I took this photo in London a few days ago. It moved me.
I was quite stimulated by a thing Andrew said on my blog. It got me thinking. While I was on my treadmill my mind was mulling it over.
I was seventeen in 1967. It was a good year. I was a young, idealistic, naïve young fool.
This is what Andrew said:
‘Surely you still don’t think the same as you did when you were 17?
Lost of things impressed me at 17, too, but I doubt very much if I’d give them a 2nd glance today.
Particularly when I know better and understand the truth of the matter.’
I am a lot older now. I am very different. I’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things. I’ve travelled the world, experienced lots, had an exacting career with lots of responsibilities, met all sorts of people, had my highs and lows and thought deeply about it all. That’s why I write my books.
I am pleased to say that while I am not so naïve I am still just as idealistic. Most of what I believed as a seventeen year old I still hold true today.
- I look back at all the great music – the 50s 60s and 70s and love it just as much.
- I still play the Dylan that opened up my mind
- I still play my Roy Harper that helped it blossom
- I still read my Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Brautigan, Miller and Bukowski that impressed me so much
- I still believe in civil rights, equality and global perspectives
- I still believe that we need to limit our numbers and protect nature
- I still hate war, racism, elitism, misogyny, sexism and cruelty
- I still abhor war, torture and fundamentalism
- I still want a world full of love, beauty and creativity
- I still love the spirituality of a sunset, tree and rock
- I still reject hate and violence
I thought I’d changed a lot – but I haven’t have I? I still believe in the same philosophy I did when I was seventeen. I must be incredibly naïve and boring.
On the contrary Opher. You’re just like most folks. The trouble is that we live in a different world to the one back then. Although I’m 10 years junior, my little ears were glued to the radio in the 60’s and I knew the names of all the hits on the radio. I made notes in a jotter (remember them?) of all the songs I liked. Later when I was a given a “Record Player” for my 13th birthday, I noticed that this shop carried a lot of brand new unplayed old singles. I was never out of that place, driving my parents mental with a diversion there during mother’s frequent shopaholic trips to the city centre. I still have them, around 850 little 7″ nuggets of golden sounds from the 60s/70s, all wrapped in protective 400 gram plastic cobers, at much expense, in 4 of these flash looking black with silver border strips flight case boxes. My friends are fairly impressed, I can tell you.
I love much the same things too and I don’t think that I have changed that much either since being a teenager.
But it is Islam that bugs me, a lot. I really cannot stand it. I loathe it.
I can see that and I do share your concerns – it is a barbaric medieval religion. But then all of them are. It is just at this moment segments of Islam are the most uncivilised and held back in the days of a thousand four hundred years ago.
It is how we deal with it that is the stumbling block – I think on that I have a mixture of thoughts and we have differences.
Perhaps a more positive approach of what pragmatic measures need to be taken would be a more positive approach –
Solve the migration
Ban burqas
Stop child benefit
Monitor mosques and imams
Ban religious schools
Ban indoctrination through religious bodies
Educate
Insist on English
Ban sharia law
Apply laws
Develop tactics to integrate
I’m open to suggestions.
Damn it, I lost what I typed.
Anyway – yes to all above, but I would like to see a much more forceful approach.
We need the right kind of people masterminding this.
What we don’t need are anymore silly-assed 20 somethings social workers without a clue. They are already part of the problem.
A major review on the workings of the immigration department.
I saw a recent documentary where the immigration officer doing the interviews was himself Nigerian. There’s something not quite right with that.
We also need to impose the same rules as Germany, where everybody has to register their living address with the Police.
That means everybody including children and the granny.
Everything gets double checked through employers, schools and social security and if you get caught out you get hit big time. Works a treat.
No more multiple marriages where a multiplicity of children are produced. That should be a criminal offense and they can just forget their Islamic rights on this issue.
Enforced sterilisation might be justified in some cases, but I can see the human rights/social justice warriors kicking up a stink about that. But sometimes extreme measures are necessary.
