Rupert Wolfe-Murray's Blog: Quirky Views of a Travel Writer, page 4
January 10, 2020
1917: I was there
I’m utterly engrossed in the film 1917, but I also need a pee. I wait for a quiet moment and dash across the cinema.
Where am I?
Emotionally I’m in the trenches. But I can see the low lights and dingy carpets of a modern cinema. But it could be anywhere: Romania? England? The USA?
I run across the vast carpeted interior of the cinema, en route to the loo, avoiding German snipers. There’s nobody around, all the popcorn stands and ticket-inspection posts are abandoned. What’s going on?
Within minutes I’m back in my seat, not watching the film but actually in it.
I’ve never seen anything like 1917. I don’t remember being so emotionally sucked into a story, a narrative, a war. I feel like I’m there. I can feel a powerful sense of alienation from everything around me (where am I?) and also a curious mental numbness that enables us to go on, despite a lack of food and water and everything considered normal; and accept the fact that I might be killed at any moment.
I’m with Lance Corporal Schofield as he pushes his way through No-Man's-Land, past rotting bodies, barbed wires, massive craters and booby traps, to deliver his urgent message. I feel his angry sense of injustice as his comrade (Lance Corporal Blake) was killed by a German pilot they had just pulled from a burning plane; his trauma at having to strangle a German boy; his fear as he runs from endless snipers; his bewilderment at still being alive; and his desperate energy to get through at all costs, a force of blind will that, by the end, was the only thing keeping him upright.
How do you come down from an experience like that? I don’t mean the main character in the film, played by the brilliant George Mackay, or the millions of troops who must have been traumatised by the experience -- I have no idea how they coped -- I’m talking about myself. How can I return to normal after going through an experience like this?
It’s only gradually dawning on me where I am.
I’m on the street, it’s night-time but what are those bright lights and skyscrapers? Those lights aren’t coming from flares and fires. Why am I walking so fast? Gradually I wrench myself back to my senses and realise that I’m in downtown Seattle, in the north east of the USA, thousands of miles from France and over 100 years apart in time. How can this be happening to me?
Since emerging from 1917, blinking and bewildered like someone who’s been dropped on earth from a different planet, I realise that I must write these impressions down in order to process it.
So I do something I don’t remember doing before: start writing immediately, at midnight, as soon as I get back to my hostel, which is located in Seattle’s Chinatown and is called American Hotel. I’m sharing a room with a businessman from Alabama, a roughneck (that’s a real job description, in construction) and a Taiwanese student of political science, who studies in San Francisco. They’re all asleep by the time I go to bed.
The morning after
Now it’s the next day and I must finish this article and go and see Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, as well as the city’s symbol: a flying saucer thing suspended by two massive two pronged forks. I think it was used as a backdrop in the first Men in Black film. Hopefully it will stop raining.
You could compare 1917 to the recent film Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan, another British director who, like Sam Mendes, director of 1917, made his reputation in America. But Dunkirk fades into nothingness when compared to 1917; like a Star Wars movie, it has some great action scenes but I don’t connect on an emotional level, I certainly don’t feel I’m there with the main characters, and I must suspend belief, stop the processes of logic telling me this isn’t how it would have happened. The problem with Dunkirk, and most films come to think of it, is that the focus is on many characters and I don’t connect with any of them as I did with the main man in 1917.
Before going to bed last night I watched some YouTube videos about 1917, and this helped me to put it into some sort of intellectual perspective. I also realised that what makes this film great is the fact that they keep the story really simple, focused on just two characters, one of whom gets stabbed and dies; so it’s really just about one character: Lance Corporal Schofield, played by George Mackay, a cockney with a Scottish name.
I hear a lot of twaddle about “story” being the basis of any great film. They also use this word in advertising and claim that most ads have some sort of story; but they use the word in such a general way that anything can be a story.
While filmmakers know that a good story is essential, they also have to worry about so many other things -- actors, budgets, locations, sets, special effects, audiences -- that the story can often become secondary. I don’t think it’s intentional but, when the story is about lots of different people, and it gets clever and convoluted, I think it becomes inevitable.
As a viewer, my emotional focus gets dissipated by so much complexity, so many characters; and while I might be entertained I certainly will not feel that I am there with them, on the ground, in the mud. All through virtually every film I’ve seen I’m aware of the fact that I’m an outside observer sitting in a darkened cinema; I don’t remember having a complete loss of where I am before..
I will conclude this article with some words from the director of 1917. I found this inspiring quote on a about his co-scriptwriter, a Scottish woman with the rather English name of Krysty Wilson-Cairns:
“Stories are nothing,” says Sam Mendes, “unless unless you are emotionally engaged.
“You want an engagement with two characters for which you are given very little exposition. You don’t really know who they are…
“The one-shot technique allows you to, I think, to live with them and breathe every breath…
“That feeling of never seeing further than the characters, always being trapped in their immediate environment -- that was a very important part of why we decided to shoot in this way.”
This is all gold-dust to me as I am in the process of becoming a storyteller, a writer of fiction. The experience of watching 1917 has set a new emotional goal for me -- to tell stories compellingly -- and also given me insight into how to go about it.
Now I must do something that I don’t think I’ve ever done before: go and see the film again. Tonight.
Where am I?
Emotionally I’m in the trenches. But I can see the low lights and dingy carpets of a modern cinema. But it could be anywhere: Romania? England? The USA?
I run across the vast carpeted interior of the cinema, en route to the loo, avoiding German snipers. There’s nobody around, all the popcorn stands and ticket-inspection posts are abandoned. What’s going on?
Within minutes I’m back in my seat, not watching the film but actually in it.
I’ve never seen anything like 1917. I don’t remember being so emotionally sucked into a story, a narrative, a war. I feel like I’m there. I can feel a powerful sense of alienation from everything around me (where am I?) and also a curious mental numbness that enables us to go on, despite a lack of food and water and everything considered normal; and accept the fact that I might be killed at any moment.
I’m with Lance Corporal Schofield as he pushes his way through No-Man's-Land, past rotting bodies, barbed wires, massive craters and booby traps, to deliver his urgent message. I feel his angry sense of injustice as his comrade (Lance Corporal Blake) was killed by a German pilot they had just pulled from a burning plane; his trauma at having to strangle a German boy; his fear as he runs from endless snipers; his bewilderment at still being alive; and his desperate energy to get through at all costs, a force of blind will that, by the end, was the only thing keeping him upright.
How do you come down from an experience like that? I don’t mean the main character in the film, played by the brilliant George Mackay, or the millions of troops who must have been traumatised by the experience -- I have no idea how they coped -- I’m talking about myself. How can I return to normal after going through an experience like this?
It’s only gradually dawning on me where I am.
I’m on the street, it’s night-time but what are those bright lights and skyscrapers? Those lights aren’t coming from flares and fires. Why am I walking so fast? Gradually I wrench myself back to my senses and realise that I’m in downtown Seattle, in the north east of the USA, thousands of miles from France and over 100 years apart in time. How can this be happening to me?
Since emerging from 1917, blinking and bewildered like someone who’s been dropped on earth from a different planet, I realise that I must write these impressions down in order to process it.
So I do something I don’t remember doing before: start writing immediately, at midnight, as soon as I get back to my hostel, which is located in Seattle’s Chinatown and is called American Hotel. I’m sharing a room with a businessman from Alabama, a roughneck (that’s a real job description, in construction) and a Taiwanese student of political science, who studies in San Francisco. They’re all asleep by the time I go to bed.
The morning after
Now it’s the next day and I must finish this article and go and see Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, as well as the city’s symbol: a flying saucer thing suspended by two massive two pronged forks. I think it was used as a backdrop in the first Men in Black film. Hopefully it will stop raining.
You could compare 1917 to the recent film Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan, another British director who, like Sam Mendes, director of 1917, made his reputation in America. But Dunkirk fades into nothingness when compared to 1917; like a Star Wars movie, it has some great action scenes but I don’t connect on an emotional level, I certainly don’t feel I’m there with the main characters, and I must suspend belief, stop the processes of logic telling me this isn’t how it would have happened. The problem with Dunkirk, and most films come to think of it, is that the focus is on many characters and I don’t connect with any of them as I did with the main man in 1917.
Before going to bed last night I watched some YouTube videos about 1917, and this helped me to put it into some sort of intellectual perspective. I also realised that what makes this film great is the fact that they keep the story really simple, focused on just two characters, one of whom gets stabbed and dies; so it’s really just about one character: Lance Corporal Schofield, played by George Mackay, a cockney with a Scottish name.
I hear a lot of twaddle about “story” being the basis of any great film. They also use this word in advertising and claim that most ads have some sort of story; but they use the word in such a general way that anything can be a story.
While filmmakers know that a good story is essential, they also have to worry about so many other things -- actors, budgets, locations, sets, special effects, audiences -- that the story can often become secondary. I don’t think it’s intentional but, when the story is about lots of different people, and it gets clever and convoluted, I think it becomes inevitable.
As a viewer, my emotional focus gets dissipated by so much complexity, so many characters; and while I might be entertained I certainly will not feel that I am there with them, on the ground, in the mud. All through virtually every film I’ve seen I’m aware of the fact that I’m an outside observer sitting in a darkened cinema; I don’t remember having a complete loss of where I am before..
I will conclude this article with some words from the director of 1917. I found this inspiring quote on a about his co-scriptwriter, a Scottish woman with the rather English name of Krysty Wilson-Cairns:
“Stories are nothing,” says Sam Mendes, “unless unless you are emotionally engaged.
“You want an engagement with two characters for which you are given very little exposition. You don’t really know who they are…
“The one-shot technique allows you to, I think, to live with them and breathe every breath…
“That feeling of never seeing further than the characters, always being trapped in their immediate environment -- that was a very important part of why we decided to shoot in this way.”
This is all gold-dust to me as I am in the process of becoming a storyteller, a writer of fiction. The experience of watching 1917 has set a new emotional goal for me -- to tell stories compellingly -- and also given me insight into how to go about it.
Now I must do something that I don’t think I’ve ever done before: go and see the film again. Tonight.
January 5, 2020
Hitching is eco-friendly and fascinating
My Romanian sister in law was rather horrified to hear that I wanted to take her 12-year old daughter hitching. But she’s open-minded enough to realise that the chances of robbery, rape or abduction -- or any of the horrors that the media feed us -- are negligible in the Scottish Borders which is, after all, a scarcely populated wilderness where everyone knows everyone else.
