next Out of Town DVD box set. 

Draft selection of recovered Out of Town episodes

I must digest the spirit of my stepfather’s words before the start of the location films. It scares me. I observe a process of rumination and procrastination.
The unusual grey weather that lingers across the western Balkans wandering daily over Corfu, is here, the village’s pall. We had local and European elections in Ano Korakiana, but where before the village website would swiftly list the results of the polls, they remain unentered, but for an epitaph to the daughter of the village diarist. How could TS, so cruelly bereaved, muster the spirit to continue recounting the village story? The worst thing that can happen is to lose a child. The grass on the paths to her grave at St Nicholas Church is flattened by daily visits – toys, a hundred fresh flowers, a kite, a portrait, small heaps of lovingly arranged pebbles. Beside that a couple of instances of cancer in treatment, a pair of unexpected and irreparable separations from marriages entered only recently, with celebration and ceremony, pass almost unheeded. Even so they make this grey weather dispiriting, reflecting harm in the affairs of a community - ένα χωριό, μια κοινότητα.

Low cloud over mountains drifts in the street

I walked by the village mayor on Democracy Street, working on repairs and alterations to the home occupied by our new papas. FM has striven hard for the village, sorting out street lighting, leading neighbours in keeping village waste sorted and removed without mess, arranging for its collection from homes without cars, pushing for a recycling area near the long abandoned football pitch that is at last being laid out in full working order below the village, ready I suspect for astroturf. He told me he would be Mayor for just 3 more months. The vote last Sunday had been 430 for him to stay and 435 for a new Mayor. 

“Five votes” he said holding up his hand “Just five”

Papa Evthokimos’ house in the village is just opposite what was Stamatis’ Piatsa bar. That’s closed. Our Papas parks a car where we and others sat to drink and chat. Mark says our new Mayor will be Stavros Savanni, elder of Ano Korakiana, but we'll miss Mayor Fokion.
I sense, now and then, gouts of nostalgia; like a slide show my brain presents remembrances. Walking just a few weeks ago with my grandchildren down the rough track from Ano Korakiana to the sea on a route - Κλειστός δρόμος - now closed by a small landslip to vehicles, or seven years ago, with Amy and our new grandson and the dogs - hers, Cookie, my mums', Lulu, and our Oscar - beside the shores of the Moray Firth, over there the Black Isle.

Oscar dog, Oliver, Amy, Lulu, Cookie beside the Moray Firth near Ardersier

Oscar is old now, losing his sense of continuity, barking to go out just after he's come in, blind and almost wholly deaf yet wagging his tail enough to show he enjoys bits of his remaining life. The thought of these fragments of past is entirely bearable, yet contemplating them I sense being on the edge of suppressed grief. I'm old. I will have to go after Oscar in a few years. Am I up to all that - being bereaved of my wonderful life?

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

Lewis Carroll taking the mickey out of Robert Southey. When I was young I gave no thought to what the world felt like to old people, and they, quite rightly, had no intention of bothering me with their concerns, far more interested in sharing things the young hadn't experienced. Said my great grandmother, Lucy who died, aged 99 in 1969, once "We thought Oscar was a fool to take on Queensberry" I didn't understand her remark but I remembered it and much later gave it context in what happened to Oscar Wilde. I remember so many things she shared with my seven, eight, nine, ten year-old self, visiting her from school, having lunch at an Italian Restaurant in South Kensington and always talking about the world she'd known. How she fell in love and eloped to London, leaning out of the carriage window, saw her future husband, George Halkett, waiting at the end of the London platform - was it Euston? -  for her train from Oldham "and I knew, just seeing him standing alone in the distance, I'd made the right decision." I had no sense, then, of the risk she'd taken.

My bicycle just after I bought it 6 years ago

I peeked out from my shelter in Gazatika. The rain began again, sheeting down – then as abruptly stopped. My road continued past Angeliki’s, the physiotherapist, opposite the island’s electrical sub-station. I cycled across the Stravo river, waterless despite the rain, to the main road opposite Sgombou and travelled another kilometre to Kaizani. There, pushing a trolley, I work through Lin’s list, enjoying ticking off items without her back-seat shopping eye. I keep the invoice of course, as she'll check it carefully. Outside I calculate I have about 13 kilos in my basket.

