Video provided by Bright Young Things:

I probably didn’t buy my car from the most reputable salesman. He wore silver dice cufflinks, had a shirt that was so crisp with starch that the collar tips could be used to gouge someone’s eyes out, and had enough mousse in his hair to keep Vidal Sassoon in profit for a year. But beyond this, there was an aspect to his countenance which I simply could not trust: perhaps it was the insincere sincerity in his tone of voice or the false “hail fellow well met” demeanour. I could not shake the sense that there was something exploitative in every word he said.

Fortunately for him, the used car I bought sold itself: it gets 600 miles on a full tank of diesel, it’s modest, and it’s adequately comfortable. I thought I was getting it at a reasonable, if somewhat inflated price. Then less than 4 months later the brakes gave in; I had a panicked moment when the car juddered rather than glided to a halt. When I took it in for servicing afterward, I found out that the cam belt needed to be replaced. There was also a leak that needed to be remedied, and the tyres barely passed the annual inspection: I had to replace all four. To add insult to injury, this past January, the battery died completely. All told, fixing its issues cost me more than 15% of its purchase value within the first 16 months of ownership. It’s worth mentioning that I wasn’t some idle sucker who wandered into a dodgy dealership off a dirt track; this was purchased from an official outpost of the Volkswagen Group.

My “friend” who sold me the car sent a letter and left a telephone message inviting me for a coffee at the dealership. I ignored these invitations as I didn’t really have anything to say, or rather, nothing pleasant. However I was bemused when I received a phone call from his colleague yesterday.

“Hello, am I speaking to Mr….”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Uh, yeah, this is Phil,” he continued, “I’m calling from Volkswagen Audi Finance.”

“Oh no,” I thought, “the last payment didn’t get through?”

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “well you’re about halfway through paying for the car.”

“Don’t remind me,” I thought. The interest rate I’d been charged would be enough to make an investment banker blush.

“Yes,” I replied.

“We was wondering if you’d like to come down to the dealership to talk about buying a new one.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There’s never been a better time to buy a replacement.”

“I’m not interested.”

“What?”

“I’m not interested. I am very happy with my car as it is, and I just want to pay it off.”

“Well…”

“Is there anything else?”

“No…”

“Bye.”

I allowed myself to fume quietly for a minute or two. The nerve: I didn’t accept that they didn’t know my history with them. All they had to do was look up the car in their database and see the various repair bills I had paid: nearly all the fixes had been done at the dealership in order to preserve its service history and value. They also knew my profession and that I worked in academia, yet they sent a salesman who couldn’t even string two coherent sentences together to try and swindle me again. In short, they expected me to be gullible, stupid and greedy.

However, I realise that I haven’t been singled out. The entire economy is now based on the idea that we, the people, are gullible, stupid and greedy; for example, the British government is trying to get people to buy new cars by offering a £2000 bonus. It was said on BBC News this morning that the Japanese government is also trying cash incentives to get consumers to spend more. Much of the focus of economic policy has been to try and get the interbank lending rate down (known as LIBOR) so that credit will flow freely again, and that people will consume more; according to the Economist, LIBOR is down to pre-crisis levels. Employment depends on it, mortgages depend on it, pensions depend on it: more, more, more.

Fortunately, in some instances, the consumer isn’t playing ball. The item on the BBC suggested that Japanese consumers, once handed extra cash, stashed it away. Some governments don’t play ball either: the Norwegian government took much of its oil revenues during the long boom and saved it for hard times like these, in order to guarantee public services and employment. However these are small obstacles standing against the torrential flow of consumerism, and is indicative of perhaps the most depressing aspect of the present crisis: most policy makers have learned absolutely nothing.

When the population was smaller and the world seemed a much larger place due to the difficulties of travelling distances, it was possible, even rational, to assume that an economy based on limitless consumption was possible. Coal was just lying around in some parts of the United Kingdom. Some soils were fertile enough for food crops to sprout up like weeds. One could poke a shovel into a hole in Texas and find oil. However, now we should know better: limitless consumption is not possible in a world of finite resources. In a scenario in which our population is increasing, we are pushing nature to breaking point. We are getting tell tale signs that this is happening from phenomena like peak oil: for example, British North Sea Oil production peaked in 1999 and has been in decline ever since. Similarly, there is a limit to arable land, and thus food production. There are also constraints on the amount of ore that can be extracted from the earth. Yet few want to believe, let alone accept these basic facts of life. My friends the car salesmen are part of the myth industry that whispers in one’s ear, “Come on, you deserve a little more luxury, you deserve something new. Don’t worry about tomorrow, worry about today. Throw away the old.”

However there is no rational reason for me to throw away the old. My father had a German diesel car that lasted over 1 million miles. Mine is nowhere near that and after all the trauma of sorting its issues, is now running well; it also will work with biodiesel, if necessary. Additionally, I can repair old clothes. I can fix and polish old furniture. I can mend the sink or the shower. Unless something actually breaks beyond all repair, I don’t need self-indulgence, but it is precisely self-indulgence that many governments want to restore. Very few, if any, have had the courage to say that the way we live now is madness and it has to stop for all our sakes. I truly am afraid that because of this reluctance, we may experience a bit of temporary relief in terms of economic recovery, but the long term prognosis has darkened. President Obama has reminded us that the Chinese terms for “crisis” and “opportunity” are interrelated; the lack of willingness to eliminate the madness of the new means the crisis may be being wasted.

The sole sliver of light amidst the gloom may emanate from the fact that there are people like the Japanese, Norwegians and to a lesser extent, the Germans, who simply don’t want to fall into line. So long as there are people successfully saying “No”, then the victory of consumer culture is not entirely assured. Furthermore, the near-collapse of political culture in Britain is opening the door for alternative voices and ideas to be heard, including those who don’t much care for the present orthodoxy. I don’t expect that these changes will prevent the dealership from calling me again, or dumping more junk mail in my letterbox; however, perhaps we’re moving into an era when that will be less acceptable.

