Who is top of the league?

Have you seen the latest league tables? 

As you’d expect, the rich clubs are near the top – especially those from Europe.  And as usual, the poor come bottom.

These rankings are international, and who’d have thought it: “Norway, Norway, top of the league!” (equal points with Denmark and New Zealand).

The Scandinavians do punch above their weight in the beautiful game, and the Maori ‘all whites’ did themselves proud in the last World Cup.

But these are even more important than football tables.  Transparency International have just ranked 174 countries on ‘perception of public sector corruption’. 

This is hugely important - but hard to measure objectively, which is why the ratings are based on numerous assessments from trusted partners as the most reliable method of comparing relative corruption levels across countries.

As with any table, after glancing enviously at those at the top, we search below for those who have meaning for us. 

Sadly, you’ll scroll down a long way to find the lowly league position of my beloved Oldham Athletic.  And so it is with one of the countries I care for most:  beautiful, beguiling Cambodia does terribly badly, a miserable 157^th out of 174.  That’s just 18 from the bottom of a very long list.  In both cases it’s depressing – and completely predictable. 

This certainly tallies with my experience of volunteering there for two years:  any traveler on the muddy track out of my village has to pay the police just to pass.  Any student wanting answers to their upcoming exam just buys them from the teacher.   

Take the example of the head doctor at the hospital where I volunteered.  A gentle, mild-mannered man, he was not perfect (you don’t get to manage the team without playing the game), but his heart is in the right place.

Yet suddenly this week he was summarily fired.  Tragically, a boy died of a snakebite, allegedly after being refused treatment.  Having spent two years of my life struggling to improve standards at that hospital, I’m sad to say staff incompetence is a possibility.  But if you sacked the head of every hospital for that, there’d be none left in Cambodia.  There’s clearly something dodgy gone on – the snake in the grass hisses ‘corruption’.

The trail leads clearly to the palace gates of the country’s harsh, wily, and utterly compromised premier.  Hun Sen has personally presided over the institutionalized corruption of his country – it is all-pervading, at every level and in every aspect of life:  'the fish rots from the head'.

This truly is Cambodia’s Curse.  Pulizer Prize winning journalist Joel Brinkley covered the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and when he returned thirty years later he found “the Cambodia people still among the most abused in the world.  They suffer in the grip of a venal government that refuses to provide even the most basic of services without a bribe.  The bulk of the populace lives just as Cambodians did a thousand years ago, while government officials divert unimaginable sums into their own pockets”. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Before I went to Cambodia, I had the privilege of volunteering in another breathtaking country with a terrible recent history, Rwanda.  In many ways it has it worse – its genocide was more recent, its natural resources and outside aid for recovery much more limited.

Yet somehow this tiny, non-league nation has made it to number 50 out of 174 – the fringes of the top division, above such big names as Italy.

A quick look at who is in charge shows us why:  Paul Kagame is strong , single-minded, and at times brutal – the present issues in neighbouring Congo cannot be ignored.   But whilst imperfect, I see him as a largely benevolent dictator, not one of the greedy, corrupt despots who keep many other countries poor.

Even in the west we mustn’t be complacent:  my own country, the UK, comes 17^th in the table.  I think that’s pretty poor for a country so rich and privileged.  Surely we are in a position to role-model a top ten place, not struggle to get into the top twenty, behind the likes of Barbados.

Again, look to the leaders – Cameron’s weak and unprincipled responses to press intrusion, tax avoidance and his own powerful old boys network are hardly the mark of a statesman.  Transparency International UK’s verdict is grim, slamming the “worrying complacency” and concluding that “Until the government acts with urgency… the UK will not be able to rise higher in the global anti-corruption league tables”.

What did you expect?  We all know you need money to build a strong team.  But you also need a top manager to deliver results.  And the converse is also true, as any fan knows: if you're freefalling down the league, it's usually time to sack the boss.

Should I buy a tv license?

Simple question, isn’t it?

Now I hope you don’t think I’m the kind of chap to break the rules - or indeed to shirk my civic responsibilities.

But am having a bit of a dilemma on this one.  You see, until now, I haven’t had a tv license. 

Stop tutting and hear me out! 

Not everyone who watches telly in the UK needs one.  A bit like not all who travel the streets must pay road tax.

Using that example, a swathe of road users don’t pay, from classic car nuts to hybrid drivers.  And of course those two-wheeled heroes, the cyclists.

(Pedants corner - I don’t mean the drivers are half human, though they may be, just those who drive half electric cars.   By which I don’t mean they drive half a car, but rather that the car is partly electric.  And I know, there’s no such thing as road tax anyway, it’s vehicle excise duty…).

