Last year, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, the man who is now the UK's prime minister announced the abolition of the 10% tax band (it is called the 10p band as you pay 10p (pence) in every £1 that you earn within that band, which is 10%), this abolition is now coming into force and 70 Labour MPs were threatening to vote against the application of the move but have been bought off with concessions on benefits for low earners in terms of fuel and other expenses. Before I launch into why the abolition is so wrong, a quick recap on the British tax system. Basically anything you currently earn up to £5,435 (€7065; US$10870) you pay no tax on. For earnings from £5,436-£7,755 you pay 10%; for £7,755-£36,000 you pay 22% (though only 20% on savings earning this much) and for everything over £36,000 you pay 40%. Remember that the average salary in the UK is £24,400 and 80% of the population earn that amount or less.
The average wage for people working for Tesco, the UK's largest (and richest) supermarket chain was £11,594; it employs 260,000 people in the UK and is the largest non-public employer. Remember too that if the top 1000 richest people in the UK actually paid the amount of tax they are supposed to then the government could reduce the 22% tax band to 17% and still receive the same income. Obviously the 10% band benefits all taxpayers in the UK, but it is disproportionately beneficial to the 6 million people (20% of the workforce) in the UK who earn less than £10,000 (€13000; US$26000) per year.
It is astounding how many websites you see praising the multi-millionaires and conversely saying that the reason why so many people earn less than £10,000 a year is because they are simply lazy and that if they tried they could earn a lot more. Do you really think people like being poor? There are some lazy people, but the majority of people work hard. Do you think those who turn in long hours and multiple shifts working in Tesco stores or petrol stations or factories are lazy? Of course many of the people who earn these salaries work part-time, most typically so they can raise children or look after elderly relatives, taking a burden off the state for which they are not paid. Most poor people work far harder than the rich and yet they continue to be abused. I thought this attitude had died with the 1980s but researching this posting I found that unfortunately it is still all too prevalent. It reminds me of the lyric from the The's 'Infected' album the track 'The Mercy Beat' has the line 'everybody can be a millionaire so everyone has to try'. Of course 99% of the population want to be millionaires and in 2007 there were 471,500 businesses started in the UK alone up from 457,200 in 2006. So there are literally hundreds of thousands of people every year trying to become a success and given that in September 2007 in the UK 835,800 people were claiming jobseekers' allowance for being unemployed, this is equivalent to every one in two unemployed people trying to get a business going. Of course many of these businesses are started by people in work, but many must begin to draw in unemployed people too. Of course setting up a business does not earn you big money, in the UK in 2007 75% of entrepreneurs were making £20,000 or less (so below the average annual salary) and 49% of the total were making £10,000 or less (so in fact would have been better off getting a job at Tesco rather than setting up their own business). Britain is a low salary economy and it is going to get harder to raise yourself out of that rut. Last year it was reported that 100% of the income of new house mortgage holders earning the average annual salary noted above, goes on household expenditure: mortgage, council tax, utility bills the report did not even include food or petrol. Prices in these areas (bar the mortgage at present) continue to rise far slower than salaries so there is no capacity for savings or even disposable income. It is sickening to see people claim that those on low incomes are lazy, in fact the bulk of them are working extremely hard to keep their heads above water. It is not about effort it is about the huge imbalance in British society which has been widening further since the 1970s. The super-rich are in control and making us subsidise their lifestyles. That is simply perverse.
In total 1% of the population owns 34% of the wealth in the UK. The head of Barclays Bank earns £250,000 per year and gets £22 million per year in bonuses; the founder of moneysupermarket.com earned £103 million in a year. You could employ 10,300 people (the number of people that Tesco employs in Northern Ireland) earning £10,000 per year for a year for the same amount of money, is he really worth that much? To the 3 million people who earn more than £100,000 per year a loss of about £230 per year is not going to mean much with the abandonment of the 10% bracket, but for those under £10,000 it can cover the cost of your fuel bill for half the year or your food for a family for a month, it is a big difference. This change will also hit women, who make up more of the workforce, harder as on average they earn 17% of the salary of their male counterparts but remain predominantly the breadwinner in single-parent families, which helps explain why children are over-represented among those people deemed as being in poverty in the UK.
Brown has won over the Labour rebels by promises of compensation for the poorest. Yet, that is not the same as maintaining the 10p tax band. Compensation means control and as I have long stated on this blog this Labour government seeks ever greater control. Everyone is affected by a tax band when they earn sufficient income to enter it, but only people who are targeted or have the time and ability to apply get compensation. This allows the government, as it clearly wishes, to designate money to those it sees as the 'deserving poor' (to use the Victorian phrase) and keep it away from the 'undeserving poor' for whatever reason because of their lifestyle or the choices they make. The government will be equipped with yet another tool to shape people's lives, to go into particular jobs or move to particular areas with the carrot of being offered this compensation or the stick of having it removed if they do not comply. This comes at a time when food and fuel prices are continuing to rise seemingly inexorably (my own grocery bill has risen by 20% in the past year despite growing vegetables in this household to supplement the food we buy) and you are lucky if your salary has risen by 3% when fuel is rising 11% per year at present. This is another step by the government to increase its police state powers.
I am not averse to taxation. I believe people in my income bracket should pay more and should fund better services out of that. In fact I believe in more taxation, but rather than doing what the government is currently doing, i.e. raising taxes for the poorest people in society, I would raise them for the very rich. Back in 1979 the pattern of taxation was very different. That June, the first budget under the Conservatives the basic rate (currently 22%) was lowered from 33% to 30% and the top rate (currently 40%) fell from 83% to 60%. There were very rich people, lots of millionaires in the UK of 1979 and even the Conservatives could stomach such rates of tax which are not exceptional. France has a top tax bracket of 52.75%; Germany 42%. However there is a shift in all of Europe to lower tax rates in the highest category. This is because governments really no longer have any control over their fiscal policies, they are dictated to by the turbo rich who threaten governments into passing policies which favour them otherwise they threaten to take their money elsewhere. Across Europe they are bullying governments into reducing the burden on them and not even properly collecting the taxes that they should be paying. An increase say to 45% for people earning over £100,000 per year and 50% for those over £250,000 would make minimal difference to those earning such large sums but would immediately increase the revenue coming in.
Maybe it is too late. Perhaps Brown is afraid that if he challenges the ultra-rich his government will be brought down by a flood of funds from the UK. These people seem not even to tolerate even minor amendments which in reality they would not even notice. Their agenda seems to move to something like 18th century France where the nobility was exempt for taxation whereas the lowliest peasants had to contribute to the extravagance of the royal court. Of course Brown has a desire for compensation in the place of a lower tax band, not only does it keep the ultra-rich happy but it gives him more control over the masses. How is it that discredited political stances discredited two hundred years ago seem so suitable for present day UK politicians? Brown you are a coward, a bully and seeking to head an authoritarian state. Listen to the backbenchers and change your ways before you wreck British society.
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
I Never Liked Sundays
I was tempted to title this post 'Sunday, Bloody Sunday', but imagined it would attract readers seeking out something on Northern Ireland (Bloody Sunday was on 30th January 1972 when 13 civil rights protestors were shot dead in (London)Derry by British paratroopers) or the song by U2 about that incident. At present I have nothing to say about those. My posting today is more broadly about my experiences of Sundays, especially in the 1970s and 1980s and also to reflect on the difference between the UK experience and that in other countries.
