Fool me twice

After the government apologises for losing another set of citizen's personal data, they have promised they will make sure it will never happen again. Again.

Notes from a poetry reading

Although I have never attempted to hide the fact that I write poetry from my colleagues, their indifference and lack of curiosity had until recently kept work and poetry firmly separate. Things have changed now, and so when someone suggested holding a lunchtime poetry reading to celebrate National Poetry Day I was asked to take part. There is something quite special about working at an institution that can say 'some of its poets will be reading their work'. I gave some though to choosing poems, but it's hard to work out what would work. I have never been to a reading before and had little idea what to expect; in the event, there were 30 people in the audience. The pattern of the readings was that a poet read as many as he wanted (they were all male), and then the audience woudl applaud at the end. The quality of attention was astonishing; I suddenly realised how poorly most people listen.

I started with Mr Eliot's Saturday afternoon service. I think this is one of my best parodies, but it didn't seem to go down particularly well. Thinking about it, it's probably a mistake to start with a parody, since it relies on the audience knowing both that Eliot wrote like that and that I normally didn't. I also adopted something of Eliot's reading style (as shown on various recordings), with its changes in tempo and heavy dramatics, which again would only be appreciated by those familiar with him. Finally, the poem (apart from its last line) is not funny in itself; its only humour derives from how far it accurately reflects Eliot's style.

Next was Experience. This worked much better, partly because it has jokes; partly because I used a less mannered delivery; and partly because, especially in a live context, the recurrent lines and rhymes of the villanelle give a shape to the poem. Readers can see at a glance whether a poem is long or short, dense or spare; an audience can only hear it as they go along.

In comparison A poetry of place worked less well. Although the rhymes are not excessively forced, the poem's mysticalisation of place is not in fact something I approve of, and there are a couple of weak rhymes. My liking for the poem is based mainly on pleasure at having managed to include 'the archaeology of ideas' in verse, despite the rhythmic challenges this involves.

I deliberately said that Peterstone would be my last poem, just to warn the audience that they ought to clap at the end (there's nothing worse than a speaker stopping and the audience having to work out if this is a dramatic pause or the actual end). 'Peterstone' is perhaps a justification for the argument presented in 'A poetry of place' that

"there is a sense becomes attached to ground /
the grammar of thought has a locative case"

, in that most Welsh topographic poetry tends to be about mountains, valleys or rivers, rather than dismal plains. Inhabitants of low-lying coastal margins tend to a pessimistic outlook; their experience is that things happen to them more than they make things happen, and I think that

"the prospect of distant hills /
mocking our ambition for purely local victories."

is a more general human truth.

Nerves before and relief after meant that I was unable to form a view about the poems read by others, but the event certainly seemed to meet with enthusiasm; maybe next time I won't have to keep changing stance to stop my knees from comically trembling.

Review: Not Going Out (Series 2), The IT Crowd (Series 2) and Dog Face

I wasn't sure about the first series of Not Going Out (BBC1); now it's back, and I'm becoming sure that it doesn't work. The loss of Megan Dodds left a major hole in the set-up that shoe-horning Sally Bretton into the flat as Tim's sister, Lucy, did not adequately fill. The process has exposed the interchangeability of Lee's sparring partners, and has done nothing to diminish the peripherality of Tim. The most surprising thing about the second series is a sad drop-off in the writing quality: in Series One, Lee's rants were clever and funny if rushed; now they are slower and less funny. The introduction of an incompetent Cockney cleaner smacks of desperation. This is not to say that it won't be popular, of course; just it won't stand out as deserving of it.

Another first series that promised more than it delivered was The IT Crowd (Channel 4), but this has matured into something very good, mainly because it is less interested in the rather cardboard corporate context and more interested in the interplay of Jen, Roy and Moss (and Richmond) as friends. Jen (Katherine Parkinson) has learned tounderplay her main face-twitching, so that all she needs to do is look blank as she finds the colleagues with whom she had started the evening have transformed themselves into a wheelchair-bound gay and a barman.

Dog Face (E4) explores the area of the comedy of embarassment mapped out by Little Britain. Ideas with potential, like the film subtitler who imports his personal vendettas into his work, are overplayed and rendered needlessly coarse, while others might have made a good single sketch but are repeated to the point of boredom, like the science teacher whose answer to difficult questions fromher class is to distract them by showing them her pants. I don't think they will be a second series to review; the debut episode was sneaked out without fanfare as if the broadcasters were unwilling to promote it.

Overheard in a gym changing room

"I thought I was doing really well, getting through the wall, and then the instructor said 'That's the warm-up, then'."

FMD: no smoking gun, and who cares

The Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak was an interesting test of newsgathering in the Internet age. In contrast to last time, when information dripped out from government spokesmen, the data was out there. In the early stages, the Bad Science forum's vets and scientists provided better and newer information than government or the news sites managed. And while on Tuesday 7th August we were awaiting Gordon Brown's statement on the HSE report, the PDF of the report itself had been published an hour earlier.

But perhaps all this emphasis on speed has a downside: the question of the moment, according to the media, throughout that Monday and Tuesday was whether the leak had come from the Institute for Animal Health or Merial. The HSE disappointed by making no accusations, but on page three of their report they say:

We have initiated further studies intended to provide additional molecular information
on the virus types in use at both organisations. This requires detailed technical
analysis and the results are not available for inclusion in this report but are expected
within a week.

Since then, silence. And not only silence from HSE and the government, who might have reasons to keep quiet: silence from the news media. Why is there no interest from them in who was responsible for this economic disaster? I can only assume that FMD is now old news, of no interest to anyone. This round-up article ends with questions, but even those are of 'how' not 'who'.


UPDATE

Well tomorrow's the big day when the HSE report is released. It now seems as if the virus strains were indistinguishable, the source was the Merial labs, but liability is disputed since the waste pipe maybe should have been maintained by IAR and was worked on by their contractors. The long silence was presumably broken by a rapid and extremely litigious exchange of letters between the two parties.

Second Life is rubbish

Those who get excited about new stuff are getting excited about Second Life, the virtual world/game/thing. Gartner, Inc have reported that "80% of internet users will have a second life presence by 2011". It's worth looking at this report before running off to invest:









For a start, nowhere in the press release is any further information supplied that might justify the headline. Maybe they guessed. Maybe they asked their friends. Maybe they asked their kids. It is astonishing that this press release has been picked up around the world and quoted as if it were fact. Not that it means quite what it said. But Second Life has benefited, no doubt, as it has from the almost univerally uncritical media coverage it has received over the last year: "Reuters set up virtual news agency", "Big firms invest in Second Life" etc. With any social network tool, hype is vital: being hip and popular is what brings the users. And vital to business models too: behind every application there's a geek hoping to sell out to Google and retire.

The image has, however, become tarnished over the last few months, notably in Valleywag [one of the rare websites whose adverts make it NSFW], and it is worth looking at the figures in detail.