Rules that prevent certain very devout types from simply living their lives wandering from one wife’s house to mosque, to another wife’s house to mosque etc., on a continuous sponging off the state cycle, without the remotest intention of ever doing a stroke of work. There’s some number of such here already.
Mandatory English lessons for all those hundreds of thousands that can barely speak a word. I care not less for the inconvenience to those needing such tuition either.
This really has to be seriously addressed at the soonest opportunity. I really don’t care who teaches them either, we could use anybody that speaks English well. That might solve the problem with unemployment with many Euro immigrants.
Open public assessment on the whys and wherefores that we need all these refuge hostels for battered Muslim women.
The authorities play a very secret game with the public on this issue. The problem is rife and way out of control.
Just in my town, Glasgow alone, back in 1997 there were 14 such hostels for just Muslim women. Today there are over 30. All the location addresses are secret of course. However, I just happen to know somebody involved with rigging them out, hence, why I know.
Immediate arrest for those involved with public demonstration of hate ie., the kind that scream and shout abuse at the relatives of returning deceased soldiers etc.
Or the sort of thing we see in east London, where they hold gatherings in parks, screaming death to the rest of us.
Check out youtube – some of it is beyond belief. The Police just stand there watching it all. Why are our authorities so good at standing watching yet so piss poor about taking corrective action? We really need to address this fast.
The list of remedial measures becomes somewhat endless given the scale of the anti-social nature of the overall problem.
Well that’s a good start to a series of discussions to get to the heart of the problems and deal with them. I could go for most of that. It would go a ong way towards addressing the issues.
I am much the same as I was at 17. But I worry that we have become more extreme in society, either extremely disinterested or extremely extreme. What ever happened to moderation and interest?
That’s a good point Andrew. It seems to me that most of the population has taken on that shallow, superficial culture of mindless pop and celebrity obsession, trivia and garbage, Simon Cowell and Britain’s got talent, Come Dancing and the Voice. Then there are the extreme rejections of the pointlessness of it all. Where is the vital creative scene? The discussions on philosophy, life, music? Where’s the depth?
You and I are similar that way, Opher. We are still the same us. Just a little more wisdom and experience under our belts. I still believe in Love and Peace and I still listen to Jackson Browne and many others of the time. I guess time doesn’t really change our essence.
It seems to with a lot of people Mary. They forget the ideals of their youth and become cynical. It’s like the sixties never happened. But it’s good to connect with like-minded people who care. Sixties are alive with me.
Which is worse do you think, Opher, to still believe what you did at 17 or to believe nothing you did at 17? I would say the second would be a pretty good indication that you turned out a bitter person. So aren’t you glad it’s the first one? 🙂 {{{Opher}}}
Yes I am Cheryl. But sometimes I wonder if we are not all products of the age we grew up in. Were we brainwashed by the zeitgeist of our youth? Are we unable to appreciate the new world? Are we destined to think that what we did and had was better?
I think the key is to not think of it so much as better or worse, just different. Until we can do that, I don’t think we can really adjust to the changes in the world. Just my thought.
You’re probably right Cheryl.
That’s actually somewhat of a ludicrous choice. Especially considering at 17 all one would know is school. Perhaps for some people those were great days before they were tied down by utterly mundane jobs and living in nowheresville. Personally, I couldn’t wait to leave school and get out into the real world.
I was doing lots of things outside school at seventeen. I was reading avidly and making a wide range of friends, discovering music, art, philosophy, religion and spirituality, sex, drugs and travel. I was opening yup to all manner of psychic explosions, mind expansions, revelations, thoughts, ideas, visions, dreaming and wonder, creativity and growth. School was a great social experience. I loved it. It gave me time, freedom and stimulation. I never wanted it to end.
The ‘real’ world was the shackles of work – looked more like a dungeon to me.
I think core values remain but sometimes there are stark choices between practical actions and ideals. I feel very moderate now though with extremism seemingly raising a very British flag. Most Muslims I’ve ever met are moderate too. Ideology seems to exploit anger and create fears.
I agree. Things have become extreme at the fringes and the fringes have grown. The voice of moderation is in danger of being drowned in the cacophony.
