Diary of a Superannuated Soul - w/e 13th October 2001

[John Copeland]

SATURDAY 6 OCTOBER

For the past fortnight in this journal I have been expressing concern
about Israel, suggesting that the brutal regime under Ariel Sharon,
which has been given full and financial support by America, has been
largely responsible for the troubles in the Middle East and a direct
consequence of the recent terrorist attacks in New York. Yesterday,
as if to endorse this concern, Sharon arrogantly and aggressively
warned President Bush not to appease the Arabs, even ridiculously
saying that the West should not repeat the mistake of 1938 when
Czechoslovakia was sacrificed in the cause of appeasement. Israel
would not be Czechoslovakia, the sickening Sharon warned, and would
continue to fight terrorism in its own way.

President Bush rightly responded by saying that such views were
unacceptable, no doubt emphasising the very changed American policy
towards Israel, something that is to be warmly welcomed if there is
ever to be peace in the Middle East. Indeed, I genuinely and
optimistically believe that Israel will be considerably restrained by
America in the future, forced to abandon the West Bank, and that
renewed efforts will now be made to create the much needed and long
overdue state of Palestine. Most people I know here in the UK fully
support the Arabs, and this is not just part of the anti-Semitism that
is, alas, quite widespread in this country.

In the post this morning I received a notification from Electrolux,
saying that the vacuum cleaner that I bought last October would soon
be out of its first year warranty, and suggesting that I should take
out an annual guarantee, payable by direct debit, for the cost of £24
a year - yet the appliance only cost £82 when new. It made me
realise, as the consumer magazine "Which" has always pointed out, that
these extended warranties are a real swindle, seldom justifying their
high cost.

I certainly lost out by having an extended guarantee on my present
computer, paying £650 over five years, yet only making claims for a
replacement monitor, a keyboard and a mouse during that period, all of
which would cost me no more than £300 to purchase. When I purchase
the new computer in mid-January of next year I shall certainly not
bother again with an extended guarantee, trusting to luck instead.
Most computer faults are usually due to software, particularly
conflicts between programmes, which is not covered by these swindles.

In bed before getting up about 9.30 a.m., I was reading Tina Brown's
"unmissable monthly column" from New York. In the first contribution
today, Ms Brown writes about the terrorist attack in New York:
"Absurdly, when calamity hit, the glossy world magazine world had been
in the full froth of fashion week. The night before, I had been
sitting in the front row of the very chic designer Marc Jacob's show,
next to the debonair custard quiff of Donald Trump. Monica Lewinsky
was in the row behind, rabbiting on about her new purse collection".

A further reminder of the sheer awfulness of our values came in a
holiday brochure from "Travelsphere" which arrived with the other
seven items of junk mail in the post this morning. The brochure's
style was unbelievably downmarket and cheap, obviously appealing to
those dreadful working class people who are now to be seen in airports
wearing tee-shirts, usually with some vulgar motif on the front,
shorts and trainers, and accompanied by uncontrolled children.

Items within the "Travelsphere News" included "Wat' Combos - discover
our far Eastern delights"; "Pasta, pizza & perfection - Italy stays
number 1 in the European hit parade"; "Paradise awaits - book your
fabulous holiday in the sensational Seychelles"; "Vows in Vegas - let
us help you celebrate your happy years of marriage"; and "Christmas
shoppers' paradise - 5 days from £399". All this nonsense made me
wince, and I become more and more convinced of the wisdom of staying
at home to avoid the terrible people who are now to be seen in
aeroplanes. Perhaps somewhat curmudgeonly, it makes me long for a
deep and lasting recession to prevent the great unwashed from
holidaymaking and ruining places abroad.

To "The Tower Hotel" in Lincoln for the usual Saturday morning session
with three of my friends. The beer - Worthington Freeflow - is
diabolical, but I always enjoy the discussions, especially as
holidays, house beautification and extensions, as well as the family,
are taboo subjects, though an exception is made for a brief chronicle
of the week's illnesses - what we call our "organ recital". Sadly, we
are all suffering from some kind of illness or disability in our old
age. I have the trouble with one of my eyes and developing
rheumatism; one of my chums announced today that the doctor had
diagnosed arthritis of his spine; another has prostate cancer; and
the fourth has Parkinson's Disease in an advanced state.

There are boasts these days that we are all living longer, but the
question that has to be asked is "At what price?" Nearly all my
contemporaries have some kind of health problem, the only exception
being one of the villagers of my own age who drinks like a fish, eats
like a horse, and weighs 17 stones, never bothering about diets or his
weight, and certainly never taking any form of exercise, yet he is as
fit as a fiddle. The vegetarians I know seem to come off worst, so
many of them looking so sickly and pale, presumably as a result of an
unbalanced diet. It makes you think.

This morning we were discussing Mr. Blair's globe trotting antics, and
I was interested to hear my companions saying that they thought his
stature as a politician had increased enormously, especially as he
seems to have been instrumental in calming down the Americans,
persuading them to wait until the alliance is brought together before
firing off missiles into every Muslim country. There was also
general agreement that the Conservative Party would quickly
disintegrate and disappear under the incredibly uninspiring leadership
of Duncan Smith, its day having been well and truly done.

After lunch I cut the grass, the mild and wet weather having continued
to make it grow. I also did some weeding on the terrace (or patio, as
the common people call such edifices), clearing out the weeds between
the cracks. However much weedkiller we put on, these weeds always
seem to thrive.

Reading by the fireside in the evening, continuing with the Alanbrooke
Diaries, which I am thoroughly enjoying. As a respite from reading
about the grimness of war, I have started Melvyn Bragg's latest novel
"A Son of War", which is a sequel to "The Soldier's Return" that I
enjoyed earlier in the year.