As a child I always thought it was unfair that you got only two days off from school or work and on one of those days, Sunday, there was absolutely nothing to do. The only shops open were newsagents and they closed at 12.30 and petrol stations which in those days only sold petrol, oil and some sweets. The swimming pool similarly was just open until lunchtime. Everything was closed and the only thing of interest was to walk to said petrol station to buy some sweets or do what adults did which was walking around the closed shops of the high street staring through the windows at house prices. The highlight of such a walk was when we reached the closed newsagent which had shelves of toy animals in its window and we would stand looking at them as long as we could. In those days there were only three television channels which basically on Sunday had nothing on for children. There would be religious programmes and then politics programmes and a very dreary serial in the late afternoon which was usually only comprehensible to older teenagers and usually featured Victorians, presumably to remind you that in fact Sundays could be even more dreary than the ones you were experiencing. There was often a Western on mid-afternoon and that could be reasonable. The introduction of three programmes raised a little bit of hope: 'Antiques Roadshow' (from 1977 to now), 'Life on Earth' (1979) and 'Tales of the Unexpected with Roald Dahl' (1979), though that third one was only allowed for older teenagers because some of the stories were scary. Nature and science programmes like 'Survival' and 'Horizon' and the occasional history programme 'The World at War' or 'Chronicle' were also of interest to me, but again they were terribly worthy and educational and not entertainment.
Looking back I still feel discomfort at all the tedious hours which passed with my brain atrophying for want of stimulation. Of course the lack of entertainment meant that your parents could force you to do chores, and I have already written on the back-aching hours I was forced to work in their garden without any payment and told to be grateful for the food I received. In some ways I was lucky. With few elderly relatives and a family who were no interested in religion I was spared the burden of having to sit through church services and go to overheated rooms where smelly old women would clasp your face and their stinky dogs would jump up at you. It is unsurprising that in such circumstances coming around every week, that dreadful day, that children turned to vandalism and glue sniffing. No-one seemed to have any recognition of how scarred mentally they made their children. You squeezed entertainment out of anything, the car ride to Granny & Grandad's was more interesting than being there. I was blessed with a good imagination which saved me from insanity as I escaped into a world acted out by lego characters, but most people were not so lucky and the best was a trip to the park to go on the swings (of course in those days much more of a health hazard as they were set in concrete). Of course, in the UK it rains a lot so on many Sundays there was not even the option of the park.
Once I turned 13 work became an outlet. First a Sunday newspaper round. They were so understaffed that I would do three rounds over a 3-mile radius and it would take almost to lunchtime to complete. Then of course I would be worn out from shifting the heavy bags and getting up at 06.30 and could sleep well into the afternoon so eating up more of the dreary time. Then I worked in a petrol station, taking the afternoon shift deliberately. It could be dull, but occasionally incidents occurred like having to help start a car or a dog escaping or something and you could usually guarantee attractive women stopping at the petrol station to buy milk having coming semi-clad (typically just in a man's shirt) from a sexual encounter (there were a lot of flats for single people near the petrol station) or men usually also accompanied by very tarty women in souped-up or customised cars charging up and down the empty roads to relieve their boredom. Such sights of the alluring opposite sex are enough to sustain a teenage boy for quite a while and generates conversation with workmates too. So, ironically, not having a day of rest and working was a better way to struggle through Sunday. Similarly in teenage years, school homework could occupy hours of the day. Once I went away to study Sundays were saved by being hung over from Saturday and then going to the Film Society movies in the evening. By then you could go to the pub too (though they used to only be open 12pm-3pm and 7pm-10.30pm on Sundays).
Of course we were the last of the generation to go through that experience. In 1981 ZX81 home computer was released and the even better ZX Spectrum in 1982 which sold 2 million. There were other home computers from Apple and Acorn amongst others. There were of course home consoles for lucky children and things like 'Pong' had been available to play since 1972 (on the Magnavox Odyssey), this took off even more with the Atari console of 1975 and especially the one of 1986. Anyway, for the first time these things meant there was entertainment on tap for children. Of course these were mainly middle class children with parents who were not intimidated by the technology so there was a sharp class divide between those still stuck in the tedious 1970s style of Sundays (and there was that annoying clutch of parents who would not even have a television in their house, seemingly unaware of how much that made their children despised by others) and those who were moving into the more exciting shiny mid-1980s Sundays. This increased greatly with the introduction of video cassette recorders in the mid-1980s which freed us from the restrictions of the television schedule. As with the home computers, you now had entertainment on tap you no longer had to worry that a Sunday lunch would overrun or you would not get home from Granny's in time, it was all safe and it was there. You could even save up your favourite programmes during the week to watch on Sunday or even rent some movies! The dreary Sunday was finally being killed off. I forgot the eruption of car boot sales too, another 1980s innovation, an opportunity to spend the morning either selling off your own tat or buying someone else's another step forward in condemning dreary Sundays.
The big change came in 1994 and I think it is what has actually stopped me commiting suicide on a Sunday. With the Sunday Trading Act 1994 all shops could open at least 10am-4pm or some similar pattern like 11am-5pm. Pubs stopped closing in the middle of the day and you could pass the time shopping for DIY items or videos or CDs or clothes or even food and Sundays at last became what they should really be, very much like Saturday. Given that most of us work 5 days out of 7, why should one of those off days be even more dull than a work day? In Iceland, so I have heard, they used to show no television programmes on a Thursday to encourage families to talk to each other. I could cope with that as at least you know Friday and Saturday would follow. As for families talking to each other, this was another factor, with bored moaning children and bored parents, Sunday was always the day for family arguments. Anyway, I am happy for children growing up now that one of their days off is not a tedious burden. With so many children's channels and very cheap DVDs (you can get loads for £3-4) there is so much entertainment out there that the dull Sunday is banished. Their parents can even take them to a pub for a meal on a Sunday, another good thing as it gives the cook of the house (still often the mother) a day off whereas before she was often burdened with producing a huge meal that everyone felt obliged to attend but no-one would actually enjoy every week.
Of course on the spectrum of Sunday experiences Britain has come a long way. At one end of the spectrum are countries that were even worse, such as Belgium where shops were traditionally closed both Sunday and Monday and Germany (though this is shifting) where all shops closed at noon on Saturday (except the first Saturday in every month when they stay opened to 4pm) so there were dull Saturday afternoons to get through as well as Sunday. I remember walking around the centre of the city of Koln (population over 1 million) in 1989 on a Saturday and it was so deserted, a few people, no cars except police cars it looked like a post-apocalypse movie, you expected zombies to appear around the corner. Well the only zombies were teenagers desperately seeking an ice cream parlour that was open. At the other extreme I talk to people from Arab states who complain that British shops are not open to 10pm every day of the week, including Sundays and even Australians bewildered when they turn up at Asda (a supermarket) on a Sunday at 5pm and find that its closed. The majority of the British population wants more shops open for longer on Sundays:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5114028.stm
So the UK is not at the far end of the spectrum and maybe it never will be. However, I am heartened that I have seen such a shift in my own lifetime and children of today do not have to endure the Sunday after Sunday after Sunday of the kind that were inflicted on me in my youth. It still hangs like a cloud over me and it is uncomfortable to think of how many hours of tedium I suffered on Sundays of my childhood.
