Review of Ethical Record 10 Numbers per Year Since Victorian Times
There's no such thing as a free speech venue
Slightly interesting, and very typical, example of takeover of serious issues by Jews and other enemies.
INCOMPLETE!
Conway Hall, which houses the South Place Ethical Society, is in Red Lion Square, to the east of Bloomsbury and the British Museum. The British Library, once part of the British Museum, has been moved to a new cavernous building better suited to rail travellers, and opened in 1998, after many delays. North of the Museum is an immense cluster of buildings collectively making up much of the University of London: University College, Birkbeck (which has the 'Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism'), SOAS (School of African and Asian Studies), the Institute of Education, and such outliers as the Wellcome Trust, Friends Meeting House (possibly still run by Quakers), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, RADA, and the Wiener Library for the 'Study of the Holocaust'. Dillons Bookshop has been for a long time a branch of Waterstones. There are assorted cinemas, theatres, eating places, and ULU—the 'University of London Union'. Most of these buildings have public or semi-public rooms, venues, eating-places, and whatnot. They are all in walking distance of each other. Let's not forget the LSE, 'London School of Economics and Political Science', 'alumni include Mick Jagger, George Soros', which modestly describes itself as 'the leading social science institution in the world'.
Further east, towards the City, and away from Tavistock Road, is the public part of 'non-profit' Tavistock Institute of Human Relations—some of their work is published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. South, near the Thames, further south than the 'Imperial War Museum', is Central Hall, Westminster, once called Methodist Central Hall, and possibly run by Methodists. West is a BBC building: Broadcasting House, much of it new, tucked behind their Langham Place façade. Many of these places have seen meetings and events and disputes and public inquiries and conferences, with occasional demonstrations, usually staged for the Jewish media. ADD LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science)
where was Krebs public inquiry into OPs or rather BSE [public inquirers inc Suzi leather] note on technical incompetence - search engine just single words so eg henry George or E H Carr hard to find - YYY MM DD format not known - same title can appear many times HISTORY my 19th century Jewish emancipation - post-Napoleon period link - Jewish education - note on carmel and on that school in London my 18th century post Jewish poverty my 17th century Cromwell, Bank of England ?puritanism -- modern cp with supposed academic institutions devoted to holocaustianity
note on C of E - unoriginal -easy life - small wonder they did nothing intellectual. This arguably replaced by 'holocaustianity'
note on support emigration into Israel - quote from my stuff
pilger [e.g. schindlers List/ Asian girl - ignores - check Muslim sex, west Indian delroy grant]/ benn / Paul foot/ Michael foot
people like Ingersoll, [Russell free thought American], ?Stevens, bury on free thought/ historical Jesus - Albert Schweitzer - mad cow McCabe/ Conway / J M Robertson fenner brockway [?Jew] note on mimicry of church including music, morning/afternoon sessions/ serious moral purpose image
feb 2007 post war anti-semitism in the uk inc lady Jane birdwood
south place names etc - Conway hall website - pdf files of most of their back numbers
women in talk: i was sexually assaulted, no one would help - comment on that with name
cp with rolling thunder and intellectual biocide of the bbc and Murdoch seems negligible
0ct 2007 marx and engles on religion mentions bruno bauer
Comment on Americans from youtube: [NB similar remarks re women] [and note on success of jewish fanaticism] "Having read through a lot of the comments I have come to one resounding conclusion... Americans are not very well educated. It seems you believe everything you've been told, simply because it's everything you've always been told. There is very little room for rational or reasonable debate, as the American tactic seems to be "Agree with me, bend to my will or I will shout insults at you until I have given myself another aneurysm and have to take a lot more unnecessary pharmaceuticals to slowly kill myself"..... It's OK to be wrong from time to time, especially if you've been spoon fed lies and propaganda by your Government your entire life. What's not OK is thinking your way is the only way. The human race existed for thousands of years before the United States of America. And frankly, I don't care about the torrent of abuse that will be posted in response to this by Americans. I still haven't met one that could formulate a coherent argument. All you get is "Oh my God, you must be a Muslim or a black guy or a woman, you're so freakin' retarded, but you obviously don't believe in God cos you're such a douche bag".... yawn I'll applaud anyone who can make a comment that's above playground humour and petty insults. Oh and correctly utilise spelling, punctuation and grammar in a sentence. Peace?"?
I can see you've made no attempt to check any of this. Maybe it's fear. I don't know. May I suggest you try www.nuke-lies.org and use the search engine there. You'll see why 'H bombs' were faked, why radiation is used for fear, how Jews arranged the 'Cold War', and a lot more.?
In a way, Jews are well-adapted to handle stories of this kind. They have no empathy for any people other than Jews, so they weight up, consciously and deliberately, what lies to tell, and who to tell them to. People like Dimbleby on BBC TV are perfect examples: whites feel they should be fair. Jews like Dimbleby, and the US media controllers, have no internal feel for honesty. They just automatically, repetitively, robotically, lie. ------------------------------------- EXAMPLES as consumer discovering Jewish world of child sex [GIVE PHOTOS OF 3 YEAR OLDS], taqqiya?, human organ theft, rabbis using slav prostitutes, automatic genetic lying
-**** 1933 copies are almost all missing. After Hitler in power. Why? I emailed to ask. Probably censorship re Hitler. ADD BLANK to mastheads - Steven rose, kamin, lewontin at some point. talk on genetics and why [prof at OU - new uni - prob life tenrue - derivate book says hillman - fake research into learning - but when there can prevent serious reserach at OU, presumably bar students, - if possible take over good work that others have done] - Another example: freemasons; absolutely no info on what they do. - rubens on secrecy [wetserners think: should perosnal info be published? should encoded transmaiions be OK? should jewish money be revealed? BUT jews: all from viewpoint of parasites: jew complaining about secrecy in britain, but no general principles on what ought to be kept secret - as much info as possible for jews, automatic censorship of truths about jews --- note that it's much easier] - greenfield professional survivor - Another example current affairs. - Yet other violence by funded jews - black africa examples [quote from new observer online] and eg kissinger on ivory coast - similar to 'scramble for africa'] **search for KATE HUDSON discussion in left book club on corbyn/ [CND, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a British group dating from the early 1960s, see my review of Kate Hudson big-lies.org/reviews/index-kate-hudson-cnd.html Obviously just useful idiot/ controlled opposition/ Jew. She laughably has no idea about anything. She gets (or got) paid for her crap.?] -no mention of Cable Street 1936 -32 search results for Talmud . Hardly any early references. Downloaded all old ones and many new -- nb pic of 1 2 3 4 year olds and rabbi - ditto with Koran/ Qu'ran - religion - nothing on russian orthodox church - and implied info eg capitalism vs socialism -- working class as marked-for-life another jewish attitude ==================== *ARTICLE GENRES trying to sense the missing elephant - restored to sight blind man groping around
-Logic, how to think search STEBBING THOULESS -Political stuff in Jewish style - lies with genetically-honed skill -Suppression: give examples for search stats -old philosophical chestnuts from the fire [and eg determinism] -theology: existence of god etc not much on jesus, prob because it suggests moses a myth -psychology: freud style [WORD THE FOLLOWING 3 to IDENTIFY BETTER] -topics with no info: eg secrecy only concerned to get british secrets unveiled - no discussion of jews. nuclear stuff, AIDS, global warming completely devoid of science
-popular science only in jew style
1947 Example of the slow ingress of revisionism British Colonel John C. Scott who gave an election speech on August 14, 1947 revealed the real underlying issues of the World War II. Scott claimed that at the conclusion of military operations in Poland a war by telegram was waged between the Allies and the German Foreign Office. He was one of the transmitters in those negotiations. The Allies gave the Reich two conditions, and their acceptance would have brought about an immediate cessation of hostilities, and a free rein for Germany in Poland. Those conditions were, Germany must return to the Gold Standard and the League of Freemasonry must be readmitted to Germany. This was not published until November 6, 1947 in Tomorrow, which closed its article by stating "Some 55 million people had to die to make the Gold Standard in Germany permissible." [NB I haven't looked for the original source] <<<< hard to find scott! >>>> freemasons 4 results before about 2000
-jewish campaigns: immigration, cap punishment, apartheid, false flags, embezzlement, statistical frauds, global warming, queers, fat current black crime: songsheet on ferguson and michael brown, knockout game, flaherty: zimermann and? etc] news history eg Reuters e.g. prisons in crisis - Andrew Neilson will discuss what’s gone wrong with our prisons and what can be done to create a more effective and humane criminal justice system. [with absurd photo of white hands gripping bars] ======================= ?---of interest personal accounts of India, post-1945 France ?---rationalist info eg censorship after napoleon --- jews ?---biographical stuff ?---book reviews, cultural comments ?---names from the past Koestler [hungarian jew thirteenth tribe dabbling in parapsychology ] --my notes on fascim and ?ridley and julius caesar ============================= MY CHATS barbara smoker [non existence of god - remarkable how dawkins was the first, though it may be related to his jadar being off. nothing on Talmud, WW2 and Jews, Russian orthodoxy, Byzantine empire] Harold hillman [valued s place as the only free discussion venue in all London. His talks on [example titles] but probably too difficult - forever asking him what consciousness is, when he explained the brain isn't understood and is misunderstood] silson buxton Herbert Spencer chap n bacrac scorer cadogan ============================= socialism examples inc Oscar Wilde [ my refs] cruelty to animals note on RSPCA ['compared badger culling to sufferings of Jews during the holocaust - d telegraph - nothing on ritual throat cutting]
some history of s place and publications -My Holocaust Revision talk -National Front and death of Kevin Gateley at Red Lion Square 1970s scarman inquiry 12 results -Suffragette violence in 1913 ' glass house. My theory Jews -Aug 1945 Hiroshima -Death of Stalin -Stalin H Bomb 1955 -Death of Rotblat -Auschwitz: extraordinarily few references and none 1945ish -holodomor 0 results goyim 0 results Judaism 304 results -Prof g a wells -Darwin but nothing on Wallace Suez 103 references 0 results Ludovico 0 results Sefton Delmer 110 results Orr 97 results henry ford
** search DAVID IRVING nothing significant zundelsite 0 hits coudenhove-kalergi 0 hits [german-japanese cross-breed] and race replacement in Europe
clare short talk [she was left, wanted to help people, but there are no analysts telling her what she should do] Belloc 61 results none in 1920s or the 1930s Arnold Leese [2 tiny mentions] h g wells see site and NB nesta Webster [1 mention only] big-lies.org/jews/jews-h-g-wells-jewish-influence.htm Powell 106 results ZOG Z.O.G. 0 results each Susan Greenfield 6 results dawkins 193 results god delusion 278 results Stalin 319 Trotsky 70 Hitler 642 Mandela 14 Marx 737 brailsford - nothing on war of steel and gold Angell 87 results Cohen 202 results -germaine greer rather than praise of anal sex -schiff 5 results only [2 issues and a music note] -Rothschild 17 results ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Mid-1998: I found McCabe was misspelt in the British Library's Online catalogue, as MacCabe (though the individual book entries are correct, so far as I checked).
- Fullish bibliography, with dates, in Issac Goldberg's biography of McCabe; so some of my dates above can be corrected. (I've just found 'the testament..' isn't included.) It has 79 titles, plus three untraced; and a large number, about 50, of 'little blue books'. There's also a list of collaborative books, some of the discussion (or disputation) type.
- Marc hasn't heard of McCabe, but mentioned Salmon, who he says wrote in about 1870 and said, of Popes, they almost always led from behind on 'important' issues like virgin birth, following the majority.
- Mentioned in Gardner's Fads and Fallacies as having debated evolution with a 'crackpot'
- Five of his science books advertised on the jacket of Major Leonard Darwin's 1928 book on eugenics.
- Selected works of Voltaire, F M A de, translated McCabe in 1935. 1948 edition, in red bound 'Thinkers Library' section at Conway Hall; this is #54
- Other 'Thinker's Library' titles are: #3, 'The Riddle of the Universe' translation; #9, 'Twelve Years in a Monastery', which became a big-selling book (according to May 1993 Ethical Record) when he decided to leave & had to support himself through authorship; #34, 'The Existence of God'; #51, 'The Social Record of Christianity'
- The Ethical Record says (among other things) in Australia he challenged any six clergymen, at the same time, to a debate on any religious subject of their choosing, 'at only a day's notice'
-[Note: myth:] 'Perhaps his most eminent contribution to historical truth was his demonstration that it was not the Christian church that kept alive and handed on the legacy of the ancient world in the Middle Ages, but the civilisation of Muslim Spain..' says Al Richardson in May 1993 Ethical Record though without giving the source.
- Barbara Smoker told me she knew him in his old age; by then he was irascible, she said (she didn't seem to know whether he'd always been) and she seemed to know little about him.
- I found in 1995 Ellis Hillman knew him (or at least had been in the British Museum library with someone else, who talked with McCabe).
- Rationalist Press Association, from which he resigned, considering it insufficiently militant [Al Richardson, May 1993, page 9] is 071-430 1371, 14 Lambs Conduit Passage, WC1R 4RH in 1994 London telephone book. This passage is the narrow road from the Ethical Society corner of Red Lion Square. I found the RPA's library is back in Islington, presumably in a condition resembling the Ethical Society's.
- See -m on 'The Dumbness of the Great', published, or republished, in 1948; might perhaps have been influenced, in its attempt at large scale work, by Russell? Though Russell was much less scathing on e.g. church 'fathers'. He states he's read a great deal of material in the original (mostly Latin, I think).
- And in fact one of his books has texts of church documents - see ad in his book 'the Papacy in Politics Today.'
- 'History of the Popes' seems to have led something of a suppressed existence. It surfaces in Wells's 'The Outlook for Homo Sapiens' and I guess influenced 'Crux Ansata', but its outspokenness seems to have made it considered indelicate or impolite. South Place doesn't have a copy, despite the fact McCabe was for a long time one of their lecturers! They assured me the British Humanist Association would have a copy. It's not in the Sunbury Library system; and I can't recall ever seeing any of his works in second-hand bookshops. BHA shares the address above of the RPA, but has phone number 071-430 0908. (The phone book also lists a number for Humanist Ceremonies, at Fosse Manor Farm, Moreton-in-the-Marsh.)
- NSS 'most of their library is on permanent loan' to Bishopsgate Library, which is 230 Bishopsgate. I phoned them on 071 247-6844. 9.30-5.30 Mon-Fri. They have a copy! Publication date 1939. I later found the Bishopsgate Institute has huge amounts of information on London, labour history, and other subjects in addition to Secular Society collections.
- August 1995: I found complete texts of some of his books on Internet (though with errors, scanned rather ineptly) and downloaded them; I expect there are others, too.
[1] CONWAY MEMORIAL [and other] LECTURES
1922: BERTRAND RUSSELL: 'FREE THOUGHT AND OFFICIAL PROPAGANDA' [In 'Sceptical Essays']
1938: LORD HORDER: 'OBSCURANTISM'
1940: LORD SNELL: 'BRITAIN, AMERICA, AND WORLD LEADERSHIP'
1946: S K RATCLIFFE: 'THE RESURGENCE OF ASIA'
1947: JOSEPH NEEDHAM: 'SCIENCE AND SOCIETY IN ANCIENT CHINA'
1948: C D DARLINGTON: 'THE CONFLICT OF SCIENCE AND SOCIETY'
1949: LANCELOT HOGBEN: 'THE NEW AUTHORITARIANISM'
1949: BLOOM, ALLEN, & BLACKHAM: 'THE GRAMMAR OF MARRIAGE' [Sex]
1952: MORRIS GINSBERG: 'PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND ETHICS' [In Monthly Record]
1953: LORD CHORLEY: 'THE CONCEPT OF LIBERTY TODAY' [In Monthly Record]
1956: FRED HOYLE: 'THE TIME SCALE OF THE UNIVERSE' [In Monthly Record]
1957: MARGARET KNIGHT: 'PHYSIQUE AND PERSONALITY' [In Monthly Record]
1971: G K YOUNG: 'WHAT ARE EUROPEANS?'
1971: LAURENS VAN DER POST: 'MAN AND THE SHADOW'
1972: EDMUND LEACH: 'HUMANITY AND ANIMALITY'
1973: JONATHAN MILLER: 'THE USES OF PAIN'
1974: ERNEST GELLNER: 'OPTIONS OF BELIEF'
1976: J DILLOWAY: 'COLLAPSE OF A MYTH' [Free market economy]
1976: SIR LESLIE SCARMAN: COMMON LAW AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLES'
1977: JOHN D'ENTREMONT: 'MONCURE CONWAY 1832-1907 ABOLITIONIST'
1984: SIR ALAN COTTRELL: 'THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND HUMAN EXPERIENCE'
1985: H J BLACKHAM: 'THE WAY I THINK'
1986: FENNER BROCKWAY: 'MONCURE CONWAY: HIS LIFE AND MESSAGE FOR TODAY'
1988: A J AYER: 'THE MEANING OF LIFE'
1989: CHRISTOPHER HILL: 'HISTORY AND THE PRESENT'
1990: ALEX COMFORT: 'SCIENCE, RELIGION AND SCIENTISM'
.. 'balance'.. part of the political process.. these two puppet organisations.. on the brink of taking.. very substantial power.. when I see Mr ?Daklama the leader of Renamo, who also has a nice suit, although five years ago.. he hadn't yet been groomed.. on Newsnight.. treated as a perfectly normal politician.. the idea he might not have an election because he might not win it, is treated as normal and legitimate..
.. journalists.. exactly the same as Paul said of the
Independent and the Economist.. sloppy.. mainstream television.. I hope if there was anyone who worked on this kind of programme who was not embarrassed before.. they really don't want to do that kind of work again."
- SEUMAS MILNE: [Guardian; former chapel of NUJ; on NUJ executive; supported the miners - author (1994) of 'The Enemy Within', I guess not yet published:]
".. leaflet that's been circulated.. statement and meeting are what you see are what you get.. it isn't an organisation yet.. non-sectarian initiative.. nothing to do with ANL or ARA.. not hostile to them..
.. last time.. late 1970s.. a lot of those things have been forgotten.. basic arguments..
1. basic liberal free speech argument. .. I abhor.. defend to the death their right to say it. .. Whose death exactly are we talking about? .. yours, or victims of fascist and racist attacks..? .. victims.. ?Rowan ?Adams, ?Rowitt Dougal, Steven Lawrence, and Orville Blair who have paid .. with their lives?
2. .. best way to expose fascists is to give them a platform.. people will see how revolting they are. .. if the interviewers were up to their jobs I could maybe stomach this.. cancerous demagoguery.. insult.. attack upon the freedom of millions of fellow citizens.. You have to draw a line. You cannot treat these people as a political party..
If any journalist or any newspaper editor was faced with an article which, or an interview which said did six million really die denying the holocaust they wouldn't print it. We know they wouldn't print it. So why should they be printing other arguments of a similar nature made by these fascists? [clapping]
3. .. third argument.. if we deny the BNP a platform, we are playing into the hands of those who [put through the broadcasting ban on the IRA and other organisations in Northern Ireland. And I think.. complete red herring. There's not the slightest connection between these two things. Not the slightest likelihood.. the crisis is northern Ireland is about deep-seated .. grievances, about the relationship between nationalities and states. It has nothing to do with the movement for a racist authoritarian state based on demented race theories and a determination to smash working class institutions.
4. .. arguments.. these people are not really fascists. .. post-fascists.. semi-fascists.. neo-fascists. Not really fascists at all. .. racist populist. .. they subscribe to the full range of Nazi and fascist politics. They admit it quite openly. I don't know why people can't even see what they're staying. they say it themselves. We're fascists. We're racists. We're 100% Nazi. .. small organisations.. fanning the flames.. electoral respectable way. part of the tactic always used by fascists.. .. in the 1930s, who were the most successful parties? .. Nazi parties! .. on the streets, kicking peoples' heads in.. violent way.. attempt.. to gain respectability.. pushing mainstream political parties further and further to the right. So I think people in the media have a special responsibility.. [sic!]
Our demands are not particularly radical.. less radical than Transport and General Workers Union.. will not accept a platform for fascist propaganda in the media.. apply pressure across the board to destroy this malignancy in our society.." [applause]
[END OF SIDE 1]
- FOOT: [Talking to someone in the BBC.
.. Broadcasting Union.. BECTU.. ?Urip Singh.. going to speak briefly.. representative in the BBC]
-SINGH: [c 5 mins. He's a crap speaker (and thinker)] .. I'm not representing BECTU's view.. few things.. first.. balance.. how does that work? It's not just about balance.. the forces that drive TV production.. news and current affairs.. how do you get the huge audience.. gimmick.. new twist.. black colleague told me.. let's look at this .. the other way.. introduced a different culture.. all these smells.. they've angered the local population..let's start from that.. wonderful post-fascist.. I kid you not.. I hope John Birt's not listening! ..
.. the sorts of things people don't realise.. think all you've got to do is tell the story.. it's not about how well the script is written.. it's about the way the medium works on the audience.. immense amount of research.. on how the medium works.. people don't watch.. from A to B.. they pick what fits what they want to believe.. the second thing.. well, let's have somebody on and they'll condemn themselves. What they don't realise.. tendency to racism.. surveys of social attitudes.. clearly that's not the case. .. fascist parties are actually targeting people who are feeling vulnerable.. after a decade or more of Tory Party rule.. things people had fought for are disappearing.. right to a decent house.. right to a decent job.. to a contract that lasts more than six months.. right to a national health service.. those are the things the fascists are targeting.. who are the audience going to listen to
.. also fails to understand that the often what happens in the interview.. what's the race element.. instead of the way society.. . and the way fascism feeds on that crisis. .. whatever he does the audience get the feeling .. legitimate party.. Newsnight report.. BNP standing in Bradford.. racist attacks.. somebody had been hospitalised.. shop.. windows broken., vandalised.. then BNP agent in a nice studio.. talking about.. well really the BNP is not a violent party.. we don't condone it.. what comes across.. getting a hard time from that stroppy middle class interviewer..
... dreadful programme.. radio.. Moral Maze series.. had ?Edmunds speaking.. and a Rabbi.. Edward Pearce I think of the Guardian.. and the whole thing was just an advert for this fascist. And not only could he say six million didn't really die to .. he was also able to paint himself as a victim of Edward Pearce's sneering, because the tactic used by Edward Pearce was to say .. he was just a snivelling little bletch.. not talking about the issues, just attacking him on a personal level.. and I can imagine what the sympathies of some people of the audience might have bin.. see I think there is a moral question here for journalists. But it's not about free speech. it's whether as a journalist or a broadcaster you want to be instrumental in the rise.. more black people murdered on the street or whether you
want to be party of its defeat. K."
- FOOT: [introduces 'editor under siege', editor of New Statesman, Steve Platt]
- STEVE PLATT: [I spoke to him after in the pub on the corner of the alley nearest Conway Hall:] ".. pleased to be here.. three years ago.. Media Workers Against the Gulf War.. rest of the media.. one solitary line.. perhaps the only publication in the country that opposed the war.. 20 years ago.. run up to the local elections.. National Front were holding a meeting.. anti-Nazis were outside.. resulted in the death of a student Kevin Gately who was hit over the head with a police truncheon.. why here.. great tradition.. progressive causes.. fighting for equality.. it was of course that argument in favour of free speech.. championed so many causes.. victims of oppression.. however obnoxious.. didn't want to be on the side .. suppressing free speech.. you can't divorce freedom of speech from freedom of action.. paid by victims.. deaths.. violent attacks.. inability to live your lives freely.. basic first principle.. don't extend the same normal democratic rights to those who would dent them to others.. We had those arguments in the 1970s.. the far right no longer finds it possible to organise marches at will [sic] .. no longer.. freely and openly.. in areas that are sensitive.. might more disturbing.. in particular.. two things in the media.. trivialisation of the fascist and racist threat.. only one councillor.. you're all as bad as each other.. one councillor in east London.. small beginnings.. by creating the atmosphere in which those organisations.. .. can penetrate much more widely.. not just those who oppose anti-racism [sic] .. Tower Hamlets.. Europe-wide.. advance of fascist views.. normalisation.. Joy Gardner.. institutional racism.. Jean-Marie le Pen.. tiny minority into the mass political force.. exactly the same in Italy.. crucial role that the media played.. ?Silvio ?Berlascone a media magnate.. film.. execution of partisans.. of Mussolini and other fascists.. quite obviously .. a kind of equivalence between fascism and those who fought it.. those who suffered and died in the holocaust, those people like Leon Greenman who we're going to hear later who lost relatives in the holocaust, and those who would deny that it ever existed. And that sort of equivalence should never be given the time of day within our media. There is no space for that at all. I think there are issues.. where a liberal line is insufficient. ... There are times when you have to decide which side you're on. And in an issue like this I know which side I'm on.
-[WOMAN asks if there'll be time for dissenting voices from the floor.
FOOT says yes, there will be time; he hopes not dissenting. Adds that a collection will be made & continues about an organisation phone etc. Asks for fivers and pound coins. Reads out messages of support from NUJ chapels, Sheffield newspapers, media workers against the Nazis in workplace, information from the 1970s... my tape over this has Steve Platt talking. There's a clunk of money in buckets. Clunk stops. Phone number, box number to write to, Private Eye.. leaflets, badges.. our purpose is this.. next week in this hall.. those of you who really feel you can help.. very little time before the election.. open
forum.. next Tuesday at 7 o'clock.. where we can take it further on.. main articles reproduced here.. Steve Platt, editor of the New Statesman.
.. Best evocative journalist to be working in Britain today.. brilliant describer of events.. [i.e. coded way of saying not a Marxist?] all these lectures from our media bosses about freedom of the press.. the person who.. not only in terms of the awards he has won.. esteem.. such high esteem cannot get regular writing in any of our mass media.. greater comment.. from Murdoch or Montgomery or any other of the gangsters. John Pilger should be writing everywhere, we should be reading him everywhere.. (applause)]
- PILGER: [spoke surprisingly haltingly:] ".. media workers against the war.. there was a ban on us.. we were able to get on to the media [?].. misgivings.. I say take heart from that.. a subject every bit as vital if not more so..
.. my own personal acquaintances.. discovering it here .. in the 1980s.. its true violence.,.. four families and one individual in the East End.. most of them scattered throughout housing estates.. often went to see them.. wrote about them.. one in particular.. attacked weekly., sometimes nightly, over a period of six, seven years.. they lived upstairs.. kept a dog downstairs.. tailor.. teenage daughter.. kept a diary of the attacks.. like an Anne Frank with a telephone.. Frankly I didn't believe it was so bad.. they rang the police.. they used to do this every night.. no-one turned up.. the attack started at midnight.. nothing stopped them.. the stories of the other families weren't perhaps quite so dramatic.. just as horrifying.. incredulity.. the Daily Mirror where I worked.. The point is.. this kind of attack has been common for a very long time.. another Britain which just is not reported..
.. crucial.. that we identify these thugs.. spell out the inhuman and manipulative and essentially violent nature of their ideology, fascism, which I think Tony Benn defined so well. But I also think we must not separate them from the other lot. .. established order which has.. itself become extremist. .. curiously British illusion that the far right inside the Tory party are respectable. they're not! Look at the cabinet! [Applause] I think the far right.. have spawned the BNP... the BNP has sensed a favourable climate, created for them.. history of complicity with racism in both parties. Some of the most inhuman measures enacted by.. Labour.. Merlin Rees.. James Callaghan. I think we're now seeing the product of that. .. dangerous to disconnect them. there are thugs in pinstripes.
.. in the media.. sensible.. the Basil Fawlty view of Germany.. Well, I wrote last week in the New Statesman that there were 70,000 racial attacks.. Steve corrected me. There's a home office figure - it's 130,000. That makes this country every bit as racist, violent, as Germany and France.. .. like any disease the BNP will grow if it's allowed to grow.. the studied indifference of a police force that did kill Joy Gardner.. the racist officials that guard the gates of this country, that did accuse a plane loaf of Jamaicans of being gangsters.. black people when they confront the lack of employment prospects, the bureaucracy, and so on.
.. balance, earlier. .. I've been accused of being one of the most unbalanced (laughter) .. they were so frightened.. one
of these black families in the north of England.. then-IBA decided it had to have.. sort of cigarette type warning statements.. you are watching a personal view.. you have watched a personal view! .. they did go off and find a series of balancing programmes, and I'm personally responsible for launching the fortunately short television career of Auberon Waugh! .. we really haven't come all that far, when responsible quality newspapers can produce.. Independent.. this kind of piece, in which Derek ?Beacon is written about.. Isle of Dogs.. they're all mine, son.. subtly, the essential lies of the BNP aren't challenged in this piece.. John Torode has written a rather hurt letter to the New Statesman.. argument has to be won all over again..
.. people from the media here tonight.. I think we went some way.. there is another way of looking at their jobs.. they can't change the system overnight.. the state is inherently racist.. the media is made up of individuals.. some of them very powerful.. the Timewatch programme.. the sort of programme that gave the impression.. they couldn't.. balance.. Mr Bean and Enoch Powell dominated a panel discussion of the history of immigration. There are people that make those programmes.. got to start examining their own journalism.. that kind of platform, that kind of almost extension of instant respectability.. Powell.. since vicious racist speech of 1968.. I went through cuttings.. all I can find is praise.. a great orator, or a great classicist. My mother ran into him.. when he was at the university in Sidney, and said he was a dud. 'What is it about this man?' she said. He wasn't any good. .. there he is, not too coherent perhaps.. still being elevated.. I don't think there's that much difference.. they come out of the same mould; they express it differently.
.. process of normalisation.. atrocities.. it's quite interesting. Auschwitz had to be designed. The architecture of the death camps had to be designed efficiently. .. the people who did it.. were part of a normalising process. A better type of napalm which didn't stick to the skin called napalm B [sic; surely wrong?] .. great laboratory war in Vietnam had to be found a developed.. by people who played with their children and so on. .. integral to that.. process is the media.. giving respectability.. headlines that have been common in the British press, such as black crime, the alarming figures. .. that particular story, some years ago.. actually the opposite of what was true. .. some of the Home Offices first statistics on racist attacks.. showed that Afro-Caribbean people were 36 times more likely to be attacked.. and that Asian people were 50 times as likely to be attacked [sic] .. and when I look back on this.. through all the papers.. early and mid 80s"
[END OF FIRST TAPE/ SECOND TAPE:-]
JOHN PILGER: ".. home office files being shown to the Daily Telegraph.. Daily Mail leading articles 'how they tricked us' and 'tidal waves of people'. Journalists really have to examine their work if they're anywhere near that kind of pollution. Because it's powerful. No-one underestimates the power of the media. It's more powerful than it's ever been before. We live in a so-called media society which .. is said to be an information society.. we're saturated by media, most of it repetitive, most of it shoring up stereotypes..
.. Schindler's List the other night, having been to Auschwitz, having interviewed a lot of people who have been through that period, having read considerably about it, I didn't think I needed to see it. I was painful, painfully moved by it. And at the end I was thinking do we have to wait all these years.. ashen-faced, moved, and certainly informed as they left the theatre.. I thought how much of reporting is in racial terms.. of the genocide that I've had something to do with reporting.. 200,000 people in East Timor.. new order fascism, and it is fascism in every way.. attacks.. culturally and ethnically and so on.. our government and the media have for years called moderate and stable.. it's like Victoria was talking about.. Mozambique.. those people were allowed to die over the last 18 years.. wrong colour skin.. the people killing them were our friends.. media.. anointed them as respectable.. the same.. microcosm.. these people in Tower Hamlets.
I think many journalists will do well just to examine they way they can be manipulated by what Dr Johnson once called the tyranny of the stock response.. [sic; surely not?] hackneyed view of journalism, that there are always two sides.. peoples' intelligence ought to overcome that.. I feel that individuals can do something.. they can object.. can.. insist that a member of one of the anti-racist organisations, .. who can contradict them..with the experience of power and knowledge.. .. we may be a long way from seeing black shirts in London. But I'm not sure we should be looking for black shirts. .. they may also look different.. fascism has come back. It's come back throughout Europe.. I was going to quote.. the Independent, another piece.. Patricia Clough.. from the Italian election.. very good analytical pieces.. ?Feeny.. a personable, decent young leader.. Gaullist style right-wing party.. the day after.. surrounded by 1000 thugs giving the fascist salute in Rome.. ?Feeny's interview with La Stampa.. Mussolini 'the greatest statesman of the twentieth century.' .. the danger. The leap from respectable fascism to street fascism is not a leap at all. Thank you." [Applause]
-FOOT: [.. 1934 headline in Daily Mail when Moseley's anti-Semitic thugs.. 'Hurrah the black shirts'. We thought you should be reminded.. back of all this.. guest speaker.. Leon Greenman.. 83 years old.. speaking up and down the country for years now.. ]
-LEON GREENMAN: [Jewish chap who survived 'The Holocaust' and spends his time talking about it; he spoke at very great length and got a standing ovation; nobody felt inclined to cut him short.]
"Thank you. .. well I've been listening down here to the gentlemen. What is there left to say. I wish.. could have spoken ten or fifteen or twenty years ago, it's going to happen again. .. God help those among you who do not believe it. It's your fault what happens to you. I'm going to take you back to the concentration camps. .. Where shall I start.. I derive from white Russian grandparents who escaped from white Russia because of the pogroms and anti-semitism; I'm talking of 200 years ago. .. from father's side I have Dutch grandparents.. my father was born in east London.. got together and made six children. I was one of them. .. According to British law I am a British National. But that doesn't matter. I am also a Jew. .. I am going to skip a lot
now. .. 8th of October 1942. We were laying in bed, what else could we do.. baby boy, two years and ten months.. he never reached three years.. the Nazis killed him in the gas chambers with his mother. .. no restaurants, no cafes.. shopping between 3 and 5.. would be sent to Matthausen .. terrible word at the time.. approximately half past ten there was a knock on the door now who could that be.. I heard a man's voice shout out 'Greenman!' and I say yes.. Rotterdam policeman.. I said I don't need to come along with you, I'm a British subject. See here, my birth certificate.. searching my room, .. books.. I was a bookseller, some watercolours.. in the meantime the baby was crying.. my wife was crying.. rolled-up blankets.. ready.. in front of the house there was a coach.. young Nazi about six foot tall, a swastika band about his arm.. and from street to street this coach went until it was full with Jewish families.. on a piece of land.. large wooden huts.. this hut was as big as this hall. That's where we were unloaded.. hundreds of Rotterdam Jews, amongst them my family and friends.. S.S. soldiers.. showed him my birth certificate.. assembly camp in north of Holland.. 104,000 Dutch Jews did not return from the camps.. Rotterdam had 13,000 Jews; 12,000 did not return.. I am one of those few who did come back..
Two days later.. train.. Westerboek camp.. is anybody here that speaks Dutch.. we got out of the train..several hundreds of us.. old, young and babies.. had to walk 5 kilometres to the camp on a very muddy road.. pouring with rain.. inside to a barrack.. row of typewrites on a table, and behind them a lady or gentleman.. British? Yes, I'm British.. and also American Dutch.. I was born in London and I lived in Holland.. there was a barrack called the English barrack.. a truck loaded with bricks.. while we were unloading I asked what are we going to do with those bricks.. we were building an SS barracks.. I wasn't going to work for the Germans. .. I had to work. I wasn't an electrician, I wasn't a farmer.. the German word for getting food out of the kitchen.. milk for the babies, lunch time for the grown ups, the evening meal. .. I did it gladly in my mind I was working for my people, not for the Gerries. The women slept in different barracks. .. families were separated. .. lovemaking didn't come to pass. If you want to know you'll have to ask me afterwards. Life was bearable.. there was no beating, there was no hunger although we could have done with more food. .. head of administration.. German Jew with a Hitler moustache.. would say whether you stay or were deported.. many time I asked for us to be set under Red Cross protection under a different camp.. the babies were crying, the women were rowing, a lot of sleep was missed..
.. two hundred men from Rotterdam were picked up.. in barrack 51 in ?Westerboek.. climbed up the side. shouted my father's name, and yes, he was there.. all of a sudden my leg was pulled.. heard a voice saying who is this.. Kurt Slaysinger.. said come down, or I'll send you to Auschwitz. .. jumped down.. 'You can't sent us to Auschwitz.. documents..' and I walked away.
.. on the table the names of the people to be deported. .. quite a shock.. Greenman, Leon, get dressed.. .. that's my wife.. and nobody was there to help us.. what could we do. We were in the clutches of those people. .. 750 Jews young old and babies, men and women, ready to go to hell. We thought we were going to Auschwitz. That's all what we knew. Matthausen, Dachau, and
Auschwitz. I said to my wife, there's Kurt Slaysinger, talking to etc.. we're British subjects, we need not go. .. turned to the SS commander and said .. 'this has been refused..'
