Swallows and Amazons.

It is a matter of record that many people have been influenced by their reading.  Where would the world be if Lenin hadn't read a book of Marx,or if Don McLean hadn't sung about it?  Well, there would be fewer Russians in Long Island and whatever would have happened to Leon Trotsky would never have figured in the Stranglers' lyrics.  Fact: reading can guide your principles, interests and values and coming back to a book nearly fifty years later can come as quite a shock when it becomes apparent just how influential it was on my own choices.

I first read Arthur Ransome's book when I was eight or nine years old.  The whole atmosphere of the novel reflects a writer who has a clear insight into the interests and motivations of children who were much the same age as I at the time of first reading.  That in itself is strange as I have it on good authority - my mother - that as a neighbour of Mr. Ransome's in 1950's Putney her most frequent contact with him was facing his complaints about just how noisy my brothers were.  For those of you who never read his books, a precis:

The Walker family, John, Susan, Letitia and Roger are spending the summer holidays in the Lake District.  Yes, I did write Letitia, but let's be honest, in the books she's called Titty.  It didn't make me laugh fifty years ago and I'm pleased to find that she hasn't been edited in the copy that my own daughter brought home for me to read last week.  They can and do take to the water and sail a small dingy called 'Swallow' making friends with and creating a whole imaginary world with sisters sailing their own boat 'Amazon', hence the title.  The whole message of the book  is that left to themselves children can go and camp on a island in the lake, as long as they organize themselves as a ship's company.  It helps if you are the children of a Royal Naval officer, as are the Walkers.

I, however was not the child of a Royal Naval officer, but well before I got in a sailing boat I had already learned about sailing by and large on the wind and knew that steam would have to give way to sail; fine in theory, but not much use in the Solent when faced with a bulk carrier.  Unlike Roger Walker I didn't run up the field tacking against the wind, but I knew what it meant to tack.  What I did have was an imagination as active as his sister's, as active as Ransome's.

So, eight years later at the age of 16 I found myself in possession of enough experience in a small boat to think I had a chance at commanding something bigger and applied to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. Why?  In retrospect I think the book was the catalyst; independence, confidence and belonging.  It seems likely that this was an affliction I shared with a number of my school contemporaries who went from the ordered structure of a boarding school to the nearest equivalent in the adult world - the British Armed Services.  It was, however, not to be.

What hadn't entered my reckoning was the fact that the basic requirement of an Officer's commission is that they can see where they are going; I can, but only by using one eye at a time, which wasn't what the Navy had in mind for its navigators.  I had an inkling of course.  I'd even overheard my parents arguing about whether I should be told there wasn't a chance, but I managed, Titty-like, to imagine my way into a whole different world where the fact that I could see perfectly well, one eye at a time, would be enough.  But like the book, and the holiday, my imaginary uniformed world came to an end.

No doubt my life would have been entirely different if it hadn't been for my vision.  Perhaps it was my failure of vision that undermined my vision.  In any case it delivered me a whole chunk of reality instead.  I still love the book, but sometimes I wonder about my life.

JAMES VALLEE, 1952 -

In the past ten months I have thought more than I expected and written down less than I wanted.  Soon this Blog will be the home of other people, my dear partner and our two intriguing children.  Having spent a total of three weeks in their company since August 2011, I've been in the position of living inside a situation where our relationship has been mostly in my head, rather than out in the world in front of us.  Living by myself has, in some senses at least, diminished me.  I have had the identity of husband, father, teacher without as much of the actuality that usually accompanies such titles.

But that wouldn't make me different or special, two conditions that are frequent aspirations for the majority of us.  Most of us strive to put our mark on the world around us, with varying degrees of success.  Some of us are inept at making an impression, some of us make an impression, but not the one we wish to make.  Being the wrong person in the wrong place is the most frequent cause of failing to impress.  Being wrong is more often what we achieve.  Perhaps if we could hear what the others say after we're gone, then we'd learn something valuable.

Nearly two years ago now we lost James to cancer.  I want to try and explain my brother to you.  It's taken me more than his absence to realize who he was.  It has taken me the time to realize how it is I exist too.

