1st July 2012

As you know, I like to ponder things, explore beneath the surface to see why they are as they are and not just accept that ‘they are’. From the last few mails, you will have seen that I now have plenty of time to indulge in this luxury; time to think, wonder and just plain daydream. The issue under internal debate within the D’Abreo mind at the moment is, “Why are we top of the food chain?” and “Do we deserve to be?”

             When I look at the unthinking adoration of cheap celebrity, or people being led by the nose by inaccurate newspaper articles designed to shock and titillate before they inform, or at cheap TV offerings gobbled up readily by an undemanding public, I am dismayed. Programmes like Big Brother, soaps and dance or talent competitions featuring scripted Good Cop/Bad Cop judges simply trying to provoke “Ooh!”s and “Ah”s from a gullible public, lead me to conclude that whales and dolphins have had a rough deal.

            To be fair, it is only us judging ourselves to be at the top of the Food Chain. Put a bloke in a room with a hungry lion, tiger or polar bear, and I can only see one outcome. But then, looking deeper at the complexity that we deal with in our lives, via tortuous logic, it all makes sense. We are deservedly top. As ever, before I explain how I reach such a conclusion, I have to present the foundations that lay beneath my thinking.

            In looking around my circle of friends, I realise that many of you are unaware of each other. In Brenworld, you’re all in largely independent boxes, for example, the friends from Ford Internal Audit days. These are guys that I regarded as brothers when we were on an audit somewhere around Europe, in each other’s pockets from Monday to Friday, week in, week out - and then by our own choice, socially at weekends too. That was the early 80s and many are still in touch. When we get together now, it is as though it was only yesterday that we last met.

            Similarly, the Ford of Europe Accounting years yielded the same. Travelling around Europe launching systems, training users, trying new restaurants and wines, in each other’s pocket from Monday to Friday and then socialising at weekends too. Now 30 years later, so many of those colleagues are still friends, if anything even closer than in those happily-remembered times.

            In recent years, other bonds developed. My dear friends John & Annie Pearson with whom I have a natural affinity of mind and spirit find ourselves able to cover 20 subjects in any conversation, and still have a new conversation each time we meet. It seems there is no bottom to this box of discoveries. Add to that, the guys that became Brothers In Arms in Trafford House, Lodgie, Morgy, Micky Flynn, Ernie and Johnny Parrot, who will be here to explore the social dimensions of Spalding this weekend. They are here for one night only. That’s all it’ll take. Spalding is not overburdened with night-life hot spots.

            Then there are the ex-girlfriends who became friends after the boyfriend/girlfriend thing evaporated. Friends like Mila, married now and living in Portugal. A girlfriend briefly and still a friend some 20 years later. Or Lucília, with whom I fought repeatedly in those Autoeuropa days of the mid-90s. We established a friendship anyway, and now exchange Christmas Cards and share lunches whenever we can meet. Staying with Portugal, there are also  workmates from those days, people from the Portuguese Accounting Centre, where I was based initially - João Mattos and Paul & Ruth Underhill, plus Marie-Paule with whom I worked at Autoeuropa in Palmella, all of which are still in touch. Then, my Retiree Lunch mates from Ford, my golfing mates who go back 35 years and my schoolmates who go back 55 years - and yet more small groups who are a major part of my life who fall into categories not mentioned in this reflection.

             This litany of friends is just to illustrate that - I have many friends (people I think of as friends), who are unaware of each other’s existence and importance in my life. But (and at long last we get to the point), this is not just me; it is the same for each of you too. This for me, is illustrative of what sets us apart from other intelligent life forms - why we are top of the food chain - we are able to maintain complex relationships, and as a by-product, complex understandings of life experiences.

I am lucky enough to have friends from all walks of life. These friendships have varied from cleaners and shop assistants to an ambassador’s wife, from a ship-shoveller to CEOs. Yes, I knew a bloke 40 years ago who worked at Basildon Sewage Treatment plant doing a deeply unpleasant job. He had my respect and admiration, doing what he did for a living despite its lowly status, so that he could have the dignity of working for a living, unlike today’s spongers who think some jobs are below them and benefits are a human right; the right to sponge off others if you can get away with it. With all these disparate characters, it was their personality, conversation and attitude to life that precipitated the chemistry that led to our friendship.