As a child I always thought it was unfair that you got only two days off from school or work and on one of those days, Sunday, there was absolutely nothing to do. The only shops open were newsagents and they closed at 12.30 and petrol stations which in those days only sold petrol, oil and some sweets. The swimming pool similarly was just open until lunchtime. Everything was closed and the only thing of interest was to walk to said petrol station to buy some sweets or do what adults did which was walking around the closed shops of the high street staring through the windows at house prices. The highlight of such a walk was when we reached the closed newsagent which had shelves of toy animals in its window and we would stand looking at them as long as we could. In those days there were only three television channels which basically on Sunday had nothing on for children. There would be religious programmes and then politics programmes and a very dreary serial in the late afternoon which was usually only comprehensible to older teenagers and usually featured Victorians, presumably to remind you that in fact Sundays could be even more dreary than the ones you were experiencing. There was often a Western on mid-afternoon and that could be reasonable. The introduction of three programmes raised a little bit of hope: 'Antiques Roadshow' (from 1977 to now), 'Life on Earth' (1979) and 'Tales of the Unexpected with Roald Dahl' (1979), though that third one was only allowed for older teenagers because some of the stories were scary. Nature and science programmes like 'Survival' and 'Horizon' and the occasional history programme 'The World at War' or 'Chronicle' were also of interest to me, but again they were terribly worthy and educational and not entertainment.
Looking back I still feel discomfort at all the tedious hours which passed with my brain atrophying for want of stimulation. Of course the lack of entertainment meant that your parents could force you to do chores, and I have already written on the back-aching hours I was forced to work in their garden without any payment and told to be grateful for the food I received. In some ways I was lucky. With few elderly relatives and a family who were no interested in religion I was spared the burden of having to sit through church services and go to overheated rooms where smelly old women would clasp your face and their stinky dogs would jump up at you. It is unsurprising that in such circumstances coming around every week, that dreadful day, that children turned to vandalism and glue sniffing. No-one seemed to have any recognition of how scarred mentally they made their children. You squeezed entertainment out of anything, the car ride to Granny & Grandad's was more interesting than being there. I was blessed with a good imagination which saved me from insanity as I escaped into a world acted out by lego characters, but most people were not so lucky and the best was a trip to the park to go on the swings (of course in those days much more of a health hazard as they were set in concrete). Of course, in the UK it rains a lot so on many Sundays there was not even the option of the park.
Once I turned 13 work became an outlet. First a Sunday newspaper round. They were so understaffed that I would do three rounds over a 3-mile radius and it would take almost to lunchtime to complete. Then of course I would be worn out from shifting the heavy bags and getting up at 06.30 and could sleep well into the afternoon so eating up more of the dreary time. Then I worked in a petrol station, taking the afternoon shift deliberately. It could be dull, but occasionally incidents occurred like having to help start a car or a dog escaping or something and you could usually guarantee attractive women stopping at the petrol station to buy milk having coming semi-clad (typically just in a man's shirt) from a sexual encounter (there were a lot of flats for single people near the petrol station) or men usually also accompanied by very tarty women in souped-up or customised cars charging up and down the empty roads to relieve their boredom. Such sights of the alluring opposite sex are enough to sustain a teenage boy for quite a while and generates conversation with workmates too. So, ironically, not having a day of rest and working was a better way to struggle through Sunday. Similarly in teenage years, school homework could occupy hours of the day. Once I went away to study Sundays were saved by being hung over from Saturday and then going to the Film Society movies in the evening. By then you could go to the pub too (though they used to only be open 12pm-3pm and 7pm-10.30pm on Sundays).
Of course we were the last of the generation to go through that experience. In 1981 ZX81 home computer was released and the even better ZX Spectrum in 1982 which sold 2 million. There were other home computers from Apple and Acorn amongst others. There were of course home consoles for lucky children and things like 'Pong' had been available to play since 1972 (on the Magnavox Odyssey), this took off even more with the Atari console of 1975 and especially the one of 1986. Anyway, for the first time these things meant there was entertainment on tap for children. Of course these were mainly middle class children with parents who were not intimidated by the technology so there was a sharp class divide between those still stuck in the tedious 1970s style of Sundays (and there was that annoying clutch of parents who would not even have a television in their house, seemingly unaware of how much that made their children despised by others) and those who were moving into the more exciting shiny mid-1980s Sundays. This increased greatly with the introduction of video cassette recorders in the mid-1980s which freed us from the restrictions of the television schedule. As with the home computers, you now had entertainment on tap you no longer had to worry that a Sunday lunch would overrun or you would not get home from Granny's in time, it was all safe and it was there. You could even save up your favourite programmes during the week to watch on Sunday or even rent some movies! The dreary Sunday was finally being killed off. I forgot the eruption of car boot sales too, another 1980s innovation, an opportunity to spend the morning either selling off your own tat or buying someone else's another step forward in condemning dreary Sundays.
The big change came in 1994 and I think it is what has actually stopped me commiting suicide on a Sunday. With the Sunday Trading Act 1994 all shops could open at least 10am-4pm or some similar pattern like 11am-5pm. Pubs stopped closing in the middle of the day and you could pass the time shopping for DIY items or videos or CDs or clothes or even food and Sundays at last became what they should really be, very much like Saturday. Given that most of us work 5 days out of 7, why should one of those off days be even more dull than a work day? In Iceland, so I have heard, they used to show no television programmes on a Thursday to encourage families to talk to each other. I could cope with that as at least you know Friday and Saturday would follow. As for families talking to each other, this was another factor, with bored moaning children and bored parents, Sunday was always the day for family arguments. Anyway, I am happy for children growing up now that one of their days off is not a tedious burden. With so many children's channels and very cheap DVDs (you can get loads for £3-4) there is so much entertainment out there that the dull Sunday is banished. Their parents can even take them to a pub for a meal on a Sunday, another good thing as it gives the cook of the house (still often the mother) a day off whereas before she was often burdened with producing a huge meal that everyone felt obliged to attend but no-one would actually enjoy every week.
Of course on the spectrum of Sunday experiences Britain has come a long way. At one end of the spectrum are countries that were even worse, such as Belgium where shops were traditionally closed both Sunday and Monday and Germany (though this is shifting) where all shops closed at noon on Saturday (except the first Saturday in every month when they stay opened to 4pm) so there were dull Saturday afternoons to get through as well as Sunday. I remember walking around the centre of the city of Koln (population over 1 million) in 1989 on a Saturday and it was so deserted, a few people, no cars except police cars it looked like a post-apocalypse movie, you expected zombies to appear around the corner. Well the only zombies were teenagers desperately seeking an ice cream parlour that was open. At the other extreme I talk to people from Arab states who complain that British shops are not open to 10pm every day of the week, including Sundays and even Australians bewildered when they turn up at Asda (a supermarket) on a Sunday at 5pm and find that its closed. The majority of the British population wants more shops open for longer on Sundays:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5114028.stm
So the UK is not at the far end of the spectrum and maybe it never will be. However, I am heartened that I have seen such a shift in my own lifetime and children of today do not have to endure the Sunday after Sunday after Sunday of the kind that were inflicted on me in my youth. It still hangs like a cloud over me and it is uncomfortable to think of how many hours of tedium I suffered on Sundays of my childhood.