SUNDAY 7 OCTOBER

An e-mail this morning, sending me a copy of a recent psychiatrists'
report on happiness ratings around the world, which had me boiling
over with anger. I only have to read or hear the words
"psychologist" or "psychiatrist" and I have this Pavlovian response,
foaming at the mouth in anguish and annoyance.

"Britons are the most depressed people in Europe, according to a new
study. Depression affects more women than men and is more common in
urban areas, according to findings published on Monday in the British
Journal of Psychiatry. Scientists compared patients in Britain,
Spain, Finland, Norway and Ireland, looking at groups in busy cities
and rural villages.
'Depressive disorder is a highly prevalent condition among working age
adults in Europe', the report's authors said in the report. 'Rural
communities show a lower prevalence of depressive episodes'.

The report continued: "More than 14,000 people aged from 18 to 65
were randomly selected to take part in the study, the first of its
kind to cover Europe. Researchers chose Liverpool and Dublin as their
UK and Ireland urban research centres. The Vale of Clywd in Wales and
the Irish county of Laois were the rural test centres. Researchers
found that across Europe, 7.9 percent of women and 5.2 percent of men
suffered from depression. The figures were much higher across the
UK and Ireland, particularly in towns and cities. Some 21 percent
of urban UK women were prone to depression, compared to only 4.7
percent in rural areas. One in 10 men in UK cities suffered
depression the figure was halved among men in the country".

What incredibly ridiculous nonsense! Just fancy: people living in
rural areas feel happier than those crowded into inner cities such as
Liverpool. And fancy choosing Liverpool as the representative city in
England, for everybody must be depressed in such a grim place where
industry and jobs are no more. And what precisely do we mean by
depression - a word in such common parlance these days, when everybody
has post-traumatic stress? There are times when I become immensely
depressed, and had the researchers caught me on a bad day when Mrs.
Copeland was being difficult or I had lost something, I would also
have responded by saying I was thoroughly depressed.

The psychiatrists in this survey seem to be confusing dissatisfaction
with unhappiness, which are two very different things. In Western
lands, where we always want more, never being satisfied with what we
have, we are dissatisfied and discontented, whereas people in poorer
lands, notably Afghanistan, probably know the true meaning of
unhappiness. Few people in Lax Britannica, whether they are in a slum
area of Liverpool or a remote rural area, know what it means to be
hungry or cold. No doubt they are "stressed out", but that is usually
an expression of their greed and selfishness, always wanting more
money for those little extras such as home extensions and foreign
holidays in spoilt lands, rather than any symptom of genuine despair.

As might be expected, the Sunday newspapers were full of analyses,
options, comments, and predictions on the likely military strikes
against the Teleban within the next few weeks. I cannot face reading
all this stuff and quickly turn the pages. Instead, I begin to think
that the whole nasty business has, perhaps somewhat ironically and
cruelly, raised questions about Western culture, with the attack on
the World Trade Centre being seen an expression of the hatred for the
ever encroaching concepts of capitalism.

Indeed, to be thoroughly uncharitable, it could be suggested that the
appallingly ugly World Trade Centre was a monument to the greed and
selfishness of capitalism, having served as a shrine to the
self-interested considerations that rejected the Kyoto agreement;
that has a glut in food production, even setting land-aside, whilst
millions die of starvation in Africa; that makes indecent profits by
selling armaments to the Middle East; that lends huge sums of money
to poor countries that will have enormous problems in paying back the
money; and whose crude glorification of sex and violence helps to
sell its products.

Perhaps the worst thing about capitalism, even if it is the best
available system that we have, is its utter humbug. Here in Lax
Britannica, for example, we hear its exponents demanding the
restriction of the activities of the State, but the moment any
industry finds itself in any difficulty because of its greed and/or
incompetence, the industrialists come cap in hand with their begging
bowls for State aid to bail them out.

Railtrack, for example, has now gone bankrupt as a result of pouring
profits into the pockets of the chief executives and shareholders,
and the Government will have to step in, spending millions of pounds
of taxpayers' money to save the railways. There is the further
example of the greedy farmers who, having fed their animals with the
wrong food and kept them in cruel, restricted conditions, have brought
all manner of diseases upon the industry, with the result that they,
too, are now at the doors of the Exchequer with their begging bowls.
The airlines, having overcharged for many of their routes, are also in
the wailing queue, all wanting to be bailed out by the taxpayer.

In his column in today's "Sunday Times", John Humphrys, whose writings
I always enjoy, was providing further evidence of this humbug when he
commented that "The United States and Britain, the two leaders in the
'war against terrorism', also happen to be the two biggest arms
exporters in the world. Last year was a good one for the British arms
industry. Sales almost doubled. We are the source of a fifth of the
world's arms sales. A third of them go to what you might call dubious
countries - half of them to the Middle East. In the past few years we
have also supplied spare parts for Hawk jets to Zimbabwe, which has
used them in the savage civil war in the Democratic Republic of
Congo".

This hypocrisy goes hand in hand with our silly values, especially
towards sex, that we have in the West. By way of illustrating this
silliness, there was an article in today's "Sunday Times" Style
Magazine dealing with "Girls on top: meet the new sexual predators",
in which we are told that "Jo King has set up the London School of
Striptease, hoping that as women peel off their clothes, their
'inhibitions will be tossed aside along with their underwear'; while
Helen Jackson's erotic aerobatics classes, held during the day at the
Third Space gym, teach women to shimmy as effectively as she does at
night in the Raymond Revue Bar. She agrees with King that stripping
is good for your self-esteem: 'It can help to sweep aside your
insecurities'".