She also knows that I’ve hitched hiked in Romania, and alo Asia, (see Hitching into Tibet), and that I’d be unlikely to sell her daughter into slavery.
Hitching is a great way to go. Not only is it a cheap means of transport but it’s a guaranteed way to meet people. It requires an element of humility and that’s something we all need. The risks are low, probably less than cycling, but the media love to sensationalise any isolated incident resulting in unfounded fears about this most brilliant way of getting around.
What makes hitching particularly relevant today is that it’s an excellent method of travel without producing carbon emissions. Of course you could say that by getting in someone else’s vehicle you are, in fact, emitting hundreds of grammes of carbon per kilometre -- but these people will criticise, dissemble and rationalise anything you do to reduce your carbon footprint. It’s their form of defending the status quo.
Is hitching really so great?
The problem with hitching is that, more often than not, you end up at the side of the road -- in the Scottish cold and rain or the baking heat of Romania’s summer -- for hours on end; and the longer you don’t get a lift, the more you lose faith in human nature.
But when you do get a lift you get a rush of joy and your faith in humanity is instantly restored.
So when my niece and I got a lift, within a few minutes of standing at the side of the road, I was amazed. This just doesn’t happen to me; usually I have to walk for miles, or wait for hours and sometimes I cheat by hopping on a bus. But, looking at it from the driver’s point of view, picking up an adult with a kid is helpful and community-minded but picking up a lone, weird-looking man probably seems to the driver more risky (half remembered news stories of men with knives, and fragmented memories from horror films, probably flashes through their minds).
The kindly lady-driver took us for a few miles, left us at a junction and after walking a few hundred yards we got another lift -- and then things started to get really interesting, as often happens when hitching.
Learning about dogs and war
My niece got into the back of a large estate car and was immediately covered in friendly dogs; she didn’t complain. I got in front and started chatting with the overweight driver, who looked like he was about 60 and sounded English. We drove on through the hills.
“You know what the fastest animal on Earth is,” he asked.
“Er...isn’t it the leopard?”
“You need to re-frame the question. The answer is ‘Over what distance?’”
“Eh? I don’t understand.”
“It’s like this. The leopard can reach the fastest speed over short distances, but it soon runs out of steam. Over a medium distance the dog is the fastest; but can you guess what’s fastest over long distances?”
“Er...a horse.”
“No. It’s a human. A man can run more or less indefinitely. Did you know that the American Indians used to hunt deer by chasing them for day after day, until the poor beast dropped with exhaustion? And they used to tame wild horses by chasing them until the animal just gave up, turned towards the pursuing man and accepted his domination.”
This guy was fascinating and I was an eager listener. As my niece was being used as a dog bed in the back seat I was plying him with more questions, trying to learn more about the wisdom of indiginous people -- from whom we can learn a lot about protecting our planet. But he changed tack and started talking about the 1982 Falklands War, when Maggie Thatcher sent our armed forces to the other side of the world to reclaim some sheep-filled islands the Argentians had occupied.
“I was in the air force back then,” he explained. “I was in charge of supplying our base in the Ascension Islands which is half way between the UK and the Falklands.” These islands are located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but they’re so small as to be almost invisible.
He then told me something truly amazing, that I’ve never seen mentioned elsewhere in all the books and films I’ve seen on the issue. He explained that all the fuel needed for the Falklands War was stored in huge rubber envelope-shaped containers that were laid out by the sea-shore on the Ascension Islands. I know the kind of containers he meant as the aid agencies used to install them on hospital roofs during the Bosnian war, as vast water tanks.
“If the Argentinians had known about this fuel dump,” he said, “and if they’d had a few daring commandos in a rubber dinghy, they could have turned up with a mortar and blown the whole lot up. It would have been game-over in an instant.”
I love stories like these -- offering an inside view and a new insight into an event that you think you already understood. It turns your knowledge on its head and makes you realise that you only ever really know a fraction of the full story (and, as long as you can accept that you don’t need to know everything, it’s fine).
It was also a reminder that hitching is one of the most friendly and interesting modes of transport, as you are more likely to have a conversation than on the bus, train or plane -- and sometimes these conversations are fascinating.
She also knows that I’ve hitched hiked in Romania, and alo Asia, (see Hitching into Tibet), and that I’d be unlikely to sell her daughter into slavery.
Hitching is a great way to go. Not only is it a cheap means of transport but it’s a guaranteed way to meet people. It requires an element of humility and that’s something we all need. The risks are low, probably less than cycling, but the media love to sensationalise any isolated incident resulting in unfounded fears about this most brilliant way of getting around.
What makes hitching particularly relevant today is that it’s an excellent method of travel without producing carbon emissions. Of course you could say that by getting in someone else’s vehicle you are, in fact, emitting hundreds of grammes of carbon per kilometre -- but these people will criticise, dissemble and rationalise anything you do to reduce your carbon footprint. It’s their form of defending the status quo.
Is hitching really so great?
The problem with hitching is that, more often than not, you end up at the side of the road -- in the Scottish cold and rain or the baking heat of Romania’s summer -- for hours on end; and the longer you don’t get a lift, the more you lose faith in human nature.
But when you do get a lift you get a rush of joy and your faith in humanity is instantly restored.
So when my niece and I got a lift, within a few minutes of standing at the side of the road, I was amazed. This just doesn’t happen to me; usually I have to walk for miles, or wait for hours and sometimes I cheat by hopping on a bus. But, looking at it from the driver’s point of view, picking up an adult with a kid is helpful and community-minded but picking up a lone, weird-looking man probably seems to the driver more risky (half remembered news stories of men with knives, and fragmented memories from horror films, probably flashes through their minds).
The kindly lady-driver took us for a few miles, left us at a junction and after walking a few hundred yards we got another lift -- and then things started to get really interesting, as often happens when hitching.
Learning about dogs and war
My niece got into the back of a large estate car and was immediately covered in friendly dogs; she didn’t complain. I got in front and started chatting with the overweight driver, who looked like he was about 60 and sounded English. We drove on through the hills.
“You know what the fastest animal on Earth is,” he asked.
“Er...isn’t it the leopard?”
“You need to re-frame the question. The answer is ‘Over what distance?’”
“Eh? I don’t understand.”
“It’s like this. The leopard can reach the fastest speed over short distances, but it soon runs out of steam. Over a medium distance the dog is the fastest; but can you guess what’s fastest over long distances?”
“Er...a horse.”
“No. It’s a human. A man can run more or less indefinitely. Did you know that the American Indians used to hunt deer by chasing them for day after day, until the poor beast dropped with exhaustion? And they used to tame wild horses by chasing them until the animal just gave up, turned towards the pursuing man and accepted his domination.”
This guy was fascinating and I was an eager listener. As my niece was being used as a dog bed in the back seat I was plying him with more questions, trying to learn more about the wisdom of indiginous people -- from whom we can learn a lot about protecting our planet. But he changed tack and started talking about the 1982 Falklands War, when Maggie Thatcher sent our armed forces to the other side of the world to reclaim some sheep-filled islands the Argentians had occupied.
“I was in the air force back then,” he explained. “I was in charge of supplying our base in the Ascension Islands which is half way between the UK and the Falklands.” These islands are located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but they’re so small as to be almost invisible.
He then told me something truly amazing, that I’ve never seen mentioned elsewhere in all the books and films I’ve seen on the issue. He explained that all the fuel needed for the Falklands War was stored in huge rubber envelope-shaped containers that were laid out by the sea-shore on the Ascension Islands. I know the kind of containers he meant as the aid agencies used to install them on hospital roofs during the Bosnian war, as vast water tanks.
“If the Argentinians had known about this fuel dump,” he said, “and if they’d had a few daring commandos in a rubber dinghy, they could have turned up with a mortar and blown the whole lot up. It would have been game-over in an instant.”
I love stories like these -- offering an inside view and a new insight into an event that you think you already understood. It turns your knowledge on its head and makes you realise that you only ever really know a fraction of the full story (and, as long as you can accept that you don’t need to know everything, it’s fine).
It was also a reminder that hitching is one of the most friendly and interesting modes of transport, as you are more likely to have a conversation than on the bus, train or plane -- and sometimes these conversations are fascinating.
December 17, 2019
I use Time Travel to Cut my Emissions
When I was in Romania last month I discovered time travel. I know this sounds ridiculous -- isn’t time travel a futuristic, high-tech impossibility used by the likes of Doctor Who and the crazy professor in Back to the Future?
Well yes, time travel is a popular device for filmmakers to dump their characters in imaginative locations, but for me it’s something much more simple: it’s simply travelling overland rather than flying.
How is this time travel? You might ask, quite reasonably. Let me enlighten you.
First of all, I need to explain why I decided to come back to the UK overland rather than by the cheapest, quickest, and easiest-to-arrange method -- plane.
I am inspired by the example of Greta Thunberg who cuts through all the crap my generation produces, all the token gestures, empty promises and half measures that are doing nothing towards reversing our relentless march towards climate catastrophe.
If Greta can cross the Atlantic by sailboat then why can’t I cross the continent by train and bus -- and, in the future, when I’ve got the right gear, by bike? If all of us stopped flying and insisted on electric vehicles we could transform Big Oil into Big Renewables.
Romanian Trains are Time Machines
I’ve been travelling in Romania for over 20 years and one of the best things about that beautiful and misunderstood country is its train network. Although it’s quite a run-down system -- the Romanians have copied the UK and US model of prioritising road over rail -- it is the biggest rail network in Central Europe (I wish they would appreciate this more as rail will, hopefully, displace road and become the transport of the future).
When you get on a Romanian train you have a choice: you can get really stressed about how slow it is, how shoddy the trains are, how unfriendly the staff can be, how you can’t rely on it and, despite all this, how expensive it is (for their uber-low salaries).
Or you can do what I do and imagine you’re stepping into a time machine. When I get a Romanian train I let go of my usual framework of time: I let go of the very structured programme that comes with a flight, or a train in the UK for that matter, and just accept the fact that it will take as long as it takes.
Also, if you’re lucky enough to get on a Romanian sleeper train you really are stepping back in time because some of the wagons were built over 50 years ago -- many in East Germany which is a country that no longer exists -- and each sleeper wagon has its own butler. Some of the cabins have pre-war wood panelling, a sink, a place to hang your suit and two single beds with cotton sheets and old fashioned blankets.