There is a difference between anarchy and chaos. Anarchy implies people being in charge of themselves and willfully going in individual directions; in contrast, chaos is apparently defined by no one being in control of anything and everyone running around in circles. Britain got a large dose of chaos yesterday. On Monday afternoon, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, was expected to announce his resignation due to his role in the continuing expenses scandal. At best, he’s been the deaf, dumb and blind referee to how expense claims have been handled, and thus partially responsible for both frivolous and fraudulent bills being paid by the nation.

Mr. Martin, however, did not follow the predicted script. He started off well enough: he said that he was sorry to the people of the United Kingdom for “letting you down”, and that he would work to regain public trust. Then, he deviated: he added that his future was not a matter for discussion at that time. The effect of the statement was probably not what he intended; Members of Parliament from a variety of parties followed up by urging him to quit. In the end, he only managed to quash the motion by referring to procedure. Hanging up the will of the Commons on the hook of petty statues is unlikely to make anything better; that said, I heard on the news later that the tactic may have bought the Speaker ten days in office.

Ten days seems like a rather pathetic reward for obstinance. However, it may very well have been that the Speaker merely miscalculated; he perhaps believed that saying “sorry” in grave and pathetic tones would be sufficient to allay anger both in the Commons and the wider public. His lack of understanding appears to be part of a wider phenomenon, whereby “sorry” is viewed as a substitute for genuine repentance.

If Britain had a pound for every “sorry” that had been said by an MP since the expenses scandal broke, the country perhaps would have already recouped its losses. We have heard sorry from MPs for making the taxpayer pay for repairs to tennis courts and moats, for fraudulent mortgage claims, and from the party leaders we have heard apologies for the misalignment of expense procedures with the demands of public service. In many instances, these professions of remorse have been accompanied by cheques written out in the full amount.

In the world outside the House of Commons, “sorry” is similarly deployed. The Catholic Church says “mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” in light of child abuse scandals. The bankers say “sorry” for putting the world into what the Economist says is a $3 trillion hole. The wayward husband says “sorry” to his wife after a drunken binge or going astray. Yet this isn’t sufficient: “sorry” in all these instances leaves a bitter taste. Perhaps the problem was most eloquently stated by Rhett Butler in “Gone With the Wind” as he addressed Scarlett in the final scene:

RHETT: My darling, you’re such a child. You believe by saying “sorry” that all the past can be forgotten.

In light of “sorry”, we are supposed to forgive the bankers for their malfeasance, allow the MPs to continue in their posts, attend the Catholic Church on Sundays and deposit, pay and donate without batting an eye. At home, the wife is supposed to forgive the husband, the child that breaks the porcelain vase is supposed to escape being grounded. Everything, indeed, is expected to be magically restored to rights due to the word’s transcendent properties.

There is another view, however, which suggests that “sorry” belongs on the register of abused vocabulary. This opinion also states that it is the Monopoly money of the English language: it only has value for playing games. When it comes to genuine expressions of remorse, the challenge is to be a better person and to do it by deeds not words. However, this requires something that merely saying sorry does not: it requires personal inconvenience and sacrifice.

Let us be clear, the Speaker of the House of Commons is so compromised that any capacity he has to do good in post exists solely within his delusions. In order to show genuine self-reproach, Mr. Martin would have to give up his well appointed offices, his gilded robes, the pomp of ceremony and the prestige of his chair. He would have to stop being the one upon which the Commons’ cameras invariably focus. He would have to plunge into obscurity, perhaps retire more modestly than he originally intended, and indeed, show further humility by not imposing his presence on the public any longer.

There is a model to follow, and perhaps it is the last genuine case of public remorse on record: John Profumo, the Minister of War in the Macmillan Government, had an affair with call-girl Christine Keeler, who in turn also had an ongoing tryst with a KGB agent. In 1963, Profumo lied to the House of Commons and the leadership of the Conservative Party about the relationship; in a more genteel age, that might have been sufficient to get away with it. However, this occurred on the cusp of the modern media era, and the restraints were coming off. Faced with mounting evidence blasted throughout the British press, Profumo confessed, resigned all his posts, and quietly sank into oblivion; he began repenting for what he had done by cleaning toilets for Toynbee Hall, a charity in London’s East End. Good works of this type, done in the quiet and the dark, eventually restored his reputation. By the end of his life, he was awarded the CBE, and was once again welcome at Prime Ministers’ dinners.

What makes Profumo’s repentance so compelling is that his guilt forced him to the very bottom, and yet he worked without any prospect of climbing once more to anywhere near the top. He used what time he had left and what skills he had at his disposal to make amends to the public and did so in the most humble manner possible. When we see the Communities Minister, Hazel Blears, wave a £13,000 cheque in front of the cameras, loudly proclaim she’s paying her expenses back and then jump on a motorcycle and ride off into the sunset, we witness nothing Profumo-esque in her behaviour. Yes, £13,000 is a lot of money to most people, but not to her; after her time in office is done, a few public engagements or some consultancy work will more than claw it back. This is only a blip on her horizons, a storm in a teacup, an annoyance. Thus too is saying sorry for the Speaker, for the wayward husband, and for the bankers: it’s all a ritual purging which allows them to get back to what they were doing before they had to apologise. There is no authentic sacrifice from which society can obtain a moral example. The lesson that is communicated is the credo of Bart Simpson: “I didn’t do it, you didn’t see me do it, you can’t prove anything”. In other words, guilt is only there for those who get caught, and “sorry” exists to get one out of an immediate jam.