Maybe the photograph in today's "Sunday Times" of a nearly naked
former Spice girl prancing around with a soldier on a beach in Oman
explains why Eastern religions find this sickening glorification of
sex so offensive to the spirit. I can certainly understand the
resentment, for the crude representation of sex in our society, which
has more to do with selfish gratification and exploitation than any
regard for beauty or love, seems so horrible. If I had my way, the
scantily clad young woman would be making tea in the NAFFI instead of
cavorting with a soldier who, it is to be hoped, has more serious
things on his mind right now.

Granddaughter Chloe, as a Brownie, has to attend a church service
every so often, so today Mrs. Copeland and I took her to the Harvest
Festival at our local church of St. Vincent's at 10.15 a.m., where we
joined 12 other worshippers, representing about 7 per cent of the
village population. The preacher, serving as a locum as the Church
has still not bothered to make an appointment following the early
retirement of our vicar at the end of August, gave an interesting
sermon on the greed and selfishness of our society, even mentioning
the avariciousness of the farmers in promoting BSE and foot and mouth
diseases. He thought we had become a selfish society that was not
prepared to share our enormous wealth with poorer nations.

It was disappointing that there was such a poor attendance today.
When we first came to the village some thirty years ago, the church
was packed out for the Harvest Festival service, and the products of
the harvest were beautifully and extensively arrayed around the walls.
Today, by way of contrast, there were only a few fallen apples along
the altar rails, and only one bunch of flowers - a sad testimony to
the decline of the Church of England. My reckoning is that our church
will be closed within the next year, and the poorly attended services
will be no more.

Taking little Chloe with us, we went to have lunch with Caroline and
Phil, being joined by Phil's parents and one of his sisters and her
husband. A most enjoyable occasion with much alcohol and laughter. I
took some bottled beer as I prefer beer to wine at lunchtime.

We took Chloe home about 5.30 p.m. Kate, her mother, was resting
her foot recently operated on, while watching a special television
programme featuring today's outbreak of hostilities in Afghanistan,
involving the deployment of American and British missiles and
aeroplanes. The programme was being presented by a woman, presumably
on account of the men being on holiday as this was a Sunday, and it
was unbelievably awful, with nobody, least of all the presenter,
having a clue what was going on.

Back home I briefly listened to the reports of the conflict on Radio
Five Live, but this was almost farcical. Old generals had been dusted
and wheeled out to discuss the options, and periodically there would
be a switch to a correspondent standing on a mountain in Afghanistan
overlooking Kabul. "Can you see anything happening, Kate?" the woman
in the studio would ask, and the reply would come back: "No, Janet,
it's a bit dark up here, but there's a flash I can just see, which
could be an explosion". A little while later the woman would say
again: "Can you see anything now, Kate?" Oh, bloody dear! I had to
switch off to prevent myself from falling off my chair with laughter,
which is quite the wrong response on such a terrible occasion.

It makes me thankful that we were not subjected to all this media
speculation and nonsense during the 1939-45 war. In those far away
days we only had heavily censored reports on the wireless and the
weekly Pathe newsreel at the cinema, with a presentation in the
clipped tones of an upper class correspondent who concentrated on the
good news, telling us in that stiff upper lip manner that Britain's
forces were fully engaged, even if they were going the wrong way.

I just hope that Bush and Blair know what they have started,
especially as the launching of missiles and erroneously called "smart
bombs" seldom hit their targets, many of them mercifully failing to
function. During the war in Kosovo we continually heard about the
"deadly accuracy" of these missiles, only to learn six months later
that less than 5 per cent of the smart bombs went anywhere near the
target, the rest falling on schools, hospitals and a television studio
One thing, though, is certain: over the next few weeks or months,
for however long the war continues, we will not be able to believe a
word we are told.

Reading some more of the Alanbrooke diaries by the fireside in the
evening while a gale raged outside, quite ferociously. Alanbrooke
became more and more frustrated with Churchill during the closing
stages of the war, really believing that the Prime Minister was
coming off his trolley. An entry for 10 September 1944 makes the
following comment: "I find it hard to remain civil [to Churchill].
And the wonderful thing is that three quarters of the population of
the world imagine that Winston Churchill is one of the Strategists of
History, a second Marlborough, and the other quarter have no
conception what a public menace he is and has been throughout the war!
It is far better that the world should never know, and never suspect
the feet of clay of that otherwise superhuman being. Without him
England was lost for certainty, with him England has been on the verge
of disaster time and again".

Alanbrooke, who has been described as "the unhappy warrior - a
somewhat introverted man who preferred birds to people - also has
severe criticism of Mountbatten, whom he regarded as a total disaster,
and there were frequent occasions when he had to discipline the
insensitive and glory-seeking Montgomery for upsetting other generals,
especially the Americans. Eisenhower was seen as being hopeless at
strategy, though later Alanbrooke recognised that he was probably a
"big man" after all, while Marshall (General of the US Army) never
seemed to know what day it was. Even little Herbert Morrison
(Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Home Secretary) was regarded
as whimp, forever whining that Londoners would never be able to
tolerate the devastation of the V2 rockets.

MONDAY 8 OCTOBER

Although I have already mentioned the sentiments, I nevertheless find
it so surprising that there is currently such widespread condemnation
of Israel in this country. Every single person I have spoken to on
the subject of the present conflict regards Israel as the real
culprit, the theme being taken up by two further critical letters in
"The Times", today. One of them makes the point that "since 1967
Israel has established hundreds of squatter settlements on Arab land,
a policy in direct contravention of the UN's Charter and its
resolutions. Throughout this period successive US Administrations
have backed Israel, in spite of the fact that Israel's policy on the
West Bank and in Gaza has plainly been the single biggest obstacle to
peace with the Palestinians and the dominant cause of resentment
fuelling terrorist violence and bloodshed".

