What interests me in all of this is the discussion surrounding the clean-up and, in particular, the people who have suggested that it is such a good idea that we should be doing it regularly. Here’s an example:

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if @riotcleanup evolved into a monthly London borough clean up to help schools, parks, youth centres… (@amanda)

I have a problem with this. While as a society we consider being community-minded to be a good thing, I believe it’s also important to set boundaries on what we view to be appropriate and acceptable responsibility for our surroundings, and what we do not.

There are wonderful examples all over the country of community spirit and what people are doing for their local areas. My own is one such example. At the moment there is an excellent project put together by volunteers to create community gardens: many of them are retirees who love gardening and are putting their passion to great use for others. The city’s parks department does a truly excellent job of making our public spaces look beautiful all year round, but this doesn’t extend to smaller urban areas. If people are getting out there and guerilla gardening for those who don’t have access to green space to enjoy, that is a fantastic idea and very much to be supported.

However, I am troubled by the suggestion that we should get out and clean up our streets as a matter of course, for several reasons. The first is that Britain is not an underdeveloped country. We have mandatory financial collection in place for our local areas to be looked after – council tax – and everyone pays a serious amount to ensure that this actually happens.

My argument is that it isn’t so much a question of ‘Why the hell should I clean up my neighbourhood when I pay for it?’ – but more the fact that because we have this arrangement, we have people who are employed to do that job, and to whom having that livelihood matters. We should not be considering a course of action which could deprive anyone of their livelihood, however well intentioned it may be.

The second is that being ‘community minded’ in this context – one of basic service provision – plays right into the hands of Cameron’s Big Society agenda, which bases its ideal on ‘goodwill’ in order to dismantle the public sector and abrogate responsibility for local government services. While proposers of community help may baulk at the idea that they might be aligned with this rhetoric, unfortunately it is the case because the Big Society places responsibility for services firmly in the hands of volunteers.

Where all these volunteers who Cameron believes can run libraries, social care, youth projects, clean streets and so forth come from, I have no idea. We are already working hard to survive, yet we are supposed to do more simply because a pampered multi-millionaire has got it into his head that the solution to the UK’s ills is to eliminate essential services and expect citizens to take up the slack?

I don’t know how you feel about that, but I for one think it’s pretty unpalatable. I find it hard to listen to Cameron calling our society ‘sick’ and ‘broken’ when the Big Society agenda is based on vandalising vital services and vilifying the poor and needy. And the idea that a political party could prey on the generosity of decent people already disposed to giving in order to pursue its own motives is deeply unacceptable.

There is a third issue which many appear to have overlooked. Cameron’s relentless attacks on local government, which he presents as inefficient, financially bloated and wasteful, belie a very simple fact:

The majority of councils in the UK are Conservative-controlled, and have been for some time.

If anyone needs to learn the values of community spirit, it is the Tory party, which is peopled by wealthy grandees for whom the concept of social responsibility means very little. If anything is ‘broken’, it is this government.

What is most important is that the kind, thoughtful people of Britain who have helped in the riot clean-up, who genuinely want to give something back to their communities, should not be inveigled into using that generosity to support the aims of politicians whose real motives run very much to the contrary.

I know that it’s hackneyed to trot out the work ethic argument, but I’m going to do it anyway, as I’m such an example.

I grew up in a family with little money. When I was very young, my father worked two – often three – jobs to keep us, while my mother stayed at home to look after me. I grew up in a strongly multicultural urban community where everyone was in the same position, but it was a community where everyone knew and looked out for each other, despite its underclass and troubles. I felt safe in a place where people lived and worked together peacefully. It could have been very different, and I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in such an environment.

In that area now there is a colourful mural, painted by local children, which says: ‘Respect and diversity in our community.’ It is never defaced. Indeed, people do respect its message, and have done for years.

I was the first person in my part of the family to win a place at university, the daughter of a first-generation immigrant. While I was at college, during the Thatcher recession, my father lost his job. At that time, 3 million like him were suffering deeply from a society run along the same lines as today’s Cameron regime, where the rich ruled and, as far as they were concerned, the poor and disenfranchised could go to hell. The situation in our household became so worrying financially that leaving my studies became a serious possibility, even though my parents were not funding me through college. My father managed to find a menial job to keep things going, and I continued to receive a full grant, working full-time during every holiday so that I wouldn’t be a burden to my family. My parents had put a huge amount of effort into getting me the best state education they could, and understood that I should try to continue in order to secure my future.