Most of humanity’s problems are self-inflicted. We are the authors of our own destruction through our folly and mendacity; morality and ethics are there to act as a brake in order to prevent us from harming ourselves and others. If we continue to accept “sorry” as being enough, then the pressure on the brake may slacken further; already, unethical behaviour has led to vast sums of money being chewed up in economic turmoil, a mounting climate catastrophe, and yes, a society in which our consumption seems to run far ahead of our wisdom. Perhaps we should treat the expenses scandal as a good place to begin to change things: any statement saying “sorry” should be met with a terse challenge to prove it.

My introduction to the works of Samuel Beckett was botched. It occured in an undergraduate English course, whose purpose was to examine less than common texts, and sadly I had a less than common lecturer. Unfortunately, he was more fixated on talking about Freud’s ideas on children playing with their excreta (and how we’re actually supposed to treat faeces like Lego) than helping young minds to interpret the classic works in his care; among these was Beckett’s most famous play, “Waiting for Godot”.

To be fair, the teacher was temporarily very excited by this work, utilising phrases like “the silence of God”, the “futility of religious belief”, before returning to pseudo-Freudian interpretations of a character’s incontinence. The lecturer’s propensities would have been bad enough on their own; however, I must admit that the text itself left me cold. I thought it was thoroughly strange and incomprehensible. After I finished the course (through a combination of sheer bloodymindedness and making sure I included excrement in my final exam essay), Godot remained on the fringes of my knowledge. Over time, I did manage to absorb some of the trivia surrounding it, for example, that it was originally written in French, and that adding “-ot” to any name renders it a clownish quality in that language. Apart from this, my experiences suggested it was simply an overwrought play that belonged solely to the pretentious.

It’s fortunate that the talents of Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart have come to the rescue; indeed, this production perhaps represents a turning point in the work’s history, when it is wrested from the hands of the elites and delivered to the general public.

Reading the dry text and listening to lecturers like the one I suffered with completely shuts off one of the play’s most critical dimensions: while there are serious messages and undertones, it is often absolutely hilarious. Prior to seeing this production, I had heard Patrick Stewart saying on BBC Radio 4 that Godot was the precursor to absurdist humour like Little Britain. I raised an eyebrow at the time, but once lights dimmed and the curtain raised, it quickly became obvious that Stewart was correct.

The setting is simple: we see a set of ruins and a tree. This desolate scene is populated by two tramps, Vladimir (Stewart) and Estragon (McKellen). The rapport between the two characters is critical to its success: it helps that Stewart and McKellen are apparently old friends. When Stewart sings “Together Again” to McKellen, there is a warmth and sincerity that transcends mere acting. It’s also useful that both of them bring a helpless, befuddled quality to both of their roles, particularly McKellen. The bizarre lines are transformed by their Shakespearean training; rather than strange, the text is very funny. A good example is a sequence in which they talk about hanging themselves; an inflection, a pause, a tone, all change something which sounds mad into a jest, an expression of frustration, and a refuge from boredom. Even a discussion about whether to eat turnips or carrots is similarly elevated to a humourous level.

The two tramps are forced to amuse themselves while they wait for an unseen character, Godot. Their reverie is interrupted by the arrival of a blustering loudmouth, Pozzo, and his servant, Lucky. Pozzo, played expertly by veteran actor Simon Callow (well known as the character who passed away in “Four Weddings and a Funeral”), is also doing a comic turn: his performance is intentionally so over the top, it could hardly be otherwise. Lucky (Ronald Pickup) is a sad, forlorn figure in this piece; he is kept on a long leash in the form of a noose by Pozzo. Lucky has a number of talents, including “thinking”; when encouraged to do so, he recites a series of ridiculous statements that sound like someone trying to impress a dinner party compromised solely of philosophers after a few too many. As strange as this sounds, the actors give it logic and humour. After the encounter with Pozzo and Lucky, Stewart and McKellen deliver what is perhaps the most hilarious set of lines in the entire play:

VLADIMIR: Well, that passed the time.

ESTRAGON: It would have passed anyway.

VLADIMIR: Yes, but not as quickly.

To the casual reader, this may not seem funny at all: but like with many other amusing situations, “you had to be there”. Indeed, if the play has one weakness it is as follows: it has problems being communicated anywhere other than the stage, and it can’t be done with anything other than top class actors. You “have to be there” in order to “get it”.

Furthermore, Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky are all required to do both comic and tragic turns and change the register extremely quickly. There is also a slight amount of improvisation in reciting the lines: Stewart’s humming little tunes throughout springs to mind; anyone other than a highly skilled actor will have difficulties knowing when this is appropriate or not, and knowing how much to use. If any of these elements are overdone or underdone, the structure shatters, and part of its impact is lost. Too serious, and it falls into the same category as a teenage melodrama about how God hates them. Too funny, and it becomes a skit from a late night television programme. This version is just right: twenty four hours after having seen it, I’m still chuckling in remembrance of some of the lines, and yet thinking about the futility of the tramps’ waiting.

This production has been called the most important theatre event of 2009; it’s difficult to disagree with this summation. You had to be there: this will be the “Godot” by which all others will be judged; it’s merely a pity that there are students throughout the English-speaking world who will continue to experience this work in the same mangled manner I did as an undergraduate, rather than being able to enjoy it, understand it, and benefit from it. Its overriding message that we are living in an absurd world, in which we all seem to be waiting for something which never arrives, seems more relevant than ever and too important to be left solely to the pompous.

The Parliamentary expenses scandal has soaked up British airtime like a sponge. Admittedly, it’s not entirely the fault of the media: some of the tidbits are simply too juicy to ignore. It has everything: vanity, flamboyance, greed and silliness. It makes a Monty Python farce look tame.

However, this has obscured an even more important debate going on in America at the moment. An unprecedented tug of war is in progress between the present Administration and the former one: the issue at hand is the use of torture. Dick Cheney seems to think that it’s is a good thing; President Obama disagrees. Cheney persists, Obama refuses to desist. This struggle has a familiar echo; it reflects an argument that I’ve had with my countrymen about whether or not torture is appropriate.

