Technical Problem,
my website vanished yesterday!
Of course cogitating on things, and a quick check on the forums suggested a perfectly good approach to fixing things.
I had recently upgraded to RapidWeaver 4.2, and there was a slight problem with the download. So either the application file was slightly corrupted, or the document file that includes the website got corrupted when it was upgraded to the new format.
So I downloaded a new version of RapidWeaver 4.2, went into Cyberduck and deleted all the existing files on my website. Went into TimeMachine and pulled out a version of the document file from last week before I upgraded to RapidWeaver 4.2. Uploaded the whole lot again.
On testing, the whole thing seems tickety boo again.
When it comes to technical problems I really do like to work to a scenario of what the problem is, and then try and fix it, rather than the usual tech support approach of working through a short list of solutions, of gradually ascending severity.
However, had my website actually been terminally corrupted, I suppose I would just have set about creating a whole new one. To be honest I am getting a little bored with the current template. It has gained a fair bit of customisation, so it is now probably more a case of starting over again, rather than mild tweaks. I am starting to feel a little minded to create a whole new website from scratch. As ever with technical solutions, make do and mend works fine for a while, but more root and branch change is required from time to time.
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Findings by Kathleen Jamie
Another short review of a book that I have just finished.
A present from my uncle, Findings, by Kathleen Jamie is a selection of short essays. Kathleen is a poet and lecturer at St Andrews University, and the essays follow a rather particular style. They describe trips or observations, predominantly of the natural world, which then provide a prompt for more philosophical musings.
I suspect that there are probably quite a few books following this sort of template, looking for parallels I would suggest, Walden, Sweet Thames Run Softly by Robert Gibbing, or Richard Mabey.
Findings however is a consistently enjoyable and thoughtful book. My only caveat would be that as with the natural world, you do need to slow down your natural pace, and let yourself take it in, a chapter at a time, pausing for breath at times, reflecting, or quietly admiring a fine turn of phrase.
I will find space in my bookshelf, between Gibbing and Mabey, and look at things just a little differently from now on.
Random Quote- “When my mother fell ill, a doctor was called, and my mother always told me the same two things about the doctor - one, that he never sent a bill, and two, that he never entered the room. Not from snobbery or fear of contagion; it was how he made his diagnosis, how he gauged the severity of her disease.”
Page 107
A present from my uncle, Findings, by Kathleen Jamie is a selection of short essays. Kathleen is a poet and lecturer at St Andrews University, and the essays follow a rather particular style. They describe trips or observations, predominantly of the natural world, which then provide a prompt for more philosophical musings.
I suspect that there are probably quite a few books following this sort of template, looking for parallels I would suggest, Walden, Sweet Thames Run Softly by Robert Gibbing, or Richard Mabey.
Findings however is a consistently enjoyable and thoughtful book. My only caveat would be that as with the natural world, you do need to slow down your natural pace, and let yourself take it in, a chapter at a time, pausing for breath at times, reflecting, or quietly admiring a fine turn of phrase.
I will find space in my bookshelf, between Gibbing and Mabey, and look at things just a little differently from now on.
Random Quote- “When my mother fell ill, a doctor was called, and my mother always told me the same two things about the doctor - one, that he never sent a bill, and two, that he never entered the room. Not from snobbery or fear of contagion; it was how he made his diagnosis, how he gauged the severity of her disease.”
Page 107
Sunday, 2 November 2008
long rambling blog entry
Normally I get up early, and write my blog when I have a nice quiet house to myself.
However, this week, I am writing my weekly blog entry before my Sunday tea, just as the weekend is on the way out.
It has been an odd few weeks and weekends lately. The past few weekends I have been helping out with planting bulbs across the local area. We did manage to get some extra volunteers the first week, but the weather has been so dismal since then that the volunteers must have all perfectly sensibly stayed in their beds. Nevertheless, the bulbs are now all safely in the ground where they should be, and with any luck a decent number will pop up in the new year, to brighten up some dull corners.