The other one, in similar critical vein of the Jews' unacceptable
behaviour, comments: "The Western world is rightly critical of nations
which have little or no regard for human rights, but never of Israel
which continues to oppress and abuse Palestinian Arabs Is this not
the crux of the problems which promote the spreading activities of the
terrorists, as seen in recent weeks?" I find myself nodding
enthusiastically in agreement, really hoping that America will sort
out Israel once and for all when the battles with the Taleban are
over.

Whilst still a'bed at 8 a.m., I heard the pathetic Jack Straw, our
Foreign Secretary with about as much gravitas as a grinning Boy Scout,
being interviewed on the wireless news bulletin "Today" The
interviewer was asking him such questions as "When you're on the back
of a tiger how to you get off?; "Are we taking orders from America?";
and "Why is Britain so involved, risking the lives of our servicemen,
when other European countries are not taking part?" to which the
feeble little man muttered something about "the simple truth" and
"given the reality", which are terms that politicians use when they do
not know what to say.

To town in the morning to purchase various items. In one of the shops
I met a former Chairman of the Education Committee under whom I worked
- a most impressive, upper class man whom I always admired and
respected. All my days in local government showed that it was so much
more pleasant and worthwhile to work with men of good breeding, as
opposed to the riff-raff drawn from the Labour ranks. He was telling
me that, although he was now in his late 70s, he was continuing to
enjoy life, commenting: "I just hope that all the people I laughed
at enjoyed laughing at me as much". It is a good philosophy of life,
and in some ways I like to think that I follow it.

Back home I put a second coat of paint on the woodshed and coalshed
doors, and creosoted a fence. Unfortunately, it immediately started
to rain when I had completed these tasks, which will no doubt ruin my
work. Whilst I was painting, the blasted "Red Arrows" were playing
their silly games, roaring overhead, apparently oblivious of the fact
that there was a war on. However, at lunchtime, when I was downing my
bottle of Badger bitter, I had a telephone call from the lass who is
the new Public Relations Officer for the aerial acrobats. She told
me, responding to my recent letter in which I had suggested the team's
pilots could be more gainfully employed at this difficult time instead
of doing cartwheels in the Lincolnshire skies, that "the boys" were
also very much aware that they ought to be doing something more
useful, When I suggested that we should probably call them men, she
said that this was the way they were always referred to, which did not
surprise me.

Towards the end of the conversation, after being told that the
Ministry of Defence had not given any instructions to stop the
flights, other than cancelling the Middle East tour which was due to
start this month, the lass asked me whether I objected to the team
flying over my house, to which I responded by giving a very emphatic
yes. "I will pass the message on," I was told. I am now fearful
that I will soon be "buzzed". One of my friends jokingly suggested
that I would be bombed, but this causes me no alarm, for I know full
well that the bombs will end up harmlessly in a field miles away or
in the next village.

Perhaps I should have suggested that the team should do their training
exercise over Ben Laden's stronghold, looping the loop, coloured
smoke coming out of their posteriors, for hour after endless hour.
He would soon give himself up, the Muslim cause abandoned, after
finding that he could tolerate the deafening noise and pollution of
this fooling around activity no longer.

What surprises me so much about the present conflict is that our
Government can suddenly find millions of pounds to bring armed
policemen onto the streets, whereas in the past it has always been
argued that there was not enough money to increase our police forces
when crime, especially muggings, is rampant in Lax Britannia. I
suppose the answer is that there is always money for the things we
want to finance. All I hope is that the terrorists do not bomb the
Tory Party Conference which apparently started today. The party is
bombed out enough already, not knowing which way to turn, without
having further miseries thrust upon it.

At home in the evening by the fireside, reading some more of the
Alanbrook Diaries, which I have nearly finished. An interesting and
fascinating book, even though it is deadly dull in parts. The memory
I shall have of the book is the lifestyle of people like Alanbrooke
who lunched and dined in splendour every night, far away from the
scenes of the battles, even taking time off at the height of a crisis
to go fishing and shooting. It is a wonderful reminder of how the
upper classes had complete control of the country (Alanbrooke's father
was Sir Victor Brooke, 3rd Baronet of Colebrooke, County Fermanagh,
Ulster. He died when Alanbrooke was seven years old). Maybe we
should be grateful that things have changed - something the
Conservatives have yet to learn.

I liked Alanbrooke's comment on the various phases of life: "Youth
seems difficult enough to cope with when one is young, middle age is
just one series of problems, but are not those of old age and decline
the hardest to face bravely, and most important of all, with a
balanced mind? Is not the inferiroty complex of old age more
difficult to size up and appreciate than that of youth? At any rate
the latter can only lead you into minor troubles, whilst the former
may well have fatal results". In another passage he quotes Churchill
as saying: "When the eagles are silent, the parrots start jabbering".
It made me think of our man of straw, the Foreign Secretary.

I was surprised that Wall Street and London only went down a few
points following the outbreak of hostilities, but then I have never
been able to understand the workings of the stock market. A retired
banker friend told me some time ago that my trouble was that I naively
believed that the market bore a direct relationship with the economy
and world events, whereas it is essentially an almighty casino,
alternatively governed by greed and fear.

The television news bulletins indicated that the aerial bombardment of
Afghanistan had inflicted "enormous damage". But if the Kosovo
campaign is anything to go by, this probably means that the missiles
and bombs have hit a bakery, a post office and a goat farm. Various
gung-ho servicemen interviewed on a US aircraft carrier, all of whom
looked as if they were only just out of short trousers, spoke of
their determined mission to rid the world of terrorists. I cannot say
that these young men gave me a great deal of hope, even if they are to
be admired for their enthusiasm. No doubt they had to look up
Afghanistan on the map, thereby increasing their knowledge of
geography.