My point is that tv licenses are similar in that a whole bunch of people are exempt - oldies, students, you name it.  And this is an accepted part of the system, an imperfect but laudable attempt to make it ‘fair’ for everyone.

I have an even better excuse:  I don’t have a tv!

Though actually, even this isn’t clear-cut.  It’s true I don’t own an old-fashioned box - but I do have a fancy new computer, and I certainly download the odd programme from BBC iPlayer.  Now strictly speaking, I don’t need a license for this: the letter of the law is that you only need one if you watch ‘live as broadcast’, and I don’t. 

So I’m off the hook, right?

Actually not.  Thinking about it, my excuse was precisely analogous to the contemptible ‘we don’t avoid, we evade’ defense of Vodafone, Starbucks, Amazon and other such despicable tax-dodgers.

The letter of the law (and the whole tax system) must be tightened, though don’t hold your breath for swift action from the privileged elite presently in charge. 

But in the meantime we have a personal responsibility too; the spirit of the law is clear.  If you make millions in profit, pay your share in tax.  And if you benefit from the BBC, ditto.

Not to mention that every single day I have the pleasure of listening to some of the most erudite and compelling public sector broadcasting anywhere – from BBC Radio. 

And surely I have no more right to listen without paying, as has the head of Starbucks to ask to be patched up in an NHS A&E after a mysterious accident with a blueberry muffin, despite dodging the taxes that pay for it (now there’s a maliciously pleasing thought!).

So I’ve taken the moral high ground – I have now bought a license.

And no, it’s not because Match of the Day is only shown live, nor that I just can't wait to watch Strictly.  Rather, it's because I value the BBC, despite its present turmoil.  For as long as this is the system to pay for it, I will put my money where my mouth is. 

Now, I must go take this Voda-call and finish my chai-latte before the Amazon delivery arrives…

Top twenty tales of Oxford!

Guests are a blessing.  Particularly when they are your oldest friend and his lovely new lady.  And especially when the new bathroom was finished just in time.

Not only do they warm your heart, they also open your eyes, seeing the familiar through the fresh lens of a newcomer.

Here's my top twenty tales of Oxford from the unashamedly touristy tour I took with Nick and Fay last weekend:

1. Another Time:  there's a Gormley statue hidden just off Broad Street - how long has that been lurking there?

2. New Bodleian:  designed by Gilbert Scott (the phone box chap), being refurbished thanks to Garfield Weston (the wagon wheel chap)

3. Old Indian Institute:  John Betjeman dismissed it in 1938 as an “everlasting yellow building”, but who can't love the elephant with 'howdah' carriage?

4. William Morris:  Oxford was home to two, the arts & crafts chap, and the minors & minis chap

5. Turf Tavern:  "an education in intoxication", where Aussie premier Bob Hawke drank a yard of ale in 11 seconds, and Bill Clinton 'did not inhale'...

6. Hertford College, 'Bridge of Sighs':  I like the myth that students here were so fat they closed the bridge so they'd get exercise from the stairs...

7. Radcliffe Camera:  the guy who paid for it didn't like books, so maybe that's why there are 600,000 of them buried beneath it?

8. University Church of St Mary:  scene of religious hatred over the years, but also proud birthplace of Oxfam

9. Bodlian Library Quad:  King James and his two books - one talks of "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain..." - but is it praying to his bible, or his counterblaste to tobacco?

10. Oxford Arms:  an open book, to be read from top to bottom - in contrast to Cambridge's shut one.  What can you learn from a closed volume?  (But then, what good is a work open only at one page?)

11. Gargoyles:  "a long and proud tradition of rudeness, mischief and disobedience" (Philip Pullman) - but there are also 9 new ones on the Bodleian, designed by local schoolchildren, including a dodo, three men in a boat - and tweedledum & tweedledee

12. Sheldonian theatre:  fronted by ancient busts of philosophers (except they're emperors - and 1970s replacements!)

13. Wadham Quad:  liberal, progressive, renowned for diversity and left-wing politics - I had to wait for the 'Free Palaestine' protesters to move so I could get a nice shot of the courtyard!

14. Wadham College:  despite its enlightened reputation, and being founded by Dorothy, women were banned for centuries, with the only exception a laundress of 'such age, condition, and reputation as to be above suspicion'!

15. Rhodes college:  as in Cecil Rhodes, founder of De Beers, Rhodesia, and Rhodes scholorships. Something of a colonialist, judging by his will: "Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings, what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence". Hmmm!

16. Keble college:  some call it 'streaky bacon', a French visitor is said to have mistaken it for the train station, and neighbours St John's set up a club where the length of your membership depends on which colour bricks you steal!

17. Keble chapel: rather beautiful, and home of William Holman Hunt’s Pre-Raphaelite painting The Light of the World (1853) - though it's on loan to the National Gallery just now...