Some believe that the “techniques” utilised by the American military are not torture. Let’s take “waterboarding”, for example: this is a procedure whereby the prisoner is made to experience the sensation of drowning. Anyone who ever accidentally got water in their lungs while swimming should have an inkling at how unpleasant this can be: now imagine if it was done intentionally and in greater volumes. Saying this is not torture is a feat of verbal gymnastics that hasn’t been attempted since Bill Clinton tried to redefine the meaning of “is”.

The question then, is not if torture happens, but is it effective, and should it be used in the first place. Here history can guide us, and what it has to say is not particularly comforting for Cheney and his defenders: torture has rarely been used as an instrument of extracting truth, rather it has been more often utilised to get people to confess to things which they have not done.

The Spanish Inquisition springs to mind as a primary example: from approximately 1480 to the age of Napoleon, it had the task of purging Spain of its religious diversity, targeting Jews, Muslims and Protestants, as well as punishing other offenses to the faith such as homosexuality. Torture was part and parcel of the Inquisition’s work: it was used to pressure recalcitrant prisoners into confessing their heresy or converting on the spot, in spite of the fact on a purely criminal basis, they had done nothing wrong; as denunciations were done in secret, it was commonplace for entirely innocent people to be swept up into the madness.

Among the techniques used by the Inquisition to extract confessions was the toca, which was an early form of waterboarding; prisoners had a cloth shoved into their mouths and liquid was spilled in until they choked. In our present age, we cringe in horror at their work: the kangaroo courts of the auto de fe, the use of the rack, and pulleys stringing up innocent people all in the name of fanaticism rightly inspire revulsion. It took Napoleon and his imposition of a new monarch on Spain to rid the country of the Inquisition entirely; by then, Spain was the model of a repressive state. It is telling that one of the more successful bits of humour in “A Man for All Seasons” is the repetition of a line by several English notables, “This is not Spain, this is England”, a statement whose ironic implications hint at the ingrained tyranny prevalent on the Iberian peninsula.

A more recent and perhaps more powerful example comes from the Soviet Union. In 1934, the party boss of Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, was assassinated by a lone gunman; the assassin was likely acting on the orders of state security, as Kirov was perceived as a rival to the then General Secretary, Josef Stalin. This event ignited a series of purges within the USSR, during which innocent citizens were accused of complicity in this particular murder, or subscribing to a wider plot instigated by Stalin’s rival in exile, Leon Trotsky. Millions were caught up by the rolling machine of terror: tortures used by the security forces included a novel method which utilised a rat, a heating plate and a chamber pot. The rat was put into the pot, and the pot was put on the heating plate. The prisoner was then forced to drop their trousers and sit down on the receptacle. The rat, obviously starting to cook to death, would become very frantic in its efforts to get out, thus attacking the prisoner in a most sensitive place. Other tortures used by the NKVD, the KGB’s predecessor, included beating prisoners on the base of the spine (in effect, the sciatic nerve) with a rubber truncheon, which causes an explosion of pain in the victim’s head, and applying pressure with the toe of a boot to a prisoner’s scrotum. All this was done in order to make prisoner’s confess to belonging to phony conspiracies of which they would have only had marginal awareness, and as a prelude either to years in a Siberian work camp, or to being executed.

If we look at other regimes, such as the Duvalier regime in Haiti, or Mobutu in Zaire, or the present junta in Burma, we find that torture is an instrument of compelling the innocent, not the guilty. Pain is there to make the unwilling agree to the absurd, not to tell the truth. Yet we are supposed to believe that merely a change in scenario and a difference in government is supposed to make this fundamental feature of torture disappear, as if by magic.

Worse, the use of torture undermines American power. Those who believe in its use may be under the impression that it is only through the ruthless application of physical force that power is secured; wrong, reputation is power too. America, unlike many nations, was not born out of an ancient ethnicity or a mere accident of history: rather, it was founded deliberately on an idea, which is summarised by Thomas Jefferson’s exquisite phrase: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”. The Declaration of Independence, from which this segment is extracted, goes on to list the presence of standing armies in America as being objectionable: torture is so out of the question that it doesn’t enter the moral universe of this document. It was these ideals in application that inspired the French Revolution, and cascaded throughout the world as an extension of man’s conscience. It may sound like a cliche to talk about “truth, justice and the American way”, but up until quite recently, this idea had resonance. By adopting torture, America has walked away from these ideals in the name of perceived realpolitik. Indeed, America has turned the ideas upon which it was founded into an elegant hypocrisy…and who takes what a hypocrite has to say seriously?

The proponents of physical coercion may counter, all right then, if we give up torture, then what do we do? The answers are relatively straightforward: bribery, psychology and religious argument. All three do not require the use of physical force, and if done correctly, will get at the truth rather than what the torturers want to hear.

Bribery is perhaps the most simple; not every man has a price, but many do. And bribery need not be in raw cash terms: it can be the education of one’s children, a promise of safe asylum, the establishment of a new life. Incentives can be linked to accuracy of information.

Psychology should not be understood as therapy. Rather, there is nothing wrong with giving a prisoner the false impression that they are talking to someone they can trust, or they are in circumstances whereby they feel they can speak the truth. This requires staging of a situation, creating beliefs which are not necessarily true, and then analysing the results.

Religious argument is perhaps the least understood method. There is an assumption from the media’s images of Islamic fananticism that somehow it is a religion of ignorance rather than knowledge. Nothing could be further from the truth: many of the Islamists are to their faith what televangelists are to Christianity. They deal in short, punchy messages which lack depth, resonance, history or thought. Words mean a great deal in Islam: it was the poetry of the Qu’ran which attracted its first followers; it is no coincidence that much of Islamic art involves calligraphy through which the word of God is repeated. A typical Sufi scholar has the intellectual and theoretical capability to make the average terrorist hothead bleed out the ears; if convinced that they are actually going against God, Muslims have an obligation to correct the error as quickly as possible.

