What's your beef?

So your ‘beef’ turns out to be horsemeat.

And you’re surprised? 

Soon they’ll say bears poop in the woods and the pope’s a catholic! 

Everyone agrees this is terrible. 

But why is it such an outrage?

 

It’s about consumer information – meat sold as beef was actually horse!
No, this isn’t just about choosy cheeseburger-chompers being miserably misled.  Nobody likes to be fooled.  But if it’s merely about labelling, it’d be fine for mince to include horse-flesh, just as long as long as it’s labelled so.  Yet the meat industry goes to great lengths to hide what you are eating.  The verbal deceit is to speak of dead cows as ‘beef’, slaughtered pigs as ‘pork'; the visual lie to mince the flesh to disguise your offal, testicles and eyeballs into one lifeless lump.  No, there’s more to explain here.

It’s about public safety – horse meat contains dangerous drugs

No, that's not it either.  Of course it’s not smart to eat meat that contains harmful chemicals – but again, that applies to the antibiotics pumped into your cows and chickens just as much as horse flesh.  The latest scandal elicited a government statement that tacitly admitted as much: this is not so much about public safety as consumer confidence and protecting meat industry profits. 

It’s about criminal activity – horse meat comes from shady, illegal slaughterhouses in Romania

Nice try, but flesh is big business – it’s the powerful multinational meat industry that’s in the dock here, along with the meat departments at your local supermarkets.  A criminal conspiracy scapegoating the tinkering romanies – will we really let them wriggle out of it so easily?

It’s about ethics – it’s wrong to eat horses

At last, we agree!  But why?  For us increasingly smug veggies, there’s a simple and consistent line:  unnecessary pain and death are wrong, so we enjoy a diet of healthy fruit, veg, cereals, pulses and nuts, with or without dairy and eggs – and avoid all meat.  But if you want to pick through the bones of what you have killed, on what basis do you do it?  Why have cows sent to their death but not horses?  Do you draw an arbitrary line at slaughtering pets? (so are rabbits or fish pets or food?).  Do you discriminate on the grounds of ‘usefulness’ to spare horses and dogs the knife?  Or ‘intelligence', conveniently forgetting the clever pigs whilst ripping into a silly chick? 

At least we’ve found the crux of the issue:  this is indeed about ethics.  But you will be looking an awful long time to find a relevant and consistent moral criterion to justify killing animals and not humans, let along killing some animals and not others.

Frankly, if you’re still eating meat, you’re lost in a moral maze. 

You can bury your head in the hedge for as long as you want.  But the only clear way out leads to the green and pleasant land of the veggies.

Maybe now is a good time to come and join us?

A photo a day...

It’s only just over a year since I left my exotic, tropical life in rural Cambodia.  Can you blame me if, in comparison, I find suburban Britain just a little dull?

Yet perhaps there is beauty – or at least interest – to be found in the ordinary, even here in middle-class, middle of the road Oxfordshire?

Well let’s see!  As a new year resolution, I am undertaking a ‘365 project’.  All I have to do is take a photo each day, and upload it onto a website called blipfoto.com. 

I first heard of this idea from my wonderful colleague, Alison, now in Phnom Penh.  It sounded pretty rubbish to me! 

Though you can do the actual uploading later, I really didn’t like the way the website restricts your daily entry to photos actually taken on that day (information on the date and time of digital photos is included as part of its digital ‘fingerprint’ - did you know that?). 

What this means is if you want a daily photo, you actually have to take a photo every day;  no delaying to the end of the week, no awaiting that illusive free moment, no filling in with previous snaps.

Constraining?  Not a bit of it!  Rather, this structure is strangely liberating; committing to taking a photo a day has already made me more alert to my surroundings. 

For example, yesterday I photographed a postbox which I cycle past twice a day – yet I hadn’t even noticed it had been painted gold for the Olympics.  I certainly hadn’t appreciated it is an unusual (if slightly ugly) 1970s design, one not even listed on the Bath Postal Museum’s website!

And the day before I snapped a painting in the corridor at work.  I must have walked past it countless times, but my desire for a daily image led me to look again - and it’s rather intriguing.  At first the bright colours suggest a happy family.  But then why is only one person smiling?  And if they’re a family, why are they all girls? 

There are risks:  it is not hard to unleash the obsessive in me, and this could be yet another way to distract myself from More Important Things (though what could be more important that appreciating my surroundings?).  And the search for an impressive image may take away the fun - especially now I discover that another dear friend, Zia, is also taking the challenge - yes, that's the guy who just had a solo exhibition of stunning black and white images in Nairobi.  No pressure then!

But really it’s not much different to my weekly blog – you, dear reader, are secondary; it is essentially personal (or selfish?), a way to help me be more appreciative and understanding of the world, just pictorially rather than verbally this time. 

I do belive that if I can be just a bit more aware of the beauty – or even just the interest – which surrounds me, I will value what I have and where I am a whole lot more.  Just as Buddhists aim for mindfulness - a calm awareness of the body, sensations, thoughts, even consciousness itself - so I will find beauty at The Plain and enlightenment on Divinity Road.  Perhaps I’m not so far from Cambodia after all.

So off I go in search of today’s image. Perhaps we don’t have to go half way round the world to find something special.  This year I’ll try to find a little magic right here, in the everyday. Every day.

How to cheat at new year resolutions

Making plans – it’s what I do for a living.  So when new year comes around, I’m in my element.

Resolutions are like any other plan.  Unlike many areas of business, here there is good evidence to guide best practice.

Luckily, rules are there to be broken.  Here are my top 5 tips to fiddle the whole thing:

1. Keep it in your head.  Avoid committing to paper as it provides evidence, clarifies thoughts, and provides some kind of contract (psychological if not legal).  If you keep it vague and ill-defined you can quietly (or brazenly) move the goalposts, change the rules or alter the whole sporting analogy as you choose.
2. Keep control.  If you must take this road, travel alone.  Involving others is another subtle commitment trap.  They are much more likely to define useful resolutions which actually involve change and effort on your part.  Don’t ask, or you’ll get killers like “Stop eating chocolate” and “Only one hour of Facebook a day”.  Rather, get your defense in early:  “I really value your input – but you’ll understand that I need to do this for myself”.
3. Keep them small in number.  A few broad statements are easy to fudge; more specific commitments are hard to wriggle out of.   “I’m sticking to three this year, to make sure I uh-hum really focus on them and er achieve something concrete…”
4. Keep it vague.  Avoid objectives which are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic or timeframed (‘smart’ as silly acronym-users say).   Don’t say: “I will eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, upload a new image to Blipfoto, and post a card (on time) to everyone on my birthday calendar - plus gifts for the godchildren”.  Rather, go for grand-sounding and meaningless:  “Get healthy”, “Be more cultured”, “Be a good friend”.  And if pressured into writing, good old paper is so much easier to mislay than the processed word.
5. Keep to things you’ve already done.  This is the best ruse of all.  If you have to commit to something specific, fire the arrow first, and define whatever you hit as your target.  “I will cycle every day” (I already do), support my local overseas development group (ditto), get married (going to happen anyway!).

My resolution?  To weed out such rubbish planning at work.  And to resolutely continue it at home.  Happy new year!

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