All Extremely Precarious

Contents 20 Jan 2012

Richard French's ipad

Xavier Boisserie: J D Morton

Dinna greet, emigrate: JD Morton

Technology: Daren Blake

Radio4 Extra: Christine Marsh

Graham White’s Sri Lanka

Thailand: Chris Mougne

Cover: Roger Morton

20^th January 2012, a very innocuous sort of date. Christmas and New Year’s Eve are already a distant memory and spring is a big stretch of the imagination. January can be a long month so thank god we have been having these amazing blue sky, sunny afternoons. Plenty of ice in the mornings (hence Roger’s cover shot) but as our central heating is working a treat, we are cosy during the night and cheered up during the afternoon.

In fact, I am already on ‘travel-mode’ as we take off for the UK Saturday week. We’ll be gone for 3 weeks and although I could knuckle-down and post, quite frankly, I’d rather kick up my heels and have fun. We don’t have any more travel plans lined up for the rest of the year and I am hopeless martyr-material, so the next post is very arbitrary indeed, as I want to make the most of our friends and whatever exciting events fall into our lap. There is a possibility that I might do a posting in Oxford on Friday 10 February – otherwise it will be on my return (sometime after 18 Feb) am definitely not wasting Chelsea-time blog posting!)

Meanwhile on pre-travel time, I have been painting the bathroom, so I will gloss over that, as it is one of my least favourite activites.

Costa Concordia has been dominating the news this week. A sad tragedy of a luxury ocean liner hitting a rock, sinking and passengers losing their lives – many bodies have not yet been recovered. The Captain has been shamed and his life will never be the same – not since we heard a broadcast of a conversation with him and the Coast Guard, when the Coast Guard said, “ Vada a bordo, Cazzo.” ( “Get back on board for fuck’s sake.”)

In Britain things are still rather shite – a daily newspaper reported that nearly two thirds on UK children who are living in poverty are from working families. That’s bad. It was also reported that Philip Clarke who is the CEO of Tesco earns (! How?) £6.9 mil. Yet, evidently Tesco does not pay the London living wage. That is totally sick and totally unacceptable.

Perhaps it is time to boycott Tesco until they start to even things up somewhat. Like what does Philip Clarke do with his

£6.9 mil every year? How can he look any of those Tesco workers in the eye, knowing what he knows. There’s some cruel, greedy bastards around.

Talking of which I have to find out what to do about the google ads that appear on my blog and which have done for the two and a half years – even though I have only have had one payment, which was (I think) 76c.

So good luck with the rest of January, Joselyn Morton

Contents, 13 Jan 2012

Ireland: Daren Blake

Degas: JD Morton

Thailand: Chris Mougne

Richard French’s London

Skri Lanka: Graham White

Cover: Roger Morton

13 Jan, 2012

Friday thirteenth, Black Friday – so we indulged our superstition and stayed inside all day. In the countryside, in the middle of winter, it is very easy to do. Occasionally I glanced at the television and yes France was having a bad day. The American Credit Agency, Standard & Poor (are they having a laugh?) were down-grading the euro. Yes France has lost its AAA rating.

If I had lots of euros I could maybe feel more distraught. However, this rating thing could have a silver lining for France – it may lose Sarkozy the Presidential election; it will certainly effect his rating, which has never been lower.

Meanwhile the French ferry company Sea France has gone bust with upwards of 8,000 employees losing their jobs. Curiously Sarkozy suggested these employees should pool their redundancy to raise the €40mill needed to keep the company going. Curious because this was the thread of our Rock Musical Meatworks, produced and performed in 2000 – does that make us right-wing? Bloody hell, sobering thought.

Interestingly last year a proposal to refloat the company with €200mill of Government aid was blocked by the European Commission after a complaint by the other shipping line P&O – well they would complain, wouldn’t they, they are their competition.

Our neighbours popped in the night before last – they are normally very cheerful, but not at the moment – they are very worried about the state of the economy in France. For example, the figures of mal-logement are horrifying large. I believe it is around 8 million. The famous footballer Erik Cantona has taken up the cause and in fact looks as though he is becoming quite an all-round political animal – as opposed to Beckham who seems happy to be a sexual object and being more blatant than subtle is opening up his own underwear range. Jesus wept.

