Blog
1 july 2013, and now we’re 28
Tuesday 2nd July 2013
Its been a long wait, and some now doubt its wisdom, but finally, after many, many years of patiently knocking on the door, getting a foot in and gently pushing it open, croatia today became a member of the european union. I have several times mentioned my own experiences (25 may 2011) in this former yugoslav state, my friends there and its coloured history (26 may 2011). Today, croatia may mean festivals and holidays; but for my generation it will always mean bloody war. Yet, like central europe’s accession in 2004, joining the eu really does end one chapter and confirm the page has been turned onto a new one, of sustainable independence in the european mainstream. There is no…
28 june 2013, the delights of moscow airport
Friday 28th June 2013
Though I can’t quite claim the fugitive status of edward snowden, I did feel a hand on my shoulder when reading about him being holed up at sheremetyevo. While working in eastern europe in the early 90s, I blithely found that small dollars got you visa-lessly through borders in the baltics, balkans and bulgaria - but not mother russia. Niet visa, an incredulous and armed guard asked me. Problema. My passport and ticket were taken and I was led to my luggage and a dismal corner of what was then a dismal airport, where I can picture edward now. I was sat on a plastic seat with a black guy from zaire. He was full of the joys…
25 june 2013, the dragon of debt
Tuesday 25th June 2013
Amidst calls across the western world to let loose the genie of growth through the tamed beast of borrowing (look how cheap it is !), I remain fixated about the dragon of debt. Our concept of spend comes from an utterly unsustainable pattern established as the norm during the working lifetime of most of today’s policymakers. Like geese stuffed for foie gras (I’ll credit that to john lancaster) consumers, companies and sovereigns gorged on cheap credit. I recall the ecb vice-president telling how he was alerted to the coming crash while having his haircut in new york and being regaled about how his stylist had just bought a third house. Most of us have simply got used to buying…
18 june 2013, mind the gap
Tuesday 18th June 2013
This is the longest I’ve gone without writing up a paragraph on these pages since I started many years ago. The basic reason is that we have been in a highly internet-challenged exile for a couple of months while we had work done on the house, and that chaos and living from suitcases added too many extra layers to a too busy life. Once in that rut though, the reflex rather dulled and the creative muscles used in these lucid windows did somewhat dry up, as the steamroller of everything else in life just squeezed them out. We have been back more than a week now, but it is still hard to carve out the moment and settle again…
25 may 2013, in train
Saturday 25th May 2013
My elder son, 11, is a bit of a train enthusiast; we were in desolate crewe a few weeks ago, at a cobbled-together museum next to a tesco that used to be factories employing tens of thousands. He has been closely monitoring the growth of manchester’s metrolink tram network as it doubles in size; likening it to the growth of london underground, 150 years ago. He has been particularly watching east didsbury get built over the last year, our closest stop; and over recent weeks we have cycled by to see test trains arrive at the terminus which stops about an inch before you enter stockport. Trying as ever to please and encourage my offspring in whatever their interests, I…
19 may 2013, the mend of the project
Sunday 19th May 2013
When the french president even dares to talk about possibility of the end of the european project, you know it’s in a hole. About time, most people would say, with half the population of what is often called the european demos confidently predicting the end of the eu for many years now. A far cry from five years ago, when I left the project in its strongest state ever, with consensus building around the appointment of a proper european president and the euro lining up the dollar in its sights. Looking forward to the last european elections (the quiet road to 2009) I broadly saw a lull after the last wave of constitutional change and stability underpinning faster progress in…
4 may 2013, on being defensive
Saturday 4th May 2013
At every board meeting of the healthcare trust I am a (non executive) director of, we drag in a patient to come and talk to us about the care and service they received. The idea is for someone to tell us something that has gone wrong in a way that would never quite percolate upwards from staff, who at every level, very naturally paint the worst in the best light. The totemic “vasegate” incident, which is at the centre of a convulsive questioning of how good care really is in the nhs, shows how hard it is at the top to know what’s going on at the bottom. It also shows the true value, however hard it is, of seeking…
27 april 2013, china in my pocket
Tuesday 30th April 2013
Quite a major event, as finally launched the manchester-china forum yesterday, with no less than the british finance minister, george osborne, who endorsed it enthusiastically and will now be a helpful contact government-side, even though the construction is to sit alongside rather than within the main uk efforts to improve economic links with china; oh, and the consul-general. Generated a fair amount of publicity too. I’ve been banging on about the crucial nature of this for literally years, so it was great to take a big step in the right direction, and to see strong evidence (of what economic growth needs) leading policy and politics rather than, as often, the other way around. China is neither an easy nor a…
20 april 2013, upside down
Sunday 28th April 2013
Whilst preaching that english people need to look again at whether home ownership for everyone is the right model, we are nevertheless forging ahead with improving our own little castle, and have moved out for a few weeks while the builders moved in. Things then are rather upside down, as we split ourselves between two places and try to carry on life as usual, even though everything we want is always in the wrong place. There's suddenly a whole new set of big decisions to make too, all rather rapidly and all on things we are not terribly familiar with - what size radiator, a door where, put how many on the window ? I'm learning a lot about water…
10 april 2013, this blessed plot
Sunday 28th April 2013
I remember vividly being woken quite rudely after a late night by a boisterous flatmate, to be told that maggie was gone, and just lying there rubbing my eyes and trying to understand. Like london was its capital, so margaret thatcher was britain's prime minister. A whole generation of us, thatcher’s children like it or not, had grown up knowing nothing else, and at that moment couldn’t really imagine it. I vaguely remember seeing david steel on some staircase after the 1979 election and conflating the sparse crowd greeting him with his 11 mps. As we came of age, it was thatcher and only thatcher that actually won general elections, the falklands, regular fights with the trades unions and pretty…
29 march 2013, the garden shed
Sunday 28th April 2013
Things were hard when I was a kid. We had an old run-down garage, which had absolutely everything stuffed inside, and also housed our old car, making driving it in every day a highly-specialised manoeuvre, and getting out afterwards all but impossible without knocking down stepladders, paint pots or bamboo canes. The garden was just as unruly, although something my dad always wanted, but could never quite afford, was a garden shed. I must have been about 10 when bernard, a friend of ours who my parents helped out (there were a lot of those), moved into heathlands old age people’s home, and told us we could have his. He lived just a few hundred metres away on sheepfoot lane,…
23 march 2013, what in the world is going on ?
Saturday 23rd March 2013
The markets remain calm, and a million cypriots seem half a world away, but what’s going on there is an absolute breakdown, with a root cause of an oversized banking sector, like iceland, ireland and, yes, the uk. Though a year in the making, and with many deadlines past, the crystalisation of the crisis this week seemed a surprise, not least to the cypriot body politic, which rejected the deal its leaders made to secure the bail-out they asked for. Russia spurned their advances, thrusting them back to their european reality, and the ecb, rather precipitously, if legally, brought about a final climax by threatening to turn the taps off on monday. They can’t now back down, hence cyprus passing…