We went through the gates and into the waiting train.. 93 trains Holland.. that's why 104,000 Jews did not return. the journey took 36 hours.. this was still a passenger train. .. later.. cattle trucks.. took the baby in her arm.. and one of my thoughts was.. 'Else, if I don't come back.. killed.. we're going to a cold country.. if I don't come back, see that you marry a decent man..' And she said 'yes, that goes for you too.' ... 36 hours and then the train stopped and we heard a loud shouting '... schnell, schnell, schnell' leave the train get out as quick as possible. We were half asleep half awake but we got out. .. huge heap of snow.. corners of suitcases.. everything in there will be spoiled. I did not know then that those suitcase were brought by people.. two camps .. Birkenau, one of the greatest extermination camps there was.. those people were no more.. as we stood there an SS sergeant separated the woman from the men.. on my right.. fifty of us.. men women children and babies.. she threw me a kiss.. baby.. threw me a kiss. And that was all right. I'll see my kiddy every weekend. That's what they told us. .. All of a sudden.. this Nazi sergeant with a club in his hand.. let it fall on her head.. kicked her in the tummy.. that was the first criminal incident by the Nazis that I saw.. counted fifty men by laying a club on their shoulders.. fifty men and we had to march away.. ten, twenty yards.. stop, halt.. the picture in her mind of what he just done to this woman.. I see its loaded with women and children,.. and in the middle I saw my wife.. I recognise her face I call her name she didn't here me she gave no sign she heard me.. my wife had made two garments from red thick velvet curtains.. points attached to the rest.. and those two points were looking at me.. that was only a minute and the truck went away.. I did not know then that two hours later the Nazis killed them in the gas chambers. If there are any spies in the audience tell them there were gas chambers. .. orders to march along.. hear the voice how many? And the other voice.. fifteen. The other said I wanted 300! .. like sheep, like cattle, we're being counted. .. I showed them my birth certificate..took them out of my hand.. standing on a carpet of hundreds of photographs, envelopes, and letters.. those people were no more. Later on it all made sense.. mass extermination took place in Birkenau. .. a lovely pullover my wife had knitted for me. I stood there naked.. 50 Dutchman.. clipped our hair. No hair. the hair underneath your arms. The hair between your legs. .. a bucket of paraffin arms.. moved it over your heard, under your arms, and between your legs. That's disinfection. ..shower.. lovely hot water. No soap, no towels. I never saw a piece of soap in my three years of concentration camp life. You had to dry yourself on your ? but you got used to it. But this is still in the beginning. .. a man comes in wearing a beret and wellingtons. That was a kapo. A kapo is a kind of manager. And one of our fellas says 'Where are our wife and children' and up goes his hand like that, pointing upward.. we say to ourselves, man can't speak, there's something wrong with him. A few minutes later he comes back and another man asks him.. again that arm went up. He was not allowed to speak. You're not allowed to tell one another what happened in the camp. An S.S. might hear you may put you in the gas chamber. Later on I knew what that meant. I tell you and
Anne Frank would say the same thing. .. women of ? .. arrived at the bath house, the bath room. They were told they could have a shower after the long journey, a lovely shower. You undress, you're told to arrange your clothes neat, place your shoes in a way you can find them when you get out of the bath. You get into the chamber the doors are closed. You wait for water but no water comes. At the top from the ceiling an S.S. usually, even wearing a gas mask throws little pellets down from a tin. That's Zyklone B. That's cyanide. And when it drops down it takes 3 to 15 minutes and you've coughed yourself to death. That is killing in the gas chamber. You read that in your books. But you don't want that to happen now again like that, do you. Or worse maybe. That's Nazi theory. Well, I've only got ten minutes left to talk, otherwise I'll be sent to a camp. [laughter] ... then I couldn't get back but I would now. All right.. number tattooed on our arm.. my number is 98288 you can read it on the colour poster outside which is for sale you need money don't you. I won't charge for an autograph it's on there.. how to stand, how to walk, how to take off a beret.. how to stand five at a time.. it will take too long to give you a demonstration.. and you couldn't do nothing back.. if they slapped you or kicked you just take it.. You were there just to work and to die. Those kapos.. ex-murderers taken out of civilian prisons by the S.S. and dumped in the concentration camps... those people made your life a misery. .. the SS.. well, I stuck two months in Birkenau. .. thousands of men had to.. pass between two tables.. SS men.. you starved.. you were beaten.. what was it like..if you couldn't walk properly you .. went left.. if you had some flesh on your bum, you went to the right. .. Auschwitz.. that evening fifteen hundred prisoners marched under heavy guard to Auschwitz.. hard labour.. unloaded out of the trains.. millions of bricks I've carried.. one day I get called in my barracks.. from Holland.. Mr Jacobs.. well, what's the news from Holland.. you are one of the most unluckiest men I've ever met.. this is what he tells me.. when your train left, fifteen minutes quarter of an hour after that, Greenman Greenman, come to the office, we have found your documents.. your Englishness.. I was in Auschwitz.. I've seen enough.. not to send you home to tell the outside world what happened.. whoever you are.. no. From Auschwitz.. there I lived if you wanna call it 17 months.. the Russians were nearing Auschwitz. We knew the Germans were losing the war.. Auschwitz.. blankets.. they call this.. the death march.. If you couldn't walk.. you were shot. If you tried to run away, the beautiful white fields, you were shot. .. ninety kilometres.. fighting amongst the boys.. I didn't want to be hit. I sat on a heap of wood and pulled my blanket around me, you were allowed to take a blanket. .. I see it, I feel it, otherwise I can't do it. .. in Birkenau.. next morning ?froze to death.. wanted to see my wife and child.. anything to keep alive.. I saw a window open.. and I got my sleep.. stayed about four days and then we had to go into open cattle trucks.. I was pushed and hit by a gun of the SS guard.. I was weak.. too many people.. you couldn't sit, stand.. you just stayed on top of each other.. open cattle trucks.. freezing, snowing.. every morning four or five or six men were taken out, they died.. the journey.. to Buchenwald took five days. I stayed.. you wanta get home, and we all wanna go home, and I don't wanna be sent to a camp for disobeying order.. four months.. 11th of April 1945 at about 4 o'clock in the
afternoon.. I crawled out of my bed and I saw no SS, no SS in the towers, a small aeroplane circling over the camp, dead still.. and then I realised we were liberated.. at 6 o'clock official we were liberated by the Americans.. Buchenwald.. I didn't leave Buchenwald straight away.. walking and running about on the airport thinking a plane could take me to Holland it didn't happen that way.. airplane to France.. had to go into a British hospital in France near Paris.. and that's where my big toe was taken off my left foot.. in any case, my feet are still there, I didn't leave them in Buchenwald like a lot of men. The smell of rotten feet was so terrible.. the doctor said cut, cut, cut.. I said, don't cut. I'm an Englishman, these are chilblains.. anyway, the doctor didn't cut.. Anyhow, I went back to Holland.. in Holland I didn't find any of my family.. 60 or 70 members of my Dutch family.. when the Jews went, the Nazis took the non-Jews to work.. six million were killed.. one million non-Jews.. one million gipsies were killed.. a million and a half babies were killed.. what do you say about that? .. you can look it up.. I don't tell lies, cos lies don't help.. I wish there were survivors amongst you.. shout out if I'm wrong.. ladies and gentlemen, I've got three quarters of an hour left [laughter] .. when I got back to England.. 1945..
[END OF SIDE ABOUT HERE]
my two brothers.. they passed away a few months ago.. I got very little money from the British Council.. I had no clothes, I had no money.. I said give me enough money in coupons, I can buy a long coat.. a liddle attache case with some small articles that I bought.. light fittings on the corner of a street until the police scared you away.. I got no children I got no grandchildren. Only the lord is looking after me. God bless you all.
- FOOT: .. I've heard it's very difficult to get him to speak for less than an hour and ten minutes.. The message at the end that we must do something is absolutely imperative.. discuss strategy.. we have to clear this hall by ten.. impractical to have speeches from the floor..
ANN KENNEDY INTERVIEWS RE AIDS VACCINE TRIAL ETHICS
-Unfortunately rather weakly recorded with her portable recorder. I copied her tapes with my not-terrific ghetto-blaster
94-07-?? Ian V.D. Weller on Aids vaccine
94-07-12 David Tyrell at Porton Down on AIDS vaccine
94-07-22 Prof Robin Weiss on AIDS vaccine
-Much on AIDS infighting, 19 writers on 38 patients, MRC chair Lord Jellicoe pooh-poohing AIDS, their 'discoveries' which Kennedy didn't query in any way.
-He mentions British woman, ?Ann ?Bailey, was Prof of surgery in ?Lusaka, who became an Anglican ?vicar in Wembley; some experience with 'AIDS' in Africa. Much digression on Judaism, Catholics, Anglicans.
95-01-11 1/1 Charles Burford addresses The de Vere Society on Shakespeare authorship
- COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT under -vere with notes on the meeting and on people I sent copies of the tape to; following notes made prior to that transcription:
- 90 minutes, of which almost exactly the first side (plus a bit) contains the speech, followed by questions and answers on B (including three, at the very end, from me).
- Interestingly adumbrates a sort of quasi-Marxist class approach, but suggesting 'society' will become neo-feudal [pronounced 'neigh-o']; I wonder whether there's some comparison with Carlyle? Burford didn't seem very --democratic in inclination. He thinks De Vere predicted it, anyway.
Unfortunately he didn't develop his thesis - old men of feudalism overcome by new united monarchy (which is also a very severe autocracy) and redefining their role as artists and scientists and what not - in much depth. E.g. was all this ultimately caused by gunpowder?
- Suggests that de Vere has been subject to the equivalent of the Official Secrets Acts for dishing up the dirt on the Elizabethans - e.g. myth of 'Virgin Queen', bumbling bureaucratic-ness of Burghley. That's why the plays are presented in de-politicised form. And it's also why he used no new plots; if threatened with beheading for lampooning the queen, he'd say, no no; it's an old story in all the chronicles.
- De Vere felt shame all his life for pursuing literature
- Various amusing ideas, e.g. that it was best for Shakspere to be illiterate; in that case, absolutely no letters or writings could ever show up to spoil the carefully-fostered image.
95-02-28 1/1 Talks with IVOR CATT
- Full transcript under CHATS or similar PC file
95-04-12 Side A only " Not transcribed: starts with Peter Lilley, then stuff on ?Rein, ?US ?divorcee, on whom the official solicitor spent half a million of legal aid money to prevent his child having contact with him; the official solicitor's wife being partner in Pennington's, and Pennington's doing all the business of the official solicitor (he thought). Ivor hasn't worked out how money goes to large law firms rather than small ones. Newspapers haven't fathomed this; MPs won't mention it as many are lawyers anyway.
Then onto political incompetence: Peter Lilley, says Ivor, shouldn't have put details of his meeting with Rein, Ivor & another chap in writing. Cp Ivor's experience at a college, where his boss 'couldn't sack him' meaning he was incompetent in collecting evidence of his inability to teach - Ivor says he's always careful & no mud ever sticks to Ivor; and his US experiences, where, when the boss phones you asked his name.
And Ivor on weapons projects which didn't work - change of company name keeping them one step ahead of parliament. Then rather silly stuff on US experiments on human beings - Ivor characteristically thinking this referred to US servicemen; his only example, unsupported in any way, being LSD.
Includes odd stuff on road names and numbers and road cones, and on surplus bridges being built because nobody's thought out the way motorways join each other. Ivor may be right (though I doubt it) but couldn't make his case convincingly..
Final bit on my suggestion that his computer design should include a memory manager system for his huge numbers of processors and huge amount of RAM. He wasn't convinced; perhaps I wasn't.
95-06-21 On side B.
95-03-15 ISLAMIC MEETING/ TASLIMA NASRIN at Conway Hall
- Side A should have had Taslima Nasrin; but under the stress of the event I left the setting on 'dub'. And so I missed her whole speech, I think 20 minutes or so.
- Side B: Various speakers, including a Bangladesh labour organiser whose father I think had recently been murdered; Barbara Smoker; a Labour MP who I think spoke on Fundamentalism converging with the right wing.
DETAILED NOTES in and TRANSCRIPTION in
95-03-19 1/3 and 2/3 Colin Darracott of Charter 88
- At South Place.
95-03-19 2/3 and 3/3 U.N.A. Suzanne Long Policy & Information Officer
- At South Place.
- She was distressingly ill informed, not knowing about the claims about procedures before war against Iraq, or even of vetoes in UN.
95-03-20 & 23 1/1 SET 95 Science line: 0345 600 444
- This is to do with SET 95, Science Engineering and Technology week, '7 days from 17th March 1995'; a similar thing was help the year before. [Judith Babbayan a month or so after hadn't even heard of it. Also said they need one teacher per ten pupils - which also applies in Eire - and don't get the money for this, necessary in doing trips]:
- I asked among other questions:
A [recorded with answer machine; very good quality]
* Has Richard Attenborough made any original contribution to biology? They phoned him; no. He went into the Navy.
* Subatomic particles: How do CERN type machines work? What do they do? How are the images generated?
* Light and physics: is it just human-centred bias that makes light seem important?
B [recorded with mike and speaker phone; good quality]
* Drugs: how do they know they're addictive? How do they work? Since the brain isn't understood, how can they say anything at all?
* What proportion of scientists work on weapons?
* Viruses: how come anything is known about them in view of their small size?
* How do electron microscopes work?
FOLLOWING 4 SET 95 AT LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND TROPICAL MEDICINE:
- All recorded in 'Goldsmiths Hall', which Prof Crawford told me was paid for by the Goldsmiths. All the schoolkids sat at the back; Crawford said "they always do", segregated by school blazer and sex. Girls in the middle of the back. [Joke: having tried to buy cheap tickets for Alfred Brendel at the Barbican, and finding only the expensive ones left, it occurs to me that perhaps it's force of habit.] I was right at the front in my striped shirt and with my ghetto-blaster; this may have looked odd, but nobody said so. They also had a break for tea and biscuits between the two pair of lectures. The kids seemed to show almost no interest whatever.
There were supposed to be 12 displays, and I suppose there were, but they were all hard to penetrate. E.g. Cot Death display had rather irrelevant model of baby, and equipment like monitoring pads which make a sort of blip when the baby breathes - reassuring for the parents. As always I collected leaflets; general idea seemed to be that babies are overheated and too young to throw off bedclothes before about six months. This of course contrasts with the you-are-not-to-blame idea of volatile poisonous chemicals.
The Internet display of the 'Network Support Team' didn't work properly; I tried to get 'AIDS' information from the CDC but it hung up.
The Immune system at work video from the Molecular immunology unit seemed not to be showing; Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets by Ms Yomi Aina/ Prof Chris Curtis, Vector Biology and Epidemiology Unit seems a lot of words. Electron Microscopy in Infectious diseases by Dr Simon Croft, Parasite and Vector Biochemistry Unit I think wasn't there. 'Health for All in Europe' Dr Martin McKee, Health Services Research Unit seemed to indicate a political shift. Etc.
Joke: note: subject subdivisions: they have a compulsion, for power reasons which must be lost on the kids, to list their pathetic 'Units': Epidemiological Monitoring, Environmental Epidemiology, Medical Statistics unit, Applied Molecular Biology and Diagnostics Unit...
As I queued for tea - I joked with a rasta type in a cook's hat that it was a mini-science; knowing the number of cups that fit on a table - a small darkish disagreeable woman with a black matt mike of truncated cone shape who said she was from the BBC World Service asked me what I thought; Joke: she said she wanted a Vox Pop. I said I was surprised they hadn't yet noticed AIDS is a myth, and explained what I meant; she obviously hadn't heard this. I added I was interested in how science is promoted, and said the meeting was interesting, but not helpful. I wonder whether this was broadcast.
95-03-22 1/5 SET 95 Making Motherhood safe Dr Wendy Graham of Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Unit
- She was small and middle aged and grey haired, slightly elfin-faced with rather inverted-V mouth. Not very loud voice. Seemed mostly 'third world' pictures with no criticism & therefore almost entirely remote, though the figures seemed international. To be fair she did criticise the state of affairs by which African girls of say 15 started having children and continued until they had 6 or 8 or whatever.
- 100-150 million normal births
- 500,000 deaths [of mothers, I think]
- Pie chart has about 1/4 showing difficult births, 35-40 million, and 15-20 million 'acute' - I didn't get the phrasing.
A small slice shows illegal abortions.
- Map shows place of origin of LSHTM students: mostly from Africa, and from the coastal areas, though a few from Bangla Desh, somewhere like Yemen, South America.
95-03-22 2/5 SET 95 Viruses and Cancer by Prof Dorothy Crawford, Head of Viral Pathogenesis Unit
- Dark short hair; louder than the previous, more dragon-like, so I had some sympathy with the kids clustering far away. Unrelieved dull technical presentation; I'm sure Hillman would find abundant scope for attack.
- Starts with slide saying in 1992 there were 558,000 deaths [UK of course is understood]
146,000 of cancer
11,700 virus related cancer.
- <18 Mar, 96> TRANSCRIPTION FOLLOWS: I did this because of doubts planted in me by Harold as to the applicability to electron microscopy to disease; on listening to the tape, various scientific weaknesses certainly seemed to exist:
- "We know today that around ten percent of cancers are associated
Now on this slide I've broken the information down a bit more to show you the types of cancer that are associated with viruses, and there are separate figures here for men and for women, because they're different in men and women. As you can see here, in women the major cancer associated with viruses is cancer of the cervix of the uterus, which is a comon cancer here, and in men the commonest one that's associated with a tumour is cancer of the liver. This one although it occurs in women as well, is actually more common in men than in women. And there are many other sorts of cancers now, including cancer of the naso-pharynx, some leukaemias, which are also known to be associated with viruses.
Now the definition of cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells. So that, cells which grow in a completely uncontrolled manner give rise to a tumour which is very difficult to treat. And so, in order to study cancers and find out what the cause of them is, we clearly have to know and understand how cells grow and what controls the processes of normal cell growth. [Break]
.. cells. This is a picture taken down an electron microscope, so it's very highly magnified, and this cell is in fact in the process of dividing. I think you can see here is the cytoplasmic membrane, and here is the nuclear membrane, and it's pinched in the middle, and it's beginning to divide into two separate nuclei.
Now inside that nucleus there will be chromosomes which carry the genes, the genetic information of the cell, and they will have divided into two, and one of each of those chromosomes will
have passed into the two sides of the nucleus. So that when the nucleus divides, it will contain an equal copy of the genetic material, identical to the parent cell. When the nucleus is divided, the cytoplasm will then begin to divide, you can just see a little indentation here, and eventually that will give rise to two cells which are identical to the parent cell.
Now, if you imagine how this cell division is controlled, it is actually extremely complicated. And I think the best example for us to consider is the example of the skin. Now, we're all here, and our skin seems to fit us absolutely. I mean we don't have sort of extra skin or not enough skin. It seems to fit really quite nicely. [Break]
.. cells in the skin absolutely regulated to the number of cells that you're losing from the surface of your skin all the time, just by touching things, or by scratching, or whatever. And if you cut yourself, then the skin cells begin to grow at an increased rate until they've patched up that hole that you've made in yourself and then they go back to dividing at a lower rate. Clearly it's very well controlled. If it wasn't, .. you might.. end up looking like that..
Now, if we look at this control at the cellular level, we can see here, this is the line of the gut, the large bowel in fact, and in this bit here that I'm indicating, this is a normal area, with a single cell lining of the gut, all nice regular cells, all lined up along the edge there. Now in this area, they've begun to proliferate too quickly, and to grow in a rather uncontrolled manner, and this has given rise to a sort of cauliflower-like area where the epithelium is bulging out, because there are too many cell to line it. However, there is still some control over these cells, because they still have a certain organised pattern to them, and they still are staying actually on the edge of the bowel, and they aren't invading into the centre of this stalk here. However, in the bottom panel here, the cells have begun to proliferate and mushroom out like that, but they've also lost another layer of control, and they've begun to infiltrate into the wall of the bowel. And this at the bottom here is a true malignant tumour. I think you can see, here they are, infiltrating, these dark cells, into the wall of the bowel. And that's the beginning of the infiltration, the spread, that cancers can do.
So. We know now that the cause of cancer is not generally one single agent and it doesn't occur in a quick overnight step. There are generally several series of events which have to occur in order for a cancer to develop. And this is shown in two of them. There's the first with increased cell growth, but with a certain degree of control remaining, and then there's the stage where really the control of the growth is completely lost. And we know about these series of events in quite a few cancers. I've put two up here on this slide, two that I thought you would know something about, just to demonstrate the series of events that occur. Now, we all know that smoking is associated with lung cancer. But we also know that not everybody who smokes gets lung cancer. So clearely there must be other things involved in the progression towards the final malignancy. And these may be other environmental factors, they may be genetic factors, very often the cell division that I was just telling you about gets a bit imbalanced and too many chromosomes may go into one side of the cell and not enough in the other side, and these chromosome
abnormalities may then be an extra step in this progression. And, indeed viruses may be a step in this progression. So that in the next example I've put here, cancer of the cervix, multiple sexual partners is a known risk factor for developing this tumour, but fortunately not everybody who has multiple sexual partners develops this tumour. However, multiple sexual partners predisposes to infection with the human papilloma virus, and human papilloma virus is another step in the progression towards the development of malignancy.
Now this is bringing me on to talking about viruses, and here are a selection of viruses, pictures again taken down an electron microscope, just to show you what they look like. They come in various shapes and sizes. This one here is the one that's associated with liver cancer; this is the AIDS virus; and this one is associated with diarrhoea, and this one with cold sore. Now viruses are extremely small, and on this slide I've got a diagram here of a regular bacteria. I think you know that bacteria are small. You need a microscope to see a bacterium. But viruses are even smaller. And here is the smallest virus that you can have, the ?Haber virus, and here is the largest virus which you can have, the Cox virus, and they are no way anything like the size of even the smallest bacteria.
Now because viruses are so small, they can't live on their own; they have to live inside a living cell. They need some of the chemicals inside a living cell in order to be able to divide themselves, and grow. So that they are natural parasites, and I guess that's from our point of view the problem, that they have to live inside of ourselves in order to grow themselves.
Now there are two types of viruses broadly speaking. One, which causes an acute type of disease, that is, rather like the measles virus or the flu virus, these will infect your body, give you a disease, and when your system has got control of it, the virus will leave the body, and you will not be bothered by that virus again. And in tissue culture this is the kind of thing that that sort of virus does. Here is a nice sheet of normal cells growing in the laboratory, and if you infect them with the measles virus, they enter the cells, they take over the whole mechanism, they utilise it for their own resources and they kill the cells. And you get a terrible mess like this up here. And that's really the end of the cells.
However there are other viruses which when they infect you, they don't necessarily give you an acute disease but they have the ability to persist in the body, and they can infect you for the whole of your life. And, so that they actually don't kill the cells. What they do, some of them anyway, is cause the cells to grow, and to proliferate. And here again on the left-hand side, we have a nice sheet of normal cells, and when these are affected by one of those type of viruses they are induced to proliferate, to grow, so that each cell there will give rise to a clump of cells like these and in some cases they will go on and on growing if we continue to feed them in the laboratory. And these are the sort of viruses which are associated with cancers.
Now I want to spend the rest of the talk telling you about the virus, or the cancer, that I work on. And in this case, really, many of the steps which are involved in the production of this cancer have been worked out. The tumour is called Burkett's lymphoma, after the man who first identified it. His name was Denis Burkett and he was a missionary-surgeon in Africa
in the early 1950s. And he recognised this tumour which commonly occurs in African children and commonly in the jaw, as it has in this child here. He recognised it and stated that he'd never seen this tumour when he worked in this country, but when he went to Africa he found it was really quite common. And investigating this, he took off on a trip around Africa and what he discovered was that the tumour wasn't actually common over all Africa, but only in certain areas. So it showed a geographical restriction. And this is a map taken from one of his papers which showed the areas in which this tumour occurs. And it really appeared to be a belt across the centre of Africa. And he worked out that the tumour occurred only in areas which were below 1000 feet, i.e. not at high altitudes, it occurred in areas where the minimum temperature was sixteen degrees centigrade, so only where the temperature was above that, and only where the rainfall was over 60 cms per year. So it clearly had very specific requirements in order for this tumour to occur. And because of this, workers in this country, in fact workers at the Middlesex Hospital, just around the corner from here, decided that this was a good bet for a tumour caused by an infectious agent. And they spent a long time looking for an infectious agent associated with this tumour. And eventually after about two years of work they came up with a virus. And this is it. It's called the Epstein-Barr virus, after the people who did all this work, they were called Professor Epstein and Dr Barr. [Joke: occurred to me there's a pun on Edgar ?Allan Poe, 'The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether.'] They called this virus after themselves. And then, once they discovered the virus in the tumour, they had to find out whether it really was associated with the tumour, or whether it was just a sort of passenger virus which happened to be present in the material. And again they spent a lot of time trying to work this out, and what they eventually showed was that it was associated with all the tumours that they looked at, so that was a god sign, but it was one of these persistent viruses that I was talking about, and that it does cause cells to grow and proliferate in an uncontrolled manner, when you use it to infect cells in the laboratory. So it certainly sounds as if it's a good bet for being associated with this human tumour. However, the only puzzling thing was that this virus has a world-wide distribution. In fact, about 95% of us in this room will be infected and carrying the virus at this time. And that didn't fit with the geological [sic] restriction of the tumour.
So they really then had to set about explaining why the tumour had this geographical restriction, and looking for another cofactor, another link in the chain which would lead to the development of the tumour, which did show that geographical restriction. And the answer turned out to be this! I don't know if you recognise that. That's a blood film, and these are red blood cells, and within some of them you'll see this nasty creature, which is the malaria parasite. And the answer turned out to be malaria, and the virus. if you look at the geographical distribution of malaria, it in fact entirely mirrors that of Burkett's lymphoma, and as you know I'm sure, malaria is spread by this equally nasty little beast, and not quite so little, the mosquito. [sic] And this mosquito here as you can see is sitting on somebody's arm and having a very large blood meal. It's abdomen is full of blood from that individual. And it spreads malaria from one individual to another.
So the question is then - oh. Malaria, as I say, has exactly the same geographical restriction as Burkett's lymphoma, and of course it is the reason why the tumour does not occur above a thousand feet, because these mosquitoes do not fly above a thousand feet. They also need a high temperature, over sixteen degrees centigrade, and a high rainfall in order to breed in the water where their larvae live. So that seemed to fit extremely well. The only question remaining then is what is the link between the virus and the malaria, which leads to this tumour?
And in order to look at this problem we from our laboratory went out to Gambia in West Africa and we looked at the virus infection in individuals who were suffering from acute malaria. That's group one here. And in the same individual when they'd recovered from their malaria. And we counted the number of cells in the body which were carrying the virus. And what we were able to show was, that, during an acute attack of malaria the number of virus carrying cells in the body increased enormously. And this was probably due to the malaria causing depression of the immune system. It's well known to do that, it causes the immune system to be depressed during the time when an individual has malaria, and this depression allows the number of virus-carrying blood cells in the body to increase, and to grow. And if you increase the number of cells, then you increase the chances of a tumour occurring in one of those cells. So that seemed to form a link between the malaria and the virus.
Now finally just one other thing we know about this tumour, and that is that a chromosome abnormality also occurs and also seems essential for the development of the tumour. I don't know if you're familiar with looking at chromosomes, but this is the sort of spread that you get from one of these tumour cells, and when you sort all the chromosomes out and put them into pairs and line them up as we have done down here you can see that there are some abnormalities. For example, here's a very peculiar looking chromosome; these four down here didn't seem to fit into any sort of pattern at all. And also, in all these tumours, one of the chromosomes 8 has a bit missing off the end of it. I don't know if you can see that this one is actually shorter than that one. And this bit goers and gets stuck on the end of chromosome 14. So this one is longer than this one. And those chromosome abnormalities also predispose to the development of the tumour. So that finally, we can end up with a sort of progression, a series of events, which have to occur in order for this particular tumour to develop. I discussed with you about Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV as we now call it, and recurrent malaria. These two infections seem to interact probably because recurrent malaria causes immune suppression and because Epstein-Barr virus prolongs the life of the a, and causes it to grow and proliferate, and then in one of those cells that carries the virus, a rare chromosomal abnormality occurs, and this leads eventually to the outgrowth of the tumour. Now, there may be other steps involved in the progression towards this tumour, but we don't know about them at the moment. These are the ones which have been identified. And as I say, this is one of the tumours in fact where the most the steps have been identified. And the involvement of the virus of course means that there is some way, perhaps, of dealing with, either preventing or treating this tumour, and at the present time there's a lot of work going on, making a vaccine to Epstein-Barr virus in order to try and
immunise children at an early stage and prevent the development of this tumour.
So that's all I've got to say really. I hope I've been able to show you that cancer research is an exciting field to be in at the moment. It can involve field studies, going out to Africa and looking at the actual site where a tumour occurs, it involves laboratory studies, and also dealing with patients. Thank you." [Applause.]
95-03-22 3/5 SET 95 'Teenagers and Sex' by Ms Kaye Wellings, Health Promotion Services Unit
- Co-authored 'Sexual Behaviour in Britain'
- Joke: this woman was not from LSHTM at all! Joke: seems to have absolutely no medical qualifications either.
- Joke: do-gooder type presentation which I imagine went down like lead; points included:
- Joke: "Tends to put people into a panic.. these two words in one sentence.. try to quell that panic by looking at hard information..'
- Joke: Several jokes!: Sex is a very positive force, it's a way of expressing affection, and it bonds people together, but it's also a very powerful force; it can bring down kings and processes and soap stars and Tory ministers and.. deputy governors of the Bank of England.. .. It tends to be managed and controlled in most societies.. times when we're getting on with the important things of life like work, and getting on with our affairs and so on. Most societies however primitive have a social institution in which it's looked after. And in ours it's called marriage. Sex produces children, who are best looked after in a stable union, and the institution of marriage makes sure that happens. .. increasingly less likely for everyone to be married.. live together.. that's still the normal pattern.. The problem is that age which society thinks is appropriate for use to enter into the institution of marriage is a good deal letter than we are ready for sex. .. "
- [Joke:] ".. Kids who flout the law. This is a reference to the age of sexual consent, which is 16, but as you may or may not know, it is an offence for boys to have sex with a girl under that age, but it's not an offence for a girl. So the girl is protected by the law. .."
- Joke: 'church' mentioned (just once)
- [Joke: at some point she says you can worry too much; one of her sons goes out with lots of girls, so she worries. The other doesn't go out with girls, so...]
- Asking the audience what they thought the average age is of first intercourse; the boys guessed lower than the girls, at say 15 as opposed to 16; in fact a huge survey has been done of 90,000 people so we have (Wellings implied) reliable information. The median seemed to be about 17, and as we sample older groups the median went up, though only up to about 21 I think.
- A question was: B How old were you when you first had any kind of experience of a sexual kind - for example kissing, cuddling, petting - with someone of the opposite sex. If respondent queries, explain any kind of experience that you feel
is sexual.'
- Joke: Being a productive member of society - going to university or doing apprenticeships etc - stressed in what I felt was a Note: class biased and pushy way especially from someone herself untrained etc. Mustn't be distracted from exams etc.
- Joke: table of ages at menarche; as usual the idea is it's declined. But how is the information obtained?
- Joke: one of the tables had a confusion as 'age of interview' looked like the vertical column but in fact referred to the headings across the table.
- Joke: end of the 1980s; what happened? She asked the audience and a girl eventually answered 'AIDS'. She projected a table of condom use and seemed pleased it had crept up from I think 40% to 60%. Joke: she didn't consider that perhaps people had just said this.
- Joke: Nothing on homosexuality
- Joke: nobody responded to request for questions. She thought perhaps some might like to talk to her after.
95-03-22 4/5 SET 95 "Darwin's Disease" and Genetic Diversity by Prof Michael Miles, Applied Molecular Biology and Diagnostics.
- Chagas Disease in South America and large bugs; this man, a northerner, pleased with himself because he's allowed to visit Rio and places, did some of this vector stuff, investigating and plotting things in the blood and in wild animals. Since he said hundreds of the bugs which can live in [primitive] human dwellings there do so, his work seemed a bit dead-ended, but one shouldn't say that.
Joke: I think he must have relocated from a Unit with 'vector' in the title.
Joke: recommends this work as you can travel etc. "But it's not a soft option."
Joke: he said nothing about genetic diversity, except projecting a slide showing connections between strains; he didn't say what definition is used to assess closeness.
Richard Ennals gave me some tapes.
-2000 Reith Lecture Vandana Shiva on globalistaion/ Pros and cons of Vaccinations
-2000 Unnecessary Operations (teeth, tonsils, circumcision, grommets)/ David Irving [*** couldn't find this tape ***]
-2000 June 13, 15 - Radio 4 on BNP/ radio 4 on Asians in Southall
---------------------------------
dio 4 interview of Anthony Burgess; promoting his book 'Any Old Iron'
31: Woman's Hour [Radio 4]/ Radio 4 play extracts *
- Woman's Hour Radio 4 2-3 pm; example of what's thought suitable for women
Side B:
- Extracts from typical BBC radio plays:
1. Prunella Scales in a play about a girl, religion
2. Boy visiting Wales in 1956
3. '8 months on Ghazzah Street'
4. 'Citizens'
5. Teacher who's ill
32: Radio version of Karamazov/ Martin Carthy *
- Most of episode 15 of Radio 4's 'Brothers Karamazov'
Side B:
- Martin Carthy and material on 'the English Tradition', including stuff about bogus old buildings and paintings about dogs/ FULY TRANSCRIBED
33: Radio 2 Martin Carthy
- Wed 2nd Feb 1994 8.30-9 pm: Carthy plays selections from his huge record collection
41: R1?: Easter Day Pop 1969-79/ 1961 top 3/ Ray Manzarek of the Doors
- Sort of survey of the Doors, including the story of the discovery of a foot-operated bass instrument which one of them adopted
42: Radio 4? Three Christian Programmes, Easter 1989 *
SIDE A
1. Economist on Selling the Church
- Note: Typical radio device is to ascribe a title like this to somebody; "an economist", "the educationalist" or whatever. In fact the man seems unlikely to be an economist in any serious sense. The main interest in his voiceover is (1) his trotting out the naive view of Christian beneficence and goodness, which is done unselfconsciously and in considerable ignorance; (2) mixture with market economics - e.g. their plus points and powerful marketing devices like buildings, hymns and so on; (3) iteration of the myth that the Church of England spends much time advocating radical politics etc (John Gummer appears in the programme, putting this view - or rather taking it for granted while commenting about it)
2. Debate on belief in God
- This is Ludovic Kennedy vs a bishop; it's recorded with a high echo, perhaps in a cathedral, no doubt to add to the effect. Kennedy tries various rational arguments etc but makes the mistake of being on the attack; instead of the bishop putting forward his views, which Kennedy might then ridicule, he's constantly having to excavate the other man's views, which of course gives him plenty of time to modify, evade, or obscure them.
3. Words and Music for Easter
Side B:
- Continued
43: R4?: Asian UK Millionaires/ 'Chartered Management'?/ Kaleidoscope: Ray Bradbury
SIDE A: FAITH AND FORTUNE
- Three families, I think: ?Paul, Patel, and a Pakistani one, two I think Hindu [the programme didn't give their caste!] and the other Muslim.
Rather nauseating VO by a woman: introduction said the country pinned its faith on the likes of Alan Sugar and Richard Branson [this programme made when Clive Sinclair out of favour], but now there's a new ?class of businessman, the Asian millionaire. These were from the Asian Who's Who. [The programme didn't ask why, if Asian millionaires were so wonderful, Asia had great poverty]. Fascinating to see the unawareness of the obvious fact that competition must lead to failures as well as successes, or at least the inability to fit this into a coherent framework. For example, it's taken for granted that the 'powerful' Asian 'community' in Uganda should act in a more or less unified way, ignoring the blacks.
One had a chain of I think newsagents's shops - taken over unexpectedly from Hanson for £16 million, I think; certain amount of descriptive stuff on stocking chocolate so it doesn't break and redesigning stairs etc. Another has a Sheffield steel-making business. The third seemed to have some wholesale or other distribution..
Odd religious references at intervals - e.g. Asians from Uganda, who said they'd started with nothing (but had an office on Monday morning on arrival) and who bought with Jewish
money-lending money a Chiswick shop, said they threw out all their Bibles, which didn't sell. And they stocked soft porn, which did. Eventually they donated to the local church. Some man has Hindu god pictures all over his dashboard. They all seem to describe themselves as very religious, and believe their work is watched by someone up there. Their wives - some of arranged marriages - seem docile; both sexes explain that running a household is hard work. They talk about educating their sons etc (and daughters; I think in Gujerati and Sanskrit) - exactly the same as is noticeable in Yorkshire families, Quakers, Jews, etc. Couple of sons interviewed: one mentions his surname and says he's proud to get respect, repeating this word. None seemed (yet) to rebel against going into the family business.