The Loony American Republicans are still drumming up ‘war on Iran’ rants. Sadly another Iranian scientist was killed as a result of a bomb. No one is suggesting he was killed by Americans but he certainly wasn’t killed by Iranians. Days later there is video footage of American soldiers pissing on dead Afghanis. It is all very barbaric.

It is time the world grew up, isn’t it? I’m the first one to want to kick up my heels and have fun but at the same time I try not to shrink my responsibilities (or the kids.)

Let the bad times stop and the good times roll. Please. Joselyn Morton

Contents:3 Jan, 2012

Thailand: Chris Mougne

Sri Lanka: Graham White

The Owl in the tree: JD Morton

India: Graham White

BBC Radio4 Extra: Mary Kalemkerian

3 January, 2012

Happy New Year and Bonne Année everybody and sorry I didn’t do this on the day. Anyway, I reckon you would all have had much more important stuff to do – and it is only today when boredom set in, that you will have felt inclined to look at what’s on the All Extremely Precarious blog.

Graham White, who last year got snowed in for 40 days on the trot, in The Borders (or was it 40 weeks?) …. Anyway, read how he is now relishing hot and beautiful Sri Lanka, seemingly engulfed in flowers and surf. Enjoy it, Graham, you deserve it. Managed to pin down busy Chrissie Mougne and she has fascinating photos of Thailand. The woman speaks Thai and smiling is her natural expression, so doors open.

Our friend Daren visited from Ireland and even though their economy is shrinking at the speed of light, he came armed with presents – deep, dense, black Irish peat (I didn’t know one could buy such a thing, It’s like buying ‘away- in- the-manger’ fresh straw) for the fire; a Killarney, Kerry Woollen Mills 100% Merino and lambswool rug for my legs (I’ll never be cold again) a bottle of Irish Meadow blend wine and whiskey (I’ll always be drunk) and an enormous tin of Cadbury’s roses (I’m showing definite signs of being a habitual chocoholic.)

I’ve just realised the vacuum cleaner may have been sitting in the sitting room (mmmm!) for the whole year already. I must use it or move it.

There was a good joke in the latest London Review of Books Something to do with “ Mao said well if it had been Kruschev who had died instead of Kennedy, Onasis certainly wouldn’t have married Mrs Kruschev!”

I’m glad I bought yesterday’s 2 janvier Sud Ouest as it had a retrospective of Iturria’s best cartoon’s for 2011. He’s a funny dude with an international-based source of humour. I liked the one where he had drawn a ‘pillory’ and as well as holes for the head and arms there was a little hole for a willy. It said “ Nouveau pilori a l’usage des hommes politiques” and underneath was added “ Juin: L’affaire DSK n’en finit pas de faire couler de l’encre.

There was also a very good review of Paul Smith’s book Notes. (We love him as he has bought a few of Roger’s photos).

I think most people are relieved that 2011 is over. However no one is jubilant about the sound of 2012 (probably because of all the new-age scaremongery that has gone on about the world coming to an end.) Maybe it is time to consider ‘the rights’ of the world. The term is ecocide and hopefully profit-driven companies are going to be caught and made to stop committing ecocide. Fracking was maybe the new 2011 word – as in ‘I love my water, stop fracking with it.’ US landowners have been leasing their land to shale gas developers in the NE of the USA. The process blasts chemicals, sand and water into shale rocks to release the oil and gas they contain. Consequently there have been earthquakes in Oklahoma in the US and Blackpool in the UK.

Maybe even more shocking was to see TV images of black-robed priests in the big church in Bethlehem bashing each other with brooms – at Christmas. They were all Christians, they weren’t young drunk adolescents. These were holy men in a church. They had some difference of opinion. It was a very depressing sight. Almost as bad as reading that in Britain every year around 2,000 young Muslim girls get their genitals mutilated by their mothers in order to make them marriageable. They are called ‘cutting parties’. Inexcusable.

Then in Israel, little 8 year old girls were being spat at by black-suited men because their clothes were not modest enough for their Jewish Orthodox religion. It was heartening to see the hundreds of people who demonstrated to show how despicable they thought the men’s actions were to these little girls on their way to school.

So that’s 3 major religions all fucking up. Let’s hope they can get something sorted, so that everyone can have the Happy New Year that we have all been enthusiastically wishing on them.