It is always a rather hopeful pursuit, the actual soil is often a mere skim of topsoil over builder's rubble, we always get the bulbs into the ground late in the year, casual vandalism, council mowing and weedkiller spraying all take their toll. So it is a bit like guerilla gardening, you rather do it, because you think that it is the right thing to do, and you rather hope that it might make a slight positive difference.
The weekends are so short, I tend to be a real meanie about agreeing to do anything. Simply for the selfish reason that I rather like having a free weekend to just potter and do whatever I like.
Anyway, after three weeks, the last of the bulbs are now in.
I have also been catching up on my large pile of newspapers, and others odds and ends of pottering. I have even caught up on some phone calls. We were using a cordless phone, which is great, but if you are on the phone for any length of time, it tends to beep politely a couple of times, and then cut you off. I really hate being curtailed like that, so I fished out an old phone from the loft, and it too is now plugged in to the spaghetti of wires, cables and dust, that lurks in the corner of the living room. I am sure that there must be a better way of organising all the cabling, but failing that, sticking a small table above it, so you cannot see it, does help.
Anyway, it is now possible to have a phone call for as long as you want, which is a vast improvement for catching up with people you like.
I have decided that it is winter, and to be honest have pretty much given up on the garden for the time being. Nothing much is doing out there, and it is a bit grim gardening with fingerless gloves on when the weather is this cold. The loft is also pretty grim in the cold too, so I'm finding stuff to do that means I can stay in the living room. Hence catching up on stuff.
Worth noting that my favourite plant in the garden at the moment is some teasel, which I have grown from seed. I did try and transplant some wild stuff, but it never took. So now I have some great towering spikey teasel, just outside my window. It will probably seed right across the whole street now! However it is a biennial, so you will have to be pretty slow with the weeding to get much bothered by it. There is a photo in my Flickr gallery.
At work things are starting to pick up, in fact things have rather moved on to a footing where I really don't know if I will be able to do what I am setting out to do, which is challenging/fun/worrying all at the same time.
Still looking for a promotion, but it is just a case of applying for things, while still trying to be spiffing at what I am getting paid to do too.
I am getting into all these free or cheap promotions with the Times, the book a week for £2.99 is pretty good, I got the last few. My wife reads far more quickly than I do, and she has raced through them most enjoyably. I have also just received the set of classic albums that they were promoting. I've only listened to the Doors so far, but I quite like trying out random stuff.
I have also just bought 12 Tales from Winter City, by the Young Republic, one of those random groups that I came across, and they have been rather growing on me for some time now. It is a US version of the Delgados, if that helps. Orchestral pop.
Otherwise, the credit crunch is really starting to bite, so really reining in the spending, and doing my best to be very canny. That said, there are plenty of people in far worse straits than me, I really don't have anything much to complain about.
I have been doing a bit of work on the downloads section of my website, I have added in a scan of a Future Shock that I wrote for 2000AD many many years ago, and just for ease a copy of the cover of that particular comic. I have also added a couple more stories to follow After the Burn which I wrote a while back. There is another short story, The Exquisite Corpse, which I finished a while back, and I'm now reasonably happy with. There are quite a few other bits and pieces that have not yet reached the stage of being sufficiently finished for web publication. With luck, over the winter, I'll work up some more material and put it onto my website. At present, my ambition is to work up enough material to self publish a book of short stories and poems. However I am not in any mad rush, keen just to write stuff that I really like, rather than worrying too much about it being like anything else.
However, this week, I am writing my weekly blog entry before my Sunday tea, just as the weekend is on the way out.
It has been an odd few weeks and weekends lately. The past few weekends I have been helping out with planting bulbs across the local area. We did manage to get some extra volunteers the first week, but the weather has been so dismal since then that the volunteers must have all perfectly sensibly stayed in their beds. Nevertheless, the bulbs are now all safely in the ground where they should be, and with any luck a decent number will pop up in the new year, to brighten up some dull corners.
It is always a rather hopeful pursuit, the actual soil is often a mere skim of topsoil over builder's rubble, we always get the bulbs into the ground late in the year, casual vandalism, council mowing and weedkiller spraying all take their toll. So it is a bit like guerilla gardening, you rather do it, because you think that it is the right thing to do, and you rather hope that it might make a slight positive difference.