SIDE B
- Stuff about managers (a la Andy) being Cosmopolitan, doing arts degrees, going to Oxford or London and not Cambridge, being exposed to many races and things like street markets. But also apparently needing to study basic business vocabulary. Like Chartered Engineers, who apparently have to have four years' experience in addition to qualifications, the British Institute of Management hopes for some sort of qualification. This programme had a woman critic who pooh-poohed most of this.
Unfortunately, little attention was paid to the subjects supposedly to be taught! What would they actually be told? This rather central point was omitted almost entirely
44: LBC? Catherine Cookson/ Golding/ Kaleidoscope: Poetry/ Private Eye April 1 1989
SIDE A
- COOKSON: Longish interview. Her dad was Irish; her real name something like Katy MacMullen. Married Cookson, the grammar school master [I think she said]. Someone called Micheline Wandor, a 'serious writer', says she's an interesting phenomenon, not just an ordinary romantic novelist: love of the north-east, love of the country. There's more to it than that.
Top of every list, hardback, paperback, 16 languages; 23 of top 100 public library books (in Britain). [Cookson herself says over 80 stories; total sales not given].
[Woman with Geordie voice, evidently a fan:] "Whenever there's a new Cathrine Cukeson buke comes out, my usband'll say this ouse is like a bloomin tip your mother's gorra new buke another Cathrine Cukeson buke but you can't help it you really can't you can't put them down" ".. theatre.. generations.. a hurl generation of women in a row.. wipe a tear from their eye.."
"I believe I firmly believe it's the enviroment.. I never use what they call plots.. I take characters an I put characters in an evironment and they all react to that enviroment"
Her books ARE comforting, the wicked don't flourish, good triumphs in the end, you put down the book with a huge sigh. Most of her books involve a very very poor girl marrying the Lord of the Manor, no matter what genuine horrors she's been through. A woman director of popular studies from Sheffield Polytechnic (I think) novelist complains that although the book is supposed to show things from the girl's point of view, there are salacious bits of description with heaving flesh and outlined breasts. Rape of the housemaid is a common theme, we're told, "just like
in the 19th century it was in the memory.. girls in service.. big houses." Her books are about class, 'though they don't feel like that'.. incredibly melodramatic.. etc.. put it down.. that was jolly good, wasn't it!
She says: "I've played the lady" in her Irish/ Newcastle accent - laughable and ludicrous effect. "What did it cost me? It cost me the breakdown. .. I had to hold up a mirror to myself.. when I found I was to blame for building a facade for myself.. I said go back to what you are.. You are Katie Cookson to the world, but Katie Mulholland to yourself.." She says she always remembers what it's like to be plain Katy MacMullen. 'She knew that just below the surface.. child that emptied slops.. by the green wall to the midden.. she would always be what her early years had made her.."
When she was small, she was called a bastard! Yes, her 'aunt' was her mother, she had no proper da, etc. Her mother was a charwoman who turned to drink etc.
She explains how she started telling stories, with a dull story: "The first time I remember telling a story was when I came running down the back lane to me granda [sic] who was sitting in the kitchen and I said to him er granda you know who I seen sitting round the top corner? And he said er no I don't know who you see sitting round the top corner who? and I said well you know that little man that er you used you're always talkin about that er used to sit on a wall in I-land an e had a red hat an a brown cordroy trouser and er an green boots [rhymes woods] well he spoke to me round the top corner an I remember me granda said he did now did e? And I said yes and he said whaddide say? And er I said he didn't say anything at first but I said to him, me granda knows you huh huh and so on and so on and ... and he said you know what you are Katie MacMullen you're a stinkin liar but you go on it'll get you someplace eether into the clink or into the money."
"My life has been all one bad patch.. it was in my blood.. my blood showed when I was 17.. anaemic" "You were a delicate little girl?" "Er you couldn't call me delicate.. strife.. all my life.. pushing.. like now, when I get up I have to make an effort.. etc.."
".. Take a child like Katie Mulholland. Feed her, clothe her and what will you have? Doubtless a child who would be acclaimed from here to Rome. Yet what will happen to her? She'll marry a miner, have two or three children and by the time she's thirty there'll be no semblance left of the beautiful girl."
Amusing religious thing, in which she says she's thrown it out of the window with a bang, etc. Once she shouted "If there's anyone there, give me a story" and an hour later, there was a clock on the mantelpiece, she got up and had the whole story in her mind etc.. She always 'goes to the pictures' as she calls it, working out all the dialogue in her mind, 'which is why it is real.'
- WILLIAM GOLDING: Very plummy and slightly quavery voice, of the sort Peter Sellers caricatured in old actors, though combined with odd pronunciations, e.g. 'r' as 'rrr', no doubt a product of his poor upbringing. Disagreeably pleased with the bread-and-butter aspect of 'Lord of the Flies', which sells as well as ever. Thinks highly of his novel 'the Inheritors', which
is about Neanderthal [pron. -th-] man. He thinks it has good insights (I forget his phrase) though he's been careful never to read it again, in case it isn't. The VO man reads an extract about a storm at sea, with usual arty but screamingly dull stuff, with [Note: sex] rather woman-like insistence on miraculous changes of weather. Then asks Golding what the sea means to him. He used to fear it; then he used to love it; now he has a cautious watchfulness. Like Cookson, he considers there are religious things in his book. He was on Brains Trust and said he believed in original sin; someone like Huxley ticked him off, and said man had something like an inborn incapacity to live in peace; Golding said that's what I mean by original sin.
SIDE B:
- 'Kaleidoscope' programme on poetry; somewhat laughable critical attempts
- 'Private Eye' 1989 Xmas record, including mock Saatchi and Saatchi ad about British Rail in Kent with rather odd passage about men of Kent suffering as they so often have done in the past.
45: R1?: LPs from 1960s to 1980s. Parts 1 and 2 of 4 ...
46: ... LPs from 1960s to 1980s. Parts 3 and 4 of 4
47: R1: 'Spirits of Woodstock' August 1989 2 1/2 hours. Tape 1..
48: .. and tape 2.
49: R1 'The Story of Pop' Just two episodes
- Episode 20: 'Hoboes to Hippies' including Woody Guthrie (on children's BBC!!) and Bob Dylan [on Guthrie, see miles mathis in folk.pdf]
- Most of episode 22: Monterey to Woodstock
50: Mills and Boon Pre-recorded Guide to Writing Romantic Fiction
51: TV: Dire Straits, Wembley, Nelson Mandela concert 11 June 1988
- Billy Connolly introduction: Banned. Royalties from S A to Amnesty international. .. "instead of spending it on hamburgers and things like anyone else.. those shits.. it must break their hearts when they sign the cheques.."
52: R4: US/USSR Vietnam/Afghanistan 'veterans' 89/ Law in Action/ Week Ending comics
53: Capital Radio: Kenny Everett [?1985] - with Sci Fi story
- Struck me as amusing example of disk jockey stuff:
- Bank managers' special plea corner, with letter from account number [long number] of Islington read out; they don't mind grovelling for you, because they're doing it at a microphone
- [Note: legal:] Somewhere here it says that eating three meals a day was illegal for two centuries of British history
- Joke serial, how exciting!, by Everett, as Captain Somebody piloting his spaceship in the farthest reaches of the
universe into a giant eyeball in space; comedy largely derives from Everett's verbal fluency and mimicry
- Various phone-in quizzes: e.g. most popular letters of the alphabet in English/ identify the song, speeded up absurdly or otherwise encoded
- Various jokes about music - e.g. a re-recorded Police song which was a hit - "Let's hope it doesn't set a trend, or Max Bygraves etc"
- Ads inevitably dated; one for Polanski's film 'Pirates'
54: R1: Paul McCartney talks to Mike Read [Radio 1 series early '89]
- About three programmes of, I think, six
'Yesterday' story: Scrambled egg/ oh my baby how I love your leg .. no one claimed the tune..
'Michelle' story: originated in 'daring' parties he went to, pretending to be an art student. Always someone in the corner with a guitar, doing Jacques Brel songs. He imitated this [does a verbal thing, noises vaguely French in suggestion, but no actual words]; and someone suggested that would be a good basis for a song. [NB: 1993 Malcolm McLaren who invented the 'Sex Pistols' said in the 60s London had what they called 'caves', pron. French way, black polo-necks, Gitanes; 'The French have always liked the people the English hate' thinking no doubt of Wilde, and himself]
Friends with Mick Jagger; Brum policeman said he was dirty because he wore the same t-shirt on stage as he'd worn during the day/ A & R men always asking the Beatles if there was a group they liked
'Mersey sound' phrase was not our choice
Giggles when filming Help - much wasted footage while the actors do their stuff
LA: man took legal action, claiming to have writtenn I Want To Hold Your Hand. Years later, M realised this was just for publicity
Went to US only when no 1.. "You heard yourself on U.S. radio"
Cover of Rubber Soul (this was Mac's title): photo projected on LP cover size piece of white card; held at an angle, "Ooh yea!"
Cover of Pepper: things to look at on a half hour bus journey home
Good B sides as he'd hated being cheated out of his little pocket money. Phil Spector didn't agree: call the B side 'singalong'
Liked or chose Dick Lester because of Running, Jumping, Standing Still Film and its 'wacky humour' [Cp. Lennon liking, or choosing, George Martin because he produced Peter Sellers
George Martin a salaried producer making suggestions; they refused 'How Do You Do It', dug their heels in, to retrospective surprise of M
Saddled with Northern Songs, not realising Dick James, who sang 'Robin Hood', had only just started publishing music; like anyone with something new, they'd do anything to get it published. Resented the fact that when they became successful the contract wasn't reconsidered.
Ultrasound demonstrated by engineers, "The sort of thing you
do in studios" and George Martin's remark that dogs can hear it; "We gorra ave that!"
The Bag o' Nails [I think] where he met his wife; and a few other clubs
The bit at end of Sgt Pepper; because at the daring all night parties they went to the needle would click for about thre hours before anyone got up. It was put onto CD too
Story of orchestra and 15 bars in 'A Day in the Life': the string players are like sheep, follow each other; trumpet section traditionally wags, as it's thirsty work, they were all over the place
Censorship and 'A Day in the Life': they knew it had to be banned for something..
Feedback story on 'I Feel Fine'; new acoustic Gibson placed next to speaker. A string vibrated. Wow!
Brown paper bag and Sgt Pepper story ["It's a wonderful album, wonderful. Put a brown paper bag over it. It'll sell."]
Mr Kite from a poster story
55: Goon Shows; three on 90 min tape
- These are 1985 [1955], Shifting Sands [1957], The Last Smoking Seagoon [1960]
- See for notes on these
59: EDWARD SAID talks to Tariq Ali 15 Dec 1994
- From TV talk on Channel 4
60-62: EDWARD SAID: REITH LECTURES 1993
1 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE INTELLECTUAL
2 HOLDING NATIONS AND TRADITIONS AT BAY
3 INTELLECTUAL EXILES
4 PROFESSIONALS AND AMATEURS
5 SPEAKING TRUTH IN POWER
6 GODS THAT ALWAYS FAIL
63-64: THE BENN TAPES. 1/4 hour programmes. *
-Tony Benn's Taped Diaries, but edited by several heavy-handed BBC people. Seven quarter-hour episodes (7th of 8 omitted)
Resignation of Wilson and excitement of change of power
Note: Numbers; corruption?: Treasury estimates of Borrowing Deficit were wrong; as a result, completely unnecessary cuts were made which led to 'Winter of Discontent' and fall of Labour
Jim Callaghan, including his song "I'm the Man the very fat man that waters the workers beer"
Miners Strike 1984 with police station visit
Royalty: north sea oil occasion, handing in & receiving seals of office; talk with Duke of Edinburgh
1997 Windscale strike of nuclear workers; technical fix fixation he says despite evident fact that workers would be needed; and meeting of head of civil service and police authorities etc of a sort which is stated not to happen
- [Episode omitted; I forgot to record it]
64: Benn's 1992 general election memories; just single
episode
65-67: BBC Radio: 15 Jan 1991: Parliament debates Iraq & 'Gulf War'
65: c 6.30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- Greville ?Janner [mostly on Israel and striking back against Saddam Hussein; we would do just the same]
- Ian Paisley [wanting the Prime Minister to ask the Queen for a day of prayer to almighty God as we face human impotency]
- Tony Benn [various aspects, including:
He will vote against and hopes others will do the same or abstain
constitutional trick (which apparently happened to Parliament during the Second World War too - he's the only remaining MP who served in Parliament during WW2) of the 'Royal prerogative', 'the old feudal anachronism', being 'wheeled out to bypass this house'.
Also on British troops being under foreign operational command and in effect disenfranchised.
Disgrace that there's been no opportunity given for some sort of vote - he presumed because the government wasn't certain what the result would be.
Where is the UN mandate to remove Saddam Hussein?
Delighted with President Mitterand's [French] initiative; linkage will become a fact if Saddam attacks Israel. There'll have to be talks anyway - why not have them before rather than after?
War solves nothing
- Ian Gilmour [Tory; ex-defence spokesman of some kind] who supports the government, though reluctantly, being unhappy about the way it was done: he states US has behaved hypocritically about the Palestinians for the last 40 years, because of the small minority of Americans in the Jewish lobby. He mentioned testing of experimental US weapons against Lebanese [this is in Chomsky, too] and therefore aren't honest about their motives. Nevertheless he will of course support our ?fine troops.
- Andrew Faulds described in VO as a 'confirmed Arabist', who says Israel, in pursuance of 'the Biblical fantasy of Eretz Israel' will want to annexe Jordan as she long has intended
- Hector Munro
- David Owen
- Peter Fry [Conservative]
- Dawn Primarolo [Labour, I think Bristol]
- Sir Robert Boscowen
- Stan Orme
- Julian Critchley
- Rev Martin Smith [Ulster Unionist]
66: c 8.10 p.m. - 9.40 p.m.
- Nigel Fall
- Peter Shore
- Richard Luce
- Jim Sillars
- Peter Temple-Morris
- Bernie Grant [Racism; he compares with white wars & with a battle in Angola or South West Africa]
- Gerald Kaufmann
- Tam Dalyell
- Douglas Hurd
67: c 9.40 - 10 p.m.
- Douglas Hurd
- Healey interview
68: BBC Radio: 21 Jan 1991: small amount of debate then censored
69: BBC TV: BBC's idea of an intellectual: Michel Foucault *
- The point here is that some months before this, Ch 4 broadcast a Canadian film of Chomsky, in which the Ch 4 chap said Chomsky in his opinion is the most important intellectual in the world. Then this programe was broadcast by the BBC; in the titles, a disembodied voice said something like "Foucault could be the most important intellectual of the twentieth century.."
70: R4: ARCHERS MARCH 93/ Air Traffic control/ Hong Kong/ Nuclear Power/ History of Parliamentary Select Committees
71: Thames TV [ITV] on Nixon & Watergate *
- Sort of whitewash thing, with revelations about Haldemann, Butterfield, whatever, and self-pitying stuff from Nixon
72: BBC2 TV: Britain and the Spanish Civil War poss 1993 *
- [Note: official 'revisionism' is spurious:] Interesting quasi-revisionist account of the Spanish Civil War (omitting the fact, if it is a fact, quoted in Red Pepper, of British Intelligence assisting Franco at the start of his invasion).
Naturally full of quasi-detail with little in the way of overview.
- Tiny amount of information on economic interests: e.g. Rio Tinto's name mentioned, 'pyrites' shipped to Wales 'essential for the arms industry' or something. Much of this (we gather, in passing) was in Republican areas.
- Republic consistently obstructed and 'nationalists' helped: e.g. nit picking over shipments of stuff: were they loaded properly? Was the ship's weight as specified? Is a gas mask an item for military use? Whilst ignoring shipments of entire motorized divisions.
Aircraft sales to republic stopped in various ways; licences removed, planes immobilized etc; a republic man quoted as saying if they'd had fifty planes there would never have been a civil war at all.
- Contradictions over shipping: much shipping then was of course British, and British government warned British captains to stay clear of Spanish ports; one captain ignored this and said the stories of danger were nonsense; the government grudgingly changed its line.
There were incidents of unmarked submarines sinking ships (fairly long list of ships is scrolled on screen) though these incidents stopped when ?Britain announced such submarines would
be 'sunk immediately on sight'. VO leaves what really happened vague.
- Anthony Eden (then Foreign Secretary) presented as liar on fairly considerable scale
- Finance: National Westminster mentioned and Barclays; naturally the republic had great difficulties; eventually they shipped gold in secret to Moscow to pay for Russian equipment and technicians. No credit. Whereas the nationalists received credit.
Spain had the fourth largest supply of gold in the world.
- Concludes (or at least quotes a diary note of a Spaniard) tacit support by Britain was the main reason for the success of Franco's 'nationalists'
73: R1?: 'Salute to Alan Jay Lerner' *
- Begins with 'Why did you believe me when I said I love you when you know I bin a liar all my life'/ stuff from Gigi/ Camelot (inc apparently some of JFK's favourite lines - hence presumably stuff about Project Camelot etc) and embarrassing song about garbage. Note: Fulsome and insincere tributes by actors, actresses, saying in the American way how wonderful he was, i.e. one eye on fame, money, lawyers, etc
74: BBC: Episode of TV Sitting Pretty called 'Don't Mention the War' [Vietnam]
75:
76:
77: R4: Dr Anthony Clare 'In the Psychiatrist's Chair' Denis Healey/ Les Dawson
78: TV film: Bittersweet by Noel Coward
- [I TAPED THESE FROM TV FILMS FOR TRANSCRIPTION OR TRANSCRIPTION IN PART]
79: TV film: La Ronde
80: TV film: This Happy Breed by Noel Coward
81: TV: When the wind blows [part]/ atom bombers of Hiroshima
82: ?BBC: Dresden Bombing. Nov 1991
83: BBC: Alan Whicker on Triads (in, I think, Hong Kong)
84: US radio: Orson Welles War of the Worlds 1938
85: BBC 1964: Marat/Sade Royal Shakespeare Co 1964
86: BBC Radio: Controversies dividing Asians in Britain/ James Taylor concert
87-91: R4: 27 Jan 1991: MOZART FESTIVAL
- See notes transcribing parts of the comments on this commemoration by an American
93-97: R4: GILBERT & SULLIVAN: Part of complete (ish?) works
98: Red Indians and Canadian Government Calling in the Army: broadcast 1993 *
- Both sides recorded from TV. Quite a bit is in French Canadian. Includes historical account of Red Indians being pushed around as white arived etc.
99: That Was The Week That Was (selections broadcast BBC Sep 93) *
- [These recorded from TV for easier transcription. Se for 1960s]
100: Tory Party Conference Blackpool Tues 5 Oct, Wed 6th Oct 1993 *
- Some extracts from TV broadcast by BBC including Douglas Hurd [foreign], Rifkind [Home].
- Videotape has John Major's supposedly 'back to basics' speech
104: Shakespeare Authorship etc LBC with Frank Bough/ Sylvester McCoy Tues 11 Jan 94
SIDE A
- [Not at all convincing thing. Essentially a plug for a £20 book by obscure publisher.]
- Ian Wilson, 'Shakespeare the Evidence: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and His Work'. Wilson lives in Bristol we gather as Bough thinks he couldn't come the previous week because of floods in Kent, when they were Bristol
- Bough mentioned a man called Francis Carr, of The Shakespeare Authorship Information Centre, Brighton. No other information
- Philip Henslow [proprietor, like Hemyngs who was 'his counterpart with Shakespeare' whose [sc. account] books haven't survived] 's records: for a short time, records of takings at the Rose when Shakespeare's company performed, including Greene's derisory takings, Marlowe 'did a lot better', and Shakespeare 'eclipsing' them: Henry VI 'we don't know which parts.. vastly exceeded that of other playwrights' etc. 'The first real record of a performance of a Shakespeare play.'
- Bough asks about Birth certificate.. grave.. monument without name.. his wife and other members of his family buried alongside.. Anne Hathaway's cottage etc. Wilson says "I do feel there's a will o' the wisp quality about the man.. we don't find records of where he's living in London, for example.. never bought a house.. living in lodgings.. when he does buy a property in London it's when he's leaving.. that's why there's been a great industry of Shakespeare mysteries.." [sic; in fact of course Oxford only identified in 20th century]
- "Birth certificate.. in fact it's a copy made in the early 1600s.. it seems to have been a good one.. pretty sure he was born in Stratford-on-Avon.. bought New Place.. unfortunately disgruntled vicar pulled it down in the 1700s.."
- Wilson compares Stratford-on-Avon with Jerusalem for hype etc
- Wenceslaus Hollar.. Czech.. some 50 years later.. about 1640.. shows 2nd Globe.. first burnt down in 1613.. drawn from the tower of Southwark Cathedral.. very much the way Shakespeare would have known it.. Shakespeare's brother buried.. at that time not a Cathedral.. St Saviour's Church.. special device.. image on a screen.. pencilled in the outlines of the buildings.. this ?picture in a library just outside New York.. Folger [-j-] Shakespeare Library.. more than 70 copies.. nowhere else inc. Britain has more than 5..
- "Elizabethan material.. so much lost.. fire of London.. civil war.. old St Paul's with a spire struck by lightning in 1571.. the City changed completely... .. the Tower still remains.. thoroughfares.. Thames Street.. various gates.. Cheapside.. the Strand.. Fleet Street.. valuable map in the Guildhall Museum wrongly [he says] attributed to ?Agass"
- Wilson when challenged whether anybody knew Shakespeare and mentioned him says "Oh yes, yes." but then gives only two examples, Francis ?Meares, about 1598, the second being Green[?e] [who of course only hinted and gave no description or further matter.]
- Bough: "Uneducated, no literary friends, had no books, couldn't write?" "These are all fictions that Oxfordians etc put about.. Stratford had a perfectly good grammar school.. his father in effect mayor of Stratford at one period.. entitled to free education.."
- Bough: "Foreign countries.. Venice.. court life.. expert on law.. even gardening.." ".. Well educated.. He had contacts in the right places.. courtly people like the Earl of Southampton to whom he dedicated Venus & Adonis & Rape of Lucrece.. sonnets.. first patron Lord Strange who became 5th Earl of Derby.. both men highly influential.."
- "Writing.. six specimens.. three on the will.. there is something wrong with that hand.. what appears to have happened.. 1611 I think .. late in life.. Scrivener's Palsy, or Writer's Cramp.."
- "We have continual records going through of a chap called Shakespeare working with a dramatic company... first Lord Strange's men, then the Lord Chamberlain's Men.. Then the King's men.. James I became their patron.. the company.. quite well to do gentlemen.. "
- Bough: [thinks artists and great men are sometimes not recognized for years, hundreds of years after death..] "In the full daylight of the English renaissance.. Raleigh.. Drake.. extraordinary that we don't know.." [Wilson compares author to author of 'Birds of a Feather': how many people, who enjoy the series, can name the author?]
- "Manuscripts would have stayed with the company.. survived until the civil war.. when because of the association with the King they were disbanded.. in a sense that doesn't matter.. First folios.. 1623... 1000 copies printed of which some 200 survive [238 later given as figure] [joke: printers overs?] .. two men.. nobody gives them credit.. enormous amount of work [sic] .. Shakespeare's fellow actors.. manuscripts definitely existed in 1623.. [One of Wilson's laughable arguments is that Oxfordians and others:] ".. have to call Hemyngs and Condell liars.. they were churchwardens for St Mary Aldermanbury in London, they were gentlemen in their own way, they were very upright individuals.." [M comments this isn't so; the
introduction is ambiguous and can be read as about de Vere]
- ".. big enough undertaking.. Nobody before had actually put together plays.. Plays were regarded as a bit down-market at the time.. like publishing the scripts of some of our comedies.. people didn't do that sort of thing.."
- Bough thinks Dacre [=Trevor-Roper] as well as Powell are sceptical of authorship. "These people who argue for the Earl of Oxford and what have you.. they are saying you had to have an aristocrat, you had to have someone with a university education. Cobblers.. They are written by an actor.. for actors to really crack at it.. that didn't need a university education.. wonderful sensitivity to the world around him.. looks at the lowest people in society as well the highest in equal measure.. rogue like Falstaff.. villain like Richard III.. incredible perception.. complete team his company.. planning the next thing.. real costume spectacular.."
- "Political circumstances of the time.. high degree of censorship.. people executed for being Catholic priests and so on.."
- Wilson thinks Shakespeare might have been a closet Catholic; he says Protestant clergy are figures of fun, but not friars, nuns etc
- [Sam Wanamaker died before recreating the Globe on the South Bank] "I hold my hat high for Sam Wanamaker.. woeful tribute,.. just the only thing a dingy looking plaque on a brewery wall in Bankside.."
- SYLVESTER MCCOY [Actor who played Dr Who] INTERVIEWED
- [He's Scots/Irish, mainly Irish I think]
- Gogol 'Government Inspector' adapted to Ireland before partition: drunk man accidentally draws a border. ".. Chekhov.. that's a comedy??.. this sad play.. but in Ireland it is a comedy.." "Do you understand it?" "Not really, no.. the sins of the father.. tribal rather than religion.."
- [Theatre group called DUBBELJOINT.. Dublin.. Belfast.."]
- "Irish extraordinary use of music and drama.. extraordinary use of language.." "I always say it's not the bombs that worry me, it's the Bushmills.."
- [Four years in a seminary, starting at 12; McCoy gives details of huis headmistress, vocational talks at 11: doctor, fireman, train driver, priest..]
- Round House & getting into TV
SIDE B
Westminster Scandal Audit report 13 Jan 1994 [LBC radio]; these recorded as the story was 'breaking', with a statement read by an auditor. Includes rather sily comments by ANGELA RIPPON ex BBC announcer
[More was revealed the next day - though not much. See Guardian for details of the £21 odd million which was 'missing'. A phone-in person, woman in local government, said [what nobody else had] that the reason Westminster and Wandsworth had very low Community Tax (or whatever it's now called) was that they got much larger SES [?or SAS] grants from central government. [Lots of people had phoned in saying the services were good and the costs low].
105: East Timor: David Munro, Producer of film with John Pilger to be shown same evening on ITV, LBC interview by Frank Bough Tue 22 Feb 94 2-2.30 pm
SIDE A
- Because of ad. breaks, which I've cut, this takes only half the first side on the tape
- He says Douglas Hurd, Kissinger and others declined to take part. The Portuguese ?Ambassador to the ?UN said "Of course it's genocide."
- He blames the regime [Indonesia was described by Nixon as a 'paradise for investors'] not the Indonesians, whom he likes.
- See also videotape of the programme, which laster 90 mins [though including ads], and Radio Times feature p 38
106-7: LBC and phone-ins on 6 June, D-Day, 1994
- Jim Callaghan does some reading-out; joke: the whole thing seems to be a commercial product.
- There are some people with phone-in comments, but, as far as I recall, nothing much of interest or contention
108: Dennis Potter, mostly talking about the BBC and Rupert Murdoch
- Speech made in 1993 Edinburgh Festival (presumably about August 1993) broadcast on 23/24 Aug 1994 on Channel 4, when Potter was dead. Video recorded at 1993 'Edinburgh International Television Festival.'
- Mostly against BBC and Murdoch.
- Includes part of an introduction by Melvyn Bragg, which includes a statement on sighs of relief at the BBC when they 'won the renewal of the Charter'
- Joke: includes news readers as bus conductors, "2/3 earn less than the national average", Armani suited Birt, "probably unbroadcastable playlet" in which Marmaduke meets Birt for the first time, if starting again as a writer he wouldn't select TV as his medium (though he doesn't say what he would select..)
- At one point he describes (and imitates; he also sings in the style of his dad, a song which appeared in his Pnnies from Heaven) the heavy accents of the Forest of Dean area, at least in his boyhood, & states it's a perfect laboratory for studying the effects of the mass media. Unfortunately though I don't think this idea was followed up anywhere; what has been the impact on these people?
- In four parts (I took out ads except middle of side B); first two parts exactly fit side A of tape;
Side B: last parts: talking about himself in preening kind of way, clever child at Oxford, glittering prizes - cp. Margaret Drabble; also stuff on Murdoch Chair of Language and Communications at Oxford University, at a dinner for which Kelvin McKenzie of the Sun was sent, to sit between two professors, Jesus Christ! whom he hoped were anthropologists - various jokes: joke: but note he hasn't understood about state support for Oxford - he still mostly worships it, despite his 'calculating spires' - or BBC which he refers to affectionately as a bumbling giant etc./ When at Oxford he decided with 'indecent haste' to become a politician - Joke: and not just so that the doors opened to him could be opened to others. He seems to reveal he was abused as a child, and watchers of his work will see mist of the
heroes are victims who can't communicate in one way or other
[Note: impact of new media: cp trusting attitudes to newspapers, encyclopedias etc; also I presume certain types' attitude to the printed word - cp more cynical and/or stupid attitudes of others, e.g. working class automatic conditioning against books.] Quite lyrical passages, first on the magical (if plummy) voices coming out of radio, and on his seeing TV at 11 I think for the first time - marvellous medium - cut out class differences - categories of the printed word - entranced - magic - theatre - music - etc which suggest Potter wasn't that bright (cp Barry Norman who liked the cinema). He talks of applications for broadcasting licences to be filed under science fiction fantasy etc at you local public library, 'if there is one', showing a similar naive attitude. Perhaps oddly, he shows no obvious interest in things like hi-fis and music reproduction generally.
He does make a few comments (e.g. people who run it don't own it and have no remit to either make money out of it or to classify listeners automatically as though cattle branded 1 to 5 on their brows of high, middle, low, lower, yet lower; removing the possibility that a listener might stumble across something new or something he didn't know that he did know) and suggestions, e.g. newspapers shouldn't be allowed to own any TV station, not more than one TV station should be owned.. or something like that/ Michael Grade is now the de facto controller of BBC! as sort of joke - Channel 4 some approach to the TV he wants/ puts himself forward for post of chairman of BBC.
120-127: LBC POLITICS RECORDED FROM FM RADIO: Tuesdays 11-12 am: Ken Livingston + Tory + Liberal; ENDED when LBC taken over by Reuters
120
- SIDE 1 is MAY SONGS sung by Northern old lady; they diverge into romantic stuff by 'Lord Byron'
- SIDE 2: FINAL PART OF NEIL KINNOCK AT SOUTH PLACE
KEN LIVINGSTON ET AL [Where possible I've edited out ads]
5 April 1994
121
26 April 1994
10 May 1994 (inc. Nelson Mandela)
122
17th May 1994
Small part of 24th May
Most of 31st May
123
7th June [Europe; and bit on begging, 'Satanic abuse']
14th June [Labour leadership, Euro-elections, name changing and 'candidate' standing as 'literal democrat']
124
Side A: Interview: John Major (Prime Minister) & others 7th June 1994 (NB: OUT OF SEQUENCE), just before Euro-elections
B: Tue 5 July 94 [Bishop of Birmingham and others on NHS; Labour leadership and so called one man one vote; Child Support Agency, a huge issue in middle class circles, but not working class, and which didn't meet its collection target (and which was revealed to offer a percentage if it had done); privatising rail and perhaps Post Office]
125
A: Tue 12th July 1994: Largely on 2 Tory MPs (set up by Sunday Times) taking money for tabling a Parliamentary question, plus discussion among the three on lobbying/ Jeffrey Archer insider dealing scandal/
B: Tue 19 July 94: Rwanda Refugees; Jerry Hayes gets lots of letters saying third world aid should be cut - Livingston produces actual figures of net debtorship of third world; all seem to agree Parliament has no role and MPs are paid no attention to/ Cabinet reshuffle? - Hayes says Ministers of Health are ALL unpopular/ Interests of MPs and offers of money (and Kinnock, earning £100,000)/ Livingston on whips, one pinning a Tory to a wall etc/ Rail strike: Knapp has inflicted a defeat previously so the Tories won't let him get away with the strike; 'no-one will win'/ Grace & Favour housing & privatising of civil service (except the top?) and Royal family
126
A: Tue 2 Aug 94: Livingston, Hayes, Simon Hughes. Report by PSI says something like: 'Britain's poor are resourceful and husband their limited resources.. managing money far better than I could do it.. they are not shiftless and idle.. we must look at the shift to indirect taxation.. VAT on fuels..'
DTI and Heseltine: leaked letter from Portillo telling Heseltine, his senior, to do more for business by cutting taxes etc; Livingston favours government intervention & also recommends Britain to cheat by financing industry, as the French are known to do [they all seem to agree]
A union has suggested clergy should unionise to reduce their chance of being sacked.
And no doubt other things.
B: [last 20 minutes or so Tue 16 Aug 94].
Austin Mitchell (lab), Robert ?Maclennan (Lib Dem), Ottoway (Con.)
- [Note: growth of dispute:] Send troops in re the signalmen's strike? Tory wants this. The others both don't, say it's mad. The government caused the strike by not permitting ?Railtrak's original offer. They intervened to prevent it! Some third party also quoted to the same effect
- Princess Diana; Sunday papers say she made nuisance phone calls to some man, I think a medico. No role.. bored housewife.. shopping as a way of life.. medical treatment.. Tory talks of privacy laws. Telephoto pictures outlawed; photos on private property - like the health club incident- also apparently banned. But two of them think the item was legitimate, as newsworthy.
- MacLennan pronounces 'emanate' with long e
- Should taxes be earmarked? A report by Lib Dems, out tomorrow, apparently recommends this as antidote to the 'problem of taxes being unpopular'. Churchill stopped earmarking of Road Fund Tax in 1930s and we haven't had it since. Penny on income tax for education massively popular. The others are more sceptical. MacLennan says Lib Dems' role is to propose policies - e.g. "giving the unions back to their members" was popular, though not with Labour.
[Note: multiple causation, multiple intentions example:] Tory isn't keen on taxes being hypothecated (a word he didn't know) citing CND not wanting to pay '3p for defence'. He quotes favourably a Littlejohn article: £25 of his taxes goes to keep idle civil servants, £5 to humps in the road, "2.50 on letting
people out of hospital to kill people." "We remain the party that is trying to reduce taxation. It's true we haven't done a very good job.."
- Share options: form of tax fiddle, costing £200 million a year to finance, says Mitchell; privatised utilities, bonanzas, electrical supply industry.. large pay settlements directors are getting.
MacLennan says: ".. massive shares.. to friends of the government.. jobs created by the government.. [something else] government.. frankly corruption.."
AGMs are a farce, says Mitchell; why not return companies to the shareholders?
- [News break says a British soldier who lost a leg on a peacekeeping mission gets no compensation under the rules.
'Peoples' Plane to Rwanda needs £200,000; has most..']
127
A
- Decriminalisation of cannabis voted at Liberal Democrat conference (with comments on fixed nature of Labour and Tory 'conference's]
- Tony Blair cuddling up to Lib Dems? Lib/Lab pact? Labour attitude more/less hostile than Tories? Libs have vague policies, don't know where they stand? [Hughes thinks 95% of all lib dems vote same way; just as high as Tory, Labour]
- IRA and Sinn Fein now allowed publicity (ban lifted)/ drugs? racketeering? prostitution? Livingston ridicules this (and no evidence produced) [Then Hayes completely changes his view]
- Haiti: Hughes and Hayes conventional views; Livingston on millionaires, and embarrassment of refugees, but supports invasion. Hayes has heard of Chile and U.S. [Cp my transcript of Chomsky, broadcast the evening before]
- Report on prisons: drugs etc & escapes has been postponed/ Home Secretary Howard's low profile when things go wrong/ Livingston: prison should be for violent, dangerous criminals/ also government are sitting on report about roads and congestion/ Judge Tumim etc
- Jeremy Handley (chairman of Tory party, I think) attempted to use public funds. Nobody seems to know about this.
- Big Issue newspaper: publisher to give distributors' names/ official and unofficial economies says Hughes/ Livingston on Vesteys haven't paid tax for three generations, corruption in Brent Council small time
- Rail strike: cost >£200 m; could have been settled for 5% of that - says Livingston. Jimmy Knapp has been imaginative, says Livingston. Hayes says Tory laws have been shown to work - workers have but pressure on unions. Hayes says "we're not gonna cut back!"
- Sunday Telegraph: Hayes says Thatcherite, terrible, ghastly bunch, sneer at anyone not toffee nosed, upper class
- Conferences starting to be jokes? 1980 last time Livingston was called in Labour Conference
B
- Livingston, Hayes, and Charles Kennedy. Last of these broadcasts.
- News: [Note: law:] Lloyds legal decision: names entitled to money from agents who didn't warn them of risks (the judge presumably claimed). Reinsurers or someone to pay. The, or one of the, ?syndicates was Gooda Walker; we see stammering man stand
up and say they made no attempt to estimate the likely losses in the event of a catastrophic accident; and several of these happened, including the Piper Alpha ol rig fire and US hurricanes. Lloyds themselves were not a party to the action (said TV news).