Have not in the past felt too worried by the extreme right but looking in from afar and for me the referendum debacle I do feel concern for the UK.
Hi Georgina,
I am more than a little concerned what with the political castration of the BBC, changing of electoral boundaries, Scottish MPs being stopped from voting – the dice seem to be loaded. Gove and Johnson represent the unpleasant side of the Tory party. The media have it in for Corbyn and his own Blairite MPs are stabbing him in the back. It looks pretty dark.
I think so now, more than I have ever thought before. Trump call Obama a traitor. How on earth was Jo Cox a traitor? Well we know how ugly ideologies at the extremes can be and then there are actors who seem to act with terrific brutality. Maybe each millennia has some dark stuff to deal with.
From what I can gather the guy viewed Jo as a traitor because she cared about all people and should have put British people first. He was a white supremacist, nationalist nut.
The sadness for me is that in the midst of all this raging nastiness the environment suffers, the birth-rate goes through the roof, the elephants are slaughtered, the trees chopped down and nature is decimated. We desperately need some stability and global perspective.
I fear that if Europe is the lesser and the USA torn apart by its internal Trump/Clinton factions we end up with the big corporations and destroyers running amok.
There’s the rub. Far too many people do not give their career choice enough time to develop into a life plan. They are rushed into decisions by parents who are just desperate that their child gets a foothold onto something offering long term prospects regardless of the actual task at hand. School careers advice officers were a comedy of errors and probably still are. Half of these university courses taken lead to zilch, unless one really fancies being a librarian. My folks very much hoped that I would go into something safe and secure like banking, when I at 17, could not have imagined anything worse. There was absolutely no way I was ever going to be desk bound. The fact that I did end up there is irrelevant because I was running the show and that’s a wholly different deal. I could also walk out from that office at any moment I chose. But the very thought of being desk bound, bored to tears, with someone watching over your shoulder, waiting for that clock to hit 5pm, makes me feel slightly queezy even now.
That’s why teaching appealed to me – the opportunity to work with lively minds and imaginations – no two days the same – a challenge and a job of great importance. Turning on kids. Nothing better.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you go into teaching somewhat later in life? Or at least it hadn’t been a considered plan at the stage of leaving school?
That makes a lot of difference to this decision making process.
I’d perhaps rephrase that 2nd last sentence of yours above!
No I’m happy with that second to last sentence. I did not mean it in any drug context. My job was turning on minds, expanding them and getting them thinking and enquiring. I turned them on.
I went in to teaching at the age of twenty five. I’d done a lot of things, had a lot of jobs, travelled and had a family. I think you need some experience. All I wanted to do when I left school was be on the road, in love and avoiding work. I was into Kerouac and mind expansion, life, exploration and philosophy. Work was an unnecessary thing I had to do in order to live. I have never been a scrounger. I did my warehouse work, factory work, dishwashing, road-sweeping, sewage farm and technician work. I saw life from the bottom.
Navasonlanature – we don’t actually have an extreme right wing in the UK. Nothing like it. Unless of course you’re referring to a few thugs who are in charge of nothing more than their Pit Bull terriers.
Well Andrew I think that very much depends on your definition. Gove ain’t exactly centre ground is he?
Or your definition. We do bandy around these really overblown and quite incorrect terms like confetti, without considering the real connotations of such expressionism.
All things considered, we live in an extremely laissez faire society,
I don’t think our right-wing is on a par with the likes of Pinochet (Thatcher’s big chum) or the other fascist juntas in South America and Africa, but I see the impact of even a more moderate Tory right-wing – represented by Cameron and Osborn – and I see the huge impact that has on the poor and public services. I experienced its impact and dogma directly. That is why I am political – because I know it makes a difference. I was at the sharp end of the Thatcher years as a Head of Department with threadbare hand-me-downs and my kids on free school meals. I saw the immense improvement in education under Labour and I’m seeing the devastation created by this wave of Tories. I know what their priorities are. I’m not opting out of politics. It makes a real difference.