The total population of 9,201,273 sounds quite impressive. It is, in a way, quite impressive. However, since you have to register to visit Second Life, this is also the all-time count of visitors. The number of people online at any time is 20,000-40,000; less impressive. And using the standard metric of 'visitors in the last 30 days', the number of active accounts is only 979,488. There is something rather odd with the figures and their massive level of churn (turnover of old users leaving). The number of registrations has been increasing by about 15% month-on-month in 2007 (it was above 20% in 2006). This means (according to their stats), that of the 979,488 users in the last month, 973,936 of them are new registrations. leaving the core returning users numbering 5,552. All the rest come and see, wander around, and depart, never to return. No wonder businesses who do their sums have written it off, according to Wired.


But not everybody. The library world's Twopointopians have convinced themselves that they have seen the future and it is clumsily-moving avatar shaped.

The logic goes like this:

• library services are threatened because people are using the Internet instead
• let's follow them where they've gone to prove our relevance
  

Which makes sense, as far as it goes. However, this rush into SL is conflated with the more general, and laudable, aim of reach people who never used libraries in the first place. Most of those are on the wrong side of the digital divide; investing resources and real money in developing an SL presence which requires broadband, high-spec computers, and registration for users to reach is hard to justify; as someone has pointed out, putting the equivalent effort into leafleting and outreach talks would do much more good, if reaching the unreachable were the aim. And one might add that those relying on libraries to provide them with Internet access are likely to find that they are blocked from visiting SL anyway.

SL presences can only be considered successes for those with very low aspirations : the InfoIsland events (talks, art shows), reach as many as 50 or 80 people: good grief, more than a coachload! But even in terms of web presence, surely it makes more sense to invest in low-spec, accessible, open resources instead: if only there were some way of making data available over the Internet by, I dunno, putting it in web pages or something.

The lesser of two evils

"I did my tax return last night."
"Don't you usually leave it to the last minute?"
"Yeah, but it was either that or watch the Steven Seagal film on TV."
"Enough said."

Overheard

"And what are you working on at the moment?"
"A biography of Non Potabile, the infamous Italian poisoner."

Overheard

Never mind, we all make mistakes. Even I do sometimes. 1989, I think it was.

Change and Decay: work no longer in progress

After two years of intermittent progress towards being a novel, it is now finished, although it turned out to be a long short story (10,000 words). It is available in conventional (Chapter 1, Chapter 2) sequence at its blog, and can also be bought as a print-on-demand book from Lulu.com.

What the critics say:

"Change and Decay is easy to read, quick to grip interest (and good.)"

Change and Decay: Chapter 14

UPDATE: Change and Decay now revised and complete at its new blog


Three months later, I was rattling through the puddles, left by fitful September showers, in a draughty hired van. The Sheldons had been flattered to hear how significant their papers were, and had agreed to deposit them with the County Archives for the benefit of researchers. Unable to devise a convincing excuse not to renew my acquaintance with the family, I had been deputed to drive over to collect them. I was alone; my absence from the office had required careful juggling of staff leave and meetings to ensure that the search room could stay open. Knowing the conditiosns of the storeroom at the Hall, I was dressed in overalls.

As I slowed the van and turned off into the drive, I was overwhelmed by memory- not long ago the place had been unknown to me, its secrets safely buried. My heart sank as I saw the cars lined up in the stable yard, suggesting that the family was present in force today.

My knock was answered, as before, by distant barking, but Margaret's subsequent apperarance at the door was heralded by a lone dog this time. She explained briefly that Rugger's legs had failed, not that this prevented him from eating or barking. Her manner was slightly confused, as if my arrival were unexpected; but she led me through to Charles' lair. Charles also seemed uneasy.

"I'm afraid we've brought you here on a wild goose chase - I had meant to write to explain, but you know how it is. You did a great job with our stuff, you know - we never realised how valuable it all was! If we had, we might have looked after it better."

"It'll be safe enough in our strongroom," I said.

"That's the thing, you see. The estate has a hard time breaking even these days - I don't have to tell you, you've heard about all this before. But I mentioned to Lord Durston that the papers were on their way to you, and he put me in touch with Crevitts - the dealers, you know."

Indeed I did know; they were renowned for splitting up archives into saleable chunks and auctioning them piecemeal. Archivists shared grim stories of wax seals being snipped off; postage stamps removed; unmarketable manuscripts thrown away.

"Robert Crevitt came up personally last week. He seemed most impressed. Made me an offer on the spot - took the whole lot. He said the Americans would lap it up."

There was little I could say. I toyed with the prospect of hinting at the difficulty of obtaining export licences, but I knew that unless we were prepared to match the price obtained by Clevitts this would delay the sale, not reverse it.

"Still," Charles continued, cheering up markedly now the awkwardness was out of the way, "I see it as a good turn from my ancestors - helping us out once more."

***

As I unlocked the van, Jeremy emerged from the estate office. He seemed to be in a good mood.

"Thanks for your help with the New Mill land- I've just been submitting the planning proposal."

My confusion must have shown, since he went on to explain.

"My big worry about the Council's housing plan was the infrastructure. They keep saying that the roads and sewers here couldn't cope with many more dwellings. If they'd gone ahead, there's no way we'd ever get permission for our prestige houses in Coppice Wood- and they're going to go for half a million pounds each, easy. And the beauty of it is that they're down by the road, so we won't even see them from the Hall."

He insisted on taking me into the office to show me the architect's drawings. The houses looked like brick shoeboxes, embellished with generic rusticana, indistinguishable from any other 'luxury' development. I was giving them some unenthusiastic praise when a tap on the door announced the arrival of Helen. She told Jeremy that he was wanted in the house, and then stood in the doorway, frowning.

"You don't like us much, do you? You're always judging us, measuring us up. What you don't understand is that a family like this does whatever it has to do to survive - we can't just sit there saying we're caring for the heritage. We have to make money - simple as that."

"But what is it for? Surely you do all that to keep things together, to preserve something? Otherwise you're no better than car salesmen or market traders."

"What you don't seem to get is that we - don't - care about what you think. You can tunr your nose up at use beacuse we sell our archives - but you haven't got anything to sell. Nobody wants what you've got; nobody wants you."

She paused; we stared at each other.

"You did", I said bitterly.

Her face reddened.

"Forget it," she said, "just forget it."



***

THE END

Change and Decay: Chapter 13

In what seemed like no time, and was in fact relatively little time, I was on the train heading away from Durston. Parts of me were sore; my head was pounding; I felt as if I'd been at Littleworth for years. I couldn't resolve my emotions; all I could do was smile as I remembered what Bruce Dawkins, my boss, had told me when I started the project: it would be a mundane task with no surprises. He had been right, though, when he had gone on to say that tact would be needed.

***

Back at the archives, after a few days leave, I started to prepare my report on the Littleworth Papers. The factual part was straightforward - I listed the groups of material and date ranges; but I found it hard to determine its value for research. I checked through the Durston Council Records for possible overlaps and duplication, since uniqueness is a critical indicator. The catalogue highlighted a series of Public Assistance Committee files covering Littleworth parish, so I retrieved the relevant box from the shelves in the strongroom. It was a relief to be working with clean, labelled, sorted material; and it was a relief to keep busy.

The Committee was part of the Council that bridged the period between the Poor Law Unions and the welfare state: in the 1930s, it ran the workhouses and children's homes in the area. In this collection, as was typical, the records survived patchily, but there were admissions books for the workhouse and some related letters. The name William Jenkins on one of the bundles caught my eye. I unfolded it and laid the letters out flat on the desk.