- Labour Party Conference at Blackpool; Livingston on remote. Long section on this. Blair's speech will be this afternoon, taxation, minimum wage problem, morale, and says Livingston no-one will rock the boat - they want to get elected
- Sinn Fein, Al Gore phone call, US Irish descent 1/4 of population, Gerry Adams now on TV. [Note: selectivity:] Jerry Hayes doesn't appreciate British government complicity in killings (Livingston does)
- Brief discussion of book about Princess Diana; Livingston thinks it shouldn't have been published.
- Tory Conference next week: Hayes thinks they'll say the old labour party is back.
150: R4 'News at One' programmes May 1993
151: R4 'News at 1' and The Archers 26, 27 May 1994
20: World Service undated: French, German broadcasts/ Edgar Wallace Fan Club
- See service
- Edgar Wallace Fan Club: group of enthusiasts on the lines of Baker Street ?Irregulars
21: World Service: Israel/ Negotiating// Radio 4: 'Face the Facts' on Sharp Practices & Fundamentalist Evangelism
- See service
22: BBC Radio 4: 'You and Yours' - AIDS film with ridicuolous BBC people / 'fattism' and 'prejudice' on race - tradition working class fat women / Health and smoking and cigars miniatured - advertising etc / Hants solicitor's book being promoter anecdotal guide to law and your rights inc car insurance and sneakily trying to get a signature - plastic bag in shop negotiating - complaints, give me money back with silly voices; sigh - rather disgusting programme - more than £100 inc VAT always use your credit card .. claim aganst card... Taxi and change... Digital phone exchanges and costs ... BT elaborate regime of charges / Chinese food nonsense - Singapore - insane stupid nonsense! Yin and Yang
B side: Steve Race music mstly 1920s? 1930s? - panel game
SIDE B: Radio 4
- Property Company bought a ground rent or lease of large block; includes interview with I think chairman. Apparently a housing corporation isn't allowed to pay more than the property was valued at with controlled rents, but under a new Act under certain circumstances a commercial organisation can take over (I'm vague on the details - naturally legal information is
omitted in such programmes). Various interviews with tenants,
invariably, it appears, plebs, stressed their worry etc.
- VO: ".. the people concerned. They would face inevitable eviction and homelessness because of an inability to pay the rent that they were required to pay by the landlord?"
- MV: "They could be put out on the street, literally put out on the street, if their rent is more than three months in arrears. The landlord will have an ABSOLUTE right to have them evicted"
- VO: "If that happens, local Hounslow Borough Council can offer little but sympathy. With over 6,000 people already on its housing list and 500 in hostel or bed and breakfast accommodation, council leader Dave Wechsel says the prospects are bleak indeed."
- MV: "Hounslow Council has a duty given to us [sic] to house those people who have young children, those people who are elderly, and then a category of those people at special risk in the community, such as those people in a wheelchair. For the other tenants that don't fit into those categories the council 1. doesn't have a legal obligation, and 2 hasn't got the facilities or the resources.. We recognise they're our ratepayers.. we feel a moral responsibility.."
- VO: "So what happens to them?"
- MV: "Well, you tell me. We can presume some of them will go into the private sector and pay very high rents for shabby accommodation. Others will squeeze in with their families and we know that that will lead to all sorts of social problems. And then finally well you come with me round London tonight and I can show you people living in cardboard boxes.." [I think there's a slight sound of very young children's voices in the background]
- VO: "So that's the position the residents of ?Beaver Estate find themselves in today. Although they moved to their homes as council tenants, and may have paid their rent on the dot for the past two decades, through a quirk of circumstance and a deal signed by a now defunct GLC twenty years ago, they face a situation in which those rents could escalate to a point at which eviction would become inescapable. Small wonder that people like Brenda Brady and Mary Rose feel as they do.
- FV: "I feel very angry about it. We've done nuthink wrong. Why should we be victims of this? We came out onto this land in good faith to BETTER our family. I left family in London we came out and built our lives out here built our friendships up and now it could possibly all be just literally swep [sic] away. Twenty years of our life. [sic] Just like that."
- FV: "It's left me feeling very very insecure. Everybody seems to be runnin away or turnin their back on this problem."
- VO: "Even if | the Housing Association could find some method of paying the ground rent being asked, or of persuading ?Mountley to accept less, the same situation could recur in another ten years. The only SURE way UKHT can GUARANTEE the residents' future security is by BUYING the freehold of the estate from Mountley. Last summer it offered the company thirteen million pounds. An offer turned down by Mountley, who are believed to want up to twenty million pounds. According to UKHT's [name] because the Housing Association is a charity, it simply cannot offer more, however much it might want to protect the Beaver Estate residents."
- MV: "We can buy the estate, but we can only buy the estate for what we are advised it's worth. We are a charity, and we are
advised er at the moment that the estate is not worth more than thirteen million pounds."
- VO: "In putting together its bid to protect the residents, UKHT had a promise of 5 million pounds from the Housing Corporation, that's the body set up by the government to oversee Housing Associations. But therein lies ANOTHER problem. The Housing Corporation has made it clear | that its support will be withdrawn if the Housing Association UKHT offers Mountley too much. Its chief executive [name] is unrepentant.."
- MV: "We have said to the Housing Association that we would like them to go on being responsible for the tenants. We have said to the Housing Association that we will find | some money | to help them buy the freehold. But evry pound we spend on buying out the freehold is a pound that we can't spend somewhere else on providing new or improved housing in London. That's the balance we have got to try and strike. But there must come a PRICE which cannot be afforded in terms of the benefit that comes from the deal. | I don't know. | Nobody knows so far as I'm aware what Mountley want for the estate. If there's a gap between what they want for the estate and what we believe it's worth to the public sector in terms of value for money, in terms of investment of the taxpayer's money, it becomes very difficult indeed."
- VO: "As men in suits talk of millions across remote boardroom tables the ordinary people.. increasingly baffled, bewildered, and angry.. they'll be the wans [sic] etc..."
... [Woman says: ".. make profit.. shareholders.. nothing wrong in that.. We need a knight in shinin armour.. somebody like Rockefeller.. I'll give you money for the ground.."]
- VO: "Last week the residents filled the local parish church.. vicar.."
[Hymn sounds and preaching: ".. without love.. our community.. disturbed by the behaviour of those outside our community.. disturbance of peace.. of justice.. perhaps | a negligence of love.."]
- Vicar: "It seems to me thut thut when you can buy and sell LAND under the homes of so many people you're not just buying the land | you're also buying the security of the people in the houses that occupy your LAND and in this case that's the security of a lot of people and | I think if you're going to buy that sort of land then it | is IMPORTANT to think about the people who are actually living there and what sort of questions they're going to ask and what sort of fears they're going to experience so I think thut there are some moral implications THERE for us as a society whether we feel we ought to be actually protecting people who are | vulnerable in this situation and actually quite powerless | in law"
- VO: "There's no doubt that the architects of the Beaver Estate's present predicament are those responsible for the GLC's original and ill-fated leasing deal. But the GLC has gone. And the residents' future now hangs on the continuing negotiations between the Housing Association UKHT and freeholders, the Mountley Group. Since Mountley acquired the land under the Beaver Estate, it has refused to talk publicly. Its chairman [name] says public controversy will do nothing to help the negotiations OR the residents. Nevertheless he broke his silence earlier this week to talk to us at one of his Mayfair offices."
- MV: ".. pity.. I don't know.. maybe to find some government money. I have no idea.. The rent that the tenants would pay in
any event I think er would be controlled. One cannot charge whatever one likes er to the tenant er to an occupier of residential property."
- VO: "But if you became the landlord, if you actually owned the lease, under the new Housing Act of 1988 you would be able to charge a market rent, and that would surely be a great deal more than the fair rent the tenants are now paying."
- MV: "I don't know. I mean it's a debate that I think it's far too early to get involved in."
- VO: "What was your company [pron. compny]'s motive in in buying the land? What were your long-term plans for it?"
- MV: "We er just saw it as an investment. Er we believed that er there was a rent under negotiation er that er had already been referred to arbitration er and we were happy to buy it and to collect the rent from UKHT."
- VO: "So if it's an investment, and if the housing trust can't pay the ground rent, and have to surrender their lease to you, their tenants therefore become your tenants, you become the landlord. | Surely you'll then increase the rent won't you?"
- MV: "Erm we will then have to look at the situation. But I think | you know there were a number of ifs there | er and I think that the major if is if we can't resolve the situation with UKHT."
- VO: "Many of the residents.. listening.. etc.."
- MV: "I would say to the tenants that they shouldn't worry about their situation at this moment in time, er that I believe here is a way forward, I believe UKHT believe there is a way forward, and and and the way forward is not in my opinion for UKHT to surrender their lease."
- VO: "So can you give a guarantee that no tenant will be put out on the street because of your compny's ownership of the land?"
- MV: "Er I can't give a guarantee that no tenant will be put out on the street, certainly not!"
- VO: "Well can you see why their fears will therefore persist.."
- MV: "Well, you sounds like; in fact: UKHT are the people who can protect THEIR tenants, the tenants of Beaver Farm are NOT my tenants, and if I were their landlord, I would take greater care of them than I believe at this moment UKHT are doing."
- VO: ".. very wealthy company.. only last week you announced I think half-yearly profits of more than forty million pounds.. can you see your way EITHER to selling the land to the Housing Association at a price it can afford, OR to keeping down the ground rent charges.."
- MV: "I think the negotiation with UKHT ought to take its course and then we ought to find out what the solution is. [Sounds increasingly nettled.] I have shareholders | er that I am responsible to | and although we made forty million pounds, forty million pounds is dividing amongst a lot of small shareholders, a lot of people who don't expect ME to be the charitable enterprise and | I see UKHT as are tenant and as the people we've got to resolve this with and and I don't believe that there is any reason at this moment in time for the tenants of Beaver Farm to be concerned."
- VO: "But they ARE Mr Clegg.. I've been several times.. they are frightened about the future. If | the Housing Trust can't pay the ground rent and surrenders the lease to you, then the nature of those tenancies becomes Assured, under the new Housing Act. That means they would have to face paying you market rents, and
as you just told me, you have, as a businessmen, your shareholders to bear in mind. You will surely charge market rents, and they will surely be the kind of market rents those tenant can't afford?"
- MV: "I | believe | that a solution will be found | and if we are | not in a position to come to agreement then obviously we've all got to sort the situation out. But I don't believe that liddle people [sic] should be concerned about something like this before it's got to the point er where a solution cannot be found. I think it's very worrying for them and I believe unnecessarily so."
- VO: "Just how Mr Clegg's assurances will go down.. etc.. perhaps spell the end of bingo and sing-songs in the Beaver Estate Community Hall.."
- Fundamentalist evangelism: American [with working class British] Protestant 'missionaries' and South American Indians; interview with some of these people. [Incidentally, at the end, piano accompanying amateur 'At the name of Jesus..' sounds appropriately appalling, particularly the echoey bit of solo piano link]
28: 'Lost' Beatles World Service tapes/ LBC Phone in: Financial problems *
- Beatles: see next tape too, which has similar stuff
SIDE B:
- Financial Problems:
NOTE: CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:
Striking how often their expert suggested that people should ask banks etc to 'waive the interest'
After a county court judgement, the payment is fixed at the end of the case, so the ?complainant would lose the interest anyway: so tell them to sue!
Woman who phones [04] says if you do this you won't get credit again. the expert says not necessarily; you may have learnt to behave better [!]
Amusing case where the expert gets irate at a bank manager who allowed a woman's son to have Eurocheques and cash them in Europe. He shouldn't have spoken to this mother! It breached confidentiality!
Differences between types of mortgage: repayment, life assurance, pension; the expert comments that pension mortgages are different, the money is tied up
What sounds like a case with a crooked solicitor
Rather silly and piffling suggestions [03] to do everything you can to get more income
01 Teresa of Greys, Essex: Rates Bill
02 Ellen of Brixton: £100/month; wants to try to get loans to reduce interest charges
03 Hypothetical example put by Pete Murray: over £15,000 to bank; what would you do?
04 Jane, Southall: "Let them take you to court" "... can't get credit again?" "No, that isn't quite right"
05 Lesley, Maidstone: expects to run into repaying-her-mortgage
problems; she has a pension-backed one etc
06 Details on blacklists, credit references etc
07 Student son. Got Eurocheques from bank manager; spent £2900. Expert accusingly said the bank broke confidentiality discussing the son's account with the mother, who insisted!
08 £7000 inheritance tax to Inland Revenue. Will house have to be sold? Solicitor knows someone who wants to buy the house. "I don't like the sound of this. It's not the solicitor's business.. Get another solicitor.."
09 Rent arrears with local council; I've never been in debt before etc
10 News item on Tenerife housebuyers having to pay for default on mortgage; some people who bought places with Spanish legal advice who found this wasn't good, and they're facing demands for lots of money..
29: Beatles tapes [BBC World Service. Compiled from various sources] *
- 'Automatic Peer' is series title, taken from an interview with John Lennon about 'In Your Own Write'. Accused of using onomatopoeia, he says he's never heard of it, it sounds to him like automatic peer. He had heard, he says, of Lear, but not of Joyce etc. He says he liked Lewis Carroll. He also promotes A Spaniard in the Works I think. Much on their humour, interrupting the radio announcers, doing posh voices, talking about 'larfs'.
- When I recorded this I edited out the recorded songs (some by Lennon-McCartney by people like Matt Munro) in favour of interviews and rarer songs
- About 45 of 60, or something like that, of the songs they played were 'cover' versions, i.e. their versions of other peoples' songs. Sometimes they modified their own: 'From Us To You'.
- Some fairly personal stuff comes in: where they stayed in London, how often they went out, how much they were bothered, how long they thought they'd continue to play together.
40: R3, World Service: 'Mainly for Pleasure' [i.e. popular 'classical' music]
152: World Service: Mon 14th June 1993 8-8.30 Newsdesk/ 9-9.10 World.
153: World Service: A: News &c Sat 9th July 1994/ B: News etc Sunday 10 Jul
- Recorded from Long Wave 198, after Radio 4 closes; they don't have FM - I expect because it doesn't travel far enough - and it seems short wave is necessary to receive this; at any rate my attempts on M Wave failed.
A:
B:
Unnumbered: Colin Blakemore, Desert Island Discs
-Sun 8 September, 1996
-Brain researcher whom Hillman approached but whose questions he never answered
-He's a working class type whose parents paid for private primary education, made good, ambitious, had to get a scholarship. Sue Lawley of course asks only banal questions - the brain a machine, genetics, free will. Rather sad conventionalised responses to music (though he couldn't resist Thelonious Monk - in fact he met many jazz nusicians, I think in Washington - and the Beatles)
-I missed the first bit of this 45 minute programme, and edited most of the music out, so the length is about 1/2 the sides - 20 minutes or so.
: Chown - 4 Radio 4 45 min programmes on science fraud, reputations etc
-Only the very last, I think, had the 'researcher' name - a woman; not printed in Radio Times, which gives only producer Richard Aedy.
Final tape has some on Fred Hoyle. And a lot on Nobel prizes.
: John Gribbin: 5 radio 4 programmes on 'modern physics'
: Isabel Hilton on AIDS in Africa, Radio 4, Jan 11 2000
-Blurb on 'International Drug Companies and the Poor'. '.. Isabel Hilton discovers an HIV/AIDS epidemic of devastating proportions in the townships of South Africa. .. Pretoria.. preparing legislation to.. override patents.. the companies have taken the government to court.'
Most of the voiceover by Isabel Hilton, presumably, judging by her presentation and level of knowledge, a failed actress trying to rise above her natural job of promoting tampons or cough syrup.
[African music, voices etc, English with African accents]
Condoms.. vital to prevent the spread of AIDS. .. Those who've escaped infection so far will stay safe if they do use condoms. [Music] But what hope is there for the nearly four million who already have the virus? .. AIDS patients in South Africa die much faster than AIDS patients in the developed world. Just because they can't afford the medicines they need.
1 in 10 of the people who are shopping in this market are HIV positive and will die of AIDS sooner rather than later. .. places where poverty and anger flourish, unlovely legacies of apartheid. It's in places like this that AIDS is spreading rapidly. Now there's an epidemic and a national emergency. Alan Whiteside is director of the HIV/AIDS and health economics division at Natal. He has no doubt of the catastrophic impact of AIDS. ".. we're going to see an enormous increase in illness and death.. it's reversing all the gains.. impact on life expectancy.. probably 55.. 5 years ago it was 65.. In the countries to the north it has probably in some instances fallen below 40.."
"Perhaps the sufferers do believe the African potato will help them. They've little hope in any case of anything more
effective." "They've heard of AIDS, of course. And they know it kills. But they don't know much more about it."
HIV or TB - she ignores TB
In New York or London, HIV need no longer be a rapid death sentence. New generations of drugs give many sufferers nearly normal lives.
1998? new law to reduce prices of medicines
can't pronounce patent
St Marys is a progressive church. Echoes with prayers for AIDS victims.
There's grief here as well as pain as well as compassion and idealism. Actually interviews a Minister, Vanessa Mc/MacKenzie. It would say pneumonia it would say TB on the death certificate.
Potentially more devastating than Europe's black death
Recently medical opinion in Africa was surprised and shocked when president [name] cast doubts on the safety of the drug AZT. .. little doubt outside political circles that giving AZT to HIV positive mothers late in pregnancy dramatically cuts the risk that the baby will develop AIDS. For doctors, the safety charges weren't credible.
[Some blacks American trained, or American]
The new health minister [woman] [do they have a policy?] she says yes, policies, plans, programs. AZT-always had policy not giving AZT until we were sure of its availability, safe. Burroughs-Wellcome offered AZT at a discount.
Sir Richard Sykes. [Alan Bennett accent]
Bad as it is, it can only get worse.
[Sounded as attempt to dump AZT at highish price - or something]
10.1.2 MY AUDIOTAPES OF LECTURES, TALKS, CONVERSATIONS, PHONE DISCUSSIONS &C
85-12-07 1/1 CAROL CONCERT St Peter's Church Chorley.
Rather laughable short tape of authentic adults, kids and instrumentalists trying 'Christmas carols'
93-10-23 3/3 Saturday 23 Oct 1993 Council for British Archaeology Conference: 5 Lectures on 'Early Romans in the South East'
1
Lecture 1: Nick Fuentes on 'The Early campaigns of Aulus Plautius'. Fuentes put forward an unorthodox theory; I think he
was more interested in his theory [involving speculation on where armies came from in France, where they landed, where they went, where they crossed rivers, and what the various tribal leaders may have done] that in the effects of the Romans. [Some of the magazines I bought on the day contain articles by him - e.g. possibility that Elephant & Castle was named after bones dug up of an elephant, which some Roman historian supposedly says were brought to Britain; some etymological speculation; some 'Classics' based learning - slightly silly statement to the effect that e.g. Caesar was known to have built a bridge in three days, so possibly a point of honour to anyone trained 'in the classics' would be to do the same.]
Unfortunately the tape stuck after a bit; I continued as best I could on tape 102, but that stuck too! So this lecture's incomplete
2
Lecture 5: [Recorded with their mike/amplifier:] Dr Thomas Blagg on 'Major Roman Buildings in the South East'. He made a joke on Detsicas' comment "What major buildings?' explaining when only bits remain it's difficult - e.g. massive triumphal arch built on north coast of Kent - I forget where - converted by Saxons into walls for a fort; Blagg reconstructs its possible appearance, size, amount of marble veneer facing couple of inches thick, etc. Amusing speaker: "We have inscriptions without buildings, and buildings without inscriptions.." [cp 'reconstruction' of Sappho poems]
Similar discussion with I think two large buildings in 'Roman' London.
A
Fuentes (continued). Unfortunately this tape stuck as well in my Chinese-made rcorder..
Lecture 2: David Rudling on 'Roman occupation in Sussex'
B
More of David Rudling. This talk probably rather incomplete, like number 1. This speaker unusually keen to acknowledge lack of knowledge, and questions which need answers: listener ends with considerable list of weakened myths; e.g. parts of the country believed to have no villas happened to be overflown, and several were discovered. So, in fact, he said, nobody had looked. Also a considerable list of bulldozed or lost sites, plough ?damage, inept archaeology of the past, absence of 'wet sieving' to establish diet information.
3
[Recorded with the mike/amplifier/recorder in the Medway Hall]
Lecture 3: Dominic Perring on: 'City and Country - The Setting of Roman London' which in fact he narrowed down to the city aspect of London only.
Lecture 4: Dr Alec Detsicas, 'Rural Settlement in Roman Kent'. This man e.g. dislikes the use of the word 'villa'; and has spent 20 years trying to persuade people that the 'Cantivi' [I think] not the Cantii lived in 'Kent' (though I think he doesn't like 'Kent' either.)
94-01-01: RETHINKING AIDS Radio Interview with Bryan J Ellison
- I copied this tape, originally 60 mins I think, from Ivor Catt's; he'd been sent a copy when he wrote for the book on AIDS by Ellison and Duesberg.
- Elsewhere, there are notes on this; in particular, in DOWNLOAD/AIDS there's a sort of transcription, attempting to give the overview (detail omitted); I made other brief notes e.g. Ellison on Helicobacter, elsewhere.
94-03-09A & B 2/2 SOCIALIST DEBATE 2 C60 tapes, of Conway Hall debate between Michael Foot and John O'Mahony.
- These two tapes are actually not of good quality; recorded with phone answering machine positioned on stage with loudspeaker high above, the net result being very echoey and largely incomprehensible.
- See
94-03-24 1/1 NEIL KINNOCK AT SOUTH PLACE
- See
94-04-20A & B: 'Keep the Media Nazi Free', C90 tapes, Wed 20th April 1994
- Red Lion square meeting taped with proper mains equipment and microphone; my mains recorder had a more powerful amp than my replacement so even with a feeble mike I've got a spiffing recording
- PAUL FOOT: "5 (or 6) journalists who also formed 'Media Workers Against The War' - raised consciousness over the few weeks, shifted the balance of opinion a bit. Reason is outrage and disgust at frivolous and sycophantic approach of the British media to rising tide of fascism in Europe & Britain. We're shocked at what we've had to read.. local elections within a few weeks.. fascist [principles expressed in the media without being challenged.. just as frequently in what's known as the quality press. .. Independent.. reacted violently to the formation of this group.. article called 'race splits politicians in..' .. so disgustingly racist is what's written here.. [joke about 'Monty's muttonhead'. And about the Economist, which he certainly wouldn't advise anyone to write, on Italian, 'fascist presence for the first time in a generation.' .. 'belief in a corporatist one-party state, not it should be said shared by .. this paper.'] So-called clever educated yuppies who run the Economist.. Italy in 1938 a law was passed against the Jews.. barring from public office and so on..
Impossible to distinguish .. racist words.. from racist acts.. directly and clearly followed by somebody being beaten up.. racist gang in east london.. election of BNP candidate in Millwall in East London.. What happened in Germany and Italy and indeed Spain in the 1930s.. [NB Japan omitted entirely] .. the first thing they did was close down the free press.. the communist press.. the social democratic press.. opponents.. were locked up in the concentration camps.. We say.. media workers should work to see.. no platform for fascist propaganda.. Two purposes.. first by far the more important.. alert media workers to their responsibilities.. what really is going on.. second.. challenging the criteria which are used for allowing these people..
.. 3 guest speakers.. Tony Benn is.. unique beyond all uniqueness in the history of British politics.. and I'll explain his uniqueness!.. in all the years since universal suffrage
1918.. every single other person that went to parliament to change the world was less principled and had less fighting spirit at the end of it.."
- BENN: [c 20 mins] "... media such a powerful influence in our society.. media workers.. I say this as an old BBC producer and member of NUJ.. over 45-odd years.
I want to talk about the ideas of fascism. Everybody who has come tonight will have some special reason.. If their Jewish they may themselves have suffered or be the sones and daughters of people who escaped from Germany. If you're black or Asian.. direct threat to your life. .. Moseley.. before the law was passed making political uniforms illegal.. Hitler's broadcasts from Nuremberg.
Fascism was the response of capitalism to the arrival in Moscow in 1917 of socialism, however distorted it later became under Joe Stalin it was seen as a threat - in every form - communism, socialism, social democracy - everything that challenged the capitalist system, the repression of it was supported by western leaders. And in my opinion from 1917 until the Berlin wall came down and still today it is the prime objective of any of the governments representing capitalist societies or believing in capitalist ideas to destroy all forms of socialism, and a readiness to use fascism for that purpose. .. the media.. superficial way.. jokes about Allesandra Mussolini.. Fascism is a very powerful philosophy, strongly supported by the well-to-do and rich, and intended to turn working class people against socialist ideas.
As a child.. I bought Mein Kampf.. I cut out one or two extracts.. 'in the course of a few decades under the expert hand of social democracy the trade union movement grew from the means of protecting the social rights of man into an instrument for laying national economics in ruins.' I've heard that speech in a very similar form from a very high source now in the House of Lords and I'm not being sexist when I say it! 'By the beginning of the century' wrote Hitler 'the trade union movement had long deceased to serve its purpose with each succeeding year it fell more and more under the influence of social democratic politics and ended by being used merely as the battering ram for the class war.' Was that not the argument we heard against Arthur Scargill..? 'Finally' said Hitler 'I learned the connection between the doctrine of destruction and the character of a race which until then was almost unknown to me. Understanding of the Jews is the only key to comprehension of the inner, and therefore real, aims of social democracy.' And then..' democracy.. is the forerunner of Marxism, which would be unthinkable without democracy.. feeding ground.. it appeared as a monstrosity of filth and fire.'
Now you couldn't have it set out more clearly than that! This idea that fascism is ONLy about racist attacks. .. attack on the right of people to organise in trade unions, the rights of trade unions to organise politically with a view to looking after the interests of working people generally. .. the ethnic communities may feel it just them.. it's all of us.
Now Mussolini.. says something very similar. .. foreword.. by Richard Washburn Childs, the American Ambassador in Rome. And he said 'the Duce is now the greatest figure of this sphere and time.' .. not just something that happens on the streets.
..served the interest of those that want to prevent any political change..
.. I think it's time we did a bit of reexamination, you know, of the 1930s and got away from the idea that the British government believed in appeasement. They didn't .. appease Hitler. They supported Hitler. They backed Hitler. .. captured German foreign office you'll find that when Halifax went to talk to Hitler on behalf of the British government the first thing he did was to congratulate the German chancellor on having destroyed communism in Germany, and acted as a bulwark against it in Europe. And the whole of that 1930s period was a period when western governments were happy to use fascism in order to destroy socialism in all its forms, not just in Russia but in the west as well. And that was true right up .. Truman, after the German attack on Russia, Harry Truman was quoted in the New York times as saying, if the Germans seem to be winning we should help the Russians; if the Russians seem to be winning we should help the Germans, in the hope that as many as possible of each of them kill the other. And that was the architect of NATO! .. later on, resumed the pre-war policy, because the cold war stemmed out of the pre-war policy of western governments to destroy socialism.
I think this has to be understood because as capitalism goes back into crisis, and it is in crisis, the conditions are reproducing. When capitalism produces unemployment, and it's not an accident after all.., unemployment undermines trade unions, lowers wages, boosts profits, makes people fearful of their employer, threatens them with repossession of their homes if they lose their job.. as despair and cynicism and pessimism spreads, it's open to someone to come.. I'll clear the whole mess up. ...
But it isn't just the failure of capitalism that leads to fascism. .. it is the failure of the left to offer an alternative.. the failure.. must be stated clearly.. deny people the representation they are entitled to expect..
.. back of my mind an awful fear.. at the moment may seem quite an amusing idea.. split between fascists and right wing labour councillors.. when you take socialism off the political agenda.. leave it empty for xenophobia, religious fundamentalism..
.. celebrate D-day.. might see all the old people who fought there still get medical treatment..
.. there were two wars .. at the same time. The officers.. another bash at the Hun. For the rest of us we were fighting fascism..
.. exclude the possibility that socialism might come back. I do not believe it. .. socialism.. better contribution to make in defeating fascism than anything else. .. indeed..people have forgotten the arguments against socialism which I heard him make on Tue 4 Oct 94 LBC almost verbatim again - He said on LBC unemployment isn't an economic policy; it's a political policy: the Tories want a 19th century country - small number of rich, the rest prostrate. He was less clear in this taped speech.
.. cut out the personalities.. John Major.. sound bite.. some parliamentarians.. attack on Tory Ministers.. one I'd never heard of! .. You've got to address serious questions..
.. Comrades, thank you very much indeed."
- VICTORIA BRITTAIN, assistant foreign editor of Guardian. [NB Sept 1997 MI5 investigations of her were revealed/ NB also Harold
Smith wrote to her without getting a reply]
".. context.. western Europe's toleration of fascism in mainstream politics.. already happened in France.. in Italy.. very close to happening here.. rise in racism across the spectrum.. racist now becoming commonplace.. invisible racism.. scandalous under-representation of black people in positions of power.. must include our profession..
..in 30s, labour party weakness.. led to conservative victory in 1935.. fight against fascism.. led.. by all sorts of people.. most.. forgotten.. in 30s.. read out lists of arson attacks on synagogues.. shops held by Jewish people.. could do that all over.. today..
.. role of the media much more powerful than it's veer been .. normalising.. of fascist politics.. very respectful.. sycophantic attitude for instance to ?Fieny.. Rome.. fascist slogans.. all over the walls.. real fascism.. not some kind of designer thing.. wearing suits.. on the telly.. they're not legitimate, they're not moderate and they shouldn't be there..
.. in the name of.. journalism school.. 'balance'.. very convenient myth.. news editor's excuse for not knowing about history .. not having a view..
.. [Africa] .. hidden allies of fascism..nearly 20 years since Portuguese fascism collapsed in Europe.. because particularly in Angola and Mozambique... very strong popular movements.. came to power after fighting fascism decades.. found themselves confronted.. by people who'd been the indigenous allies of the Portuguese.. UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique.. memoirs of CIA agent John Stockwell.. excellent book by Ken Flower, the Rhodesian secret service chief.. exactly what they thought of the pathetic disorganised little bands they were expected to form into some kind of resistance
.. 'balance'.. part of the political process.. these two puppet organisations.. on the brink of taking.. very substantial power.. when I see Mr ?Daklama the leader of Renamo, who also has a nice suit, although five years ago.. he hadn't yet been groomed.. on Newsnight.. treated as a perfectly normal politician.. the idea he might not have an election because he might not win it, is treated as normal and legitimate..
.. journalists.. exactly the same as Paul said of the
Independent and the Economist.. sloppy.. mainstream television.. I hope if there was anyone who worked on this kind of programme who was not embarrassed before.. they really don't want to do that kind of work again."
- SEUMAS MILNE: [Guardian; former chapel of NUJ; on NUJ executive; supported the miners - author (1994) of 'The Enemy Within', I guess not yet published:]
".. leaflet that's been circulated.. statement and meeting are what you see are what you get.. it isn't an organisation yet.. non-sectarian initiative.. nothing to do with ANL or ARA.. not hostile to them..
.. last time.. late 1970s.. a lot of those things have been forgotten.. basic arguments..
1. basic liberal free speech argument. .. I abhor.. defend to the death their right to say it. .. Whose death exactly are we talking about? .. yours, or victims of fascist and racist attacks..? .. victims.. ?Rowan ?Adams, ?Rowitt Dougal, Steven Lawrence, and Orville Blair who have paid .. with their lives?
2. .. best way to expose fascists is to give them a platform.. people will see how revolting they are. .. if the interviewers were up to their jobs I could maybe stomach this.. cancerous demagoguery.. insult.. attack upon the freedom of millions of fellow citizens.. You have to draw a line. You cannot treat these people as a political party..
If any journalist or any newspaper editor was faced with an article which, or an interview which said did six million really die denying the holocaust they wouldn't print it. We know they wouldn't print it. So why should they be printing other arguments of a similar nature made by these fascists? [clapping]
3. .. third argument.. if we deny the BNP a platform, we are playing into the hands of those who [put through the broadcasting ban on the IRA and other organisations in Northern Ireland. And I think.. complete red herring. There's not the slightest connection between these two things. Not the slightest likelihood.. the crisis is northern Ireland is about deep-seated .. grievances, about the relationship between nationalities and states. It has nothing to do with the movement for a racist authoritarian state based on demented race theories and a determination to smash working class institutions.
4. .. arguments.. these people are not really fascists. .. post-fascists.. semi-fascists.. neo-fascists. Not really fascists at all. .. racist populist. .. they subscribe to the full range of Nazi and fascist politics. They admit it quite openly. I don't know why people can't even see what they're staying. they say it themselves. We're fascists. We're racists. We're 100% Nazi. .. small organisations.. fanning the flames.. electoral respectable way. part of the tactic always used by fascists.. .. in the 1930s, who were the most successful parties? .. Nazi parties! .. on the streets, kicking peoples' heads in.. violent way.. attempt.. to gain respectability.. pushing mainstream political parties further and further to the right. So I think people in the media have a special responsibility.. [sic!]
Our demands are not particularly radical.. less radical than Transport and General Workers Union.. will not accept a platform for fascist propaganda in the media.. apply pressure across the board to destroy this malignancy in our society.." [applause]
[END OF SIDE 1]
- FOOT: [Talking to someone in the BBC.
.. Broadcasting Union.. BECTU.. ?Urip Singh.. going to speak briefly.. representative in the BBC]
-SINGH: [c 5 mins. He's a crap speaker (and thinker)] .. I'm not representing BECTU's view.. few things.. first.. balance.. how does that work? It's not just about balance.. the forces that drive TV production.. news and current affairs.. how do you get the huge audience.. gimmick.. new twist.. black colleague told me.. let's look at this .. the other way.. introduced a different culture.. all these smells.. they've angered the local population..let's start from that.. wonderful post-fascist.. I kid you not.. I hope John Birt's not listening! ..
.. the sorts of things people don't realise.. think all you've got to do is tell the story.. it's not about how well the script is written.. it's about the way the medium works on the audience.. immense amount of research.. on how the medium works.. people don't watch.. from A to B.. they pick what fits what they want to believe.. the second thing.. well, let's have somebody on and they'll condemn themselves. What they don't realise.. tendency to racism.. surveys of social attitudes.. clearly that's not the case. .. fascist parties are actually targeting people who are feeling vulnerable.. after a decade or more of Tory Party rule.. things people had fought for are disappearing.. right to a decent house.. right to a decent job.. to a contract that lasts more than six months.. right to a national health service.. those are the things the fascists are targeting.. who are the audience going to listen to
.. also fails to understand that the often what happens in the interview.. what's the race element.. instead of the way society.. . and the way fascism feeds on that crisis. .. whatever he does the audience get the feeling .. legitimate party.. Newsnight report.. BNP standing in Bradford.. racist attacks.. somebody had been hospitalised.. shop.. windows broken., vandalised.. then BNP agent in a nice studio.. talking about.. well really the BNP is not a violent party.. we don't condone it.. what comes across.. getting a hard time from that stroppy middle class interviewer..
... dreadful programme.. radio.. Moral Maze series.. had ?Edmunds speaking.. and a Rabbi.. Edward Pearce I think of the Guardian.. and the whole thing was just an advert for this fascist. And not only could he say six million didn't really die to .. he was also able to paint himself as a victim of Edward Pearce's sneering, because the tactic used by Edward Pearce was to say .. he was just a snivelling little bletch.. not talking about the issues, just attacking him on a personal level.. and I can imagine what the sympathies of some people of the audience might have bin.. see I think there is a moral question here for journalists. But it's not about free speech. it's whether as a journalist or a broadcaster you want to be instrumental in the rise.. more black people murdered on the street or whether you
want to be party of its defeat. K."