There was at least one new development. The newscasters were today
admitting that the cruise missiles are not very accurate. This makes
a refreshing change from being told during the Kosovo war that they
could target the missiles down a chimney pot. Now it seems that they
are extraordinarily lucky if the missiles land within five hundred
yards of the target, especially when fired from submarines. Somewhat
worrying, but at least the new honesty is refreshing.

TUESDAY 9 OCTOBER

Up at 7.45 a.m. to take delivery of a load of coal. Fortunately it
comes from one of the few working pits in Yorkshire, and the coal is
so much better than the rubbish from Germany or Mexico. As might be
expected, the price has gone up, from £5.95 to £6.35 a hundredweight,
an increase of 6.7 per cent, but this is in line with the C.I.I
(Corrected Inflation Index = x2 declared rate +1. The declared rate
is now 2.6 per cent). Every month we see these increases of over 6
per cent as the pace of inflation quickens following the lowering of
interest rates and increasing Government expenditure, but there is
nothing we can do about it. No doubt the September rate of inflation,
on which the annual updating of pensions and welfare benefits are
based, will show a substantial fall when announced later this month,
possibly due to a fall in the price of petrol and cabbages.

There was the news on the 8 o'clock news bulletin this morning that
four UN workers had been killed in the US bombing of Kabul, prompting
widespread fears about the wisdom of the use of inaccurate missiles
(pronounced missuls in America) and the use of smart bombs that never
live up to their name. There are also reports that ground troops will
be used at a time when winter is just around the corner, which will no
doubt result in massive American casualties, representing a re-run of
the retreat from Moscow. Why, oh why, does history teach us nothing,
especially about war?

Is it because our politicians relish the excitement and kudos of
setting up War Cabinets, believing that they are taking monumental
decisions in saving the world, the battles abroad making a refreshing
change from the tiresome tasks at home? And can it be that, as the
audience, we enjoy the spectacle of missile-loaded aeroplanes roaring
off from aircraft carriers on another proud mission, having no
realisation in our cocooned environment that scores of innocent
people, including children, will be killed?

There is no doubt that Bomber Blair, the Supreme Controller of the
Universe (except Northern Ireland and Kosovo) is relishing his
present , quite present moment of glory, brief though it may
ultimately prove to be. Any day now I expect him to come out of No.
10 wearing a siren suit and smoking a cigar, giving us the old V-sign
and saying that Britain can take it and will never give up.
Nevertheless, whatever the cynicism and however much fun "Private Eye"
has with him, there is no doubt that Mr. Blair's image has improved
immensely during the past few weeks, quite adumbrating the dreary Ian
Duncan Smith who is such an incredibly dull speaker.

At the moment, though, the media, especially television, has a
problem, for there are no pictures of Afghan towns and villages having
been obliterated, not even a photograph of any target having been
hit. Instead, the television news bulletins have to rely on
correspondents standing on the sides of mountains about thirty miles
from the bombing, usually being shown on wobbly video transmissions
which makes them look and sound like Teletubbies on the dark side of
the moon. "Are you able to assess the damage being inflicted?" asks a
silly woman in the studio, and a young woman correspondent on the
mountain replies: "I can see explosions lighting up the night sky,
Clare, but it is not possible to see where the missiles are landing",
which is followed by: "Thank you very much, Jackie. We'll come back
to you later in the programme. Over now to our sports correspondent -
Wally".

Amidst all the gloom on the front page of "The Times" this morning,
with reports that Americans are being poisoned with anthrax and the
possibility that there is to be another go at Saddam Hussein, plus
hints on the news that the bombing campaign is not achieving very
much and will take much longer than expected, Anatole (Pangloss)
Kaletsky gives his weekly assurance in his column that all will be
well. We are told that consumer and business behaviour will return
more or less to normal by the end of the year; removing "the Taleban
from power looks quite feasible"; and that "the scale of monetary and
fiscal stimulus is now certain to be much bigger than anything
imaginable a few weeks ago".

So all is well, and we can stop behaving lunch a bunch of Chicken
Lickens believing that the skies are about to fall. Chicken Licken,
after all, got eaten by the fox, and serve him right for spreading
rumours around that the king had not got everything under control. We
also have to bear in mind that our Anatole has been wholly right so
far in his predictions, correctly forecasting that the stock markets
would soon recover following the terrorist attacks on 11 September;
that the house prices in the UK would continue to go on rising through
the roof; and that consumer expenditure would not be slowed down one
iota by the troubles.

After a session on the computer during the morning, having to endure
yet another lock-up with a message coming up saying that there had
been a "fatal exception" which appeared to indicate that the machine
was saying farewell and would soon have to be buried just beyond the
graves of our former cats, I did some repointing of the brickwork
within the fireplace - a job that has been on my worksheet for some
months, and which I had hoped to finish before the fire-lighting
season began.

When this was completed, I had to repaint the woodshed door I painted
yesterday afternoon, the paint having been ruined by the rain that
poured down immediately I had put the brushes and paint away. It is
always said that you should never paint outside after the end of
September, and now that the Autumns here are so much wetter and colder
as a result of global warming, presumably this advice is more relevant
than ever. I must remember it in future, not that I intend to do much
more painting.

Shortly after 12.30 p.m. I joined friend Ivan at "Woodcocks", the
local family inn, for lunch and a pint or two of "Pedigree" bitter.
Ivan's wife is away in Dublin, so we decided that we would meet for
lunch rather than have Ivan being put to the bother of cooking a meal
for himself. After an excellent steak - the pub offers the best steaks
in Lincoln - we adjourned for wine at Ivan's house, discussing the
affairs of the world and our own personal circumstances.

Ivan, suggesting that I probably have about another 15 years to live,
presumably assuming I am not blown up by some terrorist as a result
of Mr. Blair upsetting the Muslim world, asked me what I wanted to do
in those years. I found it an interesting question, but one that was
difficult to answer. I tend to believe that, in old age, you have to
take what life brings, rather than being a mover and shaker who makes
things happen, but maybe this is a negative view. Possibly the answer
is that I would like to have some involvement, an active kind of
participation, that would bring some form of stimulus to my set-aside
life.