The first was a standard printed form:

Application for indoor relief
I, William Jenkins, do hereby request assistance from Durston District Council, being without means or livelihood on account of my infirmity.

Signed William Jenkins 10th June 1939

Another hand had appended beneath the signature:

Inquired of Sheldon - J's former residence was provided as a staff member; he is no longer employable having lost his leg in a shooting accident. No pension payable by the estate. Ben Davies, Overseer of the Poor, Littleworth parish.

And finally it had been annotated:

Approved to enter workhouse, 17th June 1939.

The second was a small square of paper, not, it turned out, a letter, but rather a receipt, dated December 13th 1942, acknowledgeing the payment of £1 10s by Durston District Council to the Revd George Williams for "officiating at the pauper's funeral of William Jenkins".

***

I sent my draft report to Bruce, and the next day went to his office. I always felt that the chaos and clutter he permitted here reflected poorly on his claim to professional standing, but perhaps this was unfair; perhaps there are many dentists who don't clean their teeth, or plumbers with dripping taps at home. It would have to be admitted, though, that Bruce was exactly the sort of archivist the Sheldons had expected - old, shabby, and cheerfully disorganised. Our working relationship had taken some time to settle down; eventually we had reached the implicit understanding that he was willing to let me follow best modern practice in collection management, as long as it didn't apply to him or his favourite collections, the fastidious cataloguing of which had occupied the majority of his working life. His knowledge of these was intimate, and it was topped up with half a century's gossip with the gentry families of the area.

"I know that you and I differ on the question of relevance,' he said, but on this occasion I see that we agree. I would say that the Littleworth collection is important because of the light it sheds on the Sheldon family's stewardship of their lands - and you would say it's important too, but because of the evidence they contain of the family's faults."

"I suppose you're right," I replied. "Historians these days usually have strong political interests, and they will have a field day with this."

"Here's the report back- you'll see I've marked a few points." He handed me a printout obscured by neat emendations in pencil. "How did you find the Shedlons?"

I gave a noncommital answer.

Change and decay: Chapter 12

Puzzled, I followed her out to the corridor. She stood in the doorway and beckoned, pausing to swap her high heeled shoes for trainers. She held my arm and, weaving slightly, led me around the side of the house. She seemed tipsy rather than drunk. Her face, its features softened by drink, was less forbidding. She refused to elaborate about the stone. We reached a stout wooden door built into the park wall. Helen took out a large bronze key and unlocked it.

We entered what proved to be a small stone room; the air was cool and still. The sounds of the party were blocked out completely. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out a rough stone cross, 2m high, standing in the centre of the flagged floor. Helen stepped forward and turned to face me.

"This is Saint Michael's cross," she recited. "It was found when the house was built. It's supposed to be quite old: the inscription's Celtic or something."

I went up to the cross, bending close to see the detail of the carving. Helenm, her supply of information exhausted, rested back against the stone, shivering as her bare shoulders touched the cold surface. I couldn't make out the weathered letters, and reached out to trace them with my fingers.

"This is amazing-" I started to say, but was interrupted by Helen's laugh.

"I didn't think you'd really do it - prefer to touch an old stone than a warm girl."

She took my hand in hers and placed it firmly on her breast. Through the thin cloth of the dress I could feel her flesh yield to my touch, and an answering pressure on my palm from her nipple. I stood up and kissed her. Her lips were surprisingly hard and dry: I had expected drunken slobber. I ran my hands over her arms, waist, thighs; she responded in kind, systematically tugging my shirt free at the waist. My psoe was uncomfortable and awkward, but I didn't want to break the mood by speaking to suggest a rearrangement. Instead, I crouched down to kiss her throat, while reaching up under her dress to remove her pants. After a short, hectic coupling, we stood there, panting. Helen psuhed me gently backwards, and stooped to retrieve her underwear.

"We'd better get back," she said brightly; I nodded in the gloom.

As we walked towards the house, she shook away my proferred hand. That was evidently that, whatever that was, or had been.

Change and decay: Chapter 11

It was only now, because of the warmth with which I was greeted by the family as news of my discovery spread, that I realised how unwelcome I had been previously. When they heard that I was planning to leave shortly, I was urged to stay for their party- suddenly I was the guest of honour.

Whether as a result, or because she was involved in the party planning, I saw a lot more of Helen. It could not be said that she responded well to stress. The effort with which she shouted down the phone at recalcitrant suppliers might have been better directed at cleaning the house, since the casual staff they had hired in failed to meet her standards.

"God!", she said to me, as if I were a fellow-conspirator, "to think you used to be able to sack your staff!"

But it had to be said, whatever the cost in nervous energy, and indeed in money, the Hall was efficiently transformed. The public rooms were gleaming and elegant: the clutter had been transferred, and the dogs were rigorously excluded. Industrial heaters ran through the night, the warmth even working all the wat up to the attic.

***

It took little time to pack in the morning - my main concern was to ensure that my notes were complete. I stripped the sheets from the bed and left them crumpled on the floor. Already I could hear the urgent whine of vacuum cleaners from below, accompanied by the chink of arriving crockery. I laboured in the bathroom, soaping and shaving twice, knowing I would be on display. 'Smart enough for an archivist' wouldn't be smart enough today: I didn't want to feel like a crumpled yokel.

As noon approached and the family gathered, my fears were borne out. Margaret and Geoffrey were not just clean, they were almost chic, and completely free of dog hairs. Jeremy, Penny and the children looked like a model family from an upmarket catalogue. And Helen was stunning, in a short white dress, with her hair up in a bun and a black velvet choker around her neck. She looked me up and down and nodded: "Yes, you'll do", patting me lightly on the arm.

***

Gravel crunched; car doors slammed; greetings were shouted; hands shaken; drinks offered. Within minutes, the Hall was filled with well-dressed couples talking very loudly. I hung back, having little to contribute to discussions of milk quotas, EU subsidies, set-aside grants, tax, tax avoidance, tax evasion, and fraud.

To my surprise, those present varied in accent, occupation, and even ethnicity. Those in the Sheldons' sphere of influence were united solely by wealth and prestige, a sort of meritocracy, albeit with a debatable definition of merit.

Food followed drink, accompanied by more drink. Eventually, Geoffrey started rapping steadily on the tabletop, and the conversations slowly wound down. After a single final laugh from the corner, silence fell.

"I'm glad to see so many of our friends here today," Geoffrey said genially. "You would sometimes think that the forces of so-called progress were in the ascendant, in this precious country of ours. It seems as if every time we look around, some great tradition or landscape has succumbed."

He paused dramatically; he was exactly halfway between being a ham and a good actor. "Well, we suffer these losses, and I suppose we must accpet them. But we need not accept them silently, without a fight!"

There were murmurs of assent.

"And so, when we heard that Dursford Council has, in its wisdom, decided that it needs room for another estate to house its workshy, its criminals, its gypsies, its . . ." he glanced at the Indian couple in the audience and paused, "its undesirables of all sorts, we decided to put all our efforts into opposing them."

Applause rippled around the room.

"We have written letters; we have attended meetings; we have lobbied and protested without pause." He sighed, perhaps enervated by the extravagance of his exaggeration.