- FOOT: [introduces 'editor under siege', editor of New Statesman, Steve Platt]
- STEVE PLATT: [I spoke to him after in the pub on the corner of the alley nearest Conway Hall:] ".. pleased to be here.. three years ago.. Media Workers Against the Gulf War.. rest of the media.. one solitary line.. perhaps the only publication in the country that opposed the war.. 20 years ago.. run up to the local elections.. National Front were holding a meeting.. anti-Nazis were outside.. resulted in the death of a student Kevin Gately who was hit over the head with a police truncheon.. why here.. great tradition.. progressive causes.. fighting for equality.. it was of course that argument in favour of free speech.. championed so many causes.. victims of oppression.. however obnoxious.. didn't want to be on the side .. suppressing free speech.. you can't divorce freedom of speech from freedom of action.. paid by victims.. deaths.. violent attacks.. inability to live your lives freely.. basic first principle.. don't extend the same normal democratic rights to those who would dent them to others.. We had those arguments in the 1970s.. the far right no longer finds it possible to organise marches at will [sic] .. no longer.. freely and openly.. in areas that are sensitive.. might more disturbing.. in particular.. two things in the media.. trivialisation of the fascist and racist threat.. only one councillor.. you're all as bad as each other.. one councillor in east London.. small beginnings.. by creating the atmosphere in which those organisations.. .. can penetrate much more widely.. not just those who oppose anti-racism [sic] .. Tower Hamlets.. Europe-wide.. advance of fascist views.. normalisation.. Joy Gardner.. institutional racism.. Jean-Marie le Pen.. tiny minority into the mass political force.. exactly the same in Italy.. crucial role that the media played.. ?Silvio ?Berlascone a media magnate.. film.. execution of partisans.. of Mussolini and other fascists.. quite obviously .. a kind of equivalence between fascism and those who fought it.. those who suffered and died in the holocaust, those people like Leon Greenman who we're going to hear later who lost relatives in the holocaust, and those who would deny that it ever existed. And that sort of equivalence should never be given the time of day within our media. There is no space for that at all. I think there are issues.. where a liberal line is insufficient. ... There are times when you have to decide which side you're on. And in an issue like this I know which side I'm on.
-[WOMAN asks if there'll be time for dissenting voices from the floor.
FOOT says yes, there will be time; he hopes not dissenting. Adds that a collection will be made & continues about an organisation phone etc. Asks for fivers and pound coins. Reads out messages of support from NUJ chapels, Sheffield newspapers, media workers against the Nazis in workplace, information from the 1970s... my tape over this has Steve Platt talking. There's a clunk of money in buckets. Clunk stops. Phone number, box number to write to, Private Eye.. leaflets, badges.. our purpose is this.. next week in this hall.. those of you who really feel you can help.. very little time before the election.. open
forum.. next Tuesday at 7 o'clock.. where we can take it further on.. main articles reproduced here.. Steve Platt, editor of the New Statesman.
.. Best evocative journalist to be working in Britain today.. brilliant describer of events.. [i.e. coded way of saying not a Marxist?] all these lectures from our media bosses about freedom of the press.. the person who.. not only in terms of the awards he has won.. esteem.. such high esteem cannot get regular writing in any of our mass media.. greater comment.. from Murdoch or Montgomery or any other of the gangsters. John Pilger should be writing everywhere, we should be reading him everywhere.. (applause)]
- PILGER: [spoke surprisingly haltingly:] ".. media workers against the war.. there was a ban on us.. we were able to get on to the media [?].. misgivings.. I say take heart from that.. a subject every bit as vital if not more so..
.. my own personal acquaintances.. discovering it here .. in the 1980s.. its true violence.,.. four families and one individual in the East End.. most of them scattered throughout housing estates.. often went to see them.. wrote about them.. one in particular.. attacked weekly., sometimes nightly, over a period of six, seven years.. they lived upstairs.. kept a dog downstairs.. tailor.. teenage daughter.. kept a diary of the attacks.. like an Anne Frank with a telephone.. Frankly I didn't believe it was so bad.. they rang the police.. they used to do this every night.. no-one turned up.. the attack started at midnight.. nothing stopped them.. the stories of the other families weren't perhaps quite so dramatic.. just as horrifying.. incredulity.. the Daily Mirror where I worked.. The point is.. this kind of attack has been common for a very long time.. another Britain which just is not reported..
.. crucial.. that we identify these thugs.. spell out the inhuman and manipulative and essentially violent nature of their ideology, fascism, which I think Tony Benn defined so well. But I also think we must not separate them from the other lot. .. established order which has.. itself become extremist. .. curiously British illusion that the far right inside the Tory party are respectable. they're not! Look at the cabinet! [Applause] I think the far right.. have spawned the BNP... the BNP has sensed a favourable climate, created for them.. history of complicity with racism in both parties. Some of the most inhuman measures enacted by.. Labour.. Merlin Rees.. James Callaghan. I think we're now seeing the product of that. .. dangerous to disconnect them. there are thugs in pinstripes.
.. in the media.. sensible.. the Basil Fawlty view of Germany.. Well, I wrote last week in the New Statesman that there were 70,000 racial attacks.. Steve corrected me. There's a home office figure - it's 130,000. That makes this country every bit as racist, violent, as Germany and France.. .. like any disease the BNP will grow if it's allowed to grow.. the studied indifference of a police force that did kill Joy Gardner.. the racist officials that guard the gates of this country, that did accuse a plane loaf of Jamaicans of being gangsters.. black people when they confront the lack of employment prospects, the bureaucracy, and so on.
.. balance, earlier. .. I've been accused of being one of the most unbalanced (laughter) .. they were so frightened.. one
of these black families in the north of England.. then-IBA decided it had to have.. sort of cigarette type warning statements.. you are watching a personal view.. you have watched a personal view! .. they did go off and find a series of balancing programmes, and I'm personally responsible for launching the fortunately short television career of Auberon Waugh! .. we really haven't come all that far, when responsible quality newspapers can produce.. Independent.. this kind of piece, in which Derek ?Beacon is written about.. Isle of Dogs.. they're all mine, son.. subtly, the essential lies of the BNP aren't challenged in this piece.. John Torode has written a rather hurt letter to the New Statesman.. argument has to be won all over again..
.. people from the media here tonight.. I think we went some way.. there is another way of looking at their jobs.. they can't change the system overnight.. the state is inherently racist.. the media is made up of individuals.. some of them very powerful.. the Timewatch programme.. the sort of programme that gave the impression.. they couldn't.. balance.. Mr Bean and Enoch Powell dominated a panel discussion of the history of immigration. There are people that make those programmes.. got to start examining their own journalism.. that kind of platform, that kind of almost extension of instant respectability.. Powell.. since vicious racist speech of 1968.. I went through cuttings.. all I can find is praise.. a great orator, or a great classicist. My mother ran into him.. when he was at the university in Sidney, and said he was a dud. 'What is it about this man?' she said. He wasn't any good. .. there he is, not too coherent perhaps.. still being elevated.. I don't think there's that much difference.. they come out of the same mould; they express it differently.
.. process of normalisation.. atrocities.. it's quite interesting. Auschwitz had to be designed. The architecture of the death camps had to be designed efficiently. .. the people who did it.. were part of a normalising process. A better type of napalm which didn't stick to the skin called napalm B [sic; surely wrong?] .. great laboratory war in Vietnam had to be found a developed.. by people who played with their children and so on. .. integral to that.. process is the media.. giving respectability.. headlines that have been common in the British press, such as black crime, the alarming figures. .. that particular story, some years ago.. actually the opposite of what was true. .. some of the Home Offices first statistics on racist attacks.. showed that Afro-Caribbean people were 36 times more likely to be attacked.. and that Asian people were 50 times as likely to be attacked [sic] .. and when I look back on this.. through all the papers.. early and mid 80s"
[END OF FIRST TAPE/ SECOND TAPE:-]
JOHN PILGER: ".. home office files being shown to the Daily Telegraph.. Daily Mail leading articles 'how they tricked us' and 'tidal waves of people'. Journalists really have to examine their work if they're anywhere near that kind of pollution. Because it's powerful. No-one underestimates the power of the media. It's more powerful than it's ever been before. We live in a so-called media society which .. is said to be an information society.. we're saturated by media, most of it repetitive, most of it shoring up stereotypes..
.. Schindler's List the other night, having been to
Auschwitz, having interviewed a lot of people who have been through that period, having read considerably about it, I didn't think I needed to see it. I was painful, painfully moved by it. And at the end I was thinking do we have to wait all these years.. ashen-faced, moved, and certainly informed as they left the theatre.. I thought how much of reporting is in racial terms.. of the genocide that I've had something to do with reporting.. 200,000 people in East Timor.. new order fascism, and it is fascism in every way.. attacks.. culturally and ethnically and so on.. our government and the media have for years called moderate and stable.. it's like Victoria was talking about.. Mozambique.. those people were allowed to die over the last 18 years.. wrong colour skin.. the people killing them were our friends.. media.. anointed them as respectable.. the same.. microcosm.. these people in Tower Hamlets.
I think many journalists will do well just to examine they way they can be manipulated by what Dr Johnson once called the tyranny of the stock response.. [sic; surely not?] hackneyed view of journalism, that there are always two sides.. peoples' intelligence ought to overcome that.. I feel that individuals can do something.. they can object.. can.. insist that a member of one of the anti-racist organisations, .. who can contradict them..with the experience of power and knowledge.. .. we may be a long way from seeing black shirts in London. But I'm not sure we should be looking for black shirts. .. they may also look different.. fascism has come back. It's come back throughout Europe.. I was going to quote.. the Independent, another piece.. Patricia Clough.. from the Italian election.. very good analytical pieces.. ?Feeny.. a personable, decent young leader.. Gaullist style right-wing party.. the day after.. surrounded by 1000 thugs giving the fascist salute in Rome.. ?Feeny's interview with La Stampa.. Mussolini 'the greatest statesman of the twentieth century.' .. the danger. The leap from respectable fascism to street fascism is not a leap at all. Thank you." [Applause]
-FOOT: [.. 1934 headline in Daily Mail when Moseley's anti-Semitic thugs.. 'Hurrah the black shirts'. We thought you should be reminded.. back of all this.. guest speaker.. Leon Greenman.. 83 years old.. speaking up and down the country for years now.. ]
-LEON GREENMAN: [Jewish chap who survived 'The Holocaust' and spends his time talking about it; he spoke at very great length and got a standing ovation; nobody felt inclined to cut him short.]
"Thank you. .. well I've been listening down here to the gentlemen. What is there left to say. I wish.. could have spoken ten or fifteen or twenty years ago, it's going to happen again. .. God help those among you who do not believe it. It's your fault what happens to you. I'm going to take you back to the concentration camps. .. Where shall I start.. I derive from white Russian grandparents who escaped from white Russia because of the pogroms and anti-semitism; I'm talking of 200 years ago. .. from father's side I have Dutch grandparents.. my father was born in east London.. got together and made six children. I was one of them. .. According to British law I am a British National. But that doesn't matter. I am also a Jew. .. I am going to skip a lot
now. .. 8th of October 1942. We were laying in bed, what else could we do.. baby boy, two years and ten months.. he never reached three years.. the Nazis killed him in the gas chambers with his mother. .. no restaurants, no cafes.. shopping between 3 and 5.. would be sent to Matthausen .. terrible word at the time.. approximately half past ten there was a knock on the door now who could that be.. I heard a man's voice shout out 'Greenman!' and I say yes.. Rotterdam policeman.. I said I don't need to come along with you, I'm a British subject. See here, my birth certificate.. searching my room, .. books.. I was a bookseller, some watercolours.. in the meantime the baby was crying.. my wife was crying.. rolled-up blankets.. ready.. in front of the house there was a coach.. young Nazi about six foot tall, a swastika band about his arm.. and from street to street this coach went until it was full with Jewish families.. on a piece of land.. large wooden huts.. this hut was as big as this hall. That's where we were unloaded.. hundreds of Rotterdam Jews, amongst them my family and friends.. S.S. soldiers.. showed him my birth certificate.. assembly camp in north of Holland.. 104,000 Dutch Jews did not return from the camps.. Rotterdam had 13,000 Jews; 12,000 did not return.. I am one of those few who did come back..
Two days later.. train.. Westerboek camp.. is anybody here that speaks Dutch.. we got out of the train..several hundreds of us.. old, young and babies.. had to walk 5 kilometres to the camp on a very muddy road.. pouring with rain.. inside to a barrack.. row of typewrites on a table, and behind them a lady or gentleman.. British? Yes, I'm British.. and also American Dutch.. I was born in London and I lived in Holland.. there was a barrack called the English barrack.. a truck loaded with bricks.. while we were unloading I asked what are we going to do with those bricks.. we were building an SS barracks.. I wasn't going to work for the Germans. .. I had to work. I wasn't an electrician, I wasn't a farmer.. the German word for getting food out of the kitchen.. milk for the babies, lunch time for the grown ups, the evening meal. .. I did it gladly in my mind I was working for my people, not for the Gerries. The women slept in different barracks. .. families were separated. .. lovemaking didn't come to pass. If you want to know you'll have to ask me afterwards. Life was bearable.. there was no beating, there was no hunger although we could have done with more food. .. head of administration.. German Jew with a Hitler moustache.. would say whether you stay or were deported.. many time I asked for us to be set under Red Cross protection under a different camp.. the babies were crying, the women were rowing, a lot of sleep was missed..
.. two hundred men from Rotterdam were picked up.. in barrack 51 in ?Westerboek.. climbed up the side. shouted my father's name, and yes, he was there.. all of a sudden my leg was pulled.. heard a voice saying who is this.. Kurt Slaysinger.. said come down, or I'll send you to Auschwitz. .. jumped down.. 'You can't sent us to Auschwitz.. documents..' and I walked away.
.. on the table the names of the people to be deported. .. quite a shock.. Greenman, Leon, get dressed.. .. that's my wife.. and nobody was there to help us.. what could we do. We were in the clutches of those people. .. 750 Jews young old and babies, men and women, ready to go to hell. We thought we were going to Auschwitz. That's all what we knew. Matthausen, Dachau, and
Auschwitz. I said to my wife, there's Kurt Slaysinger, talking to etc.. we're British subjects, we need not go. .. turned to the SS commander and said .. 'this has been refused..'
We went through the gates and into the waiting train.. 93 trains Holland.. that's why 104,000 Jews did not return. the journey took 36 hours.. this was still a passenger train. .. later.. cattle trucks.. took the baby in her arm.. and one of my thoughts was.. 'Else, if I don't come back.. killed.. we're going to a cold country.. if I don't come back, see that you marry a decent man..' And she said 'yes, that goes for you too.' ... 36 hours and then the train stopped and we heard a loud shouting '... schnell, schnell, schnell' leave the train get out as quick as possible. We were half asleep half awake but we got out. .. huge heap of snow.. corners of suitcases.. everything in there will be spoiled. I did not know then that those suitcase were brought by people.. two camps .. Birkenau, one of the greatest extermination camps there was.. those people were no more.. as we stood there an SS sergeant separated the woman from the men.. on my right.. fifty of us.. men women children and babies.. she threw me a kiss.. baby.. threw me a kiss. And that was all right. I'll see my kiddy every weekend. That's what they told us. .. All of a sudden.. this Nazi sergeant with a club in his hand.. let it fall on her head.. kicked her in the tummy.. that was the first criminal incident by the Nazis that I saw.. counted fifty men by laying a club on their shoulders.. fifty men and we had to march away.. ten, twenty yards.. stop, halt.. the picture in her mind of what he just done to this woman.. I see its loaded with women and children,.. and in the middle I saw my wife.. I recognise her face I call her name she didn't here me she gave no sign she heard me.. my wife had made two garments from red thick velvet curtains.. points attached to the rest.. and those two points were looking at me.. that was only a minute and the truck went away.. I did not know then that two hours later the Nazis killed them in the gas chambers. If there are any spies in the audience tell them there were gas chambers. .. orders to march along.. hear the voice how many? And the other voice.. fifteen. The other said I wanted 300! .. like sheep, like cattle, we're being counted. .. I showed them my birth certificate..took them out of my hand.. standing on a carpet of hundreds of photographs, envelopes, and letters.. those people were no more. Later on it all made sense.. mass extermination took place in Birkenau. .. a lovely pullover my wife had knitted for me. I stood there naked.. 50 Dutchman.. clipped our hair. No hair. the hair underneath your arms. The hair between your legs. .. a bucket of paraffin arms.. moved it over your heard, under your arms, and between your legs. That's disinfection. ..shower.. lovely hot water. No soap, no towels. I never saw a piece of soap in my three years of concentration camp life. You had to dry yourself on your ? but you got used to it. But this is still in the beginning. .. a man comes in wearing a beret and wellingtons. That was a kapo. A kapo is a kind of manager. And one of our fellas says 'Where are our wife and children' and up goes his hand like that, pointing upward.. we say to ourselves, man can't speak, there's something wrong with him. A few minutes later he comes back and another man asks him.. again that arm went up. He was not allowed to speak. You're not allowed to tell one another what happened in the camp. An S.S. might hear you may put you in the gas chamber. Later on I knew what that meant. I tell you and
Anne Frank would say the same thing. .. women of ? .. arrived at the bath house, the bath room. They were told they could have a shower after the long journey, a lovely shower. You undress, you're told to arrange your clothes neat, place your shoes in a way you can find them when you get out of the bath. You get into the chamber the doors are closed. You wait for water but no water comes. At the top from the ceiling an S.S. usually, even wearing a gas mask throws little pellets down from a tin. That's Zyklone B. That's cyanide. And when it drops down it takes 3 to 15 minutes and you've coughed yourself to death. That is killing in the gas chamber. You read that in your books. But you don't want that to happen now again like that, do you. Or worse maybe. That's Nazi theory. Well, I've only got ten minutes left to talk, otherwise I'll be sent to a camp. [laughter] ... then I couldn't get back but I would now. All right.. number tattooed on our arm.. my number is 98288 you can read it on the colour poster outside which is for sale you need money don't you. I won't charge for an autograph it's on there.. how to stand, how to walk, how to take off a beret.. how to stand five at a time.. it will take too long to give you a demonstration.. and you couldn't do nothing back.. if they slapped you or kicked you just take it.. You were there just to work and to die. Those kapos.. ex-murderers taken out of civilian prisons by the S.S. and dumped in the concentration camps... those people made your life a misery. .. the SS.. well, I stuck two months in Birkenau. .. thousands of men had to.. pass between two tables.. SS men.. you starved.. you were beaten.. what was it like..if you couldn't walk properly you .. went left.. if you had some flesh on your bum, you went to the right. .. Auschwitz.. that evening fifteen hundred prisoners marched under heavy guard to Auschwitz.. hard labour.. unloaded out of the trains.. millions of bricks I've carried.. one day I get called in my barracks.. from Holland.. Mr Jacobs.. well, what's the news from Holland.. you are one of the most unluckiest men I've ever met.. this is what he tells me.. when your train left, fifteen minutes quarter of an hour after that, Greenman Greenman, come to the office, we have found your documents.. your Englishness.. I was in Auschwitz.. I've seen enough.. not to send you home to tell the outside world what happened.. whoever you are.. no. From Auschwitz.. there I lived if you wanna call it 17 months.. the Russians were nearing Auschwitz. We knew the Germans were losing the war.. Auschwitz.. blankets.. they call this.. the death march.. If you couldn't walk.. you were shot. If you tried to run away, the beautiful white fields, you were shot. .. ninety kilometres.. fighting amongst the boys.. I didn't want to be hit. I sat on a heap of wood and pulled my blanket around me, you were allowed to take a blanket. .. I see it, I feel it, otherwise I can't do it. .. in Birkenau.. next morning ?froze to death.. wanted to see my wife and child.. anything to keep alive.. I saw a window open.. and I got my sleep.. stayed about four days and then we had to go into open cattle trucks.. I was pushed and hit by a gun of the SS guard.. I was weak.. too many people.. you couldn't sit, stand.. you just stayed on top of each other.. open cattle trucks.. freezing, snowing.. every morning four or five or six men were taken out, they died.. the journey.. to Buchenwald took five days. I stayed.. you wanta get home, and we all wanna go home, and I don't wanna be sent to a camp for disobeying order.. four months.. 11th of April 1945 at about 4 o'clock in the
afternoon.. I crawled out of my bed and I saw no SS, no SS in the towers, a small aeroplane circling over the camp, dead still.. and then I realised we were liberated.. at 6 o'clock official we were liberated by the Americans.. Buchenwald.. I didn't leave Buchenwald straight away.. walking and running about on the airport thinking a plane could take me to Holland it didn't happen that way.. airplane to France.. had to go into a British hospital in France near Paris.. and that's where my big toe was taken off my left foot.. in any case, my feet are still there, I didn't leave them in Buchenwald like a lot of men. The smell of rotten feet was so terrible.. the doctor said cut, cut, cut.. I said, don't cut. I'm an Englishman, these are chilblains.. anyway, the doctor didn't cut.. Anyhow, I went back to Holland.. in Holland I didn't find any of my family.. 60 or 70 members of my Dutch family.. when the Jews went, the Nazis took the non-Jews to work.. six million were killed.. one million non-Jews.. one million gipsies were killed.. a million and a half babies were killed.. what do you say about that? .. you can look it up.. I don't tell lies, cos lies don't help.. I wish there were survivors amongst you.. shout out if I'm wrong.. ladies and gentlemen, I've got three quarters of an hour left [laughter] .. when I got back to England.. 1945..
[END OF SIDE ABOUT HERE]
my two brothers.. they passed away a few months ago.. I got very little money from the British Council.. I had no clothes, I had no money.. I said give me enough money in coupons, I can buy a long coat.. a liddle attache case with some small articles that I bought.. light fittings on the corner of a street until the police scared you away.. I got no children I got no grandchildren. Only the lord is looking after me. God bless you all.
- FOOT: .. I've heard it's very difficult to get him to speak for less than an hour and ten minutes.. The message at the end that we must do something is absolutely imperative.. discuss strategy.. we have to clear this hall by ten.. impractical to have speeches from the floor..
ANN KENNEDY INTERVIEWS RE AIDS VACCINE TRIAL ETHICS
-Unfortunately rather weakly recorded with her portable recorder. I copied her tapes with my not-terrific ghetto-blaster
94-07-?? Ian V.D. Weller on Aids vaccine
94-07-12 David Tyrell at Porton Down on AIDS vaccine
94-07-22 Prof Robin Weiss on AIDS vaccine
-Much on AIDS infighting, 19 writers on 38 patients, MRC chair Lord Jellicoe pooh-poohing AIDS, their 'discoveries' which Kennedy didn't query in any way.
-He mentions British woman, ?Ann ?Bailey, was Prof of surgery in ?Lusaka, who became an Anglican ?vicar in Wembley; some experience with 'AIDS' in Africa. Much digression on Judaism, Catholics, Anglicans.
95-01-11 1/1 Charles Burford addresses The de Vere Society on Shakespeare authorship
- COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT under -vere with notes on the meeting and on people I sent copies of the tape to; following notes made prior to that transcription:
- 90 minutes, of which almost exactly the first side (plus a bit) contains the speech, followed by questions and answers on B (including three, at the very end, from me).
- Interestingly adumbrates a sort of quasi-Marxist class approach, but suggesting 'society' will become neo-feudal [pronounced 'neigh-o']; I wonder whether there's some comparison with Carlyle? Burford didn't seem very --democratic in inclination. He thinks De Vere predicted it, anyway.
Unfortunately he didn't develop his thesis - old men of feudalism overcome by new united monarchy (which is also a very severe autocracy) and redefining their role as artists and scientists and what not - in much depth. E.g. was all this ultimately caused by gunpowder?
- Suggests that de Vere has been subject to the equivalent of the Official Secrets Acts for dishing up the dirt on the Elizabethans - e.g. myth of 'Virgin Queen', bumbling bureaucratic-ness of Burghley. That's why the plays are presented in de-politicised form. And it's also why he used no new plots; if threatened with beheading for lampooning the queen, he'd say, no no; it's an old story in all the chronicles.
- De Vere felt shame all his life for pursuing literature
- Various amusing ideas, e.g. that it was best for Shakspere to be illiterate; in that case, absolutely no letters or writings could ever show up to spoil the carefully-fostered image.
95-02-28 1/1 Talks with IVOR CATT
- Full transcript under CHATS or similar PC file
95-04-12 Side A only " Not transcribed: starts with Peter Lilley, then stuff on ?Rein, ?US ?divorcee, on whom the official solicitor spent half a million of legal aid money to prevent his child having contact with him; the official solicitor's wife being partner in Pennington's, and Pennington's doing all the business of the official solicitor (he thought). Ivor hasn't worked out how money goes to large law firms rather than small ones. Newspapers haven't fathomed this; MPs won't mention it as many are lawyers anyway.
Then onto political incompetence: Peter Lilley, says Ivor, shouldn't have put details of his meeting with Rein, Ivor & another chap in writing. Cp Ivor's experience at a college, where his boss 'couldn't sack him' meaning he was incompetent in collecting evidence of his inability to teach - Ivor says he's always careful & no mud ever sticks to Ivor; and his US experiences, where, when the boss phones you asked his name.
And Ivor on weapons projects which didn't work - change of company name keeping them one step ahead of parliament. Then rather silly stuff on US experiments on human beings - Ivor characteristically thinking this referred to US servicemen; his only example, unsupported in any way, being LSD.
Includes odd stuff on road names and numbers and road cones, and on surplus bridges being built because nobody's thought out the way motorways join each other. Ivor may be right (though I doubt it) but couldn't make his case convincingly..
Final bit on my suggestion that his computer design should include a memory manager system for his huge numbers of processors and huge amount of RAM. He wasn't convinced; perhaps I wasn't.
95-06-21 On side B.
95-03-15 ISLAMIC MEETING/ TASLIMA NASRIN at Conway Hall
- Side A should have had Taslima Nasrin; but under the stress of the event I left the setting on 'dub'. And so I missed her whole speech, I think 20 minutes or so.
- Side B: Various speakers, including a Bangladesh labour organiser whose father I think had recently been murdered; Barbara Smoker; a Labour MP who I think spoke on Fundamentalism converging with the right wing.
DETAILED NOTES in and TRANSCRIPTION in
95-03-19 1/3 and 2/3 Colin Darracott of Charter 88
- At South Place.
95-03-19 2/3 and 3/3 U.N.A. Suzanne Long Policy & Information Officer
- At South Place.
- She was distressingly ill informed, not knowing about the claims about procedures before war against Iraq, or even of vetoes in UN.
95-03-20 & 23 1/1 SET 95 Science line: 0345 600 444
- This is to do with SET 95, Science Engineering and Technology week, '7 days from 17th March 1995'; a similar thing was help the year before. [Judith Babbayan a month or so after hadn't even heard of it. Also said they need one teacher per ten pupils - which also applies in Eire - and don't get the money for this, necessary in doing trips]:
- I asked among other questions:
A [recorded with answer machine; very good quality]
* Has Richard Attenborough made any original contribution to biology? They phoned him; no. He went into the Navy.
* Subatomic particles: How do CERN type machines work? What do they do? How are the images generated?
* Light and physics: is it just human-centred bias that makes light seem important?
B [recorded with mike and speaker phone; good quality]
* Drugs: how do they know they're addictive? How do they work? Since the brain isn't understood, how can they say anything at all?
* What proportion of scientists work on weapons?
* Viruses: how come anything is known about them in view of their small size?
* How do electron microscopes work?
FOLLOWING 4 SET 95 AT LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND TROPICAL MEDICINE:
- All recorded in 'Goldsmiths Hall', which Prof Crawford told me was paid for by the Goldsmiths. All the schoolkids sat at the back; Crawford said "they always do", segregated by school blazer and sex. Girls in the middle of the back. [Joke: having tried to buy cheap tickets for Alfred Brendel at the Barbican, and finding only the expensive ones left, it occurs to me that perhaps it's force of habit.] I was right at the front in my striped shirt and with my ghetto-blaster; this may have looked odd, but nobody said so. They also had a break for tea and biscuits between the two pair of lectures. The kids seemed to show almost no interest whatever.
There were supposed to be 12 displays, and I suppose there were, but they were all hard to penetrate. E.g. Cot Death display had rather irrelevant model of baby, and equipment like monitoring pads which make a sort of blip when the baby breathes - reassuring for the parents. As always I collected leaflets; general idea seemed to be that babies are overheated and too young to throw off bedclothes before about six months. This of course contrasts with the you-are-not-to-blame idea of volatile poisonous chemicals.
The Internet display of the 'Network Support Team' didn't work properly; I tried to get 'AIDS' information from the CDC but it hung up.
The Immune system at work video from the Molecular immunology unit seemed not to be showing; Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets by Ms Yomi Aina/ Prof Chris Curtis, Vector Biology and Epidemiology Unit seems a lot of words. Electron Microscopy in Infectious diseases by Dr Simon Croft, Parasite and Vector Biochemistry Unit I think wasn't there. 'Health for All in Europe' Dr Martin McKee, Health Services Research Unit seemed to indicate a political shift. Etc.
Joke: note: subject subdivisions: they have a compulsion, for power reasons which must be lost on the kids, to list their pathetic 'Units': Epidemiological Monitoring, Environmental Epidemiology, Medical Statistics unit, Applied Molecular Biology and Diagnostics Unit...
As I queued for tea - I joked with a rasta type in a cook's hat that it was a mini-science; knowing the number of cups that fit on a table - a small darkish disagreeable woman with a black matt mike of truncated cone shape who said she was from the BBC World Service asked me what I thought; Joke: she said she wanted a Vox Pop. I said I was surprised they hadn't yet noticed AIDS is a myth, and explained what I meant; she obviously hadn't heard this. I added I was interested in how science is promoted, and said the meeting was interesting, but not helpful. I wonder whether this was broadcast.
95-03-22 1/5 SET 95 Making Motherhood safe Dr Wendy Graham of Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Unit
- She was small and middle aged and grey haired, slightly elfin-faced with rather inverted-V mouth. Not very loud voice. Seemed mostly 'third world' pictures with no criticism & therefore almost entirely remote, though the figures seemed international. To be fair she did criticise the state of affairs by which African girls of say 15 started having children and continued until they had 6 or 8 or whatever.
- 100-150 million normal births
- 500,000 deaths [of mothers, I think]
- Pie chart has about 1/4 showing difficult births, 35-40 million, and 15-20 million 'acute' - I didn't get the phrasing.
A small slice shows illegal abortions.
- Map shows place of origin of LSHTM students: mostly from Africa, and from the coastal areas, though a few from Bangla Desh, somewhere like Yemen, South America.
95-03-22 2/5 SET 95 Viruses and Cancer by Prof Dorothy Crawford, Head of Viral Pathogenesis Unit
- Dark short hair; louder than the previous, more dragon-like, so I had some sympathy with the kids clustering far away. Unrelieved dull technical presentation; I'm sure Hillman would find abundant scope for attack.
- Starts with slide saying in 1992 there were 558,000 deaths [UK of course is understood]
146,000 of cancer
11,700 virus related cancer.
- <18 Mar, 96> TRANSCRIPTION FOLLOWS: I did this because of doubts planted in me by Harold as to the applicability to electron microscopy to disease; on listening to the tape, various scientific weaknesses certainly seemed to exist:
- "We know today that around ten percent of cancers are associated
Now on this slide I've broken the information down a bit more to show you the types of cancer that are associated with viruses, and there are separate figures here for men and for women, because they're different in men and women. As you can see here, in women the major cancer associated with viruses is cancer of the cervix of the uterus, which is a comon cancer here, and in men the commonest one that's associated with a tumour is cancer of the liver. This one although it occurs in women as well, is actually more common in men than in women. And there are many other sorts of cancers now, including cancer of the naso-pharynx, some leukaemias, which are also known to be associated with viruses.
Now the definition of cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells. So that, cells which grow in a completely uncontrolled manner give rise to a tumour which is very difficult to treat. And so, in order to study cancers and find out what the cause of them is, we clearly have to know and understand how cells grow and what controls the processes of normal cell growth. [Break]
.. cells. This is a picture taken down an electron microscope, so it's very highly magnified, and this cell is in fact in the process of dividing. I think you can see here is the cytoplasmic membrane, and here is the nuclear membrane, and it's pinched in the middle, and it's beginning to divide into two separate nuclei.
Now inside that nucleus there will be chromosomes which carry the genes, the genetic information of the cell, and they will have divided into two, and one of each of those chromosomes will
have passed into the two sides of the nucleus. So that when the nucleus divides, it will contain an equal copy of the genetic material, identical to the parent cell. When the nucleus is divided, the cytoplasm will then begin to divide, you can just see a little indentation here, and eventually that will give rise to two cells which are identical to the parent cell.
Now, if you imagine how this cell division is controlled, it is actually extremely complicated. And I think the best example for us to consider is the example of the skin. Now, we're all here, and our skin seems to fit us absolutely. I mean we don't have sort of extra skin or not enough skin. It seems to fit really quite nicely. [Break]
.. cells in the skin absolutely regulated to the number of cells that you're losing from the surface of your skin all the time, just by touching things, or by scratching, or whatever. And if you cut yourself, then the skin cells begin to grow at an increased rate until they've patched up that hole that you've made in yourself and then they go back to dividing at a lower rate. Clearly it's very well controlled. If it wasn't, .. you might.. end up looking like that..
Now, if we look at this control at the cellular level, we can see here, this is the line of the gut, the large bowel in fact, and in this bit here that I'm indicating, this is a normal area, with a single cell lining of the gut, all nice regular cells, all lined up along the edge there. Now in this area, they've begun to proliferate too quickly, and to grow in a rather uncontrolled manner, and this has given rise to a sort of cauliflower-like area where the epithelium is bulging out, because there are too many cell to line it. However, there is still some control over these cells, because they still have a certain organised pattern to them, and they still are staying actually on the edge of the bowel, and they aren't invading into the centre of this stalk here. However, in the bottom panel here, the cells have begun to proliferate and mushroom out like that, but they've also lost another layer of control, and they've begun to infiltrate into the wall of the bowel. And this at the bottom here is a true malignant tumour. I think you can see, here they are, infiltrating, these dark cells, into the wall of the bowel. And that's the beginning of the infiltration, the spread, that cancers can do.
So. We know now that the cause of cancer is not generally one single agent and it doesn't occur in a quick overnight step. There are generally several series of events which have to occur in order for a cancer to develop. And this is shown in two of them. There's the first with increased cell growth, but with a certain degree of control remaining, and then there's the stage where really the control of the growth is completely lost. And we know about these series of events in quite a few cancers. I've put two up here on this slide, two that I thought you would know something about, just to demonstrate the series of events that occur. Now, we all know that smoking is associated with lung cancer. But we also know that not everybody who smokes gets lung cancer. So clearely there must be other things involved in the progression towards the final malignancy. And these may be other environmental factors, they may be genetic factors, very often the cell division that I was just telling you about gets a bit imbalanced and too many chromosomes may go into one side of the cell and not enough in the other side, and these chromosome
abnormalities may then be an extra step in this progression. And, indeed viruses may be a step in this progression. So that in the next example I've put here, cancer of the cervix, multiple sexual partners is a known risk factor for developing this tumour, but fortunately not everybody who has multiple sexual partners develops this tumour. However, multiple sexual partners predisposes to infection with the human papilloma virus, and human papilloma virus is another step in the progression towards the development of malignancy.
Now this is bringing me on to talking about viruses, and here are a selection of viruses, pictures again taken down an electron microscope, just to show you what they look like. They come in various shapes and sizes. This one here is the one that's associated with liver cancer; this is the AIDS virus; and this one is associated with diarrhoea, and this one with cold sore. Now viruses are extremely small, and on this slide I've got a diagram here of a regular bacteria. I think you know that bacteria are small. You need a microscope to see a bacterium. But viruses are even smaller. And here is the smallest virus that you can have, the ?Haber virus, and here is the largest virus which you can have, the Cox virus, and they are no way anything like the size of even the smallest bacteria.
Now because viruses are so small, they can't live on their own; they have to live inside a living cell. They need some of the chemicals inside a living cell in order to be able to divide themselves, and grow. So that they are natural parasites, and I guess that's from our point of view the problem, that they have to live inside of ourselves in order to grow themselves.
Now there are two types of viruses broadly speaking. One, which causes an acute type of disease, that is, rather like the measles virus or the flu virus, these will infect your body, give you a disease, and when your system has got control of it, the virus will leave the body, and you will not be bothered by that virus again. And in tissue culture this is the kind of thing that that sort of virus does. Here is a nice sheet of normal cells growing in the laboratory, and if you infect them with the measles virus, they enter the cells, they take over the whole mechanism, they utilise it for their own resources and they kill the cells. And you get a terrible mess like this up here. And that's really the end of the cells.
However there are other viruses which when they infect you, they don't necessarily give you an acute disease but they have the ability to persist in the body, and they can infect you for the whole of your life. And, so that they actually don't kill the cells. What they do, some of them anyway, is cause the cells to grow, and to proliferate. And here again on the left-hand side, we have a nice sheet of normal cells, and when these are affected by one of those type of viruses they are induced to proliferate, to grow, so that each cell there will give rise to a clump of cells like these and in some cases they will go on and on growing if we continue to feed them in the laboratory. And these are the sort of viruses which are associated with cancers.