Has Protracted Democrat Contest Harmed or Benefited their Chances?
As the competition between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continues with the latter pulling back after Pennsylvania and with no sign of either conceding, you have to wonder whether this contest which has dragged on for months is wrecking any chance for the Democrats when it comes to the Presidential election in November. People said that John McCain becoming the clear Republican nominee early on, back in March, that he would be able to get his campaign for the Presidential election rolling. It maybe because I am seeing all of this refracted through the UK media and an aged Republican is not that interesting to write about, certainly not in contrast to the people who might be the first black or first woman President of the USA. I imagine McCain is campaigning, but that element is not getting over here. I pick up US news sites (it is difficult to interact with Windows and/or MSN and not do so) and McCain certainly is not jumping out of the headlines on those sites either. So, there may be a counter-factor, for all the seeming divisiveness of the Democrat contest and it becoming increasingly unpleasant between the two candidates, it is keeping the party in the news. In addition, issues are being discussed again and again and Democrats are turning out to become involved. People often think elections are about winning floating voters, but often they are also about making sure your ordinary supporters are not complacent or disillusioned and actually turn out to vote. Of course with the electoral college system you can have an excellent turn out in Oklahoma or West Virginia or Oregon and it count very little. You can win the overall popular vote and yet still lose as it is filtered through the state system and you can have irregularities as seen in 2000 which can also snatch away victory.
Whether the American population just gets weary of the election because of the Democrat contest is another issue. All their enthusiasm may fade due to an apparent over-dose of politics. The British population has very little interest in politics bar the end product. Most see no connection between who they vote for and the taxes they pay or the services they receive and simply blame it 'on the government'. From the British perspective the US public appear to be much the same. Wars are always difficult to deal with. Generally people like wars, but they do not like the cost or the casualties. By now all the shine has gone off the war in Iraq, but interestingly yesterday Clinton was obliged to say that if Iran developed nuclear weapons and attacked Israel she would 'obliterate' Iran. People are always far more interested in the next potential war than the current one. The tension in US politics is that Democrats are not keen on a big military but want to intervene globally. The Republicans want a big military but they do not want to be taxed to pay for it or to have it used anywhere overseas. In an age of 'police actions' and 'regime change', you have to have, as Bush has found out, both - a big military and to use it overseas and for a long period of time. I imagine Bush never expected to still have troops in Afghanistan or Iraq at the end of his period of office. Clinton has said openly that she wants to bring all US troops home and bemoans that some have been on two or more tours of duty, as if a war should only last one tour of duty and no more. Yet, she is very bullish about opposing Iran; Obama can do nothing but say the same things because room for manoeuvre in US politics is very narrow and by being who they are Obama and Clinton are already pushing at the boundaries.
In 1991 Francis Fujiyama famously said that we were at the end of history because the Cold War was over. In fact we were at the end of a phase of history, the 'short' 20th century, as Eric Hobsbawm titled it the 'Age of Extremes'. In itself it had characteristics of the previous phase the 'Age of Empires' in the growth of the continental empires - Russia and America and to an extent China and both over China and interacting with parts of the world in a similar way to the 19th century, competing with the Europeans, pushing influence into Africa, Asia and Central & South America. That phase seemed to be driven by ideologies, but as in the 19th century it was really about power and resources. In this new phase the superficial pattern has shifted away from Cold War rhetoric but the world picture is little different from the 19th and 20th centuries. Current conflicts are over control of oil. The increase of the use of biofuels is about what they called in the 1960s oil security as areas where oil is available seem often to be unstable and shake off the control of the Powers. Biofuel can be grown in most places so freeing states of that difficult dependency. Yet growth of them in larger quantities and the rise in oil prices is sending food prices spiralling, not benefiting poor countries because though they may produce focus on a few cash crops means they have to import increasingly expensive food. No doubt supplier and consumer countries will try to tie up connections to secure prices and supplies, so have we really moved on from imperialism? China is currently the most active colonial power, seemingly going out of its way to link up with the pariah dictatorship states, notably Sudan and Zimbabwe, but the USA with its involvement in different states is not far behind.
The US public tends to be most concerned about domestic issues except when their sons and daughters are serving overseas, but as all countries are finding you cannot divorce the two. Just as who you vote for impinges on your taxes, foreign affairs influence what you pay at the supermarket or petrol pump at home. It is into this world that McCain, Obama or Clinton will be elected. Yet, despite all their abilities, I think that in fact because of the limits on what the American public will accept as policy, they have little choice but to stick to the line Bush has been pursuing. The only difference may be that when a terrorist attack hits the USA in the future you will not see the President sitting in a classroom for 30 minutes, blinking and not speaking like some robot whose batteries are running flat or the proverbial rabbit caught by the car's headlights.
Whether the American population just gets weary of the election because of the Democrat contest is another issue. All their enthusiasm may fade due to an apparent over-dose of politics. The British population has very little interest in politics bar the end product. Most see no connection between who they vote for and the taxes they pay or the services they receive and simply blame it 'on the government'. From the British perspective the US public appear to be much the same. Wars are always difficult to deal with. Generally people like wars, but they do not like the cost or the casualties. By now all the shine has gone off the war in Iraq, but interestingly yesterday Clinton was obliged to say that if Iran developed nuclear weapons and attacked Israel she would 'obliterate' Iran. People are always far more interested in the next potential war than the current one. The tension in US politics is that Democrats are not keen on a big military but want to intervene globally. The Republicans want a big military but they do not want to be taxed to pay for it or to have it used anywhere overseas. In an age of 'police actions' and 'regime change', you have to have, as Bush has found out, both - a big military and to use it overseas and for a long period of time. I imagine Bush never expected to still have troops in Afghanistan or Iraq at the end of his period of office. Clinton has said openly that she wants to bring all US troops home and bemoans that some have been on two or more tours of duty, as if a war should only last one tour of duty and no more. Yet, she is very bullish about opposing Iran; Obama can do nothing but say the same things because room for manoeuvre in US politics is very narrow and by being who they are Obama and Clinton are already pushing at the boundaries.
In 1991 Francis Fujiyama famously said that we were at the end of history because the Cold War was over. In fact we were at the end of a phase of history, the 'short' 20th century, as Eric Hobsbawm titled it the 'Age of Extremes'. In itself it had characteristics of the previous phase the 'Age of Empires' in the growth of the continental empires - Russia and America and to an extent China and both over China and interacting with parts of the world in a similar way to the 19th century, competing with the Europeans, pushing influence into Africa, Asia and Central & South America. That phase seemed to be driven by ideologies, but as in the 19th century it was really about power and resources. In this new phase the superficial pattern has shifted away from Cold War rhetoric but the world picture is little different from the 19th and 20th centuries. Current conflicts are over control of oil. The increase of the use of biofuels is about what they called in the 1960s oil security as areas where oil is available seem often to be unstable and shake off the control of the Powers. Biofuel can be grown in most places so freeing states of that difficult dependency. Yet growth of them in larger quantities and the rise in oil prices is sending food prices spiralling, not benefiting poor countries because though they may produce focus on a few cash crops means they have to import increasingly expensive food. No doubt supplier and consumer countries will try to tie up connections to secure prices and supplies, so have we really moved on from imperialism? China is currently the most active colonial power, seemingly going out of its way to link up with the pariah dictatorship states, notably Sudan and Zimbabwe, but the USA with its involvement in different states is not far behind.