"Even so, we expected to lose- proudly, but inevitably. I'm glad to say, though, that we have a secret weapon- History. Perhaps our archivist here will explain?"

I stepped forward and haltingly summarised the New Mill saga. As I tailed off, Geoffrey clapped and assured everyone that the proposal was now dead.

More drinks were brought, and with the serious business successfully concluded, the working lunch turned first into simple lunch and then into a party. Ties were removed, collars loosened, jackets discarded; talk moved from money to sex.

Helen, drink in hand, swayed towards me with a crooked grin on her face.

"You can't go without seeing the stone- you'll like it."

Change and Decay Chapter 10

By now, the records room was looking much more ordered. Piles of papers were arranged neatly on the table, spotted with fluorescent Post-It notes. Each pile had been skimmed and quickly characterised by date and content. Some gaps remained: documents which must once have existed but had since been lost, discarded or transfered elsewhere. But it consitituted a good representation if several centuries of estate management and industrial enterprise.

I had seen Jeremy passing the doorway a couple of times that morning, and now took the opportunity to introduce myself.

"I've nearly finished in here now- do you think I could see the current records?"

"Of course," he replied, "but I'm not sure they'll be worth your trouble."

"Some of the properties seem to be missing: I suppose your system is that the deeds bundles are kept with your working files."

"I'm not sure you'd call it a system as such," he said, laughing, "but come across now."

***

I followed him outside and into the stable yard; the estate office was based in an old tack room, supplied with telephone and power connections by a fragile tracery of overhead cables from the main house. Jeremy unlocked the door and lit a gas heater, clapping his hands for warmth.

"It's a bit basic, I'm afraid- not much better that the records store."

He lifted a stack of letters from an old wooden chair, adding it to a pile on top of the filing cabinet in the corner, its drawers rendered unclosable by excess files.

"We're a bit disorganised, so you'll have to wade through things. We used to put stuff away but these days we have to manage without a secretary."

"I thought Helen helped out?"

"Is that what she told you? I don't really count gossiping on the offcie phone with her friends and playing solitaire on the computer as helping. She doesn't understand the business side of the estate at all. I keep telling them there's no money, but they can't bring themselves to believe it. Not that we can afford outside staff either. Penny, my wife - you've met her, haven't you? - she had to do all the documentation when we sold some paintings last year. The research took her ages, trying to find evidence of ownership. Well, you've seen the paperwork!"

I was pleased to find that Jeremy had circled around closer to my professional interests. But before I could interrupt, he sat back and stared out of the window into the yard.

"It's a dispriting task, trying to keep it all together. It was easier in the past, when your land was on long leases and you just had to collect the rent each quarter-day. But you can't make enough money that way anymore- not with farming the way it is."

"I'm not sure your ancestors would agree: they certainly complained enough in their letters."

"Oh yes - I suppose you'll have seen all that. But anyway, whatever they used to say, these days land is pretty much worthless - farmland is, at least. That's why we need to diversify. I'm always trying to find ways to raise cash. But it's a long process- you can't do a thing without planning permission, and that process is a nightmare. I don't think our cities would ever have been built if they'd had the same system." Jeremy snorted.

"I suppose councils have to be careful about their decisions." I wasn't quite sure how I had ended up defending local government.

"Not if it's their own project. We're having a big row at the moment- have you heard? They're proposing to allow housing development on the New Mill fields."

"Didn't that used to be part of the Littleworth estate?"

"We sold it forty years ago, when the council was building up its land bank. we never thought they'd build on it, though - it'll ruin the character of the area. We're organising the opposition at the moment - a lot of people round here are very concerned. That's the file." He pointed at a large cardboard box, its sides bulging with the weight of paper.

"Oh, I was looking for the New Mill deeds: could I check through them?"

"Help yourself."

***

The papers were stratified chronologically, like a geological sequence. The top layer comprised recent Council feasibility studies, consultation letters, notes of telephone calls. Halfway down there was a more ordered sequence of legal correspondence about the purchase of the land; below that there were two thick bundles of deeds and leases.

To my surprise, the papers showed that the sale had been an amicable process, from an initial inquiry from the Clerk's Department whether the estate owned any land it might be willing to relinquish suitable for the Council's long-term plans to enlarge its housing stock. I wondered whether Jeremy was aware of this, and concluded he must have been. The actual negotiation of prices was also smooth enough: an independent valuation had been obtained, calculating the rate for prime farmland and multiplying by the area. The offer was accepted by the estate without a quibble, earning £800, a very substantial sum for the 1950s.

I expected little more than a simple sequence of earlier tenancies from the remaining bundles, but grew increasingly confused, and eventually leafed through to the earliest deed.

The New Mill was not, in fact, very new. In 1760, John Sheldon had exchanged 'the field next the stream' for another in the adjacent parish, and then commissioned a local builder to 'make a new mill with all necessary equipments and facilities'. After 50 years of silence, presumably reflecting work under the estate's control, the family lost interest in metalworking, and the site was leased to a succession of companies with closely-similar names and personnel. These were obviously unstable financially, since deafult on rents and references to 'the works, now idle' fomred a recurrent theme. By 1890 the mill was almost worthless, and the land was rented to the Durston Gas and Light Company. They gave up the lease in 1908, and the land returned to the control of the estate.

This sounded innocuous enough, if reflecting a depressing story of failed ventures. But I had encountered the early gas industry before, when I was working on another archive. The creation of Town Gas, as the predecessor to natural gas was called, was a hazardous and toxic process, generating large quantities of cyanide and arsenic waste.

I was shocked at Jeremy's reaction when I told him this. He laughed.

"That'll scupper their houses, won't it? Who wants to live on a chemical dump? You've made my day."

When I suggested that the estate might have acted in poor faith when selling the property as farmland suitable for development, he waved it away.

"Not our problem, not our problem."

The Queen's English, whatever the comedians say

Seldom a week passes without a comedian raising a laugh by referring to the Royal Family as German (usually on the News Quiz or Have I Got News For You). It is notable, I think, that it is most popular with the generation of alternative comedians who at one stage were a bit edgy, daring and anti-Establishment; it is the last vestiage of the far-off days when hatred of Thatch and Tebbit was an essential qualificatiaon for success. The joke's fulklest form is found in Elton and Curtis' Blackadder Goes Forth, when Captain Darling, accused of being a spy, insists that he is as British as Queen Victoria ("You mean your father's half German, you're half German and you married a German" says Blackadder).

The odd thing is that these comedians would in normal circumstances distance themselves emphatically from lampooning a lifelong UK resident on the grounds that some of their ancestors were born abroad. Particularly Ben Elton, whose father was German, Curtis, who is from New Zealand, and David Baddiel (half German, quarter Russian).

My calculations are that Victoria was 1/4 British, since her mother was German and her father half-German; Edward VII was 1/8 British, George V 1/8 British, George VI 1/16 British; Elizabeth II is the first Windsor Royal to be more than half British (17/32 British).

The War of Wars by Robert Harvey (Constable): Book review

This is an ambitious work of military and political history, recounting, as its subtitle says 'the epic struggle between Britain and France, 1793-1815'. But in addition to providing a narrative over its 800 pages, Harvey has an agenda: the resurrection of the style of historical analysis in which the determining role of inspirational leaders is acknowledged.