All three methods, however, are less “macho” than just simply whacking the terrorist on the head or making him think he’s drowning. There is a mistaken belief among some that physical violence somehow equals masculinity, and thus supporting torture is the “manly” thing to do. It is, rather, an admission of weakness: i.e., one feels the need to assert force in order to “prove something” as one couldn’t think a way out of a problem. Given that America was founded by thinkers, this situation is likely causing consternation to the likes of Jefferson and Madison in the afterlife. The pity of torture is that whatever the perceived gains are, they are not outweighed by the costs. Fortunately, however, the President appears to understand this concept better than his detractors. While the process of rehabilitation is unlikely to be straightfoward, at least it’s in motion.

I found myself saying “Bravo!” watching this – quite possibly the clearest and most clever political advertisement in Britain today:

Yesterday, I was about as uncomfortable as I’ve ever been outside of a place of torture, sorry, a dentist. My bladder was near bursting, my hands were twisting a small notebook with the intent of tearing it two, my blood pressure was elevated to the point that I wondered if the scene was actually turning red or if was it just me. A trickle of sweat proceeded down my back: a chill counterpoint to my otherwise agitated state.

The source of my pronounced irritation was a meeting. I had been in this particular one for nearly two hours and had no possibility of escape. I had run out of my usual self-amusements: I was tired of doodling wooden frame houses in the margins of my notebook, and writing verses in tribute to my state of profound ennui. Every last cell in my body was screaming for me to get out of the room, and leave the interminable talking behind me.

As I sat there, growing more restless by the millisecond, it dawned on me that I was probably not alone. I certainly wasn’t the only one among my colleagues who wanted out: a shifty glance, a rueful smile, a pair of folded hands with the knuckles tight to the point that they were turning white, all suggested that the vast majority did not want to be there. I also thought about how many other conferences of a similar type were going on up and down the country: how many other people in the length and breadth of Britain were flexing their toes within their shoes to satisfy the primal urge to get up and run?

Meetings are a fact of modern working life. Many are indeed useful: I’ve found meeting with someone on a one-to-one basis is a good way of establishing a working relationship. Open seminars, in which genuine dialogue occurs, are similarly illuminating. I’d go so far as to say that meetings of equals can also be helpful, provided they are not imposed from on high. But these kinds of meetings are the exception, rather than the rule: in my experience the vast majority appear to be organised by management of a particular enterprise or team, so that they can talk to themselves about themselves. The labels for these congresses vary, they can be called “Operations Reviews” or “Team Building”, but they usually have three main purposes:

Grandstanding: usually this is done by management, whereby they try to convince the team that they’ve done something wonderful or to provide reassurance that all is well. Sometimes the grandstanding is done by individual team members in order to create the impression that they are doing something useful: a good rule of thumb is that the more self-promotion that’s done in this venue, the less likely the work is valuable.

Blame: in my experience, any company or endeavour that says it doesn’t have a blame culture is lying. Very few genuinely accept that they have human beings in their employ and that human beings are likely to make mistakes. Imperfections and irregularities which prevent the achievement of absolutely pristine work requires blame of individual employees. It is the blood sacrifice which lubricates an organisation’s illusions.

Procedure changes: these, in my opinion, are the worst of all. These kind of meetings are ostensibly called to see how processes can improve, yet the employees whose working lives are affected by the proposed changes are not supposed to speak their mind. Rather, these are reminiscent of an election in North Korea, you can vote any way you want, so long as you vote for the Dear Leader.

Yesterday’s shindig was of the last type. After hearing an annoying amount of rhetoric about re-organisation, and reviewing status reports which provided numbers but not facts, all accompanied by statements that things were going well, I remembered the wise words of Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek:

…sometimes, at least, the truly subversive thing is not to disregard the explicit letter of the Law on behalf of the underlying fantasies, but to stick to this letter against the fantasy that sustains it.

The explicit Law in this case states that dialogue is genuinely welcome. In reality, it is not: I had experienced this in previous meetings whereby my suggestions for improvements in technology were received with barely disguised hostility. The problem was that genuine change would require an acceptance that the employees might know something, and the management might not know everything: this goes against the management fantasy of perfect knowledge and control which is required by the organisation. I, as an employee, am expected to live with the illusion and not only surrender to it, but to believe in it as well. I am certain that the vast majority of my difficulties with the business world have come from the fact that I may be able to acquiesce to this mirage on the surface, but my underlying disbelief makes its presence felt. I cannot check my intellect or conscience at the door, and this generally makes my relationship with any kind of authority a hostile one.

Yesterday, in spite of my better judgement, I stuck to the letter of the Law and spoke up several times. I got the impression from the quickfire intervention of my superiors that my contribution was not welcome. Having done my duty to the team and Zizek, I was left almost literally stewing in my own juices. However, I am proud to say that I did give an honest unalloyed answer when an opportunity either to grandstand or to blame came about. Recently, I set up a new website for my department, and had not yet received any feedback from my colleagues. I was asked if I had; I did not blame anyone, nor did I say all was well, I merely stated that I had received no comment whatsoever. The meeting ended, then I left, taking a walk in the damp Spring air to clear my mind.