Despite the shuddering, the scream of the whistle and the noises that old trains make, I always sleep like a log when getting the sleeper train between Romania’s major cities. I sometimes imagine that I’m in the 1940s, grateful for the fact that I’m in a warm bed and not a concentration camp or trench.
So, last month, when I decided to flout convention and come back to the UK overland -- starting with a sleeper train to Vienna and then Flixbus to London -- I immediately threw away the rigid timetable that comes with a flight. I knew it would take longer, would probably cost more and, until I got to Vienna, I didn’t know how I’d complete the journey. But none of that mattered as I had a week at my disposal.
That, for me, is time travel. It’s simply looking at time differently when travelling.
Learning from Time Travel
There are several things that can be learned from this. First of all, by rejecting the rigid template of airline schedules it’s a much more relaxing experience. As long as I get on the train in time I don’t care how long it takes; I’ve got all the time in the world and I use it to catch up on sleep, read, write and talk to people. It’s wonderful.
Secondly, this approach to time is essential for real independent travel. If you take a year off with a highly detailed schedule you’ll probably have a miserable time; but if you just have some money, a destination and a decent allocation of time you can learn as you go, be flexible, listen to people you meet and, in doing so, discover all sorts of amazing things.
Thirdly, it’s fun to show people that there is an alternative to flying. Because air travel is considered the most efficient way to go, despite its carbon footprint, governments subsidise it and corporations make it easy, cheap and attractive.
But, if you take a different approach to time, all sorts of more environmentally friendly options come up. I plan to get into long-distance cycling next year but what about walking? Why not walk across Europe? It would be a life-changing experience. Or hitching? And what’s the big hurry anyway? Why do we have to get to our destinations as quickly as possible?
The most important thing is that we must stop flying, and using fossil fuels, if we have any chance of reducing greenhouse gases. Again, we have a choice: we can plunge into despair or change the way we travel and live.
The naysayers claim that saving the planet is complicated. It’s not. All we need to do is stop using fossil fuels (and stop eating animals -- but that’s another story).
We can despair at the lack of action that governments take or start making changes in our own lives. We can all become examples for those around us, and watch the ripple effect.
Well yes, time travel is a popular device for filmmakers to dump their characters in imaginative locations, but for me it’s something much more simple: it’s simply travelling overland rather than flying.
How is this time travel? You might ask, quite reasonably. Let me enlighten you.
First of all, I need to explain why I decided to come back to the UK overland rather than by the cheapest, quickest, and easiest-to-arrange method -- plane.
I am inspired by the example of Greta Thunberg who cuts through all the crap my generation produces, all the token gestures, empty promises and half measures that are doing nothing towards reversing our relentless march towards climate catastrophe.
If Greta can cross the Atlantic by sailboat then why can’t I cross the continent by train and bus -- and, in the future, when I’ve got the right gear, by bike? If all of us stopped flying and insisted on electric vehicles we could transform Big Oil into Big Renewables.
Romanian Trains are Time Machines
I’ve been travelling in Romania for over 20 years and one of the best things about that beautiful and misunderstood country is its train network. Although it’s quite a run-down system -- the Romanians have copied the UK and US model of prioritising road over rail -- it is the biggest rail network in Central Europe (I wish they would appreciate this more as rail will, hopefully, displace road and become the transport of the future).
When you get on a Romanian train you have a choice: you can get really stressed about how slow it is, how shoddy the trains are, how unfriendly the staff can be, how you can’t rely on it and, despite all this, how expensive it is (for their uber-low salaries).
Or you can do what I do and imagine you’re stepping into a time machine. When I get a Romanian train I let go of my usual framework of time: I let go of the very structured programme that comes with a flight, or a train in the UK for that matter, and just accept the fact that it will take as long as it takes.
Also, if you’re lucky enough to get on a Romanian sleeper train you really are stepping back in time because some of the wagons were built over 50 years ago -- many in East Germany which is a country that no longer exists -- and each sleeper wagon has its own butler. Some of the cabins have pre-war wood panelling, a sink, a place to hang your suit and two single beds with cotton sheets and old fashioned blankets.
Despite the shuddering, the scream of the whistle and the noises that old trains make, I always sleep like a log when getting the sleeper train between Romania’s major cities. I sometimes imagine that I’m in the 1940s, grateful for the fact that I’m in a warm bed and not a concentration camp or trench.
So, last month, when I decided to flout convention and come back to the UK overland -- starting with a sleeper train to Vienna and then Flixbus to London -- I immediately threw away the rigid timetable that comes with a flight. I knew it would take longer, would probably cost more and, until I got to Vienna, I didn’t know how I’d complete the journey. But none of that mattered as I had a week at my disposal.
That, for me, is time travel. It’s simply looking at time differently when travelling.
Learning from Time Travel
There are several things that can be learned from this. First of all, by rejecting the rigid template of airline schedules it’s a much more relaxing experience. As long as I get on the train in time I don’t care how long it takes; I’ve got all the time in the world and I use it to catch up on sleep, read, write and talk to people. It’s wonderful.
Secondly, this approach to time is essential for real independent travel. If you take a year off with a highly detailed schedule you’ll probably have a miserable time; but if you just have some money, a destination and a decent allocation of time you can learn as you go, be flexible, listen to people you meet and, in doing so, discover all sorts of amazing things.
Thirdly, it’s fun to show people that there is an alternative to flying. Because air travel is considered the most efficient way to go, despite its carbon footprint, governments subsidise it and corporations make it easy, cheap and attractive.
But, if you take a different approach to time, all sorts of more environmentally friendly options come up. I plan to get into long-distance cycling next year but what about walking? Why not walk across Europe? It would be a life-changing experience. Or hitching? And what’s the big hurry anyway? Why do we have to get to our destinations as quickly as possible?
The most important thing is that we must stop flying, and using fossil fuels, if we have any chance of reducing greenhouse gases. Again, we have a choice: we can plunge into despair or change the way we travel and live.
The naysayers claim that saving the planet is complicated. It’s not. All we need to do is stop using fossil fuels (and stop eating animals -- but that’s another story).
We can despair at the lack of action that governments take or start making changes in our own lives. We can all become examples for those around us, and watch the ripple effect.
December 11, 2019
Near Miss in Romania
I was cycling down the hill so fast I thought I might fly, like those kids in ET – Steven Spielberg’s classic film – when the alien enables the kids to fly their bikes through the night sky. It’s incredible what speed you can reach when going downhill on a good bike, even without pedalling.
Everything at that moment was perfect: the speed was exhilarating and the bike was handling it well (Bromptons are great at speed). The combination of cool autumn air and sharp sunlight marked a point of perfection in Romania’s calendar when the weather is just right – as if it’s recovering from the crushing heat of summer and preparing for the relentless cold of a long winter.
I was also in a beautiful spot. Surrounding my downhill piste was a thick pine forest that has not yet been pillaged by the Austrian timber companies (every Romanian knows that it’s the Austrians, and their “timber conservation” charities, such as Schweighofer Privatstiftung, who are de-foresting Romania).
And then I nearly died.
The road I was cycling on was the main route between Iasi and Botosani, two cities in north east Romania. I knew the drivers were annoyed, as they are all over the country, for their governments failure to build more than a few token miles of motorway – and in this part of the land there are not even the patches of motorway you find in Transylvania. My impression is that the drivers get their revenge on the system by driving as fast as they can, particularly those people who own the big German cars which are so powerful, and comfortable inside, that driving at high speed doesn’t feel dangerous at all.
There was a column of big cars heading my way, accelerating hard out of the village below and taking advantage of the forest cover ahead to make up for lost time. Suddenly a big BMW sharked out of the column, dropped a gear and put his foot to the floor; the car surged past those ahead and within seconds he was ahead of the pack and ready to get back in lane.
The fact there was a lone cyclist – i.e. me – on the other side of the road, directly in the path of the hurtling BMW, didn’t seem to have registered with the driver when he made his millisecond calculations about the risks of overtaking.
I’ve been cycling on Romania’s roads for over 20 years and it’s been a remarkably safe experience – even though many Romanians have told me “You’re crazy to cycle on our roads because our drivers are all insane,” (a comment which says more about how Romanians regard each other than the actual safety of the road. The fact is that no driver wants to run down a cyclist; not only on humanitarian grounds but the legal punishment for killing someone on the road are severe). In general, I’m very grateful for Romanian drivers for giving me space and letting me live.
But different rules apply to drivers of powerful cars that overtake in remote country locations: when they see an opportunity to overtake, they don’t seem to see cyclists; we become invisible. There is another insidious effect at work here, unique to countries like Romania where a macho driving culture prevails – it’s common to overtake and force oncoming drivers to pull over, slow down or just get out of the way. Truck drivers are prone to this kind of bullying behaviour, as well as beefy businessmen in their black muscle-cars.
In my case, it was all over in milliseconds. I wasn’t particularly aware of the imminent danger to my life but my subconscious (my Guardian Angel) was: I swerved towards my side of the road and the BMW rocketed past. When your life is on the line and the danger is imminent, instinct can kick in and save you. This has happened to me several times (here’s a story, in podcast format, of when I was attacked by three big dogs in Tibet).
I was still moving at what felt like high speed – maybe 30 km/h – and soon enough I was in the village that nestled at the foot of the forest: Copălău, location of a military base and an annual Garlic Festival. The column of big cars was long gone and I doubt that the BMW driver even registered the incident. I pulled over and it was only at this point that fear caught up with me; I had just had a near-death experience!
Enter the film crew
If the incident had been filmed it would have made the most incredible piece of TV footage. Imagine how delighted a TV news editor would be to get high-resolution footage of a road accident; not only would they play it on the news for days – even in slow motion – but they could have sold it abroad and whipped up moral outrage about reckless drivers, bad roads and the dangers that apparently surround us. It would have fed seamlessly into the media’s insatiable hunger for death, depravity and horror – a grotesque form of reality that is surprisingly addictive.
Well, guess what: the whole thing was filmed! I was on camera for most of my downhill run – not on some roadside camera or dashcam on one of the German cars, but on a high-quality lens on a filmmaker’s drone that was flying just ahead of me.