18. Rowing:  quite a deal in these parts, bumping other colleges, boasting in graffiti, then getting oars broken and trying to mow down innocent protestors in the boat race...

19. St John's college:  guilty of giving us Tony Blair, but makes up for it by running the Lamb and Flag pub, famous for hosting meetings of the VSO Oxford supporter group

20.  All Souls:  no undergraduates, sometimes no students as the entrance exams are so damn hard, and very occasionally a strange parade involving a mallard - a fitting end to our tour

Movember!

Aim: 

“To change the face of men’s health” 

Definitions:

A Mo Bro is a gentleman voluntarily participating in events described as ‘Movember’.  A Mo Sista is a woman who loves a Mo and is dedicated to supporting him through his moustache-growing journey.  

Rules:

Each Mo Bro must:

Begin 1^st Movember with a clean shaven face

Grow and groom a moustache for the entire month

Avoid joining of the mo to the sideburns (that’s a beard), or to the chin (that’s a goatee) 

Conduct himself like a true gentleman 

Background: 

Since its humble beginnings in 2004 in Melbourne, Movember has grown to become a global movement, with over 854,000 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas participating in 2011.

The key aim is to raise awareness of men’s health, specifically prostate and testicular cancer.  Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November.  Their actions and words prompt private and public conversation around these often ignored issues.  This in turn helps to educate about health risks, change established habits and attitudes, and encourage action, thus increasing the chances of early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment.

A secondary objective is to raise funds, with nearly £80m donated worldwide last year.  The Movember Foundation commits to supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with their strategic goals of awareness and education, survivorship and research.  In the UK the key recipients are Prostate Cancer UK and the Institute of Cancer Research.

Risk log:

The following key risks have been identified, stating risk description, likelihood x severity = risk rating, and proposed mitigation:
* Mo turns out ginger.  1 * 4 = 4 (low).  Purchase of black wax.
* ‘Looking gay’.  4 * 2 = 8 (medium).  Equality training.
* Exposure to unwanted attention, mockery, and ridicule.  5 * 2 = 10 (high).  Live with it Mo Bro! 

Discussion:

The important contribution of Mo Sistas is acknowledged, yet remains secondary.  Is this acceptable, on the basis that men have much to do to emulate advances in the women’s health movement? 

Conversely, is there a way to more directly involve our lady friends, without drawing undesired attention to hirsuitism of the female labium superius oris?

As of 2011 Canadians were the largest contributors to the Movember charities of any nation.  What are the lessons from this?  Do Canadians grow the dodgiest moustaches?

What remedial action should be taken regarding men who voluntarily grow a mo outwith the agreed month 11 timescale?

Recent coverage suggested that a mo makes a man’s face more memorable.  Is this not, however, the one time of the year you do not want to be remembered? 

Conclusion:

On the basis of the available evidence, it is concluded that Movember is a “jolly good idea”.  

Next steps:

Grow a dodgy mo this Movember, in full conjunction with the aforementioned rules.  Furthermore, to provide photographic evidence of such on at least a weekly basis through a dedicated website and the media of popular social networks.  Action:  Oly

Support and encourage Oly in a fitting manner.  At your entire discretion this could include posting supportive comments, pledging monetary support, or even joining in as a Mo Bro or Mo Sista yourself.  Action:  You

Let's go hunting!

In a recent trip to the Black Forest, Katja led me into the woods, promising me an experience of a lifetime...

It wasn’t quite what I expected – she took me hunting!

To my surprise I loved it.  Getting face to face with nature is hugely liberating for us city folk.  Adjusting our senses to track our target was both fascinating and hugely rewarding. 

I was amazed by the inventiveness of natural camouflage, and loved the challenge of trying to pick out our quarry as it tried to blend with the background.  I also learned that you have to let the little ones get away – they’ll be bigger and juicier when you come back.  Who said hunters were bloodthirsty and barbaric?

Not that I deny the immense thrill of the chase.  In fact it was probably even more of a buzz than the actual capture – though I must admit there was a primitive pride in seizing our food directly from nature, free from chemicals and processing, and taking it straight home to slice up and cook.

And we didn’t do it the easy way either - we were on foot not horseback, armed not with hunting rifles but knives (albeit razor sharp ones).  Nor was there any ‘tally-ho’, beaters or master of the hunt, just a stealthy, methodical creep through the woods in pursuit of our target.

Best of all, our sport had all the thrills and spills of traditional hunting, but none of the bloodlust – no creature was killed, no pain inflicted for our pleasure:  we were hunting for mushrooms.

It’s hard for English folk to understand why the Tuscans go so mad for their truffles or the Bavarians for their blackcaps.  I was certainly puzzled – and concerned I was about to be poisoned.  I was not reassured to learn that the word toadstool comes from the German Todesstuhl - death's chair!

