Keep your shirts on, girls!

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The problem started with reports in the Indian media. Indian consular sections, it was said, in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine had tightened visa application screenings for women aged 15 (yes, fifteen!) to 40 in order to prevent the travel of sex workers to India. Presumably that tightening included the inclusion of an extra question: "Do you propose to charge for sex during your time in India?"

In any event, the supposed screening got right up the noses of Ukrainian activist group Femen which decided to stage a protest outside the Indian ambassador's residence in Kiev by taking their shirts off and shouting "We're not whores" or words to that effect.

And whilst the women's protest may well have caught the attention of the world's media, (not to mention the Indian Ambassador who couldn't believe his luck when he popped onto his balcony to have a cigarette), I can't help thinking that Femen have done their cause more harm than good. For the fact of the matter is that whilst the majority of women aged 15-40 in the maligned countries will certainly not be sex workers, taking your top off in public, whether you're a sex worker or not, is really not the done thing generally, and would most certainly be deemed as unacceptable behaviour in a country like India. Seeing the four feminists cavorting outside the goggle-eyed ambassador's residence in Kiev, who couldn't be forgiven for thinking that this was just the type of behaviour which these days seems to be the trademark of drunken western youth? And who wouldn't be behind the Indian authorities on this occasion, in agreeing with them that it is precisely this type of exhibitionist behaviour - non-whorish though it may be - which they wish to keep off Indian streets?

Femen's case is further weakened by knowing that exposing their breasts is something they seem to make a habit of. "The price of sugar has gone up; off with our shirts! The cat's thrown up on my duvet; off with our shirts."

Oh, and by the way girls, it's "Ukraine is not a brothel" and "I am not a prostitute".

Waitrose: great food, filthy language

The Dumbing of WW1

It's started already.  In the London Evening Standard this evening there's an article by Nick Curtis entitled, "The WW1 Look".  It begins, "With First World War-based Birdsong all over our screens, it was only a matter of time before men revisited the grooming of the era."  Oh dear.  It continues, "It was a global catastrophe that cost an estimated 15 million lives... Now it is giving its name to a London grooming trend.  Ladies and gentlemen - but especially gentlemen - may I introduce the World War One Look?"

After reading this drivel on the train this evening, I fired off a quick email to the Evening Standard which read, "For a truly authentic WW1 look don't forget the lice. Add some splashed-on brain from the chap blown up next to you; splatterings of blood, and plenty of mud. You'll then have the WW1 look down to a tee."

Rather than well-groomed models sporting short, well-combed cuts, I'd suggest that the image above is a strong contender for the WW1 look; or perhaps one of Harold Gillies' facially disfigured patients:

And I make no apologies for showing these images again which, personally, I find less offensive than Nick Curtis's entreaty that we should "savour the WW1 look" and "the burnished image of Eddie Redmayne [the actor playing the lead in Birdsong]... the stirring sight of a mounted and mustachioed Benedict Cumberbatch tremulously exhorting his cavalry..." The pardox of the homo-erotic youth drowning in mud or being blown to smithereens has been so much better done by Sassoon and Owen, and they at least knew what they were talking about.  For that matter, I never warmed to Birdsong when it was first published, even though I have no doubt that the novel is well-written.  It must be, it's won so many plaudits. 

By the time that Birdsong was published in 1993 I'd already spent the previous 12 years immersing myself in everything WW1.  I had read extensively - mostly works of non fiction, true accounts from the battlefield - and I had met and interviewed dozens of real live veterans.  Birdsong and Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy left me cold.  I read the books and then dumped them.  They still find no room on my shelves which are crammed with divisional histories, rolls of honour, contemporary memoirs and the fiction of the period written by men like Barbusse, Remarque and Aldington who were there. 

So forget the WW1 look of tabloid journalism and at least show some understanding of a conflict which re-wrote the rules on warfare (some might say, threw the rule-book out of the window) and changed society for ever.  The legacy of WW1 was certainly more significant than a short back and sides.

Checkout

Isn't it about time Sainsbury's introduced a check-out for the over 70s?  And whilst they're at it, one for men aged 16-30; another for mothers with children; divorced fathers; the terminally stupid.  The list is endless. In fact, I'm sure Sainsbury's could quite easily allocate all of its aisles to different demographics and then sub-divide these so that you might have "over-70s fast-track", "Polish immigrants15 items or less", "over-weight 40-somethings self-check out", "childless couples basket-only"...