The weekends are so short, I tend to be a real meanie about agreeing to do anything. Simply for the selfish reason that I rather like having a free weekend to just potter and do whatever I like.
Anyway, after three weeks, the last of the bulbs are now in.
I have also been catching up on my large pile of newspapers, and others odds and ends of pottering. I have even caught up on some phone calls. We were using a cordless phone, which is great, but if you are on the phone for any length of time, it tends to beep politely a couple of times, and then cut you off. I really hate being curtailed like that, so I fished out an old phone from the loft, and it too is now plugged in to the spaghetti of wires, cables and dust, that lurks in the corner of the living room. I am sure that there must be a better way of organising all the cabling, but failing that, sticking a small table above it, so you cannot see it, does help.
Anyway, it is now possible to have a phone call for as long as you want, which is a vast improvement for catching up with people you like.
I have decided that it is winter, and to be honest have pretty much given up on the garden for the time being. Nothing much is doing out there, and it is a bit grim gardening with fingerless gloves on when the weather is this cold. The loft is also pretty grim in the cold too, so I'm finding stuff to do that means I can stay in the living room. Hence catching up on stuff.
Worth noting that my favourite plant in the garden at the moment is some teasel, which I have grown from seed. I did try and transplant some wild stuff, but it never took. So now I have some great towering spikey teasel, just outside my window. It will probably seed right across the whole street now! However it is a biennial, so you will have to be pretty slow with the weeding to get much bothered by it. There is a photo in my Flickr gallery.
At work things are starting to pick up, in fact things have rather moved on to a footing where I really don't know if I will be able to do what I am setting out to do, which is challenging/fun/worrying all at the same time.
Still looking for a promotion, but it is just a case of applying for things, while still trying to be spiffing at what I am getting paid to do too.
I am getting into all these free or cheap promotions with the Times, the book a week for £2.99 is pretty good, I got the last few. My wife reads far more quickly than I do, and she has raced through them most enjoyably. I have also just received the set of classic albums that they were promoting. I've only listened to the Doors so far, but I quite like trying out random stuff.
I have also just bought 12 Tales from Winter City, by the Young Republic, one of those random groups that I came across, and they have been rather growing on me for some time now. It is a US version of the Delgados, if that helps. Orchestral pop.
Otherwise, the credit crunch is really starting to bite, so really reining in the spending, and doing my best to be very canny. That said, there are plenty of people in far worse straits than me, I really don't have anything much to complain about.
I have been doing a bit of work on the downloads section of my website, I have added in a scan of a Future Shock that I wrote for 2000AD many many years ago, and just for ease a copy of the cover of that particular comic. I have also added a couple more stories to follow After the Burn which I wrote a while back. There is another short story, The Exquisite Corpse, which I finished a while back, and I'm now reasonably happy with. There are quite a few other bits and pieces that have not yet reached the stage of being sufficiently finished for web publication. With luck, over the winter, I'll work up some more material and put it onto my website. At present, my ambition is to work up enough material to self publish a book of short stories and poems. However I am not in any mad rush, keen just to write stuff that I really like, rather than worrying too much about it being like anything else.
Saturday, 25 October 2008
one big pyramid scheme
I have not written a blog entry about the recent financial upheavals, although I have been meaning to.
At first things had the grim logic of a horror film, of course the clues had been there, we had been cocky and arrogant, and now was the time of our come-uppance. Every morning the news seemed to be reporting something that was impossible, Northern Rock, Bradford and Bingley, and most shocking to me Halifax Bank of Scotland. You had dealt with these businesses all your life, you knew people that worked for them.
Then the news got a bit boring, basically the same sort of story every day, generally without any real insight or understanding.
Now the news media have turned the page, and are starting to do the human interest type stories, there is talk of JK Galbraith, 1929, and Keynesian economics. The latter on Radio Four granted.
We have started to hunker down for the long term.
I work to the assumption that markets following a gently rolling sine curve, with a general tendency to move upwards. However you can easily lose money by buying high, and selling low. The opportunities to make real money, rather than just trade on a rising market, require quite particular insight and opportunities.