Harvey's canvas is broad, so that battles and whole campaigns have to be dealt with briefly. He is much more interested in the mechanics and social politics of naval warfare; Nelson is perhaps his favourite hero, and the book loses much of its impetus after Trafalgar had won the sea war. Minor land battles become a bare litany of x thousand lost, giving no feel for their significance or differentiation. Although writing for a general reader (p. 1), he assumes great familiarity with the participants; 'the most famous cavalry charge in history' (by Murat at Eylau) (p. 436) merits a single sentence. His account of the Russian campaign of 1812 is vastly inferior to Tolstoy's.

But it is the heroes that matter to Harvey. He attacks what he calls the 'Napoleon myths', that he was either a tyrant or a political genius; even his military skill is considered to be limited to movement and energy, and only consistently effective in his early career. But Wellington, Nelson, Sir John Moore and others are also treated in the same way: Harvey assumes that they are geniuses, and then turns to biography to explain their lapses of judgement, rather than allowing them to have good and bad days like the rest of us. He also expects that great leaders should be good people, and feels he must apologise for or excuse their political and personal failings, rather than treating them as irrelevant.

The book is hardly light reading; there is a lot of repetition (so that the comparison of the more sanguine actions with those of WW1 appears at least 5 times) and some irritating stylistic habits: he is clearly one of those who learned that split infinitive is a barbarism, but did not learn to avoid equally inelegant alternatives. There are also a surprising number of solecisms and typographic errors, such as 'rebounds to his credit'.

In the end, Harvey does not quite make his case: the book would have been better, and shorter, if he had restricted his scope to the key events and avoided the temptation to essay biographies of the principal players, tracking Napoleon's love life or the social difficulties of Nelson, which are tangential to the result.

Change and Decay work in progress Chapter 9

Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8




So it wasn't until a couple of day later that I met Helen again. She breezed into the room at mid-morning, wearing a quilted jacket and jodphurs.

"Do you want to tour the estate?" she asked.

"Yes, that would be interesting - I've been reading about the various properties."

"OK - do you ride?"

She seemed neither surprised nor disappointed by my negative response, and went off to secure some spare boots and to gather the dogs.

* * *

It was a crisp Spring morning; the grass was heavy with dew. Plumes of vapour marked our breaths. As we crunched our way down the drive, Helen pointed out buildings near and far, with the complacency of ownership.

"That's Park Farm - the tenants there are the Edwards brothers. You can tell by the state of the fences that they're not very good caretakers. We keep telling them that binder twine isn't a fencing material, but it doesn't do any good."

Rugger waddled ahead of us, pausing to sniff occasionally. Birds chattered warnings of our approach from the trees. We reached the lodge at the end of the drive, where it met the public road. The small garden behind the lodge was largely filled by a rusting car beneath a tarpaulin.

"Disgraceful- we've asked them to get rid of it," Helen said crossly. "It's rented out now - it used used to be for one of the servants from the house."

"I know," I replied, glad to have something to contribute, "in the 1860s it's listed in the land terriers."

"At least when it was under our control we could insist on how it was looked after."

"I'd have thought the terms of the lease would still give you that?"

"Yes, in theory. But try evicting people- you'll end up paying a fortune in legal fees. It's hardly worth it. It bneats me why the nouveau riche are so keen on buy-to-let: they must be mad or stupid."

She walked up the short slabbed path and rang the doorbell twice. I stood back, noting the architectural deatils: Victorian Gothic, with elaborate decorative ridge tiles and terracotta brickwork. After half a minute's silence, Helen turned.

"They must be at work: both the Johnsons have jobs in the town."

"I suppose it must be strange now that so few people work on the estate?"

"I'm used to it - it was in Gramps' time that we lost them all - went to war and never came back."

I must have looked perplexed, since she went on to explain.

"Not dead - just never came back. They found other jobs, shorter hours, better pay. That's gratitude for you!"

I had always had some doubts whether noblesse does indeed oblige, and I wondered now why it obliged such arrogance. But equally, I could not deny the attraction I felt for her despite the horrible views she expressed with such conviction.

* * *

We reached the junction and turned to the right, the main road dropping to stone bridge over a stream. I knew a lot about this.

"This bridge is quite famous - or at least, well-represented in the records. In the 1820s there was a long legal dispute about who should pay for its repair. Thomas Sheldon argued that it was a county road, to be maintained from taxes, but the Court of Quarter Sessions said it was a parish road, so the rates should pay. Sheldon kicked up quite a fuss- he wrote letters all over the place."

Helen didn't know this; nor, to be honest, did she show much interest in the information now that she did. I peered at the weathered inscription on the parapet: "This bridge erected by Littleworth parish, 1831". "So Sheldon must have lost."

Helen frowned. "Didn't you know?"

"Not for sure," I explained, "The papers I saw were the initial negotiations and the proofs in evidence taken to court. The final judgment would be recorded in the Court Rolls, by the Clerk of the Peace, and there need have been little documentation sent to the parties."

Helen stopped and looked at me. "You are funny, you know. You've got all these little lectures in your head." I was unsure how to respond to her bantering tone.

We crossed the stream and followed the road up the valley side, then climbed over a stile in a thorn hedge. I was about to start talking about the Enclosure Act and its effect on field boundaries, but stopped myself when I recognised that this would constitute another lecture. I decided to take the offensive.

"Penny was telling me about the estate office - do you work there full-time?"

"Not as such - although for tax purposes I do. I help out when it gets busy- like next week, when we're having a party for objectors to a planning application."

"So, what - stuffing envelopes? That doesn't sound like much of a job."

"I don't know - I get a lot of free time to ride and so on. I did work in London last year, but didn't enjoy it. It's no fun living there unless you can afford to go out and can time off for holidays. Anyway, there isn't anything in particular I want to do."

"Did you go to university?"

"No, that was Jeremy- he's the one with the brains. My school focused on personal development, sports and life skills, rather than exams, and I didn't really fancy it."

"Don't you get bored, staying here all the time?"

"Not at all- you underestimate the value of being able to please yourself what you do every day."

"I suppose so. I find archives so interesting I'd probably work on them for free if I won the Lottery."

"Yes, I think you would."

* * *


We passed a patch of bloodstained fur on the path.

"Foxes are such nice animals," Helen sneered. "I used to love hunting - riding at will, as fast as I could, following the pack wherever it went."

"I thought the hunt still met?"

"Yes, but it's not the same. They have to be so careful about keeping the hounds in hand that you never get that wild feeling - it was so natural - you, the horse, the dogs, the fox - all running across the fields. That's the tradition that has gone."

"I'm not sure how ancient that tradition is: most of the trappings were invented by the Victorians. I suppose these days that counts as ancient. But at least you are arguing from experience- you enjoyed it. The rational arguments for hunting always seemed the weakest- that this was the most efficient and humane way to control the fox population, that it employed thousands of people, that people would get rid of their horses, that the foxes enjoyed it. It's never hard to come up with good reasons to preserve a situation that serves your own interests!"

"But we were sincere."

"I don't think that makes much difference."

An awkward silence fell and we walked on.