They are destroying the NHS and schools with their dogma, privatisations and a whole series of unnecessary changes and reorganisations (all very costly) all sold under the guise of austerity.
If we allow a more extreme element to gain control the result will be even more devastating, divisive and unequal. I despise that mob of xenophobic elitists. I despise their dogma and all they stand for.
That is extreme right-wing in a British context – not quite British Movement or National Front but getting there.
Britain, even under such an unpleasant mob, would still be better than a lot of places but a damn sight worse than it could be. I still remember the hopelessness and anger of the Thatcher years. She was the most divisive bastard we’ve ever had.
Do you want me to list the “big chums” of your lot during Blair’s regime term?
Quite how you can equate free school meals with tyranny, oppression and death is beyond me.
Perhaps you should make a rather more concise and detailed analysis of the workings of the local councils who are directly responsible for their education budgets – many, many of which are under Labour management and work out why there exist deficits.
The amount of money squandered and which never went near it’s intended purpose is where the problem lies.
Why is it that where I live all I see are old crumbling Victorian built schools being torn down and replaced with far superior entities and this is a Labour area.
They tore down my old school – built 1968 – after 30 years and replaced that with an even better one. Tory area.
You seem to have a plethora of completely shitty and dreadfully badly run Labour councils in England. It stinks to high heavens.
“A British context”! How bloody convenient, such expressionism for the sake of expressionism, again! Get a grip here. You are uttering a complete load of hysterical crap.
Actually, a lot of people still remember the terms of Wilson and Callaghan and the wanton decimation of the countries transport system and strike after strike, running the country into the ground.
If only you were able to take a more focused and unbiased (which I very much doubt) view, but you insist on the persistent anti-Thatcher diatribe with zero regard to how much improved our economy became.
I was sent to work in Liverpool very shortly after the 1981 Toxteth riots. By 1979, Labour had run these working class housing schemes into the ground. They were falling apart and in squalor.
Thatcher took the flak and got the blame for these state of affairs. All sorts of scams and frauds were being run by these Liverpudlian Labour councillors, no matter how much money had been thrown their way.
You need to get your facts right on a whole host of issues concerning Thatcher. You seem to have bought into the extreme-left propaganda mission statement, hook, line and stinker.
This of course is simply deja vu, as we’ve been here before several times. In one ear and out the other.
Well not so much in one ear and out the other as not agreeing with your right-wing rhetoric and lack of knowledge of public service funding.
I do remember Thatcher squandering the oil revenue and selling off everything she could lay her hands on to the likes of that Australian bastard Murdock. I do remember the deregulation and the cost to the country of the resultant BSE. I do remember her selling off the housing stock for a song. the selling of all our national industries to people abroad who made a killing. I do know what a state our school was in with leaking roofs and dilapidated classrooms, teachers pay through the floor and utter despondency. I do remember the riots on the streets and the tax cuts for the rich.
Blair was a Thatcherite and a chancer but at least he funded the public services and regenerated the place. I remember well.
The school regeneration programme was a labour initiative. The decent pay drew in some brilliant teachers. They are all leaving as fast as they can get out. I know – that’s my business. It’s what I did.
I don’t equate free school meals and my poverty with tyranny and oppression. I equate it with Tory dogma. And it is complete bollocks to equate that with poorly run councils. That’s pure Tory rhetoric. Councils are not perfect by any means. They waste lots and Liverpool were a terrible example of ideology gone mad but I’m not talking hysterical crap! I happen to know much more about it that you. I lived it. I experienced it first hand.
You are coming across to me as a complete Thatcherite and providing your selective crap.
I don’t have a lot of faith in any of the politicians. They all have their psychotic episodes and plenty of examples of complete shit. We could trade absurdities forever.
You carry on believing that Thatcher sorted the economy and got the country on its feet. I’ll continue to look at the social savagery, destruction of communities, selling off of assets, squandering of oil revenue and the destruction of our manufacturing base. She did very well for the rich though – weren’t you one of the caviar brigade by your own admission? No wonder you see her through rose-tinted glasses.