My old box shopping basket when it's at home

The bike would like to fall over with the weight. On my way, gently uphill, the 10 kilometres back to Ano Korakiana. When it comes to gears my favourites involve the lowest gear on the rear chain set and the sequence - left hand lever - that changes the position of the chain on the seven sets of cogs on the pedal chain set. All of these from 1-1 for climbing steeper hills to 7-1 on the level, I like. On a descent I'll shift to 7-2 but the bike doesn't like it that way round. 7-3 is fine but switching up to 7-2, I've lost the chain, and oiled my hands putting it back. I don't know why. It's how things are.

The rear chain set on my bicycle

Shopping is an adventure on a bicycle. Walking up the steep path from the bus stop I push myself and the bike  ten steps, then rest for 10 seconds, then push another ten steps. Easy pacing.
"I'm home!" I shout as I prop my faithful vehicle against the wall of our house and unload freight from its rear basket.
"Hi" replies Lin from somewhere in the house.

Our grandchildren, Oliver and Hannah, walking down to the sea from Ano Korakiana

Πλήρης ημερών

Darling Mum, Grandma, and Great Grandma. All our love always...

Letter to my son-in-law:

Dear Guy
Amy asked me to send you a picture of the flowers for Barbara yesterday - the ones we're throwing into the rivers she loved. Also the music* we chose and my words in the small chapel at Inverness Crematorium where I was with Bay, Amy, Richard, Sharon and Elizabeth, while Lin stayed at Brin to take care of Oliver.

Our mother left us with extremely imprecise – actually no instructions.
We’re making this up as we go along and I want to thank the staff here and William Fraser and his family for the craft and professionalism they’ve contributed to this quick farewell.
This is not mum, or grandma
These small fragile remains on which we repose our care – and grief – are neither mum nor grandma
She’s already left us – and is becoming part of everything
We here need her remains for a little while, but she is not her remains, any more than she is her possessions – treasure them though we may; a talisman here, a memorial there.
Even mum – for all the precious care and love bestowed on her in these last months – had little time for what lies here.
Don’t remember this as mum, or grandma or Poppet or Theodora or Baba.

Progeny: a picnics by Dell Loch in 1987

What we now say farewell to is a symbol, a means – time-worn, traditional, valued - for lament, for grief and tears – all things that in time should not be any great part (for all our present feelings) of the vast treasure chest of memories we carry with us – some in our DNA – for the rest of our lives
Let’s say goodbye to her now; and be as brave as her; as brave as you know she'd insist we be. It’s not her death that matters in the end.It’s her life that we’ll take away from here.

Love
Simon

*Ω! γλυκύ μου έαρ, γλυκλύτατον μου Τέκνον, πού έδυ σου το κάλλος;
"Oh! my sweet Spring, My sweetest child, where has your beauty set?" - and deep thanks to Chris Holmes and Aleko Damaskinos in beloved Kerkyra for refining the translation and pointing me to where I could buy the music we wanted and to our tutor Nikos Mytikiotis in Birmingham for first pointing me to 'Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ'

Richard and I walked by the Nairn today

My mum was born 11 February 1917 in Hereford Square in Kensington. North of the Ancre the British took about 600 yards of enemy trenches near the Beaucourt-Puisieux road.

1918: Great grandma Jackson, my mum - Theodora Barbara - and her mother Bar Maine

Mum - Poppet - with Motley at Mill End in 1931

Barbara at Mains of Faillie in 2005

Now we're at Brin Croft - Lin, who drove up to the Highlands with me on Thursday night, Richard who flew up on Thursday evening, Amy who flew up with Oliver on Monday, and our dear friend Liz who's been here four months. Bay's flown back to New York to be with her husband after five weeks at Brin Croft helping care for mum. Sharon, her carer for five years, has driven south to be with her son in Nottingham and to rest.