            One of the most intelligent people I have met was a taxi driver that looked like Trigger from Only Fools and Horses. He had a gorblimey accent, pop-star scruffy denim jeans and jacket with popped collar, was unshaven, with unkempt hair even before the days that this became a fashion, and probably the best read and most articulate man I have ever met. Heaven Knows, some of you have voracious reading habits with matching retention and recall, but this guy was another Fred Housego, able to talk on a comprehensive diversity of topics with the relaxed assurance of one who is confident in his knowledge and who displayed an absence of the bluster and vague generalisations that reveal superficial understanding.

            I’m sure you all have such a broad spectrum in your circle of friends. But the complexities that we have to deal with in day-to-day life go further than juggling a rich mix of friends. What about the current affairs that we are expected to absorb and comprehend? One banking scandal after another, MPs squabbling and misrepresenting their cases for and against austerity, variable VAT on pasties depending on ambient temperature - and will the Eurozone implode into a creeping  desert of anarchy, or will we get sucked into the whirlpool of a United State of Europe and have to give up our sovereignty? Follow that with a pitiful performance in the European Championships, now the drama that is Wimbledon with big names tumbling every day, and soon, the drug-fest of the Olympics. How can we cope with all of these attention-seeking children? And the answer is… we can - and so are (rightly), atop the food chain, taking it all in our stride.

            At the weekend, I had a stroke of luck. I found the cable for my iPod Shuffle. I have two such cables but for a long while could find neither to charge the obstinately silent device, now though, charging was back amongst the options. Once recharged, I loaded some favourite albums to iTunes and Synced the Shuffle. Cool talk eh? Sounds like I’m Street. Well sick, innit Blood?

            With this new reservoir of music, I now use it in the gym to provide distraction from the strain of  restoring this failing frame to a working state. However, I noticed today that there are a number of  changes in the 20 years that have passed. Then, it was a lumpy cassette player and headphones pumping out ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man, now it is a book of matches and the wondrous clarity of noise-insulating ear buds, with Eva Cassidy proclaiming the virtues of Fields of Gold. Aaron Neville supported Eva with his Soul version of People Get Ready and what sounded uncannily like Kenny G doing the fills - stirring, motivational gym music. Does life get any better?

            We broke off halfway through today’s session to close the gym for 15 minutes. No, not for a fire drill but to cheer the Olympic Torch as it passed through Spalding - an historical occasion. I took a camera and got a short movie clip which due to my shakes was somewhat less impressive than I’d hoped. However, you can make out the lighting of the new torch once the Bluto-sized security guard got out of the way. It was all over in the Eagles’ proverbial New York Minute. (A New York minute is an instant. Or as Johnny Carson once said, it's the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn.)

            The quote above is taken from the Internet. What a useful source of useless information that is. Talking of quotes, after leaving the gym, I felt the need to pore over The Times to see what Bob Diamond had been up to and what he was expected to reveal at today’s hearing. I pored, as planned, in a coffee shop with a cappuccino and a bit of cake served to me by a delightful young lady with a bright smile. Yes, young enough to be my granddaughter, hence delightful, with what seemed to be scribbled aide memoire on her forearm. It turned out to be a tattoo. I asked her about it as I couldn’t read the scribble. She was a confident child of about 20 and informed me that it said "Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world." (a Marilyn Monroe quote). From the confident ease of her reply, I believe she meant it. How uplifting. I wonder - at what point in our lives do we lose that optimism, that spirit of adventure, that lust for life, that sense of immortality - and settle for what life delivers? Why is such ambition the province of the young?

            And now I am guided by the direction of this incident, to reflect on my life. In looking back 20 years, I see I had a soul mate. I had gone 40 years without one - and now have gone 20 more. Despite being married and living on and off with some exceptional ladies, and having had (and still have today), some very close friends - of the opposite sex, there were no soul mates till Stephanie. That lasted a year but it was a novel buzz; one I have not repeated. In my experience, it is a rare gift, bestowed on few. If you connect with someone at a spiritual level, well, how lucky are you?