With hindsight it is obvious that the rate of acceleration was diminishing, we were nearing the peak. Now we have even more obviously reached the peak, and like a cartoon character, after running fruitlessly on the spot for a second, we are now starting to plunge down.
The statistics are slow coming, but the old model, of borrow, spend, borrow to buy on a rising market, dinner parties and an end to the economic cycle, are now clearly gone.
More telling is the attitude, I can see it in myself, I have weaned myself off the desire to spend. Spending is a transitory pleasure, but in uncertain times it is safer to just leave that money unspent. We have that sort of extreme nervousness that means we don't know what to do, in uncertain times, often doing nothing is a pretty good option. Indecision reigns.
Suddenly we all feel poor.
We are all starting to re-balance our attitudes to spending, to having, to what we want. Perhaps we might begin to see more clearly that money is not an end in itself, and that we are capable of more than simply accumulating and passing on money. Strangely that score does not seem to count for so much now.
The test of any theoretical model is just how long it lasts. I have been patiently buying shares for a few years now, and sensed that we were at the top of the market, but still could not quite believe it. The recent upheavals have totally wiped out some of my shares, and left others worth vastly less. Generally you have not lost the money until you actually sell, or in the case of bank shares, till they get nationalised. Therefore there is some degree of theoretical comfort there. However my portfolio will never be quite the same again, and moving back into profit territory will need to await shares reaching rock bottom then climbing back up to current valuations. My older purchases will be in loss for a long long time, however anything that I buy now will hopefully turn a profit much sooner.
I reckon that the current recession will last around five years. Not exactly five years, but that sort of ball park figure. In the meantime the best strategy seems to be just buy big blue chip type shares. Now boring is good. Not every business will still be around in five years, but many of them will and they will be making profits. So diversity is good, boring is good, blue chip is good. Volatility is there for a reason. Volatility reflects uncertainty and ignorance. Small investors are simply not nimble enough to make money on volatile markets, they make money through pound cost averaging, buying shares when they are low, and out of favour.
We live in uncertain times, where once risk brought reward with little likelihood of failure, now risk simply means exposure to catastrophic consequences.
If we are not buying things because they are cheap, or they will make us a profit, then we need to think more carefully about what things are actually worth to us, and have the courage to continue to make those choices.
We were all caught up in a glorious pyramid scheme, we all bought in, and as long as more and more people kept on buying in, we all made money. But it was all bound to end. We had abandonned common sense. More and more people bought houses thinking that it was a one way bet, until house prices reached insane multiples of income, and traditional first time buyers were priced out of the market, replaced by highly leveraged buy to let investors. As with property, so with so many other things. We were caught up in a frenzy, thinking the old rules no longer applied. Buying into things we did not understand, thinking that investment was a one way bet, that credit was good, and capital was bad.
Looking back it seems so quaint now. Maybe it all will be different next time. Or maybe it will just take us a longer time to forget the lessons we have learnt.
At first things had the grim logic of a horror film, of course the clues had been there, we had been cocky and arrogant, and now was the time of our come-uppance. Every morning the news seemed to be reporting something that was impossible, Northern Rock, Bradford and Bingley, and most shocking to me Halifax Bank of Scotland. You had dealt with these businesses all your life, you knew people that worked for them.
Then the news got a bit boring, basically the same sort of story every day, generally without any real insight or understanding.
Now the news media have turned the page, and are starting to do the human interest type stories, there is talk of JK Galbraith, 1929, and Keynesian economics. The latter on Radio Four granted.
We have started to hunker down for the long term.
I work to the assumption that markets following a gently rolling sine curve, with a general tendency to move upwards. However you can easily lose money by buying high, and selling low. The opportunities to make real money, rather than just trade on a rising market, require quite particular insight and opportunities.
With hindsight it is obvious that the rate of acceleration was diminishing, we were nearing the peak. Now we have even more obviously reached the peak, and like a cartoon character, after running fruitlessly on the spot for a second, we are now starting to plunge down.