At 7 p.m. Mrs. Copeland and I went to the Harvest Supper put on by the
local Church, having paid £10 for a buffet meal. It was a dreadful
occasion, for only 30 people attended, and several of these present
were from town. In former years we have had a sit-down meal with the
room being packed but this evening most of the villagers had stayed
away. Were it not for having a discussion with the young couple who
have recently moved into the village and whose company I enjoy, the
evening would have been a disaster.

The evening was not helped by the dreadful prize that I won in the
raffle - the most ugly mirror you could ever imagine. I cannot
believe that any firm, not even a Japanese one, could ever
manufacture such a dreadfully vulgar item, but presumably they are now
much in demand in Lax Britannica.

+

WEDNESDAY 10 OCTOBER

An e-mail from one of my American correspondents this morning,
commenting on Britain now being one of the most violent countries in
the world:-

"VIOLENT crime is rising faster in England and Wales than anywhere
else in Europe, new figures showed yesterday. In 1999, robberies and
assaults rose by 16 per cent compared with
five per cent across the rest of the EU. Overall levels of violence
were far higher in Britain than in countries of comparable size.
There were 703,000 assaults recorded by police in 1999 - more than
twice the number only four years earlier. This compared with 186,000
in Germany and 216,000 in France. The risk of assault, while low, is
higher in Britain than almost anywhere else in the industrialised
world, including America. Only in Australia is it greater".

I suppose these dreadful figures only tell us what we already know,
namely that the increasingly active thuggish element in our society
presents far more of a threat than any amount of terrorists.
Nevertheless, it is sad to read these statistics that show what a
third world country we have become - a status that seems to be all the
more pathetic as we hurl missiles at Afghanistan.

As always, "The Times" had thirteen pages of the battle against Ben
Laden, even with a report that the RAF has wheeled out a 1952
aeroplane and fitted it with a camera that can read the title of "The
Times" 100 miles away. In all seriousness, this old aeroplane is
going to be used to find Ben in his hideout in the mountains, but
goodness knows how they are going to spot him. Even if he pops out
for a breather from his cave, all these Talebans look the same with
their black beards, turbans and smocks. There is the vision of
service personnel pouring over thousands of snapshots, saying
occasionally to one another: "How about this one?"

Although it sounds a very wicked thing to say, I cannot help feeling
that this bombing is taking on the nature of a farce, indicating the
utter futility of bombing campaigns - what Simon Jenkins in his column
in "The Times" today calls "the dumbest weapons of war". Is the
Taleban Air Force and network of communications so extensive that it
is necessary to launch scores of missiles and drop hundreds of bombs
on the towns in Afghanistan? And if, as we have been told, the air
strikes have been highly successful, why is it necessary to mount a
"round-the-clock" aerial bombardment, even venturing out in daylight
to bomb?

One thing is readily apparent: we cannot, as I mentioned earlier,
believe a word we are being told about this campaign, and I begin to
find, somewhat to my horror, that I am becoming increasingly sickened
rather than heartened by the waging of a war with its inaccurate
missiles and bombs. And I inwardly groan when I hear American
military chiefs, most of whom I would not trust to park my car let
alone undertake a war, saying that all the targets have been hit and
eliminated and that there has been very little "collateral damage" -
a term used to describe the killing of women and children.

Indeed, I begin to loathe the gung-ho sentiments so much, especially
the apparent American belief that military might can entirely
eliminate political creeds, destroying thousands of people in the
process. It is the television commentators' glorification of the war
that I find so difficult to accept, particularly the dreadful BBC
women correspondents whose shrill little voices are to be heard on
the edge of Afghanistan mountains, and who seem to be a travesty of
Nature, zombie creatures who have lost touch with their gender.
Somehow I cannot take them at all seriously, fearing that at any
moment they will start presenting a cookery recipe for Afghanistan
Pie or Muslim Moussaka.

This change of mood on my part is no doubt regrettable, the more so
since I initially backed reprisals against Bin Laden. But it begins
to dawn on me that firing fantastically expensive and inaccurate
missiles and dropping erroneously called "smart bombs" on people
riding around on donkeys in an impoverished land represents yet
another form of terrorism, the more so when you realise that the word
"terrorism" is defined as "the use of violence and intimidation in the
pursuit of political aims". Putting it bluntly and unpleasantly,
America has had its political aims in the Middle East challenged, and
is now meeting that challenge with armed conflict.

Maybe one of the reasons for my change of heart is the realisation
that bin Laden is unlikely to be captured if he escapes by the end of
this month, for the Afghanistan winter will protect him until March at
the very earliest, by which time the coalition will have fallen apart
and Mr. Blair will have been obliged to return to sorting out our
fallen-apart schools and hospitals. I half expected to see
advertisements by the bookies in "The Times" this morning, probably
offering 100-1 odds against bin Laden ever being captured.

Mrs. Copeland was expressing her disappointment this morning about the
abysmal attendance at the Harvest Supper yesterday evening, seeing the
poor turnout as yet another example of the decline of the village. I
can understand this feeling, for over the years we have lost the
school, the post office and local shop; and now we will no doubt soon
be seeing the church closed down. Even the local Club, formerly so
well supported, is now losing money every year, and the meetings of
the Parish Council are usually only attended by about 4 villagers,
nobody being interested in the proceedings unless there is the threat
of a housing development next door.