I left university with an overdraft of only £150, which I worked off within a few weeks, then continued to temp in some rubbish but necessary jobs to find my own place after college and towards independence, until I found what was to be my first career post.

What did all of this teach me? That actually, the difference between ‘have’ and ‘have not’ is questionable. We cannot blame our social culture entirely for this, and we cannot use it to defend a bunch of despicable renegades whose idea of a good time is to go out on the streets, injure others and smash up businesses. The fact is that there have always been haves and have nots. If you consider some of the conditions in which even our recent ancestors lived, where the majority of children died as infants and families lived in utter squalor without any support from the state, it would appear that the only distinction today is how we react to and deal with that situation.

Yes, we must support the poor and give them hope to find their way out of poverty. In the early 20th century my maternal grandfather was raised by a mother with eight kids to support after her husband died. There was no social support then except for occasional poor relief and the workhouse. She took in laundry and sewing and did housework, whatever she could do – and eventually died from working herself into the ground.

The people I know dealt with lack of money and opportunities by total commitment to getting through whatever life threw at them in a decent and practical way. I can appreciate the liberal-Left arguments that the riots are symptomatic of underlying social problems, but please don’t tell me that the footage of kids laughing and planning what shops they’re going to raid during these riots have anything to do with social inequality or disenfranchisement. They are destructive little cunts who need to stop and take responsibility for their own lives, period.

What does matter is that families have the motivation to raise their kids with positive ideals. That those who think that society owes them a favour get off their arses and start to work towards what they want or feel they should have. That kids are raised without being bombarded with images of luxury, without being exposed to such a pernicious culture of expectation, that merely consuming and becoming rich and famous are the only goals to which they aspire.

Put simply, we need to realign our concept of what it is to be successful.

I would suggest the teaching should be that living a peaceful and constructive life is the result of being kind to yourself, your family, friends and community – of applying yourself and your energy towards achieving a brighter future.

My community did it, and succeeded. Those with a genuine will to do it can, too.

I had been woken by what I thought to be an animal in profound distress, before 4am. It was far too early for any creature to be up and about. I sat up, confused, and rose befuddled to my window. The sound continued – long, agonising cries punctuating the stillness before dawn. As sense took shape in my brain I began to feel very upset. I got dressed and went down into my garden to see what was going on.

Listening carefully, the screaming appeared to be coming from the bushes near my neighbour’s shed, at the bottom of his garden. I didn’t know what to do. The gate was locked, and the fence too high to climb over. I got a torch and shone it into the gloom, scanning for whatever clue I could find.

The creature called again, this time at some length. By this time I realised that it was a bird, either trapped and injured or most likely having been mauled by a nocturnal, prowling cat. I had to make a decision. I went back into the house, got a stepladder, unlocked the fiercely stiff gate, and went in. I shone two torches into the bushes, but I couldn’t see anything. I thought I heard a sigh coming from the back, but I couldn’t be sure. Everything went quiet. I didn’t know what to do – so I went and rung the neighbour’s doorbell at the front of their house. No answer, even though their car was there.

I went back and locked their gate from the inside – then the bird started calling again, its brittle, rasping cheeps conveying intense pain: ‘Help me – PLEASE FIND ME.’

‘I’m here, my love, I’m here – I’m coming to find you,’ I said, softly, ‘Be calm, save your strength – tell me where you are.’ I stopped and listened again, and realised that it was further back beyond the bushes, somewhere in the narrow gap between our fence and the shed. I shifted the bikes on my side of the fence, pushed the stepladder closer and leaned over it as far as I could. I took a torch and shoved aside the stubborn bindweed and passiflora to peer into the undergrowth. But the space was too narrow to climb over and whatever I tried, I simply could not see anything.

I stepped down and waited quietly near the fence, but only silence remained. At ten to five I stood solitary in the garden, desperate for a last call, and resigned myself to the worst.

I trudged back into the kitchen, sat down and wept.