The US public tends to be most concerned about domestic issues except when their sons and daughters are serving overseas, but as all countries are finding you cannot divorce the two. Just as who you vote for impinges on your taxes, foreign affairs influence what you pay at the supermarket or petrol pump at home. It is into this world that McCain, Obama or Clinton will be elected. Yet, despite all their abilities, I think that in fact because of the limits on what the American public will accept as policy, they have little choice but to stick to the line Bush has been pursuing. The only difference may be that when a terrorist attack hits the USA in the future you will not see the President sitting in a classroom for 30 minutes, blinking and not speaking like some robot whose batteries are running flat or the proverbial rabbit caught by the car's headlights.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
The Hazards of Cycling in British Society
I suppose one of the benefits of driving through an area with a bigoted radio presenter spouting out his views as if he was a talk radio 'shock jock' is that it stimulates me to comment in a way that probably would not happen if the man just got on with his job and played tunes and reported on the traffic. Yes, I am back in the area with that man again and today he was slagging off cyclists. Probably quite a safe thing for him to do on morning radio as the bulk of his listeners will be in cars or the kitchen and not on their bicycles. I was going to email the man directly but I guess there is little point, he is so mired in his prejudices that it would take a miracle to excavate him from them.
Now, it is interesting how much difference 3-4 years makes. If I had started this blog in 2003 or 1999 you probably would see lots of postings about my latest cycling trip around London or Buckinghamshire probably illustrated by photographs scanned in of where I had been. In those days cycling was one of my keen hobbies. I was never one of these people who got out to do his 50 miles no matter what the weather was. I preferred to cycle in good weather if I could help it and I always had a target something like a stately home or a beauty spot or at least a pub for a nice lunch. I would do 25-40 miles on a Sunday and enjoy not only getting out on quiet roads (yes they do exist in Britain) but also a sense of achievement at a time when I felt I was achieving little. I was not fast enough to be a member of a club (in my town of the 2000s you had to be able to sustain 15mph (24kph) for 50 miles (80km) and I could not achieve much beyond 10-11mph average. However, that did not matter, what I did do, I enjoyed. I would spend two weeks in June cycling in northern France, seeing really beautiful landscapes and eating very well too. It could be tough and got harder as my health got screwed up but looking back, as with most things, I see the good points. Having failed with a different type of holiday this year, I am going to revert to that kind of holiday in 2009 and am thinking of the Champagne or Burgundy regions, parts of France I have never visited as yet.
Anyway, it is that context that I write this posting. Drivers hate cyclists but a lot of the time it is on the same basis that they hate small car drivers. Most drivers feel they are the best on the road and think everyone should get out their way. They do feel a twinge of guilt when they see a cyclist because they know actually they are polluting the environment far more than a cyclist. They also feel guilty because they know that that man (and sometimes woman) is far fitter than them and likely to live longer. Drivers always fall back on tarring all cyclists with the same brush as the worst (and yet get upset if we tar all drivers the same way). There are cyclists who jump red lights and who do not have lights on their bicycles at night-time; yet who is it that comes off worse in any such encounter between a cyclist and vehicle. I know to most car drivers that a scratch on their paintwork is more important to them than the life of another human, but I have yet to hear a case in which a cyclist killed a car driver in an accident where as the reverse is extremely common (I remember a poster which stood out showing a cyclist's teeshirt with 'soft vehicle' in the style of those 'long vehicle' signs on lorries, on it. In that case recently of a drive who killed a cyclist whilst she was texting while driving a lot of the commentary was how hazardously the cyclist was supposed to be travelling, not that the woman was behaving so dangerously that she killed someone without noticing! Getting on a bicycle automatically makes you a focus of blame; getting in a car somehow excuses you even from murderous behaviour. Cyclists who ignore the issues of safety and the basics of the Highway Code put themselves and others at risk and should be condemned by all road users. However, the foolish actions of a few should not then provide a carte blanche for attacking all cyclists.
People say that why do cyclists not use cyclepaths where they exist (by these I mean separate routes rather than painted off sections along the side of the road), well it is because they are always covered in broken glass and most of them going in ridiculous, time wasting directions. Milton Keynes has loads of cycle paths, but they were drawn on a map by someone who wanted pretty spiral patterns not to provide an effective way to reach somewhere. They contrast sharply with grid road system in the city. I only found one cycle path that actually saved a cyclist time compared to going on the roads (which as hazardous in Milton Keynes as the in-city speed limit bar on one road and in the real city core is 70 mph (112kph) which madly is the same as a motorway) because randomly it went diagonally across a block. Most of the cyclepaths took longer and were often over hillier terrain than taking the road. I took the cyclepaths from South Milton Keynes to an area near the North end (about 8 miles (12.8 kph)in distance) and did the same journey via the roads and on the roads it was 25 minutes quicker and far less tiring as the road cut through the long hills rather than going right up the side of them. Cyclepaths are fine if you just want to tour around, they are no good if you actually want to get somewhere.
People complain about how cyclists signal, i.e. by putting their arms out. Well, to me this is far clearer than a pale blinking light on a car. You can always see where a cyclist who is behaving properly wants to go. In fact what the car drivers are complaining about is that they want the cyclist to be simply out of the way. Most drivers I meet do not realise a cyclist has the right to go into a right-hand lane at a roundabout if they want to go right (if you are reading this outside the UK, Japan or Australia, think left-hand lane to go left) and they will hoot and shout at you, when in fact you are simply obeying the Highway Code. Like a car or van or motorcycle, as a cyclist you are another road user. Car drivers want you to use lights and stop at traffic lights in line with the law, but then they do not want you actually to get into the proper lane for the manoeuvre you want to do. It is frightening enough trying to navigate around a large roundabout without ill-informed, arrogant people bellowing at you. Of course, many car drivers never signal at all whether going round a roundabout or changing lanes on the motorway or turning into a side road, they just do it and seem to think it is alright.
Drivers complain about cyclists travelling two abreast. Well, I think the only reason why they despise this is because it makes it far harder to push the cyclists into the gutter. Two cyclists abreast is still narrower than the average car let alone a 4x4, so just overtake. One noticeable thing in the UK which is in sharp contrast to cycling in France or elsewhere across Europe, especially Belgium and the Netherlands, is how much space car drivers give cyclists. Many British drivers wobble all over their lanes anyway, but they think a reasonable amount of space to leave a cyclist when overtaking them is nothing (and they only think about the physical space, not how much their passing sucks up the cyclist with its wind and so complain about this reflective bars protruding from bicycles, less popular now than in the 1980s). They resent turning the steering wheel that miniscule amount to move a decent distance around a cyclist. French, Belgian, Dutch drivers all pull out as if they were overtaking another car, British drivers do not. I once cycled, one glorious sunny day along the road from Bolougne to Calais in northern France. This was on the coast road so pretty quiet as most people stick to the motorway in land if they want to get somewhere. However, some people take this route for the stunning views and by the time I reached Calais I could tell you the nationality of the driver approaching me from behind before they had even passed me. The British all seemed to want to strip my panniers off my bicycle they came so close, even though there was never a car coming in the other direction. No British driver will give a cyclist the width of their body let alone a safe distance, and again it stems from British drivers seeing others unlike themselves as scum that it is fine to kill.