My brother can't be properly understood without his being on hand to agree or disagree with my observations.  This is why I don't offer this as a definitive view, only aspects of his life as it intersected with mine.  It also enables me to have the last word, something that was rare enough around him, the acknowledged master of the sign off line.

James was my friend in the simplest sense of the word.  He was someone whose good pinion I valued.  Having his respect and approval made my self-image more defined and secure.  I sometimes wonder if in the early years of our conscious relationship, when we became more than brothers, he filled a mentoring role.  In some ways he was my coach, which is perhaps what a big brother can really achieve.  In any case, we certainly ended up more like each other than I would have expected, looking back at the separations of school, age and career.  Although who we are is always our own responsibility, the people we invite into our lives can have the strongest influence on who it is we aspire to be.  But we always leave our own fingerprints on the record.  Jamie loved landscape and he involved himself in it with walking and photography.  I have a similar fascination, but mine is different although we both loved Derbyshire and the deserts of the American southwest.  He loved music, as do I, but again, we ended up living in different parts of the musical landscape.  No one gets to be a simple clone of their influences, unless they resign their individuality to be a pawn of another's intent and a pale echo at that.

All the years of talk, shared experience and love have made me into who I am and my ties to my beloved brother are just one part of that web.  To offer you an analogy, it is as if whilst we all live in our individual caves between our ears, who we are is as much who others perceive us to be as who we elect to be ourselves.  Shout and sing into the big outside and listen to the echoes because they prove that we exist outside our own lives.  We exist as other peoples' memories as much as we are the objects of their attention, which makes us the subjects of our own verbs.

A dear friend of mine remarked that his death had left a big James-shaped hole in my life.  That was a shrewd observation and one that has led to this memorial.  For those of you who knew him, your memories and his influences are as alive today as ever he was.  Despite slipping away from his pain almost two years ago now he lives in my life as much as ever he did, a reader, writer, thinker, talker, organizer, traveler, listener, critic, advisor, wit, joker, raconteur, lover of the senses, trees, cars, speed and the master of the apt comment.  He is not really dead, he's just living in my head, as he always has.

Mubarak bin London

There is probably a term for it, falling somewhere between arrogance and racism.  At any rate, it's an unpleasant experience, seeing it manifest in the everyday interactions of ex-pats and locals, or more likely listening to what we have to say about our hosts after they leave.  Being so far away from home - 20,000 light years ain't in it, speaking culturally, can be lonely and that has to be why the Europeans [which includes any other native English speaking nationals] clump together like the curds in sour milk.  I'm using the term with reason.  Listening to us talk about 'the way they do things around here' can shade over from telling a funny story all the way to outright racism.  I tend to leave about the time people start talking about 'rag heads' or 'camel jockeys.'  Not that I'm really any better; I marvel at the labyrinthine procedures followed to achieve anything and bitch constantly about the driving.  If my car is bugged then I'm likely to be deported any day now.

But really, it isn't right.  I should think that amongst other causes this is the source of the dislike that we run up against from time to time.  It's the arrogance of the Expat, which for want of another label I shall refer to as colonialism.  There's a subtle hint of it in all of us, whether we like it or not, the implication of superiority to which we assume a right, often with no other reason than our language and its given cultural domination.  face it, English is an All-Comers, Open Championship Language Olympiad Gold Medalist.  There really isn't any competition and having an easy command of the imperial language makes you an imperialist.  So there it is, we're over here, over paid and over confident.  Really, we should make a virtue of the fact that we are, after all, guests in someone's home.  Luckily for us, the traditions surrounding guests in Arabian culture allow us a lot of leeway for our ignorant condescension.  As a friend of mine put it they pay us more than we'd get elsewhere and if all they want is to get the fast lane to themselves, is it a lot to ask?

So it was a surprise to woolly liberal me to realize just how guilty I was of the exact same sin I've been describing above.  In different guise, admittedly, but then isn't that always the way with error?  How often do you hear in a classroom "It was an ACCIDENT!  It was a MISTAKE!  I didn't KNOW!"  Sure, I didn't know.  But I do now.  We have a system here in High School of investigative learning.  This Trimester the research statement is "The desert makes us who we are."  I decided to share my fascination with the English Arabists of the past, Burton, Philby and most of all, Thesiger.  I've been reading Thesiger and about Thesiger for some time now.  If you haven't read the accounts of his journeys in the Empty Quarter [Rub Al Khali to us old sand hands] 'Arabian Sands' then give your sense of wonder a treat and look it up.  There happened to be an article in a local magazine this month as he came through Al Ain on his way to the great somewhere else.  With that, a copy of his book and a lot of photographs I reckoned I was on my way to a great learning experience.  Well, I was, but not in the way I first intended.

