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Page last updated:
5 January 2004
World Copyright
© Martin Foreman
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Competition Time
Last year at this time, I presented a competition. I promised to give the answers a
few months later, but never did. However, since no-one entered, I think we're quits
This year you have two choices. You can either enter last year's
competition (click here) or
this year's, which is considerably shorter.
Happiness is a Warm Vote
“Democracy is not my goal.” Well, that was
a commendably frank statement from Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
last week, in response to a call for amendments to the country’s
constitution that threatened to limit the PM’s power. In a statement
released – deliberately, ironically or accidentally - on Constitution Day,
Thaksin said as long as the country could progress and the people were
happy, he was not concerned about the means used.
Fear is the Key
Conservation and change are opposite ends of a
spectrum, at one end of which lies stasis or paralysis, and at the other
chaos and anarchy. Between the two lie various hues of change, from slow to
fast, from managed to uncontrolled. While extreme conservatives seek a
society of rigid rules where all events are predictable and explicable,
extreme liberals (in US-speak) shade into anarchists who believe that
laws should be abolished, except perhaps those that directly prevent others
from being harmed.
Is it me, or is it the Tweedles?
There was no suggestion from either Tweedle that the
bomb blasts were a reaction to the Iraq war and occupation. No recognition
that the bombers were fired by an idealism as strong as the ideals that the
Tweedles themselves profess. No understanding that terrorism – an
inappropriate word but let’s use it for the moment – is not an evil force
that emerges as spontaneously as a monster or spirit in a horror film, but a
human action that is based on a premise that may be wrong but is still
worthy of respect. It is a black and white world that the Tweedles live in,
and having decided they are the Good Guys, at no point will they entertain
the option that perhaps the situation is more complicated than the one they
so confidently believe in.
Taking Advantage, Not Responsibility
Environmental awareness and legislation are only the silver
lining of an increasingly dark cloud. Three areas of the
environment are under immediate threat: forests, fisheries and climate. The first
two are limited resources that are being exploited at a faster rate than
they can be replaced; climate, while not itself subject to exploitation, is
also under severe pressure.
Blinking Lesbians
While the concept of sexual identity is clear,
there is a major gap in our understanding of sexual orientation. How does
sexual orientation - the attraction towards one, rather than the other sex -
operate? If we do not know how the mechanism operates, how can we state with
any certainty what the cause is? Yet almost all the research that purports
to identify a cause or of connection with sexual orientation fails both to
confirms the mechanism through which orientation operates and the means by
which the proposed cause establishes that mechanism. And that is putting the
cart before the horse.
Selling Sex (ii)
Whether the debate takes
place here or elsewhere, it is usually grounded in one of
two concepts: prostitution degrades women and must therefore be stopped, or
prostitution indeed degrades women but it cannot be stopped, only
controlled. It is true that there are elements of prostitution that are degrading, and
many, if not most sex workers would prefer to earn their income through
other means. But to see prostitution as synonymous with the degradation
and exploitation of women is to misunderstand the nature of sex work and of
human sexuality.
We are not USAmerican
Underlying the many stated and unstated reasons for British involvement in
the current Iraqi misadventure is the widespread assumption that there are
strong links between the UK and the US. These include not only a common
language and a closely linked heritage but shared cultural values, including a belief in the
importance of human rights and Western-style democracy as the fairest
possible form of human government.
Burying the Hopes of the Past
He stares up at me, kind dark eyes peering out
from under a bush of thick black hair, a straight narrow nose over delicate
lips. His cheeks are long and smooth and hair curls over the collar of a pink shirt
that hangs open half-way down his chest. Pinned to the wall behind him are
pictures from magazines: a blond figure, probably a minor pop star, and
above him a naked, headless torso with hands thrust firmly into the pockets
of white sailor pants.
The Importance of Nasalisation
If I have any talent – and I’m not convinced that I do
– then it is for languages. Based on no evidence whatsoever, I’ve always
assumed that, like mathematics, trainspotting and autism, linguistic skills
are more masculine than feminine. They all come down to patterns and rules
and puzzles. A foreign language is a maze, a quadrilateral equation, a mystery that can eventually be resolved with patience and
determination and an ability to interpret systems.
Cry Uncle
It’s three-thirty in the afternoon of my
last day in Los Angeles. I’ve spent the day doing odd jobs around the house
and the rest of the day is mine to do as I please. I've
showered and dressed and am thinking of doing some last-minute
shopping, seeing a film, having a meal and ending up in Micky’s or another bar in West
Hollywood. Then out of the blue I hear myself suggest to Sandra that I take the
boys out somewhere.