This issue of space on the roads even occurs when there are cycle lanes marked out along the side of roads. These are very common in many UK towns and I naturally stick to them, because they go along the way the road is going and get you where you want to be in reasonable time. Many have boxes marked out at traffic lights which allow cyclists to get in the correct position to turn right (i.e. in the UK across the flow of traffic). Once in Whitechapel, east London I was waiting at a traffic light, sitting in one of these boxes. I wanted just to go straight on so was on the side by the pavement. As the cyclist box was ahead of the cars I was peripherally aware of a large car behind me. I set off heading straight on as intended. Suddenly a short way up the road a 4x4 pulls across in front of me, blocking the cycle lane and mounting the pavement. The driver leaps from it swearing at me, trying to snatch my bicycle and trying to punch me. My 'crime' had been to go straight on when he wanted to turn left, somehow I had 'blocked' him from powering away down the side road and so was deserving of being beaten up. Of course I powered away from him leaving him away from his car and unable to get back to it to catch up. I just hoped it had all been caught on CCTV. This incredible arrogance, this assumption that somehow I was out to ruin his day by him having to slow up for a few seconds and that needed me to be punished by violence shows how distorted the world has become. (That was not the first time I was threatened on my bicycle, the first time a man almost reversed into me from his driveway and when I shouted at him to be more careful, he also blocked the road leapt out and started trying to punch me.) Cyclists, to the average driver, we are scum worthy of a beating (just this week someone reached out of a passing car and pushed a 42-year old man off his bicycle: Why? What offence was he causing? He is just a human), not humans just trying, like them, to simply get somewhere. Most drivers clearly only read tiny bits of the Highway Code and have no recognition that actually it is about all road users. I have never ridden a horse, but I am sure many horseriders would simply echo these sentiments. (My favourite joke when passing a group of horseriders when on my bicycle, especially climbing a hill was to say 'I know how they feel').
Another criticism of cyclists is that they look ugly and should not be in lycra shorts. Well there is a simple riposte to that, have you seen the average car driver? At least a cyclist is using their body and even if going aty the slowest speed is getting a lot more exercise than a car driver and at less cost to the world. People disparage cyclists who dress up in team colours, but somehow fat men in football shirts and drivers with Ferrari stickers or baseball caps are exempt from such negativity. People like to associate with a team, cyclists no less than anyone else. Why is there one rule for one set of people and another for a different set?
The dangers that cyclists face stem from an endemic problem in Britain. The boorish, arrogant, consumerist and self-centred section of the population are the ones who define our culture. They kill. They kill cyclists and pedestrians because they are so wrapped up in their egos. Cyclists do not stand around car parks ridiculing the obese as they cram themselves into their cars, they get on with their lives and let other people live theirs. If British culture was more defined by the cyclists (and walkers) of this country not only would it be safer and healthier, but finally we might begin to reduce the level of hatred that the average Briton has for the ordinary people they encounter every day. When radio presenters try to stir up even more hatred against cyclists they simply damage British society (which they profess to love) even further.
Now, it is interesting how much difference 3-4 years makes. If I had started this blog in 2003 or 1999 you probably would see lots of postings about my latest cycling trip around London or Buckinghamshire probably illustrated by photographs scanned in of where I had been. In those days cycling was one of my keen hobbies. I was never one of these people who got out to do his 50 miles no matter what the weather was. I preferred to cycle in good weather if I could help it and I always had a target something like a stately home or a beauty spot or at least a pub for a nice lunch. I would do 25-40 miles on a Sunday and enjoy not only getting out on quiet roads (yes they do exist in Britain) but also a sense of achievement at a time when I felt I was achieving little. I was not fast enough to be a member of a club (in my town of the 2000s you had to be able to sustain 15mph (24kph) for 50 miles (80km) and I could not achieve much beyond 10-11mph average. However, that did not matter, what I did do, I enjoyed. I would spend two weeks in June cycling in northern France, seeing really beautiful landscapes and eating very well too. It could be tough and got harder as my health got screwed up but looking back, as with most things, I see the good points. Having failed with a different type of holiday this year, I am going to revert to that kind of holiday in 2009 and am thinking of the Champagne or Burgundy regions, parts of France I have never visited as yet.
Anyway, it is that context that I write this posting. Drivers hate cyclists but a lot of the time it is on the same basis that they hate small car drivers. Most drivers feel they are the best on the road and think everyone should get out their way. They do feel a twinge of guilt when they see a cyclist because they know actually they are polluting the environment far more than a cyclist. They also feel guilty because they know that that man (and sometimes woman) is far fitter than them and likely to live longer. Drivers always fall back on tarring all cyclists with the same brush as the worst (and yet get upset if we tar all drivers the same way). There are cyclists who jump red lights and who do not have lights on their bicycles at night-time; yet who is it that comes off worse in any such encounter between a cyclist and vehicle. I know to most car drivers that a scratch on their paintwork is more important to them than the life of another human, but I have yet to hear a case in which a cyclist killed a car driver in an accident where as the reverse is extremely common (I remember a poster which stood out showing a cyclist's teeshirt with 'soft vehicle' in the style of those 'long vehicle' signs on lorries, on it. In that case recently of a drive who killed a cyclist whilst she was texting while driving a lot of the commentary was how hazardously the cyclist was supposed to be travelling, not that the woman was behaving so dangerously that she killed someone without noticing! Getting on a bicycle automatically makes you a focus of blame; getting in a car somehow excuses you even from murderous behaviour. Cyclists who ignore the issues of safety and the basics of the Highway Code put themselves and others at risk and should be condemned by all road users. However, the foolish actions of a few should not then provide a carte blanche for attacking all cyclists.
People say that why do cyclists not use cyclepaths where they exist (by these I mean separate routes rather than painted off sections along the side of the road), well it is because they are always covered in broken glass and most of them going in ridiculous, time wasting directions. Milton Keynes has loads of cycle paths, but they were drawn on a map by someone who wanted pretty spiral patterns not to provide an effective way to reach somewhere. They contrast sharply with grid road system in the city. I only found one cycle path that actually saved a cyclist time compared to going on the roads (which as hazardous in Milton Keynes as the in-city speed limit bar on one road and in the real city core is 70 mph (112kph) which madly is the same as a motorway) because randomly it went diagonally across a block. Most of the cyclepaths took longer and were often over hillier terrain than taking the road. I took the cyclepaths from South Milton Keynes to an area near the North end (about 8 miles (12.8 kph)in distance) and did the same journey via the roads and on the roads it was 25 minutes quicker and far less tiring as the road cut through the long hills rather than going right up the side of them. Cyclepaths are fine if you just want to tour around, they are no good if you actually want to get somewhere.