            Over the years, I have had people tell me that their partner/husband/wife - is their soul mate. Usually because they want to believe that the media hype applies to them. OK. If that’s how you see it, then that is all it takes for it to be true. Perception is Reality.

            But when I look at most relationships, I guess we have a different idea of what constitutes ‘a soul mate’. In my eyes, it is a connection of hearts and souls. Still unclear - wishy-washy? Sorry. I’ll try and do better. In no particular order… I look for respect in the treatment of the other party. The way you speak to them. The way you touch them. The way you look at them. The conversation of eyes, without words being needed. Putting the other’s needs before your own - every time. Protecting the other one. Knowing the other one, and knowing what their needs are rather than seeing your needs in them and judging that to be what they want. Giving them surprises that make them light up. You lighting up when it’s him or her on the phone. I expect you get the picture by now.

            This is the Heart side. What about the Soul side? Let’s get back to today’s waitress. I wonder if she will find a partner that will understand how she felt in her deepest core, her essence, when she chose that tattoo and who knows the person that chose that tattoo? Who understands all of that well enough to try and give her “the world” that she wishes - just to see her smile? If she does find someone like that, well, lucky her. In my opinion she will have a soul mate. I am lucky in that I had that once and (being twice blessed, albeit vicariously this time), see that in several of you - my friends. My life is warmed by what I see in your relationships.

            That was rather a complex set of thoughts to ponder, but it underlines my point of why we are atop the food chain. Not because we have the power to kill for food better than other animals but because we can appreciate the subtleties of a nebulous, shifting twisted skein of ideas - and then add our own capricious variations to the mix.

            One last idea to mess with - the Barclays LIBOR fixing scandal and all that goes with it. Who cares about LIBOR fixing? Really - who cares? It’s done. Live with it. Spilt milk. Yes, there were harsh consequences. Yes, you can name and shame guilty parties. Apologies can be made, but in general, the great majority of wrongs in life can’t be righted. How do you right genocide or stealing someone’s dreams or self-respect?

            What really interest me though, is the little snippets that journalists chuck in and then never follow up. Or if they do, the full story doesn’t make it out of the newsroom. Snippets like:

-           This nonsense about Paul Tucker being misinterpreted.  Why couldn’t he speak clearly in the first place? In simple Engrish? Why was there a need to use circumspect language? When does the smug cleverness of ambivalent speech for political expedience ever end well?

-           Were other banks told to misrepresent the LIBOR rate because a high rate made them look like they were in trouble. If they told the truth, there could have been a loss of confidence and 7 or 8 more might have gone under like Lehman Bros with the consequent panic of runs on High St. banks and collapse of the economy that would follow? If that were the case, then misstating the rate was the right thing to do. When caught between lying and a collapsed economy, what choice have you got?

-           What politicians were interested in misstating the LIBOR rate? While this may make the Labour party look silly briefly, from their intervention in 2008 (if there were any - and there probably were), lack of controls over this reporting has apparently been the norm for some 20 years or more, so earlier Tory governments will come into the spotlight as well (what fun - what sport!).

            I have saved my main point for last. It is this. Bob Diamond has earned about £120 million since 2005. For him to earn that, Barclays must have made a HUMUNGOUS profit in that time, not just to pay Bob Diamond but all who attracted bonuses.

            The simple question is: why is it necessary to make such large profits?

            I’m not having a pop at Barclays in particular, more at anyone in business who wants to make as much money as they can with no regard for the consequences. Is greed and self-interest to be what we want to teach our children? And when they practice what they learn, will others admire them for it or will it attract contempt? These are our kids. Is this to be our legacy to them? Contempt?

            And what about the community that we live in? If you’re making so much money, that the many have to pay so a greedy few can benefit, is that in the community’s interests? Yes, I know that’s the way the world is, but is it right? Is this what being Top Of The Food Chain reduces us to? Let’s look after ourselves and those that suffer as a consequence, well too bad - I got a good bonus. It’s easy to accept “That’s the way it is”.  "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke.

Wish I’d thought of that.