I’ve been pottering about quietly in my flat, with the windows open. It is a still kind of day here in in Edinburgh, and the sound from Tynecastle wafts over the tenements. In this manner I deduce that Hearts are beating whoever it is they are playing.
I’m reminded of my time in Rio de Janeiro, living near the Parque Guinle, in the shadow of the Corcovado. If Fluminese or Botafogo happened to score, the city would erupt in a joyous cacaophony, like a jungle awakening.
Sometimes I find it is nice to live in a noisy town. The disturbances, like the roar of Tynecastle, or the One O’Clock Gun, are a kind of language of the city, one that you can pick out and understand above the hum of the traffic. It is a communication (of sorts) with your neighbours, who are elsewhere and enjoying themselves. “We are here,” they say. “You are not alone.”
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Watching the Spanish Harlem Orchestra at the Open Air Stage, WOMAD 2006.
I was on a 06:40am flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh this morning, run by BMI. It was half full. Also waiting in the departure lounge were passengers for the 06:50am British Airways flight… to Edinburgh.
What a waste of everyone’s resources in the name of consumer choice. I have travelled on British Airways flights before, and the service provided is exactly the fucking same as that provided by BMI, and for the same cost. If only we could pool them into a single service at, say, 06:45am or something.
Perhaps this is something that The State could organise?
As per Clive’s recommendation, I’m off to WOMAD this weekend. Unfortunately, its started with a disappointment. I was supposed to be interviewing the Zimbabwean virtuoso Thomas Mapfumo, but I’ve just discovered that has had to cancel his performance… because he couldn’t get a visa!
Nothing positive can come of this decision. This is the flip-side of the immigration debate. No porus borders here. By keeping people out, we risk isolating ourselves from outside influence, and our culture is all the poorer for it.
Update
The visa problems were not an admin error. According to WOMAD and Mapfumo’s label, Real World Records, the British Embassy have said that they are “not satisfied that he intends to leave the UK” after the festival. This is strange, since the notoriously paranoid US Department of Homeland Security have issued Mapfumo with documents allowing him to leave, and re-enter the United States, where he is seeking political asylum.
Other WOMAD acts have had similar problems. Nine members of the Mozambique mariba outfit Djaaka were refused entry into the UK earlier this week. They were actually in transit through Gatwick airport, en route to a gig in Italy, but ended up being deported back to Mozambique. Mauritainian diva Dimi Mint Abba has asked her family and manager to support her act, afer her band were denied travel visas on the basis that they could not prove they earned a sufficent income in Mauritania.
Let us hope these artists pen a song or two about these experiences. It would be great if all this red tape inspired, rather than stifled creativity.
A couple of sound-bites have been been bandied around the political theatre these past few days. They almost sound like truisms, and have thus escaped any kind of critical examination.
First, we’ve heard Condolezza Rice say that any ceasefire
must be “lasting permanent and sustainable.”
Why? Surely any ceasefire is better than none? Even during a temporary and shaky ceasefire, people aren’t getting killed. There may be strategic – even humanitarian – reasons why it is preferable not to let up on the Lebanon bombardment, but Condi isn’t making those arguments. We’re left with the implication that, if Israelis are going to be attacked in Haifa, we might as well bomb some Lebanese too.
Second, have a look at these comments from Tony Blair, to a question from Sir Menzies Campbell, at last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions:
Let me repeat what I said yesterday. It is important that Israel’s response is proportionate and does its best to minimise civilian casualties, but it would stop now if the soldiers who were kidnapped—wrongly, when Hezbollah crossed the United Nations blue line—were released. It would stop if the rockets stopped coming into Haifa, deliberately to kill innocent civilians. If those two things happened, I promise the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I will be the first to say that Israel should halt its operations.
Forget the debate about proportionate or disproportionate force. The logic here is that because one side are the first to start something, they must also be the first to end it. This kind of justice may work on the playground… but on an international stage this logic leads to a morality contingent on what other people do. Weather-vane ethics. Since Israeli military operations have not been effective at securing the release of the Israeli prisoners, or in stopping the ball-bearing laden rockets being shot into Haifa, it is legitimate to ask whether the bombing of Lebanon is right or wrong in itself.
Given the source of the ideologies on both sides in the conflict, it is unsurprising that this entire situation is being conducted according to Old Testament morality: An Eye For an Eye, et cetera. We need something more radical.