Why the hell, you may me wondering, was a filmmaker flying a drone in front of me as I tore down a country road in north east Romania? A fair question.
The answer is that I’ve been helping make a documentary film about the changes that took place over the last 30 years, since the Romanian revolution. The narrative follows what I did in 1990 (observing the aftermath of the revolution in Bucharest, helping a kids’ home in a Botosani village and working with the Roma minority) up to the present day. I’ve been in Romania on-and-off for most of the last 30 years, working on some really interesting stuff like Roma and child rights, journalism, regional development, helping Romania into the EU and, most recently, as an evaluator for EU projects. I also produced a couple of documentary films, including one about what people were talking about just After the Revolution.
Our new film is being produced by Mihai Dragolea and he’s using some of the footage that was shot by my old friend Laurentiu Calciu, whom I’ve known since 1986 when I first came to Romania; it was he who shot the After the Revolution material as well as my work in the kids home and with the Roma minority. He’s a great documentary filmmaker, but far too modest for his own good. You can see his showreel here.
I tried talking to the two filmmakers about my near-miss but they didn’t really take it in, as they had been so focussed on driving the car in front of me and operating the drone. This was totally fine by me as the last thing I wanted was to make a big deal out of it. The fear that I had felt after the incident soon left, as if part of that convoy of speeding cars.
A couple of hours later the filmmakers were driving down to Bucharest and I had decided to get out of the car at Targu Frumos and hop on the train to Iasi, the former capital of the ancient kingdom of Moldova – a city I wanted to discover. The incident with the BMW in the forest was being filed in my head as a non-traumatic memory.
Everything at that moment was perfect: the speed was exhilarating and the bike was handling it well (Bromptons are great at speed). The combination of cool autumn air and sharp sunlight marked a point of perfection in Romania’s calendar when the weather is just right – as if it’s recovering from the crushing heat of summer and preparing for the relentless cold of a long winter.
I was also in a beautiful spot. Surrounding my downhill piste was a thick pine forest that has not yet been pillaged by the Austrian timber companies (every Romanian knows that it’s the Austrians, and their “timber conservation” charities, such as Schweighofer Privatstiftung, who are de-foresting Romania).
And then I nearly died.
The road I was cycling on was the main route between Iasi and Botosani, two cities in north east Romania. I knew the drivers were annoyed, as they are all over the country, for their governments failure to build more than a few token miles of motorway – and in this part of the land there are not even the patches of motorway you find in Transylvania. My impression is that the drivers get their revenge on the system by driving as fast as they can, particularly those people who own the big German cars which are so powerful, and comfortable inside, that driving at high speed doesn’t feel dangerous at all.
There was a column of big cars heading my way, accelerating hard out of the village below and taking advantage of the forest cover ahead to make up for lost time. Suddenly a big BMW sharked out of the column, dropped a gear and put his foot to the floor; the car surged past those ahead and within seconds he was ahead of the pack and ready to get back in lane.
The fact there was a lone cyclist – i.e. me – on the other side of the road, directly in the path of the hurtling BMW, didn’t seem to have registered with the driver when he made his millisecond calculations about the risks of overtaking.
I’ve been cycling on Romania’s roads for over 20 years and it’s been a remarkably safe experience – even though many Romanians have told me “You’re crazy to cycle on our roads because our drivers are all insane,” (a comment which says more about how Romanians regard each other than the actual safety of the road. The fact is that no driver wants to run down a cyclist; not only on humanitarian grounds but the legal punishment for killing someone on the road are severe). In general, I’m very grateful for Romanian drivers for giving me space and letting me live.
But different rules apply to drivers of powerful cars that overtake in remote country locations: when they see an opportunity to overtake, they don’t seem to see cyclists; we become invisible. There is another insidious effect at work here, unique to countries like Romania where a macho driving culture prevails – it’s common to overtake and force oncoming drivers to pull over, slow down or just get out of the way. Truck drivers are prone to this kind of bullying behaviour, as well as beefy businessmen in their black muscle-cars.
In my case, it was all over in milliseconds. I wasn’t particularly aware of the imminent danger to my life but my subconscious (my Guardian Angel) was: I swerved towards my side of the road and the BMW rocketed past. When your life is on the line and the danger is imminent, instinct can kick in and save you. This has happened to me several times (here’s a story, in podcast format, of when I was attacked by three big dogs in Tibet).
I was still moving at what felt like high speed – maybe 30 km/h – and soon enough I was in the village that nestled at the foot of the forest: Copălău, location of a military base and an annual Garlic Festival. The column of big cars was long gone and I doubt that the BMW driver even registered the incident. I pulled over and it was only at this point that fear caught up with me; I had just had a near-death experience!
Enter the film crew
If the incident had been filmed it would have made the most incredible piece of TV footage. Imagine how delighted a TV news editor would be to get high-resolution footage of a road accident; not only would they play it on the news for days – even in slow motion – but they could have sold it abroad and whipped up moral outrage about reckless drivers, bad roads and the dangers that apparently surround us. It would have fed seamlessly into the media’s insatiable hunger for death, depravity and horror – a grotesque form of reality that is surprisingly addictive.
Well, guess what: the whole thing was filmed! I was on camera for most of my downhill run – not on some roadside camera or dashcam on one of the German cars, but on a high-quality lens on a filmmaker’s drone that was flying just ahead of me.
Why the hell, you may me wondering, was a filmmaker flying a drone in front of me as I tore down a country road in north east Romania? A fair question.
The answer is that I’ve been helping make a documentary film about the changes that took place over the last 30 years, since the Romanian revolution. The narrative follows what I did in 1990 (observing the aftermath of the revolution in Bucharest, helping a kids’ home in a Botosani village and working with the Roma minority) up to the present day. I’ve been in Romania on-and-off for most of the last 30 years, working on some really interesting stuff like Roma and child rights, journalism, regional development, helping Romania into the EU and, most recently, as an evaluator for EU projects. I also produced a couple of documentary films, including one about what people were talking about just After the Revolution.
Our new film is being produced by Mihai Dragolea and he’s using some of the footage that was shot by my old friend Laurentiu Calciu, whom I’ve known since 1986 when I first came to Romania; it was he who shot the After the Revolution material as well as my work in the kids home and with the Roma minority. He’s a great documentary filmmaker, but far too modest for his own good. You can see his showreel here.
I tried talking to the two filmmakers about my near-miss but they didn’t really take it in, as they had been so focussed on driving the car in front of me and operating the drone. This was totally fine by me as the last thing I wanted was to make a big deal out of it. The fear that I had felt after the incident soon left, as if part of that convoy of speeding cars.
A couple of hours later the filmmakers were driving down to Bucharest and I had decided to get out of the car at Targu Frumos and hop on the train to Iasi, the former capital of the ancient kingdom of Moldova – a city I wanted to discover. The incident with the BMW in the forest was being filed in my head as a non-traumatic memory.
December 4, 2019
Do Romanians understand tourism?
Since I first came to Romania in 1986, it's been clear to me that Romanians don’t understand the full potential of the tourism business.
Over the 17 years I lived in Romania I’ve had countless conversations with people who own pensions, hotels and restaurants; village and city mayors and even a minister of tourism. All these people reacted in the same way to my advice on the tourism business: they get defensive and offer rationalisations about the unchanging nature of tourism.
I’ve never met anyone in Romanian tourism who is interested in my perspective – an individual traveller who wants to tour by bicycle, hitchhike, camp and stay in hostels, or with ordinary families in traditional houses that haven’t been homogenised with mass produced paint and furnishings.
It’s clear that the type of “individual” tourism that I do simply does not register with people in Romania’s tourism sector. They tend to see the business as in terms of “mass tourism”: huge resorts like Mamaia and Poiana Brasov.
Mass tourism certainly does exist in Romania and it’s done rather well. I’ve just been soaking in a sulphur pool in Calimanesti and love the old-Communist-era vibe to the place. A large number of low-income Romanians, such as pensioners, as well as the sick, get free tickets to these spas and that really is excellent. In my country (UK) I don’t think anyone gets a free holiday and, as a result, those who need one most – the poor, elderly and sick – don’t get them.
The missing opportunity
Tourism is one of the biggest business sectors in the world, accounting for about 10% of global GDP. The UN’s World Tourism Organization says “the business volume of tourism equals or even surpasses that of oil exports, food products or automobiles…This growth goes hand in hand with an increasing diversification...”
By not understanding the industry, and focusing exclusively on mass tourism, Romania is missing out on this huge business opportunity. By dismissing the sort of individual tourism I love – staying in traditional houses in the Moldavian countryside for example – thousands of potential micro-business ideas are dismissed by “experts” and never get off the ground. Imagine if every village had at least one traditional guest house and one campsite – all of which could be promoted on Google Maps and other free online services.
But people who own houses in beautiful locations are told they must tear it down and build a modern hotel if they want tourists – because we all (apparently) want standard modern buildings, cable TV, air conditioning and a bar. But from the business point of view why invest in a huge new building when all you need to do is tidy up the spare room and share the meals that you’re already making? We want to eat sarmale, ciorba, fresh veg from the market and tea from the garden; not frozen food and fizzy drinks from Kaufland.
About campsites: whenever I’ve suggested to village mayors, or rural householders, that they should organise a campsite they always think of reasons why it wouldn’t work. The most common rebuttal is that “nobody would come,” and if I say “I would,” they laugh dismissively. Then they say they’d need to build a “bloc sanitar” which is basically a toilet and washroom. I say they don’t need to build anything as travellers like me are used to “wild camping” -- when you just put your tent up in a forest or somewhere out of sight -- and having a designated location would be great.
Very few Romanian villages have campsites and those which exist are massive, noisy, smoky, crowded and horrible. The campsites could be set up in a simple field by a family that is willing to share their toilet and offer water and catering services. If nobody came then there would be no losses but if the site was registered on Google Maps and other (free) online services I think they’d get plenty of visitors. Thousands of bums like me are criss-crossing their beautiful land every summer.
Introducing the hostel
The other business opportunity that is appearing in Romania is the hostel – almost a century after they were common in west European cities. A hostel is an apartment (or house) with bunk beds in the rooms, shared bathrooms and an open kitchen. The cost is usually around 10 Euro a night, security is good (I’ve never heard about a robbery in a hostel) and I actually prefer hostels to hotels as the chances of meeting people are much higher.