Now I want to spend the rest of the talk telling you about the virus, or the cancer, that I work on. And in this case, really, many of the steps which are involved in the production of this cancer have been worked out. The tumour is called Burkett's lymphoma, after the man who first identified it. His name was Denis Burkett and he was a missionary-surgeon in Africa
in the early 1950s. And he recognised this tumour which commonly occurs in African children and commonly in the jaw, as it has in this child here. He recognised it and stated that he'd never seen this tumour when he worked in this country, but when he went to Africa he found it was really quite common. And investigating this, he took off on a trip around Africa and what he discovered was that the tumour wasn't actually common over all Africa, but only in certain areas. So it showed a geographical restriction. And this is a map taken from one of his papers which showed the areas in which this tumour occurs. And it really appeared to be a belt across the centre of Africa. And he worked out that the tumour occurred only in areas which were below 1000 feet, i.e. not at high altitudes, it occurred in areas where the minimum temperature was sixteen degrees centigrade, so only where the temperature was above that, and only where the rainfall was over 60 cms per year. So it clearly had very specific requirements in order for this tumour to occur. And because of this, workers in this country, in fact workers at the Middlesex Hospital, just around the corner from here, decided that this was a good bet for a tumour caused by an infectious agent. And they spent a long time looking for an infectious agent associated with this tumour. And eventually after about two years of work they came up with a virus. And this is it. It's called the Epstein-Barr virus, after the people who did all this work, they were called Professor Epstein and Dr Barr. [Joke: occurred to me there's a pun on Edgar ?Allan Poe, 'The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether.'] They called this virus after themselves. And then, once they discovered the virus in the tumour, they had to find out whether it really was associated with the tumour, or whether it was just a sort of passenger virus which happened to be present in the material. And again they spent a lot of time trying to work this out, and what they eventually showed was that it was associated with all the tumours that they looked at, so that was a god sign, but it was one of these persistent viruses that I was talking about, and that it does cause cells to grow and proliferate in an uncontrolled manner, when you use it to infect cells in the laboratory. So it certainly sounds as if it's a good bet for being associated with this human tumour. However, the only puzzling thing was that this virus has a world-wide distribution. In fact, about 95% of us in this room will be infected and carrying the virus at this time. And that didn't fit with the geological [sic] restriction of the tumour.
So they really then had to set about explaining why the tumour had this geographical restriction, and looking for another cofactor, another link in the chain which would lead to the development of the tumour, which did show that geographical restriction. And the answer turned out to be this! I don't know if you recognise that. That's a blood film, and these are red blood cells, and within some of them you'll see this nasty creature, which is the malaria parasite. And the answer turned out to be malaria, and the virus. if you look at the geographical distribution of malaria, it in fact entirely mirrors that of Burkett's lymphoma, and as you know I'm sure, malaria is spread by this equally nasty little beast, and not quite so little, the mosquito. [sic] And this mosquito here as you can see is sitting on somebody's arm and having a very large blood meal. It's abdomen is full of blood from that individual. And it spreads malaria from one individual to another.
So the question is then - oh. Malaria, as I say, has exactly the same geographical restriction as Burkett's lymphoma, and of course it is the reason why the tumour does not occur above a thousand feet, because these mosquitoes do not fly above a thousand feet. They also need a high temperature, over sixteen degrees centigrade, and a high rainfall in order to breed in the water where their larvae live. So that seemed to fit extremely well. The only question remaining then is what is the link between the virus and the malaria, which leads to this tumour?
And in order to look at this problem we from our laboratory went out to Gambia in West Africa and we looked at the virus infection in individuals who were suffering from acute malaria. That's group one here. And in the same individual when they'd recovered from their malaria. And we counted the number of cells in the body which were carrying the virus. And what we were able to show was, that, during an acute attack of malaria the number of virus carrying cells in the body increased enormously. And this was probably due to the malaria causing depression of the immune system. It's well known to do that, it causes the immune system to be depressed during the time when an individual has malaria, and this depression allows the number of virus-carrying blood cells in the body to increase, and to grow. And if you increase the number of cells, then you increase the chances of a tumour occurring in one of those cells. So that seemed to form a link between the malaria and the virus.
Now finally just one other thing we know about this tumour, and that is that a chromosome abnormality also occurs and also seems essential for the development of the tumour. I don't know if you're familiar with looking at chromosomes, but this is the sort of spread that you get from one of these tumour cells, and when you sort all the chromosomes out and put them into pairs and line them up as we have done down here you can see that there are some abnormalities. For example, here's a very peculiar looking chromosome; these four down here didn't seem to fit into any sort of pattern at all. And also, in all these tumours, one of the chromosomes 8 has a bit missing off the end of it. I don't know if you can see that this one is actually shorter than that one. And this bit goers and gets stuck on the end of chromosome 14. So this one is longer than this one. And those chromosome abnormalities also predispose to the development of the tumour. So that finally, we can end up with a sort of progression, a series of events, which have to occur in order for this particular tumour to develop. I discussed with you about Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV as we now call it, and recurrent malaria. These two infections seem to interact probably because recurrent malaria causes immune suppression and because Epstein-Barr virus prolongs the life of the a, and causes it to grow and proliferate, and then in one of those cells that carries the virus, a rare chromosomal abnormality occurs, and this leads eventually to the outgrowth of the tumour. Now, there may be other steps involved in the progression towards this tumour, but we don't know about them at the moment. These are the ones which have been identified. And as I say, this is one of the tumours in fact where the most the steps have been identified. And the involvement of the virus of course means that there is some way, perhaps, of dealing with, either preventing or treating this tumour, and at the present time there's a lot of work going on, making a vaccine to Epstein-Barr virus in order to try and
immunise children at an early stage and prevent the development of this tumour.
So that's all I've got to say really. I hope I've been able to show you that cancer research is an exciting field to be in at the moment. It can involve field studies, going out to Africa and looking at the actual site where a tumour occurs, it involves laboratory studies, and also dealing with patients. Thank you." [Applause.]
95-03-22 3/5 SET 95 'Teenagers and Sex' by Ms Kaye Wellings, Health Promotion Services Unit
- Co-authored 'Sexual Behaviour in Britain'
- Joke: this woman was not from LSHTM at all! Joke: seems to have absolutely no medical qualifications either.
- Joke: do-gooder type presentation which I imagine went down like lead; points included:
- Joke: "Tends to put people into a panic.. these two words in one sentence.. try to quell that panic by looking at hard information..'
- Joke: Several jokes!: Sex is a very positive force, it's a way of expressing affection, and it bonds people together, but it's also a very powerful force; it can bring down kings and processes and soap stars and Tory ministers and.. deputy governors of the Bank of England.. .. It tends to be managed and controlled in most societies.. times when we're getting on with the important things of life like work, and getting on with our affairs and so on. Most societies however primitive have a social institution in which it's looked after. And in ours it's called marriage. Sex produces children, who are best looked after in a stable union, and the institution of marriage makes sure that happens. .. increasingly less likely for everyone to be married.. live together.. that's still the normal pattern.. The problem is that age which society thinks is appropriate for use to enter into the institution of marriage is a good deal letter than we are ready for sex. .. "
- [Joke:] ".. Kids who flout the law. This is a reference to the age of sexual consent, which is 16, but as you may or may not know, it is an offence for boys to have sex with a girl under that age, but it's not an offence for a girl. So the girl is protected by the law. .."
- Joke: 'church' mentioned (just once)
- [Joke: at some point she says you can worry too much; one of her sons goes out with lots of girls, so she worries. The other doesn't go out with girls, so...]
- Asking the audience what they thought the average age is of first intercourse; the boys guessed lower than the girls, at say 15 as opposed to 16; in fact a huge survey has been done of 90,000 people so we have (Wellings implied) reliable information. The median seemed to be about 17, and as we sample older groups the median went up, though only up to about 21 I think.
- A question was: B How old were you when you first had any kind of experience of a sexual kind - for example kissing, cuddling, petting - with someone of the opposite sex. If respondent queries, explain any kind of experience that you feel
is sexual.'
- Joke: Being a productive member of society - going to university or doing apprenticeships etc - stressed in what I felt was a Note: class biased and pushy way especially from someone herself untrained etc. Mustn't be distracted from exams etc.
- Joke: table of ages at menarche; as usual the idea is it's declined. But how is the information obtained?
- Joke: one of the tables had a confusion as 'age of interview' looked like the vertical column but in fact referred to the headings across the table.
- Joke: end of the 1980s; what happened? She asked the audience and a girl eventually answered 'AIDS'. She projected a table of condom use and seemed pleased it had crept up from I think 40% to 60%. Joke: she didn't consider that perhaps people had just said this.
- Joke: Nothing on homosexuality
- Joke: nobody responded to request for questions. She thought perhaps some might like to talk to her after.
95-03-22 4/5 SET 95 "Darwin's Disease" and Genetic Diversity by Prof Michael Miles, Applied Molecular Biology and Diagnostics.
- Chagas Disease in South America and large bugs; this man, a northerner, pleased with himself because he's allowed to visit Rio and places, did some of this vector stuff, investigating and plotting things in the blood and in wild animals. Since he said hundreds of the bugs which can live in [primitive] human dwellings there do so, his work seemed a bit dead-ended, but one shouldn't say that.
Joke: I think he must have relocated from a Unit with 'vector' in the title.
Joke: recommends this work as you can travel etc. "But it's not a soft option."
Joke: he said nothing about genetic diversity, except projecting a slide showing connections between strains; he didn't say what definition is used to assess closeness.
Richard Ennals gave me some tapes.
-2000 Reith Lecture Vandana Shiva on globalistaion/ Pros and cons of Vaccinations
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-2000 June 13, 15 - Radio 4 on BNP/ radio 4 on Asians in Southall
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chaos theory lecture by scorer
C:-TH.EOR
CHAOS THEORY
====
- Sun 20 Mar 94: South Place; lecture 11 - 12 pm plus questions by Prof [Emeritus - retired] Richard Scorer. My PC search gave another lecture by him on May 1991, which my notes say is ordinary stuff on Gaia etc.
Rather odd appearance; grey beard trimmed clear of his face, giving quaker appearance; suit with large but discreet check of a sort I have no vocabulary for - short trousers, I think above the knee, with long yellow socks, for his bike; and cut with built-in belt and no lapels, but part-undone or unzipped revealing a dark shirt and an ordinary shiny stripy dark greenish tie. He pronounces 'molecule' with long o, and graph with a short a. He is a dull and ponderous speaker.
However, a substantial minority of the audience had odd faces, with strange pop eyes or skew glasses or matted hair or bad complexions etc etc, or absurd voices, or peculiar mannerisms, or conversation devoted solely to themselves ["I have one daughter too.. she lives in [place].. I visit.."], or ragged clothes and Margaret thought smelly, so perhaps he was in the right place. When I sat there, a man with shock of frizzy hair spoke to an Indian: "Why is the human race intent on destroying itself?"
He was seated at a table next to Norman Bacrac in the odd fireplace at South Place library, which Margaret drew my attention to; it has a sort of ceiling and sides, with two wood seats at each side: essentially a wood panelled fireplace in which you can sit, strange though this sounds.
- Norman Bacrac announced him as ex-professor of Applied Maths at London University or UCL or something. It struck me he might be an inheritor of W K Clifford. Ugh. He'd supposedly done work in meteorology.
- Born c 1919; he said he'd been told when young that "we" had won "because we didn't believe we could lose." This sort of anecdote seemed typical of his vague attitude to social issues.
- Working on a book on climate [Note: naivety: later he spoke feelingly of books, produced in error as he believed, which are destroyed almost before anyone knows they exist]
- 'Climate is a sort of average behaviour of the weather over a long period'
- Believes forecasts of the weather aren't worth listening to three days or more ahead
- European Centre, 'long range forecast' means 10-14 days
- Computer model gave the idea first of the 'butterfly in the South American forest' implying very unstable. He compares this with a pencil balanced on its point with the air still etc; his maths teacher had told him a fly stamping its foot in Borneo or somewhere would make it fall. He said, with an absurd ponderous effect, that he didn't think in Borneo.. but a fly stamping its foot on the table might do it!
- Simple thermodynamics ideas: everything tends to degrade to heat.. a car's brakes get hot, but you can't collect the heat together and make it into fuel.. a broken vase is broken and this is not reversible.. 'weather's like that'
- Newton.. difficult for ordinary people to understand from about 1800 onwards.. deterministic.. automatic.. this, that just happened.. Shaw defined [sic] technology as 'diabolically efficient' [smiles] meaning that science works..
- Perutz [I think Nobel Prize winning-] description of how haemoglobin works.. about the same time as DNA.. grabs oxygen.. the molecule snaps open.. then swaps for CO2.. flipped.. entirely mechanical explanations.. thoroughly exploited..
- ".. used by mathematicians.. sort of unpredictability.. not that it's non-determined, but we can't predict it.." [The first of many times in which he failed to make distinctions properly] ".. we'll find non-linear differential equations.. we used to have linear equations.. pendulum swinging. Now if it goes er over the top.. we can't predict where it will go.. [this is probably from a TV programme] we can't predict where the balls will go in the roulette wheel.. probably just as well! [laugh].. but it's a relatively simple system.. nobody has succeeded in calculating it because, in fact, it is a chaotic system.." [NB: this system, and others like e.g. dice throws, can surely be expressed just in simple equations, seems to conflict with his idea that 'non linear differential equations' always apply here]
- [Etymological note, though he didn't use this expression:] ".. Milton.. Paradise Lost.. chaos was a chasm, a void, an empty space which Satan bridged. At least, in the bit I did at school when I was 16.."
- "Chaos describes a sort of absence of knowledge, not a terrific muddle." [In several questions he was able to deter the questioners by claiming they'd not got this point and were misusing the special sense of chaos]
- [Very long dull unintelligent talk on predator-prey relation (not his phrase) about a moth in the 'grubs' of which a wasp puts 'embryos', and which in abundant years scatters its eggs carelessly all over the place. Very long explanation. Oh god. NB: probably wrong in any case, as such equations have been used for ages and give perfectly good solutions - at least where continuous populations are assumed; and I take it calculus can't be used with discrete populations] ".. it has non-linear terms.. he couldn't find a formula which would tell him.. eclipses can be predicted years ahead.. we can't predict five years ahead.. some years the wasps go up.. and the next year they go up too.. then they drop.. population control.. it's a mechanism to control the population..it's something we don't have.. if we want food we get it.. you can calculate for the next year, and the year after [sic] .. but there's no regularity.. Professor May found this.. [he carefully adds that even if the differential equations exactly correctly correspond to the real world, the result are chaotic, it's not a mistake or approximation - this is mostly my phrasing] .. switches.. well we can calculate, but we don't always get the same result..
- "Computer models.. they've been doing them for a long time.. corrected.. remove things we know won't happen.. permanent fog.. high temperatures.. ice in central Africa.. wind speed maximum say 70.. summer and winter [sic].. two days ahead is an achievement.. sometimes it's easy to predict; sometimes [sc. conditions make it] more difficult.." [He's not sure whether the cost is 4 million or 4 billion] ".. 'feed in' symptoms.. computer diagnosis.. it may well be a good thing.. the cost makes it difficult to say it's wrong.. if it costs 4 million, or four billion they can't say the forecast is no good.."
[NB: Naively, he imagines weather forecasting is purely for holidays etc]
- "We can't take into account a lot of little things that seem to make a difference.." [He introduces fractals and the idea of repetitiveness of a pattern when magnified. He doesn't seem to know about 'snowflake curve' and such things]
- "We know that this unpredictability is bound up with non-linear equations.. at Cambridge.. ?graduate.. after the war.. they came to the conclusion they couldn't do anything about it.. the mechanical revolution.. based on linear equations.. there are a few accurate solutions with non-linear equations.. but most of the time.. etc"
- "Is it any use? .. prevent us giving credulity to models.. we are learning to etc etc.. Even a computer 100 times as big.. 1 kilometre intervals instead of 100.. couldn't actually obtain that information.. just not on.. probably more economical to wait and see.. it might rain; take an umbrella.."
- [Norman Bacrac asks what he'd say about the question of 5th or 6th June 1944:] ".. advisors.. there was a board.. like launching rockets.. sometimes
have to wait for the wind not to be strong enough to blow them off course etc.."
- "Economics.. not very subtle models.. more guesswork than physics.."
- "Planners.. taking something that was predicted to happen and design as though it must happen.. If a politician asks for something else they say it can't be done.. They said what happened in America would happen here.. to take charge rather than predict then facilitate prediction.."
- "Global warming.. conclusion.. we still have to wait to see if there's warming.. people don't want to hear about the difficulties; they want an answer.. people get pushed.. the Met Office used to give forecasts a week ahead; now they just give warnings of imminent changes
=====
[My questions; I only put the first four, and that was hard enough; this is out of sequence; I list the other questions after:]
Q1: Has the unsolvability of 2nd order equations actually been proved, as e.g. quintics are proved insoluble?
A1: "Linear equations.. you can add solutions.. they still work.. infinite series.. large part of success.. Newton.. two types.. some that go off for ever, others go round and round [I think he must have been talking about simple orbits] .. exploited.. non-linear equations.. some have solutions.. given names [i.e. of their discoverers].. not in terms of functions we are used to.. sines, cosines, logs.. you can't add solutions.. When I was a graduate at ?Cambridge they said they didn't see how to save these.." [And more; this is a fair sample of how he 'replied'. I believe he didn't know the answer, though I think he believed there might be hitherto-undiscovered functions that might provide a solution, perhaps only to some types. He seemed not to distinguish clearly between solutions that use numeric methods & those which are analytical (my phrasing)]
Q2: What sort of characteristics do phenomena described by non-linear differential equations have? I.e. what are they like, how can you recognise them?
A2: ".. Large amplitude pendulum swings. [Norman Bacrac also provided this example. I asked why? His answer just seemed to be that the formula worked out like that, which seems to show lack of feel for the physics involved. He added viscous fluid mechanics. I asked what it was about viscous fluids that made them describable in non-linear differential equations; but he seemed unable to comprehend the point of this question]
Q3: About 20 years ago Catastrophe Theory came along, which perhaps was a fashion. Do you think Chaos theory is a fashion, and have you any comments on intellectual fashions?
A3: [Nothing to say on this, irritatingly. He agreed with a half smile that he'd paid little attention to catastrophe theory; however, he didn't give any rational reason for this neglect]
Q4: Isn't there a contradiction between your idea that weather is entirely unpredictable a few days ahead, and yet you believe very confidently that there will be say summer and winter? E.g. couldn't a different methodology give a vaguer but still useful forecast?
A4: [Evasive crap; in fact he started looking at another man, who'd asked a question more relevant to his 'answer':] ".. they won't diverge for ever.. we had 12 figure logarithms.. drew graphs.. like a rocket exploding.. of course that's not quite a correct description.. etc.. ten thousand years ago.. cold.. last ten thousand years very favourable.. more suitable to live in.. understanding is desirable.. mini ice age from er 1400 to er.."
Q5: [I never got round to inserting this question in..] Has anyone surveyed weather forecast results and obtained careful, statistical conclusions rather than the usual impressionistic beliefs about forecasts?
Q: [Obese man, who caused amused and tiresome hissing when he pronounced 'accuracy' as 'accracy':] "Man on TV said deep ocean currents had been linked with the weather & they expect weather to be forecast a decade ahead. I'm not saying this is right; it's just what he said.
Will chaos theory dispel parochial myths and beliefs..? .. In political and other theories.. Helps sow sense of confusion to the establishment.." [I think his latter point was this; or it may have been that he thought it was useful to the establishment, in disorienting people or causing people to expect disorientation.]
A: [Nothing useful. He didn't believe the first point, but had no information on this supposed new theory, perhaps based on El Nino]
Q: [Man with high pitched voice & intense Germanic accent:] "Say zere is a two party system.. a good party and a bad party.. I leave it to you vezzer you call zem Tory or Labour.. and say elections every five years.. five years for effects to take effect.. what engineers would call a 180 degree phase shift.. zen when the good government etc etc.. there'll be a 'bad government' more often.." [Latter statement not supported; hard to see how it could be]
A: .. the assumption is a very brazen one.. might be 90 degree shift..
Q: ".. what effect does man have on climate..?"
A: "It is a conceit of our race.. I've often heard it.. atom bombs.. Concorde.. [he seems to think there's little real evidence..] .. a flood plain is where rivers go when there's too much water. But it doesn't look like it if you live there.. you build embankments.. the Aral Sea.. irrigate northern Afghanistan.. disaster.. almost gone.." [Norman Bacrac mentions rain forests] ".. carbon dioxide.. fuel costs in 2090.. population of 10 thousand million.. I favour purchase tax, what do they call it, er VAT, on fuel.."
Q: [Oldish woman:] "Our animal instincts have been cultured out of us.. Look at the Jews in Germany.. Why didn't they get out?.. Animals feel fear.. They couldn't believe what would happen.. the culture of the Jewish people.. turn the other cheek.." [Laughter; several people say 'an eye for an eye' is Jewish; Bacrac says that Jesus was a Jew, so you could reasonably say it's Jewish]
A: "Can we not discuss the Holocaust..?"
Q: [Indian chap I later found teaches telecommunications:] ".. the effect of a large difference from a small change in initial conditions.. could have been discovered any time in the last 50 or 60 years.. Why did it take so long? .. computers?"
A: ".. Pictures of fractals drawn by computer.. all sort of things.. it's like looking words up.." [i.e. much much faster by computer. He seemed to think computers were important; however, as usual no particular opinion and no contribution]
Q: [Chap with incomprehensible voice, beard, clothes with holes in, who makes the tea there:] ".. Lorentz.. weather forecaster.. kicked it off as a discrete subject.. Tartaglia, Cardin.. [I later found he'd got this from my comment on quintics] .. why was it labelled 'chaos'? .. Poincaré.. Mandelbrot? .. n-body systems have been known for about 200 years.. [he's picked up something about Newton; probably I think from Kuhn] It's a fluid system..
counting sunlight etc in the model.."
A: ".. Lorentz.. however his model wasn't anything like the atmosphere.."
---------------------------------
JOHN FOGGIT
====
JOHN FOGGIT
36 York Road
Stony Stratford
MILTON KEYNES
MK11 1BJ
Tel: 01908-562943.
-Chatted to him at Sun 24 March, 96, where he was taping Ivor Catt's talk entitled The Politics of Knowledge at South Place.
-Slender, if not actually skinny, tallish, mass of receding but fuzzy buff hair and domed head.
-Proud of being not married, having fully paid off mortgage, no kids, no surviving parents, and two self supporting sisters. So he can afford the luxury of being outspoken, he maintains.
-Friendly with Ivor Catt & occasionally visits him. But not too often.
-Thinks Ivor's proof that there can't be fundamental particles is very excellent; it seems to start with "is such a particle rigid or floppy?", and end with looking at a diagram of 'time' going up against 'space' going across, with a speed of light time cone [standard stuff - whether meaningful or not - of Hawking[?s] et al] and a dot at the intersection not being allowed outside the two lines and therefore not being a 'particle'.
-Programming and hardware development for firm (in noisy open plan office about which nobody was consulted) on some sort of security system, which identifies vibrations of fences and tries to decide which are suitable to raise an alarm and attract video cameras.
-Says Intel has done more than anyone to DELAY the progress of microcomputers. His programming is always in 68000 chips, or nearly always, though apparently they use IBM PC because of the Windows etc 'front end.'.
-Recommended to me a book with a title something like 'Mr Tomkins in Wonderland' (dated before 1970; author not known) in which Mr Tomkins is shrunk to atomic size and sees and understands what's going on. I'm not sure how serious he was about this.
-I think I managed to impress him e.g. by 1. pointing out speed of light measurement seems to assume reflection takes zero time (maybe they've tried multiple reflections though?); but why should it? 2. That Newton hid his maths in order to amaze people - of Keynes is right - and Einstein, who wrote out his original theory, nevertheless accepted its mathematization by his friend and also later wrote a book which was solidly mathematical. 3. That maths formulas in physics books are of uncertain status; are they supposed to be mere writing down of what goes on - e.g. with B, H, sine theta, divided by distance squared etc, or are they meant to be something more? 4. My view that the sort of maths involved in the supposed proof of Fermat's Last Theorem isn't really maths at all; that night I thought of an analogy - it's like the difference between a plodding lexicographer or compiler, and an original prose writer.
- He agrees with 'The Catt Concept' that organisations contain fighting tribes and the individuals couldn't care less about the interests of the corporation etc. We also discussed whether technical people are more mean-minded than others; he said he tried being an academic, and said he's prefer industry every time. Nevertheless he conceded my point about software houses being organised so the superiors have no interest in training the juniors, and the possibility that knowledge based people might well be more touchy etc.
- I realised later that this is the chap who hasn't installed Ivor's hard disk (and Internet stuff). Apparently he is himself on Internet.
------------------------------------------
C:.IS
THEOCHARIS
====
- THEOCHARIS, THEO, 200A MERTON ROAD, LONDON SW18. 0181-870 6191
- above garage; there's usually space to park
====
[1] Note on Greeks and language/ His four betes noires: Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn, Feyerabend/ Likes these authors: Chalmers, Stove
[2] 'WHERE SCIENCE HAS GONE WRONG': 'NATURE' 15 OCT 1987 with M Psimopoulos
[3] 'ON THE METHOD AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH' 5-7 Sept 1988 at Bologna
[4] 'RATIONALISM BETRAYED' 20 OCT 1991 in 'ETHICAL RECORD'
[5] Catt and Harold Hillman on Theocharis
[6] 'London Student Skeptics' Meeting 11 May 1992
[7] Things I could ask Theocharis
[8] Letter Suggesting Meeting 19 Aug 1993
[9] Meeting 25 Aug 1993
[10] Tape Session Jan 1996
[11] South Place lecture
[12] Letter Fri 16 August, 96
[13] At South Place, 2 March, 97
[100] Notes
====
[1] Note on Greeks and language/ His four betes noires: Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn, Feyerabend/ Likes these authors: Chalmers, Stove
- NOTE: [Language:] Theocharis is Greek Cypriot, who looks somewhat Indian. He reads Greek and according to Hillman ancient Greek; a lot of his outlook seems to be founded on this [see e.g. where he makes fun of physicists for using the word 'atom', which he says means indivisible, in phrases like 'splitting the atom'.] He is also alarmingly free in coining neologisms.
His attitude is somewhat parallel to English speakers who dislike Americanisms like the phone query "Who is this?", 'rock' for 'stone', 'live on the street' for 'live in the street', and the expression 'visit with' which appeared, respectively, as complaints as a letter to the Times, a TV review in the Guardian, a Guardian review of Encyclopedia Britannica et al, and a Private Eye review of a Jean Auel hardback]
====
[2] 'WHERE SCIENCE HAS GONE WRONG': 'NATURE' 15 OCT 1987 with M Psimopoulos ; it says, falsely, or perhaps as a joke, that they 'are in the Department of Physics, Imperial College..' [Later he laughed and said, well, he was 'in' the building]
- Shows he hasn't seemed to understand the difference between falsifiability of a single observation, and falsifiability of a theory; and also he doesn't seem to have grasped Popper's objection to e.g. Freud was that it was 'irrefutable' in a different sense from other, testable, theories. [He says: 'In 1919 Sir Karl Popper by his own account had taken a strong dislike to the theories of Marx, Freud, and Adler, whose supporters maintained that they were scientific. The difficulty was that Popper could not find any obvious way to refute them conclusively. Having noticed that Einstein's theories made (what seemed to him) falsifiable predictions, Popper resolved all his difficulties simply by declaring: "Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.. The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability". (Example: "The earth is (approximately) a sphere" is not a scientific statement because it is not falsifiable; whereas "The earth is a flat disk" is indeed scientific.) Popper also thought that observations are theory-laden. He phrased it thus: "Sense-data, untheoretical items of observation, simply do not exist. A scientific theory is an organ we develop outside our skin, while an organ is a theory we develop inside our skin."]
- However the more interesting stuff is on funding of science, naturally a subject dear to the hearts of Nature readers, e.g. Shirley Williams in 1971 in The Times complaining [apparently] that increased science spending hadn't increased GNP, 1986 Save British Science campaign, 'cuts' in other countries, and so on.
- Popper, Imre Lakatos, T S Kuhn, Feyerabend are his betes noires: perhaps from endnote eleven, D C Stove 'Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists' 1982. Unfortunately he doesn't give full bibliographies, so I'm uncertain as to first publication dates, and of course his presentation of their theories must be assumed to be questionable.
- Note: Golden age myth: 'Having lost their monopoly in the production of knowledge, scientists have lost their privileged status in society. Thus the reward to the creators of science's now ephemeral and disposable theories are currently being reduced to accord with their downgraded and devalued work, and with science's diminished ambitions.'
- [Note: Arguments from language to the world; cp Russell, Godel, etc] '.. if a statement entails its own falsity, then it must be nonsense: the proposition "there is no truth" contradicts itself, and hence some truths must exist after all. Similarly, the stricture "nothing is certain, everything is doubtful" casts doubt.. upon itself, and so some uncertain and undoubted things must exist. ..'
- 1986: CMND 9849, 'The Future of the Science Budget: The Government's Response to the Report from the Education, Science & Arts Committee Session 1984-1985' is endnote number 18
====
[3] 'ON THE METHOD AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH' delivered 5-7 Sept 1988, 9th centenary of the University of Bologna, Imola:
- 'In ordinary English (and I think in the original Latin) the term "error" denotes both the notion "slight inaccuracy" and the entirely different concept "complete incorrectness".'
- '2500 years ago Epicharmus of Cos remarked that it is the letter and the number.. that separate us from other animals.. but [these] though of course essential are only a small fraction of the totality of factors that give us the possibility of becoming civilised.. There are also observacy, logicacy, analytacy, synthetacy, and.. significacy. The set of all these factors I refer to as epistemacy. [He explains literacy is knowledge of, familiarity with, letters, words, sentences, texts, language, grammar, syntax; and so on - observacy with the techniques of observation, mensuration, experimentation; .. analysis or resolution, the skill of breaking up a complex system into simple components.. synthetacy familiarity with the reverse process.. recombining, putting together again the constituent parts.. Significacy is the knowledge of the correct meaning, the precise essence, the true significance of words and phrases, symbols and equation, processes and operation, techniques and methods.' [There are also political doublethink, poetic and religious loose talk]
- 'From particular hypotheses one induces general hypotheses.
From general hypotheses one deduces specific predictions.
I believe that this is the first time most of you will have seen the verb "induce" employed in this sense. .. Clearly there exist two distinct, in fact opposite, conceptual entities, and it is not sensible, in fact it is daft, to employ one word - "deduce" - to denote both. The confusion that has accumulated from centuries of this misuse is massive..'
- 'Logos [He writes this in Greek letters, including a capital at the start of the sentence] is Greek for ratio, and ratio is Latin for Logos. Logic and rationality are synonyms. ... "ratio" and "logos" .. original and
primary meanings seem to be "mensuration" or "measured value", or "computation based on measurements."'
- 'The fundamental constituents of reality are: time, space, matter, light, force, law. .. The concept of time is derived from the entities "instant" and "duration"; space from "point", "distance", "angle", "area", "volume"; matter from "size", "shape", "motion", "distribution", "colour", "taste", "smell", "texture", "temperature", "state"; and light from "velocity", "frequency", "intensity".'
- 'A particular type of hypothesis is of this form: "Person X is suspected of having committed an unlawful act." In all countries of the world there are well-prescribed judicial processes by means of which this type of hypothesis is supposed to be tested.. I will now show that these processes are seriously flawed , and that the basic reason for these flaws seems to be, (i) the diminished respect for truth; (ii) the spread of insignificacy to this particular intellectual quarter; and (iii) the failure to understand the correct meaning of the term "hypothesis", and how to go about testing it,
In many countries the adversarial system is employed. The adversaries are the prosecution and the defence , and the aim of both parties is not to discover the truth, but to win their cases - conviction is the goal of the prosecution, acquittal that of the defence. So at least half the time, establishing the true facts as to what really happened works positively against these aims. For this reason, it is often expedient to cloud the issues and conceal the facts rather than reveal them. So both the prosecution and the defence are always at best "economical with the truth" and usually much worse.
Moreover, contrary to the oath that they are obliged to take, the witnesses are not really required to tell the court "the whole truth" about all the facts (relevant to the trial) known to them. .. they are merely obliged to answer the questions asked by counsel. If the crucial questions are not asked.. the whole truth will never be heard in court. Even when the crucial questions are asked by one party, it might be possible for the other party to take refuge in technicalities: there are regulations which might rule this evidence inadmissible. Worse still.. the other party have more effective weapons in their rich arsenal: rhetoric, theatrics, sarcasm, insult, and every other dirty trick.. are employed.. to confuse, humiliate and discredit the witness, and throw doubt over the whole proceedings.
Another rule of the adversarial system is that the evidence possessed by one party need not be disclosed either to the other party or to the court. Yet another rule gives the right to the accused, who probably knows more about the case than anybody else, not to give evidence, unless he or she feels like it. The jurors.. besides having never had any training in legal matters, are not allowed to ask any questions, nor are they required to give any justification for their verdict. Sometimes the suspicion lingers that the verdict is almost arbitrary, just like the Popperian conjectures. Neither the jury nor the judges (just like the theoretical scientists, but unlike physicians, journalists, engineers, and builders) are penalised in any way if their verdict is later shown to be incorrect, and the error lies, as it often does, entirely in their judgment.
There is a well-known phrase enshrined in legal nomenclature - "innocent until proven guilty". This is a travesty of meaningful language.. There is a perfectly sound term in English (and I suppose in all other well-developed languages), the word "suspect".. The correct phrase should therefore be "suspect until proven either innocent of guilty".' [Or, as he goes on, "innocent" or "guilty" or "still suspect".]
- 'I will now address the fundamental question "What is philosophy?" The
simple and literal definition.. is the love and pursuit of wisdom . But how does one become wise? .. asking questions whether critical or not, is only part of the whole story. What is more important is finding the correct answers to those questions. ...'
Now what sort of questions do philosophers ask? [Note: Rule of three:] .. All conceivable questions of substance, that can possibly ever asked, may be places in of three grand categories: .. questions which deal with truth and untruth; this is the province claimed by both physics and metaphysics. .. goodness and badness.. the province of ethics. .. beauty and ugliness.. the province of aesthetics.
.. The issues.. which can never be answered objectively I banish to the utopia, the phantasy-land of metaphysics .. gods, devils, angels, fairies, ghosts, life-after-death, the end and the beginning of the universe.
It is worth repeating at this point that the notions of objectivity, truth, reality, rationality, knowledge and science can only be meaningful if they are defined in terms of inter-subjective observations. ..'
- COSMOGONY Contrary to an almost universal misconception, a question which physics can never answer is "What is the ultimate beginning, and what will be the ultimate end of the universe?" .. There does not exist the slightest rational evidence to support any theory concerning the beginning or the end of the universe. ..
Two centuries ago [c 1790] James Hutton, one of the founders of modern geology, after assessing all the facts known to him then, he could see [sic] he said, "no vestige of a beginning, [and] no prospect of an end." .. In 1930 Sir J J Thomson.. issued an earnest "warning against taking too seriously speculations about either the remote past or the remote future of the universe." [Listener, 3, p 117, 1930] .. as shown by Thomson, such speculations are founded on very incomplete knowledge, which may even be confounded by the fads of the moment. .. another distinguished physicist, Hannes Alfven, argued in 'Cosmology, History, and Theology' [1977 eds Yourgrau and Breck] that "the Big Bang conjecture is a myth", and placed it on the same footing as creation myths of primitive peoples.
.. it might be argued, cosmogony is on the one hand a marginal and harmless scientific activity, but on the other hand, it is very popular with all the public, and its whets the interest of lay people for science in general. (Besides, in our times of financial stringency, this makes some easy money for at last a few scientists). ... My response is first .. it is always incorrect and bad to believe and say anything that has not been supported by accurate observation and rigorous logic. Second, Socrates was condemned by a majority, Hitler was elected democratically, and the burning of witches was once very popular. And finally, any kind of speculation about the ultimate origin and the end of the universe gives a totally false idea as to what science and the scientific method are. ..'
- RELIGION as traditionally understood, is a confused mixture of theology (which belongs to metaphysics), morality.. and ritual (which belongs to aesthetics). So religion has to do with everything except ascertainable truth. Most religious people mistakenly think that theology and morality are inseparable because they erroneously believe that their ethical precepts are the only "right" (="Good") ones because they have been dictated by their own god - which is the only "true" one. This is a grave error, for a belief in a god-given moral code is an attempt (either conscious or unconscious) to shift one's own responsibility for one's own conduct from oneself to a metaphysical postulate. ..'
- 'Perhaps the best example of a theory-laden language where the theory turned out to be erroneous is the case of the term "atom" (="indivisible").
Yet this proven misnomer has stuck, and the splendid phrases "atom smasher" (="breaker of the unbreakable") and "sub-atomic particle" (="fragment of the infrangible") are nowadays commonplace, and nobody seems concerned. .. the most delightful oxymora in the whole of the English .. language.. Big Brother would have loved this. All this is good clean fun today, but it was not so in the 19 C, when the misconception "atom" impeded research into "sub-atomic particles."