Part of the decline can be attributed to urban refugees, often with
quite a lot of money, coming to live in the village, but having no
interest in or identity with the life of the community, preferring to
keep to themselves behind their high privet hedges. But it is not
just that; an additional factor is that there is a general decline in
community life in Lax Britannica today, possibly reflecting Lady
Loony's comment that there is "no such thing as society". People keep
to themselves; spend money on themselves in having numerous holidays
abroad every year and beautifying their homes; and there is little
interest in what goes on around them, unless, as I have said, there
is some kind of threat that is likely to disturb their inner
sanctuaries.

There are times when I begin to feel that I might as well pack up,
too, resigning from the Parish Council as nobody cares or bothers
about the village. On the other hand, such a resignation would make
me as bad as all the others, and as this is something I do not want to
become, I shall carry on for a little while longer. I continue to
believe, even if it is what Dr. Johnson would have called a triumph of
hope over experience, that somebody should try to protect the village
from insensitive and unwanted developments, recognising that we have a
duty to hand on the village to our successors in a decent state,
displaying the same concern as our forefathers showed before us.

After a lengthy session on the computer, which amazingly did not lock
up today, I rode into town on the scooter to purchase some stationery
items and to withdraw some money from the Bank, as well as getting
some putty to repair the shed window. Unfortunately, I completely
forget about an appointment with Frank the barber at 10.45 p.m., but
after apologising profusely, I was put in at 3.45 p.m., afterwards
taking Frank home (he lives in our village) by way of atonement for my
carelessness in missing an appointment.

Mrs. Copeland was working in the evening, so I was on my own by the
fireside, except for the cat. I finished reading the 720 pages of the
Alanbrooke Diaries - an excellent £25's worth, so much better than
wasting money on a meal in a restaurant. On the 10 o'clock news on
the wireless I heard that the Taleban have threatened to kill Mr.
Blair. However, he is now on another mission to the Middle East,
bobbing up in different countries and calling in to see our troops in
Oman, trying to convince increasingly hostile Arab countries that we
like Muslims really, even if we are bombing hell out of some of them
just now.

The relentless bombing of Afghanistan towns continues apace.
According to photographs at last released today, some missiles have
succeeded in making quite big holes in one of the Taleban airstrips.
These craters probably cost about two million dollars apiece, but you
never get your money's worth in war. Yesterday we were told that the
Teleban air defences had been destroyed, but today we were informed
that the aerial bombardment may have to continue through to the spring
of next year. Although it is obviously rather naive on my part, I
find these propaganda porkies very upsetting, for when the clock
strikes thirteen you really do start to wonder about its accuracy.

I suppose it is not surprising that there was hardly a mention of the
Conservative Party Conference, which was addressed by its leader Ian
Duncan Smith today. In today's paper, which had only a brief mention
of yesterday's uninspiring proceedings, Matthew Parris did at least
write a few lines, reporting that "the Shadow Chancellor, Michael
Howard, railed yesterday against a Government he accused of leaving
people to die in the queue for heart treatment - and was met with
silence. Then he scolded the Government for cheating the shareholders
of Railtrack - and was greeted by applause". More than anything else,
this describes the thinking of a party that is as dead as the dodo and
the Church of England.

I find it interesting how fortunes can change so decisively. Ten
years ago, Lady Loony - or Mrs. Loony as she was then, was looking
forward to the prospect of a third term, but then everything suddenly
fell apart and she was humiliatingly booted out. From the time of
that expulsion the party has never really recovered.

Both Wall Street and London raced ahead today, going up 188 and 143
points respectively.

THURSDAY 11 OCTOBER

Each morning whilst in bed, I listen to the "Today" programme at 8
o'clock for the sheer joy and merriment of hearing Jack Straw
floundering hopelessly out of his depth in defending the war aims of
the crusade against terrorism, trying hard to paper over the cracks
that are now appearing in the coalition. Whereas Mr. Bush, who has
had posters put up on every tree in Washington saying that there is a
reward of $5 million for Ben Laden brought in dead or alive, wants to
bomb every Muslim country he can find on the map, Mr. Blair is saying
that we should not go beyond the mountains of Afghanistan. In other
words, once the bombing has ceased, presumably as a result of being
totally ineffective, there is not a clue what to do next.

I think my own views of the conflict are reflected in a letter in
today's "Times", in which the correspondent suggests that "We claim to
be fighting terrorism but we should be fighting the causes of
terrorism. These are based on the widely held perception that the
wealth and power of the Western world is being used to create its own
prosperity at the expense of the poor inhabitants of the undeveloped
world. The use of massive military power, such as long-range
missiles, only serves to strengthen the perception, and increase the
hatred expressed in acts of terrorism". Amen to that.

One of the female readers of this diary has taken me to task for
suggesting that women's writing is flowery and excessively emotional,
invariably divorced from reality, the lady putting forward the
counter-argument that emotion brings out a better understanding of the
subject. However, I remain unrepentant, referring my correspondent to
the flowery writing of "The Times" film critic, Ms Barabara Ellen, who
is reviewing the film "Pledge" today in the dreadful Section 2 (the
women's section), telling us that "Black emerges as an underdog who
never stops howling long enough to lick his own wounds clean.
Watching him attempt to solve the case within the confines of his own
mid-life fragility is like watching a row of plates slide off a
shelf".

I am sure that there are countless women who adore this kind of
writing, but it is not for men, and would never have been written by a
man. On the other hand, perhaps it is well to have both styles, the
flowery words of the females and the down-to-earth realism of the
males.

Although the Home Secretary, Mr. Blunkett, yesterday acknowledged that
Britain was at risk from terrorist germ warfare, he gave the assurance
that the Government was well prepared, so I was able to undertake the
re-puttying of the shed windows during the morning with this
gratifying reassurance. After lunch I went to see Widow Nell, who
told me that she had been interviewed last weekend following her
application for a place in a residential home in the village in
Norfolk where she was born.