I only raise this topic because yesterday, at one of the two staffed check-outs (out of about thirty or more) I happened to be queueing behind an 'older customer' who was well and truly taking her time with the whole check-out business. Nothing wrong with that; I'll be there soon enough myself.  But the girl on the till was talking to the woman in old lady idiom. "Not very nice out there today, is it?  Brrrrr, need to wrap up warm today.  You take care now."  I really wanted the old lady to turn around and say, "look, just because I'm getting on a bit, you don't have to address me as if I'm a f***ing vegetable."  But she didn't.  Instead she said, "No dear, it's not at all nice nice out there this morning." 

But it did get me thinking that maybe supermarkets could demarcate for age and demographic as well.  That would mean that all the young blokes buying beers, razors, packets of condoms and ready meals could whisk through the tills in a flash and be addressed by the check-out operator with an "Alright mate?" rather than "Hello, do you need any assistance with your packing?"  Similarly, mothers with children would be greeted with, "aaahh, isn't he/she beautiful?  How old is he/she?" whilst the terminally stupid would we encouraged to head for the checkout marked "Inane banter" and would be met with, "What did you think of Stacey on Big Brother last night?"  And whilst that might sound like exaggerated stereotyping on my part, it's certainly true that the checkout operator who served me yesterday didn't make any meteorological observations or suggest I put on an extra layer of clothing but just sped the items through to me.

Where have all the Dutchmen gone?

I assume my regular morning train begins its journey at Harwich. I can think of no other explanation for why there always seem to be – or seemed to be - so many Dutch people cluttering up the barriers at Liverpool Street Station.

When you commute, you soon get used to the daily mundane rituals: the same faces on the platform, the same excuses offered by the train driver for late arrival, the same gaggle of confused Dutch tourists…

The problem the Dutch always face is that their tickets don’t work on the automated barriers. And so you have these huge Dutch folk (average height, six feet, two) all pulling massive wheeled suitcases, all grouping together for safety and all back-tracking and tripping over each other at the ticket barriers. “It shays ‘sheek ashishtance’” I heard one Dutchman wailing to a railway official as he waved his scrap of ticket at the ticket barrier.

But this morning was a breeze. No delays at the barrier and no Dutch tourists to be seen. Either they’ve all decided to go to Eindhoven for their holidays or the travel agents in Holland have belatedly found a way of issuing tickets which are recognised by English ticket barriers.

Pret A Mingie

Has anybody noticed that the baguettes in a well-known national sandwich chain seem to have shrunk?  I used to be a regular Pret customer but I begrudge it when they increase their prices and reduce the size of their sandwiches. Shame, because the food is always good quality.

The Cenotaph, Whitehall

Amongst other things, I collect postcards of The Cenotaph.  I determined last year to thin out my military postcard collection, sold most of these on eBay for a huge profit and then, promptly started adding to my cenotaph collection.  You can see some of them - along with the disappearing pram - HERE.

I was in Westminster the other day and as the sun was out, thought I'd take a walk along Whitehall.  I thought that whilst I was there I'd see if I could pick up a modern postcard of the cenotaph.  Could I find one?  No I could not.  There were plenty of postcards of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the Millenium Wheel, Horse Guards, but nothing at all featuring the cenotaph.

I've always sought in particular, early photos of the cenotaph; the first temporary model and then the version which stands there today.  However, it occurred to me, on my fruitless searches for a modern day cenotaph postcard, that it might not be a bad idea to try and find the most recent image on a published card.  In other words, try and ascertain when it was that the cenotaph stopped being regarded with significance.

When the first temporary cenotaph was erected it quickly became a symbol for national mourning.  It was unveiled in 1919 (see image above) and then later replaced by the cenotaph we see today, unveiled for a second time in November 1920. Just look at the banks of flowers around the cenotaph in the November 1920 image below.

Postcards of the cenotaph which appeared over the coming years were presumably saleable because for many people who had lost sons, fathers, brothers and husbands (not forgetting wives, sisters, mothers and daughters of course), the monument meant something. It was a focus for national mourning.

Today, sadly, the cenotaph is not saleable.  The First World War has all but passed beyond living memory and the youngest veterans of World War Two are now all in their eighties.  Tourists presumably aren't interested in an unsightly obelisk in the middle of the road and publishers of postcards apparently even less so.