The statistics are slow coming, but the old model, of borrow, spend, borrow to buy on a rising market, dinner parties and an end to the economic cycle, are now clearly gone.
More telling is the attitude, I can see it in myself, I have weaned myself off the desire to spend. Spending is a transitory pleasure, but in uncertain times it is safer to just leave that money unspent. We have that sort of extreme nervousness that means we don't know what to do, in uncertain times, often doing nothing is a pretty good option. Indecision reigns.
Suddenly we all feel poor.
We are all starting to re-balance our attitudes to spending, to having, to what we want. Perhaps we might begin to see more clearly that money is not an end in itself, and that we are capable of more than simply accumulating and passing on money. Strangely that score does not seem to count for so much now.
The test of any theoretical model is just how long it lasts. I have been patiently buying shares for a few years now, and sensed that we were at the top of the market, but still could not quite believe it. The recent upheavals have totally wiped out some of my shares, and left others worth vastly less. Generally you have not lost the money until you actually sell, or in the case of bank shares, till they get nationalised. Therefore there is some degree of theoretical comfort there. However my portfolio will never be quite the same again, and moving back into profit territory will need to await shares reaching rock bottom then climbing back up to current valuations. My older purchases will be in loss for a long long time, however anything that I buy now will hopefully turn a profit much sooner.
I reckon that the current recession will last around five years. Not exactly five years, but that sort of ball park figure. In the meantime the best strategy seems to be just buy big blue chip type shares. Now boring is good. Not every business will still be around in five years, but many of them will and they will be making profits. So diversity is good, boring is good, blue chip is good. Volatility is there for a reason. Volatility reflects uncertainty and ignorance. Small investors are simply not nimble enough to make money on volatile markets, they make money through pound cost averaging, buying shares when they are low, and out of favour.
We live in uncertain times, where once risk brought reward with little likelihood of failure, now risk simply means exposure to catastrophic consequences.
If we are not buying things because they are cheap, or they will make us a profit, then we need to think more carefully about what things are actually worth to us, and have the courage to continue to make those choices.
We were all caught up in a glorious pyramid scheme, we all bought in, and as long as more and more people kept on buying in, we all made money. But it was all bound to end. We had abandonned common sense. More and more people bought houses thinking that it was a one way bet, until house prices reached insane multiples of income, and traditional first time buyers were priced out of the market, replaced by highly leveraged buy to let investors. As with property, so with so many other things. We were caught up in a frenzy, thinking the old rules no longer applied. Buying into things we did not understand, thinking that investment was a one way bet, that credit was good, and capital was bad.
Looking back it seems so quaint now. Maybe it all will be different next time. Or maybe it will just take us a longer time to forget the lessons we have learnt.
Sunday, 19 October 2008
lessons from game design for making work more engaging
Just a thought, if you look at what makes a computer game interesting and engaging, then what does that tell you about
So I asked my daughters about what made a good computer game
includes activity or activities that you enjoy
Looking at these features, different people will have different preferences and these will inform that types of games that they like.
And so, you might have the patience for games that take a long time to complete, feeling that the rewards of new levels are compensation for the time you have invested. Alternatively you might prefer games like the Sims where you are nurturing and creating, where failure is less of an element of the gameplay. Your investment of time ends up bringing you additional responsibilities.
This is actually a pretty useful lense through which to look at different employees. Some people have very little desire for new challenges, as with Tetris, they have a straightforward task, which they find sufficiently engaging. Some people feel a need to compete, and value promotion beyond any of the other intrinsic qualities of the work, being willing to do pretty much anything if it advances them in their career ambitions. Some seek to build a role for themselves, achieving recognition and extra responsibilities.
Others seek a challenge, constantly seeking a task that is unfamiliar and difficult, not always expecting to succeed, but relishing the struggle.
The shortcoming of using this particular lense is that games are voluntary, whereas for most of us, jobs are compulsory. So although the model is pretty good on what motivates us, using it to consider what it is that demotivates us is a slightly different task.
I'll maybe have a think about why we give up on games in another posting, and consider what that tells us about what makes jobs unsatisfying.