Supper at Brin Croft this Saturday evening

**** ****

From: Andrew Coulson
Sent: 31 October 2012
To: Deepa Patel
Cc: Simon Baddeley; John Cade; Sue Platt
Subject:: Request for Quotation: Coaching Support for Scrutiny Chairs in Hounslow

Dear Deepa. Here is our proposal for delivery of your coaching sessions for scrutiny chairs. We have done our best to make clear how we would deliver what you need.  We appreciate that you will do your best to assist us to carry out the sessions with a reasonable number of visits, and are more than happy to clarify anything in the bid if that will assist.
Best regards. Andrew Coulson. Scrutiny Lead, Institute of Local Government Studies

One to One Coaching for Scrutiny Chairs - Hounslow LB
Proposal from the Institute of Local Government Studies

We have unique experience of scrutiny training – having been involved since 2000 when the legislation first made it mandatory. This training will be delivered by the following team:

Dr Andrew Coulson - former councillor, cabinet member and scrutiny committee member in Birmingham, has been a staff member of the Institute since 1984, written extensively on scrutiny and its position in local government, and been instrumental in creating the first assessed training course on scrutiny.

Simon Baddeley - a Tavistock Institute trained psychologist and counsellor, with special interest in relationships within organisations. He has conducted many one-to-one or one-to-two interviews with scrutiny chairs and scrutiny officers, and explored the relationships which are needed for scrutiny to succeed.

John Cade - former Head of Scrutiny at Birmingham City Council, with special interests in scrutiny at times of financial pressure and retrenchment, in topic selection, in managing the scrutiny processes, preparing high quality reports, and ensuring that they have maximum constructive impact.

Identification of Needs
If this is to be done effectively, and to deal with some of the sensitive issues which may arise, we do not see any alternative to undertaking it face to face. It would also be worth having a check-list to hand of some possible topics or issues, see below.

Our preference would be for the four sessions to be undertaken on the same day, e.g. a day when three or four of the councillors are present. The 27 November full council day is a possibility for this – and would still allow time for one coaching session for each of the four chairs to be held in December. The discussion of tailored sessions which follows shows that we understand that there is a great range of possible needs and opportunities for developing skills.  The task here will be to make the task manageable.

Delivery of Tailored Sessions
Good scrutiny depends on good chairing, and there are many different facets to this. Thus scrutiny chairing involves providing leadership and direction, ensuring the work is member-led, that other scrutiny members have the necessary skills for questioning, evaluating evidence and understanding the stages of a scrutiny project;  engaging all committee members in the process; ensuring adequate resources are provided or knowing how to work effectively within limited resources; acting as a ‘gatekeeper’; prioritising work, minimising some of the  common pitfalls of scrutiny; co-ordinating work with other scrutiny committees; sharing learning; developing constructive relations with the executive and relevant portfolio holders, with chief officers in the departments the committee scrutinises and with external witnesses.
For those who have doubts about their chairing skills, the best initial approach may be for the trainer to attend a scrutiny panel chaired by that member, and then meet either after the meeting or the next day to discuss conclusions and lessons that can be learnt from what happened, and other relevant issues.
More specifically, the chair will also need to ensure that the committee contributes actively to the scrutiny of the authority's policies, budget, strategies and service delivery, as well as evaluating and monitoring the performance of the authority and other agencies with whom the council works in partnership. It may also entail creative and inventive approaches to one-off investigations that contribute to the work of the council and the needs of the communities it serves.

Thus scrutiny chairs need to be confident, and able to:
·      chair the overview and scrutiny panels (already mentioned)
·      present the findings of the committee to the council, executive, the press and public where appropriate
·      promote the work of scrutiny and organise its work programme
-      work effectively with the officer or officers who serve scrutiny, constructing trust across the council and its departments
-      develop good working relations across parties so as to be able to work outside the party political framework
-      be able to engage with senior officers across the council to strengthen their respect for and involvement in the scrutiny process
-      work well with key figures in outside organisations, e.g. in health, housing, transport, etc etc

The practical one-to-one tutoring would, where possible, entail close observation of actual scrutiny sessions, with pre-meeting briefing and reflection and post-meeting feedback and preparation for the next meeting on the basis of what has been learned via this process of observation, reflection, feedback, and planning. There could also be sessions in which the tutor sat in on working meetings between the scrutiny chair and the relevant scrutiny officer. The feedback and reflection sessions following these observed meetings could involve both member and officer and could be enriched with video demonstrations from Inlogov research on members and officer working together on the scrutiny process. The initial session or sessions for each councillor would be conducted by our experienced counsellor, Simon Baddeley.
If these sessions identify needs for practical discussion, of matters such as selecting topics for investigations, scoping investigations, working with officers to manage the scrutiny process, drafting recommendations, or working with external agencies, then these sessions would be delivered by Andrew Coulson or John Cade.