Despite the impression one may get, I am pleased to say that my work is not at all unpleasant (especially when I’m doing it somewhere other than the office), and it is very likely that in a little over a year, I will be taking up an academic position of some description. I am under no illusions, I am sure that meetings happen there too. I am sure also that every corner of our modern economy has some tyranny of meetings which imposes itself, trying to create the mirage of legitimacy for decisions which otherwise would not earn them. Life is filled with dictators and petty bureaucrats, bullies and careerists, politics and envy. However, what gives me hope is that people are not resigned to it. I refuse to accept this as an optimal way of working: I believe that no collaboration can truly succeed without utilising the talents and most importantly, the goodwill of all of its participants. Based on my colleagues’ rueful grins and shifting in their seats, I don’t think they agree with how things are run either. So long as the instinct to rebel remains, the voice which whispers that a hand grenade being rolled into the middle of the room would be a mercy refuses to keep silent, and people are unable to surrender their intellect to the illusion of meetings, then these pointless confabulations will be a continual failure in achieving any particular aims and making anyone believe in their stated goals. Failure does have a way of catching up with people eventually; it will be exciting to see how fate unfolds.

London has lost much of its swagger over the past twelve months. When we think of economic gloom, we tend not to envisage it having a direct effect on how a city looks or feels, apart from there being more “for sale” or “closed” signs. However, there is a palpable sense that something is wrong in London; this particularly comes across in Spring, when depression seems less apropos given the beautiful golden sunlight and the fresh blossoms on the hawthorne and cherry trees.

Perhaps the most depressing place to be in London is Waterloo Station. While its comings and goings should symbolise that the country is still moving along, I found when I was there last week that there was a heaviness in the atmosphere that indicated that Londoners are “going through the motions”. There is a leaden weight in people’s strides, an ashen hue to commuters’ complexions that seems to say, “Oh God, another day, let’s just get it over with.” The only smiling faces I saw belonged to young tourists; there was a group of them, loudly speaking German and wondering when the next train to Portsmouth would be departing and from which platform.

My journey was much more prosaic: I was headed home. A strawberry yoghurt drink and a latte had cleared the detritus of fatigue from the previous night, and I was simply anxious to leave the city; after twenty four hours in the urban behemoth, I wanted fresh green meadows, clear blue skies, and the scent of mown grass. It would make a pleasant contrast to the slightly sickening scents of diesel fumes and frying oil that lingered in Waterloo.

My train was the 9:35. As such, I had bought an off-peak ticket, which meant that I was paying about a third less than the usual fare, though at £30, it was still outrageous. I saw my train had arrived at platform seven, and I approached the gate. I stuck my ticket into the appropriate slot: the machine spat the ticket back at me and said, “Seek Assistance”. I flagged down a guard: she was a middle aged woman in a florescent vest and had a sour disposition. She looked as if she hadn’t had a good morning in twenty years. Her hair was cut short, her glasses were dirty, and she peered at me as if to say, “What do you want?”

“Excuse me,” I said, “my ticket won’t let me in.”

She cast a glance at it. “It’s an off-peak ticket, sir,” she said, “you’re not allowed in until 9:30. That’s the rules.”

I looked at the clock. It was 9:20.

I tried reason. I pointed at the 9:35 train. “But that’s my train there, the 9:35.”

She looked at me, her toad-like face registering nothing but contempt. “You’re not allowed in until 9:30, that’s the rules.”

By now, a small crowd was starting to build behind the barrier, all of whom had off-peak tickets and were similarly unable to get in. To my left was an old gentleman wearing a khaki trenchcoat, grey suit and regimental tie. To my right were two young blonde university-age girls who were trying not to giggle too loudly at the absurdity of the situation: after all, it wasn’t like any of us were going to get across the barrier and then go to a slightly earlier train to a different destination just for the purposes of cheating South West Trains.

A young man with short black hair and black wire frame glasses approached. He asked, “What’s going on?”

“Do you have an off-peak ticket?” I queried.

“Yeah.”

“You can’t get in, they won’t let us in until 9:30.”

“So basically we have to run onto the train at 9:30 and hope to find a seat in five minutes?”

“Yes.”

One of the girls spoke up, “Well surely if we’re not all on the train, they can’t let it depart.”

I pointed at the guard, who was now pacing up and down, telling all the off-peak ticket holders in flat tones they weren’t getting in. It was 9:24. I wondered if she was enjoying herself.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I said.

“It’s really rather a shambles,” the old gentleman added.

“I don’t believe it,” the young man continued, “no wonder this country is in such a mess.”

The queue continued to build up behind me. The guard looked more nervous, pacing up and down behind the barrier as if she was defending a fort. The university girls ran down to the next barrier and managed to convince the guard there, obviously a more reasonable sort, to let them in.

The queue pressed forward. I looked hard at the guard, and wondered what made her such a misery. Yes, monitoring a ticket barrier was not much of a job; was her sole pleasure to be found in getting in people’s way? Was it the only way that she could be noticed?

It hit 9:27. The train’s engine spun up and spun down, which was probably due to the driver doing a systems check. The queue now had become a mob. It was the first time I had been in the midst of a seething mass with one clear, strong message: let us in, LET US IN!

At 9:28, the guard finally decided to radio in for permission to open the barrier, and reluctantly, she let us all through. The movement and sound reminded me of birds fluttering away out of a cage. Freedom: to get out of the station, and to get out of London.

I boarded, found a place to sit and settled back. I looked out the window: the train departed, and I saw Waterloo and the London skyline stretching out behind me, eventually disappearing into the distance. But what the young man said stuck with me, “No wonder this country is in such a mess.” But I think it’s not the stupidity of rules that make the country a mess, it’s the inhumanity in their application and the belief that they substitute for ethics.

If I had shown up too early, and wanted to board a train at say, 8 AM, using the wrong ticket, then definitely, the rules should be there to prevent me from taking advantage. However, note the time, note the train: common sense would have suggested that this was not a group of fare dodgers who somehow wanted to cheat South West Trains. We were just a group of ordinary people who had paid the right fare, and wanted to get on the right train. The guard should have seen this and had the confidence to say, “OK, go through”, but she didn’t. Whether this was out of spite or fear is unclear: but this type of nit-picking, tight-fisted rule making and enforcement has become a motif in Britain these days. Bin men won’t pick up your trash unless you put it out precisely in the right way. Mobile phone companies won’t release your number if you change providers until you go through a set of security questions and are subjected to more marketing. Local councils won’t let you put up a wind turbine or solar cells unless you get planning permission. The number of rules and regulations has increased over the past ten years by a substantial margin and the perception is the accompanying common sense in their application has not risen appropriately.