- what kind of job you might enjoy most
- how employers should design engaging jobs
So I asked my daughters about what made a good computer game
includes activity or activities that you enjoy
- it changes or develops as you go on
- includes an element of challenge, for example to beat others, or to beat your personal best
- not too short
- not too long
- not too easy
- not too difficult
- should have a goal or point to it
- includes an element of problem solving, but not too much
- includes a competitive element
- it is easy to actually understand what the aim of the game is
- but the challenge lies in achieving that aim
- like chess, takes a short time to learn, but a lifetime to master - has depth
- provide new content that meets your curiosity and desire for novelty
Looking at these features, different people will have different preferences and these will inform that types of games that they like.
- For example your tolerance of failure, do you see a setback as a challenge, or are you sufficiently demotivated to give up
- For example, how patient are you
- For example, what is your attitude to risk, in a games context you are balancing risk with reward, are you content with how these are balance
And so, you might have the patience for games that take a long time to complete, feeling that the rewards of new levels are compensation for the time you have invested. Alternatively you might prefer games like the Sims where you are nurturing and creating, where failure is less of an element of the gameplay. Your investment of time ends up bringing you additional responsibilities.
This is actually a pretty useful lense through which to look at different employees. Some people have very little desire for new challenges, as with Tetris, they have a straightforward task, which they find sufficiently engaging. Some people feel a need to compete, and value promotion beyond any of the other intrinsic qualities of the work, being willing to do pretty much anything if it advances them in their career ambitions. Some seek to build a role for themselves, achieving recognition and extra responsibilities.
Others seek a challenge, constantly seeking a task that is unfamiliar and difficult, not always expecting to succeed, but relishing the struggle.
The shortcoming of using this particular lense is that games are voluntary, whereas for most of us, jobs are compulsory. So although the model is pretty good on what motivates us, using it to consider what it is that demotivates us is a slightly different task.
I'll maybe have a think about why we give up on games in another posting, and consider what that tells us about what makes jobs unsatisfying.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
The Irresistable Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday
I will just take this opportunity to jot down a few impressions about the last book that I read,
The Irresistable Inheritance of Wilberforce,
by someone rejoicing in the rather unusual name of
Paul torday author of salmon fishing in the yemen,
which is clearly something of a mouthfull.
Normally I manage a blog entry a week, but I must be way short lately, hence this rather random blog. I don't read a lot now, but honestly this is not the first book that I have finished since starting this blog.
Also worth noting, I am surprised when I pick up a proper book now at just how many words there are, my fiction writing, as demonstrated in the downloads page, is tending towards the jewel like, seldom a thousand words on the same story, so a whole grown up book on one subject is something of a shock. Nevertheless I like what I am writing now, and intend to persist in my own style.
Anyway -Wilberforce - it is about a man who drinks himself to death, told in four chapters, which are in reverse chronological order.
Having said that, it really does not come across as a realistic account of alcoholism, I certainly enjoyed the book, but the overall sense was of someone with a certain sense of reality and their place in it, rather than the emotional helter-skelter of any serious addiction.
The main character came across as adolescent or slightly autistic, like Adrian Mole at stages, slightly baffled by the world around him,
I think that the main character actually is autistic as he does not accept the reality of other people, he merely sees them in terms of what they offer him, or as possessions. His childhood is loveless, but later he does make friends, but when offered the choice of friendship or something material he consistently fails to choose friendship.
So he betrays his business partner by selling the company from under him, then breaks away from him. He finds a father figure in Francis, but ends up buying his largely worthless wine, and leaving him to die neglected. He enters a circle of friends, and ends up marrying the fiance of a friend, and alienating them.
He never accepts responsibility for his choices, and does little to make amends or make the best of things.
In essence Wilberforce is a weak man, who mistakenly thinks that what you have is more important than who you actually are. He gains another man's wine collection and another man's wife, but fails to learn what it is that he truly responds to in them, a simple openness and offer of friendship.