This morning there was no dawn chorus. I went up to my bedroom and lay on the bed, desolate and wracked with guilt. A creature had suffered so badly, I was the only person who could have saved it, and I had failed. As the sun rose, the riotous, hopeful chirrup which normally greeted the gardens was absent, save for a lone wood pigeon calling somewhere in the far distance. They must have heard it.  They must have known. There was nothing I could do.

Somewhere tangled in the green, the poor creature was lying still, its journey ended, while my heart grieved and the living continued their sad, relentless march on through another ordinary day.

Call me patronising, but I doubt that the Beckhams’ new arrival is a genuine tribute to the American writer Harper Lee – if it was, and had been a boy, there’d be a genuine risk that he’d be called Atticus Beckham, and that simply would not do.

In America there is a long and fine tradition of employing unusual names for one’s brood. Ever wondered why people have names such as ‘Hartley Johnston’ or ‘Smith Bainbridge’? Well, it’s not a conceit, rather down to an interesting practice explained by Edith Wharton, of all people, in her victorian novel The Age of Innocence. She explains that Newland Archer is called so because in American society there is a tradition of giving a boy his mother’s maiden name for his Christian name.

Equally, there is a trend in giving people spurious names in modern times, and much of it has to do with the hippy revolution. Today we have people walking the earth as a result of too many acid trips and incredibly bad judgement (viz. Moon Unit Zappa, Zowie Bowie), named after seasons (Autumn Reeser), fruit (Apple Martin), months of the year (January Jones), and even days of the week (Sunday Rose Urban). At least there is some practicality to appropriating the Gregorian calendar as a naming resource. You know where you are with a solid date.

It would take too long to list them all here, but in Great Britain we’ve adopted our own irritating monikers – and in a terribly middle-class way. I was in Queen’s Park one day, trying to do some work (bad decision – I’d forgotten the editor of Vogue lives there), and my ears were assaulted by incessant shouts of ‘Dylan! Stop pulling Saffron’s hair!’ and ‘Come here Sienna, we’re going to the organic café now to meet Jasmine and India.’ What, the plant and the country? I know NW6 is posh but it isn’t that amazing.

Of course, we all know the arguments that kids saddled with silly names experience a hard time at school – that is, unless they’re in a class with equally madly-named peers. No child wants to be different; they want to be the same as everyone else, and there’s little to support the idea that later on in life they’ll be glad they had parents who were still circling the airport in 1984. Zowie Bowie got rid of his name as soon as he could, reverting it to the more prosaic Duncan Jones.

So, in sum – if you really want to give your child a complex, call him Rover. Names shouldn’t be boring, but they shouldn’t be barking either.

My own sixth-form English teacher, then an old lady with a penchant for correctness, would always remind us of Wordsworth’s maxim: ‘Manners maketh man.’ There is quite a lot to be said for good manners, if only to grease the social wheel and make life more pleasant for everyone. These days, people constantly berate a basic lack of decency in social intercourse – and you have to admit they have a point.

I remember being on the metro in Rome a few years back and, as a Londoner used to cattle-prodding my way to work on the Victoria Line every day, was astonished to find people being so nice to each other. If anyone was in front of the doors and someone wanted to get off, they would ask ‘Are you getting out here?’ They would reply in a polite fashion and even smile, then promptly make room for them to leave the train. No impatience, no barging. Amazing. Perhaps us Brits have a lot to learn from la figura.

It comes as no surprise that Bourne subscribes to a life with etiquette – after all, it is a gracious way to be. However, the way that she has gone about berating her future daughter-in-law calls into question her own good manners. Her email looks like the dark side of Debrett: not only antiquated and snobbish, but unpleasant and even bordering on cruel. Then again, the fact that Withers circulated it to her friends calls into question her own judgement about appropriate behaviour. If she was seeking emotional support it would have been perfectly fine to tell her friends in person over a drink or the phone, but like all private emails which have gone viral in the past (remember Claire Swires?), circulating this kind of thing for the purposes of ridicule invariably backfires on the sender, and never does any good.

