WHERE DO YOU REALLY COME FROM?

 Where do you really come from?

This isn’t all about the unfortunate Lady Susan Hussey. She seemed to behave like an upper class Jeremy Paxman, the interviewer who demolished Michael Howard then Home Secretary, by asking him the same question twelve times. But that was in 2005. In 2022 you can’t behave like that. Least of all to Ngosi Fulani CEO of Sistah Space born in Britain and a British citizen. All was well at Buck House at a 300 person soirée until she claims she felt like a black gate-crasher when being repeatedly asked  where she came from by 83 year old Susan, daughter of an Earl and Lady in Waiting to the late Queen. No longer Waiting. She has gone. Retired hurt. Accused of racism.

I mention her age because the spotlight shifted from racism to agism as, the day after the event, people asked why someone that old was allowed out and was in no position to understand the “real world”. Silly Susan and old Jo Biden. What a couple, the media laughed. But the problem wasn’t and isn’t age. It seems just rather surprising bad manners on her part. 

Enough. The big issue for me is refugees. It’s been a subject lurking in my mind which ignited recently when I watched the film The Swimmers. It’s the true story of two Syrian sisters who flee war-torn Syria.

They journey across Turkey, swim across the Aegean to Greece and then walk dangerously through Hungary to Germany. It concludes after their being coached as swimmers and qualifying for the Rio Olympics. 

Some reviews described it as dull. 

What idiots! That’s exactly what got to me. The hiding from police dogs, razor wire, crooked helpers stealing their cash, the squalor, the interminable waiting around, the bureaucracy, the ignominy of the question “where are you really from?” and the hideous sense of being displaced.

I began to empathise more vividly with refugees, with just what they must feel like. Nearly half of all refugees are women and children with nearly 1 in 10 being unaccompanied children. Crikey chaps, blockade the borders those kids are out to get us.

Before anyone starts getting cross about the unique immigrant problem in the UK ponder these numbers:

Applications for asylum in 2021:

UK                37,600

Germany   190,500

France       120,700

Which shows it’s less a problem for the UK than its neighbours if indeed it is a problem. We seem to be screaming political blue-murder over an immigration figure of less than half a percentage of our population. And we are short of skilled and unskilled labour from doctors to fruit pickers.

I like immigration. It enriches countries that encourage it. In the 16th century Venice’s population nearly doubled, its population became more diverse than anywhere else in the world and it became astoundingly rich in consequence. America’s population growth has been driven by its being seen as a land believed to be abounding in opportunities to succeed. 

I’m beginning to make this sound like it’s all about money. Economic wealth is a side benefit to the moral issue.1% of the world’s been forced to flee from their homes in the past year. That’s bigger than the whole UK population.

It’s a pity it took a film to sharpen my vision. 

We need to open our hearts, wallets,  borders if we’re going to be a greater country. A history of immigration from the Romans, Vikings, French, Dutch and Germans  show none of us can be British true-bloods (sic) but all of us can be humane.

Where do we really come from? One world. 

Humanity. 

PRUDERY, RUDERY AND GETTING THINGS RIGHT

I was somewhat surprised to be given a copy of the best writings of Henry Miller by a neighbour. Why me? Miller was the literary infant terrible of the 1950s and ‘60s. His description of sex makes “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” sound like Enid Blyton (‘Five Off for a Jolly Bonk’.) They are very rude indeed but rather sad too. His ability to have relationships as opposed to frequent and impulsive shags seems limited. Yet when he writes about Greece (especially Mycenae) or flying or food or having his car serviced (prosaic but riveting) this man is literary giant. When he gets obsessed with parts of the body his sense of humanity and humour goes. 

                   
June (his second wife) and Henry Miller

And that’s because there’s not much joy in his sex. Sophocles said it first and was then quoted by Plato, Socrates and others ending with Russell Brand…“The male libido is like being chained to a maniac”… yeah, that’s Horrid Henry. Not just horrid but a bit boring too.

It was peculiar reading this high-class porn whilst MPs were being denounced for playing ‘handsy’ or
worse. I hope none of them gets caught with a copy. That would not be funny.

Unlike Caitlin Moran who’s very funny but also rather rude. Her recent book is called “Moranifesto” which “sets the world to rights”. The substance isn’t rude at all but the fucking language often is. She uses the “f” word not so much for effect as for emphatic punctuation and to show she’s one of us.

Caitlin is a genius. I use the word circumspectly. She understands manners and why they matter so much (there aren’t many good manners in politics) and despite her rebelliousness she belongs in kinder, more literary times than these. Unsurprisingly her style in influenced by writers like Dorothy
Parker and H.L. Mencken. She’s an almost Dickensian figure in her exuberance and in being larger-than-life when she says things like: “Why do people keep on talking about the sweet fragrance of women? We smell. Me? I smell of soup … onion soup.”

Things that need sorting out she says are as diverse as include cystitis, bacon (ugh?) and social media. How about this for a bullseye of observation?  “The internet is like a drunken toddler.” 

She thinks many things are wrong but that there are some things blindingly right. Like having joy in life, being kind to ourselves and to others and in not taking ourselves too seriously. How lucky we are, she says, to have friends, family, to be going out together, drinking wine (lots of it) and laughing. Never get angry. Being angry shows you’re scared. Try being polite instead.

I wish she’d met Henry. She’d have soon been put that gloomy old libertine in his place. And she’d have made him laugh too. And they might have focused on improving joy, good humour and manners in the world, Henry in his tsunami style, Caitlin by wit and insight. What a team.

                             

YOU CAN GAIN OR LOSE A REPUTATION VERY FAST

In Forbes Magazine in April a survey of the worst countries to visit was conducted.

Here were the worst four:

1. France
2. Russia
3. Britain
4. Germany

From 'The World's Rudest Nations for Travelers'
By Andrew Bender | Forbes – Wed, Apr 4, 2012 12:38 AM EDT

But I bet that’s very different for Britain now.

In fact London’s position for no. 1 city must have been nailed and Britain should have secured a gold medal for customer service following the Olympics.

People who’d seldom been to the “smoke” discovered something wonderful.