Wilfred Thesiger came through Al Wagan in the late 1940's.  My students hadn't heard of him.  My sense of superiority swelled - I was going to open their eyes.

"Here's a picture of him when he was young," I said, "and here he is again, later in life.  Let's compare the pictures.."

"That is Mubarak bin London," said Hamad.

"Who?" I asked.

"Mubarak bin London," Hamad replied.  "Everyone here knows about Mubarak bin London.  He made many journeys with the Bedu.  My Grandfather travelled with him across the Rub al Khali."

It was time to sit back and listen.  Some of the students had relatives who had known, travelled with, met or otherwise knew about this man.  Me, I didn't even know his Bedu name.  Caught out by my own sneaky sense of superiority.

Charles Darwin all at sea

Charles Darwin was the original environmental tourist.  Instead of kayaking around the Alaskan Fiords and selling the footage to National Geographic he, famously, hitched a ride on HMS Beagle.

This was not a cruise and the Beagle was not a cruise liner.  Instead imagine if you will, Hornblower with added disease, poor diet and a muscle controlled, wind driven wooden ship.  This was only a few years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars [final score England 1, France 0] and the Royal Navy was once again looking for ways of staying at sea.  Oceanography was one of the ways it achieved its aim and taking Darwin as a passenger, officially as the captain's companion, was one of the ways of defraying the costs involved.

From his observations, intelligence and many years of careful study and hard work, it is mostly to this man that we owe the concept of evolution, famously the concept of the survival of those best fitted to their environment.  Those of you who disagree with this conclusion may stop reading now, but given the currency of the concept well beyond biology I'd venture to guess that even a Creationist can go with the idea of there being a purpose to life incidental to our own aims.

So what purpose do we serve?  Let's leave aside all the dualism that the Middle Ages have wished upon our modern world.  I'd not deny the concept of a 'spiritual life' but the idea to my mind really applies to the fact that somewhere in the 1.5 kilos of brain, or about 1.7% of my overall mass, there lurks something I refer to as 'me'.  Those who wish to identify this as a soul may go have coffee with St. Augustine of Hippo at this point.  You won't like the rest of this.  If the purpose of life is to breed enough to bequeath one's genes to the next generation, then as far as evolution is concerned, I'm dead.  After four children there is no further purpose to my life and the species is, frankly, done with me.  Finished.  So yesterday.  Come to think of it I'm not too struck on that idea myself.  But whilst being on the evolutionary retired list may be a bit of a comedown, it is at least quiet around here, giving one time to think.

Here's what I think: Romanticism, committed partnerships, 'The One'.  Are they all ways of sugaring the pill?  Do we want to invest any time in something irrelevant to the perpetuation of our genes because it really doesn't matter anymore?  So we invest it all with a rose-tinted view of the world because whilst copulation may thrive, it's served its purpose.

Oh how depressing.  But wait!  That's not all!  What about those of us who don't have any genetic inheritors?  If you're childless, what does that imply about your purpose?  That's an interesting stick with which to beat the childless by choice, mistake or inability.  Luckily, I don't believe any of this nonsense, but I've set it out as well as I can to get to the actual purpose of this piece.  Wait?  This has a purpose? Er, well, yes.

My contention is that we are all too willing to personalize something which has no discernable independent existence whatever.  There is no 'force of evolution' in the way there is a force of gravity.  We live in a gravity field, but not in an evolutionary field.  We may be inclined to breed, but not with a view to perpetuating our genes.  Being nothing more than a container for chromosomes is reducing to the absurd.  Families are about far more than children, parenthood is as much about me working out my own father fixations as it is in the celebration of my children's life and growth.  But for  those of you who see some divine purpose to your lives, I'd say you're as misguided as the behaviorists who want us to be puppets of a blind watchmaker.  The only easy answer is, there are no easy answers.  That is probably the core of my personal philosophy.  In addition, you may as well relax and enjoy the ride.  We're here for the duration so accept the opportunity for entertainment.  You can and probably will find your own answers to life, the universe and everything.  My answer is, the Universe doesn't care if you do or not because it isn't any more sentient than your sock and yes, Gaia can bugger off too.