The west European hostels I’ve stayed in tend to be massive, and sometimes very stylish, but many of the Romanian ones are in single apartments – which is fine. Every town and city in the land should have at least one as they are a useful low-cost option for visitors (as is Airbnb, but that’s a different kettle of fish I’m not going to discuss here).
I’ve stayed in two hostels in Bucharest, one of which (Midlands Hostel) has a great atmosphere and is very central; and one of which behaved towards me with an arrogance I found surprising (Umbrella Hostel). The other guests were foreign “backpackers” who like to party at night and sleep during the day – which was ideal for me as I would get up early and use the empty kitchen as my temporary writing office.
In Iasi I stayed in Andrei Hostel which is just behind the hospital on Copou, and is what we Brits call “Cheap and cheerful”. The guests were Romanian villagers coming to town for some nasty medical operation and Arab students using it as a temporary base before they rented a flat. We all got on fine and what I liked best was the owners had an “honesty box” for your registration form and 50 RON-a-night fee. What a great way to save money on personnel costs!
My hope is that Romanians can stop thinking of the tourism business as requiring millions of Euros, backed up by major strategic investments in infrastructure, and realise that there are many people who would love to stay in a traditional village house, or camp in a forest meadow, and take the opportunity that we in the west lost many generations ago – to get closer to nature.
#
What do you think? I'd be really grateful if you added a comment below -- even negative comments are inspiring as we can debate the issue.
Over the 17 years I lived in Romania I’ve had countless conversations with people who own pensions, hotels and restaurants; village and city mayors and even a minister of tourism. All these people reacted in the same way to my advice on the tourism business: they get defensive and offer rationalisations about the unchanging nature of tourism.
I’ve never met anyone in Romanian tourism who is interested in my perspective – an individual traveller who wants to tour by bicycle, hitchhike, camp and stay in hostels, or with ordinary families in traditional houses that haven’t been homogenised with mass produced paint and furnishings.
It’s clear that the type of “individual” tourism that I do simply does not register with people in Romania’s tourism sector. They tend to see the business as in terms of “mass tourism”: huge resorts like Mamaia and Poiana Brasov.
Mass tourism certainly does exist in Romania and it’s done rather well. I’ve just been soaking in a sulphur pool in Calimanesti and love the old-Communist-era vibe to the place. A large number of low-income Romanians, such as pensioners, as well as the sick, get free tickets to these spas and that really is excellent. In my country (UK) I don’t think anyone gets a free holiday and, as a result, those who need one most – the poor, elderly and sick – don’t get them.
The missing opportunity
Tourism is one of the biggest business sectors in the world, accounting for about 10% of global GDP. The UN’s World Tourism Organization says “the business volume of tourism equals or even surpasses that of oil exports, food products or automobiles…This growth goes hand in hand with an increasing diversification...”
By not understanding the industry, and focusing exclusively on mass tourism, Romania is missing out on this huge business opportunity. By dismissing the sort of individual tourism I love – staying in traditional houses in the Moldavian countryside for example – thousands of potential micro-business ideas are dismissed by “experts” and never get off the ground. Imagine if every village had at least one traditional guest house and one campsite – all of which could be promoted on Google Maps and other free online services.
But people who own houses in beautiful locations are told they must tear it down and build a modern hotel if they want tourists – because we all (apparently) want standard modern buildings, cable TV, air conditioning and a bar. But from the business point of view why invest in a huge new building when all you need to do is tidy up the spare room and share the meals that you’re already making? We want to eat sarmale, ciorba, fresh veg from the market and tea from the garden; not frozen food and fizzy drinks from Kaufland.
About campsites: whenever I’ve suggested to village mayors, or rural householders, that they should organise a campsite they always think of reasons why it wouldn’t work. The most common rebuttal is that “nobody would come,” and if I say “I would,” they laugh dismissively. Then they say they’d need to build a “bloc sanitar” which is basically a toilet and washroom. I say they don’t need to build anything as travellers like me are used to “wild camping” -- when you just put your tent up in a forest or somewhere out of sight -- and having a designated location would be great.
Very few Romanian villages have campsites and those which exist are massive, noisy, smoky, crowded and horrible. The campsites could be set up in a simple field by a family that is willing to share their toilet and offer water and catering services. If nobody came then there would be no losses but if the site was registered on Google Maps and other (free) online services I think they’d get plenty of visitors. Thousands of bums like me are criss-crossing their beautiful land every summer.
Introducing the hostel
The other business opportunity that is appearing in Romania is the hostel – almost a century after they were common in west European cities. A hostel is an apartment (or house) with bunk beds in the rooms, shared bathrooms and an open kitchen. The cost is usually around 10 Euro a night, security is good (I’ve never heard about a robbery in a hostel) and I actually prefer hostels to hotels as the chances of meeting people are much higher.
The west European hostels I’ve stayed in tend to be massive, and sometimes very stylish, but many of the Romanian ones are in single apartments – which is fine. Every town and city in the land should have at least one as they are a useful low-cost option for visitors (as is Airbnb, but that’s a different kettle of fish I’m not going to discuss here).
I’ve stayed in two hostels in Bucharest, one of which (Midlands Hostel) has a great atmosphere and is very central; and one of which behaved towards me with an arrogance I found surprising (Umbrella Hostel). The other guests were foreign “backpackers” who like to party at night and sleep during the day – which was ideal for me as I would get up early and use the empty kitchen as my temporary writing office.
In Iasi I stayed in Andrei Hostel which is just behind the hospital on Copou, and is what we Brits call “Cheap and cheerful”. The guests were Romanian villagers coming to town for some nasty medical operation and Arab students using it as a temporary base before they rented a flat. We all got on fine and what I liked best was the owners had an “honesty box” for your registration form and 50 RON-a-night fee. What a great way to save money on personnel costs!
My hope is that Romanians can stop thinking of the tourism business as requiring millions of Euros, backed up by major strategic investments in infrastructure, and realise that there are many people who would love to stay in a traditional village house, or camp in a forest meadow, and take the opportunity that we in the west lost many generations ago – to get closer to nature.
#
What do you think? I'd be really grateful if you added a comment below -- even negative comments are inspiring as we can debate the issue.
November 26, 2019
Greenhouse Gases: Romanian Burgers Give me Hope
It’s easy to feel despair about global warming. The IPCC tells us we have less than 12 years to cut CO2 in half -- or face devastating consequences. But wherever you look people are driving more, consuming more and those who say we must change our ways are often ridiculed and marginalised.
I doubt Romania’s new government will take these warnings seriously. Why should they when countries like Sweden, which trumpet their green credentials are, according to Greta Thunberg, hypocrites for ignoring aviation, shipping and the carbon-cost of manufacturing in Asia.
It might seem better in countries like mine, the UK, where the government passed a Climate Change Act in 2008 and, ever since, has been able to “claim the moral high-ground globally on this fast-emerging global issue.” But they haven’t stood up to Big Oil (in fact they subsidise the oil industry with billions of pounds a year) or started on the most important task of all: educating the public about the need for “unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society.”
Instead of changing attitudes about climate change, Boris Johnson’s government is arresting people for challenging their hypocrisy and lack of action. Over 1,300 people were arrested at the recent “October Rebellion” protest in London – and the media portrayed the climate protesters as the problem, for blocking traffic, which enabled them to “shoot the messenger” and avoid discussing the real issue.
I know how hard it is to change. I found it really difficult to give up my car and go around by bike, bus and train – and to stop eating meat (which is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases). It has taken me years to make these modest changes.
When I look at Romanians driving along in their expensive cars I wonder “how can I convince them to switch to electric?” How dare I say that everything he’s been working towards, and saving up for, is wrong? How can I counter his view that electric cars are just as toxic as his one, if he’s read articles like this: Are electric cars actually worse for the environment?
Hamburgers give me hope
It’s hard to find signs of hope in Romania, where car-driving and meat-eating are central to their modern culture, and the whole green issue seems to be of marginal importance (pretty much like in the UK).
But I’m an optimist and, after many years of living in Botosani and Bucharest, I see signs of hope where many Romanians see only despair. And recently I found hope in a very unusual place: the website of METRO, the wholesale supplier to shops and the catering industry all over the country.
I would never have looked at METRO’s website had the editor of Romania’s main weather channel (Meteo.ro) not emailed it to me – by mistake. His autocorrect function inserted it.
I was amazed to find that METRO was promoting a vegetable-based burger to an industry that is well known globally to be highly resistant to change – the waste and pollution that restaurants and hotels emit is biblical in its proportions.
METRO’s description of their veggie burger is well written, convincing and on the front page of their website. Here’s an extract:
“Beyond Meat® is as succulent and delicious as beef … and its production uses 99% less water and 93% less farming land,” [than the production of beef]. “This means 90% less greenhouse gases are produced and 46% less energy consumed.”
These are some of the facts that radical vegans use to convince others to join them. But the problem with vegans is that many are so passionate in their beliefs, so purist in their faith, that it repels people who don’t want to give up meat, fish and dairy. The carnivores become defensive, it becomes what the Americans call a “culture war,” and the whole issue is thus marginalised (and politicised, often casting us into the left wing of politics, whereas these issues are “beyond politics” to quote Extinction Rebellion).
But when a major food supplier can pick up the key points – non-meat farming emits far fewer greenhouse gases – without mentioning veganism or being political – it’s a really encouraging sign that things can change.
Apart from those in the catering industry, think how many people in other parts of the economy will have read that veggie-burger text by METRO and, in doing, have become more informed about one part of the problem (our methane-emitting-agricultural-system).
Although most people are aware that global warming is a big problem, very few know what they can do about it and the tendency is to just shrug and carry on as normal. Now, thousands of people in the heart of Romania’s economy have been provided with a better way.
#
A Romanian language version of this article was published on that country's main weather site. I'll be writing a series of articles for that site as they have a unique target audience -- people checking the weather -- that is refreshingly non-political.
I doubt Romania’s new government will take these warnings seriously. Why should they when countries like Sweden, which trumpet their green credentials are, according to Greta Thunberg, hypocrites for ignoring aviation, shipping and the carbon-cost of manufacturing in Asia.
It might seem better in countries like mine, the UK, where the government passed a Climate Change Act in 2008 and, ever since, has been able to “claim the moral high-ground globally on this fast-emerging global issue.” But they haven’t stood up to Big Oil (in fact they subsidise the oil industry with billions of pounds a year) or started on the most important task of all: educating the public about the need for “unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society.”