Costings...etc

Reply - 8 Nov'12:
Dear Andrew
Many thanks to you and colleagues for taking the time to answer the questions in the quote documentation. I am pleased to say that Councillors have decided they would very much like to accept your quote! In particular they felt your quote showed a very thorough understanding of the wider role of the scrutiny chair both in and outside of meetings.
I need to get a formal letter out to you confirming acceptance of your quote. I shall do this early next week. If you can contact me next week we can start discussing next steps and get some dates fixed in the diary as soon as possible. I really look forward to supporting you with this project. Best wishes and have a good weekend. Deepa 

*** *** ***
As Richard and I strolled at sunset along the river, with the terriers, Mum's Lulu demanded her usual play in the cold clean water taking mum's flowers down to the sea.

Lulu in the Nairn

Γλυκό παιδί μου - once upon a time

*** *** ***

Dear Niko. Thanks you so much for the epitafio lament you showed me when we last met.
We played it at my mother’s funeral on Friday.
Everyone loved the music and the lament. It is of course sung at Easter in Ano Korakiana. Lovely as it is sung by the women’s choir in Ano Korakiana, we did not at first recognise it enhanced by Vangelis and Irene Papas.
Once again you and Greece support me at an important  moment in our lives. I know my mother would have loved this music. I will remember it for ever.
Much love to Christina. We have seen a few photos of your wonderful wedding but we want more…and perhaps to hear more of the music at the church and at the reception.
I am in Scotland now at my mother’s house but Linda and I will return to Birmingham in about a week. Much love and respect. Simon 

Dear Simon, Linda and Family. I was looking to my emails, who actually pointed me to Facebook that I do not follow that closely, and I've learned about your loss. Please accept from me and Christina our Sincere Condolences - Τα Θερμά μας Συλλυπητήρια και τις Προσευχές μας Υπέρ Ανάπαυσης της Εκλειπούσας. We know that her loving memory and personality will live in you and your family. Looking forward meeting you soon to express the above to you in person.
Deeply Saddened. Nikos

Scything between the daisies

Add caption

I've not had so much hayfever for years. I'm giving vent to those explosive eye-watering sneezes I recall from my youth, which is when I was last mowing meadow grass. My symptoms are soon removed with an allergy pill but such sneezing bouts are almost a pleasure, enhancing appetite. It's because I've been doing more mowing on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments; this time at the request of Phil Rose, our Chair, who said it was the Allotment Association's job to clear plots that the City Council Allotments Department was going to relet as their present tenants were not cultivating them. I said I'd be happy to agree a quid pro quo - such as a few sacks of compost. I set to using my shorter scythe blade watched by my plot neighbour Robin. As I mowed we discussed not cutting certain plants - especially flowers that might be favoured by bees, but our ignorance was mutual.
 I realised how little I grasped of the character of this variety, let alone the propinquity of one plant to another, the possibility of order in what had been designated neglected ground. Would my crudely selected leavings be acceptable to the city allotments officer when he inspects the site in readiness for reducing the current waiting list for plots on the VJA?
There's plenty of common mallow - the perfect plant - in violet flower veined purple:

Mallow - the perfect plant (photo: Jeevan Singh)

What was this majestic lone bush like plant that looked as if it might have escaped from someone's border?

Caper Spurge?

And what might this be - the tall delicate leaved plant with small pink petals between the violet mallow and a clump of daisies?

Pink or Moroccan toadflax?

Fescue, dock, thistle and nettles fell before my well whetted blade along with a close matted plant spread like a carpet of chickweed, checking my scythe,  carpeting most of the plot and altogether larger with little yellow flowers? What of these tall elegant plants still in bud, emerging yellow, which I've left standing?