I lived through the Wilson years and they were pretty good. It went a bit wonky with Callaghan and Heath. But it was the Lib-Dems that landed us with the Thatcher tyranny. Same story – no support for any left-wing government.
Andrew – sometimes I think, despite all your selective anecdotes and facts, you talk crap.
This is the last time that I will indulge in such with you. You simply can’t handle me. I am way too maverick for you to fully understand and I can’t do your black and white stuff as I’m all grey area. I can’t do extreme anything except with my social life that I don’t do anymore today. My head still does but there ends in that respect.
I simply hate politics, it’s a crock of shit and the employer of an insurmountable number of bumbling fools. The mediocrity of many left-wing people sickens me. Many of the Tory boys points of view equally so, but at least some of them recognise the difference between a Tangerine and a Satsuma.
If only you could get to meet the piece of common low-life that represents my area, you’d maybe have another thought.
The only thing that I have in common with them is that perhaps we both share the same lavatory habits. There ends.
I don’t buy into your knowledge of business in the UK, one bit. You were stuck in a school, meanwhile I was being sent around the UK to all it’s major cities, one after the other and my business was all about business performance of other businesses. We would not survive were it not for a performing economy. I knew about every major business in my entire area, their numbers of employees, their management structures, who was who, the whole deal. What do you think big hotels do – just tourists? No, no, no!
Not only that but when you have at least 200 staff, one certainly gets a handle on the whole deal of a city and region. They tell you everything.
Obviously, my personal knowledge of your school life falls way short of yours, but please don’t kid yourself that you ever came anywhere close to my insider knowledge of business. Please! You’re simply ludicrous!
Sometimes firms were doing so well that they would hire entire floors of rooms to cope with their business expansions for periods of 6 months to a year, whilst they had extensions built to their existing premises or sought new locations.
You also need to know that the service industry and hotels in particular are the first to benefit from a good economy and also the first to be hit by a bad economy. Think about that.
That’s why we need very astutely skilled sales and marketing people that are able to target deficits and opportunities both at HQ level and locally on-site. Many came from an industry background as we could offer a far superior working environment and benefits.
I suffered directly when Thatcher sold off the company that I had worked 4 and a half years for in 1983. I was not wanting to be working for the people that bought the place where I was at the time. So you don’t have to tell me. I had to go and look for another job for myself. You never suffered such and all your conjecture is 2nd hand talking for others.
Obviously, I indulged in the products that I was responsible for. For christ’s sake, that was my job! I ran the F&B, therefore, everything that was sold was consistently tested for quality control, right down to exactly which type of pepper corns were on the table. I really don’t think you possess the remotest clue what it takes and just how much work and knowledge is involved getting a good hotel together. It would do your head in. And yes, I did qualify for in-house perks that allowed me to sit down at the end of a 14 hour day and open a bottle of something nice and eat well. However, I also often took my lunch in the staff canteen as It was good to be seen doing so. Not only that, but I was also responsible for the consistent quality of that entity, too. Well feed staff are happy staff. Rule No. 1 and I never forgot that. I often had arguments with my GM on staff budgeting as I always overspent on staff welfare. I couldn’t give a shit what they thought as a 10% overspend was reflected by a % revenue increase, so no contest in my book. I’ve been there often with these guys that possessed what could be regarded as a “right-wing” sort of management style. Not for me.
I really struggle with all this left-wing – right-wing conjecture stuff. I doesn’t mean anything. It’s a handle for ease of reference to opposing sides giving in so many cases not an iota of credibility towards what the problems actually were.
Who the hell needs businesses that make a continuous loss?
Who in their right mind is going to continually pump big money into a black hole?
Is it really that simple that to throw money into a black hole is perceived as left-wing, and to address a failure and dismantle it as right-wing. So be it if that’s the case.
They can call it what they want. I’m not too fussed.
Obviously there are casualties – people. That’s life.