People complain about how cyclists signal, i.e. by putting their arms out. Well, to me this is far clearer than a pale blinking light on a car. You can always see where a cyclist who is behaving properly wants to go. In fact what the car drivers are complaining about is that they want the cyclist to be simply out of the way. Most drivers I meet do not realise a cyclist has the right to go into a right-hand lane at a roundabout if they want to go right (if you are reading this outside the UK, Japan or Australia, think left-hand lane to go left) and they will hoot and shout at you, when in fact you are simply obeying the Highway Code. Like a car or van or motorcycle, as a cyclist you are another road user. Car drivers want you to use lights and stop at traffic lights in line with the law, but then they do not want you actually to get into the proper lane for the manoeuvre you want to do. It is frightening enough trying to navigate around a large roundabout without ill-informed, arrogant people bellowing at you. Of course, many car drivers never signal at all whether going round a roundabout or changing lanes on the motorway or turning into a side road, they just do it and seem to think it is alright.
Drivers complain about cyclists travelling two abreast. Well, I think the only reason why they despise this is because it makes it far harder to push the cyclists into the gutter. Two cyclists abreast is still narrower than the average car let alone a 4x4, so just overtake. One noticeable thing in the UK which is in sharp contrast to cycling in France or elsewhere across Europe, especially Belgium and the Netherlands, is how much space car drivers give cyclists. Many British drivers wobble all over their lanes anyway, but they think a reasonable amount of space to leave a cyclist when overtaking them is nothing (and they only think about the physical space, not how much their passing sucks up the cyclist with its wind and so complain about this reflective bars protruding from bicycles, less popular now than in the 1980s). They resent turning the steering wheel that miniscule amount to move a decent distance around a cyclist. French, Belgian, Dutch drivers all pull out as if they were overtaking another car, British drivers do not. I once cycled, one glorious sunny day along the road from Bolougne to Calais in northern France. This was on the coast road so pretty quiet as most people stick to the motorway in land if they want to get somewhere. However, some people take this route for the stunning views and by the time I reached Calais I could tell you the nationality of the driver approaching me from behind before they had even passed me. The British all seemed to want to strip my panniers off my bicycle they came so close, even though there was never a car coming in the other direction. No British driver will give a cyclist the width of their body let alone a safe distance, and again it stems from British drivers seeing others unlike themselves as scum that it is fine to kill.
This issue of space on the roads even occurs when there are cycle lanes marked out along the side of roads. These are very common in many UK towns and I naturally stick to them, because they go along the way the road is going and get you where you want to be in reasonable time. Many have boxes marked out at traffic lights which allow cyclists to get in the correct position to turn right (i.e. in the UK across the flow of traffic). Once in Whitechapel, east London I was waiting at a traffic light, sitting in one of these boxes. I wanted just to go straight on so was on the side by the pavement. As the cyclist box was ahead of the cars I was peripherally aware of a large car behind me. I set off heading straight on as intended. Suddenly a short way up the road a 4x4 pulls across in front of me, blocking the cycle lane and mounting the pavement. The driver leaps from it swearing at me, trying to snatch my bicycle and trying to punch me. My 'crime' had been to go straight on when he wanted to turn left, somehow I had 'blocked' him from powering away down the side road and so was deserving of being beaten up. Of course I powered away from him leaving him away from his car and unable to get back to it to catch up. I just hoped it had all been caught on CCTV. This incredible arrogance, this assumption that somehow I was out to ruin his day by him having to slow up for a few seconds and that needed me to be punished by violence shows how distorted the world has become. (That was not the first time I was threatened on my bicycle, the first time a man almost reversed into me from his driveway and when I shouted at him to be more careful, he also blocked the road leapt out and started trying to punch me.) Cyclists, to the average driver, we are scum worthy of a beating (just this week someone reached out of a passing car and pushed a 42-year old man off his bicycle: Why? What offence was he causing? He is just a human), not humans just trying, like them, to simply get somewhere. Most drivers clearly only read tiny bits of the Highway Code and have no recognition that actually it is about all road users. I have never ridden a horse, but I am sure many horseriders would simply echo these sentiments. (My favourite joke when passing a group of horseriders when on my bicycle, especially climbing a hill was to say 'I know how they feel').
Another criticism of cyclists is that they look ugly and should not be in lycra shorts. Well there is a simple riposte to that, have you seen the average car driver? At least a cyclist is using their body and even if going aty the slowest speed is getting a lot more exercise than a car driver and at less cost to the world. People disparage cyclists who dress up in team colours, but somehow fat men in football shirts and drivers with Ferrari stickers or baseball caps are exempt from such negativity. People like to associate with a team, cyclists no less than anyone else. Why is there one rule for one set of people and another for a different set?
The dangers that cyclists face stem from an endemic problem in Britain. The boorish, arrogant, consumerist and self-centred section of the population are the ones who define our culture. They kill. They kill cyclists and pedestrians because they are so wrapped up in their egos. Cyclists do not stand around car parks ridiculing the obese as they cram themselves into their cars, they get on with their lives and let other people live theirs. If British culture was more defined by the cyclists (and walkers) of this country not only would it be safer and healthier, but finally we might begin to reduce the level of hatred that the average Briton has for the ordinary people they encounter every day. When radio presenters try to stir up even more hatred against cyclists they simply damage British society (which they profess to love) even further.
Sunday, 13 April 2008
What If Winston Churchill Had Died Younger?
My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘Other Roads:
Alternate Outcomes of the Second World War’ It is available for purchase on
Amazon:
UK readers might prefer to access it through:
Canadian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Other-Roads-Alternate-Outcomes-Second-ebook/dp/B00J44F2L0/ref=sr_1_25?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342737&sr=1-25
Australian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.com.au/Other-Roads-Alternate-Outcomes-Second-ebook/dp/B00J44F2L0/ref=sr_1_25?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342887&sr=1-25
Saturday, 12 April 2008
'The War In The Air' and Steampunk
'The War in the Air' by H.G. Wells
When commenting on H.G. Wells's 'The War of the Worlds' and steampunk aspects of some of its spin-offs I was reminded of 'The War in the Air' (1907; novel 1908) also by Wells. I came to this novel as a boy, prompted by the small airships which flew over my house in the summer, out on short pleasure trips or off to film sports events. Of course, they were tiny compared to the airships of the past but that droning sound of their engines as they approached probably stirred up in me a feeling of excitement as it would have done in a boy fifty years earlier. Maybe I was destined to have an interest in counter-factual and steampunk ideas from that stage on.
'The War in the Air', possibly, has more use for current steampunk thinking, or, even, bakelitepunk/Zeppelin Age work than 'The War of the Worlds'. This is because, rather than featuring technology developed by aliens, it as about a war between different Powers on Earth. It was pretty prescient about the kind of airborne combat which would develop during the First World War 1914-18 that broke out just a few years later and would cost the life of Wells's son. The politics of the world Wells portrays are interesting with an aggressive Germany, Russia divided in revolution (the 1905 Russian Revolution would be fresh in readers' minds at the time), China and Japan in some kind of alliance (this is the least likely outcome more feasible was a collaborationist government installed in China by the Japanese as occurred 1931-45) and the USA in tension with Japan; the USA itself seemingly facing a repeat of the tensions of the 1850s that resulted in the American Civil War (1861-5).