Instead of changing attitudes about climate change, Boris Johnson’s government is arresting people for challenging their hypocrisy and lack of action. Over 1,300 people were arrested at the recent “October Rebellion” protest in London – and the media portrayed the climate protesters as the problem, for blocking traffic, which enabled them to “shoot the messenger” and avoid discussing the real issue.
I know how hard it is to change. I found it really difficult to give up my car and go around by bike, bus and train – and to stop eating meat (which is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases). It has taken me years to make these modest changes.
When I look at Romanians driving along in their expensive cars I wonder “how can I convince them to switch to electric?” How dare I say that everything he’s been working towards, and saving up for, is wrong? How can I counter his view that electric cars are just as toxic as his one, if he’s read articles like this: Are electric cars actually worse for the environment?
Hamburgers give me hope
It’s hard to find signs of hope in Romania, where car-driving and meat-eating are central to their modern culture, and the whole green issue seems to be of marginal importance (pretty much like in the UK).
But I’m an optimist and, after many years of living in Botosani and Bucharest, I see signs of hope where many Romanians see only despair. And recently I found hope in a very unusual place: the website of METRO, the wholesale supplier to shops and the catering industry all over the country.
I would never have looked at METRO’s website had the editor of Romania’s main weather channel (Meteo.ro) not emailed it to me – by mistake. His autocorrect function inserted it.
I was amazed to find that METRO was promoting a vegetable-based burger to an industry that is well known globally to be highly resistant to change – the waste and pollution that restaurants and hotels emit is biblical in its proportions.
METRO’s description of their veggie burger is well written, convincing and on the front page of their website. Here’s an extract:
“Beyond Meat® is as succulent and delicious as beef … and its production uses 99% less water and 93% less farming land,” [than the production of beef]. “This means 90% less greenhouse gases are produced and 46% less energy consumed.”
These are some of the facts that radical vegans use to convince others to join them. But the problem with vegans is that many are so passionate in their beliefs, so purist in their faith, that it repels people who don’t want to give up meat, fish and dairy. The carnivores become defensive, it becomes what the Americans call a “culture war,” and the whole issue is thus marginalised (and politicised, often casting us into the left wing of politics, whereas these issues are “beyond politics” to quote Extinction Rebellion).
But when a major food supplier can pick up the key points – non-meat farming emits far fewer greenhouse gases – without mentioning veganism or being political – it’s a really encouraging sign that things can change.
Apart from those in the catering industry, think how many people in other parts of the economy will have read that veggie-burger text by METRO and, in doing, have become more informed about one part of the problem (our methane-emitting-agricultural-system).
Although most people are aware that global warming is a big problem, very few know what they can do about it and the tendency is to just shrug and carry on as normal. Now, thousands of people in the heart of Romania’s economy have been provided with a better way.
#
A Romanian language version of this article was published on that country's main weather site. I'll be writing a series of articles for that site as they have a unique target audience -- people checking the weather -- that is refreshingly non-political.
November 20, 2019
Open Letter to Boris Johnson
Dear Boris,
Did you know that you’re facing what may be the biggest political opportunity of our generation – to turn the world green.
A majority of the Great British public realise that global warming is a problem and you could appeal to a large slice of the electorate if you came up with green policies that were more than hot air.
I have never voted Conservative, but I would do if you urgently acted on the IPCC’s warning to cut carbon emissions in half within 12 years. Even the Trump-loving Fox News reported accurately on the warning, showing that there is PR value in this story even on the right.
The real prize here is to seize the moral high ground by standing up to the fossil fuel industry. Imagine the political value of a Conservative Party that stood up to Big Oil rather than help them pollute the planet; apart from anything else it would be true to the original Conservative values of supporting individuals, families and small businesses. You’d be unbeatable.
It’s not only the Tories who are useless at environmental policy – Labour and the Lib Dems are equally guilty of talking-up green policies when in opposition and discreetly avoiding Big Oil when in office. I realise it’s hard to confront these lobbies – not only are they deeply embedded in government and the media, but most of us are addicted to their products and giving up our comforts and conveniences (like cars) is incredibly difficult. But things can start changing when a national leader says “Enough! We have to accept there is a problem, take responsibility and change our ways.”
Go Beyond Politics
I know your lot don’t like Extinction Rebellion but are you aware that they’re non-aligned politically? I love their ethos that climate change is bigger than any one political party. The whole movement marches under the banner of “Beyond Politics” – and what that means is that any political party, or any opportunistic Prime Minister for that matter, could simply scoop up the ideas and make them his/her own. The great religions of the world used to do this when swallowing up the indigenous religions – they would adopt some of their practices (like the harvest festival) and gather up their followers while they’re at it.
And the demands of Extinction Rebellion are remarkably simple: tell the truth; aim for carbon zero by 2025; and organise a “big tent” to create environmental policy.
You recently said that Margaret Thatcher was the first British PM to raise this issue. I also remember her prediction that we’d have to “tighten our belts” before anything would get better. The only other political leader I can think of who promised suffering rather than plenty was Winston Churchill. Maybe this is your chance to join them in the Conservative pantheon?
If you were to take up the challenge of telling the truth regarding global warming, you could bluntly tell the electorate that we must end our addiction to fossil fuels. Such an approach would cause uproar among the Great British Driving Public but when you take something away it’s always replaced by something else – in this case electric vehicles, bikes and better public transport. It would also result in an economic boom in all parts of the economy where fossil fuel needs to be replaced: Britain could become a world leader in this transition and then share its experience with the world.
An assault on Big Oil could go a long way to reducing our carbon footprint, perhaps making the 2025 target feasible. The £2.4 billion your government has allocated to international oil drilling projects would be handy if invested in things like real bike lanes (rather than random colours on disconnected pavements). According to Mary Creagh, the MP for Wakefield, most of this money goes to poor countries, “potentially locking them into decades of dependency on oil and gas.”
The bizarre thing about your government is its pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 alongside an industrial policy that states, in this press release, “Oil and gas strategy will promote billions worth of new investment.” Isn’t that what non-political people call hypocrisy? Surely, if that 80% target means anything you should, at the very least, tell the public that it’s a real problem and we need to start thinking about making big changes – starting with keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Changing attitudes is the first step in changing habits and, eventually, the world.
As regards the “big tent” demand, I know it might sound outlandish to some of your party members (images of bickering Afghan tribesmen may come to mind) but it’s quite a handy technique for managing divisive issues like this. The proper term for this is actually “citizens assembly” and it’s been used very effectively in Ireland and many other places.
Also, you have a former colleague who advocated for citizens assembly very convincingly in the recent Tory Party election: Rory Stewart. Couldn’t you bring him back into the fold?
Am I a traitor to the cause?
I was one of those unwashed protesters who camped out in central London last month, as I believe that we must change our ways before destroying our life support systems. There will be plenty of Extinction Rebellion supporters who will read this letter and consider me a traitor for asking you to take up their precious cause.
But I would quote back to them their own slogan of beyond politics and also point out that the Conservative Party was founded on the ethos of “conserving” the traditional lifestyle that was being threatened by the industrial revolution. Also, this issue will never become mainstream if all parties don’t adopt the key demands.
The most depressing thing about this whole issue is the way government departments, and large companies, make green policies that are nothing more than good intentions, grand statements and token gestures. Even the holier-than-thou Scandinavians are at it: Did you see what Greta Thunberg said on Instagram when she was offered the Nordic Council’s environmental award: “The Nordic countries have a great reputation around the world when it comes to climate and environmental issues. There is no lack of bragging about this. There is no lack of beautiful words. But when it comes to our actual emissions, and our ecological footprint per capita – if we include our consumption, our imports as well as aviation and shipping – then it’s a whole other story.”
The world needs a political leader who can show genuine leadership on this issue; a leader who has the courage to tell the public, and Big Oil, that we need to change our ways immediately.
Many people ask what can a small nation like ours do about such a massive global problem? The answer is that over the last few centuries we’ve provided the world with economic models – from colonialism to Thatcherism – and who better to persuade a confused and sceptical world that we need to make an about-turn before going over the precipice.
The good news is that going green is easier than one would have thought. I know this as I recently got rid of my car – it was really hard to do but going around by bike is much more fun and I’m saving up for one of those electric jobs. I also went vegan which was a lot easier than I had imagined it would be; they say that cutting out meat and dairy is the most powerful thing an individual can do to reduce greenhouse gases (the mountains of animal waste emit massive amounts of methane, which a far stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide).
I’m posting you this letter from Romania, where I’m doing a couple of wee jobs for the EU. I’ve decided to follow Greta’s example and not fly home. I asked my Facebook friends what the best way to get home overland would be and got back some useful comments, as well as one which reminded me of Norman Tebbit MP: “get on your bike.”
All the best
Rupert Wolfe Murray
Did you know that you’re facing what may be the biggest political opportunity of our generation – to turn the world green.
A majority of the Great British public realise that global warming is a problem and you could appeal to a large slice of the electorate if you came up with green policies that were more than hot air.
I have never voted Conservative, but I would do if you urgently acted on the IPCC’s warning to cut carbon emissions in half within 12 years. Even the Trump-loving Fox News reported accurately on the warning, showing that there is PR value in this story even on the right.
The real prize here is to seize the moral high ground by standing up to the fossil fuel industry. Imagine the political value of a Conservative Party that stood up to Big Oil rather than help them pollute the planet; apart from anything else it would be true to the original Conservative values of supporting individuals, families and small businesses. You’d be unbeatable.
It’s not only the Tories who are useless at environmental policy – Labour and the Lib Dems are equally guilty of talking-up green policies when in opposition and discreetly avoiding Big Oil when in office. I realise it’s hard to confront these lobbies – not only are they deeply embedded in government and the media, but most of us are addicted to their products and giving up our comforts and conveniences (like cars) is incredibly difficult. But things can start changing when a national leader says “Enough! We have to accept there is a problem, take responsibility and change our ways.”
Go Beyond Politics
I know your lot don’t like Extinction Rebellion but are you aware that they’re non-aligned politically? I love their ethos that climate change is bigger than any one political party. The whole movement marches under the banner of “Beyond Politics” – and what that means is that any political party, or any opportunistic Prime Minister for that matter, could simply scoop up the ideas and make them his/her own. The great religions of the world used to do this when swallowing up the indigenous religions – they would adopt some of their practices (like the harvest festival) and gather up their followers while they’re at it.