Reseda Lutea or Wild Mignonette, also called Weld, Dyer's or Bastard Rocket

...or these pair, next to Anna's well hoed African millet?

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris )

"Put them on the internet" said Robin, who'd taken the photos while I mowed, "I'll look them up and let you know." Thus we do our homework; learning grassland grammar, declining weeds.
Andrew S sent me a note:

Hi Simon. I think the last photo is of Mugwort, which has a very distinctive smell, and the long tall plant looks like Weld or Dyer's Rocket which as the name implies was used to produce a yellow dye. I'll take a closer look at the other two plants the next time I'm at the allotment. Some allotment holders have chosen to keep patches of Mayweed and Common Mallow on their plots to add colour. I made a note of some of the plants on plot 25 before we cleared it. This is just opposite the plot you scythed. The list was as follows: Fat Hen, Groundsel, Common Sorrel, Redleg, Spear Thistle, Broadleaved Dock, Evening Primrose, Broadleaved Willowherb, Shepherds Purse, Apple of Peru, Common Nettle, Common Mallow, Black Meddick, Clover, Horsetail, Lupin. Best Wishes Andrew

This job finished I went to our own plot and continued brushing wood preserver over the still separated sides of our shed, splinting the roof, another of the sections we'd had to saw apart to load them on the van that bought them to the site. From a skip Lin had noticed we've recovered turf, that will go nicely in front of the completed shed.

and though it stopped me working I was glad of the evening rain that came to damp it down. But why are we not making hay? Why do we seem to have no obvious use for the vegetation scythed, other than as future compost? Why no pitchfork or raking? No haycocks set by my wife in the field?

Medieval labours of the month - July

** ** **
Even as people in Ano Korakiana express their apprehension, in statistics describing the awesome scale of this new still unfamiliar technology, about the next stage in permission for twelve wind turbines above the village on Trompetta...

Παρά τις αντιδράσεις των κατοίκων και του Δημοτικού Συμβουλίου Κέρκυρας, ένα ακόμη βήμα προς την δημιουργία του πάρκου ανεμογεννητριών στον Παντοκράτορα (και κατ’ επέκταση στην περιοχή του χωριού μας) αποτελεί η χορηγηθείσα άδεια εγκατάστασης την οποία υπέγραψε στις 30 Ιουνίου 2011 ο Γενικός Γραμματέας Αποκεντρωμένης Διοίκησης. Η άδεια αφορά στην  εγκατάσταση αιολικού σταθμού παραγωγής ηλεκτρικής ενέργειας ισχύος 24 MW, από την εταιρεία «ENOVA Hellas Windenergie A.E.» . Σύμφωνα με την άδεια, «Ο ανωτέρω Σταθμός αποτελείται από δώδεκα (12) ανεμογεννήτριες τύπου ENERCON E-82, ονομαστικής ισχύος 2 MW η κάθε μία, ελέγχου ισχύος με τη μέθοδο pitch control, αριθμού πτερυγίων 3, ύψους πυλώνα 98 m, διάμετρο πτερωτής 82 m, τάσης παραγόμενης ενέργειας 460 V υπό συχνότητα 50 Hz, ισάριθμους με τις ανεμογεννήτριες μετασχηματιστές ονομαστικής ισχύος 2000 kVA, ενσωματωμένους, σχέσης ανύψωσης 0.46/20 kV, κτίριο ελέγχου εμβαδού 80 m2 περίπου και λοιπές αναγκαίες συσκευές, κατασκευές. H σύνδεση του έργου με τα δίκτυα της Δ.Ε.Η. θα γίνει σύμφωνα με τους τεχνικούς όρους της ΔΕΗ».

...our neighbours John and Gill Rose have invested in photo-voltaic roof panels, the first in our street to take the risk of benefiting from the government's Feed-in Tariff Scheme (FITs) introduced on 1 April 2010, under the UK Energy Act 2008. I say 'risk' because although such panels can now be installed with the expense lessened by government grant, the investment is unlikely to be repaid in under 15 years.