Britain right now is in the throes of a scandal due to frivolous and outrageous expense claims by Members of Parliament. The retort from the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, has been that the rules were followed; but in this instance, common sense and ethics would have said that it’s not right to claim the construction costs of a sauna on expenses, or to profit on property bought using MP’s allowances. Yet the politicians don’t apparently want to understand that the divergence between regulation and morals is precisely what is making the public so angry at them.

However, I think I caught a glimpse of what’s coming on platform seven. There is a limit to what people will take, how much nonsense will be tolerated. A natural sense of justice is more powerful than the iron fist of rules. Businessmen, politicians, leaders of all kinds should look to examples like Waterloo’s platform seven and realise that there will come a time when compassion, sense and logic will mean more than any petty dictum they can come up with. The barrier will come down: the question is, will it be broken down, or will they open it of their own accord?

Another Gulmohar Tree

Aamer Hussein. Telegram Books 2009, Paperback, 111 pages, £2.11

Few nations have as an anarchic a reputation as Pakistan. Because of its present political instability, its possession of nuclear weapons, and its proximity to the war in Afghanistan, it is hardly at the top of the list of tourist destinations. Even President Obama, who apparently believes in fostering peace whenever possible, previously spoke of bombing Pakistan should the need arise.

Amidst talk of the Taliban and regret at what might have been if Benazir Bhutto had lived, it’s easy to forget that there is another Pakistan, a country of warmth and beauty. It’s fortunate that we have this slender, touching novel from Pakistani author Aamer Hussein as a reminder.

I should point out that I am operating from a bias in composing this review. Mr. Hussein is my mentor, and thus I am approaching this novel from the perspective of an admiring student. It would not be unfair to say much of my evolution as a writer has occurred due to his wisdom, generosity and kindness. However, just because I am biased, doesn’t necessarily mean I am wrong.

“Another Gulmohar Tree” is divided into two discrete parts: the first is a series of parables, or rather, several parables chopped up into snippets whose segments are blended together. The effect is at first somewhat jarring, and furthermore one might think that these tales are rooted in Pakistan’s traditional folklore. They are, but they are also part of the wider story: this relationship only becomes clear in the second part. It is to Aamer’s credit that these fables fit and resonate well.

This second portion is a far more conventional tale, and this is where, to use the American term, the author “throws the hammer down”. Aamer is well known as a short story writer, and he brings an economical style which extends from this experience to the composition. If writing can be considered analogous to painting, and if on one end of the scale we have Tolstoy, whose works are akin to a gigantic oil painting by Titian, and on the other we have Dan Brown, whose screeds are rather like a print of a decrepit Elvis on velvet, Aamer’s work is distinctly Impressionist. He uses words like brush strokes; like a Monet or Van Gogh composition, these assemble a picture that is partially put together by the artist, but leaves enough for the eye of the beholder to assemble any remaining pieces on his or her own.

The second part begins in London, and we are introduced to the main protagonists, Usman and his future wife Lydia. They meet in 1949 at a setting which is familiar to many British academics: Senate House, the University of London, which is a rather severe, imposing structure. In my mind’s eye, I could imagine the grey London weather, the archaic clothing of the protagonists, the chill of the room where the meeting took place. Usman is there as a representative of his native land at a conference. At that time Pakistan was barely an infant nation; in response to a provocation from an Indian representative, Usman finds himself mounting a passionate defence of his country.

Lydia is an English woman who is partially of Georgian extraction. Her attraction to Usman, on the basis of his fiery speechifying, is understated and tenderly handled. Usman’s reluctance to reciprocate, given his desire to return to Pakistan is also managed with skill. While romantic love is not overt in this piece, it is evident: the two are in each other’s orbit, but the bodies do not meet, to Lydia’s frustration. Aamer also makes it clear that post-war London is not a particularly pleasant place to be: Lydia’s disdain for the scents of “unwashed hair” and “egg and bacon breakfast breath” on the London Underground is subtle, and yet stomach churning. The reader thus is unsurprised when Lydia follows Usman to Karachi. In contrast to London’s greys, Karachi reads like an explosion of colour and sunshine.

What follows is an account of how this unlikely couple settle down together, and how Lydia comes to terms with her new home. Usman quickly marries her; she changes her name to Rokeya, and converts to Islam. Soon, she abandons the vestiges of her former life by shedding English clothing for Pakistani garb. Yet at the same time, she continues to pursue her interests in painting and writing. Her husband also continues his work as a writer.

If this sounds like a domestic scene, by and large it is, but not unrealistically so. However, what makes this perhaps so timely is that the picture of a marriage with its ups and downs that this account provides is so out of whack with the generic Western portrayal of Pakistan. Lydia / Rokeya acknowledges this at the beginning: she is shown to have believed that Pakistani society was divided exclusively between the very rich and very poor. What gets obscured by such beliefs is the sheer amount of “normal” life that went on in Pakistan in the past, and continues to this day. However, it was probably wise of Aamer to pick the past as his setting, as it appears he doesn’t want politics to intrude too far into the life of the couple. Sadly, it appears that politics in Pakistan now is an obsession which has been foisted on a largely unwilling populace.

Intrusion in the novel, however, does happen, but again, in a gentle style: we are informed, for example, that because of Usman’s connections, it was far easier for the couple to get their home built than it would be for most people. That said, what matters most is that a life’s story is presented as a rich tapestry, whose bright threads are home, children, love and endurance. It is when the colours and patterns of this tapestry become clear that we understand the rationale for the parables in the first part of the book: they are in fact stories that Usman has put together utilising tales belonging to Pakistani tradition.