And the demands of Extinction Rebellion are remarkably simple: tell the truth; aim for carbon zero by 2025; and organise a “big tent” to create environmental policy.
You recently said that Margaret Thatcher was the first British PM to raise this issue. I also remember her prediction that we’d have to “tighten our belts” before anything would get better. The only other political leader I can think of who promised suffering rather than plenty was Winston Churchill. Maybe this is your chance to join them in the Conservative pantheon?
If you were to take up the challenge of telling the truth regarding global warming, you could bluntly tell the electorate that we must end our addiction to fossil fuels. Such an approach would cause uproar among the Great British Driving Public but when you take something away it’s always replaced by something else – in this case electric vehicles, bikes and better public transport. It would also result in an economic boom in all parts of the economy where fossil fuel needs to be replaced: Britain could become a world leader in this transition and then share its experience with the world.
An assault on Big Oil could go a long way to reducing our carbon footprint, perhaps making the 2025 target feasible. The £2.4 billion your government has allocated to international oil drilling projects would be handy if invested in things like real bike lanes (rather than random colours on disconnected pavements). According to Mary Creagh, the MP for Wakefield, most of this money goes to poor countries, “potentially locking them into decades of dependency on oil and gas.”
The bizarre thing about your government is its pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 alongside an industrial policy that states, in this press release, “Oil and gas strategy will promote billions worth of new investment.” Isn’t that what non-political people call hypocrisy? Surely, if that 80% target means anything you should, at the very least, tell the public that it’s a real problem and we need to start thinking about making big changes – starting with keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Changing attitudes is the first step in changing habits and, eventually, the world.
As regards the “big tent” demand, I know it might sound outlandish to some of your party members (images of bickering Afghan tribesmen may come to mind) but it’s quite a handy technique for managing divisive issues like this. The proper term for this is actually “citizens assembly” and it’s been used very effectively in Ireland and many other places.
Also, you have a former colleague who advocated for citizens assembly very convincingly in the recent Tory Party election: Rory Stewart. Couldn’t you bring him back into the fold?
Am I a traitor to the cause?
I was one of those unwashed protesters who camped out in central London last month, as I believe that we must change our ways before destroying our life support systems. There will be plenty of Extinction Rebellion supporters who will read this letter and consider me a traitor for asking you to take up their precious cause.
But I would quote back to them their own slogan of beyond politics and also point out that the Conservative Party was founded on the ethos of “conserving” the traditional lifestyle that was being threatened by the industrial revolution. Also, this issue will never become mainstream if all parties don’t adopt the key demands.
The most depressing thing about this whole issue is the way government departments, and large companies, make green policies that are nothing more than good intentions, grand statements and token gestures. Even the holier-than-thou Scandinavians are at it: Did you see what Greta Thunberg said on Instagram when she was offered the Nordic Council’s environmental award: “The Nordic countries have a great reputation around the world when it comes to climate and environmental issues. There is no lack of bragging about this. There is no lack of beautiful words. But when it comes to our actual emissions, and our ecological footprint per capita – if we include our consumption, our imports as well as aviation and shipping – then it’s a whole other story.”
The world needs a political leader who can show genuine leadership on this issue; a leader who has the courage to tell the public, and Big Oil, that we need to change our ways immediately.
Many people ask what can a small nation like ours do about such a massive global problem? The answer is that over the last few centuries we’ve provided the world with economic models – from colonialism to Thatcherism – and who better to persuade a confused and sceptical world that we need to make an about-turn before going over the precipice.
The good news is that going green is easier than one would have thought. I know this as I recently got rid of my car – it was really hard to do but going around by bike is much more fun and I’m saving up for one of those electric jobs. I also went vegan which was a lot easier than I had imagined it would be; they say that cutting out meat and dairy is the most powerful thing an individual can do to reduce greenhouse gases (the mountains of animal waste emit massive amounts of methane, which a far stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide).
I’m posting you this letter from Romania, where I’m doing a couple of wee jobs for the EU. I’ve decided to follow Greta’s example and not fly home. I asked my Facebook friends what the best way to get home overland would be and got back some useful comments, as well as one which reminded me of Norman Tebbit MP: “get on your bike.”
All the best
Rupert Wolfe Murray
October 13, 2019
Villages Made Me
1963. Leeds
I was born in a house with wooden floors and an open-plan kitchen. It was located in a rural area by Leeds called Little London. I have flickering memories of a white coat with bloodstains, people standing around and a little sink.
1968. Scottish Highlands
A big unheated house in the middle of nowhere. I found endless entertainment in the rhododendrons, the trees and the burn – until I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a faraway school.
1977. Scottish Lowlands
Another big house in the middle of nowhere. By now I’d learned to survive in the hostile environment of school and recover in the flowing hills around our home. I’d also learned to smoke.
1984. The Golden Triangle. Thailand
Trekking through the jungle with my mother. We stayed in a hut made of split bamboos in a traditional village. Below the single room stood the buffalos. An old man laid us on the floor and passed the opium pipe. I had an insight: the traditional, village way of life is ideal.
1987. Tibet
One month on horseback, illegally riding through Eastern Tibet. Every evening we’d find a village and beg for hay for the horses and a shelter for ourselves. It worked. Village people and nomads are generous in spirit and will help a traveller in need.
1992. Romania
A village in northeast Romania called “Top of the fields.” We live with a village family and renovate the orphanage (a big house on the hill). The family have a hectare or two where they grow all the food they need. They also have a pig, a cow, dogs and chickens -- and grandchildren. They have it all. I come with plastic bottles and they turn them into pots and funnels. I come with newspapers, cans and other waste and it’s all used. There’s no such thing as rubbish.
2017. Scottish Lowlands
My mother is dying and I come home in a vain attempt to help. I try to work out a way of living in the British countryside but it doesn’t work. Although it’s been emptied of people there’s no room for me. I try to find a balance between doing the garden and working on my PR consultancy projects, but they cancel each other out. You must focus on one or the other. Is British rural life dead? Can it be revived?
2019. Central London
London is in revolt. The centre is blocked by tens of thousands of protesters who demand the government tell the truth about our impending extinction. We’re camping here for 10 days as the government promote their token gestures, the press mocks us and people hurry by.
I have the answer – living off the land with the help of modern technology, and making the economy strictly local – and supporting traditional lifestyles all over the world. Nature is ingenious and it's by far the best manager of the earth. These are the trump cards, and the missing ingredient, in the discussions about how we need to re-organise ourselves and save the environment.
#
Thanks to my brother Magnus Wolfe Murray for the photo which is from Mozambique. It's not exactly what I was looking for but it is rural and it does the trick -- showing the beauty that can be found in most villages. My brother works on aid projects in Mozambique and you can check out his blog here. He's quite ashamed that his blog is so out of date, but what's there is absolutely fascinating -- the first article is called "How to rebuild 100,000 houses", which is typical of the sort of projects he does.
A version of this article was published in The National newspaper in Scotland on 13/10/19.
I was born in a house with wooden floors and an open-plan kitchen. It was located in a rural area by Leeds called Little London. I have flickering memories of a white coat with bloodstains, people standing around and a little sink.
1968. Scottish Highlands
A big unheated house in the middle of nowhere. I found endless entertainment in the rhododendrons, the trees and the burn – until I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a faraway school.
1977. Scottish Lowlands
Another big house in the middle of nowhere. By now I’d learned to survive in the hostile environment of school and recover in the flowing hills around our home. I’d also learned to smoke.
1984. The Golden Triangle. Thailand
Trekking through the jungle with my mother. We stayed in a hut made of split bamboos in a traditional village. Below the single room stood the buffalos. An old man laid us on the floor and passed the opium pipe. I had an insight: the traditional, village way of life is ideal.
1987. Tibet
One month on horseback, illegally riding through Eastern Tibet. Every evening we’d find a village and beg for hay for the horses and a shelter for ourselves. It worked. Village people and nomads are generous in spirit and will help a traveller in need.
1992. Romania
A village in northeast Romania called “Top of the fields.” We live with a village family and renovate the orphanage (a big house on the hill). The family have a hectare or two where they grow all the food they need. They also have a pig, a cow, dogs and chickens -- and grandchildren. They have it all. I come with plastic bottles and they turn them into pots and funnels. I come with newspapers, cans and other waste and it’s all used. There’s no such thing as rubbish.
2017. Scottish Lowlands
My mother is dying and I come home in a vain attempt to help. I try to work out a way of living in the British countryside but it doesn’t work. Although it’s been emptied of people there’s no room for me. I try to find a balance between doing the garden and working on my PR consultancy projects, but they cancel each other out. You must focus on one or the other. Is British rural life dead? Can it be revived?
2019. Central London
London is in revolt. The centre is blocked by tens of thousands of protesters who demand the government tell the truth about our impending extinction. We’re camping here for 10 days as the government promote their token gestures, the press mocks us and people hurry by.
I have the answer – living off the land with the help of modern technology, and making the economy strictly local – and supporting traditional lifestyles all over the world. Nature is ingenious and it's by far the best manager of the earth. These are the trump cards, and the missing ingredient, in the discussions about how we need to re-organise ourselves and save the environment.
#
Thanks to my brother Magnus Wolfe Murray for the photo which is from Mozambique. It's not exactly what I was looking for but it is rural and it does the trick -- showing the beauty that can be found in most villages. My brother works on aid projects in Mozambique and you can check out his blog here. He's quite ashamed that his blog is so out of date, but what's there is absolutely fascinating -- the first article is called "How to rebuild 100,000 houses", which is typical of the sort of projects he does.
A version of this article was published in The National newspaper in Scotland on 13/10/19.
October 4, 2019
Boris Johnson Reminds me of Slobodan Milosevic
This week, in the English village of Flore, I was quite shocked by the tabloid headlines about increasing prison sentences and realised that Boris Johnson is similar to Slobodan Milosevic: he is a blatant opportunist. Both of these leaders can be explained by this single word: opportunism.