I was in the very lucky situation that at a somewhat fairly young age, starting at 23, I was managing a lot of people, many of whom were decades older than me. And man, I had to know my apples from oranges. I’d have been lost in the flick of a switch had I not had my complete act together at all times and out by my ear.
These places are busy being turned around 4 times a day and the organisation of detail is endless. Right down to the name cards and table flowers. Supervisory checklists covering every aspect of any particular room. There was no such thing as a broken light bulb and had to be replaced regardless of where within 30 minutes. I signed every single one of these maintenance requests and signed them off again upon completion. The same with a squeeky door hinge found in any public or private area. Back of house doors would be dealt with secondary. If you were to try and compare our building management skills to that of a school, forget it. You would not know where to start, I’m afraid to say. We would piss on your lot from a great height.
Even my staff toilets were checked every hour on the hour and no ifs or buts about it.
However, I may come across to you is apparent that you possess little aspirations for the finer things in social life. The kind of things that most people would very much wish they could indulge in regularly. That’s actually why we used to operate casual restaurants where everyman could eat a top class meal for really not expensive prices. And yet our biggest problem with that was getting everyman into the place because of their stumbling mentality of “that’s a posh place for the toffs and not for the likes of us” kinda thing. Just another example of how the perceived to be downtrodden are actually responsible for keeping themselves downtrodden because of their inherently blinkered attitudes to society at large. There’s nothing you can do with them.
And for you to sit there on your fat arse spotty behind, spewing Thatcherite vitriol onto me, just shows you up to be that 17 years old errant schoolboy without a clue whom in so many respects simply has not grown up.
I knew more about this world at 17 than you did. 6 months spent with my father, in San Paulo in 1973 saw to that. And don’t think for one second that I was remotely interested in “school” or that it represented anything of the centre point of my life’s interests thereafter that experience. I was way, way into another zone. I would look at these school people like they had 2 heads, thinking WTF are you doing with your life?
Is this all you could come up with – this shitty classroom in this sterile horrid building? These Victorian rules of “silence in the corridor” being screamed at us. Aged 16 and forced to line up in pairs to enter the building for “health and safety” reasons. Nutters hitting you with leather belts for chewing gum in class. The most disgusting canteen lunch food cooked by fat old neanderthal looking fish-wives that just slopped it onto your plate. Hence, why I always took the bus home and back for the lunch break. I was not eating that shit.
And the school teachers all sat there eating it, too! Said it all really, to me. I’d have been striking over just the food before anything else had I been them! But I wasn’t and all too glad of that, too.
If that makes me out to be a right-wing Thatcherite, I’ll take it.
What I won’t take is mediocrity. I despise that with every once of me and those that accept such as their lot. Morons, the lot of them.
And don’t tell me it’s all down to “education”. My arse it is. I left school with way less results than should have been, because I simply “wasn’t there”, I was in my own dream world counting every day till I could leave. I stayed on at school until the end of the final 6th year, so my results weren’t that bad all things considered. But I used to get phone calls at home (my folks were out) asking if I was coming back to school. I think I was missing far too many afternoons with not going back after lunch. “Yes, sir, at the soonest opportunity.” Silence on the end of the phone. Tickled me pink! Grinning, as I returned to my bedroom, sparked up and flipped over the album.
Happy days.
Sounds the same experience of education that I suffered – which was why I went on to put it right.
God Andrew you are so arrogant. I sit here on my fat spotty arse replying to your rudeness. You might not like politics, or respect politicians of any persuasion, but you are ruled by them and the different hues create differences in your life. And you call me naïve.
What are you doing now? Why aren’t you running something? At your age I was at the top of my tree with years ahead of me?
According to you you are the bees knees on everything going from business, folk music, folk rock and Europe. You are more intelligent, knowledgeable and informed and I should kow-tow to the selected information you pass off as fact. Sorry I don’t subscribe. I have my own views and perspective. You are so disparaging of the public services as if running hotels was more worthy than educating the next generation. I happen to think educating kids is more important, exacting and worthwhile, and running a school is just as much a business as running a hotel and requires just as much business acumen as well as educational knowledge.