That's the current situation. In a few years economies of scale will have made the process of generating electricity and selling what's unused at home - 'feed-in' - back to the national grid look far more affordable. I first encountered this technology in 2009 in Australia. I recall my friend John Martin, who'd organised a conference in Bendigo on energy futures remarking that energy companies were unused to buying energy from consumers; their rationale being to sell it.  For the moment most UK householders prefer to wear more jerseys in the winter or install more roof, wall and window insulation. In twenty years or less, as energy gets dearer and dearer and the ostriches who won't believe there's an energy crisis caused by dependence on fossil fuels die off, there'll not be a building whose owners aren't doing something like this. We've also discussed photovoltaic (PV)  panels, with a Solar Consultant from EvoEnergy on the phone scanning our roof via Google maps, finding our house - 'the one with the white front gable end"; doing a virtual crawl over our tiles to assess the amount of sun we might harvest. Our home is for the moment a less than an ideal candidate when it comes to harvesting the sun.

Dear Mr.B. I have taken some rough measurements of your roof...

** ** **

...Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things...

It is Greek. Here was hubris, overwheening banal contamination of our public life, invasion of mine and a million other's interior lives. For me it began with that ominous MacTaggart Lecture delivered by Rupert Murdoch at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on 25 August 1989.

In an atmosphere of imminent change, New Television is to be the theme of this year's Edinburgh International Television Festival. It will kick off on August 25 with Rupert Murdoch giving the MacTaggart Memorial Lecture on Freedom in Broadcasting...The Herald 26 July 1989

I didn't even have to read his words in detail. I just knew this charming affable Australian stood for something pernicious. Robert Fisk, on 11 July '11, put it well, speaking from far more direct experience than I of the phenomenon of self-censorship - not Fisk's forte by the way:

I don't believe Murdoch personally interfered ... He didn't need to. He had turned The Times into a tame, pro-Tory, pro-Israeli paper shorn of all editorial independence. If I hadn't been living in the Middle East, of course, it might have taken me longer to grasp all this. But I worked in a region where almost every Arab journalist knows the importance of self-censorship – or direct censorship – and where kings and dictators do not need to give orders. They have satraps and ministers and senior police officers – and "democratic" governments – who know their wishes, their likes and dislikes. And they do what they believe their master wants. Of course, they all told me this was not true and went on to assert that their king/president was always right. These past two weeks, I have been thinking of what it was like to work for Murdoch, what was wrong about it, about the use of power by proxy. For Murdoch could never be blamed. Murdoch was more caliph than ever, no more responsible for an editorial or a "news" story than a president of Syria is for a massacre – the latter would be carried out on the orders of governors who could always be tried or sacked or sent off as adviser to a prime minister – and the leader would invariably anoint his son as his successor. Think of Hafez and Bashar Assad or Hosni and Gamal Mubarak or Rupert and James. In the Middle East, Arab journalists knew what their masters wanted, and helped to create a journalistic desert without the water of freedom, an utterly skewed version of reality. So, too, within the Murdoch empire. In the sterile world of the Murdochs, new technology was used to deprive the people of their freedom of speech and privacy. In the Arab world, surviving potentates had no problem in appointing tame prime ministers...

Private Eye ~ 22 July '11

No doubt Murdoch will appear before the public garbed in the poise and using language of Uriah Heap, shocked and saddened by what has happened, profoundly sorry at being let down, nay betrayed, by people the News International imperium recruited and paid, making his excuses and leaving.  It will be impossible for any of these moguls to stand again on a public forum touting the superiority of pure market forces in broadcasting, damning all regulation as interference. Hovering over their heads will be the phantom of a 13 year old girl abducted and murdered in 2002 - a parent's worst fear, so of course of interest to journalists; a child's technical umbilical to her parents was already, by then,  a mobile phone. Driven by the 'Caliph's' remorseless desire for his version of 'freedom in broadcasting', his minions saw fit to listen to the missing child's voice-mail, eavesdropping messages to her after she was murdered.

As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word. But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the paper intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. Guardian 4 July '11

Amanda Dowler's cruel fate has served, posthumously, as Murdoch's nemesis, Νέμεσις - giving him and his what they are due, remorseless is as remorseless does.