But Katja knew what to look for - it’s all down to the colour (brown, not white, black, grey or red), texture underneath (spongey, not smooth), and lustre (dull, not shiny).  Or you can also look for the presence of juices upon breaking, bruising reactions, odours, tastes, habitat, and season.  Or maybe it just depends on whether you are feeling lucky...

Actually most of the world has no such hang-ups.  Ancient Egyptians call mushrooms “the plant of immortality”, early Romans ‘the food of the gods’.  Now, of course, we’re all puny buttons compared with the giant toadstool of China, who not only make use of all sorts of funghi in eastern medicine, but also eat nearly 3kg a year for each of their billion inhabitants!

Seemingly it’s mainly squeamish Victorians who fretted about poisonous toadstools, spreading wariness across the English-speaking world.

In fact there’s a whole science of ‘ethnomycology’, the attitudes of different races to mushrooms.  Europe splits into us mycophobes in the north, traditionally afraid of mushrooms, and mycophages of the east (Germany, the Balkans and Russia) and south (Spain, Italy and southern France), who can’t get enough of them.

I am certainly thankful for the role of mushrooms in the ecosystem, recycling plants after they die and transforming them into rich soil – apparently if it wasn’t for fungi, the earth would be buried in debris and life on the planet would disappear.

And perhaps I should be happy about the magical elements too?  I’ve no desire to experiment with hallucinogens, but I suspect my fellow Oxford resident Lewis Carroll knew what he was talking about when he had Alice eat pieces of mushroom, as advised by a hookah-smoking caterpillar, which made her grow and shrink.

But we were hunting for food – so are they any good to eat?

I was surprised to learn just how nutritious they are – despite being 90% water, mushrooms are high in B vitamins, phosphorus, magnesium, selenium, even copper, and are a good source of fibre.  One portabella mushroom has more potassium than a banana!

Portabella in particular seem to have become popular as a low-calorie, fat-free substitute for meat.  But for me it’s Quorn which is the real wonder-food – a fungal protein indistinguishable from chicken meat in texture, taste and nutritional content - but without the salmonella, antibiotics and general nastiness of the broilerhouse.

Samuel Johnson rightly mused that "it is strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them".  

But if he had foraged with us in the forest, and only tasted our tortilla, I’m certain he would have made an exception for the noble sport of hunting for mushrooms!

The Power of ‘We’

It’s exactly twelve months since I arrived back in the UK, having spent the previous 2 years volunteering in a remote village in north-west Cambodia.  It’s also the anniversary of when I started blogging again, thanks to the powerful prompt of the annual Blog Action Day.

So what better time to reflect on the most challenging and rewarding decision I ever made - to volunteer with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO)?  And what more pertinent question than how does VSO embody this year’s Blog Action Day theme, ‘the power of we’?

For a start VSO is about overcoming poverty – it brings together people from very different backgrounds and helps them to work together for a greater good.  It may be ungrammatical, but surely that, if anything, is the ‘power of we’?

What’s more, this is done very specifically at the invitation of and in partnership with local organizations.  Rather than dipping into areas where outsiders feel there’s a need, we got together with local people and agreed priorities.  

Perhaps most importantly, VSO – I think uniquely amongst major development organizations – works through volunteers.  No city-centric 4x4-driving ex-pats here – rather, professionals getting right out there to share their skills to help change lives.  I do believe there’s a distinction - a voluntary worker can create a different dynamic with local colleagues than a salaried employee.  In short you close the gap by living and working like your co-workers – no more ‘them and us’, just ‘we’.

I don’t pretend it’s a perfect organization.  There is much to do to focus on the areas of greatest need among and within countries (I doubt Cambodia is still in the ‘most needy’ category - it’s now on the gap year and even boutique honeymoon circuit!).  And modernization of a bureaucracy takes time, as seen through lumbering systems, hesitation in embracing openness, and tardiness in rising to challenges such reducing the wasteful turnover from failed placements or relentlessly ensuring resources are directed at the sharp-end.  Most of all VSO needs to start measuring success by outcomes in overcoming poverty rather than just by the number of volunteer bums on floors (seats - you’d be lucky!).   

But I’m here to praise not criticize – I think VSO is getting there, and is a fundamentally brilliant organization, one I am proud to be associated with.  That’s why, now I’m in the UK for a while, I’ve agreed to lead my local supporter group - and why Katja and I may even offer our services as volunteers again in the future. 

Having both enjoyed life-changing experiences during our placements (including, of course, having met each other!), we feel we are in a strong position to recommend VSO as an organization which really embodies the principles of volunteering, of working in partnership, and of helping the poor to help themselves – truly, ‘the power of we’.