Apparently, the home was run by a very religious group, and at her
interview Nell was asked whether she had been saved by the blood of
Jesus. "I just cannot abide that kind of stuff", Nell told me, adding
that she had decided not to go ahead with the application. Instead,
she is proposing to buy a small, two-bedroomed bungalow in the village
of her birth, where she will be with her sister and other relations,
probably departing before the end of the year. I shall be immensely
saddened to see her go, for it will be the loss of yet another
wonderful friend. However, in old age you have to accept these long
goodbyes and farewells.

On the subject of the military campaign in Afghanistan, Nell said
that she was horrified by the enormous scale of the bombing, adding
that she did not believe that international opinion would allow the
bombardment to continue for more than a few more days, the resulting
casualties being far too high for the coalition to keep together. I
think she is right, especially as it seems that the bombing is having
very little impact on the Taleban, proving yet again that little is
ever achieved by trying to bomb people into submission. It did not
work in the London blitz; in Vietnam; or even in Kosovo. The
impression now being given is that the Americans are mounting bigger
and bigger air strikes as a result of the initial failures, which is
the usual military response when things are not going according to
plan.

In the evening I joined the Parish Clerk at the local Club, where we
had arranged to meet the recently appointed Chairman of the Residents'
Association of the new 210 housing development on the outskirts of the
village, about 40 of the houses so far having been completed and
occupied. The residents within the old part of the village are firmly
in favour of the new development being created as a separate parish,
especially as it is nearly two miles form the existing village centre,
the argument being put forward that the new residents will outnumber
the existing parishioners by nearly 3 to 1, thereby taking control of
the Parish Council.

It is a difficult problem, and one that will be decided by the
District Council next October when there is to be a review of parish
boundaries. I continue to take the view that there should be separate
parishes, for I feel that the new and the old will have little
identity with one another. On the other hand, there is the opposing
view is that the combined forces of new and old will help to form a
more powerful village, with more clout and money. The impression was
given tonight by the Chairman of the residents' Association that the
newcomers would like to stay within the existing bailiwick.

FRIDAY 12 OCTOBER

I wish so much that I could join in the gung-ho enthusiasm that is now
being expressed by the Americans and Mr. Blair on the bombing of
Afghanistan, especially as I so readily recognise that something had
to be done to stop the terrorists. Yet the pictures on the television
of US and British military chiefs arrogantly proclaiming that all the
targets have been hit in Afghanistan, albeit against an impoverished
and largely undefended people, tend momentarily and ashamedly to make
me hope that Ben will escape, which is a very wicked thought indeed.

It is obviously very difficult for any armchair observer to make
realistic pronouncements on the battle, the more so since we are
entirely dependent upon the quotidian propaganda we receive on the
wireless and television, but it certainly begins to seem that the
coalition does not have a clue what to do after the bombing has
stopped, as it will no doubt be forced to do during the next few
weeks, possibly even days. It seems that the real trouble is that
there is a belated realisation that a ground attack, climbing every
mountain, will become a bloodbath for the Americans, serving as
another humiliating Vietnam, with public opinion not being willing to
tolerate the losses.

Mercifully, there was a report on CEEFAX today that our Defence
Secretary, Geoff Hoon who seems to be quite an intelligent fellow, had
hinted that the ground attack on Afghanistan would probably now have
to wait until the spring because of the approach of winter. So,
fingers crossed, it could all be over by the shouting within the next
few days, especially if the missile and bomb dropping has to stop
because of the widespread international condemnation. Another fine
mess - only just averted!

I had a letter from the doctor's surgery today advising me to have the
'flu vaccine, saying that "Doctor advises that all patients at risk
should have one each year". However, I do not think that I shall take
advantage of the offer. I prefer to take the advice of my old
grandfather who always said that I should "keep away from bank
managers, doctors and solicitors, and you'll have the chance of a good
life".

After behaving very badly for several days, my computer worked
perfectly today with no trouble at all. I just cannot understand the
machine. Some days it behaves as erratically as a cruise missile,
going all over the place and causing me an immense amount of
post-traumatic stress; at other times it behaves without any trouble
at all. All I can think of is that the computer is of the female
gender, which would explain the tantrums. Maybe it is sheer
coincidence, but whenever I say that I am going to buy a new computer
come January, the machine suddenly starts behaving properly,
apparently being unconcerned that it is deficient in RAM and unable to
take the prolixity of this journal.

I really must stop reading Section 2 of "The Times", recognising that
it is strictly for women. Today there was an absurd article - written
by a woman, as most of the articles are in that silly section -
saying that "in the wake of the attacks on September 11 an atmosphere
of unease has spread around Britain - and it has already become a part
of everyday life". What utter nonsense this is, totally divorced from
reality. I have yet to meet anybody who expresses this unease, other
than uttering an increasing concern and criticism for the viciousness
of the American bombing. However, I suppose some people enjoy reading
all this rubbish, giving them something else to worry about.

With the weather dry again, I creosoted the garden shed during the
morning, which has almost completed my worklist of household
maintenance, much to my relief. This period of frenetic activity has
followed months of indolence, in which I had completely ignored all
the maintenance jobs that needed doing, but far from making me happier
and more relaxed, this indolence seemed to make me even lazier and
more unhappy. There is no doubt that I feel so much happier when I am
busy. As Dr. Johnson so wisely said: "The mind stagnates for want of
employment; grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul
air".

This evening at about 7.30 p.m., after putting in this week's web
site, I shall light the fire in the parlour and draw the curtains,
shutting out the world of bombing and boastful military chiefs who now
appear to be in their element, so blissfully unaware of the chaos of
their confused campaign. These days I feel as if I want to pull the
bedclothes over my eyes, having as little as possible to do with the
nasty old world that seems bent on destroying itself.