ICONS FOR ICONOCLASTS

I guess that icon wasn't a word much in use until we all went on line, but it's one that's been turning up in my mind quite a lot since the UAE started celebrating its 40th birthday.  To quote a friend of mine: "Dang! I'm older than a whole country!" Everywhere I go there are signs of national pride; houses decorated in the national colors, flags the size of football fields, cars wrapped in pictures of the three sheiks.  The date palms are wrapped in fairy lights and the schools are distributing flags and scarves to their students.  Scarves in 78 degrees of heat? I wonder if that was thought through.  I've even bought a t shirt in the national colors so as to go with the flow, but given some of the looks I've got from my neighbors that may not have been a good idea.

Why are we all so keen on symbols? Look on any discussion board and you'll see what I mean.  Kittygurrl37 has a persian kitten picture for an identifier, whilst HAVOKK666 represents himself as a heavily armed troll with bad dental hygiene.  Is this post-modern cynicism on their part, or is that really the image of themselves that they want to project?  As an exercise for the student look on Facebook and see what you can see there.  Why does your aunt use a picture of her dog?  Why do you? Why do entire nations, tribes, families identify themselves in this abstract fashion?  What's the real message?  I know that it's a moment of pride for many Americans when we see a bald eagle.  They're impressive birds, soaring free, symbolic of mountain majesty and a swift nuclear counterstrike, but turning it into a window decal for an F-150 seems to be a degradation for something better suited to an F-16.

So our forefathers [and foremothers, who never get enough credit] decided that the new nation would benefit from being identified with an airborne predator with a taste for carrion. Ben Franklin preferred the turkey as an alternative, given that it was "in Comparison a much more respectable Bird."  If he'd had his way then Thanksgiving dinner would certainly be different today.  As for Uncle Sam, well, strange dress sense is just the start of it...

As for the British, we have a number of symbols accumulated over the centuries.  The Rose, far from being sweet and pretty is left over from theFifteenth Century wars of succession, known as the Wars of the Roses.  Not a pretty image.  Bulldogs?  Butt ugly products of a breeding program.  But then bulldogs are symbolic of stubborn determination, a quality alien to most of the nation but attractive to our secret selves.  So, we are told something about nations by the icons they adapt, but perhaps not the image that they themselves wished to project.  Got that, HAVOKK666?

So, here in the UAE the soul icon is a falcon.  Wild, dangerous and justifiable, given that falconry is still a widely practiced sport, if only by the unreasonably rich.  As the guide at the Al Ain Zoo pointed out however, falcons and hunting birds in general, have no loyalty whatsoever, being nothing more than feathered mercenaries.  I think - borrowing the famous sequence from 'American Beauty' that the true symbol of the UAE should be a plastic supermarket bag, blowing endlessly through the desert.  Owing to most Emiratis' assumption that someone else will deal with the trash, specifically an imported Indian, there is a supersurplus of plastic bags.  Most of them get eaten by camels, which isn't a surprise as a camel is not the most discriminating of gourmets.  Sadly for the camels they die as the bags blocks their intestinal tracts.

So perhaps the search for meaningful symbols should be tempered with some humility.  For America the turkey, for Britain a mongrel dog, for the UAE a plastic bag blowing through a desert landscape accessorized with dead camels.  For you, a picture of yourself on Facebook.

I say hello, and you say....

Bless the Beatles, they really had a way with words, or at least Lennon and McCartney did.  Not to diss George and Ringo, but the most memorable phrases originated with John and Paul.  'All You Need is Love', 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.'  Unlike the previous generation who remember where they were in November 1961, mine can tell you where they were the first time they heard Sgt. Pepper.  For the record [and that's what it was] Rebecca Seal's bedroom, with her dad pounding on the door.