There are some things which Bourne might be forgiven for raising: basic good behaviour such as getting up in time to join the family for breakfast, or not diving into what’s on the dinner table until the host offers it. However, Withers is diabetic, and therefore her ‘complaint’ that there was not enough food, or the right kind of food, at her future in-laws’ house is essential to her ability to manage a serious medical condition. For a hostess to say that it is unacceptable for someone with a known illness to convey their needs is not only ill-mannered but out of order. As a hostess who already knew about Withers’s diabetes, Bourne was the one to check that what she was intending to serve was not going to be injurious.

For example, when one gives a dinner party, it’s a given that the host will check whether there are any dietary or religious issues, or perhaps something that people really dislike to eat. Serving inappropriate food is not only stupid and pointless but downright insensitive. ‘So, you’ve a nut allergy? That’s your problem, sunshine. Get this walnut cake down you and keep that vial of adrenalin handy if you start to turn blue.’

I also wonder about Bourne’s complaint that Withers should have sent thank-you notes for all of her stays with them. As a future daughter-in-law, exactly when does she cease to be a ‘guest’ in the house and become considered family? Perhaps after the first stay it would have been a good idea to send a note, but after that surely she should have been welcomed as the son’s fiancee, not a house guest?

Thank-you notes are incredibly good manners and never do any harm: for example, whenever my partner’s mother sends me gifts, I always send a note or card: primarily to express my appreciation and kind sentiments, but also because she does not live locally and therefore without a card or phone call I have no other way of doing this. However, it is the thought that counts. Also, I would not visit someone else’s home for the weekend without taking some kind of gift, and always  for a dinner invitation: a bouquet or something they might appreciate such as excellent-quality chocolates or wine.

I think perhaps for many modern women, the dealbreaker would be a future mother-in-law’s indelicate assertion that since her son has chosen them, she’ll just have to put up with it and hope that their manners improve. Bourne steps over the line with her suggestion that a programme like Ladette to Lady would be ideal for Withers, as well as her idea that Withers should get herself to a finishing school, which is quite extraordinary in this day and age.

Marrying into a family with such anachronistic pretentions would be abhorrent to most in any case, but to be confronted with this message perhaps should set Withers thinking about how much her future husband is prepared to support her in the face of such blatant opposition. Especially when the situation has gone public and her own father is hitting back with equally colourful soundbites about ‘snotty Miss Fancy Pants‘: according to him, Bourne ‘has her head stuck so far up her own arse she doesn’t know whether to speak or fart’.

It’s said that you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family – however, in this kind of situation, you can (as Prince Albert of Monaco’s new wife has failed to discover, allegedly to her cost). Aligning yourself with a social set which can’t lift a spoon without consulting an etiquette bible is a pretty serious undertaking. Perhaps Withers would be well advised to brush up her own comportment a bit, just for the sake of the peace, but also to lay down the law around future contact with people who clearly have such a condescending view of her.

The Thinkers

They make my life hell, prattling as they do
about ‘discourse’, and ‘hegemony’, and ‘sociocultural contexts’
They cannot punctuate, or conjugate,
but they can masturbate, intellectually, at length for aeons,
whole epochs of epic erudition spilled out over their fellow literati
like rancid, squirting milk from a sad, declining beast,
quoting Bourdieu, Derrida, Deleuze,
Foucault, Guattari, Camus…
I raise my arse to their pontifications and moon irreverently
sick of their hubris
their condescension
their careless preparation
their self-important texts that no one will read
The starving in Africa care not for their closed-shop rambling,
nor the workaday world, with no time for nonsense
It has no value
It makes no contribution
It tilts at windmills
Think on, thinkers, and tell us – what exactly do you do?
Put that in a paper and publish it.

What I love about corporate language is that it has a rich subtext all of its own. Here are a few nuggets.

What they say – and what it means

blue sky thinking – pie in the sky
I’m a bit concerned that… – This is a disaster
deadline – I need this now
tight deadline – I need this yesterday
immediate turnaround – even God couldn’t pull this off
proactive – sort it, sunshine!
run it up the flagpole and see if it flies – I’m in marketing
downsize – increase CEO profit share
core competency – does anyone know what we do?
challenging project – forget what your friends and family look like
client lunch – Chateau Latour, baby!
solution – invention
brainstorm – bullshit
customer service – an oxymoron
user-friendly – completely useless
functionality – completely useless
call to action – er, has anyone actually done anything about this yet?
vision statement – work of fiction
automated – annoying
upside – spin
dynamic – we aren’t, really
critical path – where’s the nearest pub?