I read the novel once on a trip up to London, and found myself reading it again on my way back. Each time I read it, I found more to reflect upon. This book should get a wide readership, if not only on its own merits, but also for the salutary effect that it will have on anyone who reads about Pakistan in a newspaper or magazine afterwards. Beyond the turmoil, anarchy and pain that may occur there, at least there is the contrasting image of the Gulmohar tree in full bloom with its scarlet blossoms reaching towards golden sunlight, a loving couple that planted it, and their children playing beneath.

One of mankind’s principal preoccupations is predicting its own demise. The Mayans supposedly put together a calendar that dated the end of the world at some point in 2012. Nostradamus said that the planet would be consumed by nuclear war in 1999. People in London were extremely nervous in 1666, given the year’s numerical relationship with the supposed “Sign of the Beast”; the Plague and Great Fire of that year were seen as confirmation of its diabolical properties. Switch on the television and one is apt to see stories about disease, climate change, economic catastrophe and war. We’re all going to die, seems to be the message, film at 11.

But what if the human race isn’t doomed? What if we are meant to overcome the obstacles ahead of us and survive into the future? Science fiction most readily provides us with this vision; Doctor Who recently suggested that mankind would survive, relatively intact, until the end of the universe itself. Star Trek takes a more prosaic view, saying that we have a few centuries left in us at least. When things are troubled, painful, and dark, perhaps we need this sighting of what is ahead more than ever.

We have been deprived of Star Trek’s idealism for a time; the series can be said to have lost its way. Several lacklustre films, plus the rather tedious “Enterprise” programme (in which the highlight was a naked female Vulcan with emotional problems and constant references by sneering fans to Scott Bakula’s role on “Quantum Leap”), seemed to have doomed it. But fortunately, it’s back in a new film, and in the process, it has likely revived the vision as a whole.

The film is quite clever from the start. If the continuity with the previous series had been maintained, then it was likely that the film would be subject to endless discussions among men (and a few women) in anoraks about how its plot didn’t fit in with what had been produced before. To avoid this, we are first thrust into a break in the previous continuity, an alternate timeline, which instantly means “anything goes”.

The images and impressions of the film are riveting. Many films exploit the motif of “too much going on”, i.e., too many explosions, too many vehicles, in order for all the information to be absorbed, but Star Trek’s first mind-blowing scenes are perhaps the most successful example of this technique. We are witness to an alternative birth scenario of James Kirk in the process, in a future which is darker, bleaker, and more tumultuous than its predecessor. In this sense, I could not help but be reminded of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, which re-cast the high-spirited original in a more melancholy setting.

The new Kirk, played by Chris Pine, is something that the original William Shatner model was not: he has greater depth, more issues, and is more of a rebel. He only joins Starfleet because it fills an emotional void, rather than it being the product of some lifelong aspiration or fascination.

Other characters are similarly re-made. Dr. McCoy, who is stunningly portrayed by Karl Urban, solely enlisted because of a divorce that robbed him of everything. Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg) is a brilliant misfit who is exiled to an outpost on a hostile, icy world. We are also witness to the decision making process that drove young Spock (Zachary Quinto) into Starfleet: it’s shown to be due to the overt anti-human bigotry of the Vulcan Academy of Sciences. It would seem that an alternate timeline has redrawn Starfleet into an alternate version of itself: no longer is it solely a centre of excellence to which the best and the brightest aspire (though this is true for many of its cadets), it is a refuge for outcasts and the emotionally crippled.

How and why was the timeline disturbed? The driver behind this shift is a Romulan madman who was accidentally sent back in time after the destruction of his home world. As a result, he has decided to take revenge on the Federation due to its failure to save his home and his family. While this is a standard issue rationale, the villain (named Nero) is played by Eric Bana with sufficient menace. In a sense, he is refreshing because he is more a thug than a super-genius, a bad man who is improvising his dastardly deeds as he goes along.

Perhaps the most spectacular scene is when Nero uses some purloined technology to destroy Spock’s home world of Vulcan. Blowing up a planet has been a science fiction preoccupation since Alderaan was wiped out in the original Star Wars; however Vulcan’s elimination is not merely a matter of a laser being fired and the planet exploding in a shower of sparks. It disappears like sands being sucked into the bottom of an hourglass, and is all the more devastating for being so understated.

The trauma of this event further redraws Spock. Shockingly, he is shown to have surface emotions; indeed, his lack of emotional control is key to Kirk obtaining command. He is, at first, less tolerant of Kirk than one might have expected: the two bicker violently. He even shows overt signs of affection for a crew mate. Spock, in short, has been reborn as a man of some feeling, albeit these are tentative in many respects; mentions of logic are reduced, this Spock both hesitates and takes risks.

If this all sounds very exciting, it should, because excitement does mark out the film, as does its unwillingness to take itself too seriously. Pavel Chekhov’s Russian accent provides some comic relief, as does an incident involving Scott and a large water pipe. Chris Pine does a slight turn as Shatner towards the end, which is subtle, but noticeable, and certifies him as the Canadian actor’s true heir.

The film does lack depth of characterisation, but this is not Star Trek’s purpose. It is there to entertain, and it is there to give us hope. We are living in an era of diminished expectations, in which case, it was probably right to change Star Trek to exist in a tougher, grittier universe. This enables the viewer to connect to the story much more successfully and believe that somehow we are going to come through this, and that a future does lie ahead. It may be more grim than the Sixties’ pastiche version we know and have previously loved, but it still features starships and transporters, phasers and photon torpedoes, communicators which look like our cellphones (or vice versa), and races that bleed green fluid or have over-large, boggling eyes. In short, thanks to this film, Star Trek is back…and hopefully it’s here to stay.