Bonne Anneé a tous, Joselyn Morton

Contents

les z'brides: Laurence Cappelletto

Mel Philipps in Nepal

I feel sad: Joselyn Duffy Morton

Richard French in London

Stephen O’r’s Sydney

BBC Radio 4 Extra: Mary Kalemkerian

Cover: Roger Morton

Five more days to Xmas, which is a bit of an indictement on me because I should have posted the blog days ago. I have, however, been busy. I’ve edited another ebook; assessed a script for Oxford Editors, spent a day in bed recovering from drinking too much white wine. Visited my (new!) homoeopath in Angouleme; went with Roger to his specialist in Perigueux, visited the Post office on a daily basis (such a nice experience compared to Post Offices in London. Christine, tells me the cheapest way, where to buy the roll of brown paper, ‘scotches’ it all up for me. And I’m sorted.) found Laurence’s expo, did a big shop, found the Xmas presents we needed; went to the kinesithereapeute M Vimber for the 5mm gap in the tendon in my left shoulder twice a week – talked politics with him for half an hour (in French. Be impressed!) found our Xmas decorations (if you saw the state of our attic, you would be doubly impressed; persuaded M Larrouy to come and give us devi for windows in the attic (progress!). This evening we popped in on our neighbour Joelle and she promptly gave us a dish of deer and rabbit to take home, from a batch she was making. That takes care of tomorrow’s lunch. And throughout it all, we are being kept warm by the wood-fuelled central heating. Thank fucking Christ. What a difference.

I’ve also watched bits of the News of the world trial on the tele. Today it was Piers Morgan. Am afraid, he might be found to be very involved. That is unless Heather ex- Maka wife comes forward and says she gave him her phone to listen to. Two world leaders died this week – the much-loved Czech poet and playwright Vaclav Havel and North Korean’s not-so-loved Mr Kim il Sung. However because Mr Kim il Sung has nuclear weapons and powerful Chinese allies, America has never dared invade (even though they declared N Korea to be in the axis of evil. Thank you Bush). They were not the only world figures to die in the last few days. The cancer that Christopher Hitchens had been fighting finally won. I didn’t agree with him on everything but applauded his sentiment that “religion was nothing but trouble”

Conversely David Cameron was in Oxford for a speech on the 400^th anniversary of the King James Bible. He said “We are a Christian country and should not be afraid to say so.” Let the ripples commence …

This coming week, when everything quietens down, I plan to watch some episodes of Channel 4’s Fresh Meat because Robin and Buffie’s youngest daughter Charlotte is in it. I am pleased for its success especially as it has just won ‘best new comedy programme. My secret hope is that it will pave the way for our wonderful Rock Musical Meatworks because by the time we raise funding for that, people will have got accustomed to the word Meat….Meat… Meat.

Catchy, huh.

Stay warm Joselyn Morton

Contents 9 Dec, 2011

Tribunal Decision from GrahamWhite

Good wishes: Claudia Ward

Sexy: J D Morton

Bad Bankers

Richard French in London

Fukushima nuclear: J Morton

Licorne exposition: R&JMorton

Stephen O’R’s Sydney

BBC Radio4 Extra: Mary Kalemkerian

We’re going out in a few minutes, so I’ve got to be quick. Right now we are putting half the stuff that is in the rose bedroom into our bedroom. We have already taken loads of stuff out of our bedroom so that this could happen (including a few kilos of manky dust). I don’t have any religion or strong superstitions except that every year, a few days before New Year’s Eve, I seem compelled to have a big clear-out.

I also need to have a big clear-out with this blog because it seems to be bunged up. I realise I posted quite a large amount today but sadly it doesn’t show them all at once. When you reach the (apparent) end of today’s posting, you have to click on ‘older posts’ for Richard French’s first week in London to appear (likewise what’s going on in Fukushima, plus the exhibition in Lusignac, Stephen O’R’s tête a tête with his plumber as the rain gushed down and Mary Kalemkerian’s advice to find something to laugh about.