This is how we’d like to see the holidays – in their very best light. One thing we can forget, though, is that not everyone experiences the season in this way. Some are alone. Some are fighting depression and despair. Some are unwell, or battling serious illness. Some are homeless. And some are simply feeling sad: grief may resurface, albeit briefly, at the closing of the year, recalling those who are no longer with us.

Martin was someone I knew as part of an extended group of friends. He came across as sensitive but fundamentally friendly and very easy to talk to. I would bump into him from time to time at various house parties and events, and always found him to be charming and affable. He ran his own business as a Japanese to English translator. I knew that he had had a struggle with mental illness in the past, although I wasn’t close enough to him to know the finer details. However, the last time I saw him, we chatted about books over a pint and he seemed perfectly fine and in good spirits.

I hadn’t seen Martin for a while when I got a message from the group saying that he had begun to find life an increasing struggle, and had taken his own life at Christmas. I was shocked – he was only 38.

The first thing I thought was: if only I had known. If only. I could have talked to him, tried to do something to convince him that life really was worth sticking around for – that there is always hope. But I’m guessing that perhaps after years of facing down his own fragility, Martin had decided that he had no strength left to fight. Whatever hope there was left had finally gone.

This made me so sad. Martin had a humanist funeral and a woodland burial which, I hope, finally gave him the peaceful place he must have craved so desperately throughout his time on earth.

So, while all of us are out there getting drunk, nursing hangovers, avoiding the boss at the office party or moaning that we have to put up with Auntie Joan, Uncle Bill or the in-laws for yet another holiday season, let’s cast our minds at this time of year to those who are really suffering, and reserve some compassion for all those in their hour of need.

Blizzard

By the time they told me
it was too late.
Your plane had faltered, engines dying,
radar fading behind enemy lines.
Caught in a blizzard
A rush of memories
An overwhelming present,
in an instant, was gone.

If only you had known that
the human heart is built to dip and soar,
is made for heavy weather.
Peaceful in sheltered woodland,
the seasons will pass you by
Caught in the crossfire
you made the choice and escaped,
and gentle rain falls where you lie.

In memoriam, MP (1969-2007)

@WildlifePhotog has issued a statement about it here. Along with @jamesmb, @louisehector, @appleblossombea and the Born Free Foundation (@BFFoundation), Darren has been a tireless campaigner both online and offline for this cause.

As for my own feelings on the issue, I can only say that I’ve been deeply moved by the responses on the #sHamleys hashtag. People have come out literally in their thousands to offer support by posting messages, calling and emailing Hamleys. The tweets on the hashtag reached in excess of 25,000 people. That is no mean feat.

I am also inspired by the fact that even though our voices may have been small, we have managed to stop an event from going ahead that would distress animals, placing them in a situation which was fundamentally for promotional purposes, and therefore commercial gain.

This episode has a number of lessons for all of us, including Hamleys.

The first comes from a PR and brand management perspective. No business is going to succeed if it pushes ahead with events, promotions, actions or anything that is in conflict with its core mission.

The second is that no business can succeed in dressing up something that is fundamentally objectionable in order to achieve its aims. The truth will always out.

The third is that the nature of grassroots activism is changing. The advent of social media has brought about a major sea change in the way that people come together to organise and protest. The fact that they are doing this online now does not mean that their message is any the less for it, or that they should be dismissed as crazy, overzealous or in need of “proper” activities to occupy their time rather than posting tweets or blogging, or anything else that they may do to spread the word.

The final one is that people have an enduring love for animals. And we are no longer medieval. In civilised society we have moved beyond the stage where we are prepared to allow innocent creatures to be exploited in this way. The message is: One World. We care.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in the campaign, who has taken the time to let Hamleys know how they feel. It was vital to do this, and hopefully Hamleys will have learned that listening when people raise their concerns is not only an important exercise, but a very valuable one.