* * *

We crossed another stile and entered an ash copse.

"We had a den here, in a ruin."

"The gamekeeper's cottage?"

"How did you know that?", Helen asked, surprised.

"It's in the archives - the gamekeeper used to be listed as the occupier here."

Helen pointed out the site, overgrown with brambles. She shook herself.

"We used to scare each other silly with ghost stories. Supposedly the house was cursed by the last gamekeeper, Old Will. He had been injured in a shooting accident, and then one day just vanished. Jem would say he could hear him limping through the undergrowth while we hid."

A little further along the path, the trees opened out and we could the Hall, a couple of fields away. We climbed the slope, panting.


* * *

After washing and changing, I return to the archives, keen to check the personnel files. It didn't take long to find the one I wanted. Williams Jenkins had been born in 1892; in 1906 he wrote a letter of application for a job on the estate, and in 1908 he countersigned a tenancy agreement for the cottage. The final document was a doctor's bill from 1938, recording treatment for a gunshot wound to his leg. Then Old Will vanished from the paper trail just as he had from his home.

Overheard

CHILD: Can I have an ice cream now?

PARENT: What's the magic word?

CHILD (puzzled): Um ... Abracadabra?

New word corner: Thermostat

Thermostat: unwanted utensils that fill the shelves of kitchen cupboards. From 'thermos' + 'tat'.

Radio comedy sketch: Checklist

FX: Aircraft noises

Captain: This is Alpha Tango 213 preparing to take off.

Control tower: This is control tower. Proceed with pre=flight checklist.

Captain: Roger. (to co-pilot) Ready?

Co-pilot: Check.

Captain: Fabric pattern made up of squares of alternating colour?

Co-pilot: Check

Captain: Means of payment?

Co-pilot: Cheque

Captain: Inhabitant of Central Europan country?

Co-pilot: Czech

Captain: Chess move threatening the king?

Co-pilot: Check

Captain: Checklist complete. (ON RADIO) Alpha Tango 123 proceeding to runway.

FX: Jet engine

Variations on a theme

Old monetarist economic theorists never die, they just lose their currency.

Old fireworks manufacturers never die, they just light the blue touch paper and retire.

Change and Decay work in progress Chapter 8

Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7


For the next few days, I was left largely to myself, disturbed only by the occasional visit from the dogs as they snuffled around myopically. I glimpsed the Sheldons as they followed their individual orbits- Margaret's from kitchen to conservatory, Charles' from study to dining room. Helen, in spite of her comment, was nowhere in evidence. Why did I mind that?

On Wednesday, my usually-solitary breakfast in the kitchen was varied by the presence of Margaret, assembling crockery and cutlery on a large tray.

"It's the estate meeting today", she explained, unbidden, "the family go through all the business matters- and you'll get to meet everyone, unless you'd rather not be disturbed?"

"Not at all", I replied emphatically, unsure of how to communicate my lack of enthusiasm for meeting new people politely. I remembered the time my careers master at school had asked if I'd like working with people, and his shock at the eloquent negative the question triggered.

I finished my coffee, washed my hands to clean off any grease or breadcrumbs, and went down the passage to the records store, closing the door on the bustle of arrivals in the distance. I worked through a bundle of letters, trying to establihs a date: 19th century from the handwriting, but hard to pin down, beacuse their authors had indicated only day and month. Soon enough, or perhaps only quite soon, a reference in the body of a letter to 'our new queen' fixed the timescale to the early 1840s. The correspondence was an indiscriminate mixture of family news and business, similar in all probability to the meeting running on next door. I reflded the letter, replaced it in the envelope, and re-tied the ribbon around the bundle, pausing to lightly pencil the date on the top. I rose to get a drink, as much from a desire to stretch and become mobile as from thirst.

To my surprise, the kitchen wasn't empty: a woman sat at the table, laboriously urging two small children to eat.

She said "Hello" brightly but with an interrogative inflexion.
"Hi - I'm Derek - looking at the archives."
"Yeah, Jeremy said you'd be around - have you seen him?"
"No, he's the son, isn't he?"
She grinned. "Son and heir, you mean."
"What about Helen?"
This time she smiled broadly and tutted. "Wrong sex, I'm afraid. It me a while to realise how it worked. I met Jeremy at uni- I was doing History of Art, he was doing Land Economy, whatever that is. I still don't know - I don't think he knows, either."
Penny paused, retrieving a juice cup from the floor and handing it back to its owner.

"I come from Yorkshire, from a big family. We're always doing things together- parties, outings, shopping. But this is different, more dynastic. You wouldn't believe just how interested Ma and Pa were in Jon and Emma here. They'd have come to the ultrasound scans if I'd let them. Now they're not too bothered about Emma - she can do what she likes. But Jon, he's the future: one day this will all be his. Won't it?"

She directed this last remark at the presumptive heir, who was currently reaching for a handful of dog biscuits from a bowl on the floor.

"I suppose they might say it's a responsibility, keeping the estate together", I suggested, without much conviction.

"Yes, that's just what they say. It's quite a handy argument, you know. When you want something new. Like this house- smart kitchen units, expensive, modern - that's investment. But everything esle is what they had already". She sighed.

I smiled at her eloquence. She glanced at the door.

"Not that I'm complaining, of course. But, Christ, it's nice to talk to someone who isn't on their side - you're not, are you?".

I shook my head. "It's not for me to judge - they seem nice enough, but that might just be politeness".

This earned a snort from Penny.

"Manners aren't everything, you know. I had a hard time when Jeremy first brought me here. The Spanish Inquisition has nothing on the treatment a prospective family member gets".

Emma methodically licked jam off her fingers.

"And that first Christmas - it's funny now to think of it. I thought - you know - garnd house, owns half a county, posh car, swish clothes. What can I buy them as presents? Jeremy kept saying not to worry, but I did, of course. In the end, he just told me he'd deal with it. Thirty minutes, it took him: a scarf each for the women, a tie each for the men."

"The difference between capital and revenue, I suppose."

"That's what he says. What they all say. You can't keep an estate together over the centuries unless you're careful about your balance. Not that it works these days. No matter how little they spend, it doesn't make enough. There's only so much money in farm rents. Every time we have a crisis, tax or whatever, it's something else sold off, which means less income." She sighed again. "But now I'm sounding like them."

Jon looked up at his mother. "Can we see Gramps now?"

"Not yet," she replied, tutting. "Little creeps. To be fair, they do like the kids."

Emma asked about Auntie Helen, echoing my thoughts.

"I don't think she's here today."

Diane Lazarus and the Suffolk murders: two stories are better than one

Psychics recognise that the support of their believers does little to persuade the general population of the reality of their abilities, and they have often sought validation by associating themselves with police work and missing person cases. In the US, where psychics are fixtures of mainstream television, this has led to unedifying spectacle of Sylvia Browne telling Shaun Hornbeck’s parents that he was dead (see http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/ ).

Little is said about this in the UK from the police side, although a recent FOI enquiry reported in the Skeptic Express found only one, unsolved case, where the police authority acknowledged the use of a psychic.