I'm not saying that Boris is planning to carry out any of the atrocities that Milosevic organised, or that he is "responsible for the most violent, destructive and genocidal wars since the Holocaust during World War II" -- to quote the Urban Dictionary. He's a funny chap, would be a great dinner party guest and I really don't think he has some evil masterplan to exploit us all on behalf of big business. But he's still an opportunist, as some kids are who will use any opportunity to get what they want. He's using harsher prison sentences to appeal to the tabloids, and peoples' base instincts.
Check out this cover from the Daily Express of the 1st of October 2019:
Milosevic the opportunist
I spent a few years in Bosnia, just after their civil war (1992-95), trying to work out how it all went so wrong and who was to blame. My conclusion was that Milosevic started it but the Croat leader (Tudjman) soon followed suit and carried out a series of atrocities; and even the Bosnian Muslims weren't as innocent as they're sometimes portrayed.
The Urban Dictionary's description of Milosevic is quite funny and generally correct, but they're wrong to say "Milosevic the son-of-a-bitch wanted all of Yugoslavia for his own rule." What really happened was that Milosevic wanted to control all parts of the former Yugoslavia that had a Serbian minority -- and this idea gave him a greenlight to invade, terrorise and occupy chunks of Bosnia and Croatia and treat Kosovo like a rebellious colony. Once he'd carved out his chunk of those countries (about 51% of Bosnian territory and about 20% of Croatia) he would happily let the other ethnicities run what was left. With American help, the Croatian army were able to expel the Serbs but 51% of Bosnia is still controlled by an ethnically pure Serb entity.
The opportunist part of all this is quite clear: Milosevic became president of Serbia in 1989, just as the whole Yugoslav construct was falling apart. He initially tried using Communism as a method of rule but found that it wasn't working. He would have considered a western democratic method but, presumably, assumed it would have been too difficult to get the masses on board -- so he turned to nationalism.
Nationalism made, and then destroyed, both Milosevic and Yugoslavia. The methodology was simple and, because it was based on fear, was incredibly popular. Serbs were told they were being victimised by the Albanians (in Kosovo), the Croats, the Bosnian Muslims , as well as the Americans and Germans. With such an array of apparent enemies it didn't take much to cook up a storm of fear and anxiety -- leading to Milosevic authorising a series of military actions (seizing chunks of neighbouring countries) as a pre-emptive strike.
Boris as opportunist -- this week's evidence
Ever since Boris changed sides in the Brexit referendum, after he wrote that Brexit could result in the "breakup of the UK", it's been clear that he's an opportunist; in other words he has no real moral compass and just goes with what he thinks will bring him more power.
This weeks announcement from the Tory Party conference that they'll make sure people stay a lot longer in jail fits this behaviour perfectly: on the one hand the Tories know perfectly well that the prisons are full to bursting and that jail time is a complete waste of time as those who emerge are marginalised and turn to crime in order to earn a living. But they also know that the public have been stirred up by endless tabloid stories of crime and a politician who promises a a harsh crackdown will get votes.
It seems to be working. His opportunism translates easily into optimistic promises of throwing money at health, police and education; and his nonsensical approach on Brexit doesn't seem to matter as we're all bored to the back teeth of it and just want it over. I checked the YouGov polling data today and it says Johnson is "the most popular Conservative politician" today, with a rating of 33%.
What's most interesting about this is that some of the most extreme dictators would curry favour with their populations with spendthrift policies like this. Hitler ordered that the public shouldn't be deprived of anything during the war, whereas in Britain the whole population had a military-type routine imposed on them.
Equally interesting is that the most famous opportunist of the twentieth century was probably Benito Mussolini who started out as a Marxist and then turned to fascism as he was able to use it more effectively to appeal to people's most basic instincts.
Why are they so relaxed?
A final point is that all of these nationalist/opportunistic leaders -- and I'm thinking about Putin in this category -- seem to go about things in such a relaxed style. None of them seem to suffer from the stress that other politicians do (just think of Theresa May compared to Boris). Milosevic never seemed to be rattled and he was expert at dismissing, and ridiculing, the endless accusations of atrocity that came his way. As with Putin, he was always ready with a conspiracy theory regarding who was really to blame.
I remember when the Serbs bombed the market place in Sarajevo, killing hundreds, the official Serb story was that the Muslims did it on their own people in order to curry favour with the west. Putin does the same with the Ukraine -- he doesn't admit that he's done anything except react to American and EU pressure.
I realise you can't put Boris in the same pot as regards that level of criminality -- he's on a far milder level than the others -- but just look at the way he seems to be enjoying the chaos he's causing over Brexit. In my opinion these opportunists are able to treat the whole thing as a game, which is in fact invigourating rather than stressful. I think their lack of basic morality allows this.
What can be done? All we can do is be aware of the problem, and remember the old adage "knowledge is power". I'm sure the answer will present itself before long and the pendulum will swing back to a more moral-based politics.
The End.
I wrote this story as I'd been researching prison reform. You might like to see this article I wrote about an incredibly successful experiment in prison reform -- so successful that the Scottish government closed it down.
As always, I'd be very grateful for any comments under here.
I'm not saying that Boris is planning to carry out any of the atrocities that Milosevic organised, or that he is "responsible for the most violent, destructive and genocidal wars since the Holocaust during World War II" -- to quote the Urban Dictionary. He's a funny chap, would be a great dinner party guest and I really don't think he has some evil masterplan to exploit us all on behalf of big business. But he's still an opportunist, as some kids are who will use any opportunity to get what they want. He's using harsher prison sentences to appeal to the tabloids, and peoples' base instincts.
Check out this cover from the Daily Express of the 1st of October 2019:
Milosevic the opportunist
I spent a few years in Bosnia, just after their civil war (1992-95), trying to work out how it all went so wrong and who was to blame. My conclusion was that Milosevic started it but the Croat leader (Tudjman) soon followed suit and carried out a series of atrocities; and even the Bosnian Muslims weren't as innocent as they're sometimes portrayed.
The Urban Dictionary's description of Milosevic is quite funny and generally correct, but they're wrong to say "Milosevic the son-of-a-bitch wanted all of Yugoslavia for his own rule." What really happened was that Milosevic wanted to control all parts of the former Yugoslavia that had a Serbian minority -- and this idea gave him a greenlight to invade, terrorise and occupy chunks of Bosnia and Croatia and treat Kosovo like a rebellious colony. Once he'd carved out his chunk of those countries (about 51% of Bosnian territory and about 20% of Croatia) he would happily let the other ethnicities run what was left. With American help, the Croatian army were able to expel the Serbs but 51% of Bosnia is still controlled by an ethnically pure Serb entity.
The opportunist part of all this is quite clear: Milosevic became president of Serbia in 1989, just as the whole Yugoslav construct was falling apart. He initially tried using Communism as a method of rule but found that it wasn't working. He would have considered a western democratic method but, presumably, assumed it would have been too difficult to get the masses on board -- so he turned to nationalism.
Nationalism made, and then destroyed, both Milosevic and Yugoslavia. The methodology was simple and, because it was based on fear, was incredibly popular. Serbs were told they were being victimised by the Albanians (in Kosovo), the Croats, the Bosnian Muslims , as well as the Americans and Germans. With such an array of apparent enemies it didn't take much to cook up a storm of fear and anxiety -- leading to Milosevic authorising a series of military actions (seizing chunks of neighbouring countries) as a pre-emptive strike.
Boris as opportunist -- this week's evidence
Ever since Boris changed sides in the Brexit referendum, after he wrote that Brexit could result in the "breakup of the UK", it's been clear that he's an opportunist; in other words he has no real moral compass and just goes with what he thinks will bring him more power.
This weeks announcement from the Tory Party conference that they'll make sure people stay a lot longer in jail fits this behaviour perfectly: on the one hand the Tories know perfectly well that the prisons are full to bursting and that jail time is a complete waste of time as those who emerge are marginalised and turn to crime in order to earn a living. But they also know that the public have been stirred up by endless tabloid stories of crime and a politician who promises a a harsh crackdown will get votes.
It seems to be working. His opportunism translates easily into optimistic promises of throwing money at health, police and education; and his nonsensical approach on Brexit doesn't seem to matter as we're all bored to the back teeth of it and just want it over. I checked the YouGov polling data today and it says Johnson is "the most popular Conservative politician" today, with a rating of 33%.
What's most interesting about this is that some of the most extreme dictators would curry favour with their populations with spendthrift policies like this. Hitler ordered that the public shouldn't be deprived of anything during the war, whereas in Britain the whole population had a military-type routine imposed on them.
Equally interesting is that the most famous opportunist of the twentieth century was probably Benito Mussolini who started out as a Marxist and then turned to fascism as he was able to use it more effectively to appeal to people's most basic instincts.
Why are they so relaxed?
A final point is that all of these nationalist/opportunistic leaders -- and I'm thinking about Putin in this category -- seem to go about things in such a relaxed style. None of them seem to suffer from the stress that other politicians do (just think of Theresa May compared to Boris). Milosevic never seemed to be rattled and he was expert at dismissing, and ridiculing, the endless accusations of atrocity that came his way. As with Putin, he was always ready with a conspiracy theory regarding who was really to blame.
I remember when the Serbs bombed the market place in Sarajevo, killing hundreds, the official Serb story was that the Muslims did it on their own people in order to curry favour with the west. Putin does the same with the Ukraine -- he doesn't admit that he's done anything except react to American and EU pressure.
I realise you can't put Boris in the same pot as regards that level of criminality -- he's on a far milder level than the others -- but just look at the way he seems to be enjoying the chaos he's causing over Brexit. In my opinion these opportunists are able to treat the whole thing as a game, which is in fact invigourating rather than stressful. I think their lack of basic morality allows this.
What can be done? All we can do is be aware of the problem, and remember the old adage "knowledge is power". I'm sure the answer will present itself before long and the pendulum will swing back to a more moral-based politics.
The End.
I wrote this story as I'd been researching prison reform. You might like to see this article I wrote about an incredibly successful experiment in prison reform -- so successful that the Scottish government closed it down.
As always, I'd be very grateful for any comments under here.
Quirky Views of a Travel Writer
I'm a travel writer with a few books already published and many more to come.
My view on life is unusual and people seem to like my take on things.
This is where I'll share my ideas.
I'd love to be your ...more
My view on life is unusual and people seem to like my take on things.
This is where I'll share my ideas.
I'd love to be your ...more
- Rupert Wolfe-Murray's profile
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