Against this background of global politics, the focus of the story is on Bert Smallways, a man who builds light aircraft as a hobby in the way men of the time were increasingly fiddling with bicycles and later motorbikes. This focus is reminiscent of the characters we see in the 'Steamboy' (2004) movie, where three generations of the Steam family: Lloyd, Eddy and James, are featured as keen amateur engineers whose work ends up being desired by governments. Smallways effectively creates a kind of flying motorbike which lands him in contact with Alfred Butteridge an aviator and then with the German airship fleet which goes to attack New York. However, at the same time, the Japanese-Chinese alliance forces, using similar flying motorbikes, also invade the USA, as well as Pacific islands and Australia. War breaks out in Europe too, between Germany and their Swiss allies and Britain, France and Italy. The widespread fighting leads to a desolate backward world. Interestingly, all of this was in a context when the Kaiser of the German Empire, Wilhelm II spoke in 1895, about the danger of the 'yellow peril' meaning the growth of states in East Asia.
Though 'The War in the Air' has not been as referenced as much in subsequent media as 'The War of the Worlds', elements of it do turn up in other stories. In the first volume of 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' some of Fu Manchu's guards ride on flying motorbikes with long tails which are very similar to those described as used by the Chinese forces in 'The War in the Air' especially at the Battle of Niagara Falls. I take the lack of reference to these in critiques of the 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' novel as stemming from the unfamiliarity most people have with Wells's lesser-known novel. However, it fits Alan Moore's use of people and inventions from right across Victorian/Edwardian fiction.
In some ways Robert Conroy's '1901' (1995) which sees a German invasion of the USA in 1901 owes something to Wells's novel, but, probably, more to 'The Invasion of the United States' by H. Irving Hancock (1916) which envisaged an invasion of the USA by Imperial Germany in 1920-21; not an unreasonable suggestion given that the First World War was raging at the time and Germany was unbeaten and the USA had not entered the war yet, despite some of its shipping being sunk by German submarines.
A more recent example is 'Turning Point: Fall of Liberty' a PC and console first/third person shooting game which envisages a Nazi German invasion of the USA in 1953. Despite it being set presumably after Britain and the USSR have lost the Second World War and jet fighters and long-range rockets have been developed, a lot of the invading German troops are brought by airship. There is one wonderful screenshot that shows this:
Unfortunately the game is apparently not very exciting to play and the story does not develop a great deal as you are a builder in New York fighting back against the Nazi invaders. It does stem from an interesting counter-factual however, that Winston Churchill was killed on 13th December 1931 when he was hit (in reality) by a taxi in New York. In this game Britain made peace with Germany in 1940, as was expected by people on both sides at the time. The Japanese decide not to attack Pearl Harbor, presumably sated by easier gains in British, French and Dutch colonies and also, I imagine, fighting for gains in Siberia with Germany having turned against the USSR a little sooner.
'The War in the Air' probably does not offer the steampunk enthusiast a great deal beyond lots of airships and flying motorbikes, but it does put them in a context of the Edwardian era when steam trains were the main form of transport in the UK and steamships had not converted to oil from coal. It also has that context of the inventor in his garage building something that could be of a challenge even to governments. Of course, this was a time when car companies in Britain and elsewhere were becoming established in precisely that way. The ingenious individual against greater powers is always a nice perspective for stories and who of us could not dream of powering around the skies on a flying motorbike? This angle I imagine is one that we are likely to see featuring commonly in steampunk writing.
I am not the only one commenting on 'The War in the Air' on my blog:
http://praxeology.net/blog/2007/04/06/war-and-back-again/
I have to replicate the image from these blog pages used to illustrate the invasion. The image of large airships over New York was not an uncommon one as the Hindenburg (which was three times larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet aeroplane is today) and other German airships flew over the city in the 1930s and after the Germans, the Americans and especially their Navy, long had an interest in airships.
These days, portrayal of the near future usually has as bleak conclusions as those shown by Wells, but nowadays the technology is usually small scale and the stories about big business or big government. The individual enthusiast is still the focus through which we see the developments but these days he (and interestingly it does still tend to remain 'he') is likely to be a computer hacker or conspiracy theorist rather than a garage engineer. So, though there may be similar conclusions, the scope and the vision of how we reach such situations is much more constrained than a man sweeping over New York as part of an airship fleet.
As an aside, while researching this posting I came across a recording on YouTube originally captured on an Edison phonograph wax cylinder recording in 1908. It is very crisp given the age. The audio is illustrated by covers of books available that year, including 'The War in the Air'. Just right for the steampunk mood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA4B5MVDM_0
As with 'The War of the Worlds', you can read 'The War in the Air' for free online see: http://www.wells.omnia.co.uk/war-air/ or http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/780
An Atlas of Imaginary Worlds 9: Two Small Items
Now that I have cleared out my electronic map cupboard it is likely that in future you will just get items as I come across them in books or online and that is just what I have today. I just stumbled across a website which features maps of imaginary places from endpapers of books and they do have that lovely pencil drawn feel to them. I have not explored them, but there are a whole range the first are children's books: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/e/epm/epm.htm
These ones are adult books including some I have featured such as a different version of the map for George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' and from 'Gulliver's Travels' even John Buchan's Island of Sheep which I have never seen despite enjoying the novel of the same title: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/map/lit.htm
The home page is: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/map/m.htm The site is full of historic and literary maps and wonderfully evocative images of imaginary places. Excellent work and lots to enjoy.
These ones are adult books including some I have featured such as a different version of the map for George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' and from 'Gulliver's Travels' even John Buchan's Island of Sheep which I have never seen despite enjoying the novel of the same title: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/map/lit.htm
The home page is: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/map/m.htm The site is full of historic and literary maps and wonderfully evocative images of imaginary places. Excellent work and lots to enjoy.
Lands of 'The Golden Key'
This is a map from 'The Golden Key' by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Robertson and Kate Elliott (1997). I am not sure why all three of them came together to produce this lengthy fantasy novel (1,075 pages in the edition I have) as each of them is a successful author, all of them each with at least eight fantasy novels in their belt. It may have something to do with the book being in three distinct sections so it might have been a challenge between them or something. If anyone knows it would be interesting to find out. The world of the story is very clearly based on Renaissance Italy and loads of Italian words and phrases are used throughout the novel. The story mainly focuses on the country in the middle of this map the Duchy of Tira Verte and certainly in what I have read its historic relations with Tza'ab Rih (a state like those of North Africa at the time seeking a religious leader to restore the fragmented desert tribes' glories); Tira Verte (in the language of the world meaning 'Lands of Green') took the province of Shagarra from Tza'ab Rih and to a lesser extent the Kingdom of Prancanza. There is almost an inland sea and there are frosty northern territories (one imagines, as I have read no details of them) in Friesemark. This is not a vast continent and one guesses it is say the size of Italy and Tunisia. A nicely drawn map that fits the setting. Compare this with the one for 'Tigana' similarly modelled on Renaissance Italy. I should have persisted as a youth as I always wanted to do a fantasy novel in a quasi-Renaissance rather than quasi-Medieval style which seemed compulsory in those days. It does not have to be the case but the Renaissance seems to imply a greater opportunity for politics and intrigue. I am not a great consumer of fantasy novels but if I come across any other imaginary world maps I will be sure to share them.
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