Looking through the data I can assert that English speakers have been given a most amazing tool of self expression.  An estimated total word hoard of 1,010,649.7 and counting, the basic vocabulary needed for fluency is estimated at 2,000 words.  This gives us a surplus of, well, you do the Math as they say.  By the way I have no idea how anyone could defend the existance .7 of a word.  You decide.

I've always been fascinated by language, in particular my own and to some extent that of the neighbours, the French, as up until know that's been the only language with which I have been on friendly, if distant terms.  Language is the structure by which we express and understand ourselves, so if the signifier is missing, chances the signifier didn't make it out of the box.  I suppose you all know that the story about Eksimos and words for snow isn't true.  I suspect that they only have a couple and they both translate as "Dammit!"  But even if the signfier isn't the signified then words still map out the territory across which we walk the sentences.

In France, Foucault established that language has a historical function that establishes the truth of the time.  Thomas Kuhn called that a paradigm, stealing the idea and give it a wider currency.  Which is the story of English and French, England and France in a nutshell.  Whilst English has robbed, accomodated and absorbed much vocabulary from its romance and germanic neighbours, precise numbers for vocabulary remain elusive.  The fact is that different languages get to the same place along a different path.  The English "What is it?" is terse compared to the French "Qu'est-ce qu'il y a qu' est ce?" whilst the German "Warum?" is almost monosyllabic.  Arabic, however has us all beat down and whimpering in the sands of the arena.

You might think that having mastered "Salaam alaiakum" and "Khevel sah" you were hanging out with the shebab.  However such is not the case.  Yesterday I was greeted in such a way that I caught the arabic word for saffron.  Not difficult, it's Za'afraan, so no points there.  What was that? I asked.  "May your day be sprinkled with saffron," he replied, explaining that camels who win an important race are sprinkled with saffron.  What else can I say I asked and then the floodgates opened.  Check this out:

"May your day have the scent of jasmin."  "May your day be covered in roses."  "May your day become bejewelled"  "May your day win the 4:30 at Epsom."  Well, so I made up the last one, but you get the idea.  Makes "Have a nice day" look pretty lame, doesn't it?

So, I am establishing a commission to expand greetings in the English language.  So far I have "May your day have free refills at the Salad Bar" and "May the traffic signals turn green at your approach."  All contributions gratefully received.  Leave them in the comment box.  Thank you!  May your day/night/evening be marked by the approval of the deity of your choice.

Landcruisersaurus

Quatroterrae Toyotasaurus

This is the land of the Landcruiser - Landcruiserland? - more big, white, tricked out behemoths than aspired to by a whole 'hood of sneering hip hop wannabees.  Seriously, this town has so many Landcruisers that with a couple of coats of desert camo they'd be ready to invade, well, maybe the next oasis.  It's a mystery to me, really, as the men you meet - and they are the drivers -  are generally friendly, soft-spoken and courteous.  Getting behind the wheel must release some inner Vin Diesel as they devolve into a perfect example of the Darwinian principle on four wheels.  Four wheel drive Darwin.

Now imagine that you're reading this in the breathless tones of a David Attenborough: The everyday scene of conflict is the roundabout and as they act as the traffic control at every intersection there's opportunity enough to observe the basic tactics of intimidation.  First of all, unless in immediate danger of collision, they never stop at the line.  This is taken as a sign of weakness and will evoke a riot of dismissive horn blowing from those behind.  This is the same derisive chorus that greets the driver who is more than a second late in pulling away from the light.  Sometimes these Toyotasaurs will bellow a challenge just for the hell of it.  Occasionally conflict spills over into the waterholes, sorry, gas stations as they jockey for position at the pumps.  Apart from its basic white hide the Landcruiser comes with a wide variety of secondary markings, mostly along the flanks.  The purpose of these markings is not clearly understood, but it may be something to do with mating.

Around these brontosaur equivalents roar the velociraptors of this prehistoric world, the Mercedes, tricked out by AMG, the Porsche Cayennes and the occasional Corvette looking for all the world like a land based trilobite.

Me, I drive a Yaris.  I like to think of the Yari as the analogue of the early mammals, scurrying around the edges, keeping out of the way and getting to evolve into something smarter.  Just as long as we don't get stepped on by something big and heedless.