Diane Lazarus, winner of Channel Five’s Psychic Challenge, is keen to follow Browne’s example, and has claimed involvement in several cases, including Mark Green and Muriel Drinkwater (see Skeptic Express ), and most recently the Suffolk murders. Although she offered her help to the police, they did not take her up, and therefore she spoke to the press, leading to a story published in Wales on Sunday
Twist religious motive behind deaths 17th December, also
analysed in the Skeptic Express.

The only specific characteristics of the perpetrator were: “a young lad, a hoodie” and strong “religious” character.

Shortly afterwards, a suspect aged 38 was arrested on 18th December. He was then bailed and a second man, 48, was arrested on 19th December, and has now been charged with the murders. So not very young, then.

But in addition to the Wales on Sunday story, she had also spoken to the rival South Wales Guardian, who printed their story on 20th December.
Psychic senses profile of Suffolk strangler.
Since the South Wales Guardian is a weekly paper, it is not clear when the story was written (ie whether before the first arrest on the 18th). But what is clear is that the information provided by Lazarus differs considerably from that in the Echo:

She believes that the man - probably in his thirties - has large hands and is much stronger than he appears.

Nothing about religion there.
Lazarus has therefore covered the ground with the only specific information of which she is sure: that the murderer was a young lad, or in his thirties. If either of these choices had been correct, her powers would have been confirmed by incontrovertible evidence.

If the accused lawyer is smart, he will call Lazarus as a witness, in the hope that some members of the jury will believe in psychics, so that the following exchange can take place:
Lawyer: So you’ve helped the police in the past?
Lazarus: Oh yes, several times : Mark Green, etc etc
Lawyer: And you’re convinced that you can sense the true perpetrator
Lazarus: Yes
Lawyer: You sensed a young man with religious convictions was the murderer?
Lazarus: Yes
Lawyer: Would you describe the accused as such a man?
Lazarus: No, definitely not.
Lawyer: You sensed a man in his thirties with large hands. Is this the accused?
Lazarus: No, definitely not.
Lawyer: So you believe that the accused is not the man who is responsible for the murders?
Lazarus: Yes I do.

This should be enough to implant reasonable doubt in the jury and hence lead to his acquittal, guilty or not.

Kingsley and the Women: review of Zachary Leader's The Life of Kingsley Amis (Cape, 2006)

Modern biographies thrive on revelation, but there is little that is new in Leader's monumental study. This is hardly surprising, since Amis's life has already been well documented in his 1200-page Letters, edited by Leader, Martin's Experience, his own Memoirs, Eric Jacob's biography, compiled shortly before Amis's death, and in various autobiographical articles, supplementing the fictionalised life traceable in the fiction. Leader discusses the problem, and concludes that there remains something to be said of man and works, mainly because it is now possible to fill out the partial views which KA stamped on accounts of his life.

Thus although in late Amis there is much allusion to Hilly or Hilly-type figures, it is refreshing to hear directly from her descriptions of the chaotic, energetic, doomed marriage of the 1950s (previously she was best represnted as a sort of voice off in the footnotes of the Letters). Similarly Elizabeth Jane Howard emerges with more credit here than Kingsley post-divorce ever allowed her, although Leader seems colder to her than to Hilly.

The book's chapter are arranged chronologically, although the works are dealt with out of sequence. The earliest chapters are the best, telling a relatively unknown story, and expertly sewn together from autobiography, letters, others' testimony, and the two fictional accounts of the period from The Riverside Villas Murder and You Can't Do Both. In later years, domestic drudgery and tedious infidelity takes over, interestingly paralleling the novels but otherwise sparse in incident. Although it is not intended as a critical study (Amis's claim to be a titan of 20th-century literature is assumed), there are perspicuous summaries of most of Amis's works (including a good account of the poetry and high praise for Take a Girl Like You, The Old Devils and The Alteration). At times the pace is breathless: the later years are padded out with accounts of sales fugures and advances, mainly of economic interest, and it is in general hard to establish how well Amis was appreciated by his reviewers and audience.

This breathlessness extends to the larger questions raised by Amis and his politics. Two pages are spent discussing Amis's views on race, which isn't much. It would have been more honest to set out clearly that Amis was, in public writing, anti-racist, outspokenly so, and that there was a tension between this and his views as expressed in conversation or correspondence with his cronies. Similarly, Amis's anti-semitism is shown as mild but definite, despite the fact that well into the 1960s he would treat the prejudice as a sure sign of dullness. Perhaps this is partly a reflection of his experience of ageing as the process by which we turn into our parents. But as Leader does point out on numerous occasions, Amis's political views were emotional and illinformed, unlike his views on literature. But there remains the truth that in later years Amis was as famous for his opinionated journalism as for his more nuanced fiction, and he can hardly complain that he is taken at his word. It is, though, hard to take too much notice of the late 60s hippy-hater who had turned his early 60s Cambridge house into a proto-squat of rolling bacchanalia of sex and drugs.

And what of feminism? Amis lived through the raging sex war of the 70s, taking much of it, with good reason, personally. Looking back now, it is notable that the virtues he praised in women: of straightforwardness, honesty, and disdain for conventional morality, were those advanced by his foes.

Leader's prose is serviceable but indistinctive, giving the frequent quotations from Amis and Larkin a shocking comparative verve. The sad theme running through the second half of the book is the problem of Sally: while Philip and Martin emerged from their disrupted and unconventional childhoods intact, she did not; it is hard to read of her alcoholism and death without asking (as Leader does) who is at fault. Not that this type of question is likely to lead to resolution. It seems hardly necessary to lay this at Amis's door, since Leader shows that he had alaready suffered fear, doubt and remorse about this as about much else. Amis was better at analysing his flaws in his fiction than in correcting them in his life, but that is hardly surprising.

This is not the place to start for those new to Amis: they should read his fiction first, then his Letters. But this account raises a series of questions about the novels, while also showing how the latterday Colonel Blimp had started as a radical who instinctively sided with the unprivileged, the dispossed and the powerless.

The Dagenham code*: review of Yehuda Berg's The Power of Kabbalah

Some modern systems of belief are explicitly new: Scientology was created by L. Ron Hubbard; others claim continuity with past traditions, such as the wicce. Yehuda Berg places Kabbalah somewhere in between: he presents its teachings as a body a secret knowledge which has been the preserve of a tiny obscure and misunderstood Judaic sect for at least 2,000 years, but which has only recently been publicised to the wider world as a tool for personal growth, accompanied by the contemporary trappings of bookshops, specially endorsed substances and products, and celebrity advocates like Madonna, her husband Guy Ritchie and her onetime lover Sandra Bernhardt. The book is written in a lively and clear style, and starts with a section debunking the misconceptions that have accumulated about Kabbalah, before looking at the drivers of human behaviour. There follow sections on Kabbalist cosmology, cross-referenced to contemporary scientific theories which parallel or confirm its model, a section on meditation and the power and meaning of the Hebrew alphabet, and a series of appendixes including a history of Kabbalah. Although the book is probably not designed to produce this effect, it creates in the reader a shift from neutral acceptance towards increasing skepticism and irritation. The first principle he cites is that there should be no coercion in spirituality, and he hopes that the accuracy of his depiction of the world should convince the reader of the validity of the cosmological model underlying it, which is a good place to start, although this obscures the extent to which his views are reliant on authority and revelation as their source.