I am both humbled and emotional as I write this, but as you know from my previous post, the cause of penguin welfare is very dear to me. Tonight I’ll be at dinner with a good friend. We’ll raise a glass to the success of this campaign, and to all of you who have contributed to it so unwaveringly and generously, and with such kindness in your hearts. This, in itself, is great cause to celebrate.

To all of you I extend my sincerest gratitude: thank you.

It has come to light that Hamleys has been using live reindeer – specifically, a doe and her fawn – in-store this week to promote its Christmas push. Furthermore, the store intends to use live penguins next Monday for the same purpose.

Now, you would think for an organisation formed in 1760 that its approach to soft, cuddly animals may have actually moved on since that time, but sadly, it would appear not. As a result, the Shame Hamleys (#sHamleys) hashtag on Twitter was born, and the last 24 hours have seen a positive explosion in support, horror and distress at what the store is doing. The response from Hamleys has effectively been non-response. Total lockdown. Thousands of people are posting messages, calling and emailing them, and receiving absolutely no reply. The Sun has picked up the story, in which it states that the stunts will go ahead, but beyond that, Hamleys declined to comment.

@annholman has written a very incisive post regarding the social media and PR implications of this lockdown, and since she has already covered this so eloquently, I would like to focus on the animal protection side of the equation, and the reasons why people like myself feel that this campaign is so important.

Before I go any further, @WildlifePhotog, @jamesmb, @louisehector, @appleblossombea and the Born Free Foundation (@BFFoundation) in particular must receive credit for campaigning so vigorously on the hashtag and for showing such generosity in their time and commitment to it.

I am a passionate advocate for penguin conservation and protection, and am proud to support the Penguin Foundation based at Phillip Island, just outside Melbourne, Australia.

The Foundation is sited on the only conservation area on the planet that has actually removed human beings in order to protect the Little Penguins and all the other species that live there, completely in the wild. It is a truly inspiring place, run by a dedicated team of biologists, researchers, conservationists, wardens and veterinary carers. You may have seen a documentary about it on the BBC earlier this year (Penguin Island), which gave a fascinating insight into the private world of the Little Penguins who have made the island their home, as well as the day-to-day work of all those committed to their preservation and care.

Little Penguins are intrepid: they’re feisty and brave, despite being so diminutive. With dwindling fish stocks, harsh Antipodean weather and a host of predators that could claim them and their young at any time, in no way could it be said that the life of a Little Penguin is remotely dull or easy.

These little creatures have both my affection and my admiration – and I’m not alone. The Foundation receives global support, from those who “adopt” a penguin to ensure its protection, to centenarian knitters who send tiny wool jackets to protect the animals from cleaning their feathers and ingesting oil when they have been caught up in tanker spills, as this can kill them. Apparently, Phillip Island receives somewhere in the order of 50 jackets a month from all over the world, which are stored carefully and used whenever they’re needed.

So, what of Hamleys? Well, in view of the fact the fact that penguins already have a pretty hard time just to stay alive, when we encounter a situation like this, where innocent animals are exposed to a dreadful situation purely for commercial gain, both in terms of the actual venue and the transportation to get them there, we must take responsibility for their welfare and act.

@WildlifePhotog learned from a Hamleys employee yesterday that the reindeer were stuck on a motorway for six hours, and since their appearance was cancelled, it is quite reasonable to assume that they may have been exposed to a similar journey home if they could not be stabled overnight in London. That’s 12 hours on the road, in horribly wintry conditions.

Do you think that this is right? I, and everyone else on the #sHamleys campaign, do not.

Anyone who has been to Hamleys at Christmastime will be well aware of what a hellish experience it can be. We feel stressed simply being there, and can’t wait to leave. We must not forget that animals are equally sensitive and can be stressed by exposure to a crowded, noisy situation which resembles nothing they are used to either in captivity or in the wild, and over which they have absolutely no control. They cannot get away – so we must try to save them from it.

I urge you to join this campaign and to post your support on the #sHamleys hashtag. Keep following it, as there are updates virtually by the minute. Email or call Hamleys (customerservices@hamleys.co.uk; 020 7479 7317). Better still, contact Hamleys’ PR company, 77, on 020 7492 0977, and state your concern politely. Let them know how you feel, and get them to stop this cruelty now. It’ll be by far the best thing you did today.