Annoying especially as I am very pleased that we’ve got some witty words coming in from Richard once again. It has been great over the last three days to get updates from Graham White on what has been going on in Bangalore with the Permanent People’s Tribunal against the Big 6 Pesticide companies. Very brave of those people (including Graham) who went there to testify. Some of those companies have budgets equal to that of a small country. The amounts of money involved in the sale of Pesticides is immense – as is the amounts of money involved in the sale of arms, pharmaceuticals and investment banking. This is why the guys who run these companies are the guys who lobby their own government to get the laws passed that they want passed. For example the money Goldman Sachs donated Barak Obama’s Democratic campaign is immense which is why on Piers Morgan the other day, when he was interviewing Michael Moore, Michael Moore succinctly asked the question “Why can't Wall Street put up a good candidate for the contest for President? Then replied. They already have. Barak Obama! He has had more funding from Goldman Sachs, than all the Republican candidates put together. No Goldman Sachs people have yet gone to jail. Right, gotta go, I’m really late.

Have a good weekend, Joselyn Morton

Contents 3 Dec 2011

Permanent People’s Tribunal

A Rogue Fly J D Morton

Stephen O’R’s past

BBC Radio4 Extra: Mary Kalemkerian

3 Dec , 2011

Another December. Already, so soon. For some people it may be a time of reckoning. I am still too concerned with simply getting on with stuff. However, it could be a time for international soul-searching. Nobody knows where the world stands in China’s eyes. Until today, Europe evidently thought China was going to bail them out. Yeah right. Why would they after all the centuries of insults they have suffered at the hands of Europeans. But it’s about money not insults, isn’t it? For interesting insight into Japan, read October 17 issue of New Yorker, the article ‘The Fallout’ by Evan Osnos. It is sad and scary. At the time of the tsunami, some of the workers at the Fukushima plant were earning the equivalent of $11 an hour – the same as part-timers in Tokyo’s McDonald’s. Plus Japanese management had for years been forging receipts for repairs to reactors. Repairs that were never made. All about money, right.

Let’s hope the Permanent People’s Tribunal is successful against the Big 6 (see main article). Meanwhile the Olympic sponsor, Dow Chemicals is getting flack from protestors because they didn’t honourably settle after the Bhopal disaster – all about money. A fresh shipment of US-made tear gas arrived in Egypt on 25 November for the police to use against protestors. Totally about money. How does the weapons and arms industry get away with ‘crimes against humanity’. Laughable.

I didn’t know that Baron von Reuter’s (Reuter’s news agency) built Persia’s railway. (Thank you Robert Fisk) at a great profit. In 1953 the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh nationalised Britain’s oil in Iran. This was a pivotal time because the US and the UK then conspired to help overthrow him and since then there has been no love lost between them and Iran. I feel chilled when I hear about demands to declare war on Iran because of their nuclear industry. Some of the most interesting people I know are Iranians. One doesn’t declare war on a country. One declares war on its people.

A cheery note was seeing a retired US police chief in full uniform protesting with the Wall Street protestors because he feels “Corporate America has to be stopped.” It really is all about money. A friend in Ireland skyped the other day, he is very worried about what will happen to the Irish euro.

When I was a kid, working in a bank was considered boring beyond belief. I never entertained the idea, even for a second. Yet bank bosses bonuses must have helped a little with the boredom factor. (Let’s bang off some boredom with this blingy billion.)

Then there’s stress. Stress is major cause of concern in the world today. I’m not surprised. It is stressy out there. Thank god there are still people who can make us laugh. I could become a laughter groupie. Watch me. Joselyn Morton

Contents 21 Nov 2011

Photos: Roger Morton

My husband: JD Morton

Stephen O’R’s Sydney

BBC Radio 4 Extra: Mary Kalemkerian

21/11/2011

I have got a cold and so I am in a world of hot head and snot that world politics and poverty cannot penetrate. God help me if I ever get anything more serious. Besides which anything I write might be total waffle. I was intending to find out about Archbishop of York because he mentioned that in 2000 he was stopped by the police 8 times. He is from Uganda. He is black.
I was also going to write about the UK NHS now planning to offer women the option of a caesarean birth. This is ‘cuts’ gone mad. Especially as it would cost an extra £800, not to mention the extra few minutes of GP time explaining what it involves or that afterwards, you would feel like shit and not want to cuddle your new-born baby because it might hurt to move or lift him or her. (Of course. If you started with a tight young vagina that is what you would still have, as opposed to a saggy old gumboot.) Oh these cold germs do make me feel bitter which is sad because we had such a pleasant week. We visited friends in Andernos who took us down to the beach where we tasted oysters fresh from their beds. However, we did wander round the old village of Canon in the rain, so that might be how I caught this frigging cold. At the time, I didn’t notice, I was too enamoured with the tiny colourful houses which seemed to be built straight onto the sand.