Understanding oneself
The key argument in Berg's analysis of behaviour is that most people live humdrum lives only rarely reaching transcendence: he argues that these moments of transcendence are a connection with another realm of being, and occur when we act in line with our core identity. He suggests that the reason many people feel dissatisfied is because they misunderstand their nature and desires, becoming focused on the wrong goals (for example stating their goal as "becoming a millionaire" rather than "being financially secure": the former becomes a treadmill, possibly doomed to unfulfilment; the latter is a state of mind and could be achieved by anyone). He gives some good advice here about how to achieve a better state of mind while living in the world by changing one's attitude. He firmly discourages the culture of blame or guilt: it is a person's own responsibility to sort out their life. More questionable is his attitude to rational thought: his advice is to go with intuitions and to distrust rationality. I am unconvinced that people in general, or particularly people with problems, are over-reliant on thought, and his testimony from scientists which is supposed to support his argument fails to do so, since what is recounted is a series of cases where the scientists, having rationally defined a problem, have then intuited a solution, subsequently confirmed by rational thought. This is not a transferable model for personal lives, whatever he says. Perhaps more dangerously, he also says that when in times of doubt, trust in the certainty of Kabbalah is the best response; he presents a complex and unconvincing example of a businessman who suspects he is being defrauded by one of his salesmen: he denies all the apparent evidence, and is rewarded by it not being as bad as others feared. The danger here is that Berg is giving licence to anyone who gets into a state of denial that they are right, not wrong.


Science proves Kabbalah right
Berg likes science, or at least he appeals to it often as a source of credibility, although he is sometimes naive, saying for example that "a burning candle emits no light against the backdrop of a brilliant sunlit day" (p. 68), a piece of reasoning on a par with the lodgings landlady who closed the curtains on bright winter days because the sunshine put the coal fire out. Similarly, he uses the term 'selfish gene' (p. 111) to mean a gene that makes people selfish, a complete misunderstanding of Dawkins' concept. This becomes a serious problem when he cherry-picks scintific theories to demonstrate that Kabbalah got it right:

• he is happy to parallel Kaballah's creation with scientific Big Bang, although the newer concept of a steady state universe of cycles of Big Bangs and Big Crunches doesn't fit at all


• he is happy to say that matter is of dual nature like electrons and protons, ignoring the existence of neutrons which undermine such an argument


• he is happy to link the 10 'dimensions' of the Kabbalah universe with the 10-dimensional space of superstring theory, but igonres other string theory elements proposing 11 or 46 dimensions, or the metatheory M theory that proposes 4 branes and 11 dimensions (not that I'd claim to know what this means)

It would therefore be unwise to argue that modern science has confirmed Kabbalah's cosmology: the most that could be claimed is that some modern theories fit some interpretations of Kabbalah.

Meditation and the Hebrew alphabet
The recommendation of meditation as a way of improving one's sense of well-being is hardly revolutionary, any more than a doctor's prescription of more exercise and less alcohol. Clearly, the ritual of meditation (in the sense of the regular conscious application of time and thought to one's mental life) yields benefits to many. The approach recommended by Berg is in many ways simialr to the Taoist I Ching: to focus on the pictogram of a Hebrew name of God, related to a phrase or purpose, eg 'to remove egomania', with a short passage of advice. Berg might be expected to argue that such meditation makes people feel better, or perhaps evene changes them in some way to make them into better people. But he goes a step further, and argues that meditation can cause miracles. He relies on the evidence of Dr Spokojny, who recounts two cases where his use of Kabbalah has proved efficacious where his medicine hasn't. Dr Artur Spokojny is a Harvard-trained MD who now has his own Total Healing practice. He oversaw experiments on Kabbalah-blessed water:

'"We have reversed entropy and reversed the second law of thermodynamics," contended Dr. Artur Spokojny, a cardiologist who oversaw the independent lab tests [on behalf of the Kabbalah Center]'.

The full evidence for these claims, as for the ER miracles, has not yet been presented to the world.


Theology of Kabbalah
Although the 'theory' of Kabbalah is not presented clearly as a single body of belief by Berg, some elements stand out:

• the key commandment that one should love thy neighbour as thyself


• the 10 commandments, on the other hand, are a misunderstanding and do not apply


• reincarnation and multiple lives happen


• the Devil is real and the world is full of temptation and evil

History of Kabbalist thought
His brief summary of history starts with the 'Book of Abraham' written before most the Bible, a book known only to Kabbalists; Moses then wrote the Pentateuch, encoding within them Kabbalah knowledge. He then has Pythagoras as a Kabbalah devotee, although Josephus' version (97 AD) of what he says Hermippus of Smyrna says about Pythagoras is not so specific, and in general Pythagoras' number mysticism is different to that of Kabbalah and sourced from Egypt and Assyria, if anywhere. Plato and Aristotle are also roped in on the basis of what Dr Seth Pancoast says (this is the Seth Pancoast who

"extended this thinking in his Blue and Red Light: or, Light and its Rays as Medicine (1877), in which he cautioned against “light quacks” even as he claimed to have cured Master F., an eight-year-old paraplegic, after only a week under red glass, and Mrs. L., a 32-year-old widow suffering from severe sciatica, after only three sittings in a bath of blue light." (Cabinet Magazine).

The only surprising inclusion in later history is Isaac Newton, who again was interested in number mysticism and theology but is not normally included amongst followers of Kabbalah. The surprising omission is the tedious visionary Nostradamus, who Berg doesn't mention.


Authority and evidence

Regardless of the coherence of the body of belief that Berg presents, there remains a fundamental issue of epistemology. How can Berg know that there are 10 dimensions or that reincarnation happens? The answer has to be that for every belief not susceptible to direct verification by our senses or minds, we must rely on what we have been told. And so despite the initial gestures towards confirmation by experience, Kabbalah is reliant on two bodies of authority: written texts and interpretation.

As a result, Kabbalah is out of step with more modern cults, since it requires belief in Holy Writ. Berg makes many mentions of the Bible without gloss: his US readers probably read this as their Bible, although the Jewish Bible is meant; he argues against literalism in interpreting it, presumably expecting his audience to be of fundamentalist tendency. But in Kabbalah the Bible contains God's word, but encrypted. Kabbalah also requires the acceptance of two further holy works, the books of Abraham and Zohar, neither of which is known elsewhere.

Further than this, though, Kabbalah's validity relies on the work of its interpreters: if Berg and his father and their predecessors are wrong, their beliefs are wrong.

Thus the pantheistic almost godless cosmology with the individual's mind at its centre that Kabbalah appears to be at first glance is actually a scripture- and revelation-driven set of specific beliefs requiring faith in a Hebrew God and a complex interpretation of His works.


Further reading

In the course of researching this review, I came across various strange stories, including:

The Strange Case of Supernatural water (Kabbalah water proposed as a cure to citrus canker in Florida)
Red String to protect you from the evil eye
Psionic Kabbalah Manifesting Capsule
Madonna breaks bones in fall despite wearing Kabbalah bracelet
Jerry Hall renounces Kabbalah after pressure to fundraise
Celebrities linked to the Kabbalah Center



* 'Dagenham' is known to Londoners as the District Line underground station two stops beyond Barking.