- 'All professionals ought to recognise and assume all their duties, obligations, and responsibilities. As I have shown, it is of paramount importance to maintain, not only honesty of purpose , but also correctness of professional conduct . It must also be recognised that what researchers do is a public service, and they owe it to the public, who pay the money for research, to carry out this research in the best and most efficient way that it can be done. In this way, the advancement of knowledge will be the fastest possible, and the application of this knowledge most fruitful and beneficial.
If it is right to give prizes, awards, and other honours to researchers who achieve either experimental discoveries or theoretical innovations, and if it is right to penalise researchers who fraudulently fabricate false data, it should also be right to penalise professionals (for example judges and scientists) who derive erroneous inferences, even when their error is honest and their misconduct not deliberate. This will probably induce them to be less careless than they are at present...'
- 'UNIVERSITY AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY Perhaps it is time for researchers to start thinking about preparing an enforceable professional code of conduct, before the external authorities step in and do it for them. For they need to uphold high standards of conduct [Note: Golden age myth?] in order to win and maintain the confidence of both the public and the government, which has been steadily declining in recent times. Otherwise the government may come to the conclusion that research is too important to be left to the researchers. Rather than allow the researchers to police themselves, the political authorities may be compelled to introduce meticulous and stringent central regulations. There are ominous signs that this is happening already. In the USA a Committee of Congress is currently investigating allegations about falsification of data by an academic researcher. And in Britain the government has already taken great interest as to what research is done in Universities, and also how it is done.
.. Sir Mark Richmond, Chairman of Brian's Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, made the following statement (at a seminar in London on 19 January 1988): [Note: no source detail given]
Just as the Government accepts that producing a better biscuit is the business of biscuit manufacturers so we are asking them to accept that in the matter of pure research and scholarship we, as academics, are the entrepreneurs and they will be wise to let us handle the business.
.. should the academics be allowed to handle their own business? .. who assesses the work of academics? Not normally the public, not even the government - it is invariably other academics. The process is known as "peer review" - the academics themselves being collectively their own judge and jury. The academic profession is perhaps unique in this respect, and Shaw's remark "All professions are conspiracies against the laity", can be especially pertinent. There is therefore the tendency for each discipline to become an old boy network, and a closed club impenetrable by outsiders, and uncheckable by any external authority. The conditions for corruption (both dishonest and even honest - as I have explained above [e.g. people making unintentional mistakes]) are therefore rife.
The public and the government already recognise as experts in any particular field those who already hold academic positions. What chance does
an outsider have in challenging the collective wisdom of university professionals? And even if a dissident academic voices unorthodox views, he or she will come under fire less often from the government and more often from colleagues and superiors in the academic establishment. .. such dissident professionals are usually starved of research fund and their further promotion is blocked. ..
When the collective work of researchers is correct, as it normally is, then everything will be fine. But when it is incorrect, as it is indeed at times, how can it be corrected? The present system makes no provision for such a serious eventuality, and erroneous theories become established "paradigms" for years and decades before they can be overthrown. .. I do not know what the best practical solution to this grave problem is, if there is any at all. But for the best interest of society, we better start thinking about it.'
- 'SUPPORT RESEARCH? .. Despite what is often assumed, the value of scientific research is not self-evident. A well-argued message about what science has done for society, and what it can do in the future, needs to be brought to the public again and again. Each researcher will have to learn how best to plead for support for one's own specialty, as well as for research in general.
The best argument which I can offer in support of research in general is this: If a society possesses apiece of scientific knowledge , then this society has at its disposal three ethical options to choose from:
(i) make good use of this knowledge;
(ii) make bad use of this knowledge;
(iii) make no use of this knowledge whatsoever.
What options does a society have, if it does not possess this piece of knowledge? (But possibly having to make a choice makes life too difficult for some people- more difficult that [sic] it would otherwise be?)
[Ends by saying some people believe truth invariably wins the war, that Aristotle claimed "all human beings by their nature desire to know" 'another example of inductive inference which is not correct', that Galileo if asked why he had carried out his experiments would have said he desired to know the truth and understand the world, and that we know better, unlike 'philosophers of the negative, the obscure, the irrational, the occult, and the absurd.. The many cults of the occult.. the army of ignorance.. the powers of darkness'. 'The forces of knowledge will have to win the war against the forces of ignorance, if we are to have any hope of progress. ..' And ends with Bertolt Brecht's 'The Life of Galileo': GALILEO: 'So much of the truth will prevail, that we make prevail.'
====
[4] 'RATIONALISM BETRAYED' 20 OCT 1991 in 'ETHICAL RECORD'
- Theo objects to Popper and Einstein. 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery' first published in German in 1934, English in 1959. A letter from Einstein to Popper, dated 1935, is printed in the English edition as an appendix. Theo says: P&E had invented 'thoughtless invention' or 'spontaneous creativeness.'
- On 'the dual nature of things', see later
- 'My next topic is the discovery and covery of truth' (The term 'covery', is the word that when placed after the prefix 'dis-' gives 'discovery')..'
- He has a sort of common sense view, as these quotes show: 9: 'How can one attain a positive goal - truth - by a negative means - conjecture and refutation? One cannot, and the Popperian conception of truth and reality is anything but realistic; it is quite pragmatistic, instrumentalistic, and surrealistic. ... Santa Claus view of truth and reality, because the Popperists, pragmatists and instrumentalists fail to make any distinction between 'work' and 'fail to work' ...'
11: 'An advocate of paranormal manifestations .. tells you the physical laws which, as you agree, may change in the future, have.. changed already.. and this accounts perfectly for the alleged paranormal occurrences. .. Do you denounce him as a crank? Well, you shouldn't really, for it is you who is the worse crank of the two, because the paranormalist has played by your own rules and in fact beaten you at your own game. If you don't want to be a crank, change your rules and assume that physical laws exist, and will continue to exist unchanged for eternity.'
====
[5] CATT AND HAROLD HILLMAN ON THEOCHARIS
- Hillman: "He's a genius"
- Catt: "Theocharis said to me it's refreshing to meet somebody who knows the difference between a description and a theory.. "
- [Catt on phone 24 Mar, 92:] "Theocharis and the missing planet; haven't you heard of the missing planet? Newton had a full set; then one disappeared early this century. The solar system doesn't rotate round the sun.. round the centre of the solar system.. the sun rotates two sun diameters.. If you reintroduce it it accounts for the 17 seconds of arc which Einstein was supposed to explain with his brilliant idea. Theo has two sources in Imperial College. He regards modern physics not as a science, like me.
- He hasn't worked for years.. lives in two rooms.. has a lodger.. terrible.. he found in USSR Stalin was anti-modern physics then in about 1936 there was a sudden change.. the physicists all disappeared.. replaced by modern physicists. And he looked into the connection between anti-semitism and modern physics.. That's the sort of thing he does. He spoke to the Humanist Society.. he'd found the president, Bondi, in his writings had said things contrary to the main paragraph in their ?manifesto.. [Hillman told me this story too, possibly getting it from Catt] He's very brave.. people like that aren't rewarded in our society.. on the fringes.. flying too close to the sun like Icarus.. when you realise it's largely a sham.."
[6] 'London Student Skeptics' 11 May 1992
- LONDON STUDENT SKEPTICS/ 01-580 9551/ Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY/ Meetings Mondays, Room 3C of ULU building Malet Street 7.30 start. Summer term Meetings has this list:
11 May 92 Skeptical of skepticism - a critique of Karl Popper's philosophy by Theo Theocharis
1 June 92: The Case of Cyril Burt by Ray Ward
15 June 92: 'The Great Human Detective Story'. British Humanism's first video followed by plans for next year.
- I drive down the A40, use the West End overpass, turn right just past Euston, and park in Bedford Square, I think, the first parking space I found; this perhaps was an error, as I had to walk quite far to ULU. Signed their visitors book; some of the people there have green t-shirts with ULU STEWARD on. Went up main stairs to 3C
- Ivor Catt's in the audience with an A4 pad and his woman friend, Sue Warman; or at least the married woman he thinks of as his woman friend. I sit behind him, at the back, and look at the audience - probably twenty five, plus a few I recognised, probably from South Place.
- Bearded short jovial ordinary sportscoated chairman, with name tag I think, a philosopher in the sense of being with the department, announces their earlier start time of 7.30 for 7.30, instead of 7.30 for 8; and that on the 22nd May 1992 at the Royal Society, Carlton House Terrace, there'll be a debate: 'Has Science Eliminated the Need for God?' with Paul Davies in the chair, Dawkins, Bondi, Hugh Montefiore, and another. No price given. May
need to phone Simon and Schuster: whole thing seems a promotion gimmick for a book called 'The Mind of God', no doubt named after the last sentence in Hawking.
- Next to him is slender chap in white shirt, darkish skinned, dark beard, dark brown eyes, neat short hair, black plastic untinted aviator specs. Vague resemblance to Salman Rushdie. Has two lecture modes: ordinary speech - with fairly thick accent, probably allowing him a certain leeway in outrageous remarks; and an eyes-closed, strained, louder-voiced mode where he rails against the science establishment. As the chairman chats, he stands and writes on a buff 'whiteboard':
PHYSICS BIOLOGY EPISTEME
Geocentrism Lamarckism Appearance
Heliocentrism Darwinism Reality
- He says he's a dissident scientist - a philosopher by inclination. At this point, facially unimpressive, receding chinned moustachioed chap in tatty clothes with food supermarket plastic bag enter, sits in the only remaining seat by me. Whispers when did he start? to me. Keeps up a series of irritating audible comments, mostly containing philosophy phrases.
".. [name] made an interesting point that Geocentrism and Lamarckism .. commonsense appearance. Heliocentrism and Darwinism are truth, requiring scientific method to discover. Scientific method is observation plus the correct application of logic. Recent development.. I'm not a specialist in this.. 'cladists' have taken out the origin from 'Origin of Species', taken out the descent from 'The Descent of Man' .. cladograms compare species.. they are not concerned by the historical dimension in evolution.. where do we put it in this slot? Has there been a development in physics similar to this development in biology? .. before answering.. a few words on the importance of this issue.. this step [appearance -> reality] needs the sort of intelligence that only human possess.. having discovered reality, having possessed the truth.. what is required to throw away the truth and embrace surreality? [Writes as heading of 4th column 'EVOLUTIONARY TRAIT'; puts 'surreality', 'Cladism', and then 'Pancentrism' on his table] .. I propose the term 'imbecillance' to rhyme with 'intelligence'.
"I have heard from biologists that intelligence was evolved by some species as a survival mechanism?
".. Splendid talk by Ellis Hillman.. a remark that interested me very much.. the type of people that read the Bible have no difficulty in believing the miracles. But when you suggest that the earth might be flat they raise hell! They are not prepared to believe that kind of proposition! [Gets excited] Rationalists, so called.. raise hell. Well, I have some news for you. The Journal of Atmospherical Studies has published a new theory. It's called the cubical air theory. And the journal has changed its name to the Journal of Atmocubical Phenomena.. [Can you spell that?/ That's one of Theo's jokes] [He writes both words on his board].. I don't suppose many of you noticed that was a joke.. because many of you have believed flat earth theories like this..
"Popper in 1979.. in Encounter.. said 'Science develops from myth'. I take issue with this. What issues from myth is not science but mythience or mythics. [Writes these 'words' on his board]
"Science develops from observation.. correct use of logic.. by circumventing myth.. Myth develops also from observation, but not from the correct application of logic..
"Huxley.. said.. [no reference] 'Science is organised common sense'. Russell said 'philosophy is organised piffle.' [I ask: Where did he say that? That doesn't sound like Russell. Theocharis had no source; but he said Freeman Dyson had said that Huxley and Russell had said these things]. I call
this type of statement 'Misosophy'. [Writes this on the board too. Plump man from the audience chips in with: 'Einstein said common sense is a deposit of prejudices laid down before the age of eighteen']
"It is tolerable that religious fundamentalists believe in demons and miracles and so on. It is regrettable.. that rationalists.. believe in Gods and so on.. or they say they do.. and I'll give you one example..the laws of nature, universal and eternal.. the automatic reply is that you cannot be certain about what will happen in the future. What does this mean? Take for example the inverse square law of gravity. *Suppose it was suddenly changed. An inverse cube law of gravity. A miracle! [I call out: the change could be a 'natural law' too]
"Astronomy Now, December 1990. [Takes out a magazine]. 'Astrology of trial' written by a historian, not an astronomer. Should a scientist return from the 17 C.. truly remarkable.. how astrology has reared its head in a form.. laughed out of any Victorian drawing room.. Why has it come to the forefront in the late 20 C. We might assume that with the level of education higher than ever.. unscientific, counter-scientific movement..
"I have more news for you. A new theory published in the Journal of Batrachology. A new species of frog was discovered recently. The ethologist who discovered them.. caught a specimen.. trained the animal.. when he commander, commander, shouted, 'jump' the frog jumped five metres. He cut off one leg.. jumped one metre.. cut off both legs.. clearly the frog loses its sense of hearing.. [To my surprise, many in the audience hadn't heard this] .. It worked every single time.. So it's no joke.. it's VERY SERIOOS.. all the other people laughed.. but I didn't.. * Whenever I challenge.. the automatic reply I get, the theory worked.. no argument.. they are reduced to this type of reply.. Instrumentalist or pragmatic.. Popper, who calls himself a realist..
[Chairman:] "I wish we could have a ban on the use of the word realist. It has at least four different meanings!"
"Another news for you. The Journal of Thaumaturgy. They publish a new value of the universal constant w to 15 decimal places. A man writes a letter: I went through the paper.. new calculations.. it is accurate not 15 places but 13.. my analysis has been accepted for publication.. my friend told me, every time a new constant with improved accuracy is published.. editor receives dozens of letters rejecting the theory.. but none of them is published. W is the universal constant water, turned into wine in the New Testament..
"Dissident physicists in post-Gorbachev Russia can criticise Marx. They can criticize Lenin. But not Einstein! .. This has been happening since the 1920s.. many of the claimed ?revolutions are of this type.. electrons and so on. Dematerialization! Like Jekyll and Hyde.. or fully God and fully man theology.. Popper said his ideas came from Einstein.. as Marx's historicism.. many took issue with Popper.. in the end I think he backed down..
"Paul Davies and John Gribbin.. new book.. in the New Scientist.. 'The Matter Myth'.. they have come clean!.. I have not read this book.. In the 1950s.. Gilbert Ryle.. the ghost in the machine.. pernicious myth.. exorcised it.. not that there is no ghost; there is no machine!.. a return to the scholastic methods of the Middle Ages.. Gribbin and Davies have the CHEEK to say they're having difficulty getting their ideas across.. they have written many books.. articles in the New Scientist..
"It is well known that Einstein and the ?clique around him.. were religious mystics. [Chap next to me says: Heisenberg wasn't] Well, Newton and so on were religious. Perhaps they had no choice. But they kept their religion separate.. In 1905 Einstein said the ether is redundant. In the 1920s he said space without ether is inconceivable!!
"In 1979 Sakharov was exiled by Brezhnev.. the leaders of science in the er in the western countries organised huge campaigns to support the right of
Andrei Sakharov to speak in ANOTHER COUNTRY. AT the SAME TIME the SAME PEOPLE connived or took part.. in their own countries.. on SCIENTIFIC ISSUES!
[At some point, the chairman stopped him and said they'd continue with questions]
Chap next to me shouts: Thanks for the vaudeville. When's the lecture? [Theocharis is either thick-skinned, unable to make out the words, or just absurdly imperturbable]
Q: Popper says the Heisenberg Principle isn't science, because he doubts whether it can be proved wrong
THEOCHARIS: If you say observations are theory-laden, how do you test theories?
CHAIRMAN: Now we're getting into Kuhnian incommensurability..
Q: FATTISH MAN [WHOM I'VE SEEN AT ETHICAL SOCIETY:] You've described a conspiracy - is it the Jesuits? The Trilateral Commission? The Freemasons? .. Who are the generals?
A: I'm not sure what the answer is..
Q: .. I looked inside my compact disk player. I saw it had a laser. Doesn't that work by emission of radiation? [I.e. isn't it 'dematerializing' or something as Theocharis had made fun of people for believing]
A: .. 18 C claim.. phlogiston theory.. led to the invention of the steam engine, or the bad air theory led to inoculation, or air, earth, fire and water idea led to gunpowder... Louis Essen who made in the 1950s the most accurate measurement of c at the National Physical Laboratory.. he said [?relativity is] a collection of contradictory assumptions [Later I told him this was like asking a technologist or clockmaker about time; he didn't answer this]
.. Lasers.. invented by maverick engineers..
Q: ... Cladism.. nothing to do with [?].. it's not irrational in any way. It doesn't follow from ?pancentrism..
A: It doesn't have to follow causally.. cladism -> gaia..
Q: All it says is 'these are the facts'.. arranges specimens in say height order..
A: Perhaps I got it wrong..
Q: [West] What do you object to in 20 C science? Atomic theory? Hydrogen bonding?
A: Some things in the empirical tradition etc
Q: [West] I get the impression you dislike Einstein and generalise your dislike to other fields. Is that true?
A: Einstein, Russell, Popper have been made cult figures. .. Missile guidance.. one architect to another.. accelerometers, gyroscopes and all that.. he said Einstein predicts by the principle of equivalence etc that it wouldn't work.. they built it and it DID work.. Einstein prohibited it! All the physicists predicted it will not work because Einstein predicted it. [This sort of second-hand, hearsay 'proof' seems all Theocharis can offer]
CHAIRMAN: [Boring remark to the effect that Wittgenstein on his deathbed said space rockets weren't possible]
THEOCHARIS: He was influenced by Einstein like a lot of others
========
[Conversations after. It seems Catt hadn't yet talked to Theocharis; we all
agreed to go to the bar after. I spoke to several people:]
- THEOCHARIS: [Can you summarise the problems with modern science? I got the impression relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang..] "Acausality/ the dual nature of things/ the speed of light is not constant with reference to an observer/ the principle of relativity itself." He takes out a small round weight attached to a smaller one by a bit of string, spins them round; that's his evidence.
What he means by the 'dual nature of things' might emerge from this passage from his Ethical Record talk: 'is there not a causal link between the elevation of ignorance by P & E and the current contempt exhibited in educational circles for factual knowledge in all academic subjects? Finally, the 20 C physics to which Einstein contributed so much and from which Popper derived his ideas (and also Russell, Haldane, Dali and many other paragons of the inconsistent and queer), is awash with contradictions. The P&E-ians conceal this fact by referring to them variously as paradoxes, anomalies, equivalent descriptions, multiple (usually dual) natures or behaviours of things &c. But in reality these terms are euphemisms for genuine contradictions.'
He also has a copy of a Galilean Physics Journal, bound in rather tatty blue, from America, which he held out to me, as though it proved he was right; and these books:-
- 'Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists' by D C Stove, 1982
- 'Science and its Fabrication' by Alan J Chalmers, 1990 [Chalmers also wrote a book, dated 1976 in endnotes to Theo's Nature paper, 'What is this Thing Called Science? An Assessment of the Nature and Status of science and its Methods'
- Oldish woman [white haired; not keen on Barbara Smoker; like members of the Communist party, distinct elderly feeling about these people] who praised Annie Besant as an early women's lib person. 'She replaced Madame Blavatsky in the Theosophists'
- Man in reddish cardigan, with beard, retired; has hardback notebook of his own notes on Ethical Society people, e.g. Alex Comfort: "I have read 'The Matter Myth'.. it's brilliant.. not the 'page 14 club', who read up to page 14 of Hawkings' book.. We're [i.e. human race is] pragmatic.. we apply e.g. transistors without understanding them.."
- NORMAN BACRAC [details under place] talked with me about 'weight', maintaining the idea of 'weightlessness' is inaccurate: "in a spacecraft.. there IS gravity acting on it; they're falling." "So what do they weigh in terms of their weight on earth?" "Oh I suppose er 95%.." "Reminds me of a question: what is the weight of the moon? Or what is the weight of the moon relative to earth? Isn't it zero? It doesn't push down on the earth at all.." [I continued with acceleration: if you have a spring balance in a lift, and it keeps accelerating up, something appears to weigh more, but it's relative to the lift. If you hitch a spring balance to the moon or a spacecraft as it zooms past, then it weighs a lot relative to you. He switched to radiation:]
"People believe energy in physics is less substantial than matter. But this is wrong. For example if an electron and a positron collide, people think there's nothing left. But the full equation is an arrow with two gamma rays, so it is material. I maintain if you set off a nuclear explosion inside a one mile sphere, say, its mass stays the same.."
"Maxwell's equations.. he collected formulas for current into field.. added a term to make them symmetrical.. second difference.. equation of a
wave.. THEN Hertz and later Marconi looked for them.. [Russell, ABC of Relativity, has same account]
- ERIC PENROSE: [details under ]
- SUE WARMAN: Associate Dean, Faculty of Service Industries, Cassio Campus, Langley Road, Watford, Herts WD1 3RH. 0923-240311.
[What did she think of Louis Pascal's AIDS theory?] Oral polio vaccine.. viruses not transmitted by mouth, so I couldn't understand the point of it.. maybe he meant by skin wounds..
[AIDS Peter Duesberg story published in Times of May 11 1992 on this subject; they pore over long article about suppression]
[Catt had a thing about redaction:] .. Compare documents.. edition of the New Testament with the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark etc in columns.. you can see where they differ, and their emphases.. for example Matthew I think is concerned with Jewish law..
[Religion... Catt was resentful these things had been kept from him..] I think religion is just another thing, it's just something people believe in..
- Met her again in Aug 93; came to the conclusion as she asked about nieces, other family members, Hillman's problems, physics, random topics, touched table as evidence of 'particles', said Theocharis generally put a lot of work in and is usually right, didn't know about plasma physics, that she's one of the huge mass of mediocre educators - could be viewed as the backbone of the system, or alternatively as a decaying dead weight
[7] Things I could ask Theocharis
- Greek: 'paranoia' and pronunciation in COD as -ea. Is this from a Greek word resembling say onomatopeoia?/ Pronunciation of 'myth'
- 'Christ' as light etc?/ Influence on Church Latin, e.g. ecclesiastical
- How similar are modern and ancient Greek languages?
- Greek history: traditional overview [i.e. fall after Pelop. War; prolonged dark ages; Turks etc; World War 1; Cyprus]
- Does he think Greeks were 'deductive rather than inductive.. this aspect flourished.. notably in theology and law'?
- How much Greek mythology survives?
- Sacred Way, Plato etc; any surviving remains?
[8] Letter Suggesting Meeting 19 Aug 1993
Dear Mr Theocharis,
I've heard glowing reports of you from both Harold Hillman and Ivor Catt, and I share the interest of all three of you in intellectual suppression. Since we live fairly near, I'd like to suggest that I collect you some time in my car and drive round to Catt's for a talk: I have in mind a daytime expedition from say 10.30 to 6 pm, or something like that.
My interest has tended to be in political and artistic rather than scientific fields, but the principles are similar; so I'd be interested to hear your views not only on science and its philosophy but on Greek and Cypriot history and their presentation in countries like Britain.
Perhaps you'd give me a ring or write a note?
Best wishes, Rae West.
[9] Meeting at Catt's Wed 25 Aug 1993 as per previous letter; maybe I'd reassess him... ?
- Went via Kingston to Wandsworth; took a right turn leading to the suburban Granville Road, with many speed bumps, which comes out at the appropriate side of Merton Rd. No sign of Theocharis above his [name] Motors place, with facetious handlettered sign 'Fool servis £24.95' type of thing. I telephoned him at a box a few yards away. Had a pee: his bathroom somewhat decayed (and with little sign of cleaning - e.g. heavy rust marks in wash basin).
He turns out to spend almost every day at Imperial College, in the library reading journals and presumably books, or reading in parks. He must, one assumes, get lonely. He invited me any time to visit him there. He showed me free car park spaces by the Serpentine, quite near Imperial [and the Science Museum. He drives every day; he also drives to visit his brother, near Ashford, about once a week, though he says he spends only about £5 on petrol. He has a small car, a Fiat Uno I think, left over from some period of prosperity a few years before. He gets £88 per two weeks dole and has his rent paid; this latter is 'Housing Benefit'. Three times a week he shops at Sainsburys, going an hour before it closes; "You wouldn't believe how cheap things are." He's learnt to live like a student, he said. He studied physics in about 1970; there's a big gap which he's never explained as far as I know from about 1975 to 1985. He told me the building, or part of the building, housing the V & A used to be the Huxley Institute, or some such name, where Darwin had visited Huxley. Imperial College was then called the Imperial Institution, I think he said. These were his ideas of history in the area. He told me the Imperial College and Science Museum libraries have been amalgamated (or at least a dividing wall between them has been taken away). He's 41. As Hillman said, a few years ago (1989?) he started a teacher training course; he either gave it up or was thrown out: "I was shocked at the indiscipline" he said, and added that on the continent there's a division between infant teachers and secondary teachers: the latter are called 'professor', have a status the same as university professors, are paid twice the salary of infant teachers, and aren't just childminders. He mainly seemed to be saying that he abandoned it because the status wasn't attractive. I saw a letter addressed to him as 'Professor Theocharis'; together with his tendency to claim that he's at Imperial College this suggests a lack of honesty.
dyslexia
sex myths
- GREECE/ CYPRUS:
- GREECE: [As the examples that follow show, he's patriotic about the Greek language and ecstatic when some word can perhaps be traced to Greek:]
- A tribe on the west coast were called something like Greeks, so Greece was the name given to the country by the Romans, who met them first. While the Chinese, Arabs, Turks call it something like Unan, because they met the Ionians first.
- Greeks call themselves Hellenes, Greeks, Romi; apparently there's no particular emotional loading to any of these.
- They call Italy Italia, he said, apparently unaware of its relatively recent unification. Asia is a Greek word of which he didn't know a meaning. Asia Minor, Turkey, Anatolia were called Mikra Asia [not sure of spelling]. Europa was a goddess. Africa is the Greek word for northern coast of Africa [no meaning for it given]; he thinks it ironic that black Americans after rejecting the Latin-ish word 'negro', then black, have adopted 'African Americans', since this name is itself he says not African. He says Moors,
Mauro- etc are Greek and/or Latin, and Morris dancing is from the same root; Moorish dancing imported from Spain? He says to this day morris dancers blacken their faces - something which sounds highly doubtful to me.
- TURKEY: Istanbul is Turkish version of Greek word meaning something like 'to the city'/ other Turkish towns, Ankara [this is spelt also as Angora in one of my atlases], Trebizond, are Turkish versions of Greek names]
- Turk/ Greek conflicts from about a thousand years ago; he said the Turkic tribes weren't Mongols, but were from somewhere like Turkestan, perhaps themselves in turn pushed to move by the Mongols
- RELIGION
- A N Wilson on TV : Sepphardo [Seffhuria on 1930s atlas presumably the same] a flourishing town near Nazareth; Jesus never went there to preach; Peter and others probably went there to sell fish and trade etc/ Paul's decision to preach to Greeks and Romans, too. Churches celebrate Peter and Paul on the same day, though they came to blows (well, nearly) over this issue
- RELATIVITY
- PHILOSOPHY
[10] Tape Session Jan 1996
- See notes on audiotapes. My session was three 45 minute sides of tape; Harold Hillman (who for some reason regards Theo as widely read and very intelligent) did another 45 minutes.
[11] South Place lecture
-Ivor Catt taped this for me, very badly; it was chaired by Harold Hillman, who's far too polite and retiring for such an occasion. It must have been chaotic.
[12] Letter Fri 16 August, 96
...
Dear Theo,
I've recently upgraded my computer and have a spare, though rather old, Amstrad with a market value of about nothing. I hope this isn't an insulting offer; but I wondered if you might like it. It has a 20 megabyte hard disk, monochrome screen, and has Word Perfect installed. Also it uses 5 1/4 inch floppies (I could give you some of these). I don't think I have a spare printer; my girlfriend gave one away to a friend of hers, I think.
The reason I'm suggesting this is that I gather you spent time in Imperial's computer lab, and I presume you don't have one at home; this would provide a method, of sorts, of doing stuff in your apartment, then e.g. printing it at Imperial. I'm not sure whether their lab would have PCs with 5 1/4" disks, but my experience with Surrey suggests old PCs exist in these places.
The way I use my PC is as a database, i.e. I have lots of notes etc arranged
in a more or less logical way. I also have a search facility which can look through the lot in a couple of minutes (this is also on the Amstrad). In this way, you can have stuff which is much more accessible than written notes, at the cost of course of having to type the stuff in. From time to time I try to interest e.g. Ivor in this sort of thing; a friend of mine for example makes notes on the New Scientist on his. In principle a group might be able to swap information in this way, but most people aren't computerised enough to do anything like this.
Anyway, let me know if you want it.
Best wishes, Rae
[13] At South Place, 2 March, 97
-Gave me a copy of his letter to The Bookseller on Harrison of the chronometer
-"Alexander killed more Greeks than Persians" he says, "but don't say that to any Greek!"
-He dislikes partisan histories; Greeks and Turks are taught different version, with potentially catastrophic results.
He unveiled a new conspiracy theory: Salonika (some connection with Thessalonika; 2nd city of Greece, NE of Athens, where Ataturk was born - or at least 'came from'), had the biggest Jewish population of any city in the world in about 1900 (says Theocharis), being multicultural and with Jews the greatest minority. Now, after war of I think 1922, and Cyprus, young Greek nationalists want a war in the Aegean to recover Constantinople; and Theo thinks an agreement between Israel and Turkey, which survived e.g. the Gulf War possibly even strengthened, might be an attempt to recover several islands and Salonika. Theo thinks each side gets partisan view of history and therefore tend to fanaticism.
H Hillman tried to ask him why Britain didn't go to the aid of Cyprus, apparnetly having treaties etc and obligations (and why nothing at all was said in Parliament), but got the usual incoherent reply.
[100] Notes
[Made after Catt's South Place talk, which I have on tape; I also have his subsequent talk on tape]
-phone Theo for title of book by mathematician
-amateur= lover of subject (he tells me, handing out photocopy of obit of I think Michael Ventris's official rival] / professional perhaps = 'for a fee'
- "Fallacy of Scientific Objectivity" article in The Listener, 20 Feb 1986
- Einstein's paper
- Foggitt on Quakers
- Herbert Spencer stuff on solar system
---------------------------------
1.1.7 Barbara Smoker
-South Place chap gave me her phone number as 081-690-2325. And this proved correct. [14 May, 98: changed to 0181-697 3619. This is a council place midway between Catford & Bromley, she told me; she'd unfortunately topped up a paraffin stove and set light to her previous 3 storey Regency place, and burned it out; moreover she hadn't renewed her insurance. She was rehoused as a priority case, since her place was deemed uninhabitable, and her old, arthritic, and perhaps dotty, she implied.]
-[Bank Holiday Monday, 27 Aug 1990. We met at Russell Square tube; she described herself on the phone as "Slightly under height, slightly overweight and with faded red hair" which turned out to be grey, and went to eat at William Goodenough House: FREDERICK CRAUFORD GOODENOUGH/ FOUNDER/ 1930. Noted the following Latin mottoes over heraldic shields high on dining hall walls - high ceilings, many portraits, tables with attractive uneven surface, as though worked over by a small circular sander.
DIEU ET MON DROIT
AD SANGUINEM
IMPERIUM ET LIBERTAS
FIDE ET FIDUCIA
It's for foreign students; a hostel with quite large rooms and a nice central garden with loggia-like thing, so far as this can be achieved with bricks. I may have a leaflet on Goodenough House in my collections.]
--------------
From time to time I've inserted more, dated, notes here - mainly because of the sheer difficulty of knowing where else to put them.
--------------
Following notes are partly sorted, partly in conversational order - e.g. Shaw leads to Kings English leads to George V leads to Haig leads to First World War leads to trench warfare - and partly by subject, for instance reminiscences of USA and of India have been mostly collected, but in the same sequence roughly as in our conversation; these are the subjects: - FIRST WORLD WAR/ SECOND WORLD WAR/ UNILATERALISM, COMMITTEE OF 100/ SHAW/ 'MOTHER TERESA'/ SECRET SOCIETIES/ VIETNAM/ USA/ INDIA (and HINDUISM, ISLAM, PAKISTAN, BANGLA DESH)/ FRANCE/ SPAIN/ ITALY/ GERMANY/ TURKEY/ VATICAN/ CATHOLIC MONEY/ NUNS/ SIN, SOULS/ ARMAGEDDON, SECOND COMING/ 1995: EDUCATION/ 1995: SUICIDE
---------------
-She told me [is this a political attitude?] she lived in Catford, which is in the Borough of Lewisham, the constituency of whatever, and [I think] some further clause.
---------------
-[I showed her a list of points made by Russell for her comments:]
- Christianity developed in oppressive empire: 'being good' therefore in terms of individual behaviour only, not say curing disease over a whole country. Can't recall a single Saint who wasn't individualistic in this sense. Irrational!
BS: "What about the saints who founded orders? I think he's forgotten them. And some were political: The Confessor [accent on first syllable, I think] was made a saint. Like pagans deifying their chiefs..."
- And he says it appeals to three emotions: fear e.g. of death, self
-importance e.g. as in God taking special interest and in sinners, and persecution, i.e. of others
BS: "And fear of others' deaths. [E.g. may not like to think of child or parent erased for ever.]"
- Christ one of the greatest men who lived? A lot of people seem to assume so. But no. Russell gives reasons [although note that Russell implicitly seems to use Christian criteria - e.g. Socrates isn't hostile to his opponents, while Christ is; but do mere words make a good person, after all?]
BS: "I should say he was horrible to his 'brothers'. And to animals, despite what they say. Saint Francis.. one incident from J.B.S. Haldane.. farm and pigs. One of the brothers cut off the pig's leg while it was alive! St Francis said it damaged relations with the neighbouring farmer. He didn't care about the pig!" [This incident is in Rosselini's film]
- Interesting point: says it's remarkable that Christians make no attempt to do what Christ says in the Bible: e.g. not work on Saturday -> not play on Sunday; give all you have to the poor; judge not that ye be not judged; thou shalt not kill; turn the other cheek; might add also think not of the morrow [though that didn't mean quite what it seemed] and refusal to bear arms
BS: "If you took the Bible seriously you'd starve to death.. You might as well say why did they use er doublespeak [sic] in 1984.. everybody is talking don't do as I do, do as I say.. people read them [Bible stories] and don't assimilate the meaning [Well, it's only recently that it's been translated from Latin or whatever.. and the language is designed like that.. like all formal translations..] It says something like 'kill all the men, take all the young women...' and if people are doing Bible study they say 'I'll have to go and ask someone' and they come back with some evasion.. And also the contradictions!
- WW1 all fought by Christian powers. 'All three emperors Christian and all the militaristic British leaders. Morley who opposed it was an atheist'
BS: "Britain isn't really Christian..."
- Catholics feel part of a large community [as name communion suggests?] and so feel lost when they leave it. But Protestants are psychologically prepared for own decisions. Possible that Protestantism will split into innumerable cults and fade away, leaving only Catholicism.
BS: "Communion is the same as Eucharist, nothing to do with community. [Eucharist: Ecclesiastical Greek thanksgiving; from 'offer willingly' says COD. Rabbi Lionel Blue: 'The Eucharist, which started out as a whole meal, has now become a communion wafer and wine. But as the gastronomic part of it has declined, the theological content has increased. .. St Monica, St Augustine's mother, went to Mass in Milan carrying a picnic basket of food, and was dismissed as provincial because she still kept the old customs.' Winter 1992 'Upbeat', BUPA mag]
Body, blood, soul, and divinity. Another meaning is the Communion of Saints: They're supposed to know what's going on on earth, they're in communion with saints living on earth. You can pray to saints who will intercede with God. They feel if they pray to a Saint, the saint is more 'human'.. particularly the what do they call her, Mediatrix, the BVM. They feel she's human, and a mother too! Then God does what she asks because she's his mother. There are all sorts of saints. If you lose something you pray to St Anthony. (Cp Le Carré: "Let's pray to St Anthony. He's super at finding things".) There's a saint for the impossible, if things seem really impossible to work out, St Jude"
- Idea of sin: amusing idea that Protestants don't want to 'sin', and Catholics do, [Russell must mean sex mostly, I think] and construct beliefs around that
- Russell agrees with Oscar Levy that Christ expected revolution in his
own time; consider the lilies of the fields etc a short term strategy
- 18th century rationalism, notably in France, ended in revolution, bloodshed, and disaster; at least that's one view. Hence admiration for Walter Scott, fantasy view of Middle Ages etc
- Spanish got rid of the Jews and Moors; developed mad finances, and destroyed agriculture, as a result. Cp Russia, with visible military incompetence, and [Nazi] Germany.