Random Quote -
“I love wine. I have not always loved it, but I have made up for the woeful ignorance of the first thirty years of my life by the passion and intensity of my relationship with wine ever since. I need to be more precise: I very much like white burgundy, I am fond of some red burgundies, I have flirted with some excellent and intriguing wines from Tuscany: but I adore Bordeux.” page 26
Sunday, 5 October 2008
the price of peace
I am just back from a short visit to Belfast. It is fair to say that it is a city of huge contrasts. I cannot think of anywhere else where I have been made to feel more welcome, or where I have been more apprehensive. Driving round the streets tells you one story, huge bridge shaped cranes at the docks, big enough to lift a ship, the loss of shipbuilding must have ripped the heart out of the place. Sectarian murals on the walls and gable ends, beautiful but deeply disconcerting. From the air it looked leafy and beautiful, on the ground much of it had an air of staunch working class-ness.
The taxi drivers, when asked, could tell you about when no one dared drive a taxi, when not knowing the name of a pub meant you came from the wrong side of the divide and could be fatal. There was still a wariness, but the more usual concerns of drunken students, and stag parties were starting to rear their head. The papers had a sense of heightened reality, there was an edge to disputes, government seemed to hang by a thread, but then it had hung by a thread for so long now, it was not alarming.
Speaking to people there was a lot of talk about growing maturity, recognising that a process might take decades. At first the opposing sides sit round a table, mainly trying to provoke each other, or rehearsing familiar arguments for the benefit of their electors. And in fairness that might never quite end. But as politicians are given real things to debate, and engage with, they have to start to work with each other.
Perhaps the price of peace is sitting round a table with people you have every reason to hate.
Perhaps the price of peace is the cost of regenerating areas, expensively creating hotels and attractions.
Perhaps the price of peace is the cost of early retirement for vast numbers of public servants to allow for the recruitment of staff better reflecting their community.
Extremism can only really flourish where people feel no other way of making their voice heard. When people stand by, in favour of a lesser evil. When people feel so completely disenfranchised that they feel no part of society.
I am sure that the lessons learnt in Northern Ireland could equally be applied across the world, patiently working towards a form of peace, re-establishing democracy as something with meaning, letting those who want to speak for their people do it through the ballot box and the husting. Putting opponents round the same table, and letting them start to shape their own future.
It was easy for the West to operate gun boat diplomacy, it will be harder, but ultimately more rewarding to try and create the sort of social change that puts democracy back in the hands of the people, brings people round tables, patiently rebuilding society. The strongest of men are those quietly and patiently working for peace, even when it does take generations.
The taxi drivers, when asked, could tell you about when no one dared drive a taxi, when not knowing the name of a pub meant you came from the wrong side of the divide and could be fatal. There was still a wariness, but the more usual concerns of drunken students, and stag parties were starting to rear their head. The papers had a sense of heightened reality, there was an edge to disputes, government seemed to hang by a thread, but then it had hung by a thread for so long now, it was not alarming.
Speaking to people there was a lot of talk about growing maturity, recognising that a process might take decades. At first the opposing sides sit round a table, mainly trying to provoke each other, or rehearsing familiar arguments for the benefit of their electors. And in fairness that might never quite end. But as politicians are given real things to debate, and engage with, they have to start to work with each other.
Perhaps the price of peace is sitting round a table with people you have every reason to hate.
Perhaps the price of peace is the cost of regenerating areas, expensively creating hotels and attractions.
Perhaps the price of peace is the cost of early retirement for vast numbers of public servants to allow for the recruitment of staff better reflecting their community.
Extremism can only really flourish where people feel no other way of making their voice heard. When people stand by, in favour of a lesser evil. When people feel so completely disenfranchised that they feel no part of society.
I am sure that the lessons learnt in Northern Ireland could equally be applied across the world, patiently working towards a form of peace, re-establishing democracy as something with meaning, letting those who want to speak for their people do it through the ballot box and the husting. Putting opponents round the same table, and letting them start to shape their own future.
It was easy for the West to operate gun boat diplomacy, it will be harder, but ultimately more rewarding to try and create the sort of social change that puts democracy back in the hands of the people, brings people round tables, patiently rebuilding society. The strongest of men are those quietly and patiently working for peace, even when it does take generations.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)