California Cruising
In LA, alone in air-conditioned comfort, listening to the radio or a
favourite CD, I am merely one bubble in a current
rushing along an endless river which comes together, divides and comes
together again. At night, when the thousands of cars have shrunk to the
hundreds and speeds are faster, there is a sense of eternity, the red lights
sweeping down and round and into the distance, all apparently moving at the
same speed, on an endless journey, with the white lights rushing by on the
left escapees from whatever destination lies ahead.
My Other Lives
In my mid-twenties, I was helping The Mother clear out the Futility Room, a
Sisyphean task, when she found a jewellery box and
showed me the ring it contained. "This was for your fiancée," she said,
leaving the rest of the sentence unspoken. My attention
was taken by the sudden presence of a woman whom I would never meet, who did
not even exist. What
was she like, this future wife of mine?
Now I Know I'm Getting Old
Visitors to my house often comment on the number of books I
have. Considering that my collection of a thousand or so is considerably
smaller than that of others I know, such comments tell me more about my
friends and acquaintances than it does about my library. I obviously consort
more with people to whom reading is an occasional, or even exotic pastime, than
with those for whom books are the breath of life.
No More Deserted Beaches
Everywhere you go, be it beach, forest or mountaintop, someone else has been before, and is
almost certainly still there taking photographs. Or if you find yourself
alone, it will
not be long before someone else arrives to disturb the peace you have found,
and if you're really unlucky, they'll be shouting into a mobile phone. And even
if, by some miracle, no-one comes by, just look
around you. Almost without fail there will be the odd blue or white plastic bag, an empty
Coca-Cola or Heineken tin or some other detritus brought here or blown by the
wind.
Pigeons, the Mother and Nine-Eleven
Wherever you see groups of pigeons, you see the males
pursuing the females, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups of two or three. Even
when feeding, on bread, an empty crisp packet or whatever else they find in litter-strewn
London, while most concentrate on the food, there are always one or two males
pecking at the nearest female.
Not In Our Name, Mr Blair
You do not have the evidence.
You do not have UN approval.
You do not have your country's approval.
You do not have your party's support.
You do not have the legal right.
You do not have the moral right.
You must not drag Britain into Bush's unjust and unnecessary war.
I Want You
It's full of dangers, that phrase "I love you". For a start, it's not
universal. Yes, we say it, as do the French (je t'aime), the Germans
(ich liebe Dich), the Scandinavians (variations on jag älskar dig)
and the Chinese (wo ai ni).
But the Iberians don't tell you they love you, they say "I want you" (te
quiero in Spanish and te quero in Portuguese), while the Dutch
inform their intended "I hold onto you". (ik hou van jou).
Churning the Sea of Milk
These are extraordinary works of
art. Massive stone structures surrounded by moats, with towers over a hundred
feet high, and porticos and galleries that go on and on. Most were built for the
worship of Hindu gods, Vishnu and Shiva and the central towers have dizzily
steep steps that symbolise the difficulty mortals face in reaching the divine.
Others celebrate the Buddha, whose giant enigmatic face is carved into the walls
looking north, south, east and west.
Axis of Stupidity
Advance warning... See the rubric at
the head of this column? "... Bangkok-based writer of fact, fiction and opinion.
He tries not to get the three confused."? Well, I'm about to take the
dangerous step of mixing fact and opinion. (Fiction's begging to be included,
but I've promised her a day of glory another time.)
Tea for One
It's Friday evening and I'm writing
this column a couple of days early since I don't expect to have time to do so on
Sunday. Most Friday evenings I'm in Central London with a friend at our favourite
bar. We go there to chat and drink and, of course, cruise. It's a friendly
place and it's a rare evening when one or other or both of us doesn't find
himself talking to a stranger. It may lead to a five or ten minute chat, or
until the bar closes, or to something more.
Competition Time
Do you want to win one of my books?
Or suffer a misfortune and win two of them? (Winner of the Old Joke of the Year Award,
1976) And are you bored with surfing the web for pornography or the cheapest
digital camera? And do you have thirty minutes or so to spare? If you can answer
yes to all three questions, you're in luck. Here is my annual New Year
Competition.
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2004 columns...
2001 - 2 columns...
Appeals to your conscience:
Hedonists unite!
Click on the logo to sign the petition to keep London's underground open until 3am (24 hours would be
better, but one step at time...)
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