BS: Mentioned Lepanto as the last Christian victory
------------------
"Church of England has more assets than the biggest multinational" BS: "I don't remember saying that. Did I say that? I must have been quoting someone else." [NB see section 'uselessness of radicals']
".. Catholic Emancipation Act" [On mid-nineteenth century rise of Catholicism. She didn't remember the provisions: Not fined for going to church? Allowed to vote, if male property owner??]
"I think Churchill was a monster.. In some ways Hitler was better.. Poison gas.. German army in Second World War.. Hitler wouldn't allow it to be used on the English [sic]; because his ?father had been gassed. Churchill demanded it but the army refused to use it."
"My father was gassed in the First World War. He had endless trouble afterwards.. They had no gas masks. They were told to urinate on a sock and breathe through that! I was told there as such demand for gas masks in the second world war that a lot were produced without the filters. It was good psychologically..."
"I did a course in poison gas.. I came top of my group! I've forgotten most of it now. One smelt of geraniums, one smelt of pear drops.. Of course the gases they have now are far deadlier.. I'm told a drop of one of them, on a single hair, will go down it and kill.."
"I was in the Youth Auxiliary Service Corps. Then later the Wrens."
"In Trincomalee [Ceylon, now Sri Lanka], there was a restaurant. The ABCD. I don't remember if there was an E too. American, British, Chinese, Dutch. The Americans told me cynically they had a Japanese flag under the counter... [She hadn't heard of the 'co-prosperity sphere' or 'Asia for the Asians' slogans of Japan; I wonder if they were censored?] The Singhalese and the Tamils were united against foreigners. Once the Raj came to an end, as happened all over the Raj, they turned against each other. English is not the official language [i.e. in contrast to India?]. Singhalese and Tamil were given joint status. But the Singhalese majority meant that Tamil was thought second class.. The Singhalese were more lazy.. The Tamils arrived from India 100 or 200 years ago.. they had to make their way.. more energetic.. lower status.. [Like the Jews?] Yes. Manual workers except for some upper status merchants etc, who were keen on education.."
"1917 Court case. ?Bowman vs Secular Society Ltd. Man who died before the war left his money to the society; the family wanted the will overturned - thought it should be illegal because atheism shouldn't be promoted. On appeal, the Judge said "To say that England is a Christian country is rhetoric not law" and that ruling has never been challenged."
"US and India are both very religious.. Quite similar in that respect"
"Church of England hasn't argued doctrine for centuries... people ?tired probably"
"Chaplains in the NHS. Now they're saying they can't afford them.. Monstrous" [i.e. That the NHS pays, or paid, for them. I thought at first she meant the C of E had decided it couldn't pay for them]
"There's something to be said for a monarchy. Look at Iran. They got Khomeini. All I'm saying is emotion is often centred on the Royal Family. It's not betraying your reason, because the King exists. You're not believing something impossible. You can go one way or the other.." [NOTE: I think her main objection to 'God' is just that he isn't possible, which isn't a
conclusive argument, of course. I put forward the view that the world may be destroyed by H-Bombs; and it's possible that it could be provable that people will destroy themselves, so if the world had been Catholic permanently, it would be a good thing, not of course through any beneficent intention. She said she'd never heard anyone put that argument. But she couldn't think of a reply]
"At convent school [first cause, ontological arguments etc] were only ever presented as arguments, not proofs. I was rereading John Robinson, Honest to God.. he says 'It's self-evident there is ultimate reality, therefore God is ultimate reality' It's just a version of the ontological argument.." [There's another one, in Russell and Copleston, about necessity, I think] "Ah yes, contingency and necessity..."
"At the age of about three children discover their parents aren't omnipotent - that's a devastating feeling. They are dependent for everything. They find that the parent would like to make them better but can't. It's a natural thing to believe in a God if you're presented with the idea there's another father who is omnipotent." [Yes, that's a nice idea. But is it true? Can you remember feeling that? Do you know anyone who said they did? - No]
[Bertie's theory that intellectual influence most important at university age] "16-20. There are most conversions from 16-20. I was late. 26!.. I had teenage doubts, had trouble trying to suppress them. I went to confession; the priest said it was intellectual pride. But then I read Aquinas, and he said reason can't conflict with faith. So they thought reading was a good idea. I started a program of reading.." [What about the index?] "There was still an index. Authors like Voltaire were in the Index. I didn't think that much about it. My mother mentioned Candide. I said, but surely Voltaire's on the Index? She had been a convert at 21. She said she must have read it before that. That's what she always said.. Public library after Wrens - Philosophy, Religion shelf and that led to other books on same shelves. John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. Virginia Woolf's father - now who was he? [I looked him up later; Sir Leslie Stephen, who became deconverted] Her father wrote an agnostic's apology.. he had a brother who was a judge or whatever.. and I'd seen references in Newman; I looked them up and checked the original .. [God?] beneficent God.. idea of hell.. contradictory doctrines.. I thought Ooh Chesterton believes this, these people are much cleverer than I am. Who am I to question this? They argued in a more sophisticated way than I am able to do..."
"Catholics are very much against spiritualism. They think there's a better world beyond this one" [I wasn't able to find quite why they should object so strongly, particularly as they accept personal prayers at a very banal level. What she said was:] "They think it's wicked to call up spirits, dark forces... Ghosts etc.. spirits.. it can do great harm .. bereavement.. I've known people not come to terms with mourning.. ten to twelve years later they're still coming to terms with it.."
"Of course Eastern religions [sic] believe in reincarnation - a better life next time round."
"Government before Franco overthrew it was Communist wasn't it?" [Argument whether the Carlists in Spain were 'on the same side' as Fascists against Communists and Socialists]
"Shocking thing is the way people who have survive an accident or a disaster thank God for it.. they don't think of the others who died.. they think they've been picked out because they're important in God's eyes.." [NB: Philip Leon's Introduction to the 'Philosophy of Courage' for an example of this]
"Saying grace before and after meals.. they thank God for their food.. why not curse God for withholding food from the starving?.. Why not thank him for the good things, blame him for the bad things?.. Praise God for good things..."
"If I believed in God I'd have to spit on him" [Or her! She thought a male more likely. I said Bertie said Empresses Regnant had all put their sons to death:]
"Moghul Empire in India.. the rulers.. Shahs, I think they called them.. Sons all put one another to death.. ? Emperor.. put to death uncles and brothers.. left to reign.. even some regarded as great" [e.g. the Taj Mahal one, I suggested] "Yes"
"Ashley Montagu" [Yes, I've read some of his stuff. An anthropologist] "Something more precise. A biometrist or something. He thought women were the superior sex. Women have heavier brains in terms of body weight.. "
"Persecution of witches.. Springer.. Inquisitor.. 9 million over two centuries in the whole of Europe.. he boasted about it.. but this didn't happen much in England..."
"The English all switched to Catholicism under Bloody Mary. [NB: Bloody Mary credited with burning martyrs like Cranmer in the middle of Oxford. The monument was only put up at the time of the Catholic revival, though, I remember noting somewhere] then they switched back.. the Vicar of Bray.."
[I've met people who give tithes] "Lot of that in America.. they give 10%.. that's gross, not net. Before tax!"
"If people were generally indifferent to tithes, why would they pay them?" "Why would they pay income tax? They'd get their ears chopped off or something" [See 'crop-ears' in OCEL on this; however, Harvey doesn't say for what offences ears were cut off]
"Ideas which people would never have got by themselves..."
"There are different types. Trained theologians, intellectual ones - they have to use analogy and metaphor - particularly spatial: up there, deep within, ground of our being. When they use this language people take it all literally, naive view of a concrete God, up in the sky. But it's inevitable that the majority would take it literally - true of Catholicism and probably every sort of religion, even simplistic ones like Mormonism.."
[How do people know they are Christian, if they can't say what their beliefs are without an official expert?] "Yes, priests are official experts, until recently at least in Ireland"
"Much more in common with ? and Catholics than with ordinary people in the street..."
"They think they know.. they hear these phrases.. they don't understand because they're naive... Bit of maturity.. they start questioning.. the next stage to take them to.. ?? .. higher and higher theological arguments.. if they get to the top part they're dons or bishops.. they can't believe it's all nonsense.. like the Bishop of Durham, who's a pantheist or atheist.. yet he's able to go on being a bishop"
"They hear about the golden age before the deluge, how one family survives, how Noah [Note: Pronounced, like Enid Blyton, to rhyme with 'boar'] collected every type of beetle.."
"Yes, they think of human beings as fallen angels rather than risen apes."
"Galileo.. they recognise they'd got the facts wrong. But they still think he should have followed the Pope."
"Marxists.. did try to ?give ?some understanding though acceptance was f? .. all these phrases.. dialectic.. from Hegel.." [Discussing Trotskyists in the 60s, I think, at this point] "They were against Stalin, so they were for Trotsky, I expect"
"Old churches.. pagan temples to Isis or Horus taken over.." [Hadn't heard of idea of leys, sites important because of geography rather than any supposed sacredness. NB also: she conflates everyone as 'pagan']
"The Gospel hero. At face value an ill-tempered fanatic.. if anyone didn't agree, or didn't hang on every word he'd call them names - whited sepulchres, generation of vipers. He cursed a fig tree when it wasn't even
the season, so it didn't bear fruit. That's supposed to be a marvellous thing..."
"Christ means anointed. It comes from sun worship.. the anointed glistened in the candlelight. 'Cristos'. [How do you know that?] You have to read the right books"
"I call him Jesus. They only had surnames in the last couple of hundred years.."
"?? ?of that order.. Copying a previous leader, the head of the Essenes, a man called the Teacher of Righteousness. Jesus followed in his footsteps - same places as referred to in the Dead Sea Scrolls.. he too was crucified." [How did he know? Was there a sign 'The Teacher of Righteousness preached here?'] "Either no such person or based on oral tradition.."
"Sermon on the Mount generally considered as being one of the OK things. When you look at it it really is appalling. You have read that he who commits adultery.. hellfire but I say he that lusteth against a woman .. in other words it's just as bad to think of doing something as to do something.. I wouldn't mind having her.. surely that's not as bad as raping her [At this point, scruffy man from S.P.E.S. sitting at the table nearby, interrupted, to the effect that she was being shallow, and it was a psychological adventure, and that thoughts can be just as bad. She said if it becomes an obsession etc. At this point we'd finished coffee and left]
FIRST WORLD WAR
"George V refused to have Haig [his cousin] sacked. He didn't care about the lives of people. 'Oh What a Lovely War' .. his saying if the Germans lose 20,000 men and we only lose 15,000 we've won! Whenever I see the statue in the Royal Mile up to Edinburgh Castle I want to.." [I read British trenches were deliberately designed to give troops no hiding place..] "Absolutely true. They loved it if they ?captured German trenches. They were dry; the English and French were wet..."
SECOND WORLD WAR
"One thing in Churchill's favour. He called himself a pantheist. He was more or less an atheist. Before ?power he made jokes about Christianity .. Wonderful letter written in the 1930s.. the Archbishop of Canterbury had asked for a national day of prayer for rain. Churchill's letter warned people to make their prayers explicit - don't want to be drowned! Nowadays we can't imagine that.. people are a little more sophisticated.. People prayed for the church bazaar.. they thought God would change his all-wise mind to fit in with them.."
"Could they [British politicians] have affected it? [i.e. arrangements, battles between Nazis and Soviet Communists]. I remember the BBC, when Russia came into the war, called him 'Mr Stalin'. My father said 'It'll be Saint Stalin next'." [Tanks for Joe?] "I don't remember that. Most people felt very wary against Russia. They didn't expect it to last after the war.. and when Russia annexed those East European countries etc. Didn't they start the Iron Curtain?"
UNILATERALISM, COMMITTEE OF 100
"Wilson was almost on a pacifist ticket. The Labour Party conference was in favour of unilateralism. Discussion amongst parliamentary labour party.. he beat Callaghan because of that.."
"..and idealism. That young MP, James Dickens. He called himself Jimmy Dickens. He really believed.. he left politics following the general election.. he was so disillusioned.. he said he imagined advocacy and the house would be important.. debate on defence.. crest of the wave with Wilson etc... Dickens was certainly a pacifist and a bit of a militant.. first big
committee meeting of the parliamentary labour party the day before.. all the good speeches were by unilateralists.. at the end Wilson came in with a few Cabinet members.. Wilson made a little speech.. the whips would be on.. they were all to vote a particular way against.. shortly after '6 rebels' who kept voting against, that's what the Press called them, .. he was one of them.. he was so appalled... Well, that's what happens to politicians. That's what happens to idealists..."
"Russell and the rest agreed 7,000 signatures minimum for illegal protest. Sent out 30,000 or something but only had about 6,000 back. He said it would be dishonest, we shouldn't have it, that's what we agreed. It was the end of the committee of 100... Responsible for the Test Ban Treaty..."
SHAW
"Belloc very typical of the 1930s. And Chesterton.. distributists.." [I couldn't get her to say exactly what was 'typical' about them. The key seems to be the word 'distributist', which Marshall McLuhan may have been - see Jonathan Miller] Anyway this train of thought led to Shaw:] ".. paying 19/6d in the pound, he still got hundreds of begging letters. He had a card printed, 'I always stood for soaking the rich.. I am quite willing to pay 19/6d in the pound.. but .. (something about the state providing, not private charity)'. But he nearly always attached a cheque! He was very generous.... He left his money to the Alphabet Trust, with the British Museum the residuary legatee. No-one then foresaw the British Library would be separated from the British Museum. So they got millions. And the Royal Academy got millions. And the National Gallery of Ireland - they bought horrible pictures, the crucifixion, he would have hated them. .. I remember the 1956 Shaw hearings in ?Chancery Court. He wanted King George V's pronunciation to be standard. [The Kings English!] His system was a system of phonemes, so there could be accents. The main oddity was what I would call 'launch' he called 'larnch.'..."
-[Bernard Shaw evidently has special significance for her]. "Founded the Orthological Institute with Ogden. Ogden and Richards invented Basic English - a list of words, 850 I think, of the most necessary words. .. Nearly all verbs.. Used by some educationists.. Can be a very good idea.. if a child translates something into Basic English you can see immediately whether he or she understands it..."
'MOTHER TERESA'
"b. 1910. She's not Goan. [I'd assumed the only Catholic-named European in India must be from Goa] She was a nun in a convent in Yugoslavia. She had a drive like the founder of an order. She picked out the poorest place she could think of.. an out and out masochist.. she goes on worshipping the God she believes has created all this suffering.. she doesn't believe in doing anything in a rational way.. opposes contraception.. you have all the babies and I will look after them.. she's even against married people making their own decisions.. she told Princess Di she should have five by now.. it's a sacrifice to her ghostly lover.. maternal feeling.. She gets no end of money.. even Protestants seem to think she's a ?good ?person.."
SECRET SOCIETIES
"The Church taught that secret societies were wicked.. Continental masons were more revolutionary. Charles Bradlaugh opposed continental masons. Whereas in the U.K. they're full of members of the royal families, wealthy. On the continent they are [were?] considered quite subversive." [I'd just found a reference in Belloc to the effect that Italy, between the wars, made secret societies illegal]
VIETNAM
"Phrase that I remember of the capitalist Catholics in the North 'The Virgin Mary goes south'. [Said she knows little about it. Regards it as a war of religion; disappointingly little or no stories. Or 'Out of the grab for Africa']
"Visitor's Gallery.. spoke from the gallery against the Vietnam war.. sat down so they couldn't see me so easily.. there are these men standing around with nothing to do.. It gives meaning to their whole existence! It probably only happens once in ten years.. [when was that?] I think 1963 or 4." [Oh you were ahead of most people]
USA
"On a Greyhound bus in the south a woman asked me what I was doing. One of these gun-toting women. She looked at my passport near Mexico. 'What are you doing?' I've come to address an Atheist Conference. She yelled out to the whole bus: 'This English lady says she's an atheist!' and the whole busload roared out laughing.. Some of them get angry.. McCarthy kept using the phrase 'Godless Communist'.."
"The Ethical Culture Movement in New York is about equivalent to South Place Ethical Society, (which [she added, to my surprise] is largely eighteenth century American in its origins.) Almost all Jews. Not Catholic." [Did you go for a fee?] "They gave me a free Greyhound bus pass"
"Town in the west. No, the east. A huge statue of Jesus. A sign said 'This City Belongs to Jesus'. Unimaginable here..."
"60% or more go to church or other regularly.. There are so many different kinds.. Terrific fundamentalism.. Jimmy Swaggart, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson. It's sickening. The way they ask for money. American Atheists spoofed them, made an absurd, exaggerated TV programme. They actually received donations" [How much?] "Oh I don't know that.." [RW: There's a class thing - these people are working class. I mean they burst into song in front of the cameras and things. They get huge jail sentences, whereas insider dealers get nothing..]
"Americans are more naive.. Mormonism is so recent all these things can be checked up.. Joseph Smith had six witnesses. Half of them retracted before they died. And there are these golden plates. He copied them out, then they disappeared into thin air..."
"The threat of Spanish [sic] is strong in New York. On the New York subway most of the advertisements were in Spanish. I was surprised. But maybe all the rich people are up on the surface, with cars. .. Yet alone Southern California. North of the border they're bilingual, but across the border in Mexico it's all Spanish. Except for the educated..."
"Names like Earl, Duke etc.."
-[Kennedy clan:] Irish origin.. dynastic. The US and India are both dynastic, more so than England.. Joseph Kennedy was the Ambassador to Britain. Rose Kennedy was the matriarch. Because they were Catholics they had lots of kids. John F., Robert, Edward who's still alive, wasn't there another who was assassinated? and two or three sisters. Coming second isn't worth anything. They had to be first in everything. Edward got into trouble at school: he cheated. Chappaquiddick was a further slur - sexual exploits with a married woman. He was supposed to have panicked... [Mary Jo Kopechne. I wondered if she was a Polish Catholic?]. When JFK was President, Rose said 'it's so-and-so's turn for high office' and these were meant to be elected positions!.. Catholic vote.. But when JFK was President he refused to outlaw abortion. He said he was President of the whole USA. He was President at about the same time as the ?second Vatican council..."
INDIA
"Hindi. Hindustani is Hindi with Urdu."
"Indian caste system.. In Delhi.. class consciousness.. woman at the University of Delhi.. lunch to her place outside Delhi on Sunday.. her husband was a Judge. He said What does her husband do? It was so blatant.. I could hardly believe it.. I can hardly imagine anyone here doing that... They like to think it's a thing of the past (and it's illegal) but.. If I really wanted to annoy him, I'd call him 'Brahmin'!"
"Jehovah's Witnesses in Delhi."
"Poona seemed full of Seventh Day Adventists. Lots of mosques. I liked it - it was high up. Cooler than Bombay though only four hours by train."
"I liked the Jains. They wear a pad in front of their mouth so they don't swallow insects by mistake. And they have hospitals for animals..." [Presumably they haven't discovered the microscope?] "Ha ha well I don't know what they'd think..." [Only joking]
"..went to speak at Hyderabad. Ill." [Delhi belly?] "More serious than that. Bacillic dysentery.. dehydrated. Managed to rehydrate but lost 1 1/2 stone in a week. I told them I was too ill, but they insisted on taking me for a tour. They timed it so we drove to the hall as all these people were arriving, so of course I felt I couldn't let them down.." [Do you use notes?] "No. Impromptu. I asked them to write out any questions. They were collected. It's so difficult to understand some of these Indian voices. I didn't pick and choose questions. That was rather impressive to them..."
"India.. much more conflict.. the Hindus are indigenous. They don't regard it as a religion. It's not the same as Buddhism. Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism, not the other way round. [NB: But see later for doubt of this statement] It's so varied.. manifestations of godhead.. different members of the family make devotions to different gods.. One family the man made devotion to Garnesh (elephant god), his wife's devotions were to Goddess (she was a feminist, an interior decorator) and the daughter worshipped Vishnu, for creativity. She was an artist. The husband was fairly religious - wife by ?? - this sort of goddess is a sort of symbol. If we pray I wouldn't think the goddess exists. It's more like making a resolution, to put yourself in the frame of mind for action. The daughter said she liked to believe Vishnu really is there. The servants all took it very seriously. They had a flat roof with a garden, with a shrine in a corner." [What's a shrine?] "A sort of grotto. This was like a doll's house. Flowers etc. A miniature home. Their home was a mixture of very modernistic - split level - and very ancient things, with a shrine like a fireplace with pictures and bits."
"Silver and gold - you notice Indians wearing it.. I remember pictures of the royal family - George V in a pinstriped suit, with the pinstripes picked out in silver.. Silver and gold flakes in food.. the posh Indian restaurants in London.. very fine shavings.."
"Indian women take care over their appearance.. shopping their favourite activityt.. Delhi has a big shopping area,.. I went there" [Is it called a bazaar or somwething?] [didn't know] "Western ?style shops"
"Mosque in the North West - no, not the golden temple. Moslems and Hindus are fighting about it. The Moslems put mosques on the sites of Hindu shrines - it was Imperial policy. This particular temple is supposed to be the birthplace of Ram - very sacred. [Ayodhya supposed birthplace of Ram; Feb 1992 Ch 4 shows liberal chap: "..anywhere in Ayodhya is sacred.. don't need to build on demolished Mosque../ Mahatma Gandhi, Jawarhalal Nehru, hundreds of martyrs.. none gave their lives for a Hindu India..". On the other hand, we see ?lorry with front resembling a chariot, gold painted curlicues; then younger man before a mike, at night: "Lord Ram.. a politician on a chariot.. with the symbol of his party, the lotus.. Lord Ram is awake.. Benares and Mathura are next.. We swear to build the temple! Long live L K Advani".
Another older one in white cloth says "Victory to Lord India", puts hands together, bows head a little, leaves.] But the mosque is now 400 years old. Fundamentalist Hinduism .. saying the Mosque has to be removed and a Hindu temple built." [Turns out to be in Uttar Pradesh. See Islam notes below]
"Kashmir Moslem majority was the only state before partition which opted to stay with India. There are three views: To join Pakistan, to remain part of India, or to become independent."
[1995, after Taslima Nasreen talk:] "I'm hard of hearing.. couldn't make out much of what she said.. went because she's a courageous woman.." [i.e. not to pay much attention]
[1995:] [According to an article in 'Communalism..', the idea of 'Hinduism' was more or less invented by the British - it was a scattered mixture of things? She seemed to agree. I wondered whether the country of 'Hindustan' was invented, but she didn't know.]
[1995:] "Hinduism has no sacred book" [I query this; the Vedas, or something? Yes, she says, contradictorily]
FRANCE
"The French lost out" [I was thinking of Belloc's remarks on France between the war as a central place with a bird's eye view of all Europe] "French was the language of diplomacy.. The US dollar made English a lingua franca (sic). The countries with money made English the lingua franca. And the British Empire. India has 18 separate languages, so in India, and Ceylon, everyone has English."
SPAIN
"Franco a good Christian gentleman, it said in my Catholic Children's Realm"
"When the Christian churches decided Plato was an ally after all, they had to go to Moorish Spain to get his books. The Christians had destroyed so many..."
ITALY
"Mussolini.. Lateran Treaty.. Catholic Church hand in glove with Hitler. "Germans escaped through Italy.. Vatican didn't speak out against the holocaust.. [my notes say: Catholic Orthodox. Something to do with east European or Greek Orthodox Church.] They don't have a Pope. They have Metropolitans..
GERMANY
"I was in Bavaria in 1938, my aunt was engaged to a German. They went to church every day. I was very ??. Churches in Bavaria were full of flags, swastikas. [She seemed not to distinguish between German flags and swastikas; she may have meant Catholic churches had a mixture - or for that matter predominantly German flags.] They had this attitude before Hitler. He probably would not have come to power if the Church hadn't preached him as saviour against Communism to.. lots of votes from Catholics in the South.."
TURKEY
".. Kemal Ataturk was one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century, I think.. He changed to the Roman alphabet, abolished Purdah." [My notes say Xian -> Moslem -> Xian]
VATICAN
"Three way alliance: Mafia, Freemasons, Catholics. Sindone in America and Vatican bank and Roberto Calvi. Found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge ... Vatican Bank was trading in forged American bonds. [They seemed to have speculated unwisely and when things went wrong, forged a few bonds which they
intended to buy back when things went right. But they didn't; they couldn't pay interest..] Archbishop Marcinkus, from Chicago, Sicilian family is still an Archbishop. He was going to be a Cardinal! A huge man; they call him 'The Gorilla'. Was bodyguard to Pope Paul VI.
Roberto Calvi 'God's Banker' [I think this tag applied to Calvi] found with stones in his pockets, hanging where the tide would cover him three times..
Masonic lodge P4 in Italy.. Mafia members brought Calvi to this country.. Italian Judge shot.. Sindone poisoned in Britain..
Calvi's wife got insurance money. She fought it on the basis that he couldn't possibly have committed suicide. She won..."
"Roman Curia has four organisations: the Congregation of the Faith, the College of Cardinals, and others"
"John Paul I - murdered? Shenanigans.. he was honest, simple. Horrified when he saw fraud, forgery.. 1978" [How could he know about it? Couldn't it just have been kept from him? He couldn't know much about documents and finance..] "Oh well I suppose they had to tell him.. Some think he wasn't murdered. He was naturally ill and they didn't call a doctor.. It's forbidden to have an autopsy on a Pope. This was confirmed by Pope Paul VI."
"Second Vatican Council. Aim was to make it Protestant" [What?] "Well, relying on individual conscience rather than church tradition. Going to the Bible and using it for yourself. Not only that, but people sharing in the infallibility of the Pope - Collegiate infallibility and own laity .. Vernacularization. And now the priest faces the congregation. Used to have his back to them, so they all faced the same way. He comes round to the front of the altar, to the altar rails, to dish out wine etc. And they have more conferences.." [Democratic?] "Supposed to be"
"John 23rd was a sort of old farmer Pope - he said 'We're both sons of the soil' about Khrushchev. He was only Pope for four years. He set up a commission on birth control with the idea they could look up information and prove that the pill wasn't interfering at the time of copulation but was p? - without using force could say it was Ok - but he died before unfortunately. Pope ?Paul 6 regarded as more liberal - he was like Hamlet. Indecisive - laid it open for birth control by means of the pill to be considered OK. Progressive Catholics in US and Holland well read, au fait, not peasants in Latin America - several years Pope said Vatican's got to consider, think fully, etc etc. Everyone thought you don't just say 'as you were', they thought it was presaging a change everywhere. In 1968 they said 'no pill'. It was the end of authority in a way. They weren't going to stop just because the Pope said so. And if you're disobeying in one area you might as well disobey..."
"Backlash by Pius X movement. He was a start-of-the-century Pope, what they called the Modernist Crisis. ?Econne Lefebvre. Opposed the second Vatican Council. Its final session was ?1963. He said he was never going to accept it. He said mass in Latin and was excommunicated. A lot left because of that. It was a minor Schism. [Pronounced skism]"
"Then there are the liberation Theologians who regard the present Pope as ?reactionary. The present Pope thinks women should be in the home, nuns should wear habits [apparently they don't, now] and priests should be celibate."
CATHOLIC MONEY
[How much?] "Well, millions.. wealth.. gem studded chalices.. works of art.. obviously the most valuables of any organisation.." [yes, but these
aren't saleable assets in a normal sense. What about their money?] ".. Peter's Pence.. in US Cardinal Spellman in New York used to collect millions every year to send to the Vatican.. but still they got into difficulties.." [So why is Ireland so poverty stricken and dismal?] "See how fat and well fed the priests are.. I was staying in a hotel in Dublin.. full of priests.. local Dublin priests go to top hotels.. they visit Australia in the winter months too..."
NUNS
"Nunneries.. set up in the ages of faith.. wealthy families would send daughter(s).. Educational orders.. take money from state to run schools. They used to run approved schools. Nuns didn't get paid. They lived in the institution" [In dormitories?] "No, in cells. Not dormitories. They were always on the look out for P.F.s, Particular Friendships. I think now they're less worried; they think it's more or less inevitable.
There was a problem with pensions; they didn't pay National insurance stamps, so if they changed their minds and wanted to leave, they didn't even own clothes or anything unless their families subsidised them. And after decades the relatives mayn't want them. There's a book by Monica Baldwin, 'I Leap Over The Wall' [1948; I saw a copy in Penn bookshop - it seemed to have been quite popular]. Now they pay National Insurance - they're entitled to a pension.
The income often comes from the state - 85% of the capital cost of one part of the building, 100% of the other part [no further details], 100% of the running costs, 100% of the salaries. These go into the communal coffers. The nuns take a threefold vow: poverty, chastity, obedience, i.e. in the case of educational orders to give up their salary to the organisation.
SIN, SOULS
"Venial sin - go to purgatory for a time. To get absolution from a mortal sin, go to confession. [NB: three 'elements' required for a good confession: it must be full confession, must be truly sorry, and must want not to repeat it. At least, Aussie film about Convent School had this; not exact wording] Only works if there's a firm purpose of amendment." [In response to my query: I've heard some women prefer to have an abortion than use contraceptives] "So one abortion is one sin. If you keep on using the pill, how can you repent of it? If you die in a state of mortal sin, you go to hell, with no possibility of salvation."
"Aquinas, I think, said that the idea of limbo was made up by nuns to soften the idea of eternal damnation. Aquinas realised it was unfair on an unbaptized baby. He said that in some part of hell there was no punishment and no pain. Not knowing what they missed, they'd be reasonably happy. Before that the doctrine was that an unbaptized baby would suffer in hell. This was terrible for women will stillborn children. The mother would think her baby would spend eternity in pain. My mother had a baby who died after a week. [Between the wars; premature baby; now they have incubators and things.. a 'preemie', I said] A friend said - I didn't think at the time how unpleasant this was - 'Well, at least he was baptized. That's the main thing.'" [I told her a similar story of Spanish soldiers killing Indian babies, but only after the priest had perfunctorily splashed water on]. "I asked my mother once what was the name of the little girl. She hesitated. Actually baptised by her father. He thought it was a boy. He called her Bernard. So I had a sister called Bernard! [Laughs]"
-[I pointed out, from Brewer's Phrase and Fable, that 'Fools Paradise' is a limbo for simpletons or mental defectives; she hadn't heard of this] "Fools Paradise is quite a known currency - ignorance is bliss. .. Innocence is so much prized, that somebody probably did use it in that sense." [So why didn't it apply to animals?]
"They didn't believe animals had souls. In the Middle Ages, they didn't believe that women did. Well, they thought some with their work and intellect developed immortal souls." ['Soul' appears to mean 'immortal soul']
ARMAGEDDON, SECOND COMING
"You hear this [Armageddon] from Protestants more than Catholics. Prophesies, signs, the end of the world. The Second Coming and Anti-Christ seem to appeal more to Catholics"
1995: Protestants are the only true Fundamentalists, in back to the Bible sense.
1995: EDUCATION
- "The reason polytechnics changed their names to universities was because of Islamic students. They want to get foreign fees, and the name 'university' has higher status; they wouldn't pay otherwise."
- Contemptuous of humanists etc who say it's OK to have worship in schools, provided they call it 'worth-ship'. Note: etymology: she didn't like my suggestion that 'worth' was meant in a money sense, as 'rich' often is and also, it struck me, fortunate - 'a fortunate marriage', 'good fortune' &c.
- After Taslima Nasreen's talk in March 1995, she made this speech:
"The National Secular Society, of which I'm President, was founded in 1866, nearly 130 years ago, and since its inception, it has campaigned vigorously against undue religious privilege, against censorship, against the oppression of minorities. And one of its major campaigns, right from its inception, has been the campaign against the blasphemy law in this country. In the aftermath of the Fatwah against Salman Rushdie, there were many liberal voices and left-wing voices in this country demanding the extension of the protection of the blasphemy law to Islam and other religions, in the name of parity. And this would be terribly dangerous. We would have the same things in this country as we're seeing in Bangla Desh and Pakistan and Algeria. We must, in the name of parity, persuade Parliament to get rid of the common law offence of blasphemy, which protects the Church of England. Because even though the Church of England doesn't often use it these days, the mere fact of its existence does encourage the more fundamentalist members of other religions to demand it for themselves. And in its absence in the law to resort to arson and violence and so on to demand it.
A parallel campaign is run against the public funding of denominational schools, and here again a lot of the liberals and left-wing politicians and the christian church leaders have been saying, because we have publicly funded church of England schools, and roman catholic schools, we must allow public funding to the schools of other religions. And not only would this mean segregation on the ground of religion, they would almost all be single sex schools, so there would be segregation on the ground of sex as well, and of course many of them would be, um fortuitously, segregational on grounds of skin colour, because many members of certain religions have their own ethnic origin. So, because it is surely a right of every child, every school child, to come into contact with ideas at variance with those of the home background, we must fight this as well. So we must not have this wishy-washy, liberal idea that we should tolerate intolerance. We should not." [Applause]
1995: SUICIDE
- ".. another way is the plastic bag method.. two plastic bags, the sort you put in small kitchen bins.. two, in case there's a small hole.. I've built up a supply of Distalgesic!.. and alcohol, provided you don't take enough to make you sick.. it's uncertain, you see.. i know a doctor who took tablets, and woke up.. with brain damage.. [and that's a doctor!] elastic band here [below the nose].. then move it down when you feel woozy.. yes, it takes courage!.. You should have about twenty minutes of air.. [name] said wear a
polo neck..
A lot of people say doctors should go on doing what they've been doing! .. they should risk their careers, risk gaol!
.. doctor.. anaesthetists are the people.. make you unconscious.. curare injection seizes up all the muscles including the heart.."
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1991 New Year Message from the Archbishop of Canterbury
- Following chimes of Big Ben. 'The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr Robert Runcie.' [A new Archbishop had in fact been elected during 1990, but presumably remains Archbishop-elect at the time of the broadcast]
- ".. if we're to make sense of our lives now, ... I'm fortunate in having a past which includes both a personal and a public life. After all, Rrabbie Burrns said 'Wud the Giftae God tae gie us to see ourselves as uthers see us.' Huh! I've had plenty of that. | Schooldays and the usual ambitions of the young footballer. Army days. You wish you could recover some of the comradeship | or pray that we will never again have to know the killing, whether on the Gulf or in Northern Ireland or wherever our forces are stationed. There are the family photographs | on the day my appointment was announced huh and we didn't know what we were in for. But it's human affection that holds us all up and a grandchild can be a little foretaste of heaven on earth for late in life. There are the historic memories, of the visit from the Pope. That was a good moment, in a difficult time, during the Falklands war. There have been sad times, as after the disaster at Zeebrugge, when it was necessary to speak a word of consolation in the name of the nation and I've a barrowful of memories of my travelling, in this country and overseas, to visit other members of the human famly, like this aboriginal child in Australia. Then there are the mixed memories. My colleague and friend Terry Waite, in happier days. A lot of prayers and work are directed towards his return. And I am sure you will join me in praying that he and others in Lebanon will be released in 1991. The tragedy of Terry's captivity has been accompanied by an enormous and continuous wave of prayer across the world and support for his family, which has sustained them in their distress. We don't find that sort of experience easily reflected in a photo album. Yet there's one thing I've discovered. The most disturbing and distressing changes in life tend to show us also the kindness of the world. And there's another thing. Worries can be put into perspective by looking back at the old photographs. What seemed so important then no longer seems to matter. And gradually there grows over us whether we survive to 20, 40, 60, or 80 yairs, the sense that, weak as we are, some strength beyond our strength, some wisdom beyond our wisdom, some love beyond our power to love has pulled us through. It has been said that my time in office has coincided with the 'me generation' but frankly I've seen too much kindness, self-sacrifice, and generosity to believe that to be true. I do though see some justification for calling it the 'now generation'. The past is more important than snapshot nostalgia. Without a deeper sense of the past, we may lose gifts God has given us for handling the present. But there's one thing more I want to say. Heaven as an idea is unfashionable but contented people are often those who give themselves impressively to a cause they know will not be fulfilled in their lifetime. They're not far from what Christians mean when they say that 'heaven alone makes sense of time'. So, managing our memories, and hoping for heaven, are for me the gifts of God to help us cope with the present. [Music plays; organ, plus solo young male voice.] I recognise my own good fortune. It's so much easier to talk in this sort of way in a place like Canterbury Cathedral. You have a vivid sense that you're part of history. It cuts you down to size. At the same time through its worship of Jesus Christ. And through its decoration it raises your hearts to heaven in a language which is beyond words. | [Music stops. Voice echoes:] If this seems too rarefied let me bring it down to earth with some words of a lovely Cockney woman. She lived in a home which was suddenly scheduled for deemolition, and she had to move after forty years. But she cheerfully gave her philosophy of life: 'Wherever I am, I goes to bed thankful. And I wakes up 'opeful.' And you couldn't have a better example of my recipe for wishing YOU a happy New Year."
New Year's Day on BBC1 blasts off with gripping sky high adventure when students at space camp take an unexpected journey. 'My God..'