Yes – hands up – I am still naïve and idealistic. I haven’t grown up. I still try to make the world a better place. Foolish I know. I should become cynical, fear-ridden and look at the odds. I don’t. I try for my dream. I still believe that we can change things for the better. I haven’t given up and retired to feather my own nest and try to blot the ugliness out. But I’ve never been without a clue. I just buy in to a different life attitude to you. I don’t, and have never, craved the caviar, sports car and cocaine lifestyle. I see it as shallow and boring.
No – I don’t believe there ever should be casualties – that’s not life – that’s the way callous, greedy people choose to organise things. They should care more.
I enjoyed school because it gave me freedom. I didn’t do anywhere near as good as I should have done. That was my attitude and the result of a poor education. My school was shit. My IQ puts me comfortably in the top 1%. Intelligence isn’t my problem. Being bothered to be geekie about facts might be. I’m selective and biased. I haven’t the time to be bothered. I glean what I need and do what I like.
But I don’t like xenophobia or Islamophobia. I judge people on there merits and try hard not to tar everyone with the same brush. I hate religion but not religious people. My doors are open. I’ll welcome anyone until they give me reason to distrust them. Most people, including Europeans and Muslims, who I have ever met have been pleasant friendly human beings.
I could go on but it is really pointless isn’t it?
I made my money. I also have some more coming my way when the old fellow dies. I didn’t feel the need to work myself into the ground and got out while the going was good. I left the hotel business at 49 and had decided that target date about 5 years beforehand.
I did quite well, I ran (or at least senior manager) the world’s best F&B and Conference operation for the Leisure Hotels sector (as voted in 1990 by it’s peers, consumers and industry experts) at 30. Gleneagles, Perthshire.
I was Deputy and then GM in Indonesia’s 2 most exclusive private membership clubs.
Membership fees for the 2nd unit were $150K, plus an apartment starting at $1.5 million, plus monthly dues of $10K, plus of course what one spent.
I worked in the most exclusive hotels in Kenya and St. Lucia. etc.
I was only going to be doing more of the same as I got older and older. The buzz and the rush wears off after a while and none of it seems any big deal anymore. The very thought of doing yet another turnaround becomes less appealing, despite the fact that most people would give their right arm for my kind of job.
The next phase would be a directors board room. No thanks.
I’d rather scuttle about in my mates filthy old 2nd hand record shop, working for free.
There were other things that I wanted to do with my life. I travelled around a lot for a time then became a bit bored just being the tourist. So I bought a business. It paid my way to do what I wanted without depleting any personal money. I still went trips whenever I wanted. It went well for 3 years and not so well for the remaining one and a half. I lost about a years worth in that 18 months.
Today, I’m as happy as a sand boy as I answer to no man. They very thought of hanging on for the pension date would kill me and was never on my agenda. I don’t even have a personal pension plan as I don’t need one. I used to have but I cashed it in as it was proving to be not worth a toss.
I could make more by good investments. Companies like Monsanto. I made an absolute killing on their share prices back in 1999/2000 or so. I still trade online with the Japan index. I also buy into the futures markets, more risks, more returns. The payments come in and I’m well up on the deal.
Why work? I’m not really cut out to be anybody’s monkey anymore. I hated corporate mentality but swallowed it only because it paid me.
All I require of the state is to empty my bins and light the streets.
Well you do know that I know a lot about music and many genres of. I’ve proved that. Why slag me off for it? I live and breathe it. When the hell did I ever say I was the bees knees?
Ask me about 80’s Rave, 90’s BritPop, 00’s HipHop or Taylor Swift and I will stare blankly back at you.
I only know about what I like and there ends.
I have a knack of remembering the most trivial details – through years of my job. It wasn’t natural to me, trust me.
I can tell you that there have been so far this year, 11 CD releases by Frank Zappa. I haven’t bought any, I just read about them, it goes into a drawer in my memory and I can add them up upon recall.
There again I was the sort of geek that knew how many t-spoons were in storage in the 4th drawer down in the main stores.