From there we hurried through the drizzle to see the magical-looking Algerian church. I learnt that the mansion built on the beach by the same architect got ripped down in the 60s and a very boring block of apartments put up in its place. Shameful but maybe that was in the guilty aftermath and misplaced emotions of the Algerian War.

And here we are still plagued by war. The Egyptians are having a hellish time. Peaceful solutions seem so difficult to achieve. Who made ‘peace’ into such a bad word? They have a lot to answer for.

Why can’t Americans concentrate on eradicating poverty in America instead of toying with the idea of going to war with Iran? For a modern country, their thinking is barbaric.

Meanwhile I am pleased to see that the scandal of unpaid interns is being revealed. Although evidently UK Job Centres are planning to place young people in unpaid positions for 8 weeks at Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s etc. They could lose their £50 weekly benefit if they refuse.

Tesco’s profits in April were over £3billion. Inland Revenue should put a stop to this unpaid work and to unpaid interns. Why? If people work but are not being paid, they don’t need to pay taxes. The State loses out. The young people lose out. Big businesses profit.

The other dirty word alongside peace, is Unions. If the Unions still had some power, this unpaid work would not be allowed. (bollocks to experience. They are stacking shelves, sometimes working 12-hr days).

Anyway one of these days, some rich philanthropist will have an epiphany that ‘Poverty’ is a dirty word and throw some of their billions at it. I’m not holding my breath (well I’m not because I am endlessly blowing my nose.) Joselyn Morton ed

Contents: 11 Nov 2011

Stephen O'R's Sydney

BBC Radio4 Extra

Protest St Paul’s

Imperial College

Children in Need

Environment

Birds do Still Sing

Food

Freize Art

BBC Radio4 Extra

Cover: Roger Morton

11/11/11

A meaningful date. It is more than a month since I last posted anything new on my blog. Shameful. In that month, the world has not gone to hell in a hand-basket. Not quite. However there is flooding in Thailand and in the south of France and earthquakes in Turkey.

Steve Jobs who was once quoted as saying “I am not interested in being the richest man in the cemetery.” has died. He was only 56 years old. I guess he achieved more than a cluster of ninety year olds. Nonetheless it would be good if the cancer that killed him could be whipped out of existence.

The goddaughter of a friend has just died of cancer aged 24, only 5 weeks after she was diagnosed. She was in the womb when Chernobyl went off. Maybe other 24 year olds should be checked in case they were affected but could be treated in time.

Even so, it is still possible to have some grand times. In the last 3 weeks we have. Here is a brief summary of a few things we did. We were taken to breakfast on a Dorset beach café, the Hive, in the autumn sunshine. We walked the long jetty at Lyme Regis where The French Lieutenant was filmed (in which our kids played the young children that Merle Streep was tutoring). We admired a friend’s boat shed and her rowing dinghy on Southwold beach. We even walked along a crumbling Suffolk cliff. We stayed in Chelsea for a couple of days and caught a bus to the V & A where we enjoyed the Power of Making exhibition more than the Postmodernism one. We babysat in Oxford. We had yummy family meals in Muswell Hill. Sadly, we didn’t make it to Scotland to cousin Mabel’s 80^th. As always, it was a real buzz and now I am back to nitty gritty reality in which I attempt to train myself to be positive and not dwell on all my undone tasks. Not easy. Sometimes, I turn up trumps – like two days before we left, we heard that we would miss K and K if we didn’t get there a day early. Somehow we did and had a jolly lunch with them in Paddington before K set off to Frankfort Book Fair to represent NZ (taking over from Iceland). Each year, the book fair concentrates on a particular country. Karl (CK Stead) as one of NZ’s most interesting authors is a very worthy representative. Already all that is in the past and I now share a sitting room with 3 weeks of Guardian and Independent newspapers (Roger’s favourites) and I inch my way around a kitchen which is inhabited by gigantic orange pumpkins. Something has to give. Joselyn Morton