I’m a full blown anorak. A dweep. A nerd. And well aware of it.
If you can’t swallow the fact that I did indeed have a lot of versatile experience covering several avenues in life, well, too bad then, isn’t it.
Most people find me interesting and ask me if I might have any information on a place, can I recommend somewhere etc., because they know that I may well know a little something.
I know the best cheap hotels in Paris, Berlin, Athens and Rome, but don’t ask me today about the expensive ones as I never used them or even crossed their threshold for a look for many a year.
I have never been near the InterContinental in Berlin since working there in 1981. But I’ve since visited Berlin 8 times.
I do not walk about with my Sunday Pinks on with a Club Tie and a silver spoon in my mouth.
Not ever.
I have failed very badly. I have 2 ex-wives.
The first wife was a huge, huge mistake when I was 23-ish. She was an ex-Muslim. Lovely looking young women, fuck all between her ears. But I didn’t marry her for her ears and all the wrong reasons. Thankfully there was no collateral damage.
My 2nd marriage ending was as tough as hell and I never want to repeat that pain. An entire year got lost in a hue of misery and I have almost no recollection of where I even was then.
I have 2 children to 2 other women (not the ex-wives) whom I never see or hear from. Their mother’s hate my guts (took the money easily enough, though). One lives somewhere USA, the other, last I heard in Sweden.
So, no I really don’t have too big a tip for myself whatsoever.
All I’ve got to show for my life is personal life damage, cash, thousands of records, a really cool expensive hi-fi and a hell of a lot of nice tailor-made clothes that I have barely any need for anymore.
Hardly much to aspire too, really, all things considered.
But I do know a bit about some stuff.
Had I sat on my ass working at something more mundane, I’d probably be a better golfer, heavier drinker, heavier eater and that much closer to a heart attack.
No Opher, I never ever wasted a penny of my cash on Sports cars. I’ll leave that to the poseur jerks, if that’s alright. The most I ever spent on a car was E12K on a new Toyota runaround in Cyprus and I still got ripped off. Toyota’s don’t break down, cheap to run, cheap road tax and insurance. That’ll do me just fine.
But because you live in Opher’s World, anybody else’s doesn’t seem to be given much credibilty.
If you can’t accept what I pass over, then I can’t help you.
I think you just might be confusing your local Travelogue or Best Western with the sort of places that I worked in. I’m sorry, but you really have not a clue of what you talk in this respect.
Yes, the education of children is vital and no doubt that it takes an accumulation of knowledge to undertake such a process. Of course it would.
I would suggest educating adults is pretty tough, too. Particularly with every detail of their very being. Be it communication, pro-activeness, awareness, response, etc., right down to deportment standards. In some cases many don’t pass induction because of reading and writing deficits.
Many don’t get past initial interview due to speech deficits.
Your local Travelogue or Best Western could not care less about such issues. But I very much had to. We operated with a completely different set of rules on a different ball park entirely.
There was simply no such thing as “making do” or “getting on with it”. There was no diversion from the Masterplan, no compromise, no deficits, no 2nd best, nothing of such nature.
I probably fired more than I hired. In fact I know I did. They made me do it, they slacked, they couldn’t handle the required professional discipline and they switched off because they possessed the attention span of a newt.
When I worked Hilton in London, 1987-88, I lost almost every single Londoner service staff because of that and replaced them with a variety of Europeans. These youngsters ran circles around the locals on every level. They also said “Thank You, Sir” after my weekly team briefings with them. I had never asked them to and they did that on their own volition.
I too have met a lot of very nice and friendly Muslims, too. I’ve no doubt most people have.
I employed hundreds of them. I knew them all by name. I worked with them for years.
I’ve also spent time with the other side of that. That’s the bit that worries me.
Has you ever heard the phrase “never trust a rag head”?
It exists for a very good reason.
These are the people that are silently floating into the UK. And I am very concerned about that.
We should express a lot more caution with this than we are currently doing.
That has nothing to with xenophobia, racism, anti-multiculturism or whatever you want to